The Strain Recap With Spoilers: The Third Rail

This week opens with Zach (Ben Hyland) again, only this time, he’s trying to record Vasiliy’s latest invention – an attempt at some sort of lighting. His first attempt is an “epic fail,” and Ephraim (Corey Stoll) suggests that maybe the light should flash like a strobe light. Vasiliy (Kevin Durand) and Abe (David Bradley) agree; they’ve just got to take it one day at a time. Upstairs, Mrs. Martinez (Anne Betancourt) is confused by her surroundings, as usual, and now she’s declaring that her host, Abe, has a “dark soul.”

Eph has finally come around to the concept of “the Master” and superstition in general. He and Nora (Mía Maestro) seem to be on the same page that Abe is probably right: If they destroy the Master, they destroy the horde. They don’t agree on everything, though. Eph wants someone to stay behind to protect Zach, but Nora refuses. She’s leaving someone behind as well, her mother. It’s their only option. The group is heading out, and Eph puts Zach in charge.

It doesn’t take long for Mrs. Martinez to start an argument with Zach, who she thinks has moved the ashtray she was looking for previously in the episode. Zach admires all of Abe’s crazy vampire-hunting weapons, while Mrs. Martinez harasses him about the whereabouts of her cigarettes and her daughter. Zach tries to put her at ease, but before long, she is trying to escape, shouting at strangers and begging to be freed. Zach decides that the only way to get her to shut up is to venture outside and fetch some cigarettes.

Meanwhile, Abe and the gang are slowly descending into the subway system to find the heart of the vampire horde. They soon start running into the vampires’s discarded objects – their wallets, watches, and stuffed animals. Vasiliy guides their way, giving them the heads up as to which rails might be active, even though he doesn’t think anyone’s been in the area since 9/11. They eventually meet a group of sleeping vampires, recharging after an assumedly long day of transitioning from human to the undead. The hunters edge around them quietly.

This episode brings us back to Gus (Miguel Gómez), who we haven’t seen in a while. He’s on the run and has made it back to his mother’s home. Their place is empty except for Gus’s now-vampire brother, who looks pretty far along in the process. His face his almost entirely changed, but he still doesn’t have any vampire self-control.

Gus is forced to shove a baseball bat in his brother’s throat and to snap his throat. The situation only worsens for Gus when he finds his very sick mother in the closet. He’s packing up when his mother leaves the closet to greet him. Gus tells her that he knows he should’ve been there for her before he heads out the door and snatches an emergency axe. He beheads his turned landlord on his way out of the building.

Zach gets to a convenience store that’s already been raided, with its cashier lying on the ground near the register. Two looters bust in to snag more food before Zach is able to grab a pack of cigarettes, forcing him to try to hide in the store’s basement, where he quietly spies a vampire. He edges back to the main floor of the store, vampire in tow. The looters aren’t as smart as Zach, and they quickly, fatally, make themselves known to the vampire. On his way out the door, Zach runs into Gus, he shoos Zach out the door before heading after the vampire with his axe.

As Abe and company trudge forward underground, Vasiliy rambles about how well he knows the system, just as an unpredicted train heads their way. They manage to jump on a ledge to the side and escape the train, but the slip-up only fuels the tension between Eph and Vasiliy. Before long they watch a vampire step onto some high-voltage tracks, burning up almost instantly – another way for the vampires to be killed.

When they finally get to the estimated location of the vampire horde, they are surprised to find it empty, until they spot the tunnel in the wall. Eph is the first to crawl through, finding no one on the other side. Abe, Nora, and Vasiliy don’t have much time to brace themselves before crawling through after Eph, as suddenly, vampires are following them from behind. Abe exclaims that the Master knows they’re there, before he starts to worm through the tunnel. Eph wasn’t there for the warning about the Master, and that’s when he starts hearing his wife calling to him.

Nora gets through the tunnel and can’t find Eph, who’s followed Kelly’s voice. During this time Vasiliy is seriously struggling through the tunnel, where a vampire is crawling up right behind him, but he’s able to get through thanks to Nora’s help. Eph and Abe are nowhere to be found on the other side. When the scene cuts back to Eph, we see that he’s been led right to the Master’s coffin, still hearing Kelly’s voice, before vampires surround him on all sides and he meets the Master himself. Eph swings at him with his knife and tries to fight, but it’s completely futile against the monster.

The Master sees Eph as Abe’s pupil, explaining that he took everything from Abe and now he is going to take everything from Eph too. Just as his crazy death tentacle begins to emerge, back-up arrives. Abe’s sword doesn’t do much, but Vasiliy’s lights are radically more effective. The vampires seem to be burning, but the Master just leaves the scene, leaving Abe furious at Vasiliy for scaring him away. Abe smashes the coffin he once made, before leading them further onward into the dark. They eventually find a cave in the wall, where they find hundreds, maybe thousands of sleeping vampires. Abe wants to charge forward, but the others hold him back.

Zach miraculously makes it home after his solo mission, giving Mrs. Martinez her cigarettes before practicing some stabbing motions with one of Abe’s knives.