⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This post contains major spoilers for The Strain, including the series finale. If you haven’t seen it yet and still plan to, consider bookmarking this and coming back later. If you don’t intend to finish it, then read away without worry.
The Unfinished Story
Some shows we binge in a fever and never forget. Others we start, then drift away from, leaving them frozen in time like half-read novels gathering dust on a shelf. The Strain was one of those for me.
I devoured the first two seasons when it aired: the parasitic vampires, Guillermo del Toro’s grotesque visuals, the strange fusion of CDC outbreak logic with gothic horror—it hooked me. But somewhere along the way, I stopped. Life got busy. The pacing grew uneven. Other shows clamored for attention. And so The Strain became an unfinished story in my memory.
Until now.
Recently, I went back. I watched the final two seasons—the ones I had abandoned. And finishing The Strain after so many years felt like closing a loop, not only with the show but with my own tendency to leave difficult or imperfect narratives behind.
Parasitic Horrors as Allegory
The Strain was never just about vampires. It was about contagion, control, and fear of the unseen. The parasitic worms that transmitted vampirism weren’t simply a horror gimmick—they were biological invaders, organisms that mirrored real-world epidemics.
As someone who has spent my career studying infectious diseases, I found this allegory fascinating. The language of contagion—hosts, vectors, outbreaks, mutations—ran through every episode. The vampires weren’t mystical so much as pathological: a plague as much as a predator.
It’s unsettling because it hits close to home. In a world scarred by pandemics, The Strain feels less like fantasy and more like an exaggerated mirror of our anxieties. What if infection rewrote not just our biology but our will? What if a parasite could strip away humanity itself?
That’s what made the show so compelling for me, even when its execution faltered. It reminded us that horror works best when it blurs the line between the imagined and the possible.
The Flawed Beauty of The Strain
Let’s be honest: The Strain was never perfect. Its acting sometimes felt uneven, its dialogue occasionally stilted, its pacing inconsistent. Some plotlines dragged. Some characters were paper-thin.
And yet, there was a strange beauty in its ambition. Few shows dared to mix del Toro’s creature designs with CDC outbreak procedures. Few vampire stories leaned so heavily on parasitology, or dared to reframe an ancient myth through the lens of science.
Even in its weaker moments, The Strain carried an atmosphere that stuck with me. New York collapsing under parasitic rule. Humans scurrying underground, scavenging food and hope. The haunting image of worms slithering under skin.
Finishing the show now, I see it as less about flawless storytelling and more about mood, imagery, and allegory. Its strengths and weaknesses are inseparable.
Zack: The Child We All Loved to Hate
And then there’s Zack.
No discussion of The Strain is complete without addressing him. Zack Goodweather, the son of Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, is possibly one of the most hated characters in horror television.
From the beginning, he was irritating—selfish, naïve, prone to tantrums. But as the series wore on, Zack transformed from mildly annoying to infuriating. His betrayal in Season 3, when he detonates a nuclear bomb to protect the Master’s interests, remains one of the most rage-inducing moments in the show. A single act that doomed humanity further, done in the name of childish anger and misplaced loyalty.
Fans loathed him. I loathed him. Zack was the walking embodiment of everything you yell at the screen: Don’t do that. Don’t trust him. Don’t be so stupid. And yet, he did. Again and again.
Which is why his survival until almost the very end feels so wild. Out of all the characters—the noble ones, the tragic ones, the brave ones—it’s Zack who lives long enough to drag his toxicity through nearly the entire narrative.
And then, finally, he dies.
Why Zack’s Late Death Is Genius (and Maddening)
On the surface, keeping Zack alive until near the finale feels like cruelty. Why let one of the most universally hated characters endure while better ones fall? Why spare him so long, only to finally snatch him away when we’re already exhausted?
But if you think about it deeply, it’s almost genius. It subverts what we want from a story. We crave catharsis: the hated villain cut down early, the annoying side character punished swiftly. But The Strain denies us that satisfaction.
Instead, Zack lingers. He festers. He becomes a constant thorn, a reminder that life (and narrative) rarely grants us the justice we want in the timing we desire. His survival, long past the point of patience, mirrors how real-world villains often persist far longer than they should.
When Zack finally dies—at last—it’s not triumphant. It’s strange, disorienting. His death doesn’t feel like the climax we waited for. Instead, it feels like an aftertaste. A bitter note that lingers, reminding us that closure doesn’t always come the way we expect.
And in that sense, The Strain pulls off something oddly profound. By making us wait so long for Zack’s fall, the writers ensured we never forgot him. Our hate became part of the story. His death, delayed and unsatisfying, becomes a commentary on narrative itself: sometimes the worst people outlast the best, and when they finally fall, it doesn’t feel clean—it feels messy.
Finishing Stories We Abandon
Watching The Strain all the way through wasn’t just about crossing a title off my backlog. It was about wrestling with the discomfort of imperfection.
The show wasn’t flawless. Zack drove me insane. Some arcs dragged. But finishing it reminded me that closure has its own value, even when messy. Sometimes, we avoid endings because we fear they’ll disappoint us. But not finishing is its own disappointment—an open loop we never resolve.
The Strain, in its flawed way, reminded me that endings matter. Even bad ones. Even frustrating ones. Especially frustrating ones.
Because closure is growth. Finishing something—whether a brutal game like Silksong or a flawed series like The Strain—teaches us persistence. It reminds us that imperfection doesn’t erase meaning. It deepens it.
The Parasite and the Persistence
The Strain is not the greatest horror series ever made. But it is memorable. It left me with images I can’t shake, themes I keep thinking about, and yes, a character I will forever despise.
And maybe that’s the point. Horror isn’t meant to leave us comfortable. Stories aren’t meant to give us everything we want. Sometimes they frustrate us, unsettle us, leave us yelling at the screen. But in that discomfort, they leave their mark.
Zack’s survival, his delayed death, his sheer audacity to exist as long as he did—it’s maddening. But it’s also the kind of narrative choice that lingers. And maybe that’s what keeps us thinking about The Strain long after the credits roll.
Sometimes the parasite is not the monster on screen, but the unfinished story we carry inside us. And finishing it—however imperfectly—is how we cut it out and move on.
Zen Alpha Musings 