TV REVIEW: The Strain Season 1 Episode 5 “Runaways”

By Clinton Bell

The fifth episode, entitled “Runaways,” of The Strain’s debut season bears most the same strengths and weaknesses of previous installments. “Runaways” has occasional bursts of violence and gore, but it’s mostly a slow burner, much like we’ve come to expect from the series. The episode is scattered, juggling more plotlines than it can adequately service in a single episode.

A large swath of the episode follows Eph and Abraham. Abraham gives Eph some information on the pathogen and The Master, and afterwards they go to Ansel’s house to eliminate him. Eph captures the whole thing on video, hoping it will convince his boss at the CDC that the threat is real, but it ultimately doesn’t help.

I would have been satisfied if the episode had spent nearly its whole run time with Eph and Abraham, but unfortunately, it spends too much time with duller plotlines. There’s no Gus this week, but we get to see a little bit of everyone else, including a few scenes with Nora and her Mom, some boring stuff at the Stoneheart Group, and a series of Abraham flashbacks that didn’t reveal anything of significance, making me wonder if we might see more flashbacks next week.

“Runaways” also gives us more on Joan Luss, one of the survivors from the plane. For whatever reason, Joan hasn’t turned into a vampire as quickly as the rest, though it’s evident that her transformation is nearly complete. Her kids’ babysitter can tell that something is very, very wrong with Joan, and gets the kids out of the house as quickly as possible. I’m not sure what to make of Joan’s story quite yet. When I first saw those kids, I thought the show might take a tragic turn, but now that the kids are gone, for now, I don’t know what to expect. Hopefully, however Joan’s transformation pans out, it’ll be distinctly different than what happened to the other three “survivors.”

Many scenes from “Runaways” seem completely unnecessary. I already mentioned the dull flashback scenes to Abraham’s days at a Nazi concentration camp, but the episode was also plagued by a few snooze-worthy scenes between Nora and her mother, a new character that we haven’t seen before. I want to learn more about Nora, but not in this fashion. Who is Nora on the inside? I’m still waiting to find out.

Sadly, “Runaways” didn’t have much excitement to offer, and at times felt like a series of “minisodes” stitched together. The Strain is a watchable series, but not one that I get excited about every week. I’m still waiting for the show to hit its first home run, and it’s taking longer than I would like. Like I’ve said in previous reviews, I have a lot of confidence in the creative team, but I’m not yet convinced that The Strain is a good show. It has the potential to be, but it hasn’t proved it yet.

Additional notes:

– If the Abraham flashback scenes had to be in this episode, they might’ve worked better as a cold open. Hell, I would even be open to an entire off-format episode dedicated to Abraham’s time at the camp. That probably would’ve been better than what we got.

– I usually don’t watch the promos for the next episodes, but I happened to catch the one for next week, and holy cow, there looks like there’s enough action to fill five episodes. Fingers crossed for next week.

– Joan is a really unlikable character, isn’t she? I can’t say I would be sad if Abraham shot her with silver nails and chopped her head off.