- It’s True Blood. We all committed when it was first out and loved it so hard. It deserves closure.
- I’m watching it anyway, so I might as well make it entertaining by writing a snarky recap.
If you are planning to watch True Blood at some point or are DVRing and slightly behind (like me, obviously, posting this way after the premiere), know that all recap posts will contain spoilers. Like “Dumbledore dies at the end!” type of full blown spoilers. So it’s your fault if you didn’t want to be spoiled and you read my recap. I’m aiming for Tues/Wed, but unlike GoT sometimes it’s hard to feel compelled to watch True Blood the exact minute it begins airing.
Formalities completed, let’s begin!
Character Drives Plot
This age old adage (Aristotle coined it) doesn’t always apply to genre fiction, but it ALWAYS applies to HBO shows because they are novelized. WTF happened to True Blood and why is it just not that good now? The change happened in Season 4. Instead of letting Sookie’s grief and anger at Bill for pretending to love her in order to help the queen of Louisiana (and then become king himself) be the driving factor of the opening of that season, they force her into this whirlwind of unrelated and unestablished battle events with the Faeries. It’s hard to care about anything because we really don’t know what is even going on, let alone give a crap about any of the faerie characters who will later play quasi-important roles. There were better ways to show all of this, and it’s not even “on book” so they had the freedom.
Nothing else in that season was driven by character, not even Lafayette’s story (the only compelling thing), which was driven by some ghost/witch thing taking over his life. And Eric’s story… wouldn’t it have been nice for Sookie and Eric to come together on their own terms once her morality limits had bent to be inclusive of murderers? Eric cares for Sookie, always has, and she always has had an attraction to him. So why the hell did he have to lose his entire sense of self in order for her to love him? It wasn’t even believable and it could have been a million times better if it happened of its own accord in due course.
The bottom line is: Don’t give us tons of plot without the characters pushing that plot into existence themselves. Otherwise, we don’t have any emotional stakes in the characters and therefore do not care what happens to them. True Blood lost its focus season 4 and became a plot-driven instead of character-driven show. And now it sucks.
Previously on True Blood…
Fast forward to this season… we’ve just come off season 6, which didn’t absolutely suck, but could’ve been lacking entire plotlines (like the werewolves whole story (other than getting Luna’s kid back), which literally had no point by the end of things). Then at the very end, instead their escape from the research facility prison being the finale, they were all “1 Year Later!” and all the things have changed. The contaminated Hep-V blood has become full fledged in the vampire world, causing the humans with clean blood to be a rare commodity (um, what happened to the production of True Blood? Did this obvious caveat ever get explained?). Sam’s the mayor, Arlene bought Merlotte’s and made it Belfleur’s instead, and Sookie is shacking up with Alcide now. We end the finale with Sookie, Alcide, and Bill having a fight (eye roll) and they smell the oncoming Hep-V vampires coming to bust up the clean blood party.
Not surprisingly we pick up immediately after that moment when the party is undergoing vampire attack. Someone calls them off finally and we’re left with the aftermath of a massacre. Sookie is taking shit in, hears wailing crying, and we know Tara’s dead. A minute later it is revealed that Tara’s dead. All the characters are sad and I’m like, “Who the hell cares? We haven’t had any character development of Tara since season 3. Why the hell do any of you CARE?”
And that was how this season began. A major character died and I gave zero craps.
Sookie Does Stupid Things for No Reason, Again
THEN the rest of the episode is spent with Sookie being stupid for no reason because she’s a Pouty McPout. Post-massacre she can’t block out everyone’s thoughts, and everyone is blaming her for what happened (WHY?! THIS MAKES NO SENSE!!!!!!!! Calling her a fang banging slut does not give logical conclusion to her being the reason for a massive Hep-V Vampire Attack massacre. Do better, writers).
So, essentially she overhears Alcide thinking, “I wish she would’ve just left town when I said we should. Then we wouldn’t have had to deal with this.” Instead of reacting to that with rational emotion, Sookie heard, “My girlfriend is a fang banging slut who should’ve left town in order to drag the vampires with her. SLUT! I HATE HER!” Um, no. That’s not actually what he said, Sookie. So, of course, she thinks it’s a swell idea to go walk home at night alone despite just witnessing a massacre and all the Hep-V vamps not being dead or accounted for, at all. Good call, Sookie! Now just don’t throw your cell phone into the woods when Alcide calls to see where the hell you are. Oh wait, you just did that… Wow, good job, Sookie! I hope you get eaten to death for your stupidity.
Of course we weren’t that lucky.
Her and Alcide have a big fight and he smartly leaves her alone and goes to bed. Finally she comes to bed, sleeps naked now, and my husband is all, “Do you want to have sex with Alcide?” and I’m all, “Yeah, he’s super hot” and my husband is all, “He’s a Penguins fan.” Sadly, this information, which I already knew about Joe Manganiello, was more interesting than the scene.
Town Members Are Angry, You Should Care
So, Jason, who’s a cop now remember, gets back to his pad post-massacre with his vampire lover whose name I forget (he said it in the episode too, but I don’t remember… Violet, maybe?) and four townspeople are there all angry at him for a being a crappy cop and not going on the hunt for the people who were taken by the Hep-V vamps during the massacre. This scene is in there for no reason at all. The only thing that happens is that four angry people with guns leave and Violet threatens to kill them all and says they have small dicks. Cool! Finally it leads to Jason feeling so emasculated by a thousand year old vampire because she’s a woman who has authority (see: thousands of years old vampire, Jason) and this turns her on so they have sex. On the hood of the cop car. In the middle of the road in Bon Temps. Like, WHAT?! Hep-V vamps prowling the streets at night and you’re gonna have an explosive sex sesh a broad nightlight? Gratuitous nudity included. Ryan Kwanten still delivers as the Wonder from Down Under, guys 😉
Speaking of hot Australian dudes playing Louisiana hicks, Nathan Parsons (who plays Jackson the werewolf king in The Originals) has replaced the actor from last season who was playing James, Jessica’s new lover/boyfriend thing who she met in the research facility prison. Looks like we’re gonna get to see gay lovin’ for sure this season with James and Lafayette, who had one of the only two compelling scenes in the entire first episode. (see: Character drives plot) Basically Lafayette is NBD about Tara dying because she’s already died before on him and basically his life is big pile of shit since his sexy nurse was murdered (by him, while he was possessed by Aunt Petunia). As they share the bong, James tells him it doesn’t matter and then launches into his backstory as a draft dodger of Vietnam. Seriously guys, I’m so glad that they chose to go off book and let Lafayette live past season 1, because Nelsan Ellis can CARRY a show. LOVE HIM.
The other compelling scene came in the form of Pam. She’s on the hunt for Eric after he peaced out Shreveport life and we saw Alex’s penis in the snow as he burned alive. Uncircumcised Reminder:
Pam’s standing in a bucket and playing triple dog dare you Russian roulette with some dude in Morocco. Fun times in the marketplace, guys! Anyway, her dialogue is the best. Nothing happens, besides her getting a lead on Eric’s whereabouts, but her line about how “his God and her God can meet in a hotel somewhere and have a circle jerk for all she cares” was just so very Pam, it was refreshing. #BecausePam
Looking Ahead
This episode was “setting up plotlines” except that I’m pretty unclear on any plotlines other than Pam’s. Everyone else has the same plotline at the moment: Don’t get Hep-V, don’t get taken by a vampire with Hep-V, don’t die by starving, and let’s go find the clean blood humans of ours that the Hep-V vamps have taken. Again, why doesn’t clean blood via synthetic blood production exist now? This season’s premise has more plotholes than a Steven Moffatt Doctor Who episode!
As long as the stupid and entirely unfounded “Sookie is a big slut, so this massacre and the entire vampire species coming to an end is 100% totes her fault because she’s a slutty slut slut slut” concept goes away IMMEDIATELY, we should be able to pretend to care about the people on Bon Temps not all dying. Otherwise, let them die. And stop saying the word “slut” every fifteen seconds, people! SERIOUSLY.
Last season Sookie attempted to save her vampire friends from the research facility prison, which actually if Bill had helped her in a more timely fashion, might have in fact resulted in Hep-V not getting created/released from the facility. So, Sookie is not to blame. People who hate vampires are to blame. Please move on from this theme.
As you can tell, I’m really committing to this despite my better judgment. At least the naked men are still hot.
Did you watch the True Blood premiere? What did you think? Are you also finding yourself not wondering where anything is going because you actually don’t care about the characters any longer because they haven’t given them individual plots and stories since Season 3?
