After a terrific 3 episode stretch preceding this one, True Blood took a minor step back this week into “pretty good” territory. It would be hard not to with the stakes slightly dropping, as witchy Antoinetta went from attempting to assassinate all vampires to attempting a kidnapping at a fundraiser – and as Sookie relatively stayed out of danger. A succesful show has to take time to reload their gun after firing, True Blood Season 4 is surely at this point putting the chess pieces in order for a climactic finale heavily involving the fates of Bill, Eric, Sookie vs Antoinetta.
Yet a few things still progressed this week. Most noteably, the storyline involving Arlene and Terry’s possessed baby and the African-American mothery ghost haunting it appears to have wrapped up. Or has it? It feels like a bit of a letdown if it has, after all this time in the season spent between Arlene and Terry watching the demonic baby and Lafayette and Jesus accessing their witchery routes. I expect of course that Lafayette’s medium ability will further come into play in the upcoming seasons, but still, one would think the ghost “Maven” could’ve connected to the bigger Antoinetta storyline somehow and been resolved at the end of the season to make it seem more important.
We saw Jessica and Jason doing it in the back of a pick up truck. I’m guessing it never crossed their mind Hoyt may come by to check on Jessica and get an up close view of the show’s newest romantic pairing, but then again, neither have been the sharpest tools in the shed. While it was the less cliche move to simply allude to Jessica chasing down Jason as he was entering his truck instead of showing it, I do think they missed out on a seminal make-out get-together moment, if they intend to push this pairing far.
Sam and his brother Tommy’s storyline continues to be slightly yawn worthy, as their parts in this episode came down to Sam getting laid in the woods by his dull love interest and Tom skinwalking as Sam getting beat up by werewolfs. Sam has been the biggest disappointment in the show the last 2 years by my standards. I found him most interesting when he was involved in relationship subplots with Sookie or Tara early in the show, in the former’s case presenting a human competitor to Bill’s vampire and giving her a Xander Harris like “makes up for lack of special powers with heart and goodness” sidekick. In the last 2 seasons he’s hardly been in any scenes with either Sookie or Tara, instead following Mickens storylines that just feel like filler, and they’ve taken away his ‘the real hero’ appeal by making him a killer and dick. I’m guessing the Tommy storyline has to end soon, hopefully by his death – after that maybe Sam can actually have scenes with other major characters and become interesting again.
We also got a lot more Alcide and Debbie action. Debbie’s back on the V. after feeling that Alcide is slipping away. Andy Belleflour likewise is on the V. I don’t mind either storyline, but I hope they have some implications at some point. I don’t feel making Alcide a Sookie love interest is that needed with Bill vs Eric starting up very soon as foreshadowed by Sookie’s dream. If they were going to bring in a 3rd competitor for the Sooks there, I’d have rather it been Sam again.
Jessica and Bill's scenes with Nan before and during her silver chain lockdown were the best scenes of the episode, Nan as always exudes exubrant bitch flair, making up for Pam not appearing in the episode. I’m still waiting for True Blood to take us deeper into the American Vampire League, it’s headquarters and so on. Perhaps next season.
Anyways, it’s hard to believe there’s only a few episodes left of this season. I think we all know Antoinetta’s eventual fate, but it’ll be fun getting there. What I’m looking forward to most is regular, snarky Eric coming back and how Sookie reacts to it. The Bill, Eric, Sooks love triangle is probably just beginning. Stay tuned.
