Before I get in to the episode, I want to tell you all a little bit about True Blood and me. After watching (and loving) the first season, I read all of the books by Charlaine Harris that the series was based on. Here’s the deal. Every season of True Blood is loosely based on a book in Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries. Season 1 was a little bit different from the first book, Dead Until Dark, but the main mystery was fairly consistent. Serial Killer kills women that have any relations with vampires. Season 2, however, slapped Living Dead in Dallas in the face hardcore with that AWFUL Maryanne storyline. The Dallas part was good, though most of the drama that unfolded happened differently in the book. This season is based on Club Dead, which is one of my TWO favorite Sookie books. God help Alan Ball if I do not approve.
That being said, I want to explain some of the inconsistencies between the books and the show.
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1) Tara- Tara is a very minor character in the book and she’s white. In the books, she never plays a big part. She was part of the orgy group that the maenad gets power from in Living Dead in Dallas. This is nothing like the possessed, freakiness that went on in the show… just a group of about 10 people that got together and let loose. Nasty, yes! Possessed, no! And her fiancé Eggs (also white), gets killed when the maenad gets mad at them all. Bill then glamoured her into thinking that Eggs left her, and she moved on with her life. The color of her character doesn’t matter much, but it brings in the race issues that are still extremely prominent in the South. You can’t really have a show about the South and pretend that racism doesn’t exist. The books show the racism by just basically not including very many black people, especially early on in the series. The book’s focus on racism comes with The Fellowship of the Sun (kinda similar to the KKK, no?) and the fights for Equal Opportunity for Vampires and Weres and other Supes (Supernaturals, newbies! Catch up!). Arlene is doing a fabulous job at being Bon Temps’ resident red neck (is her fire engine hair symbolic?) and the actress who plays her is married to Michael Emerson (Benjamin Linus) which makes her AWESOME!
2) Lafayette- In the books, Lafayette was the person attached to the foot that was hanging out of Andy Bellefleur’s car at the end of Season 1. In Living Dead in Dallas, he was killed for telling somebody about the orgy that previously mentioned people were involved in. Basically, everything about him from the inception of the show was made up, except for the fact that he was a flamboyant, gay, black chef at Merlotte’s.
3) Sam- slight differences. In the book, he is still a shifter, but his birth mother raised him. His stepfather and siblings do not know that he and his mother are shifters.
4) Godric- in the book he is actually Godfrey and he is NOT Eric’s maker.
5) Jason- Jason is my favorite True Blood character that doesn’t get a lot of play in the books, but he will become more important in the bigger scheme of things. Basically anything that has happened so far in the series never happened in the books. The only thing similar is that he was accused of the murders in Season 1 because he was a man whore who was connected to a bunch of the victims.
6) Jessica- another solid addition, but she was never in the books.
I think those are the big ones for now. I will update you if I remember any others along the way.
So, here we are, the beginning of Season 3 and we start off exactly where we ended… Bill Compton has disappeared from a French Restaurant right after he proposes marriage to Sookie. I absolutely loved the hostess’s reaction when Sookie tells her that her undead love has been kidnapped. “Fucking Vampires! It’s always nothing but shit!” I mean think about it… this is a pretty fair assessment. There are always some ridiculously shitty things going on around these guys.
Bill somehow manages to escape from these guys, even though they were draining him dry and had some silver to keep him restrained. I can only think that somehow, Bill got a hold of one of his capturer’s gloves. Anyway, he caused a car accident and made a run for it, but was ridiculously weak. It was then he called for Jessica. But Jessica doesn’t know what it feels like to be called to her master. She is still waiting for Bill to get home so that she can dispose of this trucker guy…. after she tried to turn him into a vampire. I like Jessica. She is all sorts of awesome, with her being all conflicted about her mainstream side and her vampire side. It also doesn’t hurt that she is really hot (and CCD’s OHC last week) I think I see some awesome things developing with this character this season.
Anyway, back to Eric banging the holy hell out of what’s her name. WOW! Oh my! Or as Sookie says, “Holy S.” Yvetta is chained up (the first True Blood full frontal of the season everybody!) and Eric was literally getting at her at about 100 miles per minute, but stops the second he notices Sookie there. He walks over to her and we get a lovely glimpse of Eric’s fine booty. Can CCD please have an Obscure Hot Man Ass every week, and we can just show varying photos of Alexander Skarsgard’s butt? Think about it, Mike. It may bring us Followers. Anyway, after informing the world that he was humping Yvetta faster then Dale Earnhardt Jr. drives for the last SIX HOURS, he also informs Sookie that he doesn’t have Bill, and even though he could care less about him and that he wants what is his (Sookie) he has to find him because he is the sheriff of that area. After Sookie leaves, Eric admits to Pam that he is concerned about Bill going missing because he is the only person that can connect Eric and Queen Sophie-Anne to the V that Lafayette is dealing.
Shortly following this, we see Pam and Eric separate. Eric is visited my Queen Sophie-Anne and the Magister, who informs the two of them that Area 5 of Louisiana is currently the V capital of the World and that since no vampires are going missing, they can assume that a Vampire is giving the blood up freely, which is apparently a very big no-no in the vampire world. After the Magister leaves, Sophie tells Eric to get rid of all of the V he has left, and we learn that Sophie-Anne is indeed broke. What I am trying to understand is the vampire hierarchy here? Is the Magister like the Supreme Court to Sophie-Anne’s president? Whatever. I’ll take it at face value.
Pam is sent to Bon Temps to give Sookie a check from Eric paying her for her services in Season 2 in Dallas. While delivering the check, Sookie saw Pam shiver and discovered that Vampire Makers can call their “children.” Pam was then sent to Lafayette to tell him to sell the rest of the V by the next day. After saying, “No, hooker” to Pam, Lafayette was scared very sufficiently in to submission when Pam delivered the best line of the show (because Eric’s butt can not be considered a line):''I don't know what it is about me that makes people think I want to hear their problems. Maybe I smile too much. Maybe I wear too much pink. But please remember I can rip your throat out if I need to. And also know that I am not a hooker. That was a long, long time ago.''
Oh Pam, I heart you and your bad-assery and your lesbian weirdness.
Now, back to Sookie, Bill and Jessica. When Sookie discovers that Eric can call Pam, she searches out Jessica. Jessica informs her that she did feel something and the two go looking for Bill. What they find is the overturned car with a dead guy in it. The dead guy has a symbol on his neck that, thanks to Jessica’s Smart Phone, they discover means something called Operation Werewolf.
Bill is nowhere near this car. He ran off and fed on a little old, lonely lady and then glamoured her into forgetting the entire experience. This scene really showed Bill’s controlled vampirism and humanity. He could’ve easily devoured and killed this woman, but chose not to. He even gave her all of the money out of his pocket and told her that her son had come to visit. He left her happier then she was before he got there, albeit missing a few pints of Type O Positive. She also informed him that they were in Mississippi, which greatly worried Bill for reasons unknown. He left her house and was quickly surrounded by werewolves.
Jason, during all this, is still struggling with killing Eggs. Andy tells him that he needs to act like himself and go out there and get some ass. I believe that the exact wording Andy used was, “Conscience off. Dick on.” Since Horny Jason is a great part of the show, and Ryan Kwanten’s gorgeous Australian behind can be the Obscure Hot Man Ass for week 2, I was really hoping for greatness here. But when the two girls from NYU want to have a three way with him, he just can’t get it up and we see how complex Jason is going to be this season. The girls haul ass when he says that he keeps seeing them with bullet holes in their head, and Jason in done for the week.
Brief side about Hoyt: he is a completely underplayed character. He is less stupid than Jason, but considerably more simple. He is mourning his breakup with Jessica and the news about his daddy leaving him when he was young. Now he lives with Jason and doesn’t even want to deal with his “pussy overflow.” He just wants to be friends with everybody! I’ll be your friend, Hoyt! You seem to carry strictly human drama, and I would think that would be welcome to most of the women in Bon Temps!
Tara is depressed about Eggs, Lafayette is comforting her and Arlene is giving an interview. Arlene, who was engaged to Rene, the serial killer from Season 1, knows Tara’s pain, but Tara knows that she really doesn’t give too much of a shit about Eggs himself. This leads to a whole conversation about race and Arlene being a redneck, which, lets face it, she is. Tara’s mom comes over to watch her while Lafayette goes to work. She tells her pastor to come by and actually cops a feel on the man, and Tara goes into the bathroom and starts taking as many pills as she can. Lafayette comes home and runs to save the day.
Now Sam… Sam is in Arkansas looking for his family when Bill shows up in his hotel room for some major homoeroticism. I knew that this was a dream sequence the second that Sam was so willing to take his shirt off for Bill. Dirty, dirty vampire blood dreams! Lets leave those to Sookie and Eric, please! Sam then gets a call to let him know where he can find the Mickens family. He goes and finds his brother, who denies being his brother, but follows him home to discover that he was lying to him. BORING!
So that is really it for Episode 1. Did I miss anything? I’m sorry if I did. I am running totally late on this bad boy! Check out Mike’s post about Jessica’s blog and Snoop Dogg’s completely awesome tribute to Miss Sookie Stackhouse. Be back tomorrow with Episode 2!
Good job Kate! :) I rewound to look at Eric's but like 4 times lol.
ReplyDeleteAwesome job Kate. I'm already hooked on your blog! i like that you have incite into the books too, 'cause I'm way to lease to read those AND watch the show. It's always one or the other with me. I'm simpler that way.
ReplyDeleteYou pointed out that the broad that plays Arlene is the wife of Michael Emerson (Benjamin Linus from Lost) If you recall...she also played his birth mother that dies on the side of the road.
Keep LOST alive!
*way 'TOO LAZY' I meant.
ReplyDelete