Last Night's True Blood Was Back on Track

See, that’s what every episode of True Blood should be like. Not that last night’s episode wasn’t without it’s faults, but given where we left all the characters on their various cliffhangers, my general feeling was, “Holy crap, what are we going to do for the second half of the season?” And that’s a good thing.

So where did we leave all the characters? Tara finally escaped from Franklin’s clutches, after caving his head in with a mace. Sookie found Bill, only to – maybe – be killed by Lorena. Bill was tied up and sucked dry, almost dead. The King of Mississippi had finally convinced the Queen of Louisiana to marry him, with the help of a conniving Eric. And some stuff was going on with Jason, Sam, and Lafayette, but who cares?

Point is, last night was gory, bloody over-the-top fun, and that’s just the way we like our fangbangers. It probably helps that the episode was written by Alan Ball who has never been subtle in his writing... Everything he’s ever done has been broad to the maximum amount allowed by the medium, while still having a cheeky good humor to it. The cast clearly responds to that type of writing – everyone was on their best form last night, gleefully spitting out ridiculous line after ridiculous line, totally hamming it up like they were performing in Vaudeville.

I understand that some viewers (say, Emmy viewers) might be pissed off about this kind of thing. “My show about vampires and werewolves trying to take over the world is super serious!” they’d say. But for me, I say more fun is more fun. Having watched this, and the season premiere of Being Human back-to-back, I have to say, though Being Human is probably the better crafted and more nuanced vampire/werewolf show, True Blood – at least this week – was a lot more fun to watch.

Let’s keep up the pace, folks.

Random Notes:

• “Eric, what the F**K?” – Best line reading ever from Anna Paquin, and maybe the best cut back from credits of all time?
• “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but shut up.” If they kill everyone on the show but Eric at the end of this season, I may be fine with that.
• This probably deserves a little more discussion, but it occurred to me halfway through the (excruciatingly boring) Jason Stackhouse sex scene that True Blood is kind of written like some sort of writer’s jam. Nancy Oliver started writing that scene last week, and Alan Ball picked it up this week. And generally, that’s how they write this show, given that some “scenes” continue for episodes at a time. Must be an interesting challenge.
• ..,.And while we’re on the subject, “Jason Stackhouse” and “boring sex scene” never belong in the same sentence, but that’s where we’ve been going for the past two seasons. Right the ship, people.
• If a vampire must kill another vampire, that vampire must be chained up in the most dramatic writing possible.
• Question: How do vampires grow hair? At this point, Eric cut his hair once, and Franklin shaved, so it must grow back, right?
• I immediately cringed when Tara’s storyline started, but between her biting Franklin, and then bashing his head in with a mace, this amped up dramatically.
• There has never been a more on-the-point observation than Russell’s husband telling him, “Deep down, my darling, you’re a very weak character.”
• If Bill Compton was a Pokemon, his name would be “Sookie.”