CletusMusashi

So does the new vessel's mind sort of meld with the Master's? Because otherwise, wanting to just die and be possessed by somebody else is pretty stupid. I guess if we see Mastervar still able to play the guitar or... drive a car... or... whatever... that'll be an answer to the affirmative. But if they play it like "He's completely the Master now; Bolivar is gone," then I'm gonna say Eichorst is better off just remaining what he is: an immortal sidekick with superpowers.

Nora was in a relationship with Wigged Ephraim. Bald Ephraim apparently does not acknowledge it.

I like what they decided to do tonight. Sure, I'd rather have had the the actor who plays Eichorst be the main villain than the giant floppy-lipped muppet we've been getting, but I'd have hated to lose Eichorst the character, because he's probably the most interesting villain on the show! Bolivar as a character isn't that bad, but he isn't that amazing either.He's carried more by charisma of actor than by deep, detailed writing. So using that actor to play The Master is kind of a net win for everybody.

Why does New Ancient Vampguy still have a nose? These rules are very confusing to me. Honestly, I still don't even understand why being blind would turn you into a weirdly-jointed daddylonglegs monster. Maybe deaf people turn into fire-breathing centaurs, diabetics turn into underwater cephalapods with bow ties and monocles, and people who for some reason feel compelled to carry giant bones around in their backpack turn into supervamps with noses that last forever.

On one level, I think he's more about maintaining the balance of power. With Eph gone, they're down one big strong guy, so a new one conveniently pops in. Could have been Gus, but he's taking forever. How many times now has he been specifically led to the main plot, only to get lost again? On another level, Fitz is the one person there who knows more about Palmer and Stoneheart's security than Abe does. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if Palmer is the first one to get his mits on the Tuxedo Ramen, only to get it stolen right out from under him.

I think you're on to something about how long ago the movie was made. Last week, I shrugged it off as "maybe the only copy of his movie he could get was recorded off of an old black and white TV." But it's in the original VHS tape box, so... yeah. The timing does look to be deliberate. I don't think he's necessarily eyeballing worm juice. He could be skipping the worms entirely and doing something with "the white." As far as his knee goes, maybe it wasn't just hurt too much to continue competitively with, but was completely destroyed! I'm not sure a rejuvenation actually fixes broken things that have already healed back wrong. Probably it just makes you a bit less crippled and a lot stronger, energetic and long-lived.

I love that they're calling the new whatsamathingies "spider kids." Spider Kid, Spider Kid! Does whatever a spider did! Eyes can't look? Look for Zach! Don't ask why his mom wants him back! Look out... here comes a Spider Kid!

Yes! The wig is dead! Now cut up that little shit you call a son and we've got us a show! ETA: You just cut off all your hair, but you're about to fight through a monster-war zone wearing a suit and tie?

Part of me wants to complain that"Angel" already did the "old luchadores fighting monsters" schtick, but let's be realistic. The only good things about Season 5 Angel were one episode about luchadores and one about muppets. The only thing about this show that I really honestly dislike is Zack, who only emerges from his trollcave for a few minutes a week. So, all things considered, I think "The Strain" is more than giving AtS a run for its money.

Yikes! Interesting point. Yeah... let's hope that sticking them into his eyes was only the second experiment that he tried...

Oh, that's right. I forgot about Bolivar's nose. So maybe it actually stays on for a while. Seems weird that the Ancients wouldn't have anybody older working for them, though. I mean, Eichorst is over a century old, if you include human years. There must be some reason for the faster turnover.

Hey, I just realized something. We never even learned why the ally-vamps still had noses.

So, when Abraham was digging into that giant plate of spaghetti, did anyone else think for maybe.. just like... a tiny fraction of a microsecond.. that he and Nora had figured out a way to really load up on wormpower?

How dare they kill Cool Awesome Commando Vamp and just leave us with Gus? All Gus actually does is run around hitting people. Although if once a week, in the first minute, he knocks out Zack for the rest of the episode, then I'm down with him staying.

I am hooked on this show. Can't believe I let it sit in my queue for so long.

Ar least if he gets turned we can stop typing all that "Zach 2.0" nonsense and start calling him Zacula.

Another character who should probably have his own thread. How old is he really? What is his origin? And, ultimately, what is his endgame? Does he want to put humans in livestock camps? Or does he actually want, as Abe has claimed, to wipe out the human race? Technically I suppose he could do that, and still eat other species... And most importantly, what do we call him? As I've said elsewhere, the worlds of fiction do not need one more more old bald vampire called The Master. So what is this one called? I'd have been fine with Sardu, but, alas, it is not to be. So... Whitefinger? Grossferatu? Daddy Wormbucks? I wish (early, season 2-4) Spike were in their mythos. He'd come up with a good nickname is about five seconds. easy.

I think they used blind children instead of blind adults because if you want to find a large number of blind people in one easy-to-control place, a school for blind kids controlled by Stoneheart Industries seems like the obvious place to go shopping. Plus, maybe there'll be a scene later on where some tall man in a hat and overcoat turns out to be three lil vamps in disguise. Maybe they could open the coat up like a flasher and have three giant tentacles shoot out.

I actually really like him and Twiggy together. Oh, I still hate her 90s-cliche anarcho-Sue character background, but the two actors do have chemistry. Mostly chlorine, after that poolsex, but, hey, chemistry is chemistry. So, since I still refuse to accept "Dutch" as a girl's name, I guess that makes me a "Figgy" shipper. Of course, he'd also be a better fit for Nora than Ephin' Eph is. And he's the only one who acts like they've plausibly become friends with Abraham! Seriously... what the fuck is wrong with.. almost everybody who isn't Fet?

I am now firmly of the opinion that Zach1 was better than Zach2. Oh, Zach1 wasn't good.But at least he was boring enough that if you weren't carefully watching him, you could just shrug, say "Well, I didn't tune in for divorce drama anyway; I tuned in for monsters," and go microwave a burrito without particularly noticing him. Zach2 is like if Season 2 Carl, at his absolute worst, decided he wasn't quite annoying enough yet... and hired Dawn Summers to give him tantrum lessons.

I love TGI Fridays jumping on the horror bandwagon, announcing their sponsorship of the episode with a good old fashioned "In a WORLD... where MONSTER want COOKIE..." voice.

All Eldritch Palmers really needs to know is that if somebody insists that you only refer to them as "Master," they probably do not consider you to be an equal partner. And no "Maestro" jokes allowed! Because there have actually already been two bald masters of the undead played by Mark Metcalf, and Lippy McHuge is not one of them.

Ninety per cent of them are just obsessively poking at their cell phones over and over again, waiting for communications to magically resume. That's ninety per cent of everybody. Ninety per cent of the police, ninety per cent of the National Guard, ninety per cent of the reporters, and ninety per cent of the crazies who have been hoarding AK47s and katanas waiting for the zombie apocalypse. So with only the remaining ten per cent out there, daytime scenes are understandably far less crowded than they should be.

Yeah... no thanks. I'll stick with Peter Boyle.

Any time you see a Jewish character fighting a Nazi who works for a superhuman bent on world domination, I think there are gonna be some Nietzsche references. Funny thing about Nietzsche- he was an atheist, but he wrote at length about preferring Judaism to Christianity, because so many of its stories were about actually rising up and overcoming adversity in this life, rather than just enduring it and waiting for the next one. After his death, it became fashionable for antisemites to ignore that part and pretend that he was a giant bigot just like them, but he wasn't. Anyway, once you get Nietzsche and vampires in the same story, there is one quote that is bound to come into play somehow. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. There's already been some discussion among other characters about just how dark Setrakian's soul has become. That alone would be enough to satisfy the "monster' part of the quote, but I think the payoff is going to be a bit more literal than that. My impression last season was that at some time in the past, probably not recently, but maybe like around 1980 or whatever he had "taken the white." It's worn off a bit, so he doesn't have Eldritch's obvious "Popeye strength," but he is in amazing shape for somebody over 90. Assuming that he's taken the white eliminates the question of "how?" and only leaves us with "why?" Did he do it on purpose with a blood sample, to kill more vampires? Did The Master do it by force, so he could keep him around to pick on while figuring out how to grow a mustache to twirl? Or was it an accident, as simple as getting sprayed in the mouth with some blood during a sword fight? There are so many ways it could have happened, and it does such a good job of explaining him seeming a quarter of a century younger than he is, that I am loathe to disregard this hypothesis. However... this season he is actually working with other high-level vampires against the Master, so from a narrative standpoint it looks more like they're building to him becoming part monster later on, rather than having it already be a done deal. The Watsonian in me says that he's already done the juice, and we just haven't gotten to that particular flashback yet. But the Doylist in me says it's not going to happen until right before another big fight with The Master.