IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE NEW EPISODE DON’T READ IT!!!!

On of the most popular shows on TV returned last Sunday on the 11th. It was a long wait for the first episode of the new season. Social media was going crazy, and trailers were slowly being released to show us some bits of the new season. At New York Comic Con, the first 4 minutes of the new episode were released and all hell broke loose.

We last ended up in Terminus, The Walking Dead crew was split up and at the end of season 4 they all ended up in the same spot. Shit was about to get real, they found out Terminus was full of cannibals, and Rick told everyone locked inside the train car with him “They don’t know who they’re messing with.” These cannibals were monsters, they ate their own, and they lured people in by acting nice at first and then eating them, but they truly did not know who they were messing with.

This is the leader of Terminus, his name is Gareth. A little back story is, when the zombie apocalypse started out, Terminus was actually a sanctuary. But then everything went to hell, and they had to resort to cannibalism. It was revealed that Terminus was actually taken over, and all the women and men who originally ran the place, were locked inside a train car and the women were raped. They decided to help people, and in return were treated like animals.

If we decide to analyze these people using Carroll, we come to see that they aren’t monsters. It shows us that these people were forced into these impure actions. As I watched the show, I began to wonder whether it was their fault? Or can you be forced into being a monster as these people were? Or do apocalypses create monsters in all of us to survive?

The Strain is a TV show based of the book of the same title that was written by Guillermo del Toro. It involves vampires who are also known as Strigoi and someone called “The Master” who inhabits the body of Jusef Sardu. The show is about Dr. Ephraim Goodweather and Professor Abraham Setrakian along with a band of fighters who are trying to stop this from happening.

The Master and these other vampires lack noses, and have clawed fingers with grayed and hairless skin. The Master is one of seven Ancient vampires and is the reason for bringing the “virus” that turns people into these vampires. The virus is spread through these worm-like creatures, which are shown in the first picture. These worm-like creatures seep their way into your body through any entrance they can find, it also includes forcing their way through your skin without creating any holes or while being fed upon by another vampire. Once inside your body, you are done. It is a fast acting disease that is incurable and it manipulates your genes to cause rapid physical changes. Some of the helpers that The Master recruits only have physical alterations, but still seem “normal” to the eye.

For the vampires to “feed” a stinger will extend out of the mouth for up to six feet. In the case of The Master, his jaw also widens to something like the capability of a snake. The stinger will come out of the mouth and it creates a small incision in the throat or thigh of its victim, this incision is not visible to the naked eye. This stinger also acts as the reproductive system, by transferring these worms that infect the bloodstream while feeding.

To kill these creatures, the traditional weaknesses apply. The vampires are extremely vulnerable to sunlight, due to the ultraviolet light in the UVC range. One can also use a fluorescent lamp to repel a vampire. Other things that work are the class silver weapons, or silver based sprays. Conventional weapons will still cause physical damage. A third way to kill these vampires is to decapitate it or break the spinal column.

While I watch this show I come to wonder why the traditional methods don’t work, as crosses, holy water and garlic show no effect on the vampires. Another thing I wondered about was, if The Master was encountered before during the Holocaust by Professor Setrakian, why was he not killed then?