True Blood "She's Not There" Review

If True Blood's nominated for another Outstanding Drama award in the Emmy's then I'll have no choice but to imitate Sean Maher's Simon Tam and utter the words "this is what going mad must feel like" because True Blood's among the worst series on television. The fact that people must pay to watch the channel that broadcasts the series doesn't make True Blood a quality series bursting with award potential. The first eight minutes of the fourth season were so bad that I'm stunned Syfy hasn't sued because those first eight minutes were Syfy quality--yes, Syfy quality.

Season 4 moved the narrative forward 12.5 months. Bill's the King. Eric bought Sookie's home. Jason's a police officer. Tara's a cage fighter in New Orleans. Andy's addicted to V. Lafayette can't shake the magic stuff. Terry and Arelene's baby rips the heads off dolls (and yes I remember who the father of the baby is). Jessia and Hoyt experience domestic problems because of their newfound domesticity. Hoyt's mother and Tommy have their own subplot somehow. Sam found three kindred spirits who shape-shift, and together they shift into horses and gallop around Bon Temps. Crystal's family rely on Jason for food and house repairs until they lock him in a broken freezer. Oh, and Sookie returned from fairyland, unaware of the changes in her own town (also the fairy stuff is atrocious).

The good: the narrative moved nearly a year, which guarantees change. The bad: the episode.

The heroine of the story, Sookie, spends the majority of the episode watching television in her old house. I understand the reason because the episode's about what happened she was not in Bon Temps. Regardless, Sookie has no discernible arc for the season besides her usual role in the love triangle (and yeah the fairy nonsense isn't going away but the seeds for that arc were unoriginal and uninspired--what's the difference between Sookie wanting to save the humans from the fairys and Sookie wanting to save the humans from bull-jawn in season 2?). Sookie used to be a great character until she became a passive character with no personal arc. The love triangle might be more tolerable if the two vampires hadn't willfully taken advantage of their powers and manipulated the girl's thinking in an attempt to make her love them. Why should I care about Bill and Eric when both are bastards?

True Blood has too many characters and half of their characters aren't interesting enough to steal away screen time from the more interesting characters. Of course, the more interesting characters are involved in stories that I have no interest in like love triangles and power plays in the political vampire sub-culture of Bon Temps. Alan Ball and his writers (and Charlaine Harris doesn't escape blame as author of the books) spend too much time setting up stories that will most likely mean nothing when season four ends in the fall. The only thing that happens in these arcs is character assassination--like Sam, who ended season three by shooting Tommy in the back, and who opens the season openly resenting the man he failed to kill and, seemingly, will try to murder again. His arc last season involved his shape-shifting roots but that went nowhere; his arc, in season four, involves other shape-shifters who will either fade into irrelevancy OR get killed by Sam.

Lafayette's involved in the damn witchcraft arc. In season two, Tara found herself in the Maryann arc. In season three, the vampires and Sookie were involved in the Russell arc. Both were miserable arcs that seemingly wouldn't end. The witchcraft arc is going to be terrible. As soon as the leader of the coven resurrected the bird, I knew the arc would be a disaster. The addition of Fiona Shaw as the Big Bad received some critical praise because of her name--her performance could be worse than Michelle Forbes' run as Maryanne in season two. The character, at the very least, seems worse than Maryanne. Lafayette obviously has some wiccan spirit within him that I have no interest in the show exploring but they will...they will.

The other characters will have their screen time in stories unrelated to the larger arcs in the season. Jessica's poised to explore her vampiric nature in a potentially interesting storyline except her exploration will create problems between she and Hoyt, and the couple were broken up for the majority of season three so the show seemingly won't cover new ground with them. Tara's living under a false identity in New Orleans and she's involved in a lesbian relationship. The girl has no interest in returning to Bon Temps, though her success as a kickboxer/cage fighter probably will come in handy when the witches take too much control of Bon Temps.

The reveal of Bill-as-King wasn't a jaw-dropping surprise. If one's supposed to wonder how he became the King, I don't know why. Bill's the chivalrous vampire with a heart-of-gold. Of course he'll become king over Eric, who angered the vampire community one too many times. Bill seemingly enjoys his newfound powers. At the very least, the change will make Bill a more interesting and dynamic character than who he's been for the previous three seasons. The change also adds a new wrinkle to he and Eric's rivalry but, again, I don't care about the love triangle.

"She's Not There" is an awful episode. Everything I dislike about the show remains the same. At this point, the show is what it is and its fanbase is what it is. I won't write about the entire season--I'll just complain about the same things week after week. I'm writing about the second episode because of its availability on HBO Go. I might write about the season finale. The season premiere set up too many stories and, thus, sacrificed a cohesive story so I'll see if season two tells any kind of singular story.

True Blood veteran Alexander Woo penned the episode; Michael Lehman directed it.

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