With Game of Thrones ending it’s second season HBO happily moves onto a TV show that looks at hard hitting, real-world issues…That’s right! Vampires! True Blood is one of my favorite incarnations of vampires as it’s nowhere near as fluffy and sparkly as Twilight nor is it the overly metro/bi/homo/hetro-sexual vampires of Anne Rice. True Blood falls somewhere in the middle and throws in a crap load of other supernatural elements to support it’s ever growing cast of characters.
With HBO (and now AMC) specializing in the 10 – 13 episode story arc it feels like an eternity between seasons but True Blood finally returned to us in all it’s blood and gore covered, naked, fangy, werewolf growling, shape shifting, glory with the premiere episode of season 5: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Now is a good time to insert my blanket ‘SPOILER ALERT’ statement so I only have to write it once. All True Blood reviews and recaps from here on out will include vast quantities of spoilers. If you’re not okay with that then suck it! (vampire humor, not a sexual reference)
Old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and older vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) join forces after getting dumped by Sookie (Anna Paquin) and are captured by the Vampire Authority. They quickly escape and after a fair amount of bare ass sexual thrusting by Alexander Skarsgard (my wife was overjoyed and kept meowing at the TV) are again recaptured along with Eric’s vampire ‘sister’ (Lucy Griffiths).
To my utmost delight Tara (Rutina Wesley) was shot in the head at the end of season 4. In my opinion her character had run it’s course by season 2 and even making her a cage fighting lesbian in the last season did absolutely nothing to make her more interesting. Sadly Pam (Kristen Bauer van Straten) shows up as Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) and Sookie are mourning over her death and begrudgingly agrees to try turning Tara into a vampire. She gets buried along with Pam during the ‘changing’ process and the cliffhanger of the episode rested firmly on her waking up and attacking Sookie (which, let’s face it, is nothing new). Here’s hoping this makes Tara more interesting but I won’t hold my breath.
With HBO (and now AMC) specializing in the 10 – 13 episode story arc it feels like an eternity between seasons but True Blood finally returned to us in all it’s blood and gore covered, naked, fangy, werewolf growling, shape shifting, glory with the premiere episode of season 5: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Now is a good time to insert my blanket ‘SPOILER ALERT’ statement so I only have to write it once. All True Blood reviews and recaps from here on out will include vast quantities of spoilers. If you’re not okay with that then suck it! (vampire humor, not a sexual reference)
Old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and older vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) join forces after getting dumped by Sookie (Anna Paquin) and are captured by the Vampire Authority. They quickly escape and after a fair amount of bare ass sexual thrusting by Alexander Skarsgard (my wife was overjoyed and kept meowing at the TV) are again recaptured along with Eric’s vampire ‘sister’ (Lucy Griffiths).
To my utmost delight Tara (Rutina Wesley) was shot in the head at the end of season 4. In my opinion her character had run it’s course by season 2 and even making her a cage fighting lesbian in the last season did absolutely nothing to make her more interesting. Sadly Pam (Kristen Bauer van Straten) shows up as Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) and Sookie are mourning over her death and begrudgingly agrees to try turning Tara into a vampire. She gets buried along with Pam during the ‘changing’ process and the cliffhanger of the episode rested firmly on her waking up and attacking Sookie (which, let’s face it, is nothing new). Here’s hoping this makes Tara more interesting but I won’t hold my breath.
Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) finds the ever flamboyant and preppy Reverend Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian) at his front door and proceeds to get himself into trouble...again. Apparently the once devout leader of the anti-vampire cult now has his own set of fangs and really wants to plant them on Jason, but in a loving sort of way. Jason is saved again by Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) and their infatuation, or lack thereof (it’s hard to tell), continues later in the episode through an awkward game of Rock Band. Which begs the question: Do people still play Rock Band?
Every season of True Blood (except maybe the first) has a wealth of storylines that don’t go anywhere or seem needless and focus on characters that we don’t care about. This season it looks like shape shifter Sam (Sam Trammell) will be continuing the not-so-interesting story arc based around his involvement in the death of the local werewolf pack leader. While Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello) shows up at the end to make it a little more interesting and we find out that werewolves are cannibals it still doesn’t salvage Sam’s increasingly boring character. Other boring storylines include Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer) getting caught with his pants down and, in an unrelated incident, taking bribes from a local judge and whatever the hell is going on with Arlene and Terry. Sure it was fun when we thought they had a demon baby but now it’s just getting silly. There’s something dark in Terry’s past, yada, yada, yada. Let’s move on.
Highlights of Turn! Turn! Turn!:
- Eric using his vampire powers to clean up Bill’s office: As if the man didn’t have enough going for him already he goes and puts Mr. Clean to shame (yet again, my wife meowed at the TV)
- Lafayette shaved his head: For the past few seasons I’ve missed the old Lafayette who was confident and cocky and not terrified of his own shadow. The audience is momentarily led to believe that Lafayette is considering suicide but instead we find he was just thinking about shaving his head. This and the following altercation with Alcide show Lafayette returning to true form. I hope it sticks.
- Pam in a yellow jump suit: Priceless!
- Pam telling Sookie to use her ‘magic hands or her super snatch’ to fix the situation: Not sure how appropriate it is to use ‘snatch’ so my apologies to all those that take offense (and high-fives to all those who think it’s funny).
- Alcide growling at Lafayette: He’s a werewolf, makes sense.
- 39 mins and 49 seconds in, someone gets fed to something: This comes after a reference made to Russell Edgington’s escape from his concrete prison so maybe it’s him…or maybe it’s something else?
With so many rich characters I don’t fully understand why we continue to dwell on things like Arlene and Terry’s relationship and Andy’s fling with a fairy but I assume the writers know what they’re doing. True Blood returned to our TV sets with all the elements that made the show great and with Russell coming back as the villain I can’t see how season 5 can go wrong…famous last words?
I give Turn! Turn! Turn! 8 wives meowing at the TV out of 10 (points lost for not keeping Tara fully dead).
Every season of True Blood (except maybe the first) has a wealth of storylines that don’t go anywhere or seem needless and focus on characters that we don’t care about. This season it looks like shape shifter Sam (Sam Trammell) will be continuing the not-so-interesting story arc based around his involvement in the death of the local werewolf pack leader. While Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello) shows up at the end to make it a little more interesting and we find out that werewolves are cannibals it still doesn’t salvage Sam’s increasingly boring character. Other boring storylines include Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer) getting caught with his pants down and, in an unrelated incident, taking bribes from a local judge and whatever the hell is going on with Arlene and Terry. Sure it was fun when we thought they had a demon baby but now it’s just getting silly. There’s something dark in Terry’s past, yada, yada, yada. Let’s move on.
Highlights of Turn! Turn! Turn!:
- Eric using his vampire powers to clean up Bill’s office: As if the man didn’t have enough going for him already he goes and puts Mr. Clean to shame (yet again, my wife meowed at the TV)
- Lafayette shaved his head: For the past few seasons I’ve missed the old Lafayette who was confident and cocky and not terrified of his own shadow. The audience is momentarily led to believe that Lafayette is considering suicide but instead we find he was just thinking about shaving his head. This and the following altercation with Alcide show Lafayette returning to true form. I hope it sticks.
- Pam in a yellow jump suit: Priceless!
- Pam telling Sookie to use her ‘magic hands or her super snatch’ to fix the situation: Not sure how appropriate it is to use ‘snatch’ so my apologies to all those that take offense (and high-fives to all those who think it’s funny).
- Alcide growling at Lafayette: He’s a werewolf, makes sense.
- 39 mins and 49 seconds in, someone gets fed to something: This comes after a reference made to Russell Edgington’s escape from his concrete prison so maybe it’s him…or maybe it’s something else?
With so many rich characters I don’t fully understand why we continue to dwell on things like Arlene and Terry’s relationship and Andy’s fling with a fairy but I assume the writers know what they’re doing. True Blood returned to our TV sets with all the elements that made the show great and with Russell coming back as the villain I can’t see how season 5 can go wrong…famous last words?
I give Turn! Turn! Turn! 8 wives meowing at the TV out of 10 (points lost for not keeping Tara fully dead).
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