THE EVENT “Strain” Review

THE EVENT “Strain” Season 1 Episode 18 - We pick up directly after the end of last week’s episode. Sophia’s plan to have Jarvis poison Martinez goes without a hitch and he’s soon in hospital after having a major stroke. The bleeding on his brain continues, however, meaning his condition seems likely to deteriorate. This clears the way for Jarvis to get himself sworn in as president in Martinez’s stead.

Leila is caught on the phone by her father, Michael. Instead of turning Leila in, he kills the man Sophia sent to guard her. But he warns Leila that he won’t be able to protect her in future and tells her to accept that she’s one of them now.

The Alien weapon is found in the form of a dormant virus (a strain of Spanish influenza, apparently) held dormant in a frozen corpse in Siberia. It’s taken to a ship to be dissected, the infected lungs packed up to be sent to the USA. But there’s an incident, the virus gets loose and kills everyone on the ship.

Sean and Vicky get there and find the bodies. The one surviving crew member – who wasn’t onboard when the virus got loose – tells them about the lungs. Will they be able to intercept before the lungs get to the USA and the Aliens can release the virus to the masses?

I loved most of this episode. Martinez has – along with Sophia – been the backbone of The Event so far. Seeing him so ill and possibly on the brink of death was riveting. Would the writers go so far as to kill Martinez? Before this episode I would have said no, that he and Sterling together were the main source of entertaining in the government plotlines. Now, I’m not so sure. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Sterling and Peel (who’s position in the government I didn’t hear/figure out – dear reader, do you know?) scramble around trying to find a way to discredit Jarvis and avoid him becoming president.

I understand that Leila is our ‘in’ for the Alien plotline, but I really couldn’t give less of a damn about her each and every week. She’s our eyes and ears when we really don’t need them. It would be just as easy to show us Sophia et al without this third party. Aside from dropping information to Sean, Leila serves no real purpose.

Also, Leila, you spent half a season trying to find your sister. You do remember her, don’t you? What do you think, dear reader, have they ditched the kiddy-experiment plot point? With Dempsey dead is there anything to keep it going?

I know artistic license has to be taken sometimes but can I just point out that Sean and Vicky travel with pretty awesome speed. Within the day they’re in Siberia and tracking down the ship.

Not much actually happened with them this week, a lot of time being given to the president plotline, but we spent enough time with the twosome to hear/see the following: Vicky can point out how complex she is more times in 45 minutes than most women can in a week (and we can do it a lot, guys) and she’s making eyes at Sean.

She totally digs him.

What did you think of ‘Strain’? Have any speculation about next week’s episode? Let us know in the comments below!

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