‘The Strain’ Season Finale Victim Talks Character’s Tragic Death

One of The Strain‘s main characters didn’t make it out of last night’s season finale alive and is ready to talk about their tragic fate.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Mia Maestro’s Nora Martinez was one of last night’s casualties (along with Lizzie Borchere’s Coco Marchand) during The Strain‘s season finale, taking her own life after becoming infected. After their train was derailed, Nora fought to get Zack (Max Charles) safely out of the tunnels of New York only to be stopped by the mom-from-Hell, Kelly Goodweather (Natalie Brown). In a noble attempt to do what was right, she stopped herself from killing vamp-Kelly in front of her son…unfortunately, Kelly doesn’t share those same noble qualities.

The vampire-formerly-known-as-Mrs. Goodweather lashed out at Nora, infecting her, resulting in the scientist choosing to take her own life instead of having Eph do it when he found her a hair too late.

See what the actress had to say to The Hollywood Reporter about her fate, which was very different than in the books.

On when she found out about Nora’s fate

“We knew around midseason, or maybe towards [episode] eight or nine. … I had a lovely conversation with [showrunner] Carlton [Cuse] and we talked about it. It was really sad, and we knew the character would be very much missed, but she had a lovely arc and life within the series. It’s great that she goes out in that beautiful, emotional and shocking ending.”

On Nora’s character progression since season one

“As a doctor she was trained to save lives, so the first part of season one, it was only a few days since The Strain had passed. She had a very ethical point of view on killing patients. And after her mother died she overcame that and was the first one to take care of those situations. You saw a lot more of the warrior and fighter in her. My dream for Nora was to become this extremely skilled fighter, like this incredible vampire killer. But somehow the writers and producers decided to have this more, stay-at-home kind of mom to Zach, and so in a way I’m just pleased that if that was the color that they wanted for the character, it’s nice her story ended the way it did. The show has a very aggressive, sci-fi kind of vibe that the audience loves, and there’s not so much room for an ethical character or a more humanistic woman, and that’s the way they had written her.”

On what it meant for Kelly to be the one to end up infecting Nora

“In a way. Nora had been a substitute mother for Zach the whole season, and of course everyone was just waiting for that fight between the two women. It does make sense and I think it’s lovely that Nora decides to take her life with her own hands and didn’t expect anyone else to do it. She knew Eph wouldn’t be able to do it, so it’s a lovely choice from the writers to go that way, just to lay her sword down on the tracks and go that way.”

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Maestro “can’t say anything. Anything.” about her “total surprise” of a Scandal role, which makes us all the more eager to see what drama she’ll be bringing to the series.

Photo Credit: FX