I’m exhausted this morning,
and I blame “May Be The Last Time.” Geez, could an episode of True Blood be more anticlimactic? I complained last
week about “Karma” treading water, but “May Be The Last Time” didn’t even feel
like treading. It felt like I was drowning in the boringness of Bill’s
flashbacks and in the stupidity of Adilyn and Wade and in the self-absorbedness
of Sookie Stackhouse and the sex-addiction of Jason Stackhouse (because there
has to be a medical reason for Jason being such an asshole, right?).
What even happened in the
episode?! I honestly cannot even tell you. I mean, I will spend the rest of
this column telling you. But I don’t WANT to.
Let’s just get started. I
have nothing else to say. Well, nothing positive, anyway.
+ “Her name is not Sarah. It’s Newme, and she is a good person!” Peace out, Amber Newlin!
Because now you’re dead, even though sister Sarah cured you, because Eric
Northman does not take any shit. Although how much closer are he, Pam, and Mr.
Gus Jr. from finding Sarah? Seemingly minutes away, but knowing this show, they
probably won’t actually cross paths for a couple more episodes. BECAUSE TIME
DOES NOT WORK CORRECTLY IN BON TEMPS, AND PEOPLE MAKE STUPID DECISIONS.
Ahem. Anyway. So Eric and Pam
have officially teamed up with Mr. Gus Jr., who wants them to help him
synthesize Sarah’s antidote-heavy blood, create a new product called New Blood,
and then take it, cure themselves, and become spokespeople for the brand. “You
want Eric to be your fucking spokesperson for your vampire Jenny Craig
commercials?” Pam drawls, but hey, who would turn down 49 percent of a
multibillion-dollar company? I mean, I get it.
At the same time as Eric and
Pam are making their deal with Mr. Gus Jr. and his Yakuza goons, Sarah is
hiding out at the Light of Day Institute, where she and husband Steve Newlin
used to run the cult the Fellowship of the Sun. But shit is getting weird for
Sarah, as she starts seeing hallucinations of previous lovers: There’s Jason
Stackhouse, shirtless and glorious, threatening her with, “You’re gonna die
tonight” and “There’s death coming for you,” and there’s also preppy, closeted
Steve, who argues
But is Sarah actually going to die? Or is this
storyline going to be dragged out for the entire three episodes remaining? I
don’t have the patience for this, dammit!
+ “Have fun fucking!” WHAT IS GOING ON WITH VIOLET, YOU GUYS. I don’t
even understand; I really don’t, and this is coming from a longtime viewer of
True Blood who is VERY USED to not understanding anything that is going on for
this terrible excuse for a premium cable show.
Nothing about this Violet
storyline adds up, does it? So Violet was virginal as a human, according to
what she told Jason, and they lived in that dingy basement together. But she
actually had a crazy sex dungeon WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE of where Adilyn and Wade
were making out in that treehouse, and it’s full of weird sexual accessories
from centuries past, and it has a bizarre painting of Violet as what, an
old-timey courtesan? So what version of Violet is real? And if she wanted to
kill Adilyn to hurt Jessica, JUST DO IT ALREADY. Why would you encourage Adilyn
and Wade to have weird kinky sex, and then handcuff her to the bed afterward?
Zero. Fucking. Sense.
(Although, “Your imagination is a muscle; use it or lose it,” kind of made me
laugh. Evil Violet has some good lines, even though she is, you know, evil.)
As all this is going on, Andy
and Holly are stupidly driving out to Oklahoma City, where they think Wade and
Adilyn may have gone … even though they left their car at the treehouse back in
Bon Temps. And then when Holly says, “This story’s gonna have a happy ending
for us; I know it. I promise,” that was essentially a death sentence for their
children, right? Foreshadowing doesn’t get more obvious than that.
+ “There are some things that can be fixed with magic, but your
vampire friend is not one of them. I’m sorry.” You know, Niall, I don’t
REALLY think you’re sorry, and neither does Sookie! But that doesn’t stop the
guilt-ridden Sookie from jumping into Bill’s arms and then his bed, which I
guess is OK because she was Hep-V positive anyway? Newsflash: Hep-V continues
to make no sense.
Other stuff happened in this
storyline—the very random dwarf Dr. Ludwig showed up to be terrified of Sookie’s
faerie lineage and confirm that her faerie blood probably has something to do
with the accelerated speed of Bill’s sickness; we got some useless Bill
flashbacks—but none of that other stuff matters, right? What matters is that
Sookie and Bill are back together, if you care about that kind of thing, and
they’re having sex for what “may be the last time,” but they’re IN LOVE or
something. So on the nose, True Blood writers. So on the nose.
Also, can we roll our eyes
together at Sookie’s “I like to think of myself as strong, but I’m not this
strong”? When has Sookie EVER BEEN STRONG? I mean, shooting Debbie was badass,
but otherwise? Cue hysterical shouts of mocking laughter, etc.
+ “A human with a vampire is just wrong, you know?” Oh, Arlene. Her romantic
subplot with the vampire Keith can be explained with just a few images, I
think:
Dreams of having sex with
Keith:
Doesn’t end up having sex
with Keith.
+ “I didn’t get a first name. Just Stackhouse.” THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF
HOYT. Hoyt looks good, you guys. Pretty damn good! And of course his return is
only being used to expose how much of a sex-addicted asshole former best friend
Jason Stackhouse is.
Because for some reason,
Jason is eyeing up Hoyt’s “super-smart” microbiologist girlfriend, even though
the entire reason his friendship with Hoyt was ruined was because he started
having sex with Jessica, who was supposedly Hoyt’s one-and-only. And it’s been
barely, what, a DAY since Jason had sex with Jessica again, but he hasn’t paid
any attention to her since? Hasn’t tried to figure out where Violet went after
dumping him? Has just been vacuuming in his underwear?
I mean, don’t get me
wrong. Any Jason Stackhouse shirtless time is appreciated. But this storyline
is such a waste of the dramatic tension that is Hoyt, Jessica, and Jason, and I
don’t even get why it’s happening at all. (Except as a way to bring us
shirtless Jason, I guess, which … I can’t complain.)
+ And some other random
thoughts:
+ The depiction of the
Japanese has been pretty superficial overall, but I love Mr. Gus Jr. as a
coldhearted capitalist: “Would you say that money is a primary motivator for
you?” and “We gonna make some money?” worked for me. (I also laughed at his “Now,
I ain’t a homo, but you have to admit he is a handsome devil” when discussing Eric.)
+ “I can’t wrap my head
around leaving this place.” GO THE FUCK AWAY, SAM.
+ “What is nothingness? I don’t
know what nothingness is!” Sarah Newlin, ladies and gentlemen.
+ “When I was your age, I
used to fuck my brother too. A lot.”
CRAZY VIOLET ALERT, CRAZY VIOLET ALERT.
+ Here, your weekly edition
of “Bill’s terrible flashback wigs.”
+ The entire Dr. Ludwig
character was idiotic, but I did like her deadpan, “Ooh, how very spooky—a cemetery.”
+ The return of Rutger Hauer
as Niall was largely pointless, except for watching him eat spaghetti. That was
TV gold.
