The Strain - S1E7 - For Services Rendered

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Previously on The Strain, ‘Occultation’

Flashbacks

Thomas Eichorst confronts Abraham and some other men in the camp. They found a religious wooden item under one of the bunks and Thomas begins killing them one by one until whoever made it confesses. Abraham does and instead of punishing him, Thomas assigns Abraham to a special project. He’s to craft a large box with intricate carvings on it. So Abraham made The Masters mode of transportation? Looks that way.

While working on the box, Abraham has to endure Thomas’ visits and small talk. Thomas was never good with his hands, but he does know how to manage people. The “Are You Fucking Kidding Me’ side-eye Abraham delivers is beautiful. He also eyes all the silver the Nazis are hoarding.

One night, while Abraham is working on the box, he gets into the next cell where the silver is and manages to swipe a silver knife before a drunk Thomas comes stumbling in. He wants Abraham to pick up the pace due to all the Russian ass-kicking they’re taking. He forces Abraham to drink and give his honest opinion on the fate of the Germans. Abraham, don’t do it!

He does. He says that he suspects the Third Reich is just about done. Thomas starts preaching about a new Fuhrer who can deliver all that Hitler could not. He calls Abraham self-righteous and hypocritical. He threw up his hand to be a carpenter for them when he could have chosen death. Just because you fear the other option, doesn’t mean you didn’t have a choice, says Thomas in his fucked up Nazi logic. He gives Abraham an opportunity to kill him, but he doesn’t take it.

When the box is complete, Abraham is rewarded with a sandwich. A fucking sandwich.

Gus

Gus is being processed and booked into jail. Thankfully, this happens while he’s naked. He tries telling the correctional officer that some weird shit is going down, but it’s New York and weird shit is pretty much a given.

Gus rocks his orange jumpsuit into a cell where he finds Felix, who’s not in good shape. The guards don’t care and refuse to get him medical assistance. Gus comforts his friend.

Shit’s gonna get so real when Felix turns in that cramped cell.

Eph and Them

Eph has a hard time wrapping his mind around Abraham’s plan: If they find and kill the master, his spawn will die. It makes no biological sense. Abraham explains that he’s done a ton of research and already eliminated anything that didn’t work. He’s also been right about everything else so he suggests that Eph sit his control freak ass down and do as he says.

Jim is trying to hustle his wife out of the country, but she’s being SO FUCKING ANNOYING. She has 50 million questions and Jim is doing a poor job of answering any of them. Her attitude does not improve when fugitive Eph shows up with Nora and Abraham. Eph snitches about all of Jim’s betrayal and bribe-taking so maybe Mrs. Jim should lose the fucking attitude. Nope. She doesn’t want to hear talk about vampires, she doesn’t like Eph, and for some reason she refuses to believe anything her own husband says. She’s gonna go catch that flight and Jim can kick rocks. Jim describes his contact to Abraham and Abe realizes it’s Thomas. When Jim goes to calm his wife, Abraham admits his complicated history with Thomas to Eph.

Mr. Palmer has summoned Eichort. His plan is coming along nicely: Everyone is focused on the cyber attacks and the plane fallout. There is one problem: He plays a voicemail message from Jim stating that he didn’t dispose of Redfern’s body as instructed and he wants Thomas to bring $100,000 to Grand Central Station later that day. Thomas immediately calls this out as a trap because 1. He’s met Jim and he knows Jim’s a punkass bitch and 2. Jim called him “The German” which sounds like maybe Abraham is involved. He assures Palmer he’ll take care of Abraham. For real this time.

Thomas shows up at Grand Central Station and promptly instructs Jim to reveal Abraham. Jim tries lying, but then Thomas goes all “I will eat your face off like a crazy Floridian on bath salts.” Jim threatens to scream bloody murder, and Thomas threatens to kill Jim’s wife before hustling off. Nora and Eph do a piss-poor job of following him into the subway tunnels, and he gets away from them.

But he doesn’t get away from Abraham who corners Thomas on a platform. He taunts, as usual, and Abraham is still old so he’s about to get stung and sucked. Well, that is until Eph and team show up and put a wooden bullet into Thomas’ leg. Thomas escapes by jumping onto the side of a passing express train.

So much for this plan!

The Survivors

Mr. Luss is back from his business trip and despite a call from his nanny, Neeva, telling him that something is very, very wrong at home, he heads there anyway. He doesn’t even make it inside before he encounters an infected neighbor. He runs back into the taxi that dropped him off and yells for the driver to leave. Unfortunately, this is the dumbest cabbie in the whole fucking world and he chooses to yell “What is it?” over and over again instead of driving off. When he gets out the car (Yes, he actually did that) to shoot one of the infected vamps now circling the car and attacking the windows with their stingers, he’s quickly drained. Mr. Luss runs into his house and comes face-to-face with his wife who is now completely turned.

The Luss kids want to go home. They’re clearly used to better accommodations than Neeva’s. Neeva’s daughter, a nurse, insists that they’re taking the kids home and if Mrs. Luss is still sick, she says she’ll take care of it. Girl, your training ain’t ready for this!

When they get to the house, the abandoned taxi with its doors open is enough for Neeva to be all, “We need to leave,” but the kids are so happy to be back in their own neighborhood, they run into the house before Neeva can stop them. There they find Mr. Luss bleeding from the neck and a puddle of sick on the floor. When Mrs. Luss appears and prepares to attack with her stinger, Neeva’s daughter backhands the stinger hard enough to send Luss flying. They run into a room and barricade the door with a desk.

Mrs. Luss and another vamp break into the room, but before the mom can eat her children, she is shot by someone in the hall. It’s a team of people dressed all in black with their faces hidden - All except one who looks like a vampire. He tells them it’s safe to come out and inspects the children for infected injuries. When he checks Neeva’s daughter, he discovers a scratch on her hand from hitting Mrs. Luss.

Everyone can go except Neeva’s daughter. She gets a bullet in the head from our new vampire hunting vampire. Daaaaamn.