The Strain Recap S1E05: Runaways

Ruby’s top priority remains her clients Mr. Bolivar aka Ken doll. The Urologist pays Gabriel a visit, Ruby needs him all ship shape before his concert tomorrow, needless to say that is totally not going to happen. Ruby takes Dr. Evanstan up to see him, but Gabe is way beyond the help of a urologist. Ruby continues her calls and appointments when she hears Dr. Evanstan scream. She rushes upstairs to check on her client and the doctor, and finds him eating the doctor, but quite calmly compared to the rabid eating habits displayed by the other infected passengers. He drags her off announcing “mine” as Ruby stumbles out of there.

Ruby cancels the concert. She thinks that Gabe hurt someone bad, but she didn’t call the police. The person on the other side of the line seems to have a solution, a permanent one, but Ruby does not want to be linked.

Abraham makes breakfast at The Arnell house. Ephraim thinks that they should call someone, but who. Abraham doesn’t wish to go back to jail, but is perfectly okay if Eph wants to spend some time in a cell to assuage his guilt. The skirmish they’re now in the middle of is a long standing one between humanity and the master. The master has been trying to spread his infection for awhile. He excels in manipulation, a disease with intelligence. Abraham knows that he is an ancient creature that feeds on the blood of his victims, like a vampire, but not. He’s a predator, a leech, a blemish, a strigoi. When he was a boy his grandmother told him fairy stories about the Master, until he saw the devil with his own eyes.

Poland 1944. He rides on a train with his grandmother. She tells him to remember the stories that she told him, because she fears that they are destined to meet it. The train door flies open, and they’re herded from the train. They will work for the welfare of new Europe. The man shouting out orders is none other than Thomas, looking exactly as he does today. The men are separated from the women. Abraham fights to stay with his grandmother, but he’s pulled away anyways. His friends tells the soldiers that he’s a carpenter, even though he was hardly an apprentice, but they have to convince them otherwise to survive.

Joan’s children make her breakfast in bed. She’s even more chipper and pleasant than ever as she snaps at her children and housekeeper. She looks like hell. As she hugs her daughter, she ponders the child’s neck. She thanks them for breakfast.

Eph asks what the plan is next. Abraham plans to visit the next person on the airplane list, and possibly kill them. At this early stage of the infection, they’re very easy to kill, which will not be the case later. He’s hoping to find other people to join their cause. Eph wants to collect more evidence to present to his superiors so they’ll get involved. Abraham gives Eph a nail gun full of silver nails. Silver affects them, can even kill them, but at the least it’ll slow them down. He knows that Eph is taking a risk by trusting him. Abraham is taking a greater risk by trusting him with all of humanity’s fate. He tells him that should be become compromised while trying to capture his evidence on film, he’s not above releasing him.

Abraham is less than pleased with Eph’s car. Why does no one love that giant jeep? Eph seems to take some pride his the truck he traded his rolex for. Abraham finds Eph to be both romantic and impractical. Eph calls to check in with Nora. They’re close, but he doesn’t want to talk about the relationship. Those that are turned when they come back go after the ones that they love the most.

Past. Inside a military barracks something slithers in, not very quietly though. It awakens one. He sees the thing feed in the dark. A young Abraham knows that something killed the man that they were told was sick. He knows it fed on him. His friend thinks that it was nothing more than a nightmare, tells him to stop looking for monsters, they’re already surrounded by them.

Fet comes into the office. The last client called in and said that he was rude. There is an unusually high number of rat calls in the city. The secretary mentions that she saw a bunch of rats in the subway this morning, and they looked to be migrating. Rats don’t really migrate like that, they only move like that when they’ve lost their food supply, or there’s a larger predator they’re fleeing from.

Nora gets a call. She’s still spooked. Her mother has been picked up. It’s her third incident where she’s run off, luckily she went into a coffee shop to order a martini and someone spotted her bracelet. The nurse warns that they’ll need to hire someone to keep her from wandering off, Nora maintains that her mother loves it there, that she has friends there. Her mother tells her that she doesn’t like it there, she wants to go home she says. She introduces her daughter as a medical student, and a good girl who’s come to help her pack.

Abraham and Ephraim head into the home of Ann Marie and Ansel. They finds Ann Marie hanging from the rafters. Eph wants to cut her down, but Abraham checks to see if she is infected first. She isn’t, but Abraham has other priorities. Ann Marie left a note. They know that the children are with her sister, and she says that she cannot face the world without Ansel. The pair head into the kitchen and spy the shed outside. The pair make their way outside in the snow to check out the shed. Abraham warns Eph to do what he can to avoid the blood as he pulls out his sword. Armed with his cell phone and the nail gun he follows Abraham into the shed. The chained up Ansel cannot quite reach the pair. Eph fires silver nails into him, and Abraham beheads him before seeking out the neighbor and doing the same to him. He pours gas around the shed while Eph looks over his footage. The shed goes up in flames, and finally Eph believes.

Past. Again the creature creeps about at night. It takes the man in the bunk next to Abraham, and they make eye contact. The creature snaps his victim’s neck.

Eph makes a call. He wishes Abraham to help him to get the quarantine in place, but Abraham cannot just sit around and wait for that to happen. They both have work to do against the Evil.

Eldritch’s surgery was a success, but it’s still too early to say if it will last. The doctor worries what will happen if their organ harvesting gets out, but it’ll be his last job anyways. Eldritch isn’t well enough for another procedure, and his life is in the hands of a higher power.

The solution that Ruby asked for comes to Gabriel’s place. He takes a quick look around, and finds the doctor’s body in a tub. Before he can get to work Gabriel sneaks up on him. Jack tells him that if he can just back up, he can make everything as if it never happened. As he gets to work, spraying the blood and disposing of evidence, Gabriel watches him with an odd velociraptor demeanor. Jack lays into place a cover story as a gore covered Gabriel draws closer. Jack asks him to back up, but Gabriel springs for an attack. Jack is forced to shoot Gabriel, and he thinks that he killed him. There’s a white milky substance coming from his chest, and as he gets a closer look Gabriel’s throat stinger springs to action, and throat hugs the heck out of Jack.

Joan remains irritable as ever. Her house keeper, Eva, wants her to go to the doctors, but she refuses. Joan feels like there is something wrong with her eye, and she has Eva look into her eye. Not only are they still oddly blood shot, they’re reptilian side blinking. Eva rushes out of the room, and rushes the children off to get them away from their mother. She tells Joan that she’s taking them to a movies as Joan smells them all too weirdly. Eva’s plan works and she and the children make a run for it.

Fet goes under ground to check out the oddly acting rats. It’s not rats that Fet finds but infected people. They give chase, and Fet halls butt to get out of there. Luckily its daytime, and they’re repelled by the light.

Nora’s mother braids her hair, talking about Nora’s work. She asks again when she’s going home, but Nora reiterates that she is home. Her mother does not like that one bit. She doesn’t like that she is forced to live with strangers, and its too much for Nora right now. Nora opens up about the case. Nora’s mother has faith that she’ll get to the bottom of things. As Nora walks her mother back to her room, she sees one of the infected making a snack of a resident. Nora has a change of heart and runs to the nearest exit with her mother in tow.

Eph heads into the Canary team headquarters of the CDC. Eph has proof that it is a disease, and it is rapidly spreading. Everett cannot believe that Eph is trying to quarantine the family members of the dead passengers. Eph explains that the passengers aren’t dead, not really, they’re going to a metamorphosis and worse that they’re returning home and infecting their families like in the case of Emma Arnell. He has empirical proof of the spreading infection, and wants Everett to start the daunting quarantine process immediately. Everett isn’t sure it’ll work, there’s a mountain of opposition in their way, but if they don’t stop this solve this problem they’re all doomed. Eph presses him to at least look at the video, that once he sees proof he will know that it’s the right call. Everett can’t even watch the whole thing, he cancels his next appointment. Jim asks if its spreading, it is massively. Eph notices Everett isn’t cancelling his next appointment. They have video of Eph dragging Redfern’s body down the hall. He tries to leave, but finds that his card no longer works. Jim helps him get out, he had no clue what he was doing when he released the box. Eph presses him to get Everett to issue that quarantine. Jim didn’t mean to betray Eph, and he tells him about the bogged down internet, as he takes him phone’s sim card so they can’t track him. Eph slips away on the streets.