The fourth/final season of FX’s The Strain picks up 9 months after the explosive third season finale where Zack (Max Charles) learned that his father Ephraim (Corey Stoll) had killed his vampire mother. Zack, in a fit of anger, retaliated by setting off a nuclear bomb (as all kids would have done in that situation). The nuclear winter that resulted from this Illumination Day explosion blocked out the sun’s harmful UV rays, allowing the Strigoi to walk around in the daylight. The Master, in his new host body of Eldritch Palmer (Jonathan Hyde), now rules the city, and has an endless supply of blood, under the guise of a humanitarian effort known as The Partnership. As long as the humans continue to give regular blood donations, they receive free, comprehensive healthcare at the new Freedom Centers. However, many humans still do not trust the Strigoi, and live underground—and those fears are justified as The Master has much more sinister plans at work.

Our ragtag group has been separated. Ephraim is on his own, hiding out in Philadelphia, where he barters medicine and his services as a doctor to those avoiding the “free” treatment at the Freedom Centers, in exchange for fuel, and other valuable commodities. He still can’t believe the humans lost the battle, but he refuses to give up, and still hasn’t lost all hope of saving/reuniting with his son. Meanwhile, Zack lives in The Master’s penthouse lair in the Empire State Building. With the help of right hand vampire Eichorst (Richard Sammel), The Master is grooming Zack to be his apprentice, stoking his feelings of hate, and giving him a taste of power and death.

In Manhattan, Gus (Miguel Gomez) works as part of an underground resistance. He recruits younger cousin Raul (Michael Reventar), who works in one of the Freedom Centers, to help him get food and supplies for those in need. Meanwhile, Dutch (Ruta Gedmintas) has infiltrated one of The Partnership’s baby factories to get more info on The Master’s evil plans. However, the human face of The Partnership, Sanjay Desai (Cas Anvar), is starting to catch on to her. Dutch is also protecting Professor Setrakian (David Bradley), who is growing weaker every day. Meanwhile, Vasiliy Fet (Kevin Durand), Charlotte (Rhona Mitra) and hybrid Mr. Quinlan (Rupert Penry-Jones) are combing North Dakota looking for a missile silo, to obtain the warhead the professor needs to take out The Master and his Strigoi for good. But their mission is in jeopardy from more-human threats.

The fourth season of The Strain is a solid ending to the franchise. The third season was a bit of a misstep, but the time jump and re-booting that was done for this final chapter fixes a lot of what was wrong with that season (except for bratty Zack—he’s still the most annoying part of the series). It’s always good when series writers know they are going into their final season, because it allows them to ensure they answer the open questions and tie up loose storylines. It also gives them the freedom to kill off major characters where needed, to provide the most impact to the story. This final season does an excellent job in all of these respects. While the main characters are all off on separate journeys at the start of the season, we see the gang slowly come back together for the epic final confrontation. We see continued growth in the main characters, and also get some backstory on Mr. Quinlan, seeing how he came about, and why he is the way he is. This final season is quite enjoyable, with some interesting, unexpected twists and some really tense and action-packed moments. I really enjoyed watching the season over again—it works really well as a binge, and I was happy to see the series go out on a strong note.

Starting with the show’s third season, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment stopped releasing The Strain on both Blu-ray and DVD, opting for DVD-only releases. The picture quality of the DVD looks quite nice for the most part, especially in lighter scenes. However, there is a bit of aliasing in fast-moving scenes or those with detailed city backgrounds, and the picture is never quite as crisp and detailed as the show’s original HD airings on FX. On the other hand, the audio track sounds great, providing clear dialogue, and making use of the stereo and surround channels to bring the action to life in your living room.

The three discs are packed in a standard multi-disc DVD keep case. The third disc also contains over 40 minutes of bonus material, including 5 deleted scenes, a gag reel, a really fun group therapy session with the characters, and 26 minutes of behind-the-scenes featurette featuring interviews with the cast and crew.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (7:20:02)

• All 10 episodes of the fourth season
  “The Worm Turns”, “The Blood Tax”, “One Shot”, “New Horizons”, “Belly of the Beast”, “Tainted Love”, “Ouroboros”, “Extraction”, “The Traitor”, “The Last Stand”
• 480p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
• Closed Captioned

Extras:

• Deleted Scenes (7:56)
  Collection of 5 selected scenes that play back-to-back. There is no indication as to which episodes these were to originally appear in.
• Gag Reel (2:57)
  Starts with a full frame 1970s-style TV cop show opening sequence, and then moves into a more-standard gag reel fare of folks forgetting their lines, dealing with malfunctioning props, being interrupted by cell phones, cracking up, and having fun on set.
• Coping with The Strain: A Therapy Session (4:13)
  Easily the highlight of the bonus features! In this hilarious parody, series creator Carlton Cuse plays a therapist, leading a group-therapy session between the show’s main characters—Ephraim, Zach, Eldritch/The Master, Eichorst, Gus, Setrakian, Fet & Dutch—who confront the issues they have with one another.
• Inside Look (26:31)
  Collection of promotional featurettes that were released weekly as the season originally aired. Includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with executive producer / director J. Miles Dale, costume designer Alex Kavanagh, stunt coordinators Jamie Jones & Neil Davison, and stars Corey Stoll(“Ephraim Goodweather”), Kevin Durand (“Vasiliy Fet”), Ruta Gedmintas (“Dutch Velders”), David Bradley (“Abraham Setrakian”), Richard Sammel (“Thomas Eichorst”), Rupert Penry-Jones (“Quinlan”), Miguel Gomez (“Augustin ‘Gus’ Elizalde”), Jonathan Hyde (“Eldritch Palmer/The Master”) and Max Charles (“Zach Goodweather”). Play All, or select from:
  • First Look (2:26)
    A look at where the characters are at the start of the season.
  • Father and Sons (2:20)
    A look at the father/son relationships between Ephraim & Zach, and Zach & The Master.
  • Dutch and Setrakian (2:16)
    The cast and director talk about the relationship between Dutch & Setrakian in the final season.
  • The Mongrels (2:05)
    A look at the latest creature in the Strigoi’s arsenal, the guard dog-like Mongrels.
  • The Partnership (2:40)
    A look at the season’s costumes.
  • The Baby Factory (2:15)
    A look at how the vampires are harvesting the B Positive blood they need.
  • The Highway Battle (2:33)
    A behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the action-packed tractor-trailer chase scene.
  • Quinlan (2:41)
    A look at Quinlan’s origin story.
  • Stop the Master (2:23)
    A look at the character of The Master and his motivations.
  • Eichhorst (2:31)
    A look at the character of Eichhorst and his long relationship with Setrakian.
  • Finale (3:18)
    A look at filming the epic final battle, and reminiscing about all of the years spent working on the series.

Final Thoughts:

The fourth season of The Strain provides an exciting and satisfying conclusion to the series. It fixes some of the show’s third season missteps while also giving some interesting new character developments. The final season doesn’t hold anything back, and no character is safe when it comes to the final showdown. The DVD provides decent picture and sound, and contains a nice selection of bonus material. While I don’t think new viewers would appreciate the show by jumping right into the fourth season, this release comes recommended for fans of the series.