Next Year - Season Finale in a Foundry
You'll have to excuse my lateness. It wasn't slackness, it was actually injury. It was Father's Day here in Australia on Sunday, and I cooked Mr. Minty potstickers. You can't buy these delectable little parcels of deliciousness in Australia - not that I've found. And we both fell in love with them on a trip to Los Angeles. All was going well until I deep fried the tip of my ring finger while crisping up the first batch. Goddamn my finger hurts when I type. Wince for me every time I press the SWX keys....fuck that hurt. It's times like this that I wish I was one of those chicken peck typists and not a touch typist. Book post is up here.
Russell the Paper Tiger
Well, that was the least amount of fanfare ever. No building tension - they ruined it by not having Eric give Russell shifty eyes across the room all season. Having Eric kill Russell seems like a lame cop-out honestly. Particularly since I don't believe that Eric would have been hovering around looking for Sookie to see what had her worried. This just seems to be pandering to the Eric/Sookie shippers in the most phone-it-in way. *sotto voce* It seems to have worked. Those chumps are going on about an endless love of the ages. Popcorn for smart people - pffffft. Evidence says that not seeing through this flimsy ploy makes them not the smart people. *resume normal voice and makes you swear you won't tell them*. If I recall correctly, he's been sticking it to Nora with the soundtrack "Fuck Sookie", so him crapping on now is just because he needs something. I must say, Tweedleshithead did look particularly attractive this episode - I think this should be the new viral Eric picture:
As I predicted, Russell was really a lot of talk - he didn't do much other than kill extras. None of whom we'd seen or care about, which doesn't leave one with a lasting impression that he's a character to worry about. I'm sure they'll find a way to bring him back because he was probably the only thing keeping the ratings up this year. But he didn't really do much as far as on screen. I mean, fuck - Demon Anya killed as many fratboys as he did. And I actually cared that she did - amazing what a good script can do...and it's a pity True Blood doesn't have one.
No One Owes Pam Shit
I usually like Tara. Consistently I've liked her, even if I've felt for her that the writers seemingly need to torture the hell out of her. But fuck this whole storyline. If I recall, Pam turned Tara so that she'd get back into Eric's good books. Well fuck if Pam isn't back in his good books and paid back. Sookie owes Pam jackshit.
Not only that, but matching up the two lesbian characters like they're bookends, despite the fact that they're completely incompatible? Not cool, and not buying it. Pam has called Tara her slave, and her dog. Don't tell me that the Tara of Season 1 who wanted to harass the hell out of Bill for owning slaves has now decided that shackles are sexy as hell now that they're personal ones. I think it's fucking insulting to believe that any lesbian can be matched up to another as if all that is required is a love of vaginas, and not just what hetero people look for - like compatibility. For shame, True Blood.
Speaking of Pam - when fucking Jessica, the teenage baby vamp who has been emotionally stunted, rolls her eyes at you, you know you're as tiresome as shit. How many cycles has Pam seen from behind Eric's skirts? Bitch, please. Having Russell say this shit would mean something. Pam with her one hundred years of perspective? This idiot hasn't lived a life in which escalators, cash registers and lightbulbs weren't around.
As an aside - every damn time I see Pam with her Sookie-hate on, I can't help but think if the Sookie haters in this community ever get a shock looking at her. I mean, she just looks small, petty and like a one-track record when she starts in with the Sookie hate. I know Show Sookie is remarkably shit, but truly, the constant petty jealousy because Book Eric isn't real and fucking you is pretty damn unattractive.
That Were Woman Has Ebola
It must be nice never to suffer from heavy metal poisoning in this world. We could use True Blood characters to recycle all the lead and heavy metal poisoned water. They'd drink it, and feel no effects, and all the silver would stay in their systems. Although it could explain these storylines - motherfucking mercury poisoning on the part of the writers. All those silly hats they made Sophie Anne wear? Gone to their brains. Apparently every single season is just going to recycle Alcide's really tired storyline. Get girlfriend, like her a lot, she does V, blah blah blah.
Sadly, I have watched the Twilight movies, and even I can see this stilted bad shit as similar. You even got the wooden Alcide to stand in as the wooden Jacob. If we're going to lift content, could we make sure it's not fucking lame as hell content? But at least those poor bastards got out of the barn. It's nice they get to breathe the free air. Now Alcide is going to give them some hokey speech about the pride of wolves - you know - the pride we've never seen. The one where werewolves don't guzzle down V, and every single male wolf is a complete drugged up or gambling loser.
Andy is the Forty Year Old Virgin
Really? He's a man in his mid-thirties, living in a small town. I'm sure Andy has taken women Holly has met to the In-and-Out Burger Restaurant. If that ruins something special that they share alone, then I have some bad news for Holly - in that Andy is unlikely to be a virgin. And if I recall, she has two hulking great lumps to show for the fact that she's not exactly pure either. Can only Holly - with her talk of the Goddess - have babies out of wedlock then?
If you're going to have 73 pregnancies, then really, as a woman who's had 2, and two relatively short labours, then you want them to be orgasmic. I'm a little worried about the subtext though - that a woman's greatest joy in life is that she can have babies. But then, if AB wants to make back-to-the-kitchen, barefoot-and-pregnant references, this is marginally better than the other ideas he has about women, like that they could double as nasty, catty, angry and deeply stupid clothes horses. I'm pretty sure that AB's subtext is not that well thought out, however. If it is, then he's a way more loathsome man than first reckoned.
I did think that after that escalating scream she was going to fire that baby out of her chocho right into Holly's guts. I was kinda sad that she didn't. Siren in escalation.....BOOM! That would have been excellent, really. Not only for the gurning involved when she took a hit to the stomach emotionally and physically, but also because a fairy woman firing babies at you wouldn't be out of the realm of possible with this show. I was comforted to know that the place where Tommy died is now the immortalised birth place of Andy's many babies. Holy fuck - we should have a version of "What the pool table saw" as the most awesome fanfic ever. That thing has seen some action.
No Mices...I Have a Sad
No mice this episode. I have a weakness for the little buggers. I think I might get myself a new pet mouse. But Sam and Luna possibly provided the most redemption for a totally lacklustre thing going on. Of course, logic tells me that if this holy war ever kicks off, the shifters have now provided themselves as convenient scapegoats. I don't think any supe would be safe if they could wear the faces of other people. I just don't believe humans are so nifty to allow such things to live without a high attrition rate. Vampires and werewolves coming out? I think that could be fine? Skinwalkers? I think there'd be a lot of killings. Act out of character, and Tom Cruise is bludgeoned to death by the Oprah audience as a skinwalking arsehole.
The Authority - New Orleans' Largest Trapper Keeper
I really don't think the Authority's secret bunker is all that hidden. At all. I mean the outside of it is not the logical warehouse district. It's a fucking stately manor house. One thing I thought during this episode - is whoa boy, the cleaning bill for Salome, uh? She wore four different outfits I think - all for about 20 minutes each. It must be nice to be a vampire and not worry about your rampant energy use, since you'll be dead before the planet dies......wait... The Authority's water bill must be staggering - and oh so stealthy. Like Al Gore and his $30,000 electricity bill - totally not noticeable.
It's nice to see that Jason is officially stuck in a loop. This is Season 2 Jason, remember? He's even wearing the same glasses and outfit, the lazy bastards. Of course, continuity is hardly their strong suit, and there's the mercury poisoning. So I'm sure they forgot they've done this bit already. It's comforting to know all the extras vamps don't have better aim and more smarts than Jason. I mean, they've been killing for centuries, but they just can't figure out how to take out one sole human. I mean they only have fangs, guns, superior strength and super speed.
Buttering Each Other's Biscuits
The whole painful Bill and Salome showdown? Yeah, like we couldn't see that one coming. He's been knocking off members of the Authority, and has been there for like 5 days, and apparently thinks he's the boss of everyone, like always. Except he's stopped being just Sookie's boss and will just co-opt the authority over the nearest female, no matter how old she is. Even if she was an ancient thing when he was still shitting himself somewhere in a Louisiana backwater farm.
I'm not clear why he had to kill Salome - she was hardly standing guard over the blood. He could have just drunk it without killing her. She didn't ever do anything anyway - when she wanted a change of government, she had to make sure to get Russell out of the concrete in order to do that. Salome was never going to do anything. I'm put in mind of the words of Seth Gecko - "She wouldn't have said shit if she had a mouthful of it". If Bill drank the blood, then she would have fallen right in line with him anyway. I wonder who his new female lackey/prop will be now. I suppose we'll be treated to Bill getting that woman inside him under control. For all of his talk about her monumental narcissism - pot, meet kettle.
I also think that it's unclear why exactly he had to torture her. For all the other people in the Authority, it was a quick stake in the back. For Salome, she got tortured. I also think what adds to my belief that True Blood isn't very deep is some of the very popular tropes that are seemingly done without any inventiveness. Perhaps American audiences no longer notice how supposed "heroes" have started torturing their enemies, but this is a recent trope thanks in part to the rising acceptability due to places like Abu Ghraib. The sort of regime that calls waterboarding "enhanced interrogation technique" is the sort of regime that pollutes its own people and reflects that back through their entertainment. I really don't think AB is aware of his subtext at all that he carelessly includes this. I know I sometimes get people who want more information - and I really only have access to a lot of academic sources - but this is one of the only sources I could find online.
Of all of the members of the Authority, Salome was to Bill the least harmless. She's always been positive about him, and the most mean stuff she did to him personally was manipulation. And she wasn't very fucking good at it. I'm not clear why she had to be tortured before he killed her, and why he didn't just stake her. Don't tell me he couldn't stake her - goddamn, he got his penis into her before she could resist. I don't buy that he was worried he wouldn't be able to overpower Salome. It's bad scripting (because they forget what happened in the very same episode as this scene) for sure, but if you want your audience to sympathise with Bill, you've got to do more than this. I think maybe Americans wouldn't notice just how biased they are by their government - including their writers of television shows. The thought that there is all this deep context when the writers are mindlessly parroting jingoistic propaganda? Un-fucking-likely.
The whole speech he gave Sookie, she showed how far from Book Sookie she is. Book Sook never would have allowed such shit to grace her lips about the goodness of a guy like Bill. She often makes little snarky remarks to herself about the "goodness" of vampires. I can respect that she never forgets they're all killers who would abandon her if it was expedient for them - as they are all wont to do. Never would Book Sookie have stepped closer to someone who called her an abomination. I can see Eric throwing her into the lion's den to stop something dangerous though - so at least even though he's largely surplus to requirements, he's still completely unfazed by the fact that Sookie is mortal.
And of course, Bill does his same dance as he did about having the sacred fairy girlfriend's blood unavailable to him, and drinks Lilith all up and slurps down and up again. Barely anything got done, but at least it's a cliffhanger. They have hopes we'll all watch next year, but I don't think I'll be rushing out to find out the un-exciting ending to a very dull season.
The Season Overall
Let's face it, this entire season marked time and held place. It didn't essentially go anywhere real. Sookie's character got more and more inventive at hiding a pregnancy; the vampires rambled around in three rooms which was marginally better than the werewolves' one. Timeline wise, it was about five days, and nothing much happened.
Not much was said that was enlightening, at least not for someone like me. I really don't think people need to do more debating on religion, and what is valid as far as religion goes. I think the biggest mistake that they made was by making the story about extremism and religion. I mean seriously everyone from the major news to Louis Theroux will give us lessons in why religious extremism is a bad thing. From Muslims to the Westboro Baptist Church, our heads are filled with how stupid religious extremism is - and I can't help but think that AB is preaching to the motherfucking choir. Extremists don't watch television with nudity, Alan.
It would have been a far better idea if this idea wasn't tied to the idea of religion. Any extremism is not cool - including extremism demonstrated by atheists. So too, the whole racial purity bullshit that the Grand Dragon and such were proselytising was no real information on racism - which True Blood stopped trying to tackle all together. It just dumped that storyline, and the storyline about why it's okay to murder Iraqis only if they don't have fire demons backing them up. It isn't even doing what the books do - and use supes as a stand-in for racial tensions - everyone accepts the supes with no problems. I mean, Sam might be able to shift into a pig, but Andy will accept him anyway with barely a bat of the eyelid.
Not only that, but we've supposedly been treated to the "fall" of Bill Compton. Sorry, honey, that shit don't wash. Bill has never been more than the most manipulative character ever. I like Book Bill, but Show Bill leaves me thinking he has all the charm of a toilet brush. Sure, Steven Moyer does well - he's a good actor, and not a bad looking man, even if occasionally his American accent grates on my Australian ears.
Show Bill has never been a good guy. He got the Rattrays to beat a girl he wanted to enthrall in the first episode, and since then has plotted her fairy family tree, sold her out to Sophie Anne, deliberately left Sookie in the dark when it came to Russell Edgington coming for her as I discussed ages ago, fucked Sookie over with Lorena, couldn't keep his word to some witches, grasped and manoeuvred his way into being King of Louisiana and similarly grasped and fucked his way to being Leader of the Authority. This Bill is more of the same. He might wank on to himself that he's a good guy, but he really hasn't been.
His little speech at the end of the season, about how tortured he's been trying to be a good guy? When would that be? When did he not use some woman to solve all of his problems, and keep something in his stable to get there. And what's worse is that he's done it all on the backs of fucking women over. From Sookie, Sophie Anne, Nan, Salome and Lilith - this is a guy who had no fucking power of his own, and he uses a succession of women until he finally gets where he wants to be.
I'm Pretty Sure I Own That
I can't leave you with the depressing view of what it takes to be a "good guy" in AB's world - the beloved "hero" who fucks women and then fucks them over as my final review of this season. Let me point out the fact that this season has really cherry picked whole scenes and themes from other shows. They took things like the werewolves wholly lifted from Twilight, the vampire scenes outside the Authority from Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this episode alone. They've been doing it for ages - with the ribcage hat lifted from BTVS ages ago. Of course it's a cool line - they stole it from cool writers. True Blood doesn't have cool writers. They're banal.
I know that almost everyone seems to be using Billith as the name for whatever the fuck Bill turned into in the end, but I have a better one thanks to the lifted scene they took (and they even have the actor as Papa Herveaux) - the B1000:
If there's a foundry, Eric and a butched up Sookie with one of Maurella's vagina cannon babies in the last episode of next season, I totally fucking called it.
My Recommendation
My recommendation is Just Visiting. I do believe I saw the French version of this movie ages ago, and have been wanting to track it down ever since. It was hilarious. But this one is just as good, and for those of you who are typically romance readers, and don't have a lot of experience with horror/fantasy, I wanted to give you movies or television easy to find and watch. And nothing too gory. I did think about recommending 30 Days of Night, for the themes of sacrifice; and Ravenous, for the themes of what price our health. But both of them are bedecked with blood and hardcore violence. So I figured in order to recommend a genre you might be unfamiliar with, I'd tone down my recommendations. But they're good, so if you don't mind blood and hardcore violence, have at 'em.
Just Visiting is about a Knight and his serf who come forward from medieval France to the modern day. And they brings their habits, manners and customs with them. They're gross. :D Thoroughly enjoyable and most hilarious though. I always think to myself that if fanfic writers are going to antiquate Eric, they really pick Victorian England for their views, and not an earlier time, because people from that earlier time would not be welcome in civilised society. No one wants the mints from the blue fountain.
This one is about the importance of family, and why we do the things we do for family. What it can all come to. Not what Pam sees in her piddling continuity - but real perspective. Not to mention that it has a lot to say about social class, and how arbitrary that really is when we take away the veil that society puts around us. It'll show you just how constructed our views are on everything - life and crime and social standing - through the Knight and his serf. You'll be grateful you were born in the modern day that's for sure.
Russell the Paper Tiger
Well, that was the least amount of fanfare ever. No building tension - they ruined it by not having Eric give Russell shifty eyes across the room all season. Having Eric kill Russell seems like a lame cop-out honestly. Particularly since I don't believe that Eric would have been hovering around looking for Sookie to see what had her worried. This just seems to be pandering to the Eric/Sookie shippers in the most phone-it-in way. *sotto voce* It seems to have worked. Those chumps are going on about an endless love of the ages. Popcorn for smart people - pffffft. Evidence says that not seeing through this flimsy ploy makes them not the smart people. *resume normal voice and makes you swear you won't tell them*. If I recall correctly, he's been sticking it to Nora with the soundtrack "Fuck Sookie", so him crapping on now is just because he needs something. I must say, Tweedleshithead did look particularly attractive this episode - I think this should be the new viral Eric picture:
As I predicted, Russell was really a lot of talk - he didn't do much other than kill extras. None of whom we'd seen or care about, which doesn't leave one with a lasting impression that he's a character to worry about. I'm sure they'll find a way to bring him back because he was probably the only thing keeping the ratings up this year. But he didn't really do much as far as on screen. I mean, fuck - Demon Anya killed as many fratboys as he did. And I actually cared that she did - amazing what a good script can do...and it's a pity True Blood doesn't have one.
No One Owes Pam Shit
I usually like Tara. Consistently I've liked her, even if I've felt for her that the writers seemingly need to torture the hell out of her. But fuck this whole storyline. If I recall, Pam turned Tara so that she'd get back into Eric's good books. Well fuck if Pam isn't back in his good books and paid back. Sookie owes Pam jackshit.
Not only that, but matching up the two lesbian characters like they're bookends, despite the fact that they're completely incompatible? Not cool, and not buying it. Pam has called Tara her slave, and her dog. Don't tell me that the Tara of Season 1 who wanted to harass the hell out of Bill for owning slaves has now decided that shackles are sexy as hell now that they're personal ones. I think it's fucking insulting to believe that any lesbian can be matched up to another as if all that is required is a love of vaginas, and not just what hetero people look for - like compatibility. For shame, True Blood.
Speaking of Pam - when fucking Jessica, the teenage baby vamp who has been emotionally stunted, rolls her eyes at you, you know you're as tiresome as shit. How many cycles has Pam seen from behind Eric's skirts? Bitch, please. Having Russell say this shit would mean something. Pam with her one hundred years of perspective? This idiot hasn't lived a life in which escalators, cash registers and lightbulbs weren't around.
As an aside - every damn time I see Pam with her Sookie-hate on, I can't help but think if the Sookie haters in this community ever get a shock looking at her. I mean, she just looks small, petty and like a one-track record when she starts in with the Sookie hate. I know Show Sookie is remarkably shit, but truly, the constant petty jealousy because Book Eric isn't real and fucking you is pretty damn unattractive.
That Were Woman Has Ebola
It must be nice never to suffer from heavy metal poisoning in this world. We could use True Blood characters to recycle all the lead and heavy metal poisoned water. They'd drink it, and feel no effects, and all the silver would stay in their systems. Although it could explain these storylines - motherfucking mercury poisoning on the part of the writers. All those silly hats they made Sophie Anne wear? Gone to their brains. Apparently every single season is just going to recycle Alcide's really tired storyline. Get girlfriend, like her a lot, she does V, blah blah blah.
Sadly, I have watched the Twilight movies, and even I can see this stilted bad shit as similar. You even got the wooden Alcide to stand in as the wooden Jacob. If we're going to lift content, could we make sure it's not fucking lame as hell content? But at least those poor bastards got out of the barn. It's nice they get to breathe the free air. Now Alcide is going to give them some hokey speech about the pride of wolves - you know - the pride we've never seen. The one where werewolves don't guzzle down V, and every single male wolf is a complete drugged up or gambling loser.
Andy is the Forty Year Old Virgin
Really? He's a man in his mid-thirties, living in a small town. I'm sure Andy has taken women Holly has met to the In-and-Out Burger Restaurant. If that ruins something special that they share alone, then I have some bad news for Holly - in that Andy is unlikely to be a virgin. And if I recall, she has two hulking great lumps to show for the fact that she's not exactly pure either. Can only Holly - with her talk of the Goddess - have babies out of wedlock then?
If you're going to have 73 pregnancies, then really, as a woman who's had 2, and two relatively short labours, then you want them to be orgasmic. I'm a little worried about the subtext though - that a woman's greatest joy in life is that she can have babies. But then, if AB wants to make back-to-the-kitchen, barefoot-and-pregnant references, this is marginally better than the other ideas he has about women, like that they could double as nasty, catty, angry and deeply stupid clothes horses. I'm pretty sure that AB's subtext is not that well thought out, however. If it is, then he's a way more loathsome man than first reckoned.
I did think that after that escalating scream she was going to fire that baby out of her chocho right into Holly's guts. I was kinda sad that she didn't. Siren in escalation.....BOOM! That would have been excellent, really. Not only for the gurning involved when she took a hit to the stomach emotionally and physically, but also because a fairy woman firing babies at you wouldn't be out of the realm of possible with this show. I was comforted to know that the place where Tommy died is now the immortalised birth place of Andy's many babies. Holy fuck - we should have a version of "What the pool table saw" as the most awesome fanfic ever. That thing has seen some action.
No Mices...I Have a Sad
No mice this episode. I have a weakness for the little buggers. I think I might get myself a new pet mouse. But Sam and Luna possibly provided the most redemption for a totally lacklustre thing going on. Of course, logic tells me that if this holy war ever kicks off, the shifters have now provided themselves as convenient scapegoats. I don't think any supe would be safe if they could wear the faces of other people. I just don't believe humans are so nifty to allow such things to live without a high attrition rate. Vampires and werewolves coming out? I think that could be fine? Skinwalkers? I think there'd be a lot of killings. Act out of character, and Tom Cruise is bludgeoned to death by the Oprah audience as a skinwalking arsehole.
The Authority - New Orleans' Largest Trapper Keeper
I really don't think the Authority's secret bunker is all that hidden. At all. I mean the outside of it is not the logical warehouse district. It's a fucking stately manor house. One thing I thought during this episode - is whoa boy, the cleaning bill for Salome, uh? She wore four different outfits I think - all for about 20 minutes each. It must be nice to be a vampire and not worry about your rampant energy use, since you'll be dead before the planet dies......wait... The Authority's water bill must be staggering - and oh so stealthy. Like Al Gore and his $30,000 electricity bill - totally not noticeable.
It's nice to see that Jason is officially stuck in a loop. This is Season 2 Jason, remember? He's even wearing the same glasses and outfit, the lazy bastards. Of course, continuity is hardly their strong suit, and there's the mercury poisoning. So I'm sure they forgot they've done this bit already. It's comforting to know all the extras vamps don't have better aim and more smarts than Jason. I mean, they've been killing for centuries, but they just can't figure out how to take out one sole human. I mean they only have fangs, guns, superior strength and super speed.
Buttering Each Other's Biscuits
The whole painful Bill and Salome showdown? Yeah, like we couldn't see that one coming. He's been knocking off members of the Authority, and has been there for like 5 days, and apparently thinks he's the boss of everyone, like always. Except he's stopped being just Sookie's boss and will just co-opt the authority over the nearest female, no matter how old she is. Even if she was an ancient thing when he was still shitting himself somewhere in a Louisiana backwater farm.
I'm not clear why he had to kill Salome - she was hardly standing guard over the blood. He could have just drunk it without killing her. She didn't ever do anything anyway - when she wanted a change of government, she had to make sure to get Russell out of the concrete in order to do that. Salome was never going to do anything. I'm put in mind of the words of Seth Gecko - "She wouldn't have said shit if she had a mouthful of it". If Bill drank the blood, then she would have fallen right in line with him anyway. I wonder who his new female lackey/prop will be now. I suppose we'll be treated to Bill getting that woman inside him under control. For all of his talk about her monumental narcissism - pot, meet kettle.
I also think that it's unclear why exactly he had to torture her. For all the other people in the Authority, it was a quick stake in the back. For Salome, she got tortured. I also think what adds to my belief that True Blood isn't very deep is some of the very popular tropes that are seemingly done without any inventiveness. Perhaps American audiences no longer notice how supposed "heroes" have started torturing their enemies, but this is a recent trope thanks in part to the rising acceptability due to places like Abu Ghraib. The sort of regime that calls waterboarding "enhanced interrogation technique" is the sort of regime that pollutes its own people and reflects that back through their entertainment. I really don't think AB is aware of his subtext at all that he carelessly includes this. I know I sometimes get people who want more information - and I really only have access to a lot of academic sources - but this is one of the only sources I could find online.
Of all of the members of the Authority, Salome was to Bill the least harmless. She's always been positive about him, and the most mean stuff she did to him personally was manipulation. And she wasn't very fucking good at it. I'm not clear why she had to be tortured before he killed her, and why he didn't just stake her. Don't tell me he couldn't stake her - goddamn, he got his penis into her before she could resist. I don't buy that he was worried he wouldn't be able to overpower Salome. It's bad scripting (because they forget what happened in the very same episode as this scene) for sure, but if you want your audience to sympathise with Bill, you've got to do more than this. I think maybe Americans wouldn't notice just how biased they are by their government - including their writers of television shows. The thought that there is all this deep context when the writers are mindlessly parroting jingoistic propaganda? Un-fucking-likely.
The whole speech he gave Sookie, she showed how far from Book Sookie she is. Book Sook never would have allowed such shit to grace her lips about the goodness of a guy like Bill. She often makes little snarky remarks to herself about the "goodness" of vampires. I can respect that she never forgets they're all killers who would abandon her if it was expedient for them - as they are all wont to do. Never would Book Sookie have stepped closer to someone who called her an abomination. I can see Eric throwing her into the lion's den to stop something dangerous though - so at least even though he's largely surplus to requirements, he's still completely unfazed by the fact that Sookie is mortal.
And of course, Bill does his same dance as he did about having the sacred fairy girlfriend's blood unavailable to him, and drinks Lilith all up and slurps down and up again. Barely anything got done, but at least it's a cliffhanger. They have hopes we'll all watch next year, but I don't think I'll be rushing out to find out the un-exciting ending to a very dull season.
The Season Overall
Let's face it, this entire season marked time and held place. It didn't essentially go anywhere real. Sookie's character got more and more inventive at hiding a pregnancy; the vampires rambled around in three rooms which was marginally better than the werewolves' one. Timeline wise, it was about five days, and nothing much happened.
Not much was said that was enlightening, at least not for someone like me. I really don't think people need to do more debating on religion, and what is valid as far as religion goes. I think the biggest mistake that they made was by making the story about extremism and religion. I mean seriously everyone from the major news to Louis Theroux will give us lessons in why religious extremism is a bad thing. From Muslims to the Westboro Baptist Church, our heads are filled with how stupid religious extremism is - and I can't help but think that AB is preaching to the motherfucking choir. Extremists don't watch television with nudity, Alan.
It would have been a far better idea if this idea wasn't tied to the idea of religion. Any extremism is not cool - including extremism demonstrated by atheists. So too, the whole racial purity bullshit that the Grand Dragon and such were proselytising was no real information on racism - which True Blood stopped trying to tackle all together. It just dumped that storyline, and the storyline about why it's okay to murder Iraqis only if they don't have fire demons backing them up. It isn't even doing what the books do - and use supes as a stand-in for racial tensions - everyone accepts the supes with no problems. I mean, Sam might be able to shift into a pig, but Andy will accept him anyway with barely a bat of the eyelid.
Not only that, but we've supposedly been treated to the "fall" of Bill Compton. Sorry, honey, that shit don't wash. Bill has never been more than the most manipulative character ever. I like Book Bill, but Show Bill leaves me thinking he has all the charm of a toilet brush. Sure, Steven Moyer does well - he's a good actor, and not a bad looking man, even if occasionally his American accent grates on my Australian ears.
Show Bill has never been a good guy. He got the Rattrays to beat a girl he wanted to enthrall in the first episode, and since then has plotted her fairy family tree, sold her out to Sophie Anne, deliberately left Sookie in the dark when it came to Russell Edgington coming for her as I discussed ages ago, fucked Sookie over with Lorena, couldn't keep his word to some witches, grasped and manoeuvred his way into being King of Louisiana and similarly grasped and fucked his way to being Leader of the Authority. This Bill is more of the same. He might wank on to himself that he's a good guy, but he really hasn't been.
His little speech at the end of the season, about how tortured he's been trying to be a good guy? When would that be? When did he not use some woman to solve all of his problems, and keep something in his stable to get there. And what's worse is that he's done it all on the backs of fucking women over. From Sookie, Sophie Anne, Nan, Salome and Lilith - this is a guy who had no fucking power of his own, and he uses a succession of women until he finally gets where he wants to be.
I'm Pretty Sure I Own That
I can't leave you with the depressing view of what it takes to be a "good guy" in AB's world - the beloved "hero" who fucks women and then fucks them over as my final review of this season. Let me point out the fact that this season has really cherry picked whole scenes and themes from other shows. They took things like the werewolves wholly lifted from Twilight, the vampire scenes outside the Authority from Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this episode alone. They've been doing it for ages - with the ribcage hat lifted from BTVS ages ago. Of course it's a cool line - they stole it from cool writers. True Blood doesn't have cool writers. They're banal.
I know that almost everyone seems to be using Billith as the name for whatever the fuck Bill turned into in the end, but I have a better one thanks to the lifted scene they took (and they even have the actor as Papa Herveaux) - the B1000:
If there's a foundry, Eric and a butched up Sookie with one of Maurella's vagina cannon babies in the last episode of next season, I totally fucking called it.
My Recommendation
My recommendation is Just Visiting. I do believe I saw the French version of this movie ages ago, and have been wanting to track it down ever since. It was hilarious. But this one is just as good, and for those of you who are typically romance readers, and don't have a lot of experience with horror/fantasy, I wanted to give you movies or television easy to find and watch. And nothing too gory. I did think about recommending 30 Days of Night, for the themes of sacrifice; and Ravenous, for the themes of what price our health. But both of them are bedecked with blood and hardcore violence. So I figured in order to recommend a genre you might be unfamiliar with, I'd tone down my recommendations. But they're good, so if you don't mind blood and hardcore violence, have at 'em.
Just Visiting is about a Knight and his serf who come forward from medieval France to the modern day. And they brings their habits, manners and customs with them. They're gross. :D Thoroughly enjoyable and most hilarious though. I always think to myself that if fanfic writers are going to antiquate Eric, they really pick Victorian England for their views, and not an earlier time, because people from that earlier time would not be welcome in civilised society. No one wants the mints from the blue fountain.
This one is about the importance of family, and why we do the things we do for family. What it can all come to. Not what Pam sees in her piddling continuity - but real perspective. Not to mention that it has a lot to say about social class, and how arbitrary that really is when we take away the veil that society puts around us. It'll show you just how constructed our views are on everything - life and crime and social standing - through the Knight and his serf. You'll be grateful you were born in the modern day that's for sure.