‘The Strain’ Season 3 Recap: What Happened In Episode 5? ‘Madness’ Saw Setrakian Forming A Surprising Alliance

With only a few more episodes left on FX’s “The Strain” Season 3, episode 5 began after the events of episode 4 in which Councilwoman Justine Feraldo was attacked by a strigoi bomb orchestrated by The Master’s Nazi lapdog, Thomas Eichhorst. Fortunately, Feraldo didn’t get infected by a worm and Quinlan emerged from the showdown with his father alive.

So, what happened in episode 5? “Madness” saw Setrakian (David Bradley) giving an update on the spread of the infection in major cities. Germany, Washington, D.C., India, Africa and other places around the world were slowly but surely becoming new homes to the infection. New York had, so far, managed to hold its ground, but for how long?

Eph And Dutch’s Experiments

While the world becames The Master’s playground, Dr. Ephraim Goodweather/Eph (Corey Stoll) and Dutch Velders (Ruta Gedmintas) were busy finding out how the strigoi leader communicates with his minions. They play chess in a park in Brooklyn in order to capture a few vampires and conduct experiments on them.

The pair take these bloodsuckers to the lab. While Dutch is busy sleeping after their outing, Eph is busy finding the center of the strigoi’s nervous system. The good doctor learns that a mass of grey worms located inside the brain are what make the strigoi tick. It’s in these mass of disgusting worms that they communicate, make decisions and follow The Master’s orders.

Dutch swears off noodles after seeing this mass of worms tucked inside a strigoi brain. When she heats some coffee for her and Eph, the doctor notices that the mass of worms responds to the microwave. Is the magnetron inside the microwave activating the worms? Is that how The Master transmits signals to his army?

Eph and Dutch put the theory to the test – They leave a strigoi locked inside a cage and use a magnetron to prevent it from picking up the key inside the cell and freeing himself. Unfortunately, the vampire’s signal only gets blocked for some time. In the end, the strigoi frees himself and Eph puts a silver bullet in him. They are back to square one.

A Flashback Of Setrakian’s Past

Quinlan (Rupert Penry-Jones) and Setrakian are growing increasingly frustrated with the Occido Lumen’s metaphors. The half-strigoi suggests that instead of using photocopies of the book, they should decipher the text within the actual book.

Setrakian concedes and bring out the Lumen. Together, they try to crack the metaphors between the text. While doing so, fans of “The Strain” Season 3 are taken to the professors past.

A flashback of a brothel in Amsterdam in 1972 shows a young Setrakian meeting a woman so that she can arrange a meeting for him to sell the Lumen to a man named Kruger. The professor suspects that this Kruger is none other than Eicchorst.

When Setrakian arrives at the time and place for the exchange, he discovers that the man he would be selling a fake Lumen to is not the Nazi lapdog but a man named Kruger (Nigel Bennett).

Setrakian removes the fake Lumen bound in silver and Kruger realizes it’s a fake before even touching it. Furious, he brings out his stinger. Setrakian straps the strigoi and ensures that the sun will kill him. But he quickly changes his mind when he stumbles on a torture chamber inside his house.

Full of rage, the professor decides to torture the stroigoi. He hacks his limbs off and stuffs his body in a trunk. Then, he throws the trunk at the bottom of the ocean.

Fet Discovers A Shocking Secret

“The Strain” Season 3 also saw rat exterminator turned strigoi hunter Fet (Kevin Durand) tagging vampires and finding out where their new nest and Master is. It’s clear that the bloodsuckers are entering the safe zones, but how are they entering them if Feraldo (Samantha Mathis) cleared all the underground tunnels? Well, they are making new tunnels.

Fet discovers a nest of thousands of sleeping strigoi below Central Park. He takes this information to Feraldo.

Quinlan And Setrakian Finally Make An Exciting Discovery

Setrakian makes an educated guess that the book has taken an extra precaution to ensure that no vampire learns of the way to defeat The Master. He goes to the roof and holds the Lumen against the sun. The text reveals that the way to defeat The Master isn’t combat, it’s imprisonment. His body and the crimson worm must be trapped in a sarcophagus made of lead and silver. This ensures he can’t leave the box nor communicate with his army. Now the only question is where to find the strigoi leader. What body is he inhabiting now?

An Unlikely Alliance Is Formed

The surprising discovery in “The Strain” Season 3, episode 5 leads the professor to summon Stoneheart CEO Eldritch Palmer (Johnathan Hyde). A sick Palmer is desperate for the formula for the white and knows his usefulness to The Master will soon be diminished. Setrakian agrees to give him a regular dose of the white if he finds out whose body the leader is inhabiting. They shake hands.

Elsewhere, Feraldo decides to hit the Central Park nest with everything they’ve got.

Episode 5 also saw Eichhorst and a new associate, Sanjay Desai, waiting for an important shipment.

“The Strain” Season 3 airs Sundays at 10 p.m. EDT on FX.