“This may be a town of crazy rednecks and dumbasses but they’re still Americans.” “And that used to mean something.” “Still does.”

The Jason and Andy buddy show in the midst of this episode was probably my favorite part of the show. First, they had the most entertaining dynamic of the episode for me. Some of that down home humor and camp that this show does so well. Second I just love that the fate of the town rests in the hands of Bon Temps heroes; Captain Morgan and his sidekick Boy Stupid, for whom the “time for thinking” is always over.  Highlights include, but are not limited to:

  • Carbing up before the battle.
  • Pondering the possibility of Sam shifting into a chicken and eating his own egg.
  • Jason explaining the deeper hardships of his existence to Andy. For example he didn’t just win the genetic lottery no! He works out all the time and is forced to endure hours of porn and “learn stuff” to get all his women.
  • And something near and dear to me “This is the oral history of the Zombie war!”…what?

Now, for the True Blood controversy of the week: ERW, love her or hate her? I LOVE her hair, her costumes, her make-up, the set design. That day room is a work of art. The entire visual style of her character and the scene. Unfortunately, I did not really buy her as Sophie Anne the Vampire Queen. This was a disappointment to me, because I really admire Evan Rachel Wood as an actress and was one who was actually excited by this casting choice. She had some of the greatest lines of the episode and even the series and introduced some of the most fascinating concepts. However her delivery did not sell ancient wisdom encased in timeless beauty or the cunning and ruthlessness that would be required to achieve that level of power in a den of venom like the Vampire world. Her “I insist” felt like an entitled request rather than a silken yet deadly command. More on that momentarily. First, let’s look at those lines and concepts.

“Surely you know that everything that exists imagined itself into existence.” This is the central theme of this episode and really the show could not have introduced any concept to turn my inner geek on more. I am constantly amazed at how readily people blithely dismiss what is to me one of the most profoundly mysterious and powerful phenomena in our world – the placebo effect. “Oh, it’s just the placebo effect.” Just, just the placebo effect!?! That person gave a sugar pill the attributes of a powerful medication – with their mind! Do you get the implications of that!?! I am a dedicated believer in the awesome power of the human mind, and of the limitations of our current consciousness. All that we are- that we fight, kill, and war for, is an imagined construction of our own minds. Nation, power, race, ethnicity, religion – a reality that Sophie Anne attests to with her “The Gods never show up, that only exists in human minds like money and morality.” Yes, even these most fundamental elements of our societies are constructions created by us. We bind ourselves to ourselves with feverish delight. And yet what we imagine to be real is in many ways real. Sophie Anne testifies to this as well, she “never said that the God doesn’t exist, just that he doesn’t show up.” We see the power that belief has when even the fake Ms. Jeannette, could help Tara call in Maryanne vis a vie Tara’s desperate need to believe in that exorcism. Not a really fully realized concept, but one that works none the less. It amazes me that we have infinite power to create and yet we choose to create so much destruction. But perhaps Jason has some unknown wisdom “Sometimes you have to destroy something to save it…that’s in the bible or the constitution…”

Now, on to ERW’s interpretation of Sophie Anne. For this I would like to bring Eric in to the discussion. “Oh, pardon me; you’ve just caught me lounging in my Vampire club with an open shirt in shades of black.” Um, what was with the Emo Euro Eric this week? Please bring back the tee shirts and jeans. All he needed was a gold chain and it would have been a fangy Night at the Roxbury. This brings us back to Sophie Anne. “Oh pardon me, you’ve caught me lounging in my elaborately planned and oddly isolated day room with no greater responsibilities than indulging in tasty treats and yatzi. No, it’s not as if I have a highly vulnerable political position to maintain or kingdom to run. I am more of a Marie Antoinette than an Elizabeth.” This week, the vamps were acting more like spoiled, bored socialites than stealth and deadly creatures of the night. Sophie Ann was somewhere between a cast member in the great Gatsby and an overly bright and precocious boarding school kid. She did not have sense of the accumulated years of wisdom, strength and power. She did not feel ever alert even in her state of repose. She did not command, intimidate, terrify and seduce – all the things a Queen such as herself would need to do in order to gain and maintain her position. I wonder if the actress is simply too young to tap into that. I believe it is possible for her to rise above this week’s episode and become the Sophie Anne that would compel her minions to follow her leadership, and us as viewers to follow her story. I hope to see more power and influence and wealth of knowledge and far less eye rolling and bored indulgence in the weeks to come from this character.

Further on the newly emo Eric. My, they’ve really turned the evil to eleven this week.  Mwahahahaha. This seemed to be shades more of the soap opera villain we saw in some previous episodes and I for one hate this. I do not want to see a thin mustached dastardly shell of an Eric any more than I want to see an emasculated overly “perfect” shell of a Bill. Let them be whole and fully realized. Let them live into all the potential that these actors and characters have to engage us, draw us in and keep us guessing. Please do not go down this overly simplified path that is potentially being carved out. “Can you get me Sookie?” “Never go near Sookie again” “Sooooookie. Soookie, sookie.” Enough. I am with Pam and the eye roll. I mean Eric is, in one episode; tormenting poor traumatized Lafayette (not to mention forcing him to sell V), taunting and manipulating poor Sookie and now he eats children, “teacup humans” (insert caressing thin mustache here). I must say I did enjoy the hair mussing from the flying jaunt; and I do like to see Eric and Bill (Eric and Sookie for that matter) wrangle wits, especially when it is done in a more humorous fashion. Listen as a female the idea of two men fighting over a woman is hot, so the love triangle is great – but please make these men as impossible to choose between as they can be and give the prize a life and rich and fresh and fun personality of her own. I do want to see how Eric will parry back from the blackmail threat and I like that Bill is getting tougher and given more layers in the last few episodes. It seems somewhat counterproductive to make one character more dynamic and simultaneously remove dynamism from the other. Please pull back from this overly evil and drearily emo Eric.

 

To hit on some of the major elements of this episode:

1)      I enjoyed much of the interactions between Lafayette and Sookie. I do not believe that they will become my favorite pairing; they were not even my favorite pairing of the episode. But Lafayette brings freshness to all he does, and it was good to see her in a more active position this week. She is getting bloodthirsty indeed, and has a taste for “death to Maryann!”. I particularly enjoyed Lafayette’s desire for the abandon and escape of Maryann’s trance as described by Sookie. He is able to depict some of our deepest and to some degree darkest human desires, like the desire for release and escape from the weight of our lives, with such grounded humor and simplicity.

 

2)      Hoyt has received a powerful wakeup call from the women in his life. From his mamma on the truth about his daddy and by the clear display of Jessica’s bloodthirsty ferocity. I am excited to see where this will take him on his journey to manhood. And where the newly abandoned Jessica will go on her journey to vampirism.

 

3)      I hate the character of Lettie Mae, but love her depiction. She like Jason, is who she is. She is consistently: selfish, narcissistic, manipulative, totally unwilling to accept personal responsibility, mean and willing to use anything (i.e. the name of Jesus) to get what she wants. It is more important to her that her daughter think and speak well of her than to keep her safe. “Devil in a Sunday bonnet.” She picks up a gun and points at her nephew, sending her daughter into the mouth of hell all in the name of Jesus. This in another way that the show illustrates how faith and the name of God can be used to create nothing but evil and chaos and pain – when so grotesquely manipulated and misused.

 

4)      Mrs. Fortenbury seems to have some inside knowledge about what Maryann would face were “the God who comes”, to come “No woman alive would face it if she knew what were coming to her.” It makes little sense how she could mysteriously tap into some deep knowledge of the God when the rest of the town seems to have collapsed into the some kind of rendition of a drunken four year old. Yet I will say Arlene’s “The fine is one hundred million dollars, and your pants.” was one of my favorite lines of the episode.

 

5)      Is it possible that Eggs laid an egg?

Ok those are my thoughts. I’d love to hear yours, so please comment below here on the site or on YouTube. Subscribe to the ThinkHero YouTube account, follow us on Twitter @ThinkHero and @JrothC and for all the latest True Blood news go to our friends at the vault at trueblood-online.com or follow them on twitter @The_Vault. Thanks guys!

- Roth

 TBblogs2ep11

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