Marvel Thud: “Time And Tide” Is An Agent Carter Dud!

The Good: Plot progresses, Acting is adequate
The Bad: No significant character development, Dull plot, No superlative acting moments
The Basics: Despite trying to ground the episode “Time And Tide” with a big tragic moment, Agent Carter has its first real dud with its third episode.


The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in an odd place. While 2015 is virtually guaranteed to be a big year for Marvel’s arm of Disney with Ant Man and the new The Avengers sequel, until they arrive, television is where the Marvel Cinematic Universe it at. Plugging the mini-series Agent Carter with a full night premiere and the first trailer for Ant Man only seemed to show how Disney was hedging its bets. Agent Carter is, by its nature, a tougher sell than any other Marvel-related series. Having just rewatched Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!), the whole “purpose” of Agent Carter is that she helps to found S.H.I.E.L.D. So, whatever happens in Agent Carter the viewer knows that the title character must survive and some element of the show is either Carter discovering how to reorganize the SSR into S.H.I.E.L.D. or forestalling the inevitable, either of which is not exactly great fodder for entertainment.

Picking up where “Bridge And Tunnel” (reviewed here!) left off, Agent Carter continues with its heavily-serialized story with “Time And Tide.” For those who have missed the prior two episodes, there is little point in starting with “Time And Tide.” While Captain America: The First Avenger (reviewed here!) might not be essential viewing to get into Agent Carter, the prior two episodes are. After all, this is the third episode focusing on the trail of clues that follow the theft of Howard Stark’s prototypes and the assassins and thugs of Leviathan who are set up to fence or use those prototypes!

Agent Carter is doing research on the symbol left at the last dead body on her hunt for Leviathan when a man climbs up to her window (he’s there for another woman in the house). Meanwhile, her colleagues for the SSR track down the special typewriter the members of Leviathan are using to communicate with one another. The SSR has discovered the body of a man who was supposed to be dead for years and Howard Stark’s license plate in the debris of the corporation destroyed by Stark’s weapon. With Stark’s license plate tying him to the scene, the SSR brings Jarvis in for questioning. As Jack Thompson interrogates Jarvis, Agent Carter becomes concerned that Jarvis will crack and reveal some of their secrets.

After Carter gets Jarvis sprung from the SSR, she and Jarvis discover how the prototypes were actually stolen from Howard Stark’s saferoom. Together, they investigate both the spillway used to steal the prototypes and the warehouse where the prototypes have been moved (thanks to the symbol the last corpse revealed). When Carter wants to call in the find of the prototypes, Jarvis tries to convince her that the SSR will only tear Carter down using the information.

With “Time And Tide,” Agent Carter reveals itself to be a thinly-veiled rework of Alias (reviewed here!) set in the late 1940s. As a result, Agent Peggy Carter finds herself juggling between the SSR (where she is not respected), her private investigation into the theft of Howard Stark’s prototypes, and the much lamer plot revolving around her personal life outside work, at the women’s home where she lodges. So, Peggy Carter has a wisecracking, strong best friend at home, Francine, er, Angie and the reticent professional at work, played by a more-established, respectable actor, in this case James D’Arcy’s Jarvis, and she runs around trying to keep the three parts of her life in balance. So far, at least, there is no ridiculous romantic subplot to screw things up (arguably just because Captain America “died” . . . wait, Alias started that way, too!).

“Time And Tide” seems derivative for no particular reason, save the soap operatic nature of Carter’s interplay with Angie and the way mundane “clues” in her daily life suddenly clue Carter into something in her professional life. So, really, Agent Carter, British superagent who worked with Howard Stark and Captain America never thought about how Howard Stark’s prototypes were stolen until someone tries breaking into the woman’s home?! It’s not the overt men of the SSR who don’t respect Agent Carter; it is the writers of Agent Carter (ironic in this case because “Time And Tide” was written by Andi Bushell!). Bushell might have just been stuck with the rough chapter to write in the longer arc (something that happens with collaborative writing on series’s), but she does not exactly make it easier on women or Peggy Carter. It is hard, after watching “Time And Tide” to wonder who would care about Agent Carter if they were just coming to the series. In other words, Peggy Carter is not a particularly likable or interesting protagonist in Agent Carter. In fact, in “Time And Tide,” she has no superlative qualities.

Near the climax of “Time And Tide,” there is a death at the SSR and perhaps the big problem with the episode is that after less than three hours, none of the characters have popped. As a result, none of them are particularly distinct or worth empathizing with. In order to discuss members of the SSR team, I still have to check the IMDB just for character names; it’s not a lack of attention on my part, it’s that three hours in we have Leader Guy, Chad Michael Murray (the actor), Crushy McPolioSuvivor and The Rest Of The Guys. So, trying to make a death at the SSR seem significant, especially in the Marvel Universe where (so far), no one has remained dead, save one or two people on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., is a tough sell. Director Scott Winant does not land it with “Time And Tide.”

As for the rest of the cast, Hayley Atwell does fine with Peggy Carter (despite how flawed the character is!) and James D’Arcy is able to sell the ethical gray area in which Jarvis lives with his beautiful British timbre. Lyndsy Fonseca is given more screen time in “Time And Tide” and she makes fine use of it, though her character is a pretty mundane supporting role that does not give the actress much room to do anything with.

The result of “Time And Tide,” though, is a plot-heavy episode that seems more and more unremarkable the more one considers the chain of evidence and minimal plot developments. Agent Carter was granted an eight-episode mini-series arc; perhaps before ABC/Disney signed off on it, they should have figured out if there was enough story, character development and genuine substance to flesh out eight hours. “Time And Tide,” distilled from its filler and tangents probably would have been about ten minutes otherwise.

For other works with Lyndsy Fonseca, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Kick-Ass 2
Hot Tub Time Machine
Kick-Ass
How I Met Your Mother - Season 6
How I Met Your Mother - Season 5
How I Met Your Mother - Season 4
How I Met Your Mother - Season 3
How I Met Your Mother - Season 2
How I Met Your Mother - Season 1

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Agent Carter - The Complete First Season, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Agent Carter here!
Thanks!]

2/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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True Blood Finally Reaches Its End: “Thank You!”

The Good: Decent-enough acting
The Bad: Dull plot, Light on character, Entirely contrived
The Basics: “Thank You” sees the end of True Blood and the conclusion does not keep the focus on Bill and Sookie enough to be a truly satisfying end for fans.


This is a big week for television! With the Emmys come and gone (was I the only one who didn’t know it was last night until the event passed?!), my focus is turning to the ends and the beginnings that are the highlights of this week in television. Chief among the endings (for me and other genre fans) is the series finale of True Blood. True Blood has had a rough seventh season and the shortened ten-episode season saw its end with “Thank You.” It is worth noting that because True Blood is a heavily serialized show and “Thank You” is its series finale, that some spoilers might be contained within this review, if for no other reason than that all that comes before led to “Thank You.”

Given the rocky nature of the seventh season of True Blood, I was not heartened by the trending topic relating to “Thank You” was that True Blood ended with a “wacky” finale. “Wacky” is not a word I would use to describe the sometimes-erotic, sometimes nauseatingly-gory supernatural soap opera. So, with lowered expectations, I rewatched “Love Is To Die” (reviewed here!) before tuning into “Thank You.” And

With Bill Compton having refused treatment for his Hep-V, he tries to explain his decision to Sookie. Having felt more alive since meeting Sookie, Bill does not want to live beyond Sookie, so he asks her to use her fairy light on him to bring him the true death. Faced with the choice of outliving Bill and having vampires interested in her and her fairy blood, Sookie seriously considers giving up her fairy light to kill Bill. Back at Fangtasia, Eric decides to betray Gus Jr. by setting Sarah Newlin free, stealing Gus Jr.’s New Blood (cure for Hep-V) and eradicating the human and his goons. Sarah begs Pam to vamp her and while Pam refuses, she does use the human for a Hep-V vaccination.

With Bill indelicately pushing the issue between Hoyt and Jessica, all of Bon Temps leaps to make arrangements for the abrupt wedding of the human and vampire. Those arrangements take the form of the predictable – Hoyt asks Jason to be his best man, Jessica scrambles to get a wedding dress – and the painfully mundane (Bill sits Andy down and asks him to “rent” his mansion to Hoyt and Jessica after his death because Bill cannot will the property to Jessica). During the wedding, Sookie is surprised that she can hear Bill’s thoughts. As Sookie debates putting Bill out of his misery, she talks to Jason, Reverend Daniels and Bill himself. After Sookie and Bill get closure, the episode flashes forward to show some resolution on how Eric and Pam’s business venture into New Blood went and then how everyone in Bon Temps is doing years later.

Starting “Thank You” out heavy with Bill Compton, Sookie, Eric and Pam sets the finale up for a satisfying conclusion. With the main – and most popular – enduring characters of the show getting the spotlight, fans are given some hope that the show might end on a high note. For as much as I might love the weird love story of Jessica and Hoyt, when “Thank You” shifts focus to them and the relationship between Jessica and Bill and then flashbacks with Sookie, Gran, and Tara, the episode takes a turn for the plodding and melodramatic. When “Thank You” seems like it might become an abrupt and somewhat ridiculous wedding episode, it seems like True Blood’s finale was going to be one of the least satisfying endings of television history. And it is, largely, unremarkable and unsatisfying.

In addition to completely contrived character moments – Hoyt has no memories of his friendship with Jason, so that he leaps to asking him to be his best man seems more satisfying for the viewers than honestly an organic plot/character development – “Thank You” is mired in trying to service the large cast (which is a pretty consistent problem the show has faced as it has gone on). Arlene and Holly being a part of the wedding is not entirely inorganic, but it does seem forced the way Arlene runs around prior to the wedding.

The idea of ending with a wedding is a pretty ridiculous one for a story that has been much more action-based and gory than it has been a relationship story in its later years. More than that, by focusing on Jessica and Hoyt, “Thank You” is mired in preaching to the choir. True Blood fans are by and large, smart and liberal. From the first episode, True Blood made a strong allegory between vampirism and homosexuality. So, the concept that the marriage of Hoyt and Jessica might not be legal, but it is loving and sanctified by god, seems to be beating the metaphor home for the people who already get the point.

In a similar way, Sookie turning to Reverend Daniels makes for a weird scene that makes very little sense for the character. Given the telepathic nature of Sookie Stackhouse, a crowded church seems like it would have hardly been a place of refuge for young Sookie. Turning to Daniels this late in the story seems forced and like Sookie is just taking advice from anybody in the world, regardless of their perspective and personal relationship with her. In fact, in the supernatural realm in which True Blood and Sookie Stackhouse exist, “Thank You” would have been the ideal time to bring in angels as a final supernatural creature, but the show does not. Instead, viewers are asked to believe that Sookie would turn to Daniels.

On the positive side, Anna Paquin’s performance of the episode’s pivotal scene sells the emotional depth of the moment. Whether this is great acting or not is debatable as Paquin having to contemplate a mercy killing for her real-life husband Stephen Moyer seems like it would be a wrenching experience. Paquin plays the scene with all of the intensity one expects from such a moment.

But fans of True Blood are rightfully unsatisfied and part of the reason has to be the final scene of “Thank You.” While some might wonder who the man Sookie is with is or why she is pregnant (if there had been no man at the head of the table, fans could easily have made the leap that Sookie was acting as a surrogate for Jessica and Hoyt, an idea that would have made their otherwise pointless wedding in the episode far more compelling), the real kick in the nads to fans is the conceptual shift that the final scene implies. Fans of True Blood have sat through seven seasons of partner-swapping, complex relationships mixed in with supernatural entities and monsters. Four years after the wedding of Hoyt and Jessica, EVERYBODY is still together with the partner they were with at the time.

Really?!

“Thank You” makes that assertion. So, between Sarah Newlin getting the penultimate scene, in a moment entirely reminiscent of how Alias concluded the Sloane/Rambaldi arc and a contrived happy ending where monogamy and traditional family values wins out, “Thank You” closes True Blood on a downbeat and leaves us uninterested in rewatching the season, much less the series.

For other notable series finales, please visit my reviews of:
“Goodbyeee” - Blackadder Goes Forth
“What You Leave Behind” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into True Blood - The Complete Sevent Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of the supernatural show here!
Thanks!]

3/10

For other television episode and movie reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ending On The Anticlimax, The Sixth Season Finale Of True Blood Is Anything But “Radioactive!”

The Good: ? The special effects, Plot movement
The Bad: Creates huge plot holes, Anticlimactic, Nothing spectacular on the acting front, Huge time gap used to explain away dramatic character changes.
The Basics: Ending unremarkably, “Radioactive” caps off True Blood’s sixth season poorly and sets up an immediate bloodbath for Season Seven.


Season finales fascinate me. I love endings and season finales represent the best chance a show has to hook its audience for the future. With (sometimes) years between seasons of premium cable shows, the season finale has a responsibility to create strong consumer desire during the show’s absence. Unfortunately, this year has been marred by rather uninspired finales of some of the most popular cable shows, like Game Of Thrones (Season Three reviewed here!) and The Walking Dead (Season Three reviewed here!). So, as the shortened season of True Blood reached its finale with “Radioactive” after the scene the season had apparently been building to the whole time already been reached, it was somewhat predictable that “Radioactive” would be somewhat anticlimactic.

Unfortunately, the episode becomes ridiculous after further contemplation and is so full of plot holes that it is likely to make even the diehard fans cringe in frustration. “Radioactive” caps off a season where big character deaths were promised and it is impossible to discuss the episode without mentioning the two significant character deaths within the episode (because they open up two huge cans of worms that are worth discussing). But the promised “big deaths” before “Radioactive” have been unfortunately disappointing. After all, the Governor was not around long enough to become a significant character, Terry Bellefleur’s arc had pretty much run its course the prior season, and Steve Newlin had become more of a distraction than an integral character. Oh, and Nora was replaced with Willa this season much the way Data (who was far more important to Star Trek: The Next Generation than Nora ever was to True Blood) was ultimately replaced by B-4, so there’s not a lot to look forward to in that character in the future. So, “Radioactive” claims to pay off the big character death that was promised before the season began.

It fails.

What “Radioactive” does is reestablish Warlow as a villain. Warlow has spent most of the sixth season of True Blood doing anything but menacing Sookie. Instead, he wants to make her his bride and create another vampire/fairy hybrid who will live forever and, presumably, be disgusted by who they are (I’m not sure the writers really thought that one through; Warlow is disgusted by being a vampire, so why would he want to make Sookie one when the fairies seem virtually immortal themselves?!). In “Radioactive,” Warlow has lost his patience and, in the process, reasserts himself as a villain willing to kill, rape and do other unpleasant things to get what he wants.

Opening with a ton more vampires out in the sun following the demise of the Governor’s camp than were seen at the end of “Life Matters” (reviewed here!), the vampire population is celebrating the end of their incarceration. The sheer number of vampires out in the sun makes no sense. Eric had left and Bill was near death from being drained and there was no rational reason to give any more of the vampires who had been imprisoned any of the fairy blood. So, the numbers make no sense right off the bat, but there is a virtual orgy of vampires out in the sun, frolicking and celebrating their freedom.

The orgy comes on the heels of Terry’s funeral, which is how Sookie and Alcide learn of the victory of Eric and Bill at the Governor’s camp. Sookie and Jason are reunited and Sookie forgets to tell Jason that their mutual friend, Terry Bellefleur is dead and half the town just came from his funeral. Given how close Jason is with Andy, Terry’s cousin, this only reinforces the idea that the writers are sloppy and/or Sookie is the most self-centered female protagonist on television today. Sookie goes to visit Warlow on the fairy plane and discovers that he will not date her; he wants to marry her that very night, by force if necessary. Pam tells Tara that she is going after Eric and she flies off to do just that. Bill, who is now largely powerless, is convinced by Jessica to go save Sookie.

Using Adilyn, Bill, Jason, and Violet transfer to the fairy plane where they begin a fight against Warlow. They rescue Sookie and the entire group makes it back to our world where a last-second visitor saves Sookie and gives Jason the ability to stake Warlow. In killing Warlow, his magical blood diminishes and all those who were using his blood to survive suddenly lose the special powers granted by it. This has unfortunate results for one vampire who is out sunning himself at the time, but the others apparently survive unharmed. Six months later, Bill has published a memoir about the creation of Hep-V and the death of the Governor, Sam has been elected mayor of Bon Temps and he and Arlene (who now owns the old Merlotte’s, now Bellefleur’s) hatch a plan to keep the people of Bon Temps safe from roving vampire gangs that have descended upon Lousiana. After pitching the idea of a symbiotic relationship between vampires and humans, they encourage the residents of Bon Temps to pair up with vampires for protection and feeding to their mutual advantage. But, their attempt at peaceful co-existence is immediately threatened . . .

So, why is “Radioactive” so anticlimactic and disappointing? First, there is no genuine character development. The characters continue along being who they are until the six month gap, which is used as an excuse to completely reinvent many of the characters. That’s not development, it’s a course correction.

Second, “Radioactive” includes several continuity problems and implies several huge ones to come. Chief among them is the power of fairy blood. Fairy blood has never been a permanent savior for vampires, though in the sixth season it is treated like it is. When Eric and Russell Edgington used Sookie’s blood in prior seasons, they were only able to spend time in the sun for a few minutes before the effects wore off then they burned to a crisp. While Warlow’s blood is, presumably, much more powerful, there was nothing in the show that indicated it would indefinitely allow vampires to remain in the sun.

The new nemesis, bands of roving Hep-V infected vampires makes no sense either. Nora was virtually paralyzed by Hep-V and she didn’t live more than two days after being infected. Are we truly to believe that Eric, who has long fought to save vampires, and Bill, who enjoyed godlike powers for the season and attained mythic status among vampires, would not have wiped out every Hep-V infected vampire in the Governor’s camp?! The only way to save the majority would have been to wipe out that infected minority of vampires, so it makes sense. (Come to think of it, where the hell did all those vampires come from at the beginning of the episode – Sarah Newlin had all the vampires that wouldn’t drink the infected True Blood rounded up in the prior episode and Nora’s death clearly established that fairy blood was not a cure for Hep-V?!) That means that for “Radioactive” to work, we have to believe that Eric selfishly flew off to vacation, as opposed to destroying every last infected shipment of True Blood he could find. Because the only shipment of infected True Blood we saw get out went to Honolulu. Sorry, crappy writers, but Hawaii is both incredibly sunny and an island. Hep-V infected vampires would not stand a chance there. Humans, hunker down for two nights and the problem dies out. Seriously, it’s that easy given how fast Hep-V was shown to work for the rest of the season. So, the idea that the U.S. would be terrorized for months by roving bands of young vampires who should die in less than two days and who would be in excruciating pain for the rest of their brief life makes no sense whatsoever. It is a continuity issue of such proportions that it almost dwarfs the other continuity problems in the episode (and beyond).

With the death of Warlow and the subsequent main character death, we are asked to buy a new premise: glamours only work for the duration of the life of the vampire. [Sorry, but I have to spoil it before big problem #3!] Eric’s apparent death is the only reason that Alcide would be able to date Sookie in the six months later sequence. After all, in the fifth season (reviewed here!), Eric punitively glamoured Alcide to make him feel utter sexual revulsion for Sookie following their adventure in recovering Russell. Why is this a problem? It means that for every vampire who dies, all their glamours come undone. If that is true, it becomes virtually impossible for the seventh season to have a more important character than . . . Ginger.

GINGER?!

Yup, Ginger. Ginger is the little skeletal bloodsack who has been around Eric and Pam for the worst carnage in Fangtasia and their solution all along has been to simply glamour her. In fact, she has been glamoured so many times that she is virtually an idiot now. But if all of Eric’s glamours come undone, she has a vast supply of intelligence for vampire activities and would, presumably, have the werewithall restored to use it. If Pam, who was out searching the world for Eric at the time of Warlow’s death, died off-camera, at the same time, Ginger would basically become a genius on vampire activities, mannerisms, and crimes.

That leads us to the third huge problem with “Radioactive;” suspension of disbelief. “Radioactive” seems to be following in the tradition of the third season finale of The Walking Dead which made it almost impossible to deny that Andrea was killed. However, almost immediately after the episode aired, people started asking if Laurie Holden was coming back for season four and the actress played it coy. In order for Andrea to come back, the show would require a suspension of disbelief well outside the strongly realistic tone set by the series. “Radioactive” creates an implies suspension of disbelief on two fronts. First, writer Kate Barnow and director Scott Winant ask the viewer to believe that Eric is killed. One second, he is reading high atop a vast mountaintop in Sweden, the next Warlow is killed and he begins to cook. But Winant pans away while Eric is on fire and we are not granted the boon or catharsis of seeing him finished off. So, for “Radioactive,” we are asked to suspend our disbelief that the fan-favorite character of Eric Northman would die an inglorious death that is not shown.

. . .and it leads us to a suspension of disbelief for Season Seven that seems to be far too much to bear. Eric will be found alive or Pam will, against all odds, find his remains. I’m betting on the former. In fact, the setting virtually writes itself. Eric is last seen on a high, snow-covered peak. Place your bets now. My bet is this: if Eric is not actually dead, what happened is simple. Eric begins to burn up high atop the mountain when the heat from his burning body melts the snow. It melts the snow at his feet and he sinks down and – lo and behold! – he is above a cave exit or vent, so his burning corpse falls out of the sunlight and into a dark cave. It is there that Pam will find him (I’m betting he’ll have a long, scraggly beard) in the next season. An even cheaper resolution would be that the second after the camera panned off Eric, a flaming Pam literally falls out of the sky and the force of the two flaming vampires plunging down into the snow puts them at a depth at which they are out of direct sunlight and where they recover after a brief time. Do either of those ideas sound ridiculous? Well, they are. But, they fit the available scenarios based on how the pieces were placed in “Radioactive” and the rather troubling direction from Winant.

If you’re going to kill a character, do it. But don’t chicken out. Today’s audiences are too smart not to notice that the pile of blood and bones that marks the true death is absent from a scene when they are watching intently.

So . . . ridiculous suspensions of belief, poorly constructed villains and set-up, lousy character reinvention, “Radioactive” is a disappointment for the smart audience and almost enough to make one swear off the seventh season.

For other works in the True Blood franchise, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
True Blood - Season 1
True Blood All Together Now
True Blood - Season 2
True Blood - Season 3
True Blood - Season 4
True Blood Where Were You?

[For a much better value, check out True Blood Season 6 on Blu-Ray and DVD. The penultimate season is reviewed here! Check it out!]

4/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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More Anna Paquin Nudity And Another Death “In The Evening!”

The Good: Plot progression, Moments of character
The Bad: Nothing stellar on the performance front, Somewhat predictable plot
The Basics: A startlingly average episode of True Blood, “In The Evening” returns to the tried and true formula of nudity and gore for a (mostly) satisfying episode.


Given how (apparently) harshly I review everything I encounter, I suppose it might be easy to be confused about what I actually like. The truth is, I like True Blood. However, it has become far more soap operatic and surprisingly droll, usually undermining its own principles (fairy realm is supposed to move at a vastly different pace than the real world, so if Sookie spends the night with Warlow in the fairy realm, how is it not, like three years later when she comes back this time?!) and belaboring servicing its bloated cast of characters as opposed to telling a coherent narrative. True Blood is rapidly devolving from a smart social commentary show into a “guilty pleasure;” “guilty” only if one does not accept their enjoyment of something simplistic for what it is. In fact, with the latest episode, “In The Evening,” True Blood feels vastly more like an episode of Angel (reviewed here!) with uncharacteristic nudity than something that the supposedly sophisticated HBO audience might gravitate toward.

At the heart of my issue with “In The Evening” is that the episode has only two superlative aspects (and one is not even all that incredible). “In The Evening” is a one-hour journey of Eric Northman whereby the character gains and loses his faith (not terribly extraordinary as the result is that he ends the episode exactly where he began it) and the performance by Carrie Preston. It is impossible to discuss “In The Evening” without revealing some spoilers that I omitted from my review of the prior episode, “Don’t You Feel Me” (reviewed here!), so do not read on if you want to be able to watch the sixth season and actually be surprised by which characters live and die! Beyond those two things, though, “In The Evening” is somewhat mundane and it is hampered by splintering off in so many directions that none of the characters actually get the chance to truly reflect on the magnitude of what is happening around them.

Case in point is Andy Bellefleur. Andy might have been saddled with children for only a few days, but to lose three of his four daughters and then his cousin within a few days, to already be at a point where he could forgive Bill and accept him seemed more plot convenient than character realistic (character realistic might have had Andy working toward the same goals as Bill, but refusing to do so side by side with him). The dialogue between Bill and Andy is memorable and well-written, but it happens so quickly relative to the carnage both characters have witnessed that it is very hard to accept as realistic for human psychology.

“In The Evening” picks up almost immediately after “Don’t You Feel Me” left off. Nora is dying of Hep-V, which the Governor has infected her with and Eric is working to get Nora out of the Camp. Eric puts his faith and hope in Bill Compton and after alerting Willa to the tainted TruBlood the governor has produced, he escapes with his sister and arrives at Bill’s, begging for the godlike vampire to save Nora. In an act of compassion, Bill tries to save Nora and when his blood fails to do so, he rushes out into the day in search of Warlow. Warlow and Sookie, meanwhile, have a discussion about how having sex does not mean they are married before Sookie senses the distraught Arlene in the graveyard. After returning Arlene home, Sookie and Lafayette go in search of Terry’s safe deposit box where they discover the cook had taken out a life insurance policy only days before his death to provide for Arlene and their children.

In the camp, Willa lets Tara and Jessica know about the tainted TruBlood and Pam delays any chance for contamination by seducing the psychologist who has a crush on her. When Sarah Newlin discover’s the Governor’s body, she hatches a scheme to keep the appearance of the Governor in place while she executes his plans against the vampire population. Unfortunately, her return to the camp puts Jason in serious jeopardy as he was doing Jessica a favor when he is exposed by Sarah and thrown in with the female vampire population. When Bill and Sookie reunite to find Warlow, Eric is left to tend to Nora.

And elsewhere in the True Blood universe, Jackson tries to share a decent moment with his son, Alcide, before Alcide once again shoves him away and Sam and Nicole have their inevitable sex scene before they go their separate ways. The Alcide and Sam storylines (which are intertwined) are a great example of how the show suffers as a whole because it has so many characters to service. If nothing happened with the characters, viewers would whine, “What about Sam or Alcide?” But, as it is, giving them about four minutes of airtime in a 56 minute episode does not truly advance their characters in any meaningful way (it’s not even enough time for Alcide to get his shirt off!).

While I want to say that “In The Evening” is a great example of the performance abilities of the cast of True Blood, it is not. Alexander Skarsgard plays Eric as more distraught in the episode’s climax than Eric was when Godrick died and Stephen Moyer has long had the ability to play Bill with subtlety and nuance down pat. Is Bill’s compassion for Nora realistic because of Moyer’s performance? Absolutely. Is it a surprise that he could emote so well while still making Bill seem like a vampire? Not at all. After Chris Bauer and Stephen Moyer play a scene loaded with subtext, there is a more refreshing sense that the performers have lived back up to the high expectations we’ve had for them as opposed to them reaching a new height.

The exception to the actors meeting performance expectations comes from Carrie Preston in “In The Evening.” Preston plays Arlene and Arlene has usually been relegated to a supporting character with one or two good quips per season (noting early in the season that Sookie seldom actually works at Merlotte’s anymore might have been all she got had it not been for Terry’s demise). However, in “In The Evening,” Preston has to play Arlene as emotionally shattered and truly despondent and she rises to the occasion admirably. In fact, given how many disappointments Arlene has face, that she put so much faith in Terry (despite him being always on the edge of sanity), that Preston is able to present a new depth of loss to Arlene gives her the performance of the episode.

Ultimately, even Preston’s few scenes and the moments where Eric comes back to where the viewer expects him to be are not enough to be enthusiastic about “In The Evening.” It’s nice, as are Anna Paquin’s breasts, which we see plenty of in the episode. The problem is, like so much of True Blood at this point, it’s nothing we haven’t seen in the series already.

[For a much better value, check out True Blood Season 6 on Blu-Ray and DVD. The penultimate season is reviewed here! Check it out!]

For other works with Carrie Preston, please check out my reviews of:
A Bag Of Hammers
Virginia
Duplicity
Towelhead
Cradle Will Rock
My Best Friend’s Wedding

5.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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