True Blood: Karma

"There are some woodpeckers moving into my frontal lobe..."

It's the day after the party and Alcide is still dead, the world is still a hard place and Bill has Hep V. It's quite the hangover.

The direction is superb from the start as Eric and Pam fall into the hands of the Yakuza and the mysterious "Gus". Meanwhile Lafayette and Lettie Mae go on a V trip to find Tara, Bill realises that, without a Vampire Rights Act, he has no rights to bequeath his property as he wishes- a clear reference to the injustice of a situation (true in many US states in 2014) where gay couples could not marry. Still, at least he gets to kill a symbolic homophobe.

And Violet, knowing that Jason is cheating on her with Jessica, is desperate to please him, changing her tune fast as she says that she is his and dresses up to give him a loving blow job. You feel desperately sorry for her, blunt and brutal though she is. But it isn't enough, and when Jasin goes running again to Jessica she is howling with rage and despair. It's over.

Gus has an interesting chat with Eric and Pam, albeit one conducted under very formal circumstances; the Yakuza Corporation has lost face with the tainting of Tru Blood. They, like Eric, want Sarah dead and there is, for the moment, a confluence of interests. 

Elsewhere, Andy goes hilariously mad at finding Wafe in bed with Adilyn, and the shouting match between him and Holly is no less funny, the whole thing being both written and played for comic relief. And Nicole announces that she's had enough of Bon Temps and she's taking her pregnant self off home; is Sam coming? It's quite the ultimatum.

The most heartbreaking moment is when Sookie realises that, not only is Bill irrevocably dying with Hep V, but he got it from her. Ouch. No wonder the two of them are growing close once again.

Amber and her annoying sister Sarah aren't getting on well at all. That is, until it turns out that Sarah is the cute firHeo V and Amber isn't going to die. This is, to put it mildly, something of a turning point for the season.

We end with Sookie and Jessica crying over Bill's illness, but not before Violet finds Adilyn and Wade and takes them away. What is she planning?

Another superb episode, needless to say.

True Blood: To Love Is to Bury

"You are the worst maker ever!"

The penultimate episode, and (SPOILERS)... the last shot confirms it's Rene who's the killer. I wasn't exactly sure it was him, but he was heading up my suspect list by this point. 

But so much else also happens this episode. The increasingly disturbing relationship between Jason and Amy continues up until it's violent and unexpected end, but she was always a wrong 'un; there's a very clever moment when Amy states that "What we have- it's beautiful" as the camera lingers on the bloody mess that is what's left of poor Eddie.

Tara seems to reach rock bottom here, arrested for drink driving. Sookie, meanwhile, is distracted from Bill's seemingly permanent absence by investigating all the murders and using Sam as her Watson, something which she finds oddly and endearingly enjoyable. It's a very interesting love triangle, and one with three very well-developed corners.

Lafayette gets a moment of awesomeness as he gets to skewer the state senator he's been sleeping with for his crude homophobic and anti-vampire electioneering- but it's interesting how the series seems to simultaneously show that the normal state of affairs for vampires is to be evil, yet to oppose them is to be prejudiced and socially conservative. I'm not sure that this binary opposition quite works.

Jessica turns out to be unexpectedly awesome; far from the appalled, Christian, innocent little girl she seems to be, she's overjoyed at being a vampire and the prospect of glorious revenge for her life of abuse. Go Jessica.

The worst thing to happen in this most eventful of episodes, though, is Lettie Mae. Never mind the number of times her daughter has bailed her out, she refuses to do the same for her daughter out of sheer arrogant hypocrisy, all as part of her performance at being a devout Christian- and performance it is. I hope she gets her comeuppance. She's the worst person in this series. Poor Tara. She's homeless and abandoned... but, when all seems lost, she's saved and taken in by the mysterioysMaryann. Who is she? What does she want? This is nicely done: as one season ends, the seeds of the next are sewn.

Things return to the status quo by the end, as Bill returns and Jadon is attested yet again. But only we are privy to the killwr's identity. Will he strike again? This is the best and most masterfully crafted chapter yet. Season finale here we come...

True Blood: I Don't Wanna Know

I'm "I used to scratch your butt in the parking lot at the bar!!!"

A theory: are all the episode titles the names of songs we hear during the episode?

Anyway, we begin with what could be described as an awkward conversation between Sam and Sookie. He's a "shape-shifter", apparently. Werewolves exist too. They're bad. He's really sorry for not telling her sooner etc. And, of course, Tara doesn't know. Awkward.

Meanwhile Tara goes through her expensive and horrible, horrible exorcism and Amy explains to Jason that her psychopathic tendencies towards vampires are perfectly fine because "I am an organic vegan, and my carbon footprint is minuscule. So that's all right then.

Things get worse for Tara: she discovers that, yep, the "exorcism" was indeed all a scam, but the placebo effect appears to be working for her mother. What to do? It's a realistic reaction from a multi-layered and very relatable character. I love Tara.

Bill's "sentence", it now seems, is to kill and turn a teenage girl called Jessica- and she's played by none other than Deborah Ann Woll, she who plays Karen Page in Daredevil. Another superb instalment.

True Blood: Plaisir d'Amour

"There's vampire in your cleavage..."

Apparently Bill is in trouble with Eric, "sheriff of area 5", for killing Longshadow while saving Sookie, which means he has to go on trial and stuff. This is dodgy. Why are vampires on the cusp of legality and civil rights of they presume to operate an entirely parallel legal system? If I were Sookie then I would simply tell Eric that, if he has a problem, he should simply call the police- and, if he doesn't, call them herself. Simples.

Ok, perhaps realistically that wouldn't help now, I grant you, but the State simply can't tolerate this in the long term.

Meanwhile, Amy and her himbo bitch Jason are keeping Eddie in the basement, milking him for blood like a cow while they have trippy hippy sex. Tara is being treated little better, beating charged $800 for some deeply unpleasant quack "exorcism". Oh, and someone has killed Sookie's cat when she gets home. So, you know, all sweetness and light.

But, as the series is nearing its end, things inevitably get worse. Tara dumps Sam out of nothing but self-loathing. Eddie tells Jason his life story, and it's a tragic one: it's clear that vampires, as a minority, can be a metaphor for sexual orientation rather than race and, tragically, Eddie stillhasn't embraced his true self as a vampire. And now it's too late.

We end with a big reveal- that dog that's been hanging around the bar is in fact Sam. Wow. Wasn't expecting that. This sublime series has such a capacity to shock and surprise.

True Blood: The Fourth Man in the Fire

"I don't think my boyfriend likes silver!"

Yeah, this is another good episode, let's just say that straight up. A lot of it consists of Amy's and Jason's trippy relationship, full of good sex, good drugs and bad vibes, especially when Amy gets Jason to help her kidnap Eddie, the rather docile vampiric source of Lafayett's supply, so they can presumably use him as a V-Juice cow until he dies. Lovely.

Bill isn't dead. Quelle surprise. And he makes quite an entrance. Cue lots of sex and a happy Sookie. Poor Tara isn't so happy, with her mother having swapped hardcore addiction to drink with a hardcore addition to religion, which she is pushing on to her daughter with appalling aggression. Poor Tara isn't having an easy time of it, and manages to mess up her ambiguously sexual relationship with Sam. Poor Tara.

We end with Sookie being summoned to (groan) "Fangtasia by the mysterious boss-man Eric, "sheriff of Area Five", who uses her to find out who's been embezzling money off him. She finds out who, but only at the cost of a perilous cliffhanger...

Oh, and a prediction: one of either Arlene or Rene will die before the wedding.

True Blood: Burning House of Love

"I don't know how to be with somebody."

An episode about relationships here as, in an interesting contrast with Buffy losing her virginity to Angel, Sookie's post-deflowering relationship with Bill continues to develop realistically and nicely, to Sam's increasing annoyance. Well, until Bill's apparent death, that is. Meanwhile, Jason gets together with the superficially nice and hippyish Amy, whose tendency to quote Crowley and desire for a good-looking but thick partner she can manipulate set alarm bells ringing.

Sookie spends much of the episode on Cloud Nine until Bill's apparent death (much as we, the viewers, know damn well he's not really dead), so much so that she's happy for him to, we, feed on her every day. There's a dark side to this, though; Bill has no qualms in simply killing Sookie's paedo uncle. It's clear that vampires have no respect for established legal structures.

The exorcism is weird, creepy and, if not being carried out by a black person, would constitute a vaguely racist mockery of West African Animist customs. But I suppose that's the point; the descendants of slaves are so alienated from their own Bantu cultural heritage that vaguely racist stereotypes are all they have. Poor Tara has to foot the bill for this nonsense and you just feel more and more sorry for her. And then the quack in question starts aiming a particularly nasty hard sell at Tara, whose wise scepticism is sadly undercut by her lack of self-esteem. Poor Tara.

There are only so many ways of saying, episode after episode, that this is brilliant television. But it is.

True Blood: Sparks Fly Out

"Excuse me, who ordered the hamburger with AIDS?"

Bill has weird musical tastes, which makes sense. The older you get, the more open-minded you become, and the less tolerant of MOR chart fodder crap. I like him more and more. The highlight of another excellent episode, however, is Jason demonstrating to Lafayette exactly what happened to his penis without anaesthetic by means of a sausage. Er, nice. At least, for balance, Lafayette gets a scene later on where he deals magnificently with a homophobe.

This episode focuses on the talk given by Bill, a former Confederate soldiers, to a disturbingly large number of people who seem to think that supporting said cause is in some way not blatantly racist. No wonder Tara feels so uncomfortable. And no, I still don't understand why Americans don't treat people like this as traitors but, well, it's their country, not mine. Bill gives a good speech, anyway.

Interesting to see some myths dispelled, too: vampires can enter churches, touch crosses, appear in mirrors- this is a much stripped down and secularised take on the vampire myth. But the bigger revelation is how Bill was turned into a vampire, against his will and because of the very integrity that drives him today. His tale is truly tragic: his forced separation from his wife and children is simply unimaginable.

Poor Tara continues to suffer from her unfortunate crush on Jason, an absolute slut who, V-Juice or not, inevitably betrays her with the first girl he comes across. Tara is a deeply sympathetic character, but so are so many others. 

A brilliant episode. But, just when it seems the stakes can't get any higher, Sookie suddenly finds her frandmother's viokentky murdered corpse...

True Blood: Escape from Dragon House

"I got gout of the dick!"

Dawn being dead isn't good for Jason: it seems that the last two women he's slept with have been murdered. Oops. Understandably the local constabulary are raising the odd eyebrow and there is much gossip in Bon Temps, particularly from a rather unpleasantly nosey aunt. Worse, Jason has to swallow all the V-Juice in the back of the police car for fear of being caught with it, and much of the rest of the episode consists of the delightful details of what this does to his cock. Still, at least he and the lovely Tara get to bond a little over his intense genital  pain. Still wouldn't want to be him though, although for the first time in my life I have to praise some wanking acting.

Still, Sookie and Bill are having "fun" at the vampire bar Fangtasia (groan), where we first meet the old any mysterious boss's vampire Eric and his strangely sexy underlying, Pam. There's also an interesting chat between Sookie and Sam which makes explicit the thematic parallels between vampires and black people on this, the Deep South. Race is foregrounded as a theme as Sookie points out that Sam is supporting "separate but equal". Meanwhile, Bill is pulled over in his car by a cop because of his race. We've got plenty of time to see if this theme develops much. We have vampires, black and white characters, the complex legacy of the 1861-65 War of Secession and so many apologists for the slaveholders, like Sookie's grandmother.

We also get flashbacks to Tara's childhood and her abusive, alcoholic mother. Poor Tara. It's a compliment to all involved that I'm getting so attached to these characters.

This is one addictive series; I'm actually on episode nine as I write...