TV « In Which True Blood Rolls On Through Its Second Season »
Monday, July 13, 2009 at 7:14PM 
The Secret History of Blood
by ALEX CARNEVALE
True Blood
creator Alan Ball
Yes, the vagaries of the underworld, once they come to your doorstep, can be exciting. But pretty soon that party's getting out of hand. And there's one thing that Tara's cousin Lafayette can tell you after being unbearably tortured at the hands of the Sheriff of Louisiana Eric Northman.
Calling your cousin 'hooker' is common parlance in the salty town of Bon Temps where a half-bull, half-human claws people half to death, more spiritual creatures egg on the party spirit with three-clawed hoofs, and a young vampire can just order a tasty human treat to her door. Most likely, though, you'll end up like Tara:
For awhile, it's good. It's great. The appearance of normalcy can give purpose to any situation. Best friends shack up with each other and life seems on the upswing. A vampire 'maker' calls his ward his 'progeny.' If you have the right word for something, you could potentially turn things around. Even for a moody, tortured vamp life's not all bad.
Molly gets her kicks from comparing True Blood to Buffy. While I grant you that Buffy was tremendous for its time, it was for kids. This is serious business, so serious that Anna Paquin can't be bothered to act beyond filling out her latest outfit. As one qualified ONTD critic put it, "The fact that Anna Paquin won a Golden Globe for acting proves that anything is possible." It's now an axiomatic proof, True Blood doesn't care about the finer points.
In fact, as shit collapses around her ("I almost died...again!"), Sookie's remarkably calm...for some reason. "I know Bill wouldn't want me to do this," she says before she does something she knows will earn his disapproval. My golden retriever Rosie learns quicker. "God dang it if I didn't love the taste of your blood so much Sookie!" Bill will likely respond to another Sookie mishap in a future episode. These two are either on their honeymoon or they're Honeymooners.
I'd rather be a fly on the wall for the cutest couple in six counties — the 1,000 year old vampire known as Eric Northman and his favorite homosexual pet. I can't wait for this parasitic pair to go to their house in the country. For christ's sake, Hollywood has been begging for an interracial Withnail & I for longer than I care to remember.
did she happen to see Jack or Hurley on that flight?Eric and Lafayette are now bound to each other by virtue of sharing blood. Remember how Bill was so able to come to Sookie's scream in the airplane hanger? It's because he tasted her sweet necktar before. Now Lafayette has a dangerous monster at his beck and call. Oh right, he's not in a partying mood.
working theory is that she is what has been powering al gore
Michelle Forbes' one-note performance as the party animal is starting to grate on me, though. Each episode will she reveal some new superpower? Not even Al Pacino in Scarface was this distracted from the business at hand. I don't want to see her literal claws, I'd prefer her metaphorical ones and maybe an upskirt for shits and giggles. Every creature of power has a plan, or else how did they get their power?
Perhaps it came to them when they were young, before they were truly ready for it. The Center for Disease Control reports that one-third of all young vampires are staked before getting to sample hotel-provided B-positive ass. In the books Sookie and Bill visited a human hotel modified to cope with vampires; here vampires are afforded separate but far better treatment. Bill, Sookie and their ginger ward have come to Dallas to find the vampire Godric, fearing he may be imprisoned by the Fellowship of the Light.
The sexy group of vampire haters has employed Jason Stackhouse in their quest to rid the world of everything disgusting and alien, preserving the all-American sexuality we have come to expect from God-fearing sprites of the world. Jason has become the unwitting protagonist of this series. Sometimes you plan for someone to be the main character of your show and it turns out to be another person's story. In this case, the afflicted is the sibling of the main characters, and with a full 55 minutes to fill every week, they need all the backstory they can get. A slow burn heats best.
you don't really eat sarah's ribs, it's more like you take a bath in themWould I disavow all my previous beliefs and the welfare of my sister's bf to get with a Southern woman who was once a vegetarian and knows how to cook ribs? The answer is yes.
Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here. You can find his review of the first few episodes of Season Two here.
"No Fun" - Vitalic (mp3)
"My Friend Dario" - Vitalic (mp3)
"The Past" - Vitalic (mp3)
Reader Comments (2)
Hey! An article about True Blood. My friend Eric has been talking about this for weeks. I am intrigued... Thank you.
hmm, more interested in the choice of music here...
been listening to the new vitalic album on repeat...
true blood has been interesting, eric, lafayette and sam the most interesting characters bar none...