Moment of Goodness: Setrakian and Fet Meet Quinlan, The Strain “The Born” 

[Warning: spoilers for tonight’s episode.]

Setrakian’s initial meeting with the Ancients a few weeks back was part bewilderment, part fear, and part, “What the hell have you been doing all this time anyway?” It was interesting that he kept that under his hat and didn’t tell anyone else on the team that they existed.

Tonight, the jig’s up, as he and Fet meet Quinlan in an unintentionally hilarious scene as they go look into one of the building locations Reggie gave them, and find the creepy lair/dirt nursery of the Feelers plus evidence that they are a bunch of turned blind kids.

Setrakian isn’t as rattled by that as Fet is, but then they’re descended upon by a few of the kids and as Fet’s telling Setrakian he’ll save two bullets for them just in case, Quinlan calmly saunters in and annihilates the Feelers as brutally as possible, slicing and dicing and spraying the walls with automatic weapon fire. Then he’s all cordial with “Hello, professor,” leaving Fet fairly dumbfounded.

Setrakian asks who he is and he tells him he’s Quinlan, in liege with the Ancients, and that they’re on a shared mission to hunt the Master. He gives Setrakian his version of events on the backstory about the Master’s current human form, and Setrakian’s sword. Then he gives him the good news that he mortally wounded that form, forcing The Master, for the first time ever, to ditch his body and grab another one. and, bonus round, he’s also led Quinlan to the nest. He boogies off to go find him, and Setrakian tells Fet to get the bombs because they’re going to bring the building down.

Fet’s thrilled to have something to blow the sh-t out of, so he sets the charges, and unfortunately, successfully drops the building on The Master, Eichorst, Quinlan, and Setrakian, before Quinlan can get close enough to The Master to take him out. He and Setrakian survive but The Master and Eichorst get out alive, and Quinlan is super unhappy. He tells Setrakian the fight from here on out is his (the “take your ball and go home” is strongly implied.) Meanwhile, Fet’s still wanting answers about what the hell they just saw and did.

Setrakian has a lot to explain. He goes home to read up on Quinlans’ mythology, and shares what he finds–that indicates Quinlian is millenia old–with Zach but not Fet. That’s OK for now, though because Fet’s dealing with fallout from Dutch finding her girlfriend and bringing her back to his house (awkward).

Second teeny MOG was Fet stepping to a snarky Eph and towering over him and Eph could only recoil into his scotch. I so wanted Fet to growl, but I did laugh when he just patted Eph’s chest and told him to finish his drink, and then retreated to the bar to commiserate with/take advice from him (NO).

I’m intrigued, and I think I know what the story will be on Quinlan (no spoilers/haven’t read the books). We’ll see if I’m right. If I am, Setrakian needs to let Quinlan have The Master and be content to bear witness. I did love the weapon-happy Fet envying Quinlan’s armory, but still holding a gun on him because he couldn’t reconcile a seemingly sentient Stroigoi-ish ally.  How long will it be before we see Fet upgrade his own hardware?

The Strain airs at 10/9c Sundays and repeats tonight and throughout the week.