Warning: Spoilers for The Strain are in play. If you haven't watched "Extraction," then come back after you're current, so you can enjoy our coverage.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any more intense in The Strain's final season, the creative team went and kick-started the countdown to the end game. Case in point: both sides' final strategies are in play, as the nuclear bomb is now in New York, and The Master has send Zach to find his father. After tonight's episode, only two more installments of The Strain are left, so every moment is going to count. But sadly, those moments won't include
In terms of the heroic side of operations, there's a source of contention as far as what to do with the nuclear bomb, since Quinlan wants to continue with the plan to use the device to wipe out both New York and The Master. Of course, Eph isn't exactly a fan of this plan, as there are still plenty of people (collaborators or not) on the island of Manhattan, and one of those people he's thinking of is undoubtedly his son. Zach is still firmly in the clutches of evil, and he seems to now be a fully entrenched operative on the side of darkness.
After all, the only reason that Zach Goodweather seems to be looking for his lone parental unit is because The Master has entrusted him with some sort of task requiring him to do so. Odds are, Eph and Kelly's formerly protagonistic kiddo is going to be tasked with luring his father back to The Master's HQ, and in turn, he will be offered the choice between dying as a a human, or living with Zach as his eternal Strigoi protector. It's a decision that hinges on Eph being the weak link in The Strain's heroic machinery, but a key fact revealed by Professor Setrakian has kind of spelled out where things are going from this point.
Our dear friend the Professor tried the best he could to decode the Occido Lumen's recipe for the destruction of The Master, and his instructions spelled out some sort of selfless sacrifice as the key. If the final Strain novel The Night Eternal is any indication, that final sacrifice is going to be Eph and Zach incinerated in a nuclear blast that takes them, and The Master, out for good. Predictably, there is still some mystery left to this prophecy, as our dear friend and translator Abraham Setrakian didn't have enough time to finish briefing our heroes, as he was killed out of mercy before succumbing to the infection Eichorst gave him during their final showdown last week. Let's all have a moment of silence, shall we, while also hoping that Fet can carry on the torch to end things successfully.
We started this final season with more heroes, and more questions than answers, but The Strain is narrowing down the path to the end in game-changing ways. And as we saw tonight, everyone is expendable, eventually. We'll see just who survives after the next two weeks of episodes, which will both unfold on Sunday nights on FX, at 10:00 p.m. ET. To see everything else that'll hit the small screen when The Strain is over, head to our fall TV schedule.
