The Strain Recap: "Night Zero"

Written by Scotty

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

After months upon months of waiting, The Strain has finally arrived and I will have to admit that it was worth the wait.  With the opening episode of the series gaining some praise around the camp fire, it is more of a dream come true to see a vampire story come to life that does not focus on the love, but rather the blood.

"Night Zero" opens up with a plane beginning to land, but there is something banging around the cargo hold and it seems to have terrible intentions for the flight attendants who open the door.  When the plane finally lands it goes dark and nobody aboard seems to be panicking.  The tower calls in the CDC to investigate what happened on the flight, but not knowing what they are up against, they suit up and find everyone on board dead.  Without showing signs of a struggle or bruising of any sort, the bodies are shipped off to the coroner’s office and have a rush placed on their autopsies to determine what happened. 

Upon further review of the plane, doctors Ephraim Goodweather and Nora Martinez find an ammonia based substance all over the interior of the plane and take note that it is biological.  When a few people on the plane wake up from their slumber, they are sent into quarantine and questioned to the hilt about what happened.  Nobody seems to have an idea of what happened and are no help to the investigation.  Eph is determined to find out what happened and when the cargo hold had been emptied, they found a large wooden coffin filled with dirt.  Not being able to trace where this strange box came from, they bag and tag it for further examination. 

Across town, Abraham Setrakian is running his pawn shop like so many days before.  Listening to the news of a ‘Dead Plane’ landing at JFK, he knows that there is something amiss and will have to step back into action once again.  Fighting off the threat so many years ago, Setrakian does not think he still has the power to defeat the ancient foe, and tries to warn the members of the CDC about what he knows.  Being blown off at the airport, Setrakian knows that evil has been released on the city and will have to find a way to get help to destroy the Master who is looking for blood.

I was very impressed with the opening episode of The Strain.  I must admit that I was worried about all of the delays they had been going through, but they did deliver a powerful show.  Now I am a stickler for accuracy to the books if a movie or show is based off of it, and although the show does not follow the book completely, you can see that they are trying to build up the characters much faster and I will applaud them for this decision.

I did expect to see a little bit more about the eclipse in this episode, as there are banners and signs hanging all around in the show, but I think they will have to wait as you were able to gain the first look at the Master already.  If you are looking for a new show to watch and have a love for vampires, I would give this a watch.  Although it is not the conventional form of a vampire, you will have to trust me when I say that you will not be disappointed.  A new breed of bloodsuckers has been needed and The Strain has accomplished just that….so far.  Until the next episode, Stay Scared.

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