After the shocking turn of events in last Sunday’s episode and the deaths of the hooded fan favorite, Vaun (Stephen McHattie), and his SWAT team, I had wondered where the writers would take us next. While the episode didn’t offer the closure that all of the sun hunter fans had hoped for, the focus tonight was on Gus (Miguel Gomez), nevertheless. Vaun’s protege finds himself pretty much back to where he started — no home, no family, no nothing. Just wondering around, trying to find his way. In the meantime, Eph (Corey Stoll) and Nora (Mia Maestro) have moderate success in the 1st trial run of their strigoi “plague,” and with years of intel on Eldritch Palmer (Jonathan Hyde),  Mr. Fitzwilliams (Roger Cross)  emerges as an unlikely ally for Team Abraham.

THE MASTER — 1, STRIGOI PLAGUE — 0

While I have been super-excited ever since the idea of “infect the infected” was first conceived, I also knew it wasn’t going to be that simple. Wipe out the strigoi, go home, series over. Uh, huh. There were going to be speed bumps along the way, with the biggest one being the Master. While he may not be able to locate Eph and Nora and their secret vampire lab, the Master can still see what they’re doing, and I’m sure he’s been plotting his counterattack since the McGeevers first walked through that door. Well, tonight, the Master finally shows his hand.

With Mr. McGeever fully turned and infected with Eph and Nora’s new plague potion, he’s released in Red Hook and near one of the biggest known  strigoi nests. Everyone expects him to go straight for the nest, but of course, he doesn’t. This part is kind of stupid because it appears that even Eph, Nora and Fet (Kevin Durand)  have forgotten strigoi rule #1 that we learned in the Pilot — the strigoi seeks out their loved ones. Well, we all remember that the McGeevers had a son, right, and that he was “special needs.” That being said, it’s not surprising that Mr. McGeever ends up at the sanitarium where his son, Evan McGeever, had been institutionalized. No sign of the son, but he does find a nest at the deserted mental hospital, and so, for now, Eph and Nora’s job is done. Next step is to come back the following night to see if the rest of the strigoi in the nest had been infected.

Now, fast forward to night #2. The good news — yes, the strigoi disease is spreading. Bad news — it kills quickly, way too quickly, which will limit the transmission. And, now, the really bad news — the Master retaliates by forcing any infected strigoi to kill themselves. That totally sucks, but we do get a pretty cool scene of a group of strigoi leaping to their deaths.

So, what now? It sounds like Eph and Nora have more work to do and should head back to the lab. But, no, Eph counts the entire mission a success and wants to go straight to Washington D.C. to get the drug mass-produced. Is it just me, or does that sound like a really bad idea? The drug’s not even ready yet, and I don’t think it’s wise to just take off and leave Zack (Max Charles)  with Kelly (Natalie Brown)  and her children of the corn on his tail. This is going to backfire in a big way, I just know it.

MR. FITZWILLIAMS — A POTENTIAL NEW ALLY?

I was actually very amazed last week when I saw so many people scratching their heads and not understanding why the writers would ever bring back Mr. Fitzwilliams. Really? For me, it couldn’t have been more obvious that Reggie would be back and that he would ultimately play a big role in the story. After all, he had worked for Palmer most of his life, knew all the details of his dealings with Eichhorst, and all the steps he took to insure the Master’s arrival in New York City. To Abraham and his team, this man could be the holy grail. And, tonight, the 2 sides meet for the first time.

Shocker of the night — Dutch actually makes herself useful! Well, raise my rent, it’s a miracle. Yes, I know my tone gives me away, but yeah, I’m not a big fan of Dutch Velders. The hacking was cool in season 1, primarily because I’m a computer geek myself. But, now, that has been put on the backburner, and all that’s left is a girl that is very annoying and doing not much more than distracting Vasily. But, tonight, she shocks us all, including Abraham, when she suggests locating Fitzwilliams, which turns out to be a pretty damn good idea.

But, does Mr. Fitzwilliams agree with her? Uh, no, not so much. As far as Reggie is concerned, he left Palmer and that crazy world behind and wants no part of Setrakian’s quest to save the world and destroy the Master. Will he finally come around and decide to help? Oh, hell yeah, I’m certain of it, and I’ll be on the front row with popcorn to watch. I absolutely cannot wait for someone to show Palmer up and sit that effin’ prick right down on his ass.

PALMER MAKES HIS NEXT MOVE

Even with 5 fully-cooked strigoi in the middle of his great room, Palmer doesn’t miss a beat, and it’s back to business as usual. We really can’t be sure of his endgame, but the next move in Palmer’s sinister plan involves taking the financial markets to the brink of disaster. Sounds tough, right? No, not really. Just propose a plan at the Federal Reserve Bank of NYC to get all of the city’s financial institutions re-opened, make sure every news outlet in the area is there, and then, have the Master unload a horde of strigoi on the reporters and innocent bystanders. Neat trick, and one that I suspect will work very well.

I absolutely loved this scene, and it is one of the few action sequences in the entire episode. Man, Bolivar (Jack Kesy) and his minions are just brutal! By the way, did anyone else catch that glare between Bolivar and Palmer at the end of the scene? That’s one strigoi Palmer doesn’t care for at all. However, if Bolivar winds up being the new Master like most suspect he will, how do you think Palmer will react to his new “boss”? Yeah, not well, and you can bet I’ll be on the front row to see that confrontation play out.

But that’s not all we see of Palmer in this episode. In another fantastic series of flashbacks, young Abraham (Jim Watson) is united once again with Eldritch in their quest for the Occido Lumen. Setrakian is able track down the Lumen to an isolated nunnery in Berndore, Austria, and before you can blink, Palmer is there and ready to make the trip with Abraham. And, Eldritch isn’t looking good either. We know he has been sick most of his life, and I suspect this may have been one of his low points.

Once they get to Berndore, they are not very happy with what they find. The nunnery has been completely overrun and is now full of strigoi. What’s more, according to a young boy who is the sole survivor of the attack, the Mother Superior took it upon herself to destroy “the evil book.” But, not everyone leaves the place empty-handed — specifically Palmer. While Setrakian is off fighting vamps to save the young boy who foolishly runs off, Palmer is paid a visit by none other than Eichhorst himself. I will have to admit here that I was wrong about Palmer in my review of the season 2 premiere. I had assumed that Palmer’s quest had always been to find the Master so that he could gain immortality, and he was simply duping Abraham into helping him. I think I may have been wrong. Palmer may have actually been on the level at the beginning, but with his poor health, it didn’t take much from Eichhorst to bring him to the dark side. The devil we know as Eldritch Palmer was born on that day in 1966.

GUS MAKES A NEW FRIEND…MAYBE

When I was a teenager, I used to go to wrestling matches with my cousin and uncle all the time. A part of me always knew it was fake, but it was a good time, and the charades the wrestlers would put on for the audience just cracked me up. Well, it appears that Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan have a pretty good sense of humor as they decided to introduce another major player from the book trilogy, Angel Guzman Hurtado (Joaquin Crosio), a former Mexican wrestler dubbed “The Silver Angel,” with a snippet from the mother of all cheese-ball B movies, “Angel and the Vampires.” Painfully awful, but it is pretty damn funny, and you can’t help but laugh at the irony given the current strigoi situation in NYC.

The movie is also a good lead-in to Angel’s current situation, since an injury in the making of that film ended his career. All that’s left of Angel’s brush with stardom is a bum knee and a dead-end job as a dishwasher at a local Indian restaurant. But, as fate and circumstance would have it, it’s the same restaurant that Gus, still somewhat shell-shocked from the loss of his comrades in last week’s episode, decides to stop in. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get a warm reception. The only person who works at the restaurant that comes off as nice is the owner’s daughter, Aanya Gupta (Parveen Kaur). For some reason, Aanya’s mother as well as Angel don’t want her associating with “that kind of guy,” which culminates with Angel throwing Gus out.

However, I’m not worrying too much, because I suspect Gus will be back soon enough. He seems to be a little sweet on Aanya, and he also recognizes Angel as “El Angel del Plaza” from his childhood. Angel doesn’t seem too fond of being outed like that, but even still, 10 bucks says we’ll be seeing Gus at the Tandoori Palace again in no time.

While most of Gus’ screen time in tonight’s episode is spent scuffling with Angel and the Guptas, Gus does make one other stop, and I wanted to save this one for last because, in my opinion, it’s the best scene in the entire episode, and a very powerful one. We all remember Gus finding his mother turned last season and how he couldn’t bring himself to put her down, right? Well, with no other place to go, Gus decides to stop by his mother’s apartment, and to his dismay, his mother is still there. With one corpse on the living room floor, it seems she’s been busy and quickly sets her sights on her son. Painful, painful scene to watch as Gus struggles with himself, knowing what he ultimately has to do which is to release his mother. Then, it gets worse. With the Master being the sadistic bastard that he is, he takes control of Gus’ mother’s body, taunting Gus and pouring salt onto the wound.

You have failed. The Ancients are the past. I am the future — The Master

Guess what? I’m not fighting for the Ancients. I’m not fighting for nobody but myself — Gus

Your mother’s disappointment is still here. The torment you put her through in life — The Master

Taking someone’s soul isn’t enough for you? You have to put on their skin & dance in their body? — Gus

I know a lot of the fans were upset with Gus last week for not doing more to save Vaun, but I think this heart-wrenching scene is meant to remind us that regardless of everything, Gus is one of the good guys. And, above all, he loves his Mama.

For the book readers out there, you should probably remember that Gus does finally come back and release his mother, and you also should recall which character comes along and is instrumental in helping Gus get to that point. I won’t say here who that character is, but we all should be getting pretty excited.

The episode ends with a scene that I suspect may be a big part of next week’s episode, and that’s of Vasily blowing up a subway tunnel and getting himself arrested. Yes, that goober finally got to make something “go boom.” But, remember Fet is in Red Hook, and as we saw at the beginning of the episode, Justine Feraldo (Samantha Mathis) just arrived in Red Hook. Coincidence? I think not. My guess is we’ll be getting our first introduction between Justine and our team of heroes very soon.

The Strain  airs on Sundays at 10/9c on FX.

Critic Grade — B+

 

 

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