YMMV / The Strain (TV series)

• Anti-Climax Boss: For all his fearsome reputation and power, the fight with The Master in the season 1 finale is downright lame.
• Ass Pull: To some, Zach being the one who finishes off The Master by setting off the second nuke. After very little buildup to his Heel–Face Turn in the literal last five minutes of the series. To be fair, despite being constantly angry with Eph, Zach never really expressed an actual desire to kill him - so it should not be totally surprising that he refused the Master's order to kill his father. In fact, earlier in the episode Eph wonders if Zach was being sincere about wanting to save his life in the penultimate episode. Zach is also shown to be pretty horrified when the Master's forces start indiscriminately killing every human in the city to locate the nuke. Let it be known; everyone has their limits.
• Broken Base:
  • The Master's face in Season 1 definitely caused this. While some fans loved that it looks ridiculous while still looking very off-putting, many fans felt that it was too silly and fake looking. It may have been for this very reason that the writers decided to have Master transfer his consciousness to Bolivar early in Season 2.
  • The death and subsequent turning of Eph's ex-wife Kelly. Some are calling it unneeded filler and accusing Del Toro of drawing the season out too much, while others understood that this was part of the books' storyline and were more tolerant.
  • The Eph-Dutch-Fet love triangle in Season 3 has gotten some very mixed reactions, to say the least.
  • Do the flashbacks to Quinlan's love affair with Louisa show his human side and tragic history? Or are they just plain creepy?
  • Zach being the one to blow up the Master in the final episode via Heroic Sacrifice. To some, it comes off as an Ass Pull, with the series having spent so much time making him as villainous as possible only to yank the rug out from under all of his Character Development in favor of a generic Redemption Equals Death conclusion, and many were not happy with the fact that it gave him Adaptational Heroism in the process (Eph detonates the nuke himself in the books). To others, it's the logical conclusion of Zach realizing the consequences of his actions, and many point to various pieces of evidence that despite his deep hatred for Eph, Zach never wanted him dead, and they counter the Adaptational Heroism argument by pointing out that Zach never detonated the first nuclear bomb in the books either (The Master did that).
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After four seasons of being an unsympathetic monster who continually gets away with his crimes, it is immensely satisfying to see Eichhorst die at the hands of his long-time nemesis, Abraham Setrakian. Setrakian tricks Eichhorst into feeding off of him after he's ingested blood thinner, which is poisonous to vampires, then takes his time mocking a visibly terrified Eichhorst over just how screwed he is before cutting the Nazi vamp's head off.
  • In Season 4's "The Traitor", after Zach (surprise surprise) tries to betray the group by leading the Strigoi to them, Eph finally recognises how dreadful his son has become and utterly rejects him; he can't bear to kill him but instead abandons him, telling him to live with what he's done.
• Complete Monster:
  • The Master is the youngest of the Ancient vampires with a legacy of death going back millennia. Killing and feeding at his whim, The Master ends up in New York after stowing away aboard a plane, killing and turning everyone on board before sending the newly-made vampires after their own loved ones to spread his new strain. In the past, the Master also used concentration camps as a feeding ground, and when the carpenter Abraham Setrakian tried to kill him, the Master broke his hands to leave him to suffer and die now that he would be useless to the Nazis. Using his vampires to kill and convert countless innocents in New York, the Master directs a number of blind children to be turned by his right-hand man Thomas Eichhorst to serve as "hunters" before attempting to overwhelm entire neighborhoods with his armies. When his ally Eldritch Palmer annoys the Master, the Master kills his lover Coco just to prove a point. Finally having his "brothers" killed, the Master and Eichhorst attempt to use a nuke to blot out the sun to allow the vampires to completely overwhelm New York. After taking over New York, the Master slowly slips further into madness and fury and in an attempt to get to Ephraim and the others, decides to end his "facade of cooperation", unleashing his strigoi to kill the entire human population "borough by borough" until he has found his enemies.
  • Thomas Eichhorst is a former Nazi-turned-vampire who acts as the right-hand man of the Master. Even prior to his transformation, Eichhorst was a despicable human being who declined to help a Jewish former co-worker he had a crush on, instead lying to his superiors about her being a thief and allowing her and her family to be hanged. Eichhorst was eventually made the commandant of a concentration camp, and at some point became aligned with the Master. Unlike the animalistic vampires that make up the Master's army, Eichhorst retains his mind and his sense of sadism, which he displays through actions like vampirizing Setrakian's wife to force Setrakian to kill her, and attempting to rape/eat Dutch with his stinger. In addition to setting nukes and vampirizing blind children for the Master, Eichhorst also oversees the creation of slaughterhouses to drain humans of blood as efficiently as possible. When one of his employees doesn't see the difference in using a dummy to test the system instead of a live person, Eichhorst illustrates his point by impaling another employee on a meat hook, then timing it so he's subjected to the draining process.
• Creepy Awesome: Eichhorst. Richard Sammel gave his all to that performance, and manages to be both charismatic and frightening.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Like in the books, Vasily Fet and Abraham Setrakian are growing immensely popular with each passing episode due to their high levels of competence, badass ways, and talented cult actors playing them. Perhaps more surprisingly, Thomas Eichhorst is growing in popularity despite being a Nazi, mostly due to Richard Sammel's wonderfully creepy performance.
  • Another reason Eichhorst is becoming popular is due to Richard Sammel being◊ one◊ heck◊ of a Silver Fox who uses his Icy Blue Eyes and Villainous Cheekbones to great effect.
    • Indeed, Sammel has mentioned in interviews that he was surprised at the reaction to his character, and that his role had been increased once Del Toro noticed it as well.
  • Vaun became this almost as soon as he appeared onscreen. He's played by another cult actor — Stephen McHattie — and nearly every review of "For Services Rendered" ended with some variation on "WTF VAMPIRE BLACK OPS SQUAD!!!!"
  • Gus is very popular as well - particularly for female fans.
  • Dutch is becoming more and more popular, even among those who don't exactly like the show, resulting in Ruta Gedmintas being added to the main cast for season two.
  • Councilwoman Justine is also quickly becoming this; she's so far the only politician who understands the true threat of the vampire plague and takes the appropriate actions (namely killing the infected rather than simply containing them.)
• Growing the Beard: Fans and critics are beginning to agree that as Season 1 has progressed, the show has greatly improved from it's early Outbreak-esque days. Particularly with all the main characters now more or less on the same page and working with each other, the show has become less flabby and has more of a direction.
• Heartwarming Moments: Fet comforting Dutch at her apartment, and Abe comforting Zach and explaining what's going on.
  • Eph and Nora eulogizing Jim while burning Matt's body.
  • Dutch's utter fury at the police for bruising Fet's face, and his earlier scene of comforting her after her ex-girlfriend's mother had given her a vicious "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Ho Yay: Gus and his friend Felix seem quite... close, with Gus even beating up someone in a holding cell so Felix could have a better seat, then allowing him to lay his head on his (Gus') lap while he holds him - and a later episode shows they're still sitting like that, even though Felix has obviously been vomiting all over himself because he's been infected. Felix later goes after Gus - which is Hilarious in Hindsight when you remember that vampires go after the ones they loved after they're first turned.
  • Gus and Quinlan, Gus and Vaun...Gus is paired with quite a few of the vampires in Fandom.
    • Fans have also paired Quinlan and Vaun together.
• Jerkass Woobie: The father of Emma, the young French girl on the plane. Sure his grief over her apparent death can be understood, but is violent towards Ephraim for no good reason and even later when calling him to thank him for returning his daughter to him in the assumption she was alive he still comes over as short-tempered.
• Moral Event Horizon: There are two very strong candidates for when a certain someone crossed it.
  • Zach Goodweather, of all people, crosses the line in the season 3 finale. His carelessness had already gotten several people killed, and he'd already joined the strigoi despite them literally being undead, blood-sucking abominations, but the audience might have been able to rationalize this on the grounds that he's a naive kid. However, in the season 3 finale, when Eph kills the vampirized Kelly in self-dense, Zach responds by knowingly detonating a nuclear bomb out of spite. This action single-handedly ruined the heroes plan to finally get rid of the Master, freeing him from his prison, and allowing the strigoi to overrun the city when the resulting cloud blocks out the sun. Every strigoi death that follows this point is directly on Zach, just because he was angry at his father and lashed out in the most destructive way possible.
  • In Season 4, Zach finally seems to be growing more of a conscience and develops a crush on his maid Abby. It's pointed out that setting off the nuke was an impulsive decision brought about by anger rather than outright evil. Despite being the most pampered human alive the Master himself is defending as a future Host, Zach opens up to Abby, gives her supplies for her friends and genuinely seems fond of her...until he discovers she has a boyfriend. He freaks at her, claiming that he 'did everything right' to get with her by being nice and giving her things, and when she tries to leave, her physically restrains her. After she pushes him away, Zach's Strigoi bodyguard attacks...and despite her pleading for him to save her and tell the guard to stand down, Zach petulantly storms off and covers his ears as not to listen to her being murdered, cementing him as utterly irredeemable.
• Narm: Some of the dialogue, in particular Gus' whole 'white-boy' shtick. And the Title Drop by Fet is particularly clunky.
  • Anytime technology is used or mentioned. Gabriel's manager talks about "the YouTube video," Eldritch Palmer hires a hacker to slow down the entire Internet, and Eph texts back and forth phrases along the lines of "c u l8r" with his son, despite the fact that it would actually be harder to type like this on an iPhone due to autocorrect.
  • Eichhorst escaping from Abe and Eph by clinging onto the side of a subway car. It just looks very... well, fake.
  • In "The Master," Fet decides to start calling them "munchers" instead of vampires. On the other hand, Fet is such a weird guy that it seems pretty much in-character for him.
    • Also from the finale - all the vampires at the Master's lair suddenly standing up and marching out backwards when he calls for them.
    • Some people find it incredibly amusing that the healthier Eldritch Palmer becomes, the more fake tanner he appears to be putting on. The man is downright orange!
  • When Eph is cutting his hair, you can very clearly see the line between the wig and Corey Stoll's head. It's especially amusing when you see the reveal of his new look... and it's an almost exact duplicate of Peter Russo's!
    • Before this, it was widely agreed that the wig was obvious enough to fall into this and be very distracting to audiences, especially anyone who knows about Stoll's normal look. Cuse and Del Toro once had to publicly defend its use prior to Eph's Significant Haircut.
• Nausea Fuel: Combined with an unhealthy dose of Squick, a lot of the biological and virological scenes related to the strigoi infection are this:
  • First, we have the infamous autopsy scene, where Eph, Nora, and Jim cut open a transformed Redfern, revealing his inhuman innards, the biology of the stinger, and finally, an explosion of pungent guano once Eph pulls the stinger out of the corpse.
  • We see a still-beating Strigoi heart, infested with capillary worms.
  • Whenever the Master decides to Body Surf to a new host, he simply vomits a torrent of worms into the mouth of the (possibly unwilling) victim. It's as nauseating as it sounds.
  • Really, the capillary worms themselves are just gross as all hell. They're wriggling, pinworm-like bastards, and all it takes is one to get inside you for infection to be terminal. And they will try damn hard to get inside you.
    • The poster for the first season shows one of those worms coming out of someone's eye.
• Nightmare Retardant: The Master is a shadowy, nightmarish creature. Then he reveals his face. Looking like a cheap Orlok Halloween mask with comically oversized hands.
  • Mitigated in Season 2 after the Master transfers his consciousness to Bolivar, though he still doesn't look any more terrifying than Eichhorst or the other strigoi (Quinlan even comments that his new body "lacks intimidation").
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Many fans started warming up to Nora, especially in the latter half of Season 2 when she started becoming the Badass warrior she is in the books. Sadly, she unexpectedly dies in the Season 2 finale.
  • Many fans have also begun liking Eph in Season 2 - particularity after he goes bald.
  • Kelly is much more intriguing and interesting as a vampire than she ever was as a human.
• The Scrappy: Unfortunately, it seems like half the cast is this - at least in Season 1. Everett Barnes, Gabriel Bolivar and Matt Sayles don't really count since they're meant to be frustrating and unsympathetic, but Eph comes across as too much of a self-absorbed asshole to be likable and his family drama slows the plot down to a grinding halt; Kelly is saddled with the cliched role of the nagging ex-wife, and Jim Kent is Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
  • Continues with Eph through Seasons 2 and 3.
  • As Bloody Disgusting put it: "[Eph] seems driven to raise awareness that he was right about vampires, but as society continues to fall into shambles around him, perhaps he needs to remove his head from his ass and start fighting back instead of giving a shit about his reputation. I suppose you could say he’s motivated by the safety of the public, and wants to find the root of the outbreak, but I’m just not buying it."
  • Nora's mother in season one, mostly by virtue of her being The Load and adding nothing to the plot.
  • Zach Goodweather was fairly well-liked by the fandom in the first season, but he's dropped straight into Scrappy territory as of season two. Not only was he recast by a new actor who mostly expressed petulant anger and Wangst, but also started making dumber and dumber decisions which got more sympathetic characters, like Nora killed. He eventually ends up joining the strigoi and by the time of the third season finale, he intentionally set off a nuke and nearly caused the apocalypse, all because he was mad at his dad. By the time of the fourth season, 99% of the time with the character is spent showing his slide into genuine villainy, yet in the series finale, he ends up being the one to detonate the nuke that kills the Master and saves the world. Not only does his redemption come off as an Ass Pull to many, but Zach's heroic moment necessitated the anticlimactic deaths of more important characters like Eph and Quinlan.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Vaun who was killed off in season 2.
• Ugly Cute: While he obviously looks very much like the show's other vampires, Vaun comes off as being much less horrifying. For example, while other vampires make terrifying screeches, Vaun almost sounds likes he's downright purring in his introduction. Combined this with his calm and friendly demeanor, his having a nose, and the fact that his elongated pointy teeth look like a rat's, and you have an example of Ugly Cute.
  • Then again, the other vampires-with their beady eyes and rat like teeth-do sorta fulfill this trope as well.
  • Most of the more intelligent vampires fall under this.
  • The Feeler that Zach adopts at his mother and Eichhorst's insistence entirely falls into this territory: she comes across as more of a pet than a dangerous creature, and when Zach begins to show affection to her, she even lays her head on his shoulder and begins purring. It's oddly heartwarming in such a brutal show.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While viewers are supposed to empathize with Jim offering services to the StoneHeart Group in exchange for the company footing the bill for his wife's cancer treatment, this feeling only lasts until his correct deducing that the box is a MacGuffin for some less than benign plot, at which point he still agrees to do covert work for the obviously-not-evil corporation. Even worse, he secured his wife's treatment by bumping off some poor sod who was on the list of 100 randomly selected patients for the trial treatment.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Vasily Fet is adored by the fandom due to his badassery, his sharp lines, his willingness to progress the plot without letting his personal life get in the way and Kevin Durand's excellent portrayal. In-story, our eponymous heroes Eph and Nora despise him, with Eph in particular looking down on Vasily and holding a grudge due to Fet's killing of Jim.
  • The other human characters are leery of Quinlan for his vampire heritage, but he's frequently cited as one of the more popular characters in the franchise.
• Watch It for the Meme: Watch it for the episode where a guy's dick falls off.

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