The Strain
Season 1 Episode 8: “Creatures of the Night”
Directed by Guy Ferland
Written by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro
Starring Corey Stoll, David Bradley, Mia Maestro, Sean Astin, Kevin Durand, Richard Sammel, Jonathan Hyde, Miguel Gomez, Natalie Brown, Jack Kesy, Ben Hyland, Robin Atkin Downes
FX
Air Date: Sunday August 31, 2014, 10pm

The Strain Season 1 Episode 8 “Creatures of the Night” will be reviewed in just a moment, but first, a little recap of last week’s Episode 7 “For Services Rendered” (Warning! Spoilers may be bad for your health!).

Setrakian (David Bradley) believes killing the Master will kill all the spawn. Eph (Corey Stoll) scoffs, but Setrakian shuts him down with his “rightness” streak. They have to find his human helpers as Eichhorst (Richard Sammel) was in Nazi Germany. Jim (Sean Astin) agrees to act as bait to capture Eichorst, even though his wife leaves him over it. They lure him to a train station, but he pulls a Neo move and turns the tables. Just as a tentacle is about to devour Setrakian, Eph shoots him in the leg with silver bullets. The plan’s idea was good, but it seemed very likely to fail as Eichhorst was moving purposefully and the three of them were running around kinda crazed. And so it did.

In 1944, Setrakian was recruited to carve the Master’s box. Eichorst is impressed with his work and seems to like talking to him, debating on dictators and choice. The writers are intertwining these two in the past to give them an emotional connection, one that doesn’t seem to have lasted through the years, but I’m hoping it will. Having Setrakian and Eichorst both conflicted will make for a better story.

Neeva’s (Kim Roberts) daughter insists she return the kids. They run in the house and find their father dead (after a horrific non-escape from the vampire-ridden neighborhood and then an attack from his vampire wife, Joan). They are chased through the house, Neeva’s daughter is injured, and they get trapped. At the last minute, Joan and her dead neighbor are taken out by a group of…vampires? The lead vamp is kind and tells Neeva and the children to go. Seeing her daughter’s injured hand he shoots her down for being “corrupted”. This was a fantastic twist in two ways. One-vampires could be intelligent like Eichorst. How does a vampire pull himself up the vampire class scale? And two – There are now good and bad vampires. They may still be ugly, but don’t hold that against them.

Episode 1.8 “Creatures of the Night” review: Vasiliy (Kevin Durand) and Setrakian unite! I needed these two to get together. Ultraviolet light can help them at night, but when trapped in a gas station convenience store with strigoi surrounding them, the chances for survival look grim. Who will not make it out alive? This episode does not jump from cast scene to cast scene. This is one of the first ones that stays in one setting and it works better than the others. It evokes the real feeling of being desperate and trapped and the silly (and real) ways people will react to situations. For instance, money is still considered relevant. They pull some Macgyver stuff in that store. The scene to scene is necessary in the beginning of a show to introduce the cast, get to know their situations and develop feeling towards favorites (Kevin Durand), and slowly bring them together. Not everybody meets each other in this episode, but it’s getting there. Eph does yell in disbelief at several points, with Nora (Mia Maestro) looking on worried, and I will be happy when that ends and he accepts this new world he lives in.

Watch the trailer: