True Blood: I Found You

"Don't you try that NRA hillbilly shit on me!"

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...

True Blood: Jesus Gonna Be Here

"Your God and my God can get a hotel room and have a circle jerk for all I care - I'll be in hell, having a three way with the devil."

Meh. I know I started last season with a palpable lack of enthusiasm but felt things improved towards the end, but this feels worth. It feels like a show trapped in its own mythology, about nothing other than itself, plodding along with nothing to say about the world. Bon Temps is full of humans and vampires together bonded against Hep vampires and... that's it. There's a cool scene with Pam, and James has an interesting and druggy chat with Lafayette. Oh, and Tara dies.

Obviously Tara will be back, and soon. That would be a cheap way to kill a major character, just to liven up a dismaying my lacklustre season opener but... well, what else is there? Sookie and Alcide's relationship is fraying. Jessica is starting to connect, against the odds, with Adilyn, whom she is sworn to protect. Pam is in Marrakech hunting for Eric, who isn't in an episode for the first time in ages.

There's an obvious new villain in Vince, an annoying bigot. Jason finally gets to have sex with Vioket by acting domestic baby, as she's always secretly wanted him to. Lettie Mae and the Reverend Daniels seem to be more central characters, which is interesting. And Sookie's concluding speech is brilliant. But... I hope the season improves.

Grimm: Danse Macabre

"Guess they're going to face the music."

"You went there!"

I really liked this one. A hardcore techno DJ as the pied piper: what's not to love? We get a potent mix of gabber, glow sticks and whatnot mixed with scenes of grinding poverty and some nice social commentary on the bleak life chances of those born into it. Social inequality is an insidious and terrible thing. It's the first time we get something like this with Grimm, and I appreciate it. It's appropriate, too; the original story has hints of squalor (the rats) alongside apparent glamour. But the glamour that Roddy enjoys as Wretched Cat is a transient thing, happening in underground, one-off raves. There's a marked contrast with the world of privilege and elite culture evoked by the violin lessons; Roddy gets a glimpse of another world but his expulsion confirms his social exclusion.

This one is much more story-of-the-week: there's not an awful lot of arc stuff going on, aside from our mysterious lady's seduction of Hank! But it's gripping, socially aware and well constructed plot-wise. This is my favourite episode so far by some distance.