Descent Out Of Charm: Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life Peaks Early!

The Good: First two episodes, Most of the acting
The Bad: Second pair of episodes, Character and plot direction
The Basics: Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life starts with an intriguing reuinion of beloved characters who are all experiencing some sense of loss . . . before the show treads in the most familiar and unpleasant directions that Gilmore Girls went in.


When Netflix started producing Netflix Original Television programs, it was interesting to watch how quickly they moved from producing new content from previously-cancelled shows - like Arrested Development - to creating original content, like House Of Cards and Hemlock Grove. What seemed intriguing was how long it took the "network" to go back to buying up shuttered projects to revive them with new seasons. The latest revival is Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, a four-episode season that returns the viewer to the world of Gilmore Girls (reviewed here!). Picking up ten years after Gilmore Girls is an interesting concept, though it is hard to see the inherent need (the final season of Gilmore Girls did a very good job of closing the book on the portion of Lorelai and Rory's lives that the show chronicled) and requires a lot of faith that the writers would do a condensed season justice.

The concept of Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is a solid one: there are four ninety-minute episodes, each one presenting a season of a year in the life of the three main Gilmore women - Rory, Lorelai and Emily. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is a tough execution of the concept and it is strange that executive producers and writers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino skew toward where Gilmore Girls went before instead of treading into something truly new. After an initial high level of charm as Rory and Lorelai come back into each other's lives in more meaningful ways, there is torsion in their relationship and both protagonists find themselves aimless. But fans of Gilmore Girls have seen that before; when Rory had an affair with Dean while he was married and lost Lorelai's respect . . . and Rory ran away to Richard and Emily's.

It wasn't until the end of "Summer" that I came to recognize that I had some expectations for Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life and that those expectations were not being met. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life could have been the story of an adult child floundering in a world beyond her control and her turning to her floundering mother and the two lifting each other out of their depressions and fears. But long before "Summer" ends, it is painfully clear that Rory has become unlikable in addition to aimless (her disdain for the Thirtysomething Crowd seems arrogant and her cheating on Paul with Logan creates a forced level of moral ambiguity that feels entirely cheap) and Lorelai has become so painfully emotionally distant that when the musical number in "Summer" comes up, it shines a light on just how broken Lorelai has been.

But the real wrench in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is how the characters - who have been characterized by communications - are simply not communicating. Fans of Gilmore Girls who might be thrilled to seek Lorelai and Luke living together soon realize that there is no passion in their relationship; fans of the mother/daughter story of Lorelai and Rory quickly see that the two aren't actually having conversations (which is a real bummer because Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life opens with a classic patter between the two). So, instead of growth and development, Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life quickly forces conflict between Lorelai and Emily and Lorelai and Rory.

Opening in winter when Rory returns to Stars Hollow after leaving her apartment in New York, after getting a piece published in The New Yorker, Rory and Lorelai are reunited. Rory is trying to remember to break up with her utterly forgettable boyfriend, Paul, while jetting around trying to sell her next piece and crashing at various friends' homes. Lorelai is struggling with trying to find a new chef for the Dragonfly Inn and with her estrangement from her mother, following an incident at her father's funeral. Rory's return forces Lorelai and Emily back together and an offhanded remark from Emily causes Lorelai to explore having children with Luke. After a somewhat disastrous visit to Paris Geller's surrogacy business (while Rory is off in London meeting with Naomi, the subject of the book she wants to write, and hooking up with Logan), Lorelai and Luke reach the conclusion that they will not be having a child together.

In Spring, Lorelai goes to therapy with Emily, which is completely unpleasant for both of them. While Rory tries to get good material out of Naomi in London, Stars Hollow struggles with b-list actors who are working on a film in Woodbury occupying the Dragonfly Inn. When Conde Nast continues to put off their meeting with Rory, she turns to Logan Huntsberger's father for help. Emily has a private meeting with Luke where she reveals that Richard left money for Luke to franchise his diner . . . and then she takes him out to look at properties. Rory's life comes unhinged after an alumni event at Chilton when her writing options are winnowed away and she tries to write an article for GQ, but ends up having her first ever one night stand with a cosplay Wookie!

Rory moves back to Stars Hollow (despite her protestations) in summer. April visits Lorelai and Luke's and soon after, Jesse visits the town. To try to bring revenue to Stars Hollow, Taylor commissions a play: Stars Hollow: The Musical and Lorelai soon cuts out of the therapy she had continued after her mother bailed when her therapist auditions for a role. Emily becomes listless and obsessed with getting Richard's headstone right, after Rory encourages her to go back into the world. Stars Hollow's secret bar becomes the setting by which Michel tenders his resignation to Lorelai and when Rory pitches writing a book about their lives together, Lorelai rejects the idea soundly and decides to go on a walkabout.

Fall finds Lorelai going on a Wild-style walkabout in the Pacific Crest Trail. Jess returns to Stars Hollow to help his mother and T.J. and Luke. While Lorelai struggles with her walkabout, Rory is reunited with the Life And Death Brigade for a wild night. After Logan offers her a place to write, she rejects the offer and returns to her job renewed. When she cannot find her permit, Lorelai goes for a very short walk and it leads her to call her mother to tell her the story of her best memory of her father. When Lorelai returns home, Luke stands up for himself and their relationship. And Lorelai finally makes a leap with Luke that shows him how she feels.

As one might expect, the return of the beloved characters from Gilmore Girls are a key aspect of Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life. For those who are unfamiliar with them, the key characters in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life are:

Lorelai Gilmore - Rory's mother and the owner of the Dragonfly Inn, she is struggling to make her relationship with Luke Danes work when she comes to realize that years prior he hinted he might want a child with her. She drinks a lot of coffee and is psyched to have Rory in her life more frequently again, even as she searches for a replacement chef for Sooki. She attends therapy with Emily, but when her mother abandons her grief counseling, she continues on her own. She tries to guide Rory, but is unsettled when Rory returns home. Goaded by Emily, she starts to see the dysfunction in her relationship with Luke and she decides to go to nature rather than actually deal with Luke and Rory.

Rory Gilmore - Having written a piece for The New Yorker that makes everyone in Stars Hollow proud, she is struggling to find her next piece that will sell. While finding that she is in a two year relationship with Paul, she meets with the eccentric Naomi Shropshire in London and pitches a book deal with her. She has boxes of her possessions shipped all over so she can crash with anyone of her friends and family. She finds Naomi is too drunk to be coherent and when the website that has been wooing her changes their mind after interviewing her, she moves back in with Lorelai! She takes over the Stars Hollow Gazette when the old managing editor abruptly retires. After taking a few stabs at doing things her way, she returns the newspaper to its traditional narrative. She is encouraged by Jess to write a book about her life with her mother and when her mother rejects the idea, she turns to Logan for support . . . only to discover that his arranged relationship plans with a French society woman are finally being executed.

Sookie - Having gone on sabbatical from the Dragonfly Inn, her absence forces Lorelai to try to hire someone new to cook. She pops up, though, to help Lorelai at a key moment in her friend's life.

Lane Kim - She is still married, with her two children and she is still in her band. She has not seen Rory for quite some time before Rory returns to Stars Hollow and has some boxes shipped to her place. At the Spring food event in Stars Hollow, she runs the Korean food table. She starts supporting Rory when Rory returns to town full-time, including trying to help her kick her Logan habit. She and Zack play music at the Silent Bar in Stars Hollow.

Paris - Now the owner and manager of Dynasty Makers surrogacy service, she is estranged from Doyle. She is as aggressive as ever, but is highly successful (namedropping to Lorelai and Luke that her service was recently used by Neil Patrick Harris!). She turns to Rory for help when they go back to Chilton for an alumni event (she terrifies the students she speaks to!) and she is psyched when Rory is willing to look after her kids occasionally.

Kirk - Still flitting from project to project, he starts as the owner of Ooo-ber, a car service, before he starts a grog cart business. He helps Taylor run the Spring International food celebration in Stars Hollow. He releases his second film, finally, and he is shocked (as a pig owner) to realize that his love of BLTs makes him a purveyor of pig genocide.

Michel - Married for five years to Frederick, he still works for Lorelai at the Dragonfly Inn. He is anxious about Frederick suddenly wanting children and about Lorelai firing every great chef who comes to work at the Dragonfly Inn. He becomes restless when the b-list actors stay at the Dragonfly, which makes Lorelai convinced he will abandon her, just as Sooki did. After visiting New York City and one of the prestigious hotels there, he tenders his resignation as he knows Lorelai cannot afford to pay him what he is worth. He starts to act kindly toward children visiting the Dragonfly Inn to prepare for possibly having a kid of his own.

Emily Gilmore - Lorelai's mother, widowed by Richard four months ago, she has been estranged from Lorelai because of things Lorelai said at Richard's funeral. She mistakenly gets a portrait of her dead husband made in a massive size and tries to declutter her mansion because things there do not bring her joy. She takes Lorelai's advice and gets into therapy. After a few unproductive sessions with Lorelai in therapy, she turns her attention to franchising Luke's diner . . . even though he has no desire to franchise. She retreats from the world, but is encouraged by Rory to re-engage. Getting active in the D.A.R. and at the club again brings her a renewed sense of vitality. She begins to see one of Richard's old friends socially. She stands up to the artifice of her old life rather abruptly.

and Luke Danes - Living with Lorelai and giving out false wi-fi passwords at his diner to patrons there, he is now ambivalent to the idea of having a child with Lorelai. He is still annoyed by Taylor (who is obsessed with a Stars Hollow sewer project) and put off by Rory's unmemorable boyfriend, Paul. He lives with Lorelai and is shocked when Emily tries to execute Richard's wish to have his diner franchised. He has been going along with Lorelai's arrangement for the two of them and he is shocked when Lorelai decides to go on a walkabout.

Fans of Gilmore Girls are likely to love the cameos, both integral (Sebastian Bach!) and obscure - the appearance of Jason at Richard's funeral is an excellent touch that makes perfect sense for the continuity, even if he was a largely forgettable relationship in Lorelai's parade of men. The Town Troubadour is back and characters like April, Doyle, and even Francie make brief appearances. There are some fun cameos for those who love the actors on Gilmore Girls - like Mae Whitman, Lauren Graham's on-screen daughter on Parenthood, who shows up just long enough to be recognized. And when Jason Ritter and Peter Krause show up, it is hard not to smirk.

Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life misses the opportunity to tell a fresh story, though, as the characters move toward a predictable sense of conflict. Gilmore Girls was often at its best when it was the Gilmore women against the world - woman vs. society stories. In fact, the essential conflict that opened Gilmore Girls was one woman struggling against a sense of poverty that pushed her to fight for something better for her daughter. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life has everyone unhappy and there is nothing entertaining about that. Lorelai has been in a relationship with Luke for nine years . . . but they don't talk, they don't connect, they just live together. Rory is cheating on one man with a man who is engaged to be married . . . there's nothing interesting or compelling about her lack of integrity or character in not cutting Paul loose and maintaining an emotional dependence upon Logan. And Emily's journey through her grief in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is woefully underplayed (in favor of a strange series of jokes involving her new housekeeper who does not speak a recognizable language) and is not used to truly advance the character or the relationship Emily has with her daughter or grand daughter.

On the acting front, Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life provides some wonderful actors with familiar parts to play and more than giving viewers something new to thrill to, it simply reminds the viewers what they loved about the performers before. Lauren Graham has a good cry in "Summer" that allows her to illustrate emotional range without any lines and when Scott Patterson's Luke finally stands up for himself, it is a welcome thing. But Alexis Bledel is overshadowed by Liza Weil in every scene they share and Bledel playing Rory as listless quickly wears thin. Bledel never acts loving in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life and given that the core relationship of Gilmore Girls is the bond shared by a mother and daughter, Bledel and Graham lacking chemistry is somewhat devastating in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life.

The fact that one of the biggest emotional scenes of Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life allows Milo Ventimiglia and Scott Patterson to illustrate a depth and development of their characters' relationship says something. Jess and Luke grew into a relationship where they can be emotionally honest with one another, while Lorelai simply goes where Wild (book and movie) went before. Kelly Bishop is consistent as Emily, though she is unfortunately underused for her range and abilities.

Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is not bad, but it belabors the references to Gilmore Girls - the return of the Life And Death Brigade is particularly droll and seems like time that could have been better spent doing something with Rory and Lane to actually develop their adult relationship - while highlighting a number of the worst character aspects of the beloved characters and neglecting the aspects that made Gilmore Girls fresh. The dialogue in Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is nowhere near as fast, the references are far more sparse and the relationships are more strained than they are emotionally deep or connected. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is not bad, but it peaks early and becomes dramatically less charming as it progresses.

For other Netflix exclusive television shows, please check out my reviews of:
Luke Cage - Season 1
House Of Cards - Season 3
Orange Is The New Black - Season 4
Daredevil - Season 2
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Grace And Frankie - Season 2
Sense8 - Season 1
Arrested Development - Season 4
Stranger Things - Season 1

5/10

For other television series and episode reviews, please visit my Television And Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Supernatural Soap Opera That Outlived Its Substance: True Blood The Complete Series!

The Good: Moments of performance, Moments of character, Moments of plot, Themes
The Bad: Unfortunate descent into soap operatic plot developments, Loses decent performances, Initially intriguing characters get buried amid a bloated cast!
The Basics: A series that loses its initial spark and substance, True Blood The Complete Series is not worth picking up!


2014 saw the end of several long-running television series’ and many of them had, unfortunately, not been cancelled in their prime. One of the shows that had long outlived its coolness and quality was True Blood. The seventh season of True Blood aired in 2014 and shortly after it came to an end, HBO released True Blood The Complete Series on DVD and Blu-Ray, which tried to capitalize on the few people who still were enamored with the show.

True Blood The Complete Series is the study of a show that illustrates well diminishing returns. The series began with a great deal of potential and a thematic sensibility that made it must-watch television. But, as the series belabored explaining its own universe, it became diluted – from a cast that grew to an unwieldy size to storylines that hinged more and more on reversals that were more at home at a daytime soap opera than on HBO. True Blood was a supernatural drama series and True Blood The Complete Series is comprised of all seven seasons and includes the DVDs that were previously released as:
True Blood Season 1
True Blood Season 2
True Blood Season 3
True Blood Season 4
True Blood Season 5
True Blood Season 6
True Blood Season 7

Set in Bon Temps, Louisiana, True Blood is largely centered around Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie is a waitress at a local bar and grill, Merlotte’s, where she has been working for years, a fixture in the small town. Unbeknownst to almost everyone in town, Sookie has the ability to read minds and her telepathy has made her feel somewhat isolated in her hometown. One day, a vampire comes to Bon Temps and Sookie realizes she cannot read his mind. The vampire is Bill Compton, a former soldier in the Civil War, who has a mansion near Sookie’s house.

But the relationship that Bill and Sookie begin soon attracts the attention of the locals and makes Sookie a target of those who fear vampires integrating with humans. As Sookie and Bill defend one another and their romance, they find themselves at the mercy of psychopaths, orthodox vampires and supernatural beings like werewolves. Their relationship is put to the test as powerful vampires and human politicians clash and devious humans fight to remain in control of the world by setting plagues against the vampire population!

True Blood starts with initially intriguing characters and the series includes:

Sookie Stackhouse – The telepathic waitress who falls in love with Bill Compton, she is protective of her brother Jason after their Gran is killed and they inherit her home. Despite being romantically involved with Bill, she gets into relationships with Eric Northman, Alcide Herveaux, and she learns that her boss has a long-running crush on her. But her love for Bill experiences torsion when she is continually put in danger by being associated with him and the unnatural attraction other vampires have to her cause a truth about her heritage to be revealed that leaves her and Bon Temps shocked,

Jason Stackhouse – The dimwitted brother of Sookie, he gets into every stupid situation imaginable. From drug addiction (vampire blood being a powerful hallucinogen) to affairs with married women and religious zealots, Jason slowly grows to become the sheriff deputy of Bon Temps,

Tara Thornton – Sookie’s best friend for decades, she is a human who has an alcoholic, Evangelical, mother who has been abusive. Unnerved by how life in Bon Temps is changing, she runs away and ends up in the company of an evil witch. She returns to Bon Temps and her life falls apart,

Lafayette Reynolds – The bisexual cook at Merlotte’s, he is the local drug runner. But dealing in vampire blood is exceptionally dangerous and he soon draws the ire of Eric Northman. When his life is saved, he gets shellshocked for a while, but slowly comes out of his shell when he gets involved with a practitioner of voodoo,

Arlene Fowler – Another waitress at Merlotte’s, she has terrible luck with men. But after she has one supremely disastrous relationship, she finds love and redemption in the form of Terry. She is reticent to accepting supernatural beings in her life, though the more she is surrounded by them, the more she accepts them,

Terry Bellefleur – An Iraq War vet, he is shellshocked and works as a cook at Merlotte’s. He tries to rebuild his life and he does it successfully with Arlene,

Hoyt Fortenberry – Jason’s best friend, he has an overbearing mother. After a relationship with a human woman his mother approves of goes bad, he develops a love for Jessica. That relationship, though, is threatened by Jason and his raging hormones,

Steve Newlin – A religious zealot who organizes a war against vampires,

Sam Merlotte – The owner of Merlotte’s, he has managed to hide the fact that he is a shapeshifter from everyone for years. He falls in love with a werewolf and then a pro-supernatural activist,

Holly Cleary – A local witch who pops up,

Alcide Herveaux – A werewolf who rejects the violent nature of the pack mentality of the local pack. He works for Eric Northman and does favors for the vampire sheriff. He and Sookie become involved the more Sookie falls out of favor with Bill and Eric,

Pam De Beaufort – Eric Northman’s progeny, she is a deeply sarcastic former prostitute who reluctantly assists Eric in rescuing Sookie and getting involved in whatever danger she puts Eric in,

Jessica Hamby – A human girl who comes from a very conservative family and sheltered household, she is turned by Bill as punishment against Bill when he kills another vampire. Suddenly reckless, empowered, and vampire, she takes time to calm down and become a useful member of vampire society. Groomed by Bill to be a smarter, more human-considerate, vampire, she develops relationships with Hoyt and Jason,

Eric Northman – The vampire sheriff of the Louisiana Territory, he has long enjoyed being an elite life form, with little consideration for humans. When Sookie comes into his life via Bill, he has to turn against some of the most powerful, genocidal vampires on Earth. In the process, he develops a romance with Sookie,

and Bill Compton – The relatively young vampire intrigues Sookie and he becomes protective of her when an anti-vampire zealot threatens him and Sookie. Forced to do things he disagrees with, like turning Jessica, he argues in favor of peace between humans and vampires. His love for Sookie puts him in constant danger and puts him in the crosshairs of the Vampire Authority at a time when religious fundamentalists take it over!

True Blood stars Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer and their initial on-screen chemistry made their off-camera relationship entirely viable. Performances by people like Ryan Kwanten (who should be able to play George W. Bush for the rest of his career), Nelsan Ellis (who plays Lafayette as an utterly convincing chameleon who adapts to every situation and relationship), and Rutina Wesley (Tara), start out wonderful before the plot turns their characters into filler. Ellis, especially, starts with a wonderful part in True Blood before the series loses focus for the character and he is eventually relegated to such a minor part that it’s almost forced keeping him around.

Such is the bane of True Blood The Complete Series; so much of the potential that it began with is diluted and lost as the series progresses.

For other works that are or were on HBO, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Game Change
Veep - Season 1
Game Of Thrones - Season 4
Girls - Season 1
Carnivale
Rome
Extras
Six Feet Under
Sex & The City - Season Three
Da Ali G Show
Jim Henson's The Storyteller

4/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sookie Plays Crappy Marriage Counselor In “Death Is Not The End.”

The Good: Good continuity, Character realism, Competent acting
The Bad: Nothing extraordinary in terms of plot development, Somewhat ridiculous writing for Sookie
The Basics: “Death Is Not The End” brings closure to several characters while bringing other loose ends from True Blood to a close in sensible, though not extraordinary, ways.


True Blood used to be a smart television series that did a lot of credit to HBO by taking a pulp book series and making it into a decent and very adult television show with enough social allegory to be smarter than the soap opera it appeared to be on the surface. During its heyday, True Blood’s worst episodes were the ones where nothing exceptional happened; episodes that bridged significant episodes in order to simply rearrange the characters. In the rocky seventh season, the first true glimpse of the prior greatness came in the fourth episode: “Death Is Not The End.” While the episode has a ridiculous trend toward dialogue from Sookie that seems more at home in the daytime television self-help programming than on HBO show, there is a decent return to allegory when Jessica’s grief-based starvation is treated as an eating disorder!

“Death Is Not The End” devotes a great deal of time reacting to the events of “Fire In The Hole” (reviewed here!) and because of the episode’s preoccupation with the climax of that episode, “Death Is Not The End” cannot be reasonably discussed without referencing events from the prior episode. That said, “Death Is The End” is a plot-necessary episode that fills the day after one horrifying attack on the True Blood heroes with characters grappling with the repercussions of their actions and that plays well.

Opening with Sookie calling Jackson to let Alcide’s father know of Alcide’s death, Jason makes a similar call to Hoyt Fortenberry. Jason is shaken because Hoyt still has no memory of him and Sookie is unsettled when Jackson tells her that Alcide was happiest when she was in love with him. As Eric and Pam fly back from Europe to Shreveport, so Eric may see Willa before he dies, they recall how Eric was named Sheriff of the Shreveport vampires and given a small, depressing, video store to run. Back in Bon Temps, Sookie makes a foolish promise to Arlene’s children that she will help find Arlene and to that end, Sookie, Sam, and Jason visit Holly, who has no memory of where she was captured and held. Using her fairy mind-reading abilities, Sookie helps Holly remember that she was being held in the basement of Fangtasia. With Andy refusing to leave Holly, Sam heads off to Fangtasia and Jason pulls a gun on him to get him to turn around.

Jessica refuses to eat, but is coaxed by James and Lafayette to feed. After exploring the origins of Fangtasia, which was ironically created by Ginger after the vampires come out of the coffin in 2006, Eric and Pam arrive at Bill’s house. There, Eric summons the angry Willa. Together, they storm Fangtasia to rescue the three surviving women.

The richness of “Death Is Not The End” comes in the time the episode spends on developing the backstory for Pam and Eric. The continuation of the flashbacks from “Fire In The Hole” allows for the return of actor Zeljko Ivanek as The Magister. The scene with him turning the video store over to Pam and Eric is hilarious and off-putting. The introduction of Ginger to Pam and Eric’s life is similarly treated with a tongue-in-cheek humor that balances well against the darkness and melodrama of most of the rest of “Death Is Not The End.”

The darkness in the episode comes from the current state of Eric, who is dying of from Hep-V, the various characters’ reactions to the deaths that have permeated the prior episodes and James and Bill confronting Jessica about her not feeding. While Jessica not feeding is deeply related to her killing three fairy children in the prior season, she has also avoided feeding to try to keep safe from Hepatitis-V. The conversation that LaFayette has with Jessica is very much akin to the common therapies used to get individuals with body distortion issues to start (or stop) eating again. The allegory of the eating disorder for the vampire is well-presented and actress Deborah Ann Woll and actor Nelsan Ellis play off one another perfectly to sell the scene.

Unfortunately, “Death Is Not The End” has a somewhat ridiculous presentation of its protagonist. Sookie Stackhouse pops up with some of the least-memorable or interesting supplemental characters talking like a daytime talk show host. While she manages to get through the phone call with Jackson without spouting banal clichés, the conversation with Arlene’s children is deeply unsatisfying. Every line she spouts in that scene is a form of melodramatic psychobabble that sounds unlike anything that her character has ever said and it is pretty cringeworthy. Following that ridiculous scene up with a scene where she basically forces Holly to relive her rape (again, allegory, as the vampires tortured and fed off her) before spouting generic platitudes about what women want makes for a roller coaster between the ridiculous and offensive. No matter how wonderful it is for the show to bring its focus back to Sookie Stackhouse, the use of her in this episode is pretty lousy.

On the acting front, Carrie Preston gives a strong performance as Arlene as her character is drained near death. Sure, she mostly has to stay still and react to voices, but Preston makes the moments riveting to watch. The other decent performances come from Alexander Skarsgard and Kristin Bauer van Straten. Finally given the snark fans love about Pam, Kristin Bauer van Straten is able to loosen Pam back up and steal what could seem like dry, expositional flashbacks away from Skarsgard whose purpose in at least one of the flashbacks is simply to stand there looking good.

“Death Is Not The End” might be the only proof so far that True Blood is not dead yet and that the show has a fighting chance to recover from its rocky start to its final season. With the storyline refocusing and giving Eric and Pam a solid mission while the rest of Bon Temps falls back, there is potential going forward that had been mortgaged since late in the prior season.

For other works with Lauren Bowles, please check out my reviews of:
The Starving Games
Hall Pass
Dance Flick
Ghost World

[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!]

6.5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Season Of Stumbles: True Blood - Season Six Reveals An Underwhelming Adversary.

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of performance, Moments of menace
The Bad: Entirely bloated cast, Unimpressive villain, Short, Underdeveloped plots
The Basics: The sixth season of True Blood illustrates the problem of continuing a show with an expanding cast as it loses resonance and presents a much built-up enemy in a lackluster way.


I like long stories when it comes to television shows. I like long arcs and character development that takes its time reaching an organic position that shows real growth. In the case of True Blood, the show has had some long arcs, but has largely been plot-based with storylines jerking characters all around the map. Instead of being moved forward by the main characters, far too often, the villains throw up roadblocks or create the movement that pulls the protagonists toward action. In the fifth season of True Blood (reviewed here!), it was the rise of the Authority and a fundamentalist sect within it that pulled Eric and Bill into a conflict that they struggled to escape from.

The sixth season of True Blood returns the focus of the show to Sookie, but it has two fundamental problems with keeping the Sookie storyline engaging and truly compelling. The first is that, as the fifth season heavily alluded to his coming, the murderer of the Stackhouse parents, Warlow, rears his head . . . and it is anything but ugly or murderous. After exceptional build-up as an ethereal, creepy, badass, Warlow pops up as a too-cute romantic interest for Sookie and his arc in the season is nauseating.

The other fundamental issue with the sixth season of True Blood is that at this point there are so many diverging storylines going on that almost none of them are actually developed well. Given that the sixth season of True Blood has only ten episodes, the plotlines spreading the characters out in multiple different directions does not allow any of them to get the attention they deserve. The season moves fast, but at this point, True Blood is mostly pulp and it lacks the resonance of the deeper themes from the earlier seasons.

The sixth season picks up immediately where the fifth season ended as Eric Northman and Sookie Stackhouse run out of the Authority headquarters. They are pursued by Bill, who has been possessed by the spirit of Lilith. As the bloodbath follows the pair, Bill begins to regain control. As he retreats to his estate, where Jessica ministers to him, Bill has a vision of a white room in which most of the vampires he knows will see the sun and be destroyed. To prevent that calamity, he kidnaps the inventor of TruBlood in an attempt to make a fairy blood equivalent of TruBlood that will protect his friends. The white room Bill saw in his vision is quickly revealed as Eric, Pam, and Tara are captured by the Governor, who has set up a vampire concentration camp where his people perform perverse experiments on vampires.

While the Governor is imposing his curfew and setting up a biological plague that will wipe out the vampire population, Sookie is on the outside . . . with Warlow. After the appearance of her fairy grandfather, Sookie falls in with Warlow, who romances her and explains his complicated existence as a vampire fairy to her. In attempting to aid Bill, Jessica inadvertently slaughters three of Sheriff Bellefleur’s half-fairy daughters before she, too, is captured by the Governor’s forces. Struggling with the way he saved Arlene’s life in the prior season, Terry once more becomes twitchy and he organizes a way to free himself from the pain of wrestling with the consequences of his actions. Outside Bon Temps, Sam falls for a young woman who wants to help the supernatural creatures who have not made their existence known to the world when she is attacked by werewolves in Alcide’s pack. Alcide, for his part, shows up to take over his pack and learn pretty quickly that being pack master is not what he truly wants.

After all of the hype and prophecy surrounding Warlow, his revelation in the sixth season as a man who can come to claim Sookie is underwhelming when Warlow appears and starts to romance Sookie. The romance in the season is thin and cheap; starting with Sookie picking up a wounded stranger at the side of the road, the revelation that he is Warlow comes quick. The thin ploy mirrors the simplistic romance that follows and Warlow lacks the gravitas that he was rumored to have before appearing.

In fact, it is not until late in the season, when Warlow resists the idea of dating Sookie that there is any real menace. But that’s the problem with so much in this penultimate season of True Blood; the positive developments for the season come too late and the payoffs are disappointing. From prophecies that strangely do not include the methods needed to make them come true (Bill is absent from his own vision so that when the events in the white room come to a head, they do not match his vision at all) to an overall plot that troublingly mirrors the prior season (the Governor is dispatched and replaced at virtually the same position in the season as the head of the Authority was last season!), the sixth season of True Blood feels much more formulaic than fresh.

On the performance front, True Blood Season Six is a mediocre use of decent talent. Anna Paquin and her new co-star, Robert Kazinsky (Warlow), have absolutely no on-screen chemistry, which guts the viability of their relationship. While Robert Patrick is added to the main cast as Jackson Herveaux, Jackson barely appears in the season and does not have a truly substantive role until the final episode where he predictably acts as an accessory to Joe Manganiello’s Alcide.

Some of the season’s best moments come from the second string performers. Anna Camp illustrates a truly incredible ability to play the villain as Sarah Newlin takes charge of the enemies of the vampires. Todd Lowe shows yet again just how powerful he can play loss and confusion as Terry Bellefleur. Similarly, Carrie Preston is given the chance to play grief as Arlene in a remarkable way that she has not been given the opportunity to previously.

Still, the moments of decency are not enough to outweigh the plodding plot and lack of payoff for the season’s few big moments. Beloved characters (like Lafayette and even Sam) are largely neglected, previously added cast members, like Lauren Bowles as Holly, are not given the chance to grow and develop and the season is a poor payout to those who have invested a lot in the show leading up to it.

For more information on the specific episodes contained in the sixth season of True Blood, be sure to check out my reviews of each of the episodes in the boxed set. They are:
"Who Are You, Really?"
"The Sun"
"You're No Good"
"At Last"
"Fuck The Pain Away"
"Don't You Feel Me"
"In The Evening"
"Dead Meat"
"Life Matters"
"Radioactive"

3.5/10

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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Plot Rules The Penultimate Episode Where “Life Matters!”

The Good: The plot progresses, A decent farewell to a dead character
The Bad: Nothing exceptional on the performance front, No real character development, Baffling plot discontinuities
The Basics: In the sixth season’s penultimate episode, “Life Matters,” Bill’s vision is more or less realized with consequences more absurd than incredible.


With any serialized television series that effectively employs foreshadowing as a plot technique or in working to develop serious, long, character arcs, there comes a time when the foreshadowing has to pay off. In the sixth season of True Blood, the show has been steadily building to what appears to be the death of several important characters in a white room in the Governor’s compound. Bill saw a vision of the untimely death of most of the credited vampires in “Who Are You, Really?” (reviewed here!) and viewers have been hanging on to see if that would be the last shot of the season or if the consequences of those (potential) deaths would be dealt with.

Rather smartly, the writers and producers of True Blood went with the latter option and with the penultimate episode, “Life Matters,” viewers get to witness Bill’s vision in real time. And “Life Matters” is pretty much worth it. That said, late in the episode, director Romeo Tirone makes some absolutely baffling choices with extras that gut the emotional resonance of the season’s big plot arc. Because this is a late-in-the-season episode, it is impossible to discuss “Life Matters” without revealing some key aspects of where “Dead Meat” (reviewed here!) left off. Consider that a spoiler alert.

Opening with Sookie and Bill arriving in the fairy realm to find Warlow largely exsanguinated byEric, Sookie vows to keep her word to Warlow and remains with him after launching Bill back into the real world. There, Bill finds himself arriving late to the jailbreak Eric has incited at the Governor’s compound. While Sookie attends Terry’s funeral, Eric frees the vampires in search of Pam, Willa, and the others Bill saw in the white room meeting the sun. Minutes behind him, Bill finds vampires tormenting back at their tormentors. When Eric finds Jason Stackhouse still alive in the female gen pop cell, he has a very different experience than he did after freeing the male gen pop (where he confirmed that the inmates of the camp have been infected with Hep V).

Guided by Jason, Eric finds his way to where his friends and progeny are being kept. Meanwhile, Sarah Newlin manages to escape the carnage (how? Every other vampire has been able to hear heartbeats and smell living humans!) and she runs outside to make Bill’s vision come to light. As the sun enters the white room, Eric and Bill’s paths converge and . . . the long-awaited event occurs in a slightly different way than previously visualized and with an anticlimax that has a casualty that is truly hard to give a damn about. Spliced in between the action at the Governor’s camp is Terry Bellefleur’s funeral, which is where Sookie and the rest of the main cast finds closure and spends their time.

“Life Matters” has some really odd discontinuities. Foremost among them is that Eric has come to care about vampirekind, yet releases a ton of infected vampires out into the facility. While it was night moments ago – Eric bit Adilyn at night to enter Warlow’s realm – but apparently lingered there the whole night? This makes no rational sense as if Eric truly wanted to save everyone, night time would be the best time to open the cages.

But, more importantly, “Life Matters” has a resolution that makes absolutely no sense. Eric frees a number of vampires who are infected with Hep-V when the humane thing would be to kill them. Eric has seen firsthand just how gruesome their deaths will be and given that no cure for the disease was found in the episode, there are a number of infected vampires who are about to die pretty horribly in the genera vampire population. But as baffling are the sheer number of vampires seen in the sun at the climax of the episode. Either they are infected with Hep-V, but Eric fed them anyway or . . . well, they couldn’t have fed on anyone else because those who did were seen doing so . . .

The scenes that focus on Terry’s funeral are good, though they allow Sookie to make even the tragedy of his death partly about her. The plotline is a fitting exit for Terry and the flashbacks are nice; even Sookie’s revelation of her telepathic nature is not trumped by her revealing that Terry was in love with Arlene from the moment he first saw her.

“Life Matters” stumbles a bit on the character front. Given Sookie’s assertions at her parents’ graves in the prior episode, it is no surprise she is willing to stay with the wounded Warlow and honor her word to him. Similarly, given how angry Eric was following the death of Nora, it is unsurprising that he would still have issues even after the Governor’s camp is essentially dismantled. Ironically, the character of Terry is fleshed out a bit more, but given that he is dead and not likely to return, it ends up being something of a wash. The surviving characters do not grow or develop in any truly significant ways.

“Life Matters” does live up to the promise of a casualty, though, but it is not one of the major characters and the death is not one likely to change any of the surviving ones (Jason Stackhouse, for example, could have begun a much more interesting potential arc had he become a killer in this episode). Like so much of the sixth season of True Blood, “Life Matters” got where it promised, but did nothing truly extraordinary in getting there or where it leaves the viewer.

[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 fantasy movies based on book series’, please visit my reviews of:
The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones
The Twilight Saga
Beautiful Creatures
Warm Bodies

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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Largely Predictable, “Don’t You Feel Me” Is Still Worth Watching!

The Good: Decent performances, Good special effects, The plot progresses, Moments of character
The Bad: Very predictable, No opportunity for catharsis
The Basics: “Don’t You Feel Me” raises the body count and significantly shifts the direction of True Blood . . . without taking the time to let it resonate.


As the sixth season of True Blood progresses, the show is doing a decent job of making the fantastic world of True Blood seem surprisingly realistic. The show is bending much closer to the scientific, despite being populated by werewolves, fairies, and vampires. So, with the sixth episode, there is a sense that the plot is progressing in a way that will continue that trend – and it does – but for all the good things about True Blood and the surprisingly grounded nature of the show, “Don’t You Feel Me” is painfully predictable. In fact, more than most of the episodes of True Blood, “Don’t You Feel Me” does not leave the viewer guessing or wondering about what is going to happen or where the characters will end up.

Unfortunately, as a standalone episode, talking about “Don’t You Feel Me” is absolutely impossible without mentioning how “Fuck The Pain Away” (reviewed here!), the prior episode, ended. In fact, part of the problem with “Don’t You Feel Me” is not the episode’s fault; the last episode ended up at a point where it was entirely impossible to suspend one’s disbelief for the next episode. This is an issue with both the Sookie and Eric/Pam plots. The savvy television viewer knows long before “Don’t You Feel Me” that Sookie is not going to die (the person with top billing seldom does and True Blood has a poor record of keeping characters dead) and given the popularity of Alex Skarsgard’s character of Eric, if he were to go out, it would be for another reason than simply Pam showing off for the Governor whom she despises. So, just like Pam and Eric finding their way out of their situation, the big death in “Don’t You Feel Me” is seen a mile away and the fact that Jason’s fast-track into the Governor’s camp puts him face to face with Sarah Newlin is similarly predictable.

That said, “Don’t You Feel Me” is not unenjoyable and the episode moves the plot forward in a meaningful way and sets most of the characters up for Bill’s horrific vision from the season premiere.

“Don’t You Feel Me” picks up with Sookie being drowned by the father-possessed Lafayette. She is saved by, of all people, Warlow, who helps Sookie exorcise Sookie’s father from Lafayette. Sookie then saves Warlow from Bill/Lilith’s summoning and spends the rest of the episode in quiet conversation with Warlow about his past and their future. Back at the Governor’s camp, Eric and Pam face off one another, but they team up to kill the guards before they can be stopped. To torment Eric, Governor Burrell has Eric chained up and he brings in Nora, who is injected with what he calls Hepatitis V. Summoning Willa, Eric is able to break out and he discovers the Governor’s plan for the biotoxin.

Meanwhile, Sam and Alcide reconcile their issues when Jackson tells Alcide where Sam is. Terry Bellefluer sets off a warning bell with Lafayette by bringing the cook a key to a safe deposit box that he Terry kept from Arlene. Arlene and Holly conspire to have Terry glamoured in order to forget all of his personal pain. Sadly, they do this without the forethought to ask Terry what his apparently suicidal plan was, which leads to tragedy. After he has a vision of Lilith, Bill heads to the Governor’s camp where he changes the course of the conflict between the humans and vampires!

The sense of menace that comes out of “Don’t You Feel Me” makes one actually care about vampirekind in a way that works well beyond the metaphorical. The vampires in the camp are suffering and the way that Sarah uses Jessica to keep Jason in check makes her the most visibly evil character in the episode. Jason tries so hard to be the white knight, bluffing his way into the vampire-hating organization run by the Governor, only to be trumped by the politically astute and tactically inclined Sarah. Sarah trumping Jason, while upsetting to watch, only enhances the realism of the situation as, sadly, Jason is a bit of an idiot and he gets so far without any real innate talent. With “Don’t You Feel Me” the horror is not in the bloodsuckers or even in the gore, but in the humans who plan and abet the genocide the Governor has organized.

Like most of the sixth season episodes, “Don’t You Feel Me” is crowded by the sheer number of castmembers the show needs to service. The episode features an obligatory scene with Andy and Holly (and the surviving fey child) and the Alcide/Sam plot continues to be very much in the background.

On the acting front, John Fleck gets a great scene as the sadistic doctor working for the Governor. Fleck is a pretty amazing character actor and in “Don’t You Feel Me” he plays the doctor in a loopy way unlike anything else he has ever been in. From the main cast, it is Todd Lowe who delivers the performance of the episode. From the goofy smile to his last scene, Lowe makes Terry Bellefluer – who is one of the last human characters in the main cast! – the man to watch. His character has had a lot of conflict and in “Don’t You Feel Me” is given the opportunity to play Terry at peace and it is a nice stretch for him.

In the end, “Don’t You Feel Me” is good, but it is another bridging episode. Eric has learned the Governor’s plan and Bill has reasoned that his vision is imminent (a situation that comes from one of the worst scenes in the episode! Note to True Blood writers: how about something different from the god characters you write? You know what a nice change of pace would be for writing the divine? A deity who says in simple, clear terms what is going on, what they want and how they want their followers to achieve their goals! The riddle bullshit is getting tiresome!), but the events are moving so fast that characters like Arlene and Andy, who help root the show in some semblance of reality, are glossed over and not given the time to reflect upon their tragedies and traumas. Ultimately, that makes “Don’t You Feel Me” good, but hardly as good as it could be.

[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 Arliss Howard or Todd Lowe, please visit my reviews of:
Moneyball
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Gilmore Girls
The Princess Diaries

7/10

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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The Shortness Of Foreshadowing For True Blood: “Fuck The Pain Away”

The Good: Decent performances, Good special effects, The plot progresses, Moments of character
The Bad: Still very crowded
The Basics: The True Blood episode “Fuck The Pain Away” moves the vampire characters into position for their presaged slaughter to occur!


As the sixth season of True Blood reaches its midpoint, the show was at an intriguing place: the first four episodes had largely been spent with putting characters in place and moving very slowly with surprisingly little actually happening. While it makes sense that the show would have to start paying off on the investments fans have made, as the fifth episode aired it was announced that True Blood had been renewed for a seventh season, so it was conceivable that HBO was banking big on the idea that the show would retain its audience for the final five episodes of the season. After seeing “Fuck The Pain Away,” the fifth episode of the sixth season of True Blood it is easy to see why.

“Fuck The Pain Away” is the episode where things finally start to happen. Even more important than the plot progressing, however, was that writer Angela Robinson actually packs the episode with character revelations and reflections. It is the characters who advance the plot in “Fuck The Pain Away” and that, in turn, gives the performers more to do with their characters. It is a refreshing change of pace from the first four episodes of the season and the episode, appropriately, climaxes in such a way as to make it seem like an agonizing wait to live through the next week until the follow-up episode.

Even so, “Fuck The Pain Away” is not a perfect episode. Like all of the episodes so far this season, “Fuck The Pain Away” bites off more than it can chew and between introducing new characters (there is a psychologist and a mysterious new vampire woman introduced in the camp as well as a former associate of Terry’s who materializes out of nowhere, all of whom promise to have more relevancy beyond this single episode) and trying desperately to include most of the established main cast. While Lafayette gets a meatier role in “Fuck The Pain Away,” Alcide, Sam, Holly, Terry, Jackson, and Arlene (all of whom are main castmembers) each appear substantively in a only single scene in the episode. It is hard to complain, though, because the time devoted to the essential characters is time well-spent and the backstory of Warlow is well-detailed, answering questions and providing some strong pay-offs for the fans.

Picking up immediately where “At Last” (reviewed here!) ended, “Fuck The Pain Away” has Sookie confronting Warlow. As she threatens him with her fairy light, Warlow reveals what he insists is the truth: that Sookie’s parents were taking her to kill her the night he killed them. Warlow claims that he was saving her life (and protecting his investment in her). Elsewhere, Tara reveals to Eric that Pam has been taken by the Governor’s forces and so she and Eric surrender so they might be taken to the camp where the Governor is studying the vampires. Rejected by Governor Burrell, Sarah Newlin seeks out Jason Stackhouse for solace. But, after making love with him, Sarah is appalled to discover that Jason has had a relationship with Jessica (who arrives at Jason’s house in shock and horror following her slaughtering Andy’s children). Spitefully, Sarah has Jessica taken from the house to the same camp as the other vampires.

Elsewhere, Bill – utilizing the power of Lilith’s blood – exerts control over Warlow and the history of the fey vampire is revealed. When Terry wrestles with the murder of his military buddy at his own hand, he reconnects with an old acquaintance who agrees to put him out of his misery. Andy Bellefleur manages to save the life of one of his daughters as Alcide pushes his own father away during the hunt for Sam and Emma. Sookie enlists the aid of Lafayette to learn the truth about the night her parents died and her quest for the truth has some harrowing consequences. Back at the camp, Pam is psychoanalyzed and in revealing her detachment for her own maker, she sets up a conflict between herself and Eric that might be lethal for both.

“Fuck The Pain Away,” despite being crowded up by subplots like the Terry plot and bothering to include the werewolves/Sam, is the best episode of the season so far. The psychological evaluation of Pam and her presentation of perspective is worth the price of admission alone. For sure, actress Kristin Bauer van Straten is not given anything new to present as Pam, but she has the cold, otherworldly façade down pat. She uses it to deliver some of the most chilling lines of the episode and through Pam – who is smart and ruthless in a way that Eric is not (especially in this episode) – she makes the vampires in the True Blood universe seem entirely plausible and like a completely different species.

Jessica’s crisis of faith continues in “Fuck The Pain Away” and here she comes to doubt that her loyalty to Bill might have been such a good thing. As Jessica turns to Jason and is forced into a conflict with Sarah, there is no trace of a melodramatic love triangle. Instead, the conflict seems like a deeply-rooted rending of Jessica’s human values and her vampire beliefs and it makes for a compelling character struggle. Through her, Jason begins to once again swing on his pendulum of ever-changing values back toward a progressive attitude and that is refreshing to see.

Eric gets his come-uppance in “Fuck The Pain Away” and that is refreshing to see, especially the way Alexander Skarsgard presents it. In the prior episodes, Eric developed a plan and it hinged on human emotion playing along predictable lines. So, when Eric learns that the Governor did not accept his daughter back and has instead interred her at the camp, there is an appropriate look of shock and horror on Eric’s face that is quite impressive. The performance by Skarsgard mirrors the shock and horror that Anna Paquin emotes as Sookie early in the episode when Warlow reveals his truth to Sookie.

Character abounds in “Fuck The Pain Away” and the episode makes decent use of the flashback sequences. Witnessing the struggle between Lilith and Warlow is rewarding after so much build-up and even the guest performers like the ever-naked Jessica Clark as Lilith play their roles well. “Fuck The Pain Away” pushes the series to the point where all of the characters seen in the foreshadowing vision in “Who Are You, Really?” (reviewed here!) are where they need to be for the horrible prophecy of Lilith to come to pass. This episode starts to knock the carefully-placed dominoes down and it sets up the promise of a real blow-out for the next episode.

[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 Anna Camp, please visit my reviews of:
Pitch Perfect
The Help
True Blood - Season 2

8.5/10

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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The Body Count On True Blood Rises “At Last!”

The Good: Decent performances, Good special effects, Things actually happen.
The Bad: Crowded, Does not dwell on the consequences of the most significant acts.
The Basics: In “At Last,” the various pieces in play come to blows, without taking the time to reflect upon what they actually do.


With the sixth season of True Blood being truncated (only ten episodes as opposed to the usual twelve), fans seemed pretty desperate to get hyped for the show. As a fan myself, I try to avoid most of the promotions in order to actually review the work more objectively than my fannish nature might otherwise allow. But, for the fourth episode of the season, “At Last,” I was unable to avoid all of the hype. “At Last” was promoted on the promise that someone would die, which might be an exciting idea in virtually any other television show (or genre other than supernatural horror/science fiction/fantasy) as at least two of the main characters have been killed and resurrected already, usually in the space of under five minutes (or a single scene break between two episodes in the case of Tara). Still, it’s always exciting to be teased with the death of a character and one always hopes it will be a major enough character to actually care about their demise.

Sadly, despite the fact that “At Last” is the bloodbath that was promised to fans, it is hardly the integral characters who bite the dust. In fact, without revealing any spoilers, “At Last” does little but thin the herd of some of the new-to-this-season recurring guest characters, which makes it hard to say that it is truly an extraordinary episode. As well, because there are so many characters and plotlines going at this point, there is so much packed into “At Last” that there is no real chance to give the important characters the opportunity to reflect upon all that happens to them. As a result, “At Last” is plot-heavy, though it does have a few significant moments of character. “At Last” picks up where “You’re No Good” (reviewed here!) ended, but speeds through most of its events without exploring even a sense that the characters understand the magnitude of their actions.

With Jason wounded by Nora, Niall goes hunting Nora and milks her for information on Warlow. In Sookie’s house, Ben reveals his true nature; he is a vampire, as well as a fairy. While Sookie and Niall are surprised at his fast recovery, they do not instantly find it suspicious. Elsewhere, Eric catches up with Tara and learns where she has secreted Willa Burrell. Eric speaks with Willa, who seems genuinely interested in helping vampires and thwarting her father, the Governor. Sam and LaFayette flee with Emma and the wounded social rights activist, with Alcide’s pack hot on their heels.

Back in Bon Temp, Bill sends Jessica to get Andy Bellefleur’s quadruplet fairy babies. The babies, however, are now street legal and Jessica is able to convince them to come home with her and Bill. There, Bill starts getting blood samples for Takahashi, who is kidnapped and working in the basement lab he has set up. Events come to a head as Jason and Niall, having figured out Ben’s nature, attempt to kill him and Jessica finds herself fighting her own bad instincts to keep the half-fairy children in the mansion.

Fundamentally, “At Last” has some of the season’s best moments so far. First, Eric and Willa have an exceptional scene and when Eric resolves to turn Willa, it is a powerful moment for the character. Trying to use Willa as an olive branch to humanize the governor is a surprisingly enlightened strategy and when Eric reminds the viewers that he has only turned one other person in his thousand year history, it speaks volumes to his desperation.

At the other end of the spectrum is Bill. Bill is working to save vampires in a defensive way by getting Takahashi to synthesize a True Blood based upon the fairy blood. His is a cunning strategy based on the idea that vampires need to survive the human’s weapons, as opposed to counting on changing the minds and hearts of the fearful humans. Sadly, Bill’s plan runs into two critical problems in “At Last” and as a character issue, he is beginning to show serious stress about the search for fairy true blood. He is much more desperate and the anger he exhibits toward Takahashi insinuates bad things in the pipeline for the scientist who has no good reason to either help or hinder Bill’s efforts.

Sookie, sadly, does not use her cunning to realize Ben’s true nature. It is magical happenstance that allows her to uncover Ben’s true nature, though the scene where Jason and Niall figure it out themselves is worthwhile. Sookie, however, has a decent plan that she executes well and leads to the climax of the episode.

On the acting front, “At Last” is fine, though because none of the characters are focused on excessively, none of the performers are given a chance to truly dazzle. Ryan Kwanten, though, rivals Alexander Skarsgard for the performance of the episode. Kwanten is passionate and funny as Jason Stackhouse, while Skarsgard is characteristically subtle as Eric. HBO is smart enough to age Andy Bellefleur’s daughters to legal age to make what happens with them somewhat less appalling, though none of the eight young women playing the fairy daughters stand out as anything remarkable (the new crop is little more than t&a). Of course, if any of the 18 year-old versions of his daughters are Rhodes scholars, then they are astonishingly good actresses; they play the daughters as vacuous and pretty, with little else to her.

“At Last” is good, but because it has to continue threads that include Terry and the werewolf pack (those are two separate threads), characters like Lafayette who had previously good roles are relegated to low supporting characters. Still, it is a decent episode and it promises a conflict in the next episode that might be far better in substance than the hype for this episode was.

[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 fairies, please visit my reviews of:
Sleeping Beauty
Once Upon A Time - Season 1
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

7/10

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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So Many Characters In Transition, None Make It To “The Sun.”

The Good: Character development, Acting is fine, New characters are laying the framework for a larger conflict, Metaphor
The Bad: Erratic special effects, The episode glosses over several characters/introduces elements that are needlessly complicated.
The Basics: In the second episode of True Blood’s sixth season, “The Sun” illustrates the weaknesses of having a massive cast and several characters who may have already effectively jumped the shark.


The problem with heavily-serialized television shows is that sometimes, the big picture can outweigh the individual components. In simpler terms, sometimes a season of good or great television needs an episode or two to rearrange the pieces (characters and settings) so the larger arc of the season makes sense. In soap operas, this is usually done on the fly and it is one of the prime reasons continuity usually sucks. With more considerately-created works, like True Blood, the readjustments have to happen in a way that will maintain the fan base (instead of pissing them off) and with respect to what has come before (and what is intended to come after). “The Sun” is one of those episodes where both very little happens and a lot occurs. Either way, in the long run, most of the characters remain pretty firmly rooted where they were at the beginning of the episode at the end (in the case of Pam and Tara, that is a literal thing as neither leaves the bar and LaFayette does not even leave Sam’s house).

Actually, more than any other issue, the reversals and sense of building in “The Sun” makes the episode feel like a stronger component than it is a standalone episode. The cast of True Blood is growing and in order to service all the various characters, some are being pushed in directions that it is hard to care about. Holly, for example, does not even appear in “The Son,” nor does new castmember Robert Patrick. While Arlene and Terry have a scene that might be smart in the long run (the appearance of Patrick’s wife clears up a dangling issue given that he was a family man, but because she came looking for Patrick – as opposed to Terry or Arlene seeking her out to tell her Patrick ran off – insinuates that she will be back and that is a potential plotline that seems like nothing but a waste of time), it sets up a potential plotline that might keep Arlene and Terry in the show for the season, but not in an at all compelling way. “The Sun” is not bad, but it feels like what it is: an adjustment episode, a course correction. Because True Blood is so heavily serialized, it is worth noting that it is impossible to discuss “The Sun” without mentioning some of the aspects of how “Who Are You, Really?” (reviewed here!) was resolved. So, consider yourself warned!

After a mysterious stranger materializes on a bridge, Jason rescues his car with the help of the man who claimed to be Warlow. That man now claims to be Jason and Sookie’s fairy grandfather and he reveals that he was just testing Jason and Jason failed that test. Despite that, Jason brings the stranger back to Sookie’s house. Meanwhile, in Fangtasia, Tara lays wounded from a bullet that prevents her from using her vampire healing powers. When the bullet is carved out of her, Eric realizes it is silver with a UV light source, which makes it extra dangerous. When Eric flies out to find out the plans of Governor Burrell, Nora begins to study the vampire bible for anything the Authority might have missed before.

As Sookie learns of her super powers from her fairy grandfather, Bill remains in a coma (though he exsanguinates a woman Jessica hires to come feed him). In his out-of-it state, Bill meets with Lilith in a sunny field and is told that he has a destiny. Elsewhere, Andy Bellefleur tries to unload the quadruplets on their fairy mother (but cannot get access to the fairy realm) and Sam is approached by a young activist, Nicole Wright. Wright wants Sam to out himself as a shifter to begin a broader civil rights movement for other supernatural beings. But after Sam rejects her appeal, she and her friends witness (and photograph) Alcide, Martha and Danielle coming to take Emma away.

What works best in “The Sun” is the metaphorical level of True Blood. True Blood has often had a metaphorical level where vampires act as an analogy for homosexuals and the vampire rights struggle mirrors concepts fought for in the lesbian, gay, and bisexual struggle for equal rights. In “The Sun,” the antithesis of that is shown as violence against vampires (who are declared to have no rights and not be people) occurs and reminds the engaged viewer that there are real horrors occurring in our world against people still oppressed. True Blood deserves credit for keeping the issue in the attention of its viewers.

That said, “The Sun” introduces a few new characters and what True Blood needs is pretty much anything but more characters; it has so many now, it doesn’t know how to use them all effectively as it is. Sookie spends the first part of the episode rescuing an apparent fairy she finds wounded by the side of the road. She develops an instant crush on him. When Eric infiltrates the Governor’s mansion, Burrell’s daughter Willa is introduced. Willa is a great example of piss poor casting as True Blood once again casts a stickfigure Hollywood-beautiful chick for the role of the Governor of Louisiana’s daughter. This is problematic in that actress Amelia Rose Blaire (Willa) has many of the same physical traits as Lucy Griffiths (Nora).

But, in realigning the characters for the coming struggle – which is teased very vividly as Bill discovers he has a new power – “The Sun” manages to push Sookie, Bill and (to a lesser extent) Jason in somewhat new directions. While Eric and Sam are used essentially the same way they have been for quite some time (Eric is prepared to go on the offensive to save vampires and discovers that there are exceptionally real consequences for him killing the General in the prior season and Sam remains protective about his identity and Luna), Sookie begins her Jedi training, er, fairy training at the hands of the man who has all of the answers for her. Bill has a similar experience as he spends most of “The Sun” in another realm getting lectures from god’s handmaiden.

Perhaps the most interesting character conversion, though, comes from Jessica. Jessica’s character finally comes full circle in “The Sun” as she returns to her initial characterization. After years of exploring what it means to be a vampire, Jessica finds herself having a crisis of faith and she recalls her roots. To wit, she begins to pray. Regardless of one’s personal beliefs about faith, there is something moving about the scene where Jessica, confused and lost between human religion, vampire beliefs, her very human heart, and her powerful vampire biology, breaks down and prays. It is Deborah Ann Woll as Jessica who has the powerhouse scene in “The Sun.” She takes what could be a mundane scene of a character coming through her personal crisis of faith and makes it a powerful moment of television.

Sadly, Woll’s other big reaction moment in the episode more closely mirrors the audience’s reaction than the character’s; in his unconscious state, Bill utilizes telekinetic powers to drag a woman back to him and when he exsanguinates her through her mouth, the CG blood is pretty terrible looking. Fortunately, the other special effects in the episode, most notably Sookie’s new supernova ability look much, much better.

For casual viewers of True Blood, “The Sun” is hardly an essential episode. The only real new information presented that could come up without being repeated in future episodes that viewers would not immediately understand are the new human-made weapons (offensive and defensive). But anti-glamour contact lenses and UV-emitting silver bullets are hardly enough to justify rewatching the otherwise mediocre “The Sun.”

[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 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 - Season 5
True Blood Premiere Edition trading cards

5/10

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

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