One episode later and, after an initially worrying first episode, it all looks so different. Can it be that True Blood has found its mojo again? This is all I wanted: character-driven storylines where character serves plot, not vice versa; bloody good writing and acting; and actually being about something, in this case with the return of Eric turning Hep B into a proper, functioning AIDS metaphor.
The whole thing is just a superb script, superbly shot, slowing down to deal with the interiority of its characters; what True Blood has always done best. We begin with a dream sequence in which Jason has sex with Eric (Eric is the bottom!) while Sam is a good mayor and all the characters we know and love are brilliant in handling a crisis which personally affects them as much as anyone. People can be magnificent. And then we have Vince, the epitome of small-minded bigotry, which is depressingly effective at whipping up a mob. People are great as individuals; as a group, less so. Consider 52% of my own country, for example.
Arlene, Holly and the pregnant Nicole are also heroic, in captivity and waiting to die as food but not giving up. Bon Temps is cut off but its population is good in an apocalypse.
We get a disturbing sense of the town's future of the neighbouring town of Saint Alice, its population entirely dead, and this made personal for us through the diary of an obvious parallel for Sookie. It's the apocalypse, but this is used as a jumping off point for character development.
The episode is triumphant, and the end, with Pam finding Eric in France, promises even more...
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