The Strain - S1E10 - Loved Ones

Previously on The Strain, ‘The Disappeared’ 

Who would have thought that an episode focused on Kelly would be so enjoyable? Certainly not me and I said as much in last week’s podcast. Color me wrong. 

But first, Dutch (Ke$ha) confesses that she shut down the internet to Vasiliy and Nora, the latter of which clutches her pearls and practically screams, “Well, I never!,” because apparently Nora has never made a mistake in her whole life. Vasiliy offers to go into the Stoneheart Group with Ke$ha so that she can try to undo her damage. They make it in only to be stopped by Fitzwilliams, who promptly grips Ke$ha up and takes her to Mr. Palmer. She’s all pissed that he used her, but honestly, I’m not sure she really has room to be all self-righteous. She had to know that someone paying her to shut down communications didn’t have good intentions. Anyway, Palmer takes this opportunity to boast about what he’s done because who the hell else can he tell? She answers him with a slap to the face and Fitzwilliams grips her up again, this time to kill her. But wait! He has a change of heart. Remember: He wasn’t feeling Eichorst any damn way so while he’s not ready to abandon his boss, he’s not going to stop the only people trying to make right what he’s done.

It turns out that Zach is a better hacker than Ke$ha. At least he can get the damn internet to work long enough to use Find My Phone on Kelly’s iPhone. Eph notes the location of the phone and promises his son he’ll find his mother. Speaking of mothers, before Eph leaves Nora’s mom throws so much damn shade his way.

Eph discovers a homeless woman has found Kelly’s phone and after patching up her leg with medical supplies he pulled from his ass, she agrees to show him where she found it. There, he finds Kelly’s abandoned car and there’s blood inside.

Then the episode flashes back to what happened to Kelly when infected Matt came home. Apparently he struggled against the vampire part of him and locked himself in the bathroom instead of draining her while she slept. (Much like Ansel locked himself in the shed when he realized what was happening to him.) Kelly assumes he’s still butthurt about their fight and heads to work where she learns that most of the students and teachers didn’t show up. Remembering what Eph said about the virus, Kelly rushes home only to find that Matt is now ready to eat. They fight, and before she can escape a worm burrows its way into her eyeball and we have finally achieved the eyeball shot they used to creep us out in the promo posters.

Through Kelly’s journey we see what it’s like for an infected person to turn and then seek out their loved ones. Everything about this was really well done from the sounds of her stinger forming inside of her throat to her hunched, stilted way of walking the more she turned. After witnessing another vampire kill a man on the street, Kelly heads to Diane’s and kills her and Diane’s son. Eph has been retracing Kelly’s steps and finds the mother and son resting in the basement. He then has the unfortunate task of shooting them both. I felt bad he had to do that to Diane’s son, but I suspect shooting Diane in the face is something he’s been wanting to do since always. When he spots Kelly’s necklace and some of her hair in Diane’s hand, he fears the worst. He goes back to the pawn shop and delivers the bad news to his son.

Meanwhile, Kelly hears a voice whispering her name as she wanders the streets. She follows the call into a subway station and through the tunnels until she comes face-to-face with The Master who instructs her to embrace her destiny.

For a full scene-by-scene analysis, tune into our podcast for The Strain on Podcast Fandom tomorrow. 

More Thoughts & Questions

• Ke$ha storms off after Eph is rude to her. Vasiliy wonders who the hell made Eph the boss and I have to say I was wondering the same thing. While Vasiliy and Ke$ha were off on a mission that actually meant something: get the internet back up so that Vasiliy could download some city blueprints to hopefully figure out where The Master is hiding, Eph is off trying to find his ex-wife. Why should he get to make the rules?
• So, Fitzwilliams straight up knows we’re dealing with vampires, right? If The Master turns Palmer, won’t he just be a really old and frail vampire with a shitty liver? Will Fitzwilliams stick around for that? I doubt it.
• Did we even see Nora’s mother’s face in this episode? I feel like she delivered the line and all we saw was the back of her head.
• Where the hell is Bolivar?
• Will Kelly become like Eichorst?