Just a reminder; the 4th and final season of The Strain premiers on FX tonight at 10pm.
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So I understand how the Master could use the mini-nuke he set off on Liberty Island to trigger a nuclear war (the US likely assumed it was under attack, and retaliated against Russia, China, etc.), but I wonder how he kept the other nuclear powers from launching much larger nukes at NYC that would’ve obliterated it. Now that Master’s regime stretches as far as Australia according to that The Partnership commercial. I assume the colour scheme was Eichhorst’s idea. And just when you thought Zach couldn’t get any more insurable he’s turned into a pubescent teenager.
Anybody else watching? The Holocaust parallels are even stronger than I thought they’d be. I still don’t get why exactly B-positive blood is such a big deal. OK, so it apparently tastes much better than other blood types, especially from an infant, but Eichhorst is still apparently the only “elite” vampire with any identity or desires of his own (well, besides the Master) so what does it matter what the lesser vampire minions think of their food. I think that geriatric experimental ward was one of the most disturbing things seen on this show; especially that old woman frantically calling for a nurse.
If the kid, Zach, survives the finale, there is no justice on TV. That stupid punk is simply too stupid to let survive. Obviously, he gets it from his parents, but he’s worse than both combined.
My guess regarding B- blood is that the Master’s strigoi lieutenants also would prefer it, and it is a way to reward them. Or not. It could be just another wasted plot point whose reasoning got left on the cutting room floor.
I’d like to see a spin off that was just Fet and Quinlan getting into adventures after the Master is defeated.
Yeah, I don’t see how Zach is redeemable after what he did with the maid (& what now she get’s made up to look human & give’s Zach handjobs :rolleyes:). And the from what we’ve seen Eichhorst is the Master’s only lieutenant; all the other strigoi are just mindless mooks (though if the Master’s dominion really is worldwide presumably their are other Eichhorsts scattered across the glove to liaise with upper-level human collaborators).
I’d watch that.
(I saw the actor who plays Fet on the late, lamented @ Midnight not long ago–he really is a good actor; I’d never have known it was the same person. He was pretty funny and quick witted as a contestant.)
Anyway–yeah, they are doing something not often seen on primetime television shows with the horrible Zach. To have the protagonist’s actual, bona fide genetic son be a genuinely awful person isn’t often seen outside of soap operas. And even there, they usually do a heel-turn and have the kid turn out to be okay, after all.
Don’t see how they’ll pull that off with Zach, considering all he’s done.
Getting really near the end, as they are culling characters, both main and recurring. And everything is going to end with (another) big boom. Though, if a nuke went off at the Statue of Liberty or thereabouts, how is most of Manhattan not irradiated?
They have talked about people being sick from the radiation.
(I gather it was supposed to be a smallish nuke, such that not everyone would be keeling over immediately.)
I quit watching after season 2 entirely because of the kid, just reading this thread makes me think i made the right choice.
The kid is annoying, but they’ve doubled down on him actually being quite Evil. At least up to the penultimate episode this week.
I suppose they could bugger it all up with a redemption in the finale, but after this last episode, I’m reasonably confident they won’t wimp out on that.
So I just caught up on the last 2 episodes. Eichhorst & Setrakian’s deaths were pretty satisfying. Desai sure did a good job of convincing himself of his own bullshit. Zach’s just a monster, and I think it’s obvious the Master isn’t grooming him as his next host; he’s grooming him as his next Eichhorst. Tomorrow is the series finale, and I don’t see him surviving. Assuming the Master it’ll be interesting to see what happens to the strigoi; do they all just drop dead, or revert to feral mode in the absence of his direction?
If they had been smart - the Nuke would have been @ Zach’s location, knowing that the Master would not be at ESB and would likely come to Zach’s given the rest of the events.
True, but while Goodweather was willing to abandon Zach to the Master I don’t he can bring himself to actually kill Zach. Plus they seemed to have changed course on using the nuke in the city, but I think their moral squeamishness about killing 3 million innocent bystanders is absurd in context. The Master is well on his way to reducing the entire human race to livestock (save for a few chosen slaves to manage the livestock & operate boats). Long-term even the façade of the Partnership is going to fade away and the most of the human collaborators will be drained. It’s not clear how extensive the nuclear war was, but 3 million survived in NYC it’s not unreasonable to assume at least 3 billion survived elsewhere. The needs of the many out way the needs of the few.
Well, it is over. I didn’t like that the kid got even the slightest redemption. He should have died badly.
Downtown Manhattan, southwest Brooklyn, and Staten Island should be uninhabitable. There is a reason Chernobyl is a ghost town. The 5 years later scene should still show the after-effects and mankind struggling to regain a semblance of what it once had, plus hunting down that many vamps, even unguided, would be an ongoing issue.
I agree, D_Odds, with your spoilered opinion. I didn’t think that plot development was believable. And, yes, the “800 feet down” device wasn’t entirely believable, either (as a means of keeping the city habitable).
But on the whole, they did a reasonably-good job of wrapping up the series.
It was never the writing that made this show–the writing was never awful, but not ever really stellar, either. The premise could have been explored more thoroughly; too much was conventional for this very familiar genre.
For me the appeal of the show was the strong cast–Corey Stoll, in particular, was a level above what we usually get in action-show casting.
Though I do think the show could have gone on–perhaps exploring the worldwide impact of the existence of the Strigoi–I’ve seen less honorable finales than this one.
Well that was underwhelming. :rolleyes: Granted I didn’t expect we’d actually get to much of the aftermath of the Master’s defeat (like the strigoi hunts or collaborators being lynched in the streets), but that was way too easy. Also Goodweather’s last few moments were confusing. 
I thought he actually managed to pull the trigger before the Master took over. I was waiting to see Goodweather-Master’s expression as he realized what was about to happen. Also moments before the Master deemed Zach a failure and was about to use him as an emergency host; suddenly he’s back to “Zach, my son, together we can rule.” :dubious: WTF was up with that?
I, too, was confused by both Eph and Zach doing something (what?) to the trigger.
And you have a good point about the “together we can rule” being a switch from what appeared to be the Master’s judgment on Zach.
I assume The Master gains all the memories of his host when he takes them over, so perhaps Eph’s assimilation changed his viewpoint. Plus, things were a little rough right at the moment, and maybe he thought he might need some help to get away and get things stabilized again. Maybe he thought wearing Eph’s face, and using his memories, he could better control Zach.
I thought the ending was OK. That was about the only ending for Zach I would have liked - I didn’t like the actor, and I didn’t like the character. Whiny-ass kid killed billions by touching off a nuclear war in a hissy-fit when mommy vamp got offed. Seems appropriate that he should set things right with another nuke after his dad died.
As for the trigger, it looked like Eph was turning the key to take the trigger off ‘safe’. The next step was to push the button, but The Master took control of Eph before he could do it. Zach, having as much experience as anyone in setting off nukes, 
finished setting it off by pushing the button.
How about Kevin Durand’s work in this? I thought the show was a lot more interesting when he was on-screen. Never thought much of him before, but he was given a chance to be something other than a big tough asshole and ran with it.
Excellent points on the ‘being in Eph makes a difference’ and ‘key versus button’ questions, FILB (if I may be so bold).
Yes, Durand was amazing. As I mentioned earlier (maybe in a different Strain thread), he’d appeared on Comedy Central’s @Midnight not long ago, and I’d have thought he was an experienced stand-up comic. (Per wikipedia, that doesn’t seem to be the case.) His appearance and manner varied radically from Fet. Good actor.
Lots of good acting in this show; I hope to see them all getting juicy roles elsewhere. (Yes, even Max Charles.)