Previously on True Blood: While I was on booth duty at Comic Con and dancing with Mohawk Guy from NASA for four seconds (my big celebrity moment this summer), some juicy stuff went down in Louisiana. A bunch of people I didn’t really care for died, a new batch of Tru Blood was poisoned, Sam selflessly gave Emma back to her legal next of kin, Alcide stopped being a dick for five seconds, more zany flashback wigs, and Sookie got horizontal with Benlow in fairy limbo.
After all that excitement, this week was still exciting. Except for Sookie. Dammit, Sookie, you have officially plumbed the depths of just being the worst this week.
I didn’t care for Terry’s death. It’s not that I didn’t wish someone would take his storyline out back and shoot it, but it happened in such a mean faux-Whedonian way, I couldn’t really feel bad. However, last week’s episode was definitely one of the best of the season and I’m sorry I wasn’t here to recap it. While Arlene is one of my least favorite characters, Carrie Preston is really a great actress. She did a great job portraying Arlene’s drunken grief and the scene when Bill showed up at her house, in the daylight, to offer his condolences (and some not-so-thinly-veiled threats at Sheriff Bellefleur) was an excellent and too rare example of a bunch of characters in different storylines coming together and reacting to one another. Bonus points for brief appearances from Portia and Arlene’s red-headed little girl. And Eric’s fake split ends.
SOOKIE
I mean, just look at the face she’s making.
So as not to leave a lingering bad taste in a reader’s mouth, Sookie sucked and was boring this week. Okay, she very nicely told Bill to go fuck himself, but beyond that, it was all lame soliloquies n’ tears. That scene had more power than… Bill throwing a dish. Progress. But, yeah. We all know Sookie is genetically unable to be single for more than eight hours, but sniffing around Sam as some sort of backup option for her life choices was beyond messed. I really hate her for that. Honestly, if she’s going to be such a codependent wuss, she may as well be an all-powerful fairy princess vampire bride for eternity. Why would she balk at that? Maybe it is her destiny. Benlow is creepy and needy, too. They’re perfect for each other.
I’m glad she mentioned Niall. Please, please, please let Niall return at the eleventh hour and save everyone with his fearsome head of hair. Because I still can’t believe Rutger Hauer was wasted like that.
JASON
Once again, Jason finds himself the helpless prey of an obsessive woman. But at least it’s not in were-panther rapey territory. Yay? Where exactly did Violet come from? She’s kind of a thin Minor Bad, but I guess they need some more tension in the prison population. I’m feeling kind of meh about her and his story. True Blood is sort of the master of the story retread.
JESSICA
She’s cool and all, but I really wanted to just take a moment to appreciate the hotness of her not-rapey new lover, James. (Why does everyone in her storyline have a J-name? Variety is the spice of life.) Wow, he’s super hot. Please let him stick around and cause all kinds of sexy tension next season.
THE BELLEFLEURS
Andy’s always such a scene-stealer. He really does get some of the best lines. “I would seriously love for this conversation to end.” Not as good as “PIG!” but I’ll take it. Funny that the first scenes inside of a funeral home take place after Alan Ball has left the show. I kept expecting Nate Fisher to interject with some Rumi poetry to diffuse the situation. I’m glad Lala didn’t keep the real nature of Terry’s death to himself. With two million on the line, he couldn’t. Moreover, it’s good to see a character actually sharing crucial info with another.
Poor, ABCD (not typing her whole name out). Like it’s not hard enough keeping skeevy boys out of her pants, this girl will always be vampire bait, too. If Andy could get any balder, now would be the time. As we get closer to the end of the season, I wonder which characters will make the cut. I’m sure we’ve not seen the last of ABCD getting into trouble. Andy, to his credit, handled it remarkably well. I expected him to go into full on anti-vamp rage. Maybe after Terry’s funeral.
SAM
Sam has finally shifted into a man with some testicles. (Fertile ones at that.) Good on him for telling Sookie off. Again. There was a time, way back when, when I wanted Sam and Sookie together. Before he got all creepy about being Friend Zone’d and when Sookie was still likeable. Hilarious how Sookie finally showed up at work at the absolute worst, most awkward moment ever.
Nicole’s kinda dull, but I really like the actress playing her, so I guess I’ll follow where this is going. Sam’s kind of a dog for moving on from Luna in like, three days. Emma who?
ALCIDE
Just wanted a beer all along. Still a jerk. Not letting your (former) pack kill some humans still doesn’t get you off the hook for a season of jerk-ery.
THE NEWLINS
Holy shit. That was one of the best chase scenes this show has ever done. I mean, I was rooting for the True Blood lady because she’s got spunk and cunt-punted Sarah Newlin. This. Show. That was all kinds of ridiculous and awesome. And nicely creepy at the end. The kicker was Sarah’s relieved “Thank you, Jesus.” And the fact that all of this was after she had made her ex run on a giant hamster wheel. I’m so glad Governor Whathisname is dead so Sarah could step into the spotlight.
Steve, on the other… what an ugly cryface he has. It was like the perfect approximation of a Greek tragedy mask. Too funny. But I think I now hate Steve for cruisin’ James and getting him in trouble with the Dreadfort leaders.
PAM
Had “oozy but productive” sex with her creepster shrink. Her and Tara are kind of in a holding pattern this season. Tara has even less to do than her maker. I’m hoping Eric makes good on Nora’s dying wish that he takes care of his progeny. Pam needs more story. It was going well ’til she got incarcerated.
ERIC
Okay, so he drank an underage teenage half-fairy and Warlow. I think Warlow will live, right? So now what? Storm into the Dreadfort and kill them all in bloody Spartacus style, I hope. But he’s only one vamp.
BILL
Bill is a stone cold motherfucker. Kinda gotta admire his new Billith “Haters gonna hate” style of talking to people. It’s at least interesting. And good for a snicker because, come on. It’s Bill. He hasn’t done much besides hang around his mansion all season. His plan confuses me. So he gives his vampire friends Warlow’s blood so they can withstand the sun. Is that supposed to be permanent? And by the time he breaks into the Dreadfort to administer the blood, won’t he just be able to kill all the human captors anyway, thus making his plan pointless? Seems like a temporary solution to a much bigger problem.
The biggest problem with True Blood, renewed for a seventh season, is that there’s no announced end-game in sight. This season’s been pretty good, but unless the human-vampire war really plays out on a bigger stage, no one is playing for high stakes anymore.
Next on True Blood: Eric goes apeshit. Do we need more than that?
True Blood airs Sundays at 9P.M. E/PT on HBO.
Theresa DeLucci is a regular contributor to Tor.com, covering True Blood, Game of Thrones, and gaming news. Follow her on Twitter @tdelucci.
i don’t know which was harder to take. sarah newlin beating tamlyn tomita to death with a spiked stiletto, or those identical twin vamps having blurry sex with eachother. the state has reached hitler levels with that one. what exactly are you gonna understand having a man rape his own brother?
nicole’s mom was killing me with that “silver fox” slam. why are they taking their time leaving town? going to sleep? booking flights? I would have taken sam’s truck and made for the stateline all over again. she knows these people are actual werewolves. and ornery ones, too.
(You’re back! I actually had to resort to reading elsewhere for my True Blood review. Semi-tepid at best.)
See what happens when you give a character a decent storyline? She comes out a’blastin! I got new love for Arlene and her lines lately are crackin’ me up. “I want carnations!” I have a feeling she and her brood may be on their way elsewhere, beyond Bon Temps, now that Terry’s dead and she’s about to come into some serious moolah. Her guilt’s gonna eat her alive. (Unlike many, I liked Terry’s character and was sorry to see him go.)
Sarah and Steve were awesome. Loved the human/hamster wheel. You just know Steve’s gonna bite (no pun intended) it, but I have a feeling Sarah may stick around if for no other reason to torture Jason. I’ve got this hankerin’ idea she’s preggers with the Gov’nor’s baby, but is about to claim it’s Jason’s kid. And he’s so good-naturedly putzy, he’ll believe it although it’s only been about 3 days since their rendezvous in the romper room making it zero possibility he’s a baby daddy.
I much prefer the bad-ass Sookie to the desperate, no-one-loves-me Sookie. I swear her confidence drops ten fold whenever she hooks up. I hope season 7 has her losing some of her emotional baggage and kicking some serious arse.
Despite a ho-hum start, I’m really diggin’ this season. Thus far, pretty darned good. Didn’t see that coming.
I love Anna Camp, she should just play every creepy female villain from now on. I know it was wrong of me, but I just giggled during the whole fight scene.
I wasn’t surprised that they killed Terry. They’d more or less run out of anything for the character to do a couple of seasons back, and I suppose it was better for him to die than to have to do another “trash baby” storyline. The character deserved better from the show than he got, though. If nothing else, he deserved a better death. If they were going to kill him off, they should have had his death mean something, maybe that he was killed saving Andy during an attempt to attack Bill in grief-stricken revenge. He should have died saving somebody, though, and since he and Andy were always particularly close, it probably should have been Andy. Terry was all about saving things, as witness the armadillo, Felix. (You’d be surprised how many people said, as a first reaction to Terry’s death, “But what’s going to happen to Felix?”–a question they still haven’t resolved.)
Andy hasn’t reacted much to Terry’s death, which you’d think he’d want to brood about or mourn in some ceremonial way, perhaps going out to their old childhood fort; maybe he’s still in shock over the slaughter of his fairy daughters. I find it unrealisic that he lets Bill off the hook for that as easily as he seems to here, even in the face of Bill’s thinly veiled threat
Too bad Arlene hadn’t come up with her vampire-memory wipe plan a few months back, maybe after Terry killed his friend. It might actually have worked. It also strikes me that there would be a big niche in this world–or would have been, before all the vampire-human war stuff started–for vampire psychiatrists who could at your request selectively wipe unpleasant experieces from your memory.
Sookie seems to have developed further magic powers rather easily, now being able to teleport herself to Fairy Limbo anytime she wants and bind things with her light. I like her harder-assed attitude, particularly toward Bill, although I agree that her half-hearted propositioning of Sam was a dick move, and I’m glad that Sam told her off for it. Sam, Lafyettte, Andy, and Jason are about the only good-hearted, well-intentioned characters left in this show, now that Terry’s gone, although I agree that Sam fell desperately in love again with remarkable and somewhat icky speed after having the former love of his life die only three or four days before. My guess is that his new love isn’t long for this world either, though.
I think they’ve noticed that the fan reaction to the “Alcide is now an asshole” line hasn’t been good, and they’re now backpeddling.
One thing I hadn’t noticed the first time I watched the show from two weeks ago that stood out the next time, is that the Anti-Vampire Police seem to inject all their recruits, including Jason, with Hep V to make them infectious to vampires. If Jason has been injected with Hep V, that means that not only is Violet toast, but that any further romantic involvement with Jessica will be impossible. Speaking of whom, I found her whole reaction of “I don’t want to escape from Dacau, I want to stay here in the death camp and fuck some guy I met once for five minutes” totally unbelieveable. And that she would then fuck him with her ex-boyfriend standing out in the hall outside the door! So Jason put his life in grave danger for nothing, Jessica, unbelieveab ly, is not going to co-operate with his attempt to break her out of there. My respect for the character went down considerably at this point.
I found the whole Sarah Newland chase and murder with a shoe scene absurd rather than exciting, and I hope Sarah dies at the end of this season. Her ex-husband too.
They’ve given Tara almost nothing to do this season, and I think she may not be long for this world either.
@3 It was effing hilarious, especially if you’ve ever gotten your high heel stuck in the sidewalk grate above the subway. You knew what was coming the moment she stepped onto that platform. Take your heels off! Run back to your car, not into the vampire prison! Call 911, not the FDA! Stupid, stupid.
Anna Camp doing anything on this show is like a breath of fresh, blasphemous air.
I thought that Eric extreme grief was sort of wasted on Nora, a character that was only introduced last season and had really done nothing to earn grief from the audience over her departure, it really should have been Pam instead, a charcter who has earned that degree of grief from Eric and who has earned the grief the audience would feel at her loss–but then Pam would have had to die. It’s clear to me that Nora was a stand-in for Pam, to allow them to show Eric grieving without having to kill Pam off, although logically it should have been Pam that Eric was that emotionally invested in. Since I’m okay with them not killing Pam, though, I’ll accept it.
what about these four vamps not being willing to take on violet and protect jason? ridiculous! pam backing down? i know she doesn’t care about the stackhouses but he’s tara’s friend. and tara was a cage wrestler – prevamp. she must have some good moves. jessica was scrappin’ with werewolves a few seasons back. plus, jason is ‘hers.’ and this new girl is at least spunky.
i think andy is now sufficiently motivated to murder the daylights out of bill compton and all other local (county wide) vampires. also, he should maybe tell adeline that vampires can smell her like a fresh-brewed java and she isn’t safe out at night.
ditto everything gardner said about jessica. she’s making no sense lately.
Actually the whole show is not making much sense lately.
Sarah’s chase and gleeful delivery of a stiletto to a head seemed campy in the worst sort of way. Maybe it was the speed ramping, or… I don’t know. They could have made her psychotic in a scary way, rather than play for laughs.
And don’t get me started on Jessica.
Might be time to turn out the lights and close the door.
Well, during the Big Stiletto Beat-Down I was laughing instead of being scared or in suspense or even shocked, which is probably not the reaction they wanted.
They’ve been smart enough to keep the show moving along pretty fast every episode, a relief after last season, but a lot of the characters don’t seem like themselves anymore, and are acting in ways I can’t believe that they’d act in. New writers, new showrunners–probably inevitable.
Among things they’re never going to mention again, and will paper over by blazing through episodes really fast: What was up with Jason’s ghost parents, how Sarah Newland was able to expell Jessica from Jason’s house, what happened to Niall.
As the show’s entire run has been written and produced before the first episode of the new season runs, viewers’ reactions can’t be taken into account in the current season. Next season, yes, perhaps, but for the season current.
@11 Zorra, Thank you for beating me to the punch on that point. Viewer reaction to the current season has zero effect on the episodes we are watching. They finished taping and editing them before airing. However it is likely that they knew what the reaction to his character would be so built in a change to ease the audience back into liking him.
Sookie. Her character doesn’t bother me as much as it does eveyone else. Aside from the fact that she has lost what seems to be an unhealthy amount of weight, I can understand her characters motivation. As campy as the show can be, the characters have some depth and aren’t perfect. Going to Sam and teasing him with that “I always saw us getting together” line was an asshat move, but at the same time I can understand what motivated it. It wasn’t real. She was just checking to see if there was a human connection left to her. Sam and her could never work. He’s just not her type. I loved her graveside speech. Watched it twice actually. This path to becoming a fairy vampire has been coming for awhile, she’s just only now coming to terms with it.
The chase scene was terrific, rediculous, absurd, and suited the show and character perfectly. I was fully entertained and wouldn’t change anything about it.
Question. If HepV affected Nora the way it did, then why is it taking so long to affect those vamps in gen pop? And why even bother with the pretense of doesing the trueblood? Why not just infect all of the vampires they have. Why take the time to seperate out those who refuse to drink it. Does hepV in smaller doeses take that much longer to kill? Or does it neuter the vamps in some way?
So everyone in the world knows that vampires exist, and people still go out into the middle of the woods and make out? One of them being a half fairy? How has no one told this girl it just isn’t safe for her out at night…period? That part was stupid.
Theresa how about doing write-ups for the episodes you missed while at comic-con? Would still like to read them.
As I’ve said before, Sookie is the glue that holds the show together, and if she left, I don’t think the show would last very long. Walt Kelly answered the complaints that Pogo was the dullest character in the POGO strips by saying the same thing: he’s the glue. In fact, I think an argument could be made that the show ought to center MORE around Sookie and she should get more screen-time. Especially in the first season, it largely did center around Sookie, and the show was the better for it, but as they added more and more characters, things got more diffuse, and the show suffered a bit.
If I’m right about the Anti-Vampire Cops having injected Jason with Hep V, Violet ought to start showing symptoms pretty soon. And yes, there would be far easier ways to kill the captured vampires off than trying to trick them into drinking contaminated True Blood. How about a flamethrower, for instance? Or you could just inject them with it. I’m not sure that the whole Vampire Death Camp thing really makes much sense anyway, if you squint at it. And even if the Governor’s plan worked, it wouldn’t get rid of all vampires everywhere, just vampires who happened to drink the contaminated True Blood, probably in the vacinity of Louisiana. Vampires who didn’t dain to drink True Blood at all but continued to feed on humans, probably including the most bad-assed of vampire, wouldn’t be affected at all.