True Blood Lust

There's something absolutely brilliant going on at HBO that not many people know about -- a show as wonderful and interesting and truly mind-blowing as any show on television... True Blood.  It's not for the faint of heart.  There's sex in every episode and at least two topless females shown (and probably that many naked men as well).  There's always a death or three or more, multiple bloody endings, and spooky, creepy, insane vulgarities throughout.  And it's actually, at times, pretty funny.  And pretty frightening.  There's almost nothing not to like about it.  And nothing else like it on TV.  Unfortunately, there's only 2 more episodes left in the season, so if you haven't seen it yet, you probably aren't going to be able to pick it up now, but if HBO runs some kind of marathon or you have it on On Demand or something, please check it out.  True Blood is clearly the best thing on television right now.

In fact, so far this fall, here's how I'd rank the shows I'm watching (and I've been watching way more than usual, since I spent about three weeks stuck on my couch recovering from knee surgery).

1. True Blood (HBO)
2. Weeds (Showtime) Editor's Note:  I forgot to include this in my original list, since its season has concluded, but it was an incredibly great season 4 for the series.
3. The Office (NBC) - last year's #1
4. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)
5. The Amazing Race (CBS)
6. 30 Rock (NBC) - after only 2 episodes!
7. Entourage (HBO) - up and down season
8. South Park (Comedy) - mostly down season
9. The Island (MTV) - Real World/Road Rules' latest challenge (guilty pleasure)
10. Big Bang Theory (CBS) - decent little comedy, but I don't think it will wear well
11. The Hills (MTV) - Guilty pleasure #2

"Get. The Fuck. Out."  That's the opening to the last episode of True Blood, which debuted Sunday.  And that was the only line by lead character Sookie Stackhouse that we could get behind.  In ten episodes, the show has turned sweet, innocent, noble Sookie (played brilliantly by Anna Paquin, who's shown her tits in at least two episodes so far) into someone lashing out at everyone close to her while her life unravels around her.  And she's only about the fifth or sixth most interesting character on the show.  It's truly amazing that the writers have thrown so much shit at Sookie in just a few short weeks and yet somehow have managed to capture what I imagine her mental state would be at the end of those weeks.  She's not better for it -- she's going a little insane and maybe even has a death wish, and a lot of people on the boards are hating her for the way she's acting toward Tara and Sam, but fuck, how realistic would it be if she were still "good" after all this?  I mean, seriously, this season, she's lost her virginity to a vampire, discovered her grandmother's murdered body, had her brother arrested for murder (twice), nearly got eaten by another vampire only to watch her vampire boyfriend stake him and have her attacker explode into a bloody mix of skin, pulp, and disembodied plasma all over her face and body, and oh yeah - she woke up to find her boss naked at the foot of the bed who then explained that he's actually a "shapeshifter" who can turn into a dog at will.  Yeah, so she was a little crabby this episode.  Nothing wrong with that.

In other news, vampire boyfriend Bill gets taken to a vampire tribunal -- sort of an undead "People's Court", which included several unwatchable sequences, starting with a vampire being bloodily de-fanged as punishment for feeding on a human who "belonged" to another vampire.  Bill's punishment for killing the vampire that was trying to eat Sookie is not quite as nice.  The "normal" punishment would be five years locked inside a coffin, where his body would turn to "leather and sticks" and he'd likely go insane, but the magistrate kind of likes him and metes out a "nicer" punishment instead -- he has turn a young Christian teenager who they've captured into a vampire.  It's revealed that Bill has never "turned" anyone before (it's becoming more and more clear that Bill has long had a morality, unlike all of the other vampires we've encountered in this show, even before the invention of "TruBlood" made killing no longer necessary for survival).  Bill tries to refuse -- to take the coffin instead -- but the rest of the tribunal will have none of it.  They want blood and they want it now.  And the scene of young Jessica begging for her life while Bill struggles to get up the nerve to kill her was some of the most powerful stuff on television in a long time.  Absolutely brilliant.

In an equally devastating and maybe more interesting subplot, Sookie's brother Jason and his new girlfriend Amy still have Eddie the doughy vampire (played by Stephen Root of Office Space fame) captive in Jason's basement, and Amy discovers that Jason has been feeding his newfound friend TruBlood to keep him alive.  Eddie's multiple warnings to Jason that his girlfriend is a psychopath come true when she first convinces Jason that she's had a change of heart about Eddie and that they should treat him better like he's been asking, and then after Jason tries to set him free, she stakes the fuck out of him with a rotted piece of wood that matches her rotted heart.  It was another absolutely brilliant scene - so shocking and raw, especially after the writers spent two episodes having Jason (and the audience) become attached to the hapless loser vampire (Root).  Another well done.  And the effects guys handling the bloody deaths are awesome.

Tara's subplot has probably been the weakest of the series -- her alcoholic mother going to a crazy woman in the woods for an exorcism to rid herself of her alcohol "demons" -- but even that plot had a wonderful conclusion this week.  Tara had her own exorcism and hoped she'd been cured of her unrepentant anger and loneliness just as her mother had been "cured" of alcoholism.  But she runs into the crazy woman, all cleaned up in a wig and glasses working at a drug store in a neighboring town.  The acting of both women in that confrontation scene was amazing -- Tara going from pissed off to disappointed to absolutely heartbroken that the thing she knew to be true (the exorcism was fake) was actually true (she wasn't going to be any better).  Tara ends the episode drunk off her ass (echoes of her mother) in her red frilly prom dress (from 2000) trying to fuck Sam after she fights with Sookie about -- well, fucking Sam -- and when Sam tries to stand up for himself for once ("I'm not just a piece of meat"), Tara reverts to her old self and storms away.  She drives off drunk in the dark and runs off the road after seeing a naked woman standing next to a razorback pig (seriously).  This is not going to end well.

And then there's poor Sam, dealt the most heartbreaking storyline of all (well, other than Eddie's and Jessica's, neither of whom survived the episode).   Sookie angrily rejects him after he reveals his secret about being a shapeshifter (not a werewolf!), strictly because he kept his secret from her for so long (and maybe because she thinks he's overheard her say some private things while he was in dog form).  He tries to be the bigger man (or animal) multiple times, but Sookie is too messed up to realize that she of all people should understand (constantly chastising "bigots" for not accepting vampires, and also suffering with her own "gift" of telepathy in secret, or mostly secret).  And then when he tries to be nice to Tara, she turns and runs off on him too.  Not good times.  But most heartbreaking of all?  The flashbacks to his childhood, when he first starting shifting shapes and his adoptive parents freak out.  How bad is it?  15-year-old Sam returns home from school one day to find the entire house emptied -- no parents, no furniture, no nothing -- with the exception of his room, which they left in tact.  I mean, seriously, that is some fucked up shit.  His parents ran away FROM HIM!  Damn.  Just because he turned into the family dog a few times?  Harsh.

So that's where we are after 10 episodes of shows, and maybe two to three weeks in real time.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that there remains a serial killer on the loose, responsible for at least three murders so far (including Sookie's grandmother, and her cat too).  He attacks Sookie alone in the bar at the end of this episode but she manages to escape -- into Sam's arms.  We see the killer in glimpses in the dark as he's going after Sookie -- it's definitely male, and almost definitely human, and since she runs into Sam's arms, that eliminates him as a possibility (but I think we all thought he was a red herring anyway -- being a shapeshifter is his big secret apparently).  There are three male characters that have been mostly minor, on the outside of scenes, but have had more prominence as the episodes continued, so focus on the boards has been on them as the possible killer.  There's Rene (shown to the right) - the upstanding Cajun good-guy who got engaged to Sookie's co-worker Arlene last episode; Hoyt - the momma's boy who can't get a date and works with Rene and Jason; and Terry, the Iraqi veteran who works at the bar and hasn't recovered from the war.  The writers have definitely been hinting strongly that Terry is the most unhinged, so I would think he'd be too obvious.  Rene would be the most shocking -- we've seen nothing to indicate he's a murderer, although he does look down on female fangbangers (women who have sex with vampires), which matches two of the victims, but not Sookie's grandmother.  Which leaves Hoyt, but he doesn't seem to have it in him either.  I don't know where the writers are going to go with this but I love it either way.  Just think, on top of vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, naked women with boars, and all the tensions - sexual and otherwise - building up on this show, there's a human serial killer on the loose in town.  And the cops seem clueless to help (actually, the lead detective has been around a lot lately; he could be the killer).

Maybe the above is enough to entice someone to watch the final two episodes.  I sure hope so.  If not, you're only hurting yourself.  Television doesn't get much better than this.

Comments

[Joe Nielsen]

Big Bang Theory? Really? Sure the girl is pretty hot and they manage to get as much of her cleavage as possible into the show, but to put that in your top-10 really says something poor about the current slate of shows on tv. (Not to mention what it says about me that ive seen the show enough to comment on it...)

[LegFuJohnson]

It's disgraceful that you would even post a top 10, when you don't watch House or Dexter...

And I guess Weeds isn't good anymore to not be listed?

The entire plot of Terminator is one big logic hole, but I'm sure it's better than some of the junk you've got listen.

I can't defend Prison Break

[Joe Nielsen]

Prison Break? That's still on? Didn't they break out several seasons ago? What's left to do?

[LegFuJohnson]

They have to take down "The Company" that set them up in the first place.

[Bill]

My bad about Weeds. Since it's season was over, I forgot to include it. It's been updated now.

[Bill]

I wouldn't say Big Bang Theory is funny, but it is amusing. I've only seen a few episodes this year and I've enjoyed them all. And Kaley Cuoco is excellent on the show, for many reasons.