True Blood: Brought to You By the Letter "F"

Let’s talk about the word f**k.

No doubt, it’s a hot button word in our society. A curse word of the highest order (though I can think of a few that are a little bit worse), yet most adults use it multiple times on a daily basis. It’s expression of surprise (“What the f**k?”), anger (“F**k you!”), and even passion (“I want to f**k you so hard.”) Eskimos may have many words for snow, but we have one word that we use interchangeably for almost everything. And yet, we’re not allowed to use that word. Or at least it’s frowned on by common society.

There’s one other crucial aspect of the word f**k that we haven’t talked about yet: it’s a pretty funny word. Specifically, it starts with a soft sound, and ends with a hard one, almost like a setup and punch line in four short letters. Not only that, but the hard sound at the end is a “K,” one of the two funniest letters in the English language*.

Anyway, at this point, you might be asking, “Hey Alex! What the f**k does this have to do with True Blood?” Well, I’ll tell you, angry cursing reader who I can read the mind of: True Blood is elevating the word “f**k” into a whole new art form.

This occurred to me about halfway through last night’s episode, when I realized that half of the lines that make me laugh out loud enough to write down in my notes for this – and really, any episode of True Blood involve some take on the f**k. Take, for example last week. After a tense, exciting teaser, ending with a cliffhanger involving sexy vamp Eric swearing he won’t help our heroine Sookie, we cut to credits. Then, immediately after credits? A close up shot of Sookie, who exclaims, both exasperated, annoyed, and terrified, “Eric, what the F**K?” It’s a laugh out loud moment, defuses a lot of the tension, and is a perfect counterpoint to the scene before.

This week, we got three brilliant uses of the word, again, all with different meanings:

1) Lorena, chomping up a storm on Sookie’s neck, says, “You’re delicious!” to which Sookie immediately responds, disgust in her voice, “F**k you.” Again, a hilarious counterpoint for the tension of the scene, defused with two simple words.

2) After Alcide shoots and kills Debbie’s fiancée, her reaction of stark disbelief was, “Oh my god. Oh my f**king GOD.” Again, the emphasis on the second phrase amps up her reaction, and raises the stakes of the whole scene. In fact, it’s the first time we really get a good sense of her character, and how much – beyond V addiction, that Cooter meant to her. Cooter, the character, not... You know.

3) Most of the cast standing around Sookie’s bed, telling her, “I f**kin’ need you,” followed by Lafayette, always the voice of reason, saying, “C’mon y’all, stop cussin’ at her, we’re gonna figure this out.” Again, a way of cutting through the tension, but the repetition of the phrase raised it to hilarious levels, juxtaposed with the hospital setting, and possible death of our main character.

Okay, just to sum up, point is that I often wonder whether the writers of True Blood are in on the joke, that they’re writing what boils down to an eminently silly show, with vampires exploding, naked wolves running around, and generally some of the most purposefully dumb characters on television. By raising the use of the word f**k to near Shakespearian levels, I’m going to fall on the side of, “Yep, they know what they’re f**king doing.”

Random Notes:

• Vampire death continues to be gory and ridiculous. I love it.
• Where exactly do you buy human sized birdcages from?
• It was nice to see Pam again in quipping mode, but I’m going to miss the Magister. Maybe he can get a job on the next season of Heroes?
• I'm curious... Those of you don't know what Sookie is, because you haven't read the Wikipedia entries - sorry, I mean, the books - what did you think of the little reveals about her powers last night?

*The other one is “P,” making “pickle” the funniest word ever**.

**No, I’m not joking.