The Moth Chase

Season 3: episode 1

Vampires, and shifters, and Nazi werewolves, oh my. True Blood is taking us into the supernatural underworld with all the camp and panache we might expect from a show that is not afraid to wallow in the bloody bath of murderous sex or town-wide maenad induced orgies.  And I have to say, the more over the top it gets, the more I love it! Perhaps the best thing about this season so far is the separation of Bill and Sookie. I’m not just talking about rooting for Team Eric (though, let’s be honest, Eric is one of the best things about this season – his suave arrogance tinged with just a hint of emotion and none of the mopey self-pity that haunts Bill’s every word). I wouldn’t have been able to put my finger on it until this season, but things are so much more interesting when Bill and Sookie aren’t making goo-goo eyes at each other and oscillating between angry misunderstandings and passionate confessions of love that lead to nakedness. Or maybe it is just that Bill is so much more interesting when he is pulled out of the mainstream and plunked firmly in the river of blood flowing smoothly from the King of Mississippi’s kitchen.

I speculated on this blog at the end of last season that Alan Ball wouldn’t have the stomach to show us the full range of Bill’s betrayal (OK, so that is a spoiler hint if you haven’t read the books – and I promise I won’t say anymore). But what with the arrival of Franklin (who, as Natalie pointed out to me in an email, has fantastically crooked fangs) and his own blood-soaked surrender to his freaky, violent codependence with Lorena we are well primed to see Bill at his less than gentlemanly best. We are used to seeing Bill in the throes of existential torment and it was nice to see him earn that angst when he pulls at his hair and screams to the heavens upon ravaging/raping/seducing Lorena.

His fall back into that twisted relationship is just one example of a common theme: who are we in relationship to our pasts and how much can we change? Bill obviously is going to struggle with this question vis-à-vis his Maker/Lover. Tera is wrestling with the same thing as she tries to break the cycle of destruction wrought in her life first by her mother and most recently by the situation with Eggs, well-summed up by her sad statement to Lafayette: “the only time I thought I was truly happy, it turns out I was a zombie.” Let’s pause for a moment, however, to sincerely hope that the writers don’t rely too heavily on Franklin’s vampiric powers of persuasion. It seems a bit tired to think that Tera will fall into another destructive relationship by power of hypnosis. How much more interesting to let us watch her choose to walk this dangerous line as she wrestles with questions of her own agency in relationship to her past. Eric is also getting in on the game, carrying a centuries’ old grudge against Operation Werewolf. We can only hope we’ll get more glimpses of his various past lives. Finally, as we realize just how screwed up Sam’s biological family is (and something tells me that bill delinquency is just the tip of the iceberg), Sam is going to have to face his own questions of identity.

Besides these personal journeys we are being introduced to the complicated world of vampire politics and I for one can’t wait to see Russell’s marriage proposal to Sophie-Anne. It is nice to know that whatever allegory for gay rights these vampires might be, in this mythology vampires most definitely believe in gay marriage. They also apparently believe in kidnapping, extortion, torture, and blackmail, so we can’t exactly imagine vampire rule is some sort of utopia. I love this about the show – the vampire world is both so appealing I can’t help but sort of wish it were true and so realistically twisted I am very glad it is not.

Other loose observations and things to keep track of:

– just what were those pictures of Sookie doing in Bill’s hidden desk compartment and what does Bill’s work for the queen involve?

–if Arelene’s baby isn’t Terry’s can we assume it is Rene’s? You can’t really blame the gal for fudging on the dates there…

–I am so glad that Jessica’s first kill turned out to be a means of indebting her to Franklin and not some drawn out plot piece of its own. Now that she doesn’t have to worry about being exposed as a murderer, do we think she’ll take Hoyt back? Especially with his new haircut that makes him look oh so badass.

–I hope Jason gets over his cop fetish and gets down to business in Hotshot… at the risk of a spoiler, I’ll leave it at that.

–Give me more Pam!

What about the rest of you, Moth Chasers? How far do you think Bill will go with Lorena? What exactly is Franklin hoping to learn about Bill and who does he work for? Any plot developments you are loving? Things you want to see more of?

Kathryn

*****************

Season 3, Episode 4:

Well, if I was worried that Alan Ball wouldn’t have the guts to show us the dark side of Bill, those fears have been completely put to bed. Into a blood-soaked bed of betrayal and heartbreak nonetheless. This week we see the dramatic fruits of separating Bill and Sookie – namely, they both get a lot more action, though not necessarily for the good of either of them. To this point, we haven’t been given any indication that Bill is faking his dark turn in an elaborately long con to undermine Lorena and Russell. In fact, he “hears” Sookie’s distress as she flees a bar full of vamped-up Weres shifting on demand and purposefully ignores it. Not only ignores it, but slips into the limo and participates in the gruesome blood fest with the sad stripper he glamored into submission.

I suppose he could be acting on some form of compulsion. Clearly this is what Sookie thinks as she perseveres in her quest to find him and make him at least confront her face to face. At the risk of posting spoilers, I will say that we are already in deeper waters than in the book. In book 3 the big revelation at the end is that Bill has been participating in a renewed, if depressingly codependent, relationship with Lorena. But that, clearly, is not going to be the big revelation at all since Bill already spilled the beans to Sookie on the phone. Which means your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what Bill is up to. Is he genuinely slipping into a massive vampire funk, trying to excise his love for Sookie, and all humans, in brutal hate-sex with his maker? Is he playing some deeper game the stakes of which we do not know? Or perhaps he is under some form of compulsion and it will take Sookie showing up at the rescue to set him free (and wouldn’t that be a fun twist of events)?

Then again, the more Sookie snuggles up to her steamy werewolf companion, the less she might be interested in tracking down her ice cold first love (digression: did anyone else love the allusion to another woman’s choice between an overly hot werewolf and a chilly vamp? Except something tells me Sookie’s surrender to multiple loves might involve more than a kiss on the top of  snow-covered mountain…). Whether or not her plan is any good, it is nice to see Sookie stepping up to some action of her own. I wouldn’t mind a few more disguises and a chance to see just what kind of damage she could do with all the vampire blood in her system. It is endlessly better than watching her hang around waiting for the action to come to her.

I’ll save reflections on Alcide and Debbie for another post as we wait and see where that is going. The whole scene in the were bar seemed a set up for that insane Werewolf communion. The use of shot glasses was clearly a product of the location in a bar, but Alan Ball is way too smart not to play up the communion parallels – a leader pierces his wrist and pours his blood into small vessels, passed around for all his followers to take at once, while intoning words of a sacred bond and an eternal allegiance.  As Natalie pointed out in an email, the wolves don’t share a common communion cup as they might in a higher church ritual (Catholic, Episcopalian, etc.). They do it “low church” style, each wolf to her/his own cup. I’m not sure if that means anything, but I do like the idea of the Weres mimicking a nice Baptist communion service.

In addition to hitting a sweet spot for the viewer attuned to religious imagery, we are clearly witnessing one incarnation of a much more ancient ritual. The use of German should keep us on our toes for more throwbacks to Nazi werewolves and some much darker, deeper plots than just one fruity king impinging on another queen’s territory. Something tells me we are going to learn a whole lot more about the dark workings of vampire power between Russell and the Magister (did anyone else catch his throw back to the Salem witch trials? Maybe he really has been leading inquisitions for centuries…).

One loose end I can’t wait to learn more about is Franklin’s end game. We know he works for Russell, but why? how? doing what? What exactly does Russell want from Bill? It must be more than what he is getting on his own if he has hired pyscho-Franklin to dig around. Let me just say: I am LOVING James Frain. He just might be the creepiest thing we’ve seen on this show. But I am a little pissed off that once again Tara is caught up in an abusive relationship. I mean, can’t the one central black woman on the show have even a moment of normal? I am holding out hope that she will somehow take back the night, but all I am seeing right now is a traumatized victim repeatedly brutalized. Sure, that might happen in real life, but this is a supernatural soap opera. Can’t we spread the trauma around?

Stray observations:

–is Bud Dearborn really on his way out? Oh please tell me we will at least see a dancing showdown before it is all done.

–I loved Deputy Kenya’s line that all it takes to be promoted to sheriff in Bon Temps is to “drink like a fish, hallucinate farm animals and kill a black man.” I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of this Kenya…

–Layfayette and Eric have one of the best relationships on the show. Let’s see more of that.

–Hotshot is getting creepier and creepier. I haven’t loved the plot with Jason so far, but if he is going to get roped into that incestuous pithole, I might change my mind.

–I’m not particularly in to Sam and his family right now. Am I missing something? It just feels like filler and a distraction from the real action. I just want to stay in Mississippi…

What about the rest of you? Favorite lines/moments? Any predictions on what is up with Bill?

xxox,

Kathryn

****************

Episode 5: Trouble

This episode really moved the season along for me, even though it left far more questions for next week than solid answers this week. Perhaps the best (most psychotic, troubling, over-the-top?) thing we saw this week was Franklin’s psychopathic courtship of Tara, ending in his creepy proposal. I’ve expressed my reservations about writing the only black woman on the show into one abusive relationship after the next and I continue to be wary of what might come of it. But Franklin’s speech to Russell did a lot to clue us in that the writers are at least aware of what they are doing: Franklin is attracted to Tara because she is equally as screwed up as he is. According to Franklin, they are “like twins.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, but there is something really honest about admitting just how fucked up Tara’s life is and showing us where things could go by giving us James Frain in all of Franklin’s brilliant insanity. Tara has been living with a Franklin for most of her life, and her own precipitous fall toward replicating her mother’s abusive patterns is what led her to the one-night stand that got her where she is now. Please hear me: I’m not suggesting Tara is getting what is coming to her. Rather, she is stuck in a spiraling pattern set up by a lifetime of self-hate and self-doubt. And in another sad fact of her life, thanks to all her preparation living with a crazy mother, she might just have the know-how to survive Franklin, and hopefully start the serious therapy course she desparately needs. And while I really, really don’t condone psychopathic abusive relationships, I could watch James Frain slide from anger to ecstasy to paranoid violence all day long.

Of course, Tara’s potential vampire marriage is only one small piece in a plot-packed episode. Alongside her dangerous liaison, we have the continued unraveling of Bill Compton. On the one hand, it appears he has not sold himself to the dark side completely. He breaks Russell’s jail and rushes to Sookie’s side to warn her (and, um, he can really kick some ass! I hope we get to see more and more of this Bill). He appears to have abandoned all hope for himself (whatever that means), but has not forsaken all the human feelings he worked so hard to re-cultivate. On the other hand, there are those pictures and papers Franklin found in his desk. Russell’s theory that Bill is trying to figure out the origins of Sookie’s supernatural powers seems plausible enough, as does his surmise that somewhere there is a profit in the search. If this proves true, what does it mean about Bill’s relationship to Sookie in the first place? And what role does Sophie-Anne play in it all? (speaking of which, I have not been a huge fan of the Queen, but I am excited for her return next week if for no other reason than to see Russell attempt to woo her).

Vampire politics, however, are unlikely to be solved by marriage alone. In that magnificent campy flashback to Eric’s youth we see that the arc of Viking justice is long and bends toward vengeance, even 1,000 years later. If there is one storyline I am most excited about, it is to see Eric’s careful pursuit of long-sought revenge. Russell is a formidable foe, but my money is on Eric.

The real mystery of the episode is the return of Sookie’s flashy-hands trick. What is that? And what does it mean about our sweet southern telepath? Alan Ball has promised to reveal “what” Sookie is (no spoilers, readers of the books) and I am hoping we get into that revelation sooner rather than later, so we can see what other dimensions it opens.

I could also use with a faster pace in the other Bon Temps plots. A lot of other bloggers have been dissing the Bon Temps story lines, and I am in agreement to a point. My interest isn’t nearly as captivated by Jason and Crystal or Sam and his family as the various plots unfolding in Jackson. That said, knowing a bit more about where Crystal is coming from, I am in holding out hope that things could get really good in that story. And there is clearly something much bigger and much creepier going on with the Minkens and the sooner we learn what it is, the better.

Even if this episode was more of a set up and a tease, I am right there with Franklin: the attraction is electrifying and it is only getting better every week.

Posted by Kathryn.

************

Episode 7: Hitting the Ground

After two fantastic weeks in a row and the promise of a rollicking fast pace through the rest of the season, I am prepared to say this is my favorite season of True Blood yet. I continue to be very impressed with the way the writers are taking material from the various books and weaving them together, with some genuinely fantastic improvements, to make story-lines as full of juicy melodrama as a vampire’s head, ready to pop. For instance, in the third books (roughly the basis for this season), Sookie’s dispatching of Lorena with a swift stake to the heart takes place near the very end of the novel, and without Bill’s help. In fact, we learn almost nothing about Lorena in the novels, and we certainly aren’t privy to her little torture fest.I wasn’t sure I really bought the idea that Lorena would surrender so easily (and the show has done nothing but prove that she is stronger and faster than Bill, who is, let us remember, particularly weakened from blood loss and torture), but perhaps since she realizes Russell will probably kill her anyway she would rather die willingly in Bill’s embrace, even if that embrace is brought on by a silver chain around the neck. Even before Bill’s senseless fury in the back of the van, we all have to wonder why Sookie is still so love sick and isn’t she just a tad bit angry or confused by Bill’s recent behavior. We haven’t heard her voice these frustrations if they are there, but showing us her stake protruding from Lorena’s back just inches from Bill’s heart was a very nice touch. Just a hint of her desire to teach Bill a lesson too?

Of course, she doesn’t even get a chance to hear his excuses before her willing offer of blood awakens the demon lust in him that almost kills her. I guess we are supposed to think that once a vampire is nearly dead-dead, he is not capable of remembering who or where he is or that he is nearly killing his girlfriend? A perilous relationship indeed. In fact, Bill and Sookie’s relationship is starting to look uncomfortably similar to Franklin and Tara’s (and let it be noted here, I do not think we are done with Franklin). Sure, Franklin is a psychopath and Bill is just broody and confused, but both men are decidedly not good for their lady friends, and we have to ask, just how many times should one be willing to nearly die for your lover? Tara’s willingness to lump them together and cast Bill out into the daylight is a bit extreme, but not, perhaps, so far from the right path after all.

Of course, Bill doesn’t burn to ash as she intends, and this seems to have something to do with having consumed so much of Sookie’s blood. A little taste here and there during coitus is not enough to do the trick, but nearly draining her has given Bill some sort of ultra protection. Which raises the question the series has been asking since season 1, and with new vigor this season: what is Sookie Stackhouse? [NB: I know the answer that the books give, but I am holding it in reserve. Both because I don't want to post any spoilers, and because the writers have made enough changes to make me uncertain they won't shake things up].

Her coma vision was clearly supposed to be an answer along the way, and the two biggest clues we learn are: there is something going on with water – both the glowing water she drinks (and apparently has drunk before) and the strange exchange that gestures to the drowning accident where the Stackhouse parents died. What is the deal with water and Sookie’s magical powers? Is she a naiad perhaps, or some other water sprite? The other thing we learn is that the creatures inhabiting this paradisaical garden have never encountered vampires before, and they are loath to do so. The coming of Bill into the hospital room sends shadows over the alternative paradise and Claudette leaves Sookie with a injunction not to let him suck her light out. Whatever Sookie is, it is something in the supernatural order over and against vampires. But not, apparently something horrifying to them, since Eric looks surprised and somewhat delighted when cousin Hadley whispers the secret to him under duress.

I am hopeful that when the big revelation comes, we will also learn why Sophie-Anne was so keen to learn more about Sookie. Perhaps whatever Sookie is will play into the vampire power politics that have Russell beheading the Magister and scoffing at the mysterious Authority. I would love to learn more about the hierarchies of power in the vampire world, and in the supernatural world more broadly. If there is a realm of creatures that don’t interact with vampires, but that wield some kind of power over vampires (e.g., Sookie’s blood overpowering Bill), what does that mean for Russell’s insistence that vampires are the winners in a game of natural selection? Has Sophie-Anne been trying to get her hands on a secret weapon, a la the mysterious Sookie? Perhaps these will remain separate stories, but I am rooting for integration.

If they could find a way to integrate the other Bon Temps stories, I would be even happier, but I just can’t see it. I love Sam, and Tommy is growing on me, but I am less and less compelled by that story as the weeks go on. I am still holding out hope for our venture into Hot Shot, but if they don’t pick up that pace, I don’t think I can hold on much longer. I am loving the kick-ass Tara and hope she stays around, even if it means another scary confrontation with Franklin. Lafayette took a backseat this week, but I am still hopeful for his new love with Jesus.

The pace, the gore, the twisted love lines – it is all as delicious as a draught of Sookie’s mysterious, non-typable blood!

Posted by Kathryn.

—-

Episode 8: Everything is Broken

I have said this already, but let me reiterate: one of the best things about this season is Denis O’Hare. Russell Edgington is incredible and while I am not sure how he will survive this season without throwing us into some kind of apocalyptic showdown, I will mourn his passing like psychopath Franklin promises to mourn Tara. Let us pause to appreciate that this episode ended with Russell holding a human spine on national television. This, after he wept angry, forlorn tears into the bloody urn of his lover… while wearing a cape. Could there be anything campier?

But high theatrics aside, where does this leave us? Can Nan Flannigan salvage the PR crisis? Is the Great Revelation in jeopardy? My favorite part of this mythology is watching vampires negotiate their lives among humans, and I would hate to see this devolve into open conflict/warfare. The everyday dilemmas of the mainstreaming undead are far more interesting to me than a grand showdown between the two races, with other supes joining sides perhaps. And, I don’t know, perhaps whatever Sookie is acting as the lynchpin in a cosmic battle. I don’t think the show will go there, but the alternative to me seems like a Viking’s revenge for Russell.

The more maniacal Russell becomes, the less I care about the other plots. And this especially in an episode like last night, where I felt like we couldn’t stick with one story for more than 30 seconds. If someone proclaims to know or guess what Sookie is and then pans out leaving us with a shocked or expectant look one more time, I think I will scream. At this point, whatever the revelation they are going to have to work so hard to convince me it is as exciting and important as it seems. Like, “Sookie is the lynchpin in a cosmic battle” kind of important and I’ve already said why I am less than thrilled about that prospect. Come on already – let the cat out of the bag so we can all get on with it.

I guess that was my biggest frustration with the whole episode. We got tiny tidbits that felt more like tying up loose ends (Franklin’s terrifying return, Tara’s reclamation of agency, even if it was to let go of her own life, and then his gory, final demise) or setting us up for yet more plot twists to come (Holly offering Arlene “another way” out of her pregnancy; Holly introducing us to her telepathic son suggesting that there is a general APB out on all telepaths in the vampire world; Calvin Norris bloodied by Sam’s violent temper and in a car with Lafayette and Jesus). All of these stories could be interesting in themselves, but spliced into tiny segments that promise to keep unraveling into no where they make me lose interests. Come to think of it, a cosmic showdown between humans and vampires doesn’t sound so bad. At least we’d have a story.

Complaining aside, I still love the world that is being created. I just want to get into it more – not just flit about on the margins looking for a way into the beating, bloody heart.

Come on True Blood, strengthen your quivering spine or at least let Russell rip it out.

Posted by Kathryn.

******************

Episode 10: I Smell A Rat

Well, now we know. Sookie is a fairy. Perhaps to satisfy the part in all of us that couldn’t help but feel a little let down by the revelation after so many weeks of teasing, Sookie herself responds with skepticism. It takes Bill’s earnest insistence that fairies are no laughing matter, but are in fact powerful, important, and oh so delectable. It does help explain why every vampire Sookie meets drools over her, follows her around, and puts up with her nagging and whining. But honestly, I couldn’t help feeling a little “so what?” about it all. I have hopes that we might learn more fae mythology, and that could be cool, but I think I could have learned this episodes ago and not minded skipping the huge buildup.

That might be said of several of the other revelations: Sam was a grifter and cold-blooded killer in the early 90s. Crystal is a were-panther. Lafayette might be a shaman/witch/something powerful. All of these could be totally fascinating new bits of knowledge, but they came so fast and furiously, with virtually no sense of how they connected, whether they were important, indeed if they mattered and what they meant. This episode, more than most, really drove home how much this show is operating on a soap opera paradigm. If you’ve ever watched a daytime soap, you know that revelations can be drawn out over weeks (nay seasons) and the implications of one revelation may not really be felt for months or even years. Each segment is loaded with cues of emotional significance, even when there is no clear sense of what anything means.

True Blood is borrowing these tropes pretty heavily this season, but they do have the good sense to insert enough action to elevate the show above the stagnation and repetition that makes a daily soap so deadly after a while. Russell tearing out a human spine on live television was exactly one such moment. But then this week, there is no real fallout from his televised murder and instead, he became an even campier, deranged bereaved lover. What happened to his plot to take over the world? Did losing Talbot make him lose his own spine (yep, I did just go there)? I was sort of hoping he would plot some grand scheme of world domination, ratcheting the whole “can vampires live among humans?’ debate up a few notches. Instead, he haunts dark allies looking for nubile dark-skinned boys to stake in twisted grieving rituals. Maybe he just needs to say his proxy goodbyes so he can get on with diabolical plotting. It does appear that the big showdown of the season is going to come between Eric and Russell, with Sookie as a secret weapon. I think a lot about how the series can move forward will be determined by how Sookie is “used”/defies being used.

Of course, another showdown is brewing and that is the heavy-handed suggestion that Bill is not trust-worthy and is hiding the fact that he pursued Sookie in the first place on Sophie-Anne’s orders (Eric says as much point blank, though Bill denies it). Eric continues to insist to Sookie (in dreams and real life) that she knows she can’t trust Bill, and he seems to be hitting a nerve. The biggest indication is when she shows up at Fangtasia demanding answers, but might as well have said as much when she tells Jason that lying to someone is not the same as protecting them. To which he asks how she would know since no one can ever lie to her. Except vampires, she reminds him. Da-dum. Really, Sookie, did you have a particular vampire in mind? It all felt a bit heavy-handed. My prediction: the Russell/Eric showdown will unfold next week, or maybe spill over into the first half of the final episode. But then, the Bill/Sookie showdown will be the cliffhanger that closes the season.

Even so a lot of other balls will be left in the air: witches/wiccans/shamans; were-panthers; the sorry state of Bon Temps legal force; the import of Sam’s past on his present. Any guesses, fair readers, how these plots will end this season or why they will matter going forward?

Two final comments before I close: I loved the scene between Jason and Tara and his pained, honest, somewhat selfish confession. The ability to tap into that kind of confused emotion is also something that elevates TB above your daily soap. I also love that Eric is the kind of character who can sweet-talk Sookie one moment (“if I meet the true death without having kissed you, it will be my only regret?” Really, Eric? After 1000 years that would be your only regret?) and then lock her in a neck chain in his dungeon soon after. Pam is right, he can be a cold-hearted bastard. But that also makes him one of the most interesting characters on the show.

Other thoughts? Predictions as we move toward the big finale?

Posted by Kathryn.

*******************

If it is possible for a season finale to act more like a prequel to the next season, I haven’t seen it in a long time. Not, perhaps, since the hatch was blown open at the end of season 1 of Lost did I think that everything I had just seen was only for the purpose of something yet to come. That is not to say I didn’t like the episode. I did. It had enough resolution of some central stories and enough momentum of its own to prevent the drag that has slowed some of the last episodes. But it didn’t really feel like a finale. It felt like Alan Ball and writers have finally figured out what they want to do with various story lines and then they ran out of time. There wasn’t even a cliffhanger that left me absolutely on the edge of my seat:sure, I want to know what is happening in fairy land. But not like I wanted to know what had happened to Bill at the end of last season. I am mildly curious if Sam really shot Tommy and wonder where Tara is off to. But not in the way that merits waiting an entire season. I very much want to know if Russell can escape from concrete like Eric did, but I suspect that is not where things are headed. I am not at all sure what is happening with Jason and the sad denizens of Hot Shot, but neither am I sure that that story should be given too much more life. I am sorry it took us this long to get to the heart of Lafayette and Jesus’ story. I am glad they are likely to feature prominently next season, but I would have been happy to get here five episodes ago and just dive in.

I guess that is how I feel about most of the stories. Once it was clear that Russell was not going to make a maniacal bid to take over the world it also became clear that we were just biding our time for the real action to begin. Which I presume is going to be the action with witches next season and whatever is on the horizon now that Bill and Sookie seem to be on the rocks in a more permanent way. And since there wasn’t enough time left to actually get into these developments, we just hung around watching flashbacks of Sam the huckster and learning more about the inbreeding of were panthers.

There were some truly fine and surprising moments in the finale. Bill’s vicious turn against Eric and Pam and his ambush of Sophie-Anne being the best of all. One thing we definitely learned this season is that Bill is far more interesting when he is a bad boy and I hope that lesson lasts into season 4 (have you noticed that when Bill is really serious about being a bad ass he puts on his leather jacket? Kind of obvious, but I love it!). I would love to get more background into his work for Sophie-Anne and to see to what depths of desperation his despair over Sookie will lead him. Lafayette’s visions were also pretty fantastic. Even though I hope they do a better job explaining the mythologies and hierarchies of witches than they have with either werewolves or fairies so far, watching him discover this untapped power is pretty fun (and even a little scary). Sookie’s manic laugh as she pours Talbot down the garbage disposal was also wonderful. Perhaps she needs to go off the deep end a bit more herself. In general I love Sam and Jason, but it just feels like they are being given increasingly random stories to keep them in play. I would prefer a far-fetched way to draw them into the main stories or even to let them go [and let me just take a moment to register my discontent with the handling of Calvin Norris. Nay the whole of Hot Shot. It is not exactly like Hot Shot is a well kept suburb in the books, but there is a real and sustained dignity to the working class characters Charlaine Harris' created - Calvin Norris was perhaps one of the only real gentleman Sookie ever met, Bill not excepted. To paint them as hillbilly, woman-beating, inbred meth-heads just played into the red state/blue state politics that colored the depiction of the Fellowship of the Sun last season, except even worse. Though, digression within a digression, I love the little news clips with Rev. Newlin]. Likewise with Hoyt and Jessica. They are some of the best characters on the show (and the only functioning couple at all, except perhaps Jesus and Lafayette and it is a bit early to say). But I don’t want them just to stand in for vampire-human love in a wacky little side bar with Hoyt’s mother.

My real affection remains focused on the vampire-human relationships, but if they are going to keep delving into layers of supernatural creatures, witches seem like a great place to go. Provided that we actually learn something about witches and see how they fit into the overall world. Werewolves promised to be a great addition and then just fizzled off the screen. Some viewers have complained that the supernatural world is getting too crowded. I can see the point, especially because it still feels like a human/vampire world with minor players in orbits of their own. If I can be convinced that the supes really inhabit a unified world, with tensions and frictions and alliances and histories, then I am all about layering on their existence.

I suppose all of this is to say that I am eager for season 4 to see where all of this is going to go. And that, I suppose, is what a finale is supposed to do after all.

Posted by Kathryn.