Welcome to the seventh and final season of True Blood, in
which stupid people / vampires / werewolves / shifters / whoever are still doing stupid
(no comparatives necessary) things! I will be your recapper this season,
resuming my duties from last year with True Blood (and from the past few weeks
with Game of Thrones, if you for some reason hadn’t seen—gasp!—my recaps of Westeros). With only 10 episodes
left, what could happen in Bon Temps? Well, if we’re judging by this premiere
episode, “Jesus Gonna Be Here” … very little?
The episode started with barely any preamble, so let’s hop to
it! The premise of “Batshit in Bon Temps” is that I’ll discuss the five
craziest things that happened the previous night on True Blood, but can I just
be honest and say that last night’s episode was kind of the worst? As in,
indicative of everything that is wrong with True Blood. Allow me to elaborate!
+ “They killed my Tara.
They killed my baby girl.” Yup, you heard that right! After six seasons of
not knowing what to do with Tara—she’s a victim, she’s vampire bait, she’s a
lesbian, she’s a mixed martial artist, she’s finally a vampire, she’s a lesbian
vampire, blah blah blah—the show has finally killed her off. Rest in peace,
Tara. You were an aimless character for way too long on a show that didn’t have
enough people of color anyway, but Rutina Wesley certainly did her best, even
as the scripts disserviced her more and more often.
Now the question is: Did
that gross Hep-V vampire really kill Tara, or had her crazy mother done
something to her blood, and then Tara died because she drank her mother’s
blood? I don’t know, but it’s great that Tara’s death is already being used to
make Sookie and Jason Stackhouse feel bad … and that’s about it.
Shouldn’t Pam
have felt something when Tara died? Are we only going to get grieving from Willa,
Tara’s brief roommate? Ugh, this show.
+ “I know some of you
blame me for what’s happened, and you’re not wrong. ... Nobody in this town
knows vampires better than me. I want to help. Please let me help.” Sookie
to the rescue! Can I just point out how ludicrous it is that Sookie Stackhouse
is still alive? I’m not saying that I’m
surprised no vampires have killed her yet—I mean, I am, but that’s not exactly
what I’m arguing here—but I’m more surprised that no ordinary human person has killed Sookie. As we saw from Sookie
overhearing everyone’s thoughts about her, practically everyone in Bon Temps
hates her! And has clearly hated her for a long time! Why hasn’t someone just
acted on that venom? Clearly the vigilante quotient in Bon Temps is on the rise,
thanks to the mayoral candidate that Sam beat, Vince (loved his scoffing “Let’s
having a fucking vampire/human mixer!”), but I feel like Sookie might be more
in danger at this point from her fellow humans than from anything supernatural.
Although I will admit, I felt bad for Sookie for dealing
with such hilariously bad insults (“Sookie Stackhouse, you shameful slut!” may
have been my favorite) and for overhearing that even boyfriend Alcide finds her
responsible: “I can never understand how she could love the dead. If she’d only
walked away, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.” Who are you to judge,
Alcide!?! Remember when you were going all crazy on packmaster power and having
weird wolf sex last season? NEVER FORGET.
+ “Where the fuck’s my maker?” In the most racist subplot from
True Blood I’ve ever seen, Pam is searching for Eric, leading her to Marrakesh,
Morocco, where she plays a game of Russian Roulette against another vampire who
is a … fundamental Muslim who belittles her lack of faith?
Jesus, guys, this
was so fucking uncomfortable and terrible—and I say that not only as someone
who was raised Muslim but also as a person who doesn’t like shitty television. Because
this was shitty television!
And can I also say that all of the Muslim vampire’s
talk about death making him closer to God was very
suicide-bomber-enlightenment-esque? Just straight awful, and the dialogue—his “Allah
loves me” to her “My god fucking hates me”—was as clichéd as you would expect.
Also, can we just discuss this scenario in general: Rando
Arabs get together to bet on which vampire will kill themselves accidentally? Look,
the Middle East has the Internet. We do not need to do shit like this for fun!
But that’s not all! Pam also deals with another Arab man who tries to sell his young daughter to her for a
price because the “only clean blood in North Africa is child blood.” ARE YOU
FUCKING KIDDING ME. So ultimately this storyline ends with this guy handing Pam
a handwritten map to help her find Eric; when looking at it, she says, “He
would never,” but that’s all we know. Anyway, according to True Blood, this is
what the Middle East has to offer: child-blood prostitutes and jankily sketched
maps. Sigh.
+ “You are one
metaphysical fuck.” Are we being set up for an affair between Jessica’s
boyfriend James (actor Luke Grimes left the show before the season started; the
role has been recast with actor Nathan Parsons) and Lafayette? They’re paired
now, with Lafayette getting protection from James in exchange for blood, and
they did seem to hit it off, sharing bong hits (loved Lala’s “Get me a sec
while I get altered, and then I’ll give you lunch”) and existential musings.
Lala feels nothing after Tara’s death—“I feel relieved, how fucked up is that”—so
James tells him about how he saw all his friends die during the Vietnam War,
dodged the draft, and got beaten to death by his best friend/maybe lover’s?
father after the boy died in combat.
James’s reluctance to completely spell out
his relationship with best friend Danny raises some questions, I think—“Danny and I
were … He was …”—and I can’t help but wonder if Lala is going to form the MOST
RANDOM LOVE TRIANGLE OF ALL TIME by getting in the middle of James and Jessica.
I wouldn’t put it past True Blood, honestly.
And speaking of Jessica, she’s sworn to protect Adilyn
Bellefleur, Sheriff Andy’s half-fairy daughter, after eating all of her sisters
last season. So she stays out all night, staring down a Hep-V vampire who wants
to eat Adilyn but never makes a move toward the door until the sun is coming
up? I don’t know, it’s stupid, I can’t even talk about this anymore.
+ “We are all freaked
out by the Armageddon-like situation we got going on here.” I really have
nothing to say about the Jason/Violet situation, except for, “Ugh, this shit is
still happening?” And not only is it still happening, but APPARENTLY the only
purpose of it was to give Jason some male agency! Because being a young white
male police officer in the South wasn’t
enough. Let me excerpt Jason’s entire angry speech to Violet before their
cop-car-sex-session right here, so you too can roll your eyes:
“You won’t let me fuck you. You won’t let me do my job. You
fucking feed on me every night. This is ballshit. My balls are so fucking blue,
they’re about to fall off! I’m gonna fuck you. And you’re gonna fuck me back.
We’re gonna fuck together. You hear me, woman? Let’s fuck, for fuck’s sake!”
Such romance, you guys. Such. Romance.
+ And finally, some
other thoughts about this painfully painful episode:
+ I think the show has floundered with what to do with Andy
for a while now, but I did like his random speech about gun violence: “Firing a
weapon at another human being is a big fucking deal. … You are crossing a line
you can never come back from.”
+ I think Violet is superfluous, but this made me laugh: “Go
fuck your depressed homely housewives with your tiny little dicks.”
+ In the category Stupid Things Sookie Did Today, I’m sure
walking home alone and throwing your cell phone away WHEN HEP-V-INFECTED
VAMPIRES HAVE JUST EATEN AND KILLED YOUR FRIENDS is not the smartest idea.
+ Alcide: He can still get it.
+ Best Sookie face of the episode comes courtesy of “Newflash:
I could read your fucking thoughts!”
+ Why is Iranian comedian Maz Jobrani playing a nameless
fight organizer in Marrakesh? Oh right, because those are the only roles
available for Middle-Eastern actors in Hollywood. MY BAD.
+ “He told me, ‘Morning is coming.’” So Tara’s mom’s
preacher husband is basically adapting Game of Thrones here, am I right? I can
see him being a Stannis fan. Boring as fuck.
+ “Oh my god, I can’t die down here, I got kids!” Yes,
Arlene is captive under Fangtasia, being held by the Hep-V vampires with Andy’s
girlfriend Holly and Sam’s baby momma whose name I can’t remember, but she was
so much better on Friday Night Lights than she is on this crap. Until next
week, everyone.
(Want more pop-culture thoughts? Follow me on Twitter
@roxana_hadadi)
