The Strain Recap: Inhuman Target

This week on FX’s The Strain, Eph took his best shot at a formidable foe, Feraldo put the squeeze on the Upper East Side and Setrakian stepped ever closer to tracking down the Occido Lumen. Who wound up taking a bullet, and who in turn wound up in dire straits as a result?

Setting things in motion this week was Councilwoman Feraldo’s presser on the Upper East Side, where she announced that he “Safe Streets” program would next be targeting the tony neighborhood — in exchange for a 1 percent parcel tax paid by each wealthy resident. This bombshell sends the mayor racing to see Eldritch, who is asked to talk some sense into the ballsy politico.

Eldritch promptly has CoCo, who has tenuously reconciled with her boss/lover, set up a meeting with Feraldo — and thanks to Dutch’s cutting-edge listening device, she and Eph get wind of Palmer’s destination. They set up a perch on/escape plan from a neighboring building, hoping to take out Eldritch. Eph eventually gets off a shot and, spying blood spatter, assumes he hit the target. But the cops are too quick to canvas the area after the shot rings out, so both Eph and Dutch are arrested.

Meanwhile, Fet and Nora have joined Setrakian in whittling down a short list of “R. Fornescu” addresses, one of them (hopefully) a lead to the location of the Occido Lumen. Of course, the first three of the four turn up bupkus. And it’s at that point that news of Eph and Dutch’s arrest pulls Nora and Fet away from the search, leaving Setrakian to suss out the last one by his lonesome.

Over at the cop shop, Dutch is pulled out of the cell she was sharing with Eph, and the squad room is cleared out, so that Eph can be visited privately by… Eldritch, who is very much alive and unwounded. Rather, an “innocent woman,” Palmer reports, took the bullet, and likely will suffer brain damage. Still, Eph has no regrets about pulling the trigger. When Eph taunts Palmer about selling out humankind, the old man counters that dominant species have ravaged lands throughout time and that “recognizing change is the key to survival.” Eph scoffs at both Palmer’s rationale and his contention that he and the Master are “partners” in this endeavor. (Eldritch of course already had some concerns about his having the Master’s ear, but they are seemingly assuaged when the Master saves CoCo’s life with his essence. Coco, however, seems none too thrilled by her manner of salvation!)

Shortly after the cops repopulate the squad room, a strigoi attack swiftly narrows their ranks. Eph, along with one fraidy-cat flatfoot, just barely stay untouched inside the locked cell, though the latter eventually gets blood-sucked. And just as Eph himself is left to fend against a half-dozen probisci lashing at him, Fet and Nora show up to mow down the munchers. But where was Dutch taken away to?

Elsewhere, Setrakian gives up at the last of the four “R. Fornsecu” addresses, but in expressing his anguish discovers a creaky floorboard. Peeking under the throw rug, he finds a crude compartment beneath the floor, inside which is the linen-wrapped, silver-bound Occido Lumen. Alas, so rapt is he in skimming the tome’s pages, he doesn’t hear someone come up from behind to bop him on the head, and then spirit away the found but now lost book….

Meanwhile, in the very final scene, we see Dutch in shackles, in a padded room, being ratcheted ever closer to the “chopping block” first seen midway through Season 1.

What did you think of “The Assassin”?