Monday, August 18, 2014

Everybody on the Strain is obsessed with making bad choices

Oh boy. Sunday night's episode of The Strain called "Occultation" featured the long awaited "Eclipse" moment that has been advertised for a year now. The build up to the solar eclipse made me think that the proverbial shit was really going to hit the fan. In my mind I was thinking swarms of vampires emerging from the sewers with blood dripping from their maws and attacking New Yorkers enmasse. What actually happened is kind of "meh." A few people got infected, but New York remains pretty much New York, only with people growing increasingly more terrified of "strange events" because there are reports and eyewitnesses of supposed crazy people attacking others "non crazy" people.

But just like most horror tropes, the Strain's strongest plot moments come at the expense of intelligence. First off, there's Dr. Ephraim Goodweather who approaches his wife Kelly by going to their home. Ephraim is "on the lam" because the FBI has footage of him dragging the dead pilot from the airplane we saw in episode one down the hallway, so yeah, he's wanted for murder. Still, Ephraim manages to duck the pursuers enough to get to his wife's home and warn her. And it's pretty stern. "Get out of New York. Take the kid. Run." She replies, "You're scaring me." And his response is, "I'm scared. There's a pestilence. You have to run." Can you be any clearer than that?

But of course, she doesn't. I mean, why would you question the word of a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control that's had a profound career as an M.D.? I tell you what. If a doctor from the CDC told me that I needed to drop everything and get out of town, I'd grab the keys and be gone within the hour.

But the disbelief doesn't stop there. We have Gus getting ramrodded into helping the Nazi vampire, Mr. Eichorst, who meets him in what appears to be a sewer of all places. First, I wouldn't go into a sewer or an abandoned subway tunnel to meet anyone. Second, when Gus meets Mr. Eichorst again, this Nazi vampire in makeup clearly demonstrates supernatural speed and power. Eichorst threatens Gus' mother and then tosses him some cash to do yet another illegal job, and it never occurs to Gus to just go home, stuff his mother in the car, take the cash and get a full tank of gas, and just leave town. I mean like drive to Mexico leave town.

And then we have poor Jim Kent (played by veteran actor Sean Astin). Jim knows what he's doing is probably endangering the world, yet he still works for Dr. Eichorst all because his wife (whose dying of cancer) is getting signed up for an experimental treatment. But to damn the whole world for love? That's a serious lack of judgement. Jim gets the IQ80 award for the first season of The Strain (and I say that because it's been renewed for a second season).

And finally we have the rat guy, Vasily Fet, who is now killing vampires. He knows that there are monsters under the streets, and no one will believe him. Vasily is like the male version of "Cassandra" from the Trojan War (brush up on your Greek mythology, and you'll know exactly to what I'm referring). He goes to his dad's house and tells his father to take mom and go on a long vacation. Of course, dad just "blah blah blah. You never visit. Now a stranger wants to tell me what to do. Blah blah blah blah." And Vasily shakes his head and mutters, "I tried..."

So yeah, things are getting very ominous on The Strain, and it frustrates me because it doesn't need to be this way. If people would just listen to "the experts" then this wouldn't be an apocalyptic story. But I guess that's the point, right? How can you have an apocalypse if everyone is listening?

13 comments:

  1. Taped last night's episode and will watch tonight. It's following the book really close, so none of that surprises me. The first episode started with several bad mistakes.

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  2. I think the 'nobody listens' is kind of realistic. People always believe that big disasters aren't going to happen to them. But for entertainments sake, shouldn't at least one person get out of Dodge? I missed this recent episode. I'll watch it ondemand. I didn't think I'd like the show but I do.

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  3. Sometimes I just want to hit pause and shake some sense into them!

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  4. I can see how you would relate to my post today. It would frustrate me to see the characters act this way. I understand that it's based on a book but...
    I also agree with Susan Gourley that often no one listens. For example, no one leaves a zone when a volcano is about to explode.

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  5. We've passed on this one but who knows; we just might catch it in the future on Netflix.

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  6. Sounds like the writers aren't getting the balance right. Characters have to act in ways that make sense--not as plot devices.

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  7. I really disapprove of stories where the author(s) relies on making people stupid to move the plot along.

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  8. It sounds like the result of not having time to do any decent writing.

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  9. It sounds as if the writer(s?) came up with a plot-driven story instead of a character-driven one, and even then the plot is so poorly constructed that it forces the characters to do and say stupid, illogical things. I mean, some people can do really asinine stuff (hello, Darwin Awards), but several educated people displaying no common sense under dire circumstances? I'd be shouting back at my TV if I watched this series.

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  10. Maybe the zombies already ate all those characters' brains, and that's why they're acting so stupid :)

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  11. I knew there was a reason I didn't invest my time watching it.

    There is so few good shows on TV. But after Walking Dead, my standards are pretty darn high. LOL

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  12. "...veteran actor Sean Astin..." made me feel really old.

    On the one hand, people really don't listen when they're told to deviate from the status quo for some reason they don't see/understand. But on the other, it's not great writing when everyone is just stupid. Hopefully this will pay off at some point.

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