True Blood review: Whodunits and whatnots

Hello everyone! Monika has the week off from reviewing True Blood, so I’m taking over. Which, yes, means we’re now at about the seventeenth person who has reviewed this season on NWN. We all want to stop watching but can’t bring ourselves to! (Okay, not true, I only speak for myself.) As is the usual with some of my reviews, this could get pretty long, so I’m sorry in advance.

When season five of True Blood began, the reviews seemed split pretty evenly: either reviewers loved this season — or they absolutely hated it. The reasoning behind it sometimes being twofold: some people want more substance in True Blood, and others are fine with the insane soap opera with pornographic scenes that it is. The former are just kidding themselves, and the latter are right on the money. No, True Blood is not a metaphor for the minorities who are treated unjustly in our backwards society. It’s just a show that contains vampires and other folklore and sometimes they have insane sex. Cool. I’m totally down with that. It’s what I signed up for back in season one.

At this point, however, I don’t even know what’s going on. It took four installments for me to finally like an episode this season. It took just two more to label it as an incoherent mess. There are such an insane amount of characters on this series, all with their own storylines, spiraling down into an abyss of nothingness, that it’s hard to care. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic that every, single character gets his or her fair share of screentime and development. (And I very much appreciate the lack of love interest drama that bogged down the previous season.) That said, there are so many of them that it almost feels as if nothing happens in any given episode.

And because of that, I can’t seem to invest so much in anything. “The Obamas” story could have been a fascinating whodunit if it didn’t last for about two episodes. And to pinpoint it on someone who just popped up again in the previous episode (and a character we saw the backside of?) just felt anticlimactic. The authority is about as entertaining as a doctor’s waiting room. And I mean that as an extended metaphor (simile?) because all they do is dillydally around in their headquarters and talk about a war on humans without ever actually doing anything. (Except for their hilarious high-as-kites field trip. Even then, where are the consequences to this? Has no one talked about how an entire restaurant of people was wiped out? Why did we open this episode with a Tru:Blood factory burning on the news and not the fact that SERIOUSLY AN ENTIRE RESTAURANT FULL OF PEOPLE WERE MURDERED?) The Ifrit was a fantastic way to see into who Terry is, but were we not just over it by now? Obviously, a series regular is not going to die. This is True Blood, where only the guest stars die, which is sort of the problem. No one thinks anything has weight because we know they’re not going to die. If the show can’t kill off universally disliked Tara at the perfect opportunity… come on. (That’s not to say I don’t like Tara; I love Tara, but that’s me and I’m weird apparently.) Tara and Pam (which is amazing) only ever stay in Fangtasia and bitch at each other (which again, is amazing, but it’s beginning to feel claustrophobic). Never mind the fact that all of this could have great substance if they were satirical, but the show basically uses these moments to be shocking and nothing more.

However, this episode did offer a glimmer of hope: brining all of the plots closer together. Where it appeared that everything was veering off into its own universe, now they’re finally converging — and I hope that means only one thing: full on war. Vampires are going after humans, humans are going after shifters, and werewolves are…high off V. But still, it appears to be promising, if anyone will ever get the hell out of whatever room they’ve been in for nine episodes. Seriously, beyond mass murder, these people have been in The Authority HQ since ever. Geez. And now, shifters might just have been outed (thanks to a being video evidence of Sam shifting from a pig).

In that sense, this episode was mostly transitional to get to that point. Everyone appears to have chosen a side: Sookie is set on finding out who killed her parents; Martha completely realizes that her pack is poisoned; Tara and Pam have grown enough to be equal forces against the new king; Bill is team Lilith; and Eric thinks he’s batshit crazy.

Speaking of, I don’t exactly know why or how these vamps are “seeing” “Lilith.” I know that some theories have circled that the blood they tasted was faerie blood, but hasn’t Bill tasted Sookie? It seems that that would have come up before. The most eccentric part of this is that Bill has always, to me at least, seemed as a being that completely loathed his own species. He even, begrudgingly, took the seat as king — but he had little respect for it and most vampires’ outlook on life. Perhaps this new him is an avenue for him to hate himself less, or perhaps he or whatever he’s seeing just wants to obliterate the human race and therefore vampires? (If they don’t control themselves, they’ll be out of food soon enough.) I only bring this up because Eric (who tried to get out but now we’re all STILL stuck in this Authority place…can we just see outside one more time PLEASE?) saw Godric, as well. However, if he doesn’t believe that Lilith is real then Godric surely wasn’t as well, it was only a figment of their inebriated mind. Could Bill be subconsiously driving himself down a road to doom? Am I thinking too much for True Blood?

Meanwhile Sookie, who has always battled with whom she is (or rather what), is figuring out newfound abilities. Being told and shown that her parents died because of what she is surely didn’t let her like what she is any more, but I hope that the end of this arc allows her to find peace with the fact that she is a faerie — besides, it’s only saved her ass so many times. In a world full of supernatural beings, being human isn’t much better. Just look at what it made The Obamas do.

She wants out of all of it, but that’s just not going to happen. Being “normal” in the True Blood world doesn’t negate everything that’s happening; it sort of just makes you a sitting duck. If for nothing else, she should accept her microwave hands by now.

Beyond that, this episode was also extremely comical. Goodness knows why Lafayette is cheerful again after losing his boyfriend and, arguably, his cousin, but whatever. I’m not complaining.

Highlights:

• Luna naked-fighting The Dragon. Thank you for this scene, everyone who was involved. Thank you.
• Andy: “No, the President of the United States isn’t actually in Renard Parish shooting and kidnapping people.”
• We’re all sort of really enjoying Russell and Steve, right? Okay, good.
• Emma is like the cutest wolf ever, please don’t tell me I’m the only one who thinks this EVERY TIME.
• I hope that naked extra got paid…well, um, extra.
• I demand a seriously demented Bill sex scene at least once every season. Neck-twisting, now bloody hallucination, next needs to be gruesome death during the act or something. Basic Instinct style, y’know?

What were your thoughts?

Image credit: SpoilerTV