I've been enjoying FX's The Strain quite a bit. It's by no means brilliant television, but it's pretty gripping and moves along nicely and treats vampires as, well, vampires (instead of sparkly sex puppets or oh-so-boring, walking, talking, screwing AIDS metaphors*). Plus, there's Guillermo del Toro's monster design and the fact that, for a TV show, it's just really well shot (the scene from which the featured image is taken was amazingly lit, tossing off just the perfect shade of menace).
The show, thus far, has followed the travails of CDC agent Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll), who is trying to figure out why a plane in New York City landed with a belly full of dead folks. As we quickly realize, but he and his fellow agents are slow to understand, it's not a disease at all but a vampire attack. And things are going to get much worse before they get better.
Not helping things is the bureaucracy. Ephraim's boss at the CDC is more interested in staying out of trouble than figuring out how to stop whatever's afflicting New York City. "So what do we do now?" asks Ephraim's underling Nora (Mia Maestro). "We do nothing! This is no longer about disease control. It’s about damage control," the CDC boss says. "And as of this moment, the CDC is an interested observer and nothing more."
The one person who truly understands what's going on—a Holocaust survivor named Abraham (David Bradley)—has no patience for such timidity. When Nora suggests, as the CDC head did, that perhaps the military is at fault for the loss of the airplane's passengers, Abraham snaps: "Do not be so easily distracted. He thrives on human self-interest and bureaucratic complacency."
We see that bureaucratic complacency, that self-interested striving pop up several times in this episode. For instance, health inspector Vasily (Kevin Durand) tells his boss that he's gotten a week's worth of rat calls in a single morning, to which his boss tells him that his first job will be to visit a residence at the request of the mayor. "I got an elementary school, a hospital, and a church. You want me to go to this guy first?" Vasily asks. "He's a hedge fund manager and a major contributor," Vasily's boss replies. "So yes, you will go there first."
Later in the episode, CDC agent Jim Kent (Sean Astin) threatens to reveal some information he has about the outbreak. But a Nazi Vampire who also happens to be ensconced in a major pharmaceutical corporation convinces him to hold off on doing anything rash: he can get Jim's sick sister into a FDA trial** for a promising new cancer drug. All Nazi Vampire has to do is make a call. And all he wants in exchange for making that call is Jim's soul.
If horror, as a genre, reflects the concerns of its age, then The Strain is the horror show for our anti-crony-capitalist moment. The vampire may be our villain, but bureaucratic bumbling and the mixing of business and government gives him the cover he needs to do his wicked work. People are concerned about the influence of the wealthy on the levers of power, the unholy alliance of big business and big government, and governmental incompetence in times of crisis.
*Seriously, True Blood. You've always been a bit pedantic, but this season has been as subtle as a ... totally ... unsubtle thing. I can't even come up with a proper metaphor. Think Hiroshima, but even less subtle.
**I'm extrapolating a bit here; I can't remember if the FDA is explicitly mentioned. But, given that such trials are mandated by the FDA and the FDA does everything it can to restrict access to potentially lifesaving drugs it has yet to approve, I feel comfortable making this connection.