The Strain Review: “For Services Rendered” (Season 1, Episode 7)

In present-day, Jim is set free from his own prison of responsibility to Sylvia when, following a confrontation with her over his involvement in getting the box through airport security, she heads for the hills. Eph still doesn’t trust him for obvious reasons, but Jim takes steps to put himself back on what Eichorst calls “the wrong side of history,” meeting the vampire in Grand Central Station to ostensibly hand over Redfern’s body (which he actually got rid of, but Eichorst doesn’t know that) in exchange for a hefty sum. “I could drink you right here, turn you,” Eichorst threatens in a guttural, inhuman voice, before leaving.

One of the episode’s most spine-tingling sequences follows – a chase through Grand Central in which, for reasons unbeknownst to me, Eph and Nora seem to think that following Eichorst into a dark tunnel is a good idea. Luckily for them, he slips away and goes after Setrakian, whom he calls “the Jew.” Luckily, Eph makes a remarkable shot with a silver-lined bullet across the platform that prevents the vamp from sinking his stinger into his old adversary’s neck. Unluckily, Eichorst jumps onto the side of a moving train and hangs there, all batlike, until he’s out of sight. We won’t question why no one else was on the platform to witness this, but even if they had been, the cop who processes Gus following his encounter with a strigoi at the end of the last episode said it best: “This is New York City. Weird shit goes down out there all the time.”

Speaking of Gus, still The Strain‘s most irrelevant character, he’s currently trapped in a holding cell with a rapidly deteriorating buddy, who was bitten last week. This series seems to have a problem with simply locking characters up when they don’t serve any purpose to the plot – it’s pulled the same trick with Setrakian and Eph already, and we’re only seven episodes in. With Gus, though, it’s a little different – in an episode featuring heavy flashbacks to a concentration camp, to have a Latino character who has repeatedly complained about the injustice of the NYPD to be locked up and denied medical treatment for his friend seems a little off. I won’t talk too much about Gus’s reduced role though – after all, Gabriel Bolivar has been AWOL for weeks now (but what about the fans???), and Vasiliy is also absent.

What “For Services Rendered” offers in place of those characters is a terrifically gross and scary opening, in which Joan’s husband returns home, only to discover multiple strigoi lurking around his house. Unfortunately for him, he took a ride from one of the most foolhardy cabbies in TV history, who refuses to drive away and instead gets out to pop a cap in one strigoi before taking a stinger to the neck. Mr. Luss is able to get inside and close the door – only to find Joan has succumbed to the strain as well. Curtains for that poor dude. It’s a tribute to the writing, direction and visual work on this series that the stingers have lost none of their creepy-cool impact halfway more than halfway through the season.

Over the last three episodes, The Strain has improved from a scattered but enjoyably goofy diversion into a genuinely gripping and gross thriller. Outside of its cliffhanger, “For Services Rendered” doesn’t have many massive developments, but it’s a very enjoyable hour of television despite that. And now that The Strain has thrown such a tantalizing development into the mix, I’m expecting this series to just keep getting better and better. In between episodes, however, I want to hear from you guys. What do you make of the new slaying squad on the block? And are you liking how The Strain has grown over the course of its first season? Let me know below!