The Strain (TV Series) The Fall (2016) User Reviews

Spoiled with Dark Soul

[claudio_carvalho · 9/10 · 27 January 2019]

Palmer, Setrakian and his team plot a scheme to ambush The Master and trap him in a silver and plumb lined box. But The Master ambushes Palmer and his security team in the garage and transfers to his body to get his memories learning where the other nuclear bomb is. He removes the artifact from the vault, saves Eichhorst that is dying and he plants the bomb in the Statue of Liberty. Later he gives the detonator to Kelly but Zach steals it. When Setrakian and Eph meet Palmer, they realize that he is The Master but Dutch activates the disrupt device and they succeed with Fet and Quinlan to trap The Master in the box. They head to dump the box in the ocean while Eph is left behind wounded on the stomach. Out of the blue, he is surprised by Kelly and Zach and something unthinkable happens.

"The Fall" is a great episode of "The Strain" with awful conclusion. The spoiled and annoying Zach is a character that should have been destroyed in the First Season. The viewers have supported him along three season and the writers insisted on him. However, he has just become an important character and the producers should have cast at least a better actor to perform this role and not a one-face ham actor. His unthinkable and unbelievable selfish attitude of exploding a nuclear bomb to revenge his biological father is so stupid that has destroyed the show that should have ended with the destruction of The Master. This teenager has only taken stupid attitudes along the show but now reached the absurd. Ridiculous the way chosen by the writers to proceed with a Fourth Season. The consequences of a nuclear bomb, such as destruction and contamination, seems to be forgotten in "The Strain". A pity since this show has begun so good. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "The Fall"

A rushed finale

[anselmdaniel · 8/10 · 12 September 2020]

This review contains spoilers.

The Strain's tenth episode of the third season is entitled 'The Fall'. The heroes execute their plan to deal with The Master once and for all. The Master has taken over Eldritch Palmer and is seeking to execute the next stage of his scheme for world domination.

The season three finale is incredibly rough. The plan that the heroes come up with the deal with The Master is logical and makes sense. They wish to seal him into a silver-lined sarcophagus. By doing this The Master will be unable to control his minions and the world will eventually recover from a vampire apocalypse. The scenes leading up to this point and how the heroes deal with The Master are worth a watch. It is interesting to see The Master confront the heroes once again in Eldritch Palmer's body.

The issue is that the vampire post-apocalypse starts because of seemingly one nuclear bomb being detonated on New York City. The television series did not build this up well and it felt that the desire to rush to this plot element for the next season hurt the finale for this season. Zach Goodweather unleashes a nuclear apocalypse all because his vampire mother attacked Ephraim and died. This is not a good reasoning as Zach could see that his mother had attacked first. Although there were problems with Ephraim and Zach's relationship this did not escalate to the insanity that we saw in this episode. The child is actively helping the vampires when it was shown in previous episodes that he was disgusted by their feeding. Zach was also afraid of his mother attacking him and so it is hard to understand the child's motivation.

I would recommend the finale to The Strain's third season.

Grade: B

The Strain Season Three

The Strain season three picks up with some time after the end of season two. The third season follows the cast as the vampires begin to take over New York. Eph has lost Zach to Kelly and the vampires. Fet, Setrakian, and Quinlan try to translate the Occido Lumen in order to discover a way to finally end The Master. Eldritch Palmer continues to seek immortality by finding a way to replicate the white.

The third season takes a darker turn as the vampires gain the upper-hand over humanity. The hallmarks of the seasons before this are still present. The dialogue, acting, sets, and design are all at a high quality. The series is still slow with the episodes choosing to develop characters and past events. If audiences do not enjoy these scenes, they can easily be skipped in favor of the main story. This does bring in the problem of too much filler in this series, but at the very least the filler episodes are enjoyable. The action and the characters are fun to watch and entertaining. One of the great points in this season is Eldritch Palmer. His character arc becomes much more interesting this season. Gus' character arc is still not exciting and it still focuses on his mother's infection.

The writing is one of the weak points in this season. The series conclusion is rushed. This season felt that rush with plot points that occur because of forced character stupidity. One of these bad points is the series following Zach. He helps his vampire mother even when she is clearly hurting other humans and almost killing Zach. Zach also accepts Kelly's words even when she would say stuff her human self would never say. This culminates in the season finale where Zach helps The Master win and become free after the heroes conduct a well-executed plan.

Even with the writing being rushed, The Strain season three is recommended.

Grade: B

deeply flawed, but entertaining

[Ar_Pharazon_the_golden · 7/10 · 5 December 2017]

It is true this episode contains some huge plot holes, and the entire season's subplot that leads to the culmination is problematic to say the least. There are character inconsistencies, silly decisions, and a bunch of things that are flat out not actually true.

In a different show, these would be reasons to give up on any expectations, but the Strain is not a show driven by intricate plots and subtle character development. It's a gore-filled slaughterfest, so I'm more willing to let some things pass. Also, I tend to be a bit more forgiving towards plot holes that are not absolutely essential to the story - what I mean is that, yes, that was a (small) atomic bomb that goes off near the shore. It should have turned our heroes (and everyone else) to dust, or at least irradiate them enough to kill them in a couple of days. But since the plot could presumably just be altered to simply put the explosion further away (assuming you can come up with an excuse for that), enough for the effects seen to be more plausible , the error is not so critical. I am more vexed about this being the second nuke to go off, with the first barely noticed - I will just tell myself the Ancients were really deep underground.

Similarly, while the whole Zach storyline this season was horrendous, at least it had a point - albeit not a justified one, Zach's change of heart towards his mother and the strigoi is never remotely justified, but served a plot goal. I, like others, am dumbstruck as to why the show replaced first season Zach - a character who was not annoying, played by a kid who was actually good at the role - with the most obnoxious character ever seen in TV, played by a kid with less facial expressions than Grumpy Cat and less charisma than a turd. In retrospect, it may have been because the book character (I assume) really is obnoxious and a walking disaster. However, instead of trying to show how the character turns into this scornful, evil little Satan, the show simply decided to begin season 2 by telling us to forget what we've seen, here is the worst person on the planet and go on from there, feeding on the audience's justified and undying hatred. Knowing now that it wasn't just poor character development but intentional targeting makes it reasonable, but it is still rather cheap storytelling.

Other than that, the "momentary victory but oops" part was unsurprising (I was still sort of hoping there would just be a different villain for season 4), but the fact that NY ends up being obliterated is, despite the particulars, a bold step. With all its weaknesses, the Strain has few inhibitions, which is a good trait for a (post?)apocalyptic scenario.

Very Intense Finale [9/10]

[panagiotis1993 · 9/10 · 30 August 2023]

Reaction / Review for The Strain Season 3 Episode 10 ''The Fall'' (S3. E10) (Season Finale): Episode 9 was great and I gave it a rating of 9/10. Why does the Master need a nuclear bomb though? Oh boy Eichorst's injuries are very serious. The Master now has Palmer's body? Now that's a good twist. Fet and Eph keep fighting each other like spoiled kids, pathetic. I thought that Eichorst's hand would grow back but it doesnt. Quinlan vs the Master, let's go! I wish the fight was longer but still pretty good. Kelly is dead, awesome, finally! And of course we have Zach with his dumb decisions, worst character of this show! Will they die from radiation from the nuclear bomb? Zach follows Eichorst and not his father? I cant wait for him to die. Wow what an intense episode! My rating is 9/10.

Fun series until it jumped the shark

[vipcorp-954-708527 · 1/10 · 16 January 2017]

I was really enjoying this show this season. It was really starting to get good despite plot holes and unbelievable actions taken by some characters. I could forgive all in the name of fun until that annoying kid pressed the button. Now I'm done. I'm going to forget the last ten minutes ever happened and just let the series end in my mind unfinished.

Why did they do this??? Palmer was finally showing some strength and becoming a bad ass. We even got his back story. Excellent until they immediately kill him off. And why didn't Palmer plan Eichorst's execution better? How about some UV light like he had in previous episodes. He could have set up hidden lights in the elevator knowing Eichorst would try to escape that way. Or at least a bigger, better ambush to prevent his escape and possible survival. Scratch my second favorite character. At least I still have Eichorst.

And why wasn't the nuke safely out of New York? Preferably in a location where they could have used it to vaporize the Master in his box instead of the ridiculous idea of sinking him in the ocean? Didn't any of them read The Stand? It always makes sense to use the bad guy's own nuke against him. Reminds me of Austin Powers... "Begin the unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism." We'll lock him in a box, drop it in the ocean, leave and assume it all went to plan, what? What? Oh and BTW... I think Feraldo would have wiped her face a little quicker this time. I mean WTF??? It's like she was determined to get another worm in that eye. Jeeesh. Good riddance to her and her terrible acting.

Then there's Zach. I've met some stupid kids, some messed up kids, but this is really pushing the limits of suspension of disbelief. How about running into his father's arms and crying? That would have made sense. After reuniting with Dad and joining the fight, maybe he could still have control of his pet strigoi. Could have been an interesting and useful twist.

Can anyone explain why the second nuke was so much more powerful? I understand that the first was underground. Yes, that would greatly limit its range, but an underground nuke of that power would still have caused more destruction and surely the remaining cops would have been talking about it.

As for the second nuke: Eph and company all looked at the fireball, so they would all be blind. Of course their blindness would never have been noticed because everything within the 5psi blast range would have been disintegrated instantly. But even if they were not in that range, the power of the shock wave as shown when it blew Quinlan away and rolled Eichost's car would have easily killed all of them, human and strigoi alike. If not, the heat blast would have incinerated them at that range also, but alas that never came so I guess the 10,000 degree heat was bearable... and I guess it didn't evaporate any water in the Hudson sparing them from the Tsunami wave that should have flooded Manhattan.

And since the Master escaped unharmed, I can only assume he took some survival lessons from Indiana Jones. Let me know if the Master shows up in season 4 wearing a fedora and carrying a whip. I won't be watching.

Oh, and I love how easy it is to get nukes. "Hmm, we'll take two please, suitcase type. And supersize one of them." If it was that easy, Iran would have blown up New York long before the Master showed up.

Yes...the show is dead

[stratus_phere · 1/10 · 10 July 2017]

I won't waste much time on this final episode. Sure, season four is coming, but for me this was the end. Too much "almost made it" scenarios throughout the entire series, and this final episode was the epitome of hackneyed writing. Both the other reviewers who gave it 1-star reviews were right on the money. We want to see good guys get ahead, if only bit by bit, but this show never gives you that. You have bad guys who not only survive an entire season, but somehow manage to defeat the good guys throughout the entire series. What's the point? We want some kind of good closure at the end of a season. Instead, we get the writers desperate attempts to make us watch the next episode. Forget it. In case you haven't noticed, between Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon, we have many choices. You can keep your loser show. Hasta la vista, baby.

No ExCuse For A Season Finale This Disastrous

[alan_paul · 1/10 · 21 August 2017]

Apparently this was the directorial debut for writer/producer Carlton Cuse. Unfortunately, everything after his welcome, resonant "previously on The Strain" voice-over (and the recap clips) was sub-par for this TV series.

If the director gets most of the credit when things go well, shouldn't they bear the brunt of the blame when it all goes wrong? Why were the actors so much less effective than usual? Corey Stoll and Kevin Durand can handle antagonistic Brisco / Lord Bowler comic banter, but in this episode it's misplaced, uneven, and out of character. Dutch is a diminished version of herself, unprepared, discarding her previous development, and fumbling around as the unpolished writing dictates. Suddenly Filch, sorry, Setrakian doesn't recognize a Strigoi immediately when he sees and hears one? Zach (II) has been underwritten for a while, but here all hope for audience sympathy is eradicated with selectively lethal radiation. I'm guessing the writer (also Mr. Cuse) was not intending for this final sequence of the episode to be frustratingly comic.

Cut down to less than a minute running time, perhaps this episode will work as a "previously on" montage at the beginning of Season Four, Episode One? On second thought, no, it probably won't. But the voice-over will be great.

How is this possible?

[alecthecracker · 1/10 · 31 October 2016]

How is it possible that a show goes from good to hated so fast? Between the poor character development, bad show running choices, mediocre acting, and nonsensical plot points, the show kept getting worse and worse, to the point of frustrating the viewer with totally nonsensical twists and rushed plot development. The characters are one note at best. Perhaps the 40 day span of the setting dooms it to failure, but they could do better. Then of course they replaced a good child actor who wasn't even unlikable to one you absolutely have to hate, who really actually doesn't know how to act at all. Furthermore, they keep up the nonsensical character choices. Especially after this episode, I have no reason to keep watching the show. It is that frustratingly stupid and nonsensical. What should've been wrapped up as a series after this episode is extending to another, probably unbearable season. Greed is never compatible with art, that much is clear. After this episode, I can say that I have never hated a show more than this one. Emotionally nonsensical and mediocre storytelling. Wooden acting complete with plot decisions that take what good twists there were and undo that good, making them even worse than possibly thought.

I can see why Guillermo del Toro left the series

[oredp-31473 · 1/10 · 13 July 2022]

I have never been more disappointed in a series than this one right here. I cannot believe they gave a child a switch to a nuclear device.

I cannot believe after all of the trials and tribulations at the end of the series in this way.

I never liked the child that replaced the one in the first the first season. This one seems brutish and a complete jackass to say the least.

I didn't even bother watching the last season it is a terrible show I'm glad Guillermo del Toro left the show because he knew it was a dumpster fire the moment they wanted to change what was going on in the book.

They half-assed the entire series with just 10 minutes left on that last episode in the third season.

If you want to waste your time and watch this crap by all means do it at your own risk.