This week on True Blood, Miss Mecha debates throwing things at her television to see if it will make Sookie any less stupid.
***This review contains SPOILERS. You have been warned!***
True Blood returned this week and after a long year of waiting I have to be honest and say that I was very disappointed with the premier. I re-watched last night’s episode and have come to the conclusion that the characters are actually getting dumber as time goes on. Admittedly, I definitely got a lot of satisfaction out of seeing Sookie shoot Debbie (because she was just going to be trouble forever and I doubt there was any hope for her) but it was so disappointing that she immediately regretted her actions and couldn’t seem to get over the fact that, in the heat of the moment, she made the choice that everyone around her has been making for seasons. It was only a matter of time before Sookie Stackhouse was forced to take a life or two considering all the shit that goes down in Bon Temps, and in this case it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that she shot Debbie.
I really wish Sookie would step it up. There’s a big part of me that wonders why she doesn’t hone in on her powers for the benefit of herself and those around her. She could be training herself to defend the ones she loves rather than constantly relying on Bill, Eric and/or Alcide to come save her every time shit hits the fan. The only time she really does anything effective is when literally everything else has failed and there’s nobody else to come to the rescue. While this is a useful plot device for the writers over at HBO, it makes for terrible character development.
And speaking of character development, does anyone else feel like we’re going nowhere as these characters continue to make poor decisions and end up used and abused? A part of me sort of wishes that Jason, Jessica, and the whole werewolf pack drama would just get written out of the show.
Jason Stackhouse makes another stupid decision and lets himself get glamoured…BORED!
Whenever the show jumps back to those side-plots I lose interest completely. And how the hell are so many main characters still alive? Just let some of them die already! It’s unbelievable that so many of them have survived the constant onslaught of extreme events. They didn’t kill Russell Edgington but buried him in concrete…can somebody tell my why Eric and Bill would have done that? It obviously would have been in their best interest to kill him…and now he’s escaped from the concrete to wreak more havoc on the world.
In my opinion, the most interesting plot point going on right now is the potential reveal that will happen with the Vampire Authority splitting into factions. This scenario is keeping me watching, but they really need to spend more time on it. I think we saw all of five minutes devoted to what could be at least half the episode and far too much of that time was spent with a completely unnecessary scene in which Eric bangs his vampire sister. (It’s not that I don’t like seeing Alexander Skarsgard naked…but this scene was so forced that it was pretty awkward in contrast to the rest of the episode).
As for the ending of the episode, did we really have to bring Tara back as a vampire? It would have had so much more of an impact if she was just dead and gone. Admittedly, I really hate her as a character and wanted her out shortly after season one ended (Alright: so I really hated her from moment one, but at least she served a purpose in the first season.).
Does everyone need to come back to Bon Temps through some form of supernatural BS? You can write supernatural elements into a show creatively or you can just throw a ton of weird shit at a wall and hope it’s all interesting to your audience – the latter of these is just overkill and it’s taking away from what could be crafted into far more interesting characters and creatures.
I conclude my review with this – for a season premier, this episode lacked a lot of the punch that prior seasons have brought to us. If you’re looking for something more interesting, I recently discovered this fun little tourism-style site devoted to the beloved, messed up town that is Bon Temps, Louisiana – http://www.welcometobontemps.com/
What did you think of this week’s episode?