f13.net

http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/

First Episode out this week!

Watch. Cry. Moan. Discuss.

Fuck me sideways, Anna Paquin leads? On that note!

s01e01 - Strange Love
s01e02 - The First Taste

This show is what Joss Whedon would write if he didn't suck ass.

Saw it last night with the wife.   Bit of a slow start, but that seems to be my usual impression of HBO shows, so I'll give it a few more episodes. 

A good intro.

Stephen Moyer is one trippy, hypnotic looking dude (don't care if that sounds gay or not). At least in this show he is. Good casting.

Was interesting enough for me to watch the next ep.  We'll see.

Not on iTunes yet,  :sad_panda:

Alan Ball motherfuckers, I didn't see that coming.  Hopefully he can keep it upbeat and not like Six Feet Under.

There's not a character that doesn't amuse me in this show. Not only that, but the world is cool. Can't wait when they open it up.

Fucking awesome, who saw last night's episode?

Not yet.  Was it better than the first?

Well, my reply was in response to last night's (generally speaking).

anyone want to expand on what the show is about?

It takes place in a modern setting, but in a fictional "universe" where Vampires have come out of the closet, and claim to be benevolent (mostly sparked by the existence of a beverage that functions as an alternative to human blood -- "True Blood".. Hence, the show title). It's not exactly like, but it's similar to Angel, where the mundane is mixed in with a lot of fantasy and myth.

The main location of the show is in some bumfuck town in Louisiana. The larger backdrop has society not fully settled with the idea of vampires running about. And last night was the first glimpse that not all vampires care to be friendly with humans either.

More specifically, the show centers around a lone, good vampire named Bill and a waitress he's falling in love with, "Sookie" (Anna Paquin). She's not exactly normal either - she's a telepath. The surrounding cast is her family, co-workers, and friends (so far, pretty funny characters), who aren't keen on the idea of Bill being around. Shit is just waiting to hit the fan, on a large scale and a small one.

I was on the fence after the first episode, but now I am solidly in. I like that the show seems to swing to extremes, sort of extremely sappy romantic, and can turn in a second and become very violent and bloody.

Also, I think I give this show the best into ever. Maybe just in front of Dexter.

Yep.  Definitely following the usual HBO standard of shit pilots and then rapid improvement.  Episode 2 was definitely better and I'll be continuing along with the ride.

I didn't think the pilot was much different than the second episode. Both are pretty good... Although they did kind of cram a lot into the first one.

Yeah, the intro is cool stuff.

Ok, but is it really only about the love story, and some other Dawson's creek like drama............... with vampires?

Do you watch much HBO? This isn't the CW.

Yeah, well that didn't answer my question. I do watch shows like deadwood, and Rome... but this looks like what i said above, and i am very scared to watch.

Just hold me and tell me its not like that.  :why_so_serious:

It's not like that. :P

Go watch the first episode online if you have concerns. There's a *little* bit of romance to add some tension/story, but it's becoming much broader than that. It's basically how the girl and the vamp start to get involved - because they are attracted to each other.

Where do you watch it online?

HBO had the first two episodes up:

http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/

Click on Episodes, then 1, then Watch. I *think* it's the whole episode, but I only watched about 5 mins before I closed it since I already saw it.

My wife and I are both enjoying the show. It's got a good mix of drama and comedy and we haven't read the books it's based on to complain. Both shows had some action too, which is a good means of keeping it from having any sleepers.

One comment about the ending of the second episode:

Scratch that. I can't post spoilers.  :ye_gods:

I'll just surmise it to say that they end with drama that I can see through.

You didn't hold me.  :heartbreak:

yeah you can

The romance element is cool. Or rather, it's not immature. It's not Dawson's Creek at all. I mean, for one, Bill is a 200 year old southerner/vampire who fought in the Civil War. He'd never pick up chicks in Dawson's Creek.

I'm not your mother!

Just remember a couple of things: a) vampires, b) hot chicks, c) HBO, d) vampires, e) HBO, f) HBO.

What does that spell? VHCHBOVHBOHBO, but I don't know what that means. HBO isn't scared of: blood, boobies, or dark stories. Rather, they enjoy those things. So, you combine that with vampires, hot chicks, and vampires....

I don't want to give anything away, but so far it's got plenty of "dark" sidelines that you only glimpse in the first few episodes, with a couple of actually creepy scenes.

This is pretty awesome so far. The things on the site site are just mishmashy shit-clips of each episode, but they're available available elsewhere.

Seems to just be a "previously on" to me.

I am hated.

Even though I enjoy the show.

Ookii probably forgot to flip the switch on the Developers group to allow you to use the spoilers tag.

Does anyone else think the Dog following her around is almost stranger than the vampires? I'm betting that the dog is either a future shape shifter (vampire? were-wolf?) and my first thought was the stupid bar owner who's always fawning over her.

I had exactly the same idea about the bar owner secretly being a werewolf.  There was a shot of a picture of a dog in the bar in the last episode that made that impression stronger.  And when he asked her to read his mind it felt like he wanted her to find out.

Heh. If he's a werewolf, then he's got a pretty lousy way of showing it. Either in his human form (not quite tortured enough), or in the canine form (I mean... that's a shitty power to have.. to just transform into some mutt).

I think he's just the token nice, normal guy that you kinda want to cheer for, but is probably going to get screwed.

Oh you're probably right but I think the dog stuff is going somewhere. It's fun to speculate.

A surprisingly large group to miss as well.

Apart from that one would think it would be surprising that a 100 year old vampire wouldn't know that mind-readers and werewolves wouldn't exist.  He clearly didn't know that the dog was when he first mentioned it, and was also equally surprised at Sookie's powers as well.

Oh for crying out loud. Sookie's boss barks in his goddam sleep!

But he was also seen with the dog, twice now. Maybe not a werewolf but something else?

Dog fucker?

Yeah, I noticed him with the dog there too. That's good actually. Being a were-housepet isn't even remotely cool.

Not even a dog "whisperer" either. I mean, he was talking to the dog, but the dog didn't..really say much. He's like anyone else.

So what the fuck is up? The barking is a mystery...

Sometimes a dog is just a dog. :grin:

Remember, this is based on a book series.  30 seconds of Googling will give you the (probable) answer.  I won't spoil it if ya don't wanna look.

Well yah, we don't want to spoil it for ourselves! We just want to guess. My wife is reading the books now so I'm sure she'll spoil *something* for me at some point.

Half my coworkers have read the books. Apparently you can't trust them for anything. This isn't following the books all that well.

They could be telling lies though. I don't know for sure.

The barking in the sleep was funny.

Hey look, it's Grimwell!  Hey Grimwell!  (http://www.chins-n-quills.com/forums/images/icons/wavey.gif)  You've been about lately.  You're not sacked, are you?

Not sacked. ;)

Or a bar owner.

I gotta chime in and say that the characters on this show have really grabbed me. I had one strange thought that her dumbass brother would end up wanting to fuck a vampire really bad, and somehow Tara finds that out and uses it as her in. Ok, there is no way in hell thats happening but I aight scared to come up with shit. :)

So far, Tara is probably my favorite character. Can't wait for show 4.

Yeah, Tara is funny.

Favorite character is Bill. Or maybe I mean the actor. The world weary civil war + vamp angle makes for a cool characterization. I have one gripe though... The guy comes off sort of childlike and innocent. The way he always approaches Sookie, for example.. Or how he let those addicts get ahold of him in the first ep. Yet, the other vamps respect him. How the fuck did those people in the restaurant lure him outside at first? He eventually fucked their shit up and all, but that he got trapped doesn't make sense. He's an asskicker. I kind of want to think it was all intentional.

Yeah, he got took out by two breathers? It didn't seem to add up, as powerful as he showed himself to be later.

Tonight's episode is hilarious!

Dick gout

 :ye_gods:

Just a cool ass episode all around really. The gout was funny as hell, but I'm glad they showed more of the vamp culture. Can't wait for more. Oh, and Bill's "charming" of that cop was badass.

Wtf with the sheet smelling.

I really want Sam's weirdness to be just plain weirdness. Such a nice ramp-up!

Brad from Generation Kill as an old ass vampire FTW?  Awesome.

Also apparently "Brad" is a Skarsgård as his name is Alexander Skarsgård.

I thought the actor was Scandi, just by the accent (the foreign language sounded like it too). It'll be cool if the vamp character Eric (better yet, "Erik") is an old Norseman too.

While having some serious misgivings about aspects of the show, I find myself eagerly anticipating the next episode, so I guess I am hooked.

I've never worried a lot about spoilers but if someone who has read the book spoils the Mystery of the WereDog Bartender for me I'm gonna be pissed off.

I liked the flashback stuff tonight. Pretty unique/creepy "turning" scene with the neck slicing.

I'm beginning to hate the bartender dude. Time for him to die, I think.

But do you think he's the killer? Who would have the motive to do the latest one?

I also liked the flashback scene. Look forward to more.

Great ep. If I wasn't before, I am defnitely hooked now. Glad to see grandma go- she was annoying. Hope Bill's sire shows up again during the run of the series- she was fun.

Just finished it, absolutely superb.

I'm thinking she's the "she" referred to in episode three, which I hope means that'll be true.

Yeah, the series has been ok, but that was the episode I'd been waiting for. More about Bill's civil war stuff, and the hamburger with aids scene was great. Nice touches to just about every character, but I hated seeing granny get it in the end. (That's what she said)

Yeah, I thought the grandmother was cool too.

Having lost a grandparent I was really close to, tonight's episode really got me pretty good. The whole bit with the pie was intense, imo. A few wandering moments compared to last week's.

Really enjoying Rutina Wesley (mmm) and Nelsan Ellis is turning into a pretty good character (though I'm not sure they can beat the aids burger scene).

I got bored with tonight's episode. Too sappy for me.

I'm a little suprised that certain people here have managed to go this long without commenting on the exposure of Anna Paquin's female parts.

WAIT WHAT?  I'm guessing I need to watch this episode ASAP.

Yeah, I was fucking around and not really watching the screen, and only saw like .5 seconds of bewbs.  :sad_panda: :angryfist:

downloading now

lost ability to type coherently

What episode was that?? Am i missing out because i watch them on the streams?



EDIT: Oh, i didn't see 6 yet  :grin:

Geez, you guys are spazoids.  :grin:


Anyhoo.. Much like Bill's turning scene in the last episode, I like the last scene in this one (the bite). They really give a disgusting take on vampire biting/sucking/etc.. Y'know, it lacks romance and whatnot? Kind of unique. It's just shown for what it is.

Yeah. Also, she ate half a pie cold. Disgusting!

I bet Bill eats cold "pie" all the time!  :grin:

Someone please kill me.

Last night makes me want to pick up drugs again.  :oh_i_see:

Last night makes me want to pick up arson again. :why_so_serious:

Anyone realize the chick that got topless this episode was Marlena from Cloverfield?

I didn't recognize her without the camera shaking violently.

I've never seen the movie but her tits were certainly nice.

Seconded.

I wasn't all that impressed with her, until she took off the threads.

Then I was just like ....DAYUM

For some reason the internet seems to be failing me for an img for those who didn't catch the new episode.

Just go to Egotastic (http://egotastic.com).

NSFW: http://www.egotastic.com/

 :drill:

Okay, the truly important question is WTF is going on with Tara Reid's body? I realize she's aging, but that doesn't come anywhere close to explaining the weird melting effect going on.

cheap backyard plastic surgery gone wrong. That plus a lot of alcohol and cigarettes.

Ha, a non Britney Spears celebrity gossip thread would be great.

I kind of thought it was just embarassing that Alan Ball would be working on this.  But I find I really like the show.  Course I can't help but cringe when people try (fail) to do a Louisiana accent on screen, but that's another matter.

It can't sound any dumber than in real life.

I've only seen that one guy (René?) do something sort of Cajun.


I like Bill's accent though... Doesn't seem particularly Louisiana-like, just more of a southern drawl... which is more fitting with the Civil War schtick. I like how his old-fashioned-ness comes out in his speech too...

"Can I caawl upawn yooo?"

True Blood drinking game:

1) Get drunk
2) Preface everything with dramatic Bill-accented "Sookie!"

GENIUS!

do we have to be watching the show? This game may make election night easier...

"awwww Sookie Sookie now."

thirded

Fourthed.  They are SO easy.

The next time *I* pop out of graveyard dirt I'm definitely humping something off the bat. I don't care how. TV said I could.

This week's episode was not my favourite, although Bill nonchalantly bursting into flames was hilarious.

I enjoyed the episode. It set the pace for a lot of things to be explored and answered in the next one.

Aside: The actress who plays  Lettie Mae (Tara's mom) is delivering one of the best performances in the show. She's damn convincing and showing serious range thanks to the writing. I really enjoyed her "change" last night. Not because I needed a feel good moment, but because she played it so well.

Jason's plotline is going insane, in a very fun way. Lafayette is going to kill him  :pedobear:

Jason's new Jekyll and Hyde girlfriend is indeed some fucked up shit.

I'm mostly enjoying the exorcism subplot.  WTF is going to happen if Tara turns all sweet and polite?

I was officially sick of the Sam/weredog angle like 8 episodes ago.  Just show him fucking transforming already.

definitely hits a chord with some serious issues, i was admiring her acting skills as well

Actually, I wouldn't mind Tara getting a little polite (for awhile at least). Man, I'm tired of her shit.

This looks interesting I'm going to watch it, gotta love vampires and chicks basically

finally watched the last episode... dirt sex and combustion were pretty funny

So how come we haven't reviewed that "golf" game bill was playing on the wii? My GF let out some major spoilers to me about sam since she read the books. I'll spare you guys.

That was, more or less, the creepiest episode yet, I think?

Man, Erik is fucking cool. Didn't realize he was Stellan Skarsgard's son either. Gee, no wonder...

[edit] Also, a far better choice for Thor than Kevin McKidd.

Trying not to give anything away, but I was really expecting them to tapdance around for a few more episodes.  So far the show is progressing very atypically from a normal genre show where you tune in hoping something cool happens, and it never does unless it's a season finale.

This ain't your pansy network television, boy!

Yeah HBO has/had a lot of good shows.  But they also have a lot of total crap that's just an excuse to show some boobs (Rome probably the worst example).

Fuck you in your stupid avian ass.

Rome is some of the best shit mankind has witnessed... ever. Better than the real Rome even.

[edit] buhaha.. change that to.. "fuck you in your stupid ass"

thought you were hawkbit  :grin: :oh_i_see:

There's nothing kind I can say about Rome or anyone who likes it.  So let's just agree to disagree on that.

Ok, the door is THAT FUCKIN' WAY. Your kind is not welcome around here.

Seconded.  I've read Tacitus.  I've read Livy.  I've read Suetonius and Gibbon's big ass Decline and Fall.  I do know Roman history.  Now the TV show may have taken liberties with actual history, but I can forgive that.  In fact, I have to give them credit for making Caesar, Antony, and Octavian such fleshed out individuals.  I can't think of any of those historical figures without picturing the actors who portrayed them in Rome.

With that out of the way, I think Pam is probably my favorite character from True Blood.  I love how her "off work" clothing is an understated pink sweater while her work uniform is dominatrix gear.

Eh maybe I should have used something less contentious.  Just saying not everything on HBO has been wonderful.  The "It's not tv, it's HBO" slogan is often justified with some tits and profanity and little else.  Not everything on the channel is a David Simon or Larry David production.

We're just fucking with you (I think?). You're free to your own opinion.

Even if your opinion sucks.  :grin:


That out of the way, I'd agree that HBO has had some duds, but Rome is the last I'd put on that list. Secondly, their more shallow/gratuitious stuff is still better than network stuff for the most part (personally, Entourage isn't a favorite of mine...nor is Sex in the City.. but they're still more interesting than the majority of network TV). And if you were to really talk about pointless gratuity, that'd be Cathouse or Real Sex. And big deal. You'd have to be a fag to not like em. Are you a fag? Huh? Huh?

And hell, not even that... I think there's at least some stuff for fags in Real Sex as well.

Anyways.. Rome doesn't fall anywhere near that category. That shit is deep, man. A damn goldmine.

HBO has produced my favorite series of all time, The Wire.

Rome just might be second.

I am enjoying the shit outta true blood for now.

Entourage is fading but is worth the 25 minutes a week.

Band of Brothers anyone?

I'm trying desperately hard to figure out how you could be more wrong, but I'm at a loss.

Stop being so wrong. We haven't defined words to copy with your particular problem yet.

Until he starts fuckin with Deadwood.

Oh yeah, how did I forget fuckin....

Deadwood and the Sopranos

Now please, fuck off.

Loving the series enough to pick up the books trouble is I am now way past where the show's at. Easy fun read though.

Pam can suck me dry any night of the week.

any episode where i get to see lizzy caplan's tits is ok by me

FIFY

Stephen Root hasn't been the Comic relief I was expecting either, but has actually impressed me with acting ability and range.

Also, I saw the Sam + dog shit after 2 episodes and haven't read the books.

There was a scene in one of the earlier episodes that showed Sam and the dog together, so I was a bit confused by that - I wonder if it was a mistake or if that's some other weremutt.

This.

Yeah, that threw me, too. The last scene was one of the best thus far (only topped by the shock of granny's murder imo). I lol'd.

Familiar.
Daemon (mythology)
Yekyua - Yakut familiar sprirts.
Shikigami Spirits in Japanese folklore who serve onmyoji
Imp
Vehicle (Hindu)

When I saw him with the dog I thought it was a familiar too - but the last episode seems to indicate he *is* the dog, or maybe they can swap places.

can i just say what he is? it's killing me.

Well that was pretty anticlimactic.

"I'm a shapeshifter."  :uhrr:


Now what were you going to say?

Did any of you guys listen to the part where he said he needs the dog around in order to use him as a template?  Specifically when Sookie was talking about how she used to rub his (the dog's) belly.

the morph was pretty disapointing

Two episodes left in the season, so time for things to start getting wrapped up.  Also, poor Eddie. 

It's a bit odd she never picked up the werewolf's thoughts before, you'd think they'd be a bit strong, especially when he's around someone he wants to kill or someone who's grandmother he had killed.

Yeah, Eddie. Was starting to like him, a true american vampire, sit around watching the tube all day forever. That girl is starting to grate, but I bet it's because this is the first ep she didn't bring out the girls.

Magister from the Inquisition was awesome. I totally didn't expect that.

I thinks they covered this by saying she's had to quit all her previous jobs because she read her bosses' minds.  She doesn't do that anymore.

No one mentioned the Michelle whats-her-name.. (Star Trek/BSG chick) naked in the road. What the hell was that?

Shapeshifter != werewolf, in True Blood, anyway. Don't make Sam mad.

I mean the vampire-hating redneck that Saarsgard threatened in the previous ep. I'll be surprised if he's not the werewolf/killer after the way they hammered that point through almost the entire episode.

Thats also only what sam said, not necessarily what is true.

Nothing's said without some purpose to further a story. Unlike real life. ;)

Well, unless the film/show sucks.... But usually, everything's got a point in a script. I'd put stock in Sam's words if I were you!  :grin:

Are we talking about the soldier with the post-traumatic stress?

I'm not even sure. Sky, for one, is talking about one of those rednecks that hangs at the bar... the one who caused the vampire fire (or rather, the one who burned himself). Erik the Viking dude skidded up to him and called him out.. remember?

I don't really think he's anything but a redneck though..

But now that you mention the soldier, he's tormented enough to be a werewolf maybe?

Well in the past couple of episodes they've been gearing him up for something, I thought they were trying to make it look like he was the killer - though not necessarily a werewolf.

How far apart were the killings? If they were every month then I'd say it's Sam, but I don't think thats correct.

I think it's Renee. The redhead kept talkin' about how great he is...in these shows nobody is that great. :) That would be way outta where they have been leading us towards though.

I'm mostly going on the psychic flash Sookie had at the reception when that dude walked by her (before the incident inside the bar).

 

Fucking sweet twist!

I assume we were supposed to recognize the face in the Fax at the end? I'm terrible at recogizing faces, so someone tell me who it was.

As to who it was:

Yea, after discussion with someone else I think that's who it is. Makes a lot of sense with certain forshadowing earlier in the episode.

And Slayerik calls it!

/bow ;)

Again, Pam is my favorite character.  I love that there's no deep scheme behind Eric reneging on the Jessica deal; he just can't stand her.  A Swedish friend of mine confirmed that upon walking out Eric actually said, "Ah, sweet freedom".

Love that they've changed just enough from the books to keep me interested.

hmm, they introduced a lot of new shit last night. i hope lafayette hasn't completely disappeared. sam and what's-her-face-dryad(?)-chick have some of kind dangerous unfinished business.. that other homeboy is turning into a jesus freak now (i was half paying attention.. what the hell made him get all radical about it.. i don't recall him actually seeing any miracles).. bill has a big mess on his hands with the redhead.

I am now in an argument on who the preacher at the end of the show was (it wasn't credited). It looked and sounded a hell of a lot like Topher Grace to me.

Probably my favorite bit of that episode, so much understatement going on.

My viking heritage biases me toward the northman, but I kinda wonder how an ancient viking ends up in Leezeaner.

What is Leezeaner? It's the one word in the entire universe that doesn't show up on a Google search.  :grin:

Yeah, my Scandinavian side has some bias for that character too. I'll probably be happy if Bill kills him though.

edit: eh, oh, louisiana.

If they follow the books at all then Eric will become a lot more important to the story than Bill.  Trust me, that's a good thing.

Besides, Eric is funnier than Bill who has no sense of humor.

I really like Eric, and hope we get to see more of him next season.  The one character that probably always cracks me up every time he's on is probably Terry, though. 

What you said reminds me of seeing LotR in the theaters and listening to the teen girls who were there to see Legolas giggling at Golum/Smeagol. Not saying you're anywhere near the same or wrong, but I find Terry more sad and sympathetic than funny. I can see a Terry flashback episode being really good if the show makes it past season 2.

I'm also finding myself much more sympathetic towards Bill as well. As a 41 year old back in school taking 100 level classes for a new major, trying to interact with 18-20 year olds as peers is bizarre - especially when the subject of Iraq comes up and I have to clarify that my war in Iraq was the one right before they were born.

No, I understand where you're coming from, I see him as a sympathetic character as well, it's just that some of the things they have him say also make me laugh at the same time.  Which I guess sounds a bit assholish.  But ultimately, that's one of things I like so much about the show, how most the characters aren't just stock comic relief or whatever. 

Is the season over for this or something?

Yeah, the last episode of the season was 2 weeks ago.

<-----------Season 1 champ   :woot:

Disagree completely.  In the past few days, I've watched all but the last two episodes and there was a fuckton of tapdancing around shit.  The only thing keeping them from dragging it out longer seems to be the fact that they have about half as many episodes in a season as a network series.  The Sam = shapeshifter thing dragged out way too long.  All the love triangles dragged out way too long.  The Tara being a bitch and pushing people away shit dragged out way too long.  The serial killer shit dragged out way too long.  They could have cut this season down by half and not lost anything. 

Go back through this thread and read the posts.  Almost all of them are about a line or two long, because there really isn't much to discuss in each episode.  There's some "that was a great episode" posts, some speculation about Sam, some posts about tits... as much as people might hate Heroes now, at least that show gave them something to talk about, as does Terminator.

The writers also seem undecided as to how seriously they want to treat the story.  It's hard to take this stuff as mature storytelling we get a good portion of an episode devoted to Jason's V induced hard on in what felt like scenes cut out of an American Pie movie.  Don't get me wrong, humor is nice here and there to add a counterbalance to all the dark shit, but that bit felt really out of place.

That's not to say there isn't anything I don't like about the show.  I think the setting is inspired, the acting is good, and Lafayette is fucking hilarious.  The opening credits are some of the best I've seen in television, and sets a tone that the story following them struggles to live up to.  I'm not really buying into the premise that Vampires reveal themselves and the humans' reaction is political debate and racism though.  Especially since most of the Vampires don't seem all that concerned about presenting themselves in a good image except for when they're on TV.

This show has potential, but needs to spend less time dicking around with on again/off again relationships and unrequited love shit.  I feel like I'm watching Twilight but with more tits (which is at least some improvement).

I don't really care about talking about shows other than a few lines to begin with. True Blood isn't much of something to get all geeked out on like Heroes anyways. Secondly, look at all HBO or Showtime shows here: Little is said about them to begin with - because fewer people have these channels. Californication is the greatest thing airing in my opinion, and it's merely one page here. Either the whole lot of you are a bunch of philistines, or you just don't have Showtime. Since I'm a nice guy, I'll just assume you don't have Showtime.

Also, Deadwood. One page.

I don't have any cable.  When I watch any show these days is either online (my TV is hooked up to my computer), on DVD, or at a friend's place.  I have a hard time watching any television and certainly don't care enough for it to pay the crazy amounts cable companies charge.  Most shows aside from the premium cable stuff tend to tread water a lot because they want to stretch out the shows long enough for syndication.  They're written with a beginning, but without a set middle and end.  That's fine if you're doing a sitcom and trying to make people laugh instead of trying to tell a story.  It's why you'll never catch me watching something like Lost though.  If you need 100+ hours to tell the story you want to tell, there's a problem.  Either you're greedy or you can't fucking write.  Premium cable shows have it cut down to a smaller amount at least, but the pacing is still a bit because they're still stretching the story out longer than it needs to be.

Deadwood has one page because the show ended a couple years before we had a TV forum and the thread was made.

Well, all I'm saying is I'm in love with this show (and Californication), even if I don't chat about it much. I think it's written well, else I would have said it was a piece of shit and left the thread entirely, like Heroes or Terminator.

True Blood is one of the best TV Shows out there right now, maybe someone who's read the books can confirm or deny if shit is draw out in the books as well.

Shit. I missed this and it's not on HBO on Demand. The fuckers. Vampires + Anna Paquin's tits = win. My wife is from Louisiana and doesn't want to watch it because she's afraid the accents will be Hollywood Louisiana. Anyone know if it'll be coming back to On Demand later?

I didn't like it a bit at first.  I still think the lead vampire guys acting stinks.  But the girly is good and it can be very funny.  I only ever watched it on HBO On Demand.  It makes life easier when I don't have to try and remember things.  Right now we get all the premium film channels for $25 with FIOS but I almost never use them for anything but HBO and Showtime series.  I can count on one hand the number of films I've watched on TV in the last six months or so.  Strangely, you can't get Showtime separately.  I'm thinking of ditching the whole lot and just wait for everything to come out on DVD. 

Californication was meh, from the few episodes I watched.  It seemed too much like it was relying on nudity and profanity to provide it's edginess,  which is a common problem with premium cable TV series.


Deadwood has one page,  in this forum.  In the old Television Thread,  most of us who watched Deadwood when it was airing talked it to death.

I Tivoed the New Year's Day marathon of this they ran and have gotten through 3 episodes so far. It's got some really funny bits, as if they are poking fun at the emo douche vampire Anne Rice types. The characters can be a bit annoying at times, but it's worth a watch so long as you do not try to take it seriously.

I just finished watching the first season and really enjoyed it. It doesn't try and take itself to seriously.

I finished watching the first season as well. Awesome. The show just got better as it went along.

It's a pisstake on the whole vampire emo goth shit and it's hysterically funny without being a comedy. I'm actually excited about the second season.

So new season starts tomorrow, anyone looking forward to this?  Really liked the first season.

First season was great definitely looking forward to the 2nd.

I was re-watching the series tonight with a friend who was seeing it for the first time.

He was genuinely shocked and surprised when the dog on Sookie's bed turned into Sam. Watching TV with him is like watching things with my brother's children.

I actually read the first couple of books in the series and I've probably spoiled it for myself. Still, I think the TV show might actually be better than the books.  Maybe the author becomes a better writer later on when she's had more practice.

I tried to read the books after the first season. First one was so meh i stopped reading the series after i finished. TV show was substantially better than the first book.

Well, that was a pretty good season opener. Nice to see I bit in to the misdirection at the end of season 1. Final two scenes were both  :drill: for totally different reasons.

The misdirection was good, but I still felt the opener was a little weak.  It felt like another episode of season 1 rather than a season opener, and I can't help but feel I've seen almost all this before.  You've got a dead body turning up with a connection to one of the main characters making them a potential murder suspect.  You've got Bill and Sookie arguing a couple times and making up.  Same old drama between Tara and her mother, Maryann is still being mysterious, and Sam's still butthurt over Bill and Sookie's relationship.  Jason is one of the only characters who's in a different situation than what he was in for the majority of season 1.

I think it worked as a setup for events to come in this season. You've got the murder, you've got Jason, you've got the guy in the cellar's situation - those are all effectively new, plus the continuation of the Michelle Forbes plotline and the redhead situations, which were introduced late last season.

I agree, im glad they did not kill off the character. The redheaded fledgling is smoking hot.

and the new waitress isn't too shabby either. MORE BOOBS!

Speakin' of boobs, nice to see Anna let em breathe!

I was kinda bummed when they said the fledgling's age was 17, given they're frozen at that age = no boobs  :oh_i_see:

(I mean no boob shots, she obviously has them!)

That episode was fucking awesome, I can't believe anyone complained.

I'm sure we'll see the redhead's tits at some point.

And we'll all go to prison for it!

I for one will accept my punishment with aplomb.

Its illegal to have underage fictional characters be nude?

Only if it gives you a chubby.  Otherwise it's art.

No.  Californication did it.

It didn't use to be, but apparently the answer is now yes (http://manga.about.com/b/2009/05/25/iowa-man-pleads-guilty-in-manga-obscenity-case.htm). Ashcroft was pushing hard for kiddie porn laws to include illustrations, CG, and even written word. It would seem he got some or all of his wish. On the bright side, this firmly puts most people into anime and manga into the "officially owns child pornography, pointy ears and calling them elves don't save you" side of things.

Thats some bullshit, the first episode has a 17 year old sam fucking ensign Roe. All these stupid laws are moronic. The 16 year old kid got charged as a sex offender because his equally young gf sent him some naked pics...ridiculous.

There are some nice shots of Anna Paquin scenes at Egotastic. Not sure the mods want me to link there so I am not linking directly.

This episode was much better than the first in every way.

I was hoping the little sister was going to stop Bill from entering so Jessica could do her thing to papa. Kinda let down by that one.

Forgot to mention that I thought one of the funnier parts of the first ep was Erik showing up in highlight foils :) As a viking descendant, always hate to see the hair get chopped.

Overall, I like what's going on, some great conflict with Jason, interesting turn for Lafayette, but the greek goddess chick is getting on my nerves already.

Yeah stretching on the mystery of the Greek goddess chick for way to long - much like they did with sam and shapeshifting. Great episode overall though, can't wait to see what they have planned for Jason - vampire hunter?

Great episode.

I really enjoy the show - funny thing is though, I've realized my least favorite part of it is Sookie and Bill.

Must be typical, I can't stand Sookie - first person I would kill off given the choice.  Constant self-righteous drama, are we supposed to like her?

Same. It was the reason I quit watching.

SUCK-EH IS MINE

I AM VHUMPIRRR

What's not to like about Bill?

This episode rocked.

Sookie and Bill are tiresome. The show needs to change it's focus to the adventures of Eric and Pam - and they should sspend most of the episode speaking in Old Norse.

The preacher guy, being a conservative christian, is evil as all fuck, gay and/or bisexual, and everything he says is a lie. He and his wife are secretly involved in unspeakable acts - just like real life conservative christians.

The preacher's wife will try to bone Jason by the end of episode 4, probably in episode 3.

The preacher and/or the preacher's wife are using that pop singer chick as some sort of brainwashed sex toy. She will try to bone Jason too.

Alex Skarsgard really should play Thor. I think I said that once.


Instead they got this guy.

(http://azwanhadzree.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/chris_hemsworth.jpg)

Who the fuck is that? A Jonas brother?

I don't know who the fuck he is either, but he sure as doesn't look like he can pull off Thor.

There is only one man to play my lord Thor:

(http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/2600/zakkwylde12205.jpg)

What the hell is that? The Blossom pose? :grin:

I loved the second episode so much. So, so much.

That guy is liable to hit himself with his own hammer...

I just started watching season 1 (first 3 eps so far).

Finally found the series I've been looking for since every other series I was watching came to an end.

Pfft.. it should totally be Eric Allan Kramer playing Thor.  He's already played him once in The Incredible Hulk Returns!

(http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/uploads/MattHawes/2009-04-02_172821_thor-tvmhulk-thor.jpg)

Hmm, I was reading an interview with him, and the studios were very close to getting Skarsgard for that part. So he lost to that other dude. Well that sucks. He's got the right stoic attitude for it. And he's an actual 6'4" swede. Hell, his dad could play Odin too.

Entertaining episode, was almost certain red headed tits were inbound.  :heartbreak:

I thought there were going to be some preacher wife titties showing up, too.

Yeah. The Preachers wife is hot. I didnt really notice it before.

We're all just sitting on the edges of our seats hoping for titties

We can't complain too much.  There were a lot of tits in this episode.

It was quite funny, whatever it was the preacher said - she doesn't just offer up her dessert to anyone, something like that.

"She doesn't whip out her pudding for just anybody", or something.

Probably the best line of the season thus far.

Ok, my Season 2 predictions:

Jason bones the preacher's wife (very obvious actually)
The church turns out to have motives other than saving humanity from itself.
Maryann is actually a succubus (my prediction rather than Pan)
Sam mans up and takes out Maryann (God I hope so. I love Sam but he needs to stop acting like he's been neutered.)

However:

Oddly, Jessica is quickly turning into one of my favorite characters. She was whiny at first but she seems to be growing as a character. I seem to remember reading that she's not from the books so maybe that helps.

Someone somewhere theorized Maryann was a maenad; it fits but might be a bit too esoteric for backwoods Louisiana vampire scenarios?

  :awesome_for_real:

NO SPOILERS PLZ

Don't click on the link, silly.

The spoiler wasn't in the link, the spoiler tags in this thread haven't been used for spoilers but theorizing. I was talking about Poly's post, if it indeed is a spoiler. Let's keep it fun for those who haven't read the books and don't want this cool series spoiled is all I'm sayin'.

I enjoy the show for the bewbies, but it hasn't enticed me to actually read any of the books.  Just repeatin' what I've heard.

You can't search the web for Maryann without finding out she's a ...


When Sookie heard to Maryann's thoughts, it sounded to me like a looped chat of "something something Bacchus something something Bacchus" (with Bacchus pronounced "baack-oos").

And the thing that attacked Sookie seemed like a minotaur to me, but I haven't looked up anything about that.

You dont think the bull thing is maryanne or her pet?

No, she wouldn't need to turn into a bull to do anything. I thought the pig was just a familiar or something.

Well to me it appears everyone maryanne is fucking with has connections to Sam.

He's a countryman and all, I know, but Alexander Skarsgård is honestly pretty awesome in this.

Otherwise not an awesome series. It's okay, though. Right now I feel it's becoming a tad crowded with plotlines.

Are there no new episodes of anything this week?  I know burn notice and royal pains skipped a week, but looking at the guide for tonight it seems like trueblood and hung are reruns too.

I just picked up the first season and the vampires, hotpants and abundant cello's do it for me so far. I'll read the thread when I'm done :grin:

No new episode this past week, they return on the 12th. To compensate for skipping a week there's some contest where the prize is asking Alexander Skarsgard any three questions.

Without his committment to answer those three questions truthfully, that ain't much of a contest.

That's Texas.

Double hottie combo megaslam of Sookie stepping out of that plane and the preacher's wife cooking.

Watching season 1 on Netflix now. I really like this show. The scene in 102 when Sookie drank Bill's blood was great and really set a good tone for the show.

S2E04 - Ummm...Yawn. I feel like nothing progressed.

Actually I really liked S2E4  - was one of the few times I've liked Sookie/Bill's thread. I think it's all about the involvement of their red headed stepchild though.

I'm worried that they are making me like the character as a setup to killing her off down the road.

Plot definitely dragging out a bit.  Not sure how many parties we need to see with eyes glossed over etc.  Just wish they would move the story along a little faster...bust still a great show imo.

Seems to be building, the various plot lines are about to intersect.

it felt like a non-reveal in that the camera was the last one to figure it out. If they show another orgy party without some meaningful development I'll be (even more) pissed.

In terms of subplot interests, I'd rate them as
1. Jason and The FoTS
2/3. Sam and Daphne
2/3. Maryanne
4. Layfayette and Eric

With later numbers reserved for the Detectives, Tara+Eggs, and the Sookie/Jessica/Bill adventure.

I'm with Bunk, the Sookie/Jessica/Bill adventure was the best bit. Jessica is my favourite new character.

Don't get me wrong, I love Jessica- specially her scenes in episode 3 at the bar and with Hoyt, and Bill's anachronisms and accent are hilarious, but I don't really like Sookie's character one bit.

I agree the Bill and Sookie plotline seems the most interesting, after dragging for a long time.  I'm curious what they're going to do with the bellboy character Barry.  All the stuff with Maryanne, Tara and Sam are dreadful though, I wish they'd get over the boring orgies.

Given the intensity of the last orgy i doubt very many more are going to occur before something explodes. Bill,Sookie,red head,Eric adventure is the highlight for me. Followed by Jason at the cult.

Heh, just ran across the website of the Fellowship of the Sun (http://www.fellowshipofthesun.org/index.html). Make sure you catch the video of the preacher's wife explaining how to detoxify your marriage.

Jessica continues to grow on me. I was worried when she first came on the scene because they acted like they were taking her down a road of "ex-preacher girl goes bad, really bad" but they seemed to have backed off of that now and made her more nuanced.

I kind of hope she and Hoyt continue to have some kind of relationship. It'd give Hoyt something to do in the show if nothing else.

And

So very close to seeing jesus chick naked!

For some non spoil-y material, two set up episodes in a row.  Woo hoo.  :oh_i_see:

I totally disagree.

To me a filler/nothing progressing episode is an episode that can be completely removed with no loss of continuity of the show. This was not one of those. I thought it was generally a good episode.

Eric is a 1000 year old viking  :drill:

I thought it was a great episode, though I'm about fucking tired of Maryann and have been for a couple shows now.

The Erik making story, fucking cool and wish there had been an expansion of that, Highlander-style. Wish they had shown the battle leading up to his injuries, etc. Also nice to see Erik and Bill interacting outside their jurisdiction, changing up the normal dynamic.

I do wish Sam would ask "Why the heck do you have massive scars on your back?" Seems like a pretty natural question, and if he knew it was Maryann-related, he'd avoid the chick.

++Jason leadership and close to preacher woman boobs!

I did have to laugh at the guy from Eureka falling in and out of his Texan accent throughout the scene.

Yeah, I wasn't sure if he was using the accent to mock Bill and Sookie or if he was just being sloppy as an actor. The end of the scene when he left in the cowboy hat made me think the latter.

The other female vampire mocks the "Texan" for being a fake cowboy or something so I would imagine its intentional.

No, I think he's just a shitty actor.  His Eureka work was. . uh. . Eureka-level.  Shame, because he has some chuhrisma.

Preacher wife is quite probably the smoking hottest chick on television right now, and I'm glad that they recognize her whole faux purity thing is at the heart of it and don't have her strip down and get buck wild and ruin it.  Her boobs are a slow reveal, as they say.

Nah, it was just lack of sleep. I'm working 11pm-4am plus 11am-4pm every day due to my TV network employer covering live sport from bad time zones. Following True Blood plot is hard :-) Just as long as the vampires stay inside the screen, it will be OK.

So they're starting to move away from the books a little more now. Eric's "maker" was so some roman vampire who who got him on the way home from looking for a new wife and then forced him to follow him around in order to "catch his pitches".

Oh they started moving away from the books a while ago. In the books LaFayette was a minor character who was murdered almost as soon as we met him and Tara was minor as well.

Minor and white

and that was 100% Bill's maker. She was directly outside the room they were having their interracial romp, so I'd doubt she'd have to be telepathic to smell or hear what was going on. Specially since it wasn't given to us in  whispy telepath-hearing mode.

Or you could do what I did, and confirm it through the character name on IMDB... yes it was Bill's maker.

(http://imgur.com/QGSju.jpg)

Wow, this show/story has potential to explore just about every aspect of vampire shit. And then some. I thought it'd be mostly southern focused at first.

No, I'm not new.. Just kind of re-appreciating it.  :lol:

I want to meet the King of Texas!

Or the Queen of the Vampires!  :drill: :drill: :drill:

What rank was the vampire who judged Bill and made him eat the redhead?

Just got caught up with this series over the last few days. I dig most of the characters. However, Sookie annoys the hell out of me on a somewhat regular basis and the Tara and Eggs relationship just sucks the life force out of me. Still though, it's been pretty excellent to this point.

Magister.

He was a Magister.. They're judges all over the country from what I can tell. I remember the character said he used to be an Inquisitor. So I guess he isn't as old as Northmen or this Godric character. Not sure if that has anything to do with rank.

Erik mentioned at one point that Godric had turned down higher positions, I think.

You think right. Erik said Godric was beloved by his minions and could have been king, but didn't want to.

woo, story moved forward!

So did Hoyt!

Goddamn this tv show is such hot shit.

I see I need to watch this episode ASAP

I really should have seen the pig reveal coming.

We received no indication that shape changers had multiple forms. The only thing that vaguely hinted at this was Bill trusting Sam to protect Sookie implying he could become something else.

One of the very first things Sam says to Sookie when she discovers he's a shapeshifter, is that he can turn into lots of stuff, but he prefers dogs, because they're easy, most animals leave them alone, etc.

Yeah this is now my favourite show. That was a great episode. Fuck HBO does good television. Deadwood, Sopranos, True Blood...

EDIT: And after the Sopranos - best appropriate theme song ever.

... The Wire, Rome, Generation Kill, Flight of the Conchords ...

I stand corrected, I forgot all about that.

Shapeshifters I believe from what was said by the bar owner could turn into any animal that they have seen we have seen him in the form of two different dogs. One is a lil beagle looking dog and one is the mutt seen in the first season. From what it sounds each shifter has a form they find most comfortable and use that as their go to form. But the bar owner said he could even do birds but that flying was hard so he did not use that form much if at all.

One thing that kinda surpises me though and it may just be because they have not pulled it out yet but if I was a shape shifter I would make damn sure to visit zoo's a few times and find a nice big bear or tiger or lion and learn the form enough where in life and death emergancies I had a good combat form. Being a puppy is cute for snuggling with hot women but not so good when crazy greek legends start gunning for you.

While you are right it would be inconsequental for his current problems, since the crazy greek legend can influence and therefore most likely disrupt his shifting powers. Remember when she threatened to make him change in front of people if he tried to stop her.

It appears she can force him to shift but I don't believe it was ever stated that she could force him to turn to a specific form. All we have seen from him so far are dog forms but that may or may not be all he knows well enough to shift into. The crazy greek lady I believe her powers are more of unlocking the inner savage inside people either for sex or for violence or both at the same time. Since a shifters wild side would be that of the animal it would make sense she could force the change but may or may not have any control of what he changes into.

She forced him into his default form when she showed him she can back up her threat. Which would most likely be the form his "shifter wild side" would choose.

It's probably not covered in the "rules" of this particular fictional universe, but I wonder if he's limited to shifting to animals he's seen seen live. If not, would watching Jurasic Park and going to some museums let him shift into a TRex? Whoat about the queen from Aliens? Or a Hydra? SInce aparntly everything that we've ever had a legend for still lives amongst us in secret, hydra were probably real animals too. Oooooooo... or a basilisk.   

Also, preacher's wife needs to tits or gtfo. I'm not sure what the issue is with her. She's been b&p in all her other roles and she's naked on stage with Harry Potter in Equus.

Yes, he said he needs a blueprint to do it.

Here's the clip (http://gawker.com/5082424/true-blood-shapeshifter-sam-lays-out-the-shapeshifting-rules) where he explains the shapeshifting thing.

Polar bear form to save his ass :)

"I know that pig!"  :awesome_for_real:

Jesus christ.   This season gets more and more awesome with each episode.    Also, GO HOYT.

It's taking so long and going so perfectly it can't just end with sex. I think she's going to drain him accidentally on instinct and drive herself insane. The crazy supervillain of series 3?

I have a suspicion you're at least partially right.  This relationship is entirely too perfect and  healthy for this show to allow it to last.  :cry2:

After each episode I make passionate love to my TV for bringing such fine entertainment into my home.

Yes, this is gettin' good!

First episode where Sam has been interesting since season 1.  Also if drunk detective is a supe that'd be hilarious, but I can't remember if he ever had the black saucer eyes.

Ha, I never noticed that.  He's never been affected by any of the parties.

Edit: I remember he was affected at the bar when he began dancing.

Yah, but that could've just been alcohol.  Plus that shifter said she could exert some influence, just not complete control.  Or at least that's the impression I got.  I'm probably wrong, but I liked that guy in the Wire.  Seems a shame to waste him as just a drunk.

They've been focusing on him so much lately you figure they'll either kill him off or he'll become something greater.

He does, others may not.

I'm saddened by her death. She had a terribly nice rack.

She was hot all over.

I'm only sad because Sam didn't kill her. Sam needs to stop being such a damned pussy.

Here here.

Man, that episode was intense.

I liked the redheaded vampire. Will watch again and attempt to get an idea of what's going on.

Vampires heal overnight :why_so_serious:. Those two do their best to bring the comic relief.
Great episode overall.

It's kind of odd the other telepath disappeared in the middle of the episode, between Bill dragging him out after his maker bit him (and what was up with that reaction) and Bill showing up at the church. I thought for sure Bill's confrontation with Erik was leading to him giving Erik the other telepath as an offering to stay away from Sookie.

The Maryann storyline needs to end sooner than later, I fucking hate that smirky fucking actress. Yawn. I thought they were finally giving Tara and Eggs an out from that plot loop. Then again, I thought Tara was going to get an out by finding her mother's gift in the bushes. It's the zombie plotline that won't die.

I was think the other telepath would end up falling into Bill's maker's hands (whatever her name is). She was intrigued by the taste of his blood.. maybe she'll find him now. I like Michelle Forbes.. Ensign Ro does her job well at playing bitches, and always has. She's the white Rosie Perez (OK, maybe not that bad). Godric is badass, but his need to reach out kind of seems like boredom. I can't tell if he's genuinely good. Like he's so fucking powerful he's just looking for a change of pace now. I would think that's what would happen if you always new you could destroy everyone in the room within seconds. Which probably Eric's problem with Sookie too.. He wants her because he's bored.

Also, Godric seems a little gay for Jason.

I don't see that at all. Erik wants Sookie because she's a goddamned telepath! She uncovered treachery right under his nose, that had to shake him.

And Godric, I like the way his character was presented, especially when he frames his existence: "I'm older than Christ." Great scene in the church exposing the reverend.

Okay. But someone fill me in on the redhead.

In regards to what? Her regenerating hymen?

That actually pissed me off, since it interfered with the hot hot sex.

Mostly what is her name, post pics, where does she live IRL, does she have any guard dogs, so on and so forth.

Yeah, that was a good scene.

Erik seems like he's extremely bored, man. That's what makes him so cool to me at least. I don't think he cares about the telepathic thing other than it's different. Just like he thought it was worth getting people to go out hunting for a bull headed monster in the woods.. simply because it's intriguing and he never heard of it before. Or how he wanted that fangbanger to scream when he was feeding on her. I could be wrong, of course.

edit: that said, Sookie llikes him now after seeing him with Godric. Too bad for Bill.

Godric's whole demeanor has "I'm about to be killed off" written all over it.  Like he's already at peace with the whole universe.

It looked like a bunch of silver and shit, maybe some wood?  I don't think it's going to kill all of them.

Also, UV, does it even hurt vampires in the trueblood universe?  You think someone at the church of the sun would have brought a fucking flashlight if it did.

You despoilered!

I thought I remembered Pastor Whatshisname showing off some UV gear in his wacko armory.

But I could be confusing it with Underworld.

On a sidenote, the best thing about this show is the cast. Down to the smallest parts. Everyone just fits.. They really play their parts well, even the fuckheads. That pastor is great, whoever he is.

I don't remember any UV gear.  And its monday, in an 11 page thread.  Spoilers should be for people talking about shit from the books etc.

There was something that wowed Jason when he was demo'ing stuff, but I don't remember if it was UV or not either. There was wood and silver, but I think something else unique.

RPG?

Great episode, Godric will die in the next few episodes but i doubt a bomb kills him. He was going to allow himself to be killed at the church and only intervened when it became apparent many humans were going to die. Hes going to take one for the team somehow.

Itching for some Vampire vs Maryann combat.

(http://imgur.com/P47Cp.jpg)

Kablamo, I suppose the copper coloured bullets are supposed to be wood.

We should only really need spoilers for actual spoilers, stuff from the books. You shouldn't be reading this thread before you've seen the latest episode!

Except in the last episode, Erik threatened him unambiguously to never use V again.

Actually, maybe that's a hint.  Maybe they plan to adulterate the V somehow so users get fucked up, and he's warning Jason away from it.

Eric wont fuck with Jason after Godric gave him a pass. Id imagine Lafayette is allowed to sell so they can track who is purchasing it, in the same manner the police would.

Spiking the V was my guess, too.

Or maybe, since Jason does everything he's told not to do, he's using reverse psychology and Mr Bloodworth is right?

Uh, yeah, you should know that smile by now. There is only one thing more powerful to hold over sookie then bills love, that's family.

Intense, so utterly hammy yet so very good.

i didn't think it was hammy at all. skarsgard has turned out to be a pretty versatile actor (no surprise though really, if you've ever seen his dad.. and you probably have)

Godric Baggins.

Did anyone else think that?

Holy crap the blue flame was badly done. Maybe they should of had their intern throw in a lens flare also.

Am I the only one who thinks this series has been turning into an inconsistent, incomprehensible mess since, well, start of season 2? When everyone's special, no one is. This is taking itself far, far too seriously to be such all-but-the-kitchensink schlock. From what a friend is telling me about the books, that stuff is down to earth compared to the things that fly on the show.

They have some inconsistently bad special effects at times.  One of the worst things was the picture of gran, Sookie, and Tara together.  One of the worst photoshops I've ever seen.  Gran looked like she was drawn in with crayon.  And they KEPT SHOWING IT.   Why would you parade around something that horribly fake looking. I bet the actors had to suppress giggles when working with that prop.

I currently live in an  apartment with two design school students, my girlfriend and one other girl. The "gran photoshop" has been mocked to no end in our place.

Yeah, I thought the same thing about the gran pic.

Tarami, I disagree.. I think this 2nd season is better than the first.

Also, Michelle Forbes' character keeps getting better.

I meant hammy in the way a soap opera is hammy, not as a failing so much as an intentional thematic choice for the show. The language is always extremely dramatic,facial expressions and reactions are always overblown, how they cut to different scenes, that sort of thing. The second season is definitely better but the maryanne plot line is dragging.

Bill is definitely dramatic.. But I think that's also to do with the whole civil war schtick. The rest I'm not seeing so much. Maryanne did drag on, but I think they've ramped it up a bit.. Her scenes get a little more freaky and disturbing now, and she's close to not hiding her true colors.

It's about time Sam figured out he could shift into something besides a fuckin' dog.

Maryanne plotline is FINALLY getting somewhere.

Bill's a pussy. Right when I thought he might show me some balls he let the human escape. He shoulda tore that fucker limb from limb.

Enjoying the season, but I tire of eggs and Maryanne. "Oh you guys had some fun last night!"  Die, god bitch. Or is it 'God, die bitch.'

Lafayette and mom were the best thing to happen to the stupid Maryann plotline in weeks, if not the whole season. Seeing the family bond over Tara was nice. Should at least be interesting when Sookie and Bill come home to find all these people living in her house.

Also, Sam's always known he can shift to more than a dog, and he has at least once before (a crow or something). But it's tougher and he has to have an example. I would be spending more time at the zoo imo.

I liked the confrontation with Hoyt and his mom, but I deal with a lot of the same thing irl, so it's personally satisfying.

The chick who plays Maryanne is a brilliant actor. The stuff she does just with her eyes is awesome.

Have you seen her run a battlestar? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwruKvEKfvk)

This chapter episode was utter shit.

Heh, I only watched first season. Never realized she was in it. Maybe I'll watch the entire show now since I don't have to wait between episodes.

She sort of set the standard for Bajoran characters (they've all been just as bitchy since).

Huh?  Aside from additional vampire characters (which is hard to avoid given it's the premise of the show), this season has added one psychic who has only had a couple brief appearances of far, and one shapeshifter who has already been killed off.  Not sure where the everyone is special thing comes from, but probably about half of the regular cast aren't.

It's the same problem that I had with the second season of Heroes, when no one normal/human is any longer independent of the supernaturals. Sookie no longer goes to work, neither does Jason. Tara is spending most of her screentime as enthralled by Maryann. Sam is quite honestly not really doing anything of value. The new or extended human characters, like Eggs and Hoyt, exist mostly to act off one of the supernaturals. Fellowship of the Sun was a disappointment because obviously they weren't, at any time, a real threat to the vampires, except for any suicidal ones.

Seriously, the named supernaturals easily outnumber named humans at this point, and it's very rarely that we see two humans interact without a supernatural interfering. I think it's lame and obnoxiously lazy writing to have a character like Maryann that doesn't get any explanation apart from "well, it's who she is!"

Maryann was fully explained to Sam for our benefit two episodes ago by Daphne.

Maryanne is a maenad/nymph.

Sam needs to invest in a high powered rifle and at least try to red mist that bitch.

Ive only read the first book so i can tell you they are intentionally restricting all manner of the supernatural shit in the show. The entire tenor of the novels is supernatural saturation. Several of the named reoccurring normal humans either don't exist in the novels or are also supernatural creatures. And the vampires are far far less "human". It is the most pulpy of fiction imaginable.

So you want a show where Vampires reveal themselves and then everybody just kinda shrugs and goes back to work?  Also, the supernaturals on the show don't really outnumber the humans.  On the supernatural side you've got Sookie, Bill, Eric, Sam, Maryanne, Jessica, and up until recently Daphne.  On the human side, you have Jason, Tara, Hoyt, Lafayette, Bud and Andy, Eggs, Terry and Arlene, and Steve and Sarah.

If we are going to talk non supernatural characters that need more airtime, it's Andy.  :grin:

Anything to give crying vampires a little less airtime is a good thing.  :awesome_for_real:

Andy seems to also be exceptional? The bitch has no power over him, but hes been in the background the entire time. Hes obviously going to be a central role in the final battle.

Not all of the humans turn out to be unspecial, according to the books (or so I read online).

We've been told what Maryann is, not why she is doing what she's doing. That is my issue. Why is she so obsessed with Sam (seriously, it has been like twenty years), and why is she so damn incompetent about getting it done? Sam has been within her reach multiple times.

What you mention Gryeyes is part of the crux for the series, if you ask me. The supernaturals have been given a higher degree of humanity to better fit the TV format, but they largely haven't been properly equipped with the complex things that make humans act human, like larger cause and motivation. They're just oh so bored.


You forgot Godric (albeit now dead), Lorena (Bill's maker), Nan (the TV-vampire) and Barry (the other telepath) and probably more I've forgotten who have had multiple appearences and had impact on the story. That's more than you can say about Terry or Arlene this recent season, for example. The series has made a big shift towards "what vampires do when they're bored [hint: they kill themselves.]"

Also, as people are (perhaps rightfully) doing here, it's beginning to be presumed that everyone significant has a superpower. Yes, I think series (not just this one) work better if it's a relatively normal drama with a dramatic twist, not some completely arbitrary universe which no one knows the rules for. You can call that giving it a shrug and going back to work, but it's just far more sustainable than going overboard at first opportunity which is what the series has done. The first season is practically a literal translation of the first book, so that one couldn't derail all that much. It's making the same mistakes as Heroes did, all over again.

Yes, yes, I get that this series probably isn't for me. :grin:

Have some patience.. Or don't and write your own fan fiction or something. Why she's so incompetent in getting it done is because each season is 13 episodes and umm, it needs to play out.  :oh_i_see: Seriously. It's that simple. It's like bitching about the writers not killing off Rene in the last season, during the 6 episode or some shit. That's no fun.

As for why she's doing what she's doing... She's into chasing around shapeshifters I think because they're the ones who have an inherent ability to be immune to her trancing (or whatever). Like the waitress chick said, they have to come of their own free will. So maybe that just makes Sam all the more enticing because he's been so hard to control for so many years. And she's just used to obedience (voluntarily or not) in general. So it's pissing her off.


edit: Also, this isn't the Lost Boys or something, or any other typical horror, where some wicked and mysterious element has moved into town, and the majority of the characters are normal people trying to cope with it. Neither the books nor the series ever tried to be that. The whole premise is that vamps have come out of the woodwork and the supernatural and mythological is now freely mingling with the entire world. So it's only natural for the writers to have fun with that idea.. Man, fuck "normal" people! I'll go watch Weeds or something when I want that.  :grin:

I read somewhere that according to the book lore she's pissed at both Erik & Sam because they are supernaturals who sell alcohol without giving her offerings and worship and that's apparently a big no-no to these draenads. So according to that she doesn't want to kill Sam or domesticate him or whatever, she wants to force  him into worshiping her.

I didn't forget any of those characters.  I'm just not going to list every character who appeared in more than one episode (which is why I also didn't mention Luke, Tara's mom, or Hugo).

And its fairly irrelevant, the entire show is about vampires integrating into human society.  Its not like heroes where they are supposed to be a rarity. Im assuming there is hundreds of thousands of them around.

As a maenad she's a servant of Dionysus/Bacchus, the god of wine, ritual madness, ecstasy, who induces a frenzy in people, with a divine mission to bring an end to care and worry.

Her mission is to create this chaos for Bacchus. When Sookie listened in on her thoughts it was a loop of "something something Bacchus".

It's as simple as that: Bacchus wants more madness. Bacchus also appears to require animal sacrifices. Shapeshifters appear to be the best form of animal sacrifice. She also can't influence them, so if they get in the way, they must be sacrificed.

I can tell all this from the show (and by looking up maenad).

Looks like the hunt for Maryanne is on. Damn, I hate cliffhangers.

Yeah, what a cliffhanger...

Very funny episode. The Stackhouse God scene was ridiculous, but I guess it could go no other way. And Terry's extroverted/leader mode is funny too. More Andy too.. Actually, all of 3 of them are the funniest dudes on the show.

Nothing like a Bachanalian trance to cure your PTSD.  That actor has very good comedic timing.  Sadly I know this from watching Gilmore Girls.

Very good episode overall.  The town is fucked.

Here's a link to the original cut of the pilot:
http://watch-trueblood-online.blogspot.com/2008/10/true-blood.html

It's mostly the same, with a few small changes, and a different actress playing Tara.  If you don't like the actress who's playing her now, it could have been much, much worse.


Late edit: Christ, that last episode was terrible.  They've been walking a tight-rope between farce and absurdity for the last few episodes, but they've gone full-on parody.  They better wrangle that shit in for the last 2 eps.

That theory is completely blown to shit by Daphne. She was influenced and also not sacrificed. Her heart was used for Tara and Eggs, but she's used normal human hearts for the same stuff.

It was a great episode, last three have been strong.

No, she never went all black eyed. She's the one that specifically said they can't be influenced.

edit: She can force shifters to shift, but that's it.  We've covered this before.

She never went blackeyed, but she had a scar from the poisoned claws. Its supernatural poison of some sort. And she clearly said other supernaturals can be influenced in different ways, just not completely possessed.

Apart from the scar and not going blackeyed, I thought she was helping Maryanne by choice. She had decided it was the way.

One of the protagonists travels to his vampire queen, the only one who has the answer on how to destroy their nemesis and when he finds her, we only see her foot dripping blood, be it from feeding or an attack. And cut. Tune in next week.
I'd say the scenarist was aiming for a cliffhanger alright.

I'm sure you're immune to such cheap tricks if you tend to watch weekly shows more than I do but since this is the first show I don't watch on DVD, I'm somewhat susceptible to suspense endings and having to wait another week to satisfy my curiosity.

Lol no.. I'm agreeing with you. Sorry. I guess I didn't show enough enthusiasm there. Not enough  :drill: :awesome_for_real: :rock: I guess.  :oh_i_see:

Bah, goddamn broken sarcasm meter...

Oh she is down with the cause for whatever reason. But Maryanne seemed pretty persuasive even without the ability to possess people, id imagine she fits most of the criteria for a god, probably isn't difficult to convince people. Maryanne can manipulate emotions, she can make a shifter change shape by inciting a strong emotional response, force a vampire to attack and drink her blood by inspiring their blood lust (Im assuming thats what was going on with Bill). Even if she cant actively possess you she can still exert a degree of supernatural influence on you. I'm not sure whats up with the claw marks if they aren't supposed to imply mind control. Kind of pointless having the "scar" being a reveal otherwise.

I don't think she was influencing bill.... ? She was being a cunt with Sookie. That's a good enough reason for Bill to act in haste.

She says "RAVISH ME" at which point he attacks her and tries to feed, she knows her blood is poison to him. Its strongly implied and her ability to have some effect on vampires has been previously stated.

He started attacking her before she said that. She just let him do it though because she knew he'd get sick. I don't think there was any mind control going on.

This.

Its fairly ambiguous but Bill mowing down like that is pretty indicative of him acting strangely. Seems a pretty large coincidence when in relation to what Maryanne is, and how she has an admitted ability to effect vampires in some way.

A vampire attacking someone with their teeth. How odd.

I don't think there is any mind control going on there. Bill is stressed out because he realizes there is a good chance he might be losing Sookie to Eric, plus he always tends to be on the violent side when Sookie is mortified about somebody. Ask her pedophilic Uncle.

Wrong. He attacks her in defence of Sookie, then she sarcastically says "ravish me" when he already has his teeth in her. She's ancient enough to know his attack is a mistake.


It's not ambiguous at all. Your posts are ridiculous. What "admitted ability to affect vampires" are you even talking about?

I keep thinking that maybe Erik doesn't KNOW that Pam is having Lafayatte selling V. I finally caught up on the season while I was home sick this week. Loving this show, and it isn't the stories or the dialogue so much as it is the CAST and how well they play their parts and how well they play off of each other. Also, some smoking hot chicks especially the preacher's wife.

I don't know about the books, but if you think this show hasn't been farcical from the get-go, I'm not sure what show you've been watching. From the very first time we see Bill and he tells Sookie his name in that overly-dramatic way "Bill. WHAT? VAMPIRE BILL?" you couldn't tell this show was making fun of vampires and the emo vamp culture? There have been some good, serious moments, but a lot of it has been a sending up of the tropes of the vampire genre.

That's what I was saying earlier. The only question is when Erik showed up and made Lafayette feed so he could keeps tabs on him.

Wrong. He throws Maryanne down goes to Sookies side tells her to flee, then returns to Maryanne and drinks her blood. Its entirely possible its a fortuitous coincidence.

[/quote]
It's not ambiguous at all. Your posts are ridiculous. What "admitted ability to affect vampires" are you even talking about?
[/quote]

The part where Daffney is explaining what Maryanne is and how she cant "possess" other supernaturals, but has the ability to force shifting and magically effect other "supes"  in different ways. Ya know the entire scene where they "reveal" specifically and in detail what Maryanne is and what she can do. So we know that she CAN mojo vampires in some way, its ambiguous if she was or not.

It's also ambiguous as to whether Bill was wearing panties when he attacked her, since he was wearing pants.

Occam's Razor, buddy.

I don't know.. Saying Bill attacked MaryAnne out of some external influence is like saying you've missed the entire premise of the show.  :grin: That's like his modus operandi. To attack shit that upsets Sookie.

I bolded the important part.  I know it's farce.  The problem is they went full retard on the Merlots scene.

That was a 5-minute zombie movie.  All good.

Please its not that he "attacked Maryanne" its that he tried to feed on an obviously supernatural being instead of ripping her apart. Its uncharacteristic of Bill to be so stupid and impulsive and coincidently ends up fucking himself in the process. Of course he would attack Maryanne to defend Sookie, he kills 3 humans for that reason alone during the first season. Id imagine any particulars to her ability to effect vampires will be explained before the "showdown". Five bucks it involves her instigating bloodlust in them.

You mean like when he ran out into the sunlight near the end of Season 1 to try to help Sookie?

Daphne?

I believe he was referring to the duck.

Does no one else find it strange that Vampire Blood is a drug, and that there are probably tons of "addicts" but that also Sookie and Erik are "linked" because she sampled his blood?

Doesn't that mean that all V addicts should have a link to some (or many) vampires and have wet dream fantasies about some mystery vampire they've never met??

Tao, this was my prob with the whole linking thing. But maybe there is some bullshit rule about it having to be fresh or something :)

BTW Maryanne says "RAVAGE ME" not ravish, and says it twice. About 1:34 in this clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ3YyM6Fd24&feature=PlayList&p=8B794F3B7CA5E817&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=65)

The last episode was particularly frustrating because of the benefit of tekmologee. The whole episode was like the anti-24. Then they went out of their way to make it more excruciating by pointing out the 5 hour late text message, and when Eric and Sam exchanged numbers.  Next season all the supers from this show need to sign up for Twitter.

Really didn't like the casting for the Queen, and the cheeseball resolution of that cliffhanger. Episode was kinda meh imo, Lafayette continues to be the best character in the show. Tara and Jason are beginning to be one-dimensional and boring.

This is reaaaaally being dragged out. If it wasn't so well made it might suck.

This past episode was all set up and not much at that. Hate that it's going to be two weeks before we see the end.

Yep, this was a complete pause and set up episode. Deadwood was littered with these types of EPs.  For some reason, the Queen was a bit of a let down also.

I wish a bit more would have happened, they're not going to have a whole lot of time to finish this and provide some cleanup afterwards.

Where do they get the actors for this show?  Walmart?  Geez.  Most of them are just awful.   :ye_gods:

Every episode since they were in Dallas has been pretty meh. I completely forgot about the young Tara during the fake ritual having the bug eyes.

I don't understand how some of you are watching the same TV show.

My brother and i nicknamed this episode "Vampire Yahtzee". Seriously, it hardly moved at all. The queen was a let down and I continue to tire of Maryann/Tara/Eggs. Bill at least showed some balls, threatening Eric.

I don't think the Queen was bad. It's just how she was written. Purposely decadent and wasteful... The minute she actually gave some helpful advice about Maenads, the actress reflected it.

Wasn't too fond of this episode myself.  I was hoping Tara would end up getting killed somehow.  Also didn't care for the "she's immortal because she thinks she is" shit either.

What was Sookie's line? "Tara, you are a fucking idiot."

Yeah, she pretty much needs to die.

Yeah, I was fine with the queen, her actor and her Yahtzee playing.

It's always great TV. But last season they kept the villain a mystery until the end. This season, they're still making great TV but they haven't got the villain reveal, so it's not as good.

I am now convinced they are making shit up as they go. They have no idea what direction they're supposed to take the show in or even where it's heading currently. The queen's "explanation" of who Maryann is was just proof that they have no rational solution for her. However, it will involve Sookie and her conveniently new-found messianic pew-pew powers.

Maybe they didn't know when they wrote Season 1 what direction they'd be going in Season 2, but this isn't like network TV where episodes are still being written and shot even after the season has started and things get changed on the fly.

It's not exclusive to network TV though, the same thing happens with movie scripts and novels (hi2u Stephen King!) The writer(s) run out of time without having solved some fundamental issue with the story (why did that character carry that gun we needed for the climax?) so there's no time to go back and fix things already written, everything new just get thrown on the pile of things. Thus it's lacking in foreshadowing and laden with deux ex machinas which in implementation is the same as "making shit up as you go," just without the urgency. If they had some other, better formulated idea of a plotline we'll never know, because it never landed on paper.

Did the Mary Anne stuff happen in the books? I've only read the first two and in those Sookie got her back clawed and there was talk about the maenad wanting tribute from supernatural bar owners but none of the rest of this stuff happened. Perhaps it turns into a bigger thing in one of the later books?

Maryann in the books bears no practical similarity to the Maryann of the TV-show, atleast not for the first five books or so. She disappears entirely from view after the second book, I think it is.

Seems to me more like a case of bad writing rather than lack of a plan.  They didn't realize that the Texas subplot was a lot better than the Maryann subplot.  They also felt that they needed a story arc that spanned the entire season (actually more than a season since Maryann was introduced last season), and personally I disagree.  I had the same problem with the first season (the serial killer plot) also.  Neither plot needed that many episodes to move forward resulting in a lot of treading water. I had a pretty negative view on Season 1 in fact which you can see many pages back.  I think that's largely because I didn't watch most of the episodes as they aired.  I downloaded them and watched several at a time and it's a lot more noticeable when you watch 3 or 4 hours in a row and the plot has barely moved forward.

So yeah, I think decompressed storytelling and a few bad ideas are the show's biggest problems.  Not so much making things up as they go along.

I only watched some of the ending episodes for season 1. I thought the idea of vampires applying for basic human rights to be ridiculous. But it was ok, a tad campy, very slow, but overall ok. So it grew on me as season 2 chugged on and well i'm running out of television to watch so I'm not really disappointed with the over all direction. Maybe because I never thought the show was great in the first placed and I only recently started to swallow the premise of the show.  

Agreed, (although lack of a plan results in bad writing... semantics!) the heinously slow development has exaggerated the issue. I don't think we'd be having this discussion if Maryann had been given the four episodes or something that the complexity of the plotline asked for. Second half of the season they've been throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, just to wring another five episodes out of the plotline.

If I'm to be honest though, some of my dislike for the show comes from the fact that rabid fans (both online and among my relations) try to divine some greater meaning from every word spoken and gesture made. It's something the fanbase of TB appears to share with the Lost fanbase (another TV-show I can't stand for similar reasons.) I'm all for characters speaking in quasi-riddles (hey, one of the reasons I love Deadwood), but not that kind of inept hinting that means nothing to any of the characters actually in the room.

PS.
Neither did I think True Blood was anywhere close to the best television I've seen, but I used to think that it was decent enough to get 48 minutes a week of my time.

You know why the first season was better?


 :drillf:

I was forced to whack off at least a dozen times in the first season. Maryanne is a huge downer and really doesnt seem to make sense. The two reveals about maryanne made little sense in comparison to what we already knew about her. They should just have her up and leave randomly a few episodes ago, with putting the town back together/Some confrontation in Dallas amongst the vampires being the end game.

I'm tired of Maryanne but not ready to turn on the show like some of you are. While Tara has never been an enjoyable character I find Jason quite amusing, and actually like him since his return from crazy Bible-land. Jessica is still my favorite character in the show but that may be because she's kind of cute and dangerous at the same time. That, and she keeps teasing me. Come on girl, get naked already!

Tara was building a nest for a giant egg, with a guy named Eggs  :why_so_serious:

Next episode's reveal over who laid that goddamn egg might very well be shark-jumping event.  I really, really hope they can pull it off, I just don't see how they can keep this from going crazy train.

Sam layed it in chicken form.  Jason foreshadowed it.

:drill:

The Maryanne plot line laid such an egg that it physically manifested on the show.

Most gods only exist because someone believes in them.

Daphne laid it after fucking Sam!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphic_Egg

Ta-da.

This is how I know none of us has HBO. You are bad bad pirates.

Wish I could say I'm a pirate.  But sadly Comcast is taking 20 a month for two shows I like.

Decent finale, but the second half of the show was a bit weak.

What a convoluted way to resolve Marryanne.

How was it convoluted? They barely dealt with it.. I mean, it seemed like they resolved it in a shorter segment at the beginning of the show. Then the show went off on some long aftermath tangent or something (didn't like how all of it was written). As for how it actually happened, I already saw it coming when Bill wanted Sam around.

So Maryanne can't influence Sookie because she is special, but she doesn't have the same problem with Jason who holds out barely longer than Lafayette (and is soundly beaten by the town drunk)?

Yes, what's the problem?

Maryanne said she couldn't influence Sookie due to her supernatural origin. If Jason is her biological brother, Maryanne should have the same problem with him.

The entire Maryanne arc,not just the episode,the resolution was exceptionally stupid. So many mid season episodes would have been so much better as a finale. I knew the season would peak with the godric stuff but those last few episodes dragged.

They've never said he was supernatural, and being a work of fiction Sookie could of been born a caterpillar for all we know.

We'll probably find out at some point she was adopted or something.

Didn't think they could make them adopted siblings in the series. Maybe they'll go that route.

Ookii change your quote its a gigantic reveal.

What? My name is Ookii (though pronounced Ookie, thanks for that), and that wasn't my quote.  If you changed my quote (which was me just guessing things) to something that is fact, AND CONFIRMING IT, then put your shit in a spoiler tag.

I think you book readers should GTFO with your spoilers anyway.  You read something called the 'Sookie Stackhouse Series'.

Its you quoting Tebonas not what you said.He apparently does not know what the fuck a spoiler is since he is posting shit from the books. Sadly I ruined it for myself when I looked at Wikipedia.

The series has diverged enormously from the books. I've only read the first two but there's a ton of stuff in the show - including most of the MaryAnne stuff that wasn't in the books at all.

What Reg said. I edited the suspicious parts out at your peoples request, but at this point the books could as well be an entirely different universe from what I read about them.

What I wrote without the spoilers is knowledge you get from the series. Sookie is something not entirely human (stated by more than one supernatural over the series), and Jason is her brother. The parents died when they were young and their Grandmother took them in. The similar looking casting choices as well as a deep familarity suggest they are blood relatives. The logical conclusion is that Jason is not entirely human as well.

Hmmm...my thoughts on the finale:

Glad Sam actually did something for once.
Glad Eggs died. I don't know why but I never liked him.
Sad Tara lived.

And finally, can't Bill now feel Sam's emotions and stuff like he can with Sookie?

Why is it that you hate the two black characters? HUH? HUH?

I think you should ask the screenwriters that. :oh_i_see:

It's a pity Jason has become a caricature instead of a character.

Other than that, it was great HBO TV and I was entertained. Even as it dragged, it was still amazing entertainment.

While I know this was basically in green, I do love Lafayette. Eggs I disliked probably because he was so intwined with the Maryann plot. Tara? She's just shrill.

Eggs without Maryann's influence was basically an uninteresting new ex-con character, a fish out of water in Bon Temps, useless to the plot. Not sure why they had to do that to Jason though.

They have cranked up the level of silly across the board,its just rather extreme in his case. He was always a doofer tho.

Yes, but think back to Jason when gran died and when he was in love with that V addict chick. He had a serious side. Now he's just a running gag.

Yeah, his plot was going to some interesting place. The whole blind belief thing with the church could've been mined as a character-builder, and he's been the main character to walk the hate/love thing with the supernaturals. I've always been annoyed at how they play him as a himbo, since he had the potential to be the most interesting character in the series.

Jason Stackhouse has been reduced to a dumb goof and cheap foil whose job it is to hurl himself inextricably between one bad situation and the next via a perfectly harmonized combination of terrible judgment and bad luck

Jason is leroy jinkins made flesh.

No, that's you.

Just watched this for the first time, the Dallas-vamp-church story was much more interesting than the Maryann thing.  Don't know why they apparently thought that pure vampire stuff wouldn't be enough after only one season. But the last scene was a bit stupid, how exactly do you sneak up on a Vampire?

With an older, more powerful vampire.

Or a unique vampire.

Guess I focused on the black gloves hiding the identify of the person, but yeah Vampire with gloves to protect against silver could make sense.

I just watched both seasons the past few weeks and season two was seriously off the rails compared to the first. Everything got even more drawn out, the humor became almost all obvious and stupid, and there was too much talking.

I blame the writers, because it still worked in parts, but just not overall.

Hope the next season gets back to the earlier quality.

Amen. He just sucked the life out of every scene he was in.

Anna Paquin: I'm Bisexual  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/anna-paquin-im-bisexual_n_521444.html)

Lucky guy.  :heartbreak:

Season 3 kicked off yesterday.

And was awesome.

I remembered pretty quick which characters annoy me and which ones I actually like. It seems like a 50/50 deal. I still dig the show though.

GAH!  :ye_gods:

Is broadcast the only place to see this currently?

It's HBO.  Isn't the only other way to see it is to steal it? 

The first one was good, no big surprises or anything.  There is still a lot of really bad acting.  Maybe that's the way they want it, I don't know, but I wish they didn't.

Get a DVR :)

So tired of the Tara shit, but worth it to see Lafayette be sassy. I think. Good to see Jason pushed back to being Jason (ie: titties).

Sam/Bill gay scene  :ye_gods: Please let that stop. Pam/stripper gay scene, hell yeah  :drillf:

Nice reintroduction episode and setup for the season's conflicts.

I thought he said that because he doesn't have HBO.  A DVR won't help you if you don't buy the channel, right? 

 

Well, they do have the episodes on the playstation network. But yeah, even if I do have HBO, missing the air time is a problem :)

Whats the per episode cost on playstation network?

1.99? (http://us.playstation.com/games-and-media/shows-and-tv-series/season/true-blood-season-2.html) (Own) (Not sure what the delay is like between air and posted though).

Netflix has it on disk only, sadly.

I think it's $3 an episode.  I don't think it's really worth it.

It said 1.99 on the website. Anyway, yeah I paid for a warehouse 13 episode I missed, it was not worth it. That's why I was hoping maybe hulu or netflix would carry it.

I'm sure Netflix will at some point.  It's not awful when I rent entire seasons after they've already shown.  In fact, it feels more convenient.  I don't really know about Hulu.  It's a series on a premium channel, do they ever show these sorts of things?  Do they charge for it?

I honestly don't know about the hulu and premium stuff, I just like being current and this is a show I like a good deal.

Since you subscribe to HBO and could have watched or recorded it legally would it really be such a terrible thing to just bittorrent it?

Nazi werewolves vs Viking vampires vs mellow inter-specie relationship drama.
The first two episodes of this season are laying an interesting foundation.

They're juggling a lot of sub-plots right now.  My thoughts without getting into spoilers:

Sam's almost feels like it should be a spin-off mini or a webisode or something since it seems the least connect to anyone else's plot threads.  The Tara and Lafayette stuff of course is only worth it because Nelsan Ellis continues to be the best actor on the show.  Bill's plot felt like it was taking too long to get anywhere in this episode.  I think Jason, Andy, and Hoyt all got better use in the first episode, but they're all good characters so even when they aren't at their best, it's not too bad.  Jessica's plot feels like something that's going to end up dragging out.  Terry and Arlene are hilarious as always and get used just enough to lighten the mood but not get worn out.  Eric manages to make Sookie's plot watchable.

I feel Sams' Shapeshifter plot will end up linking w/ the werewolfs at some point.

Yah, Lafayette is an amazing character. It's hard to believe that Ellis is a former Marine. 

Are you sure about that?  He went to Julliard after high school and then went into acting I believe.

Marine Corps, then Julliard.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2010-06-09-ellis09_st_N.htm

Oddly that's omitted in his IMDB entry.

Cool. Thanks. Interesting career path.

 :ye_gods:


Edit: I hear Lorena's a great screw.  She really gets around.  :rimshot:

That scene was pretty twisted.

You forgot this: :rimshot:

To quote the internet, "I can't fap to that".

Flashbacks to Death Becomes Her. It was decidely  :ye_gods:.

Quickly going from bad to worse. The last two episodes have been very meh.

Yeah, I'm just watching out of habit now. Much more interested in the other show I dvr, Deadliest Catch. That show is so intense right now (I come from a line of lobstermen back to the revolution at least).

Wow, I couldn't have had a more oposite reaction than that. Loved the last episode.

Yeah, considering the festering turd of Herculean proportions that was the second half of last season, I'm perplexed that someone can think this is worse.

Nazi werewolves are better than the ridiculously dragged-out maenad plotline. I thought that would never end, so annoying.

The Maened plot also had an orgy an plenty of sex in general.  There's been very little of that going around lately.  At least I admit why I watch this show.  The last couple of episodes have just been dull in general, completely unrelated to the lack of sex though.

There's been some cool stuff happening.  All a bit disjointed.  Franklin is just killing it.  He's the best insane vampire I've seen.

The only part of the last episode I really didn't care for was the part where Sookie and Hunky The Werewolf were just standing there explaining everything during the initiation.  I just wanted to yell, "YES, I CAN SEE THAT. SHUT UP AND POSSIBLY RUN." Sookie is just has absolutely no survival instinct at all.

I could use less Mickens family shit and less Jason Stackhouse.  That stuff is just going nowhere.  Jason without a naked female is just useless.

Franklin is pretty much the only part of this season I've liked so far, and even his parts are dragging on.  Everything is moving too slowly, and there's not enough sex to mask that this time.  They clearly weren't watching Spartacus and taking notes  :oh_i_see:

I really liked the last episode. I felt that it was going back towards the very dark first few episodes. Some stuff was stupid, like the explaining the werewolf ceremony, but overall I really enjoyed it.

They should just cut the whole Sam family plotline.

I'm definitely liking this season, but pretty much am in agreement with Rasix.  Franklin is absolutely fantastic in a Serial Killer type way.  Jason and Andy really started off awesome, but is falling flat right now as is the Mickens storyline.    Randomly enough, Bill's storyline is probably the best of the season for me - the King of Mississippi and everything surrounding it is going all sorts of fun places.  

I think someone said it best as "the entire Sam plot should be a webisode or something completely off air". 

As usual I lose interest anytime Tara is onscreen but other than that I'm really digging this season. Eric is really growing on me as a character as is Pam.

Sam and Tara are boring as heck. Jason is just dicking around doing nothing at all. Bill is caught in a particulary boring holier than thou conundrum and Sookie is exactly the same as ever.

Jason needs to start fucking again, Sam and Tara can die asap... just leave it on Layfaette and Eric until Sookie and Bill harden the fuck up again.

Tara isn't boring so much as she grates on me. The actress is good but the character is annoying. She reminds me of a coworker that I will literally go out of my way to avoid. He's male but other than that they could be the same person.

I like Sam as a character but feel like there is wasted potential with him. I'm hoping something will happen to make his character more interesting. His redneck family, sadly, is not it.

From what I hear Jason has a major plotline coming that I won't spoil. If it's done well I think he'll get alot more interesting.

Sookie has a nice body.

Someone had to say it. Also, when she mocked bills "Sookie" that was gold.  :grin:

He's on a roll in the last episode.

Hammer of the gods, baby. More viking Eric, please. That scene really pulled together the whole King/werewolf thing.

"We have to talk."
"Don't say that.  A woman says that and I black out and wake up surrounded by body parts."

Really? You guys find him amusing? Nearly as boring as Tara...

Since they don't want to cut her, nearly as boring is a good thing.
It's still a step up from where we were last season with that eggs guy and having had to endure that story arc I'm quite happy with the lunatic vampire twist.
It doesn't seem to serve any other purpose than to keep Tara in the show so why not go overboard with some dark humour?

Loved the latest episode. The dramatic part is actually getting interesting, and the comedy side bits were funny as hell. REALLY need to see Jessica naked though. Like soon.

There are now way to many dynamics and lines to this show.

That last episode was chalk full of...stuff!!1

I like that they wrote Spike into the show and changed his name to Franklin. At this point I welcome the thought of Spike turning Tara into a vampire who becomes batshit crazy. Then Spike will have Drusilla again and all will be right in Buffyverse.

Also, anyone know if the new blonde is some sort of fairy bodyguard for the Stackhouse kids, sent by their grandpa or whateverthefuck?

If you really want to know, Jasons paramour is a

Every time I hear his name, all I can think of is this-

(http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRnm_rF7Ak-KhJXPljNtAyavP43oEACB0meumNmT6PEQUIU2Ko&t=1&usg=__2rdaO23E2WSuwx52DFnVMvR9oiY=)

I stomached the last part of season 2 but I dropped the series and haven't bothered to watch season 3. Is it worth watching?

If you go into it with the mindset that it is purely gothic, trashy pulp I think it is highly entertaining.

If you got through the Mary Ann snoozer of a storyline, Season 3 will jump off the screen at you.

(http://www.fisk-knives.com/Mace.jpg)

 :ye_gods:

I was all "go for the axe!". There was a perfectly good double-bladed axe there. Friggin Tara :)

Pretty well-paced episode, I thought. I liked how Eric was getting pissed at Sookie's inane ramble, I'm surprised she's not dead with how much she babbles secrets every episode.

Merely a flesh wound.  He'll get over it.

Yeah, his "surprise" recovery seems inevitable.  It was extremely stupid to not behead the guy when she had the chance.  Though it will be fun to see how much more fucked up Franklin is post-head-pulping.

When she and Sookie argued at the front door of the King's house, I was sure Franklin was going to swoop in at that point.

Does beheading work on a vamp?

I was under the impression that sunlight and fuckin' wooden stake to the heart were the two approved methods. You would think a bitch that has been involved in as much vamp drama would know these things. Morningstar to the dome was pretty cool, though.

According to the HBO True Blood Wiki:

That episode certainly moved a few plots along.

I had to go back and think about it to figure out how many characters they killed off that episode.

Well, this episode confirmed that Franklin didn't die. Good for him.

I half-expected Bill to sparkle.


Cuz he didn't turn into a puddle of goo?  Yeah, probably.

Yes. I half expected Tara to run screaming once Sookie told her dead Vampires get gooey.

Ah, a girl torn between her love for a vampire and a werewolf. I would have thought they'd avoid that particular plotline...
Quite the emo episode this one.

Can we please kill off Tara? I don't know if it is the writing for her character or the actress but I find myself hating her more and more as the series goes on.

On the other hand, the rest of the show is coming along nicely. Jessica is really becoming quite a fascinating character. I am, however, getting tired of all the crying and drama and unhappiness of the various characters.

Let the fucking head-ripping commence. The flock that is the cast needs to be culled.

Tara's been annoying since the word go. It's not the writing.

Opinions vary I guess.  My wife and I both enjoyed season 1, both thought season 2 was mostly terrible.  But she is still loving season 3 and I gave up on the show after the first couple of episodes.


Agreed.  I keep hoping she dies but alas...

This most recent episode was comprised to 95% of absolutely horrible. It's becoming really really hard to keep interest in the series up.

I enjoyed it for the most part.

Yeah, it's funny occasionally, but the plotting is just terrible. Way too many storylines (again) and/or no proper perspective to tie it together. It's just fragments of soap opera that don't really advance a shared story arc at all. When a single episode has three different women crying I think it's time to rethink the direction of an action/drama show.

Also, once again they've gone to a place where they can't simply resolve the current upheavals and get a clean, or at least stable, slate for season 4. Instead it will just be "forgotten" between two episodes and continuity will yet again go out the window. Altogether I'm starting to doubt their long-term writing ability and feel like a sucker for having been strung a long for as long as I have. Atleast with Lost I spotted it halfway though the first season.

There's a lot of storylines going on, but unlike the first 2 seasons where a lot of things seemed to drag on, I feel like most of the plotlines this season are at least progressing from episode to episode.  Even when they don't get a lot of screen-time, they usually get at least one or two worthwhile scenes out of each one.  For instance, in last night's episode, the scene with Lafayette, his mom, and Jesus was pure gold, as was the Hoyt/Summer/Jessica stuff.  They just need to get rid of weak links like Tara (and I'm already not very fond of the acting from the woman that plays the new waitress).

You do realize this show is a camp soap opera right? Complaining about such things is pretty strange.

Anyways, Russell is so awesome.  I'll be sad when they take him out at the end of the season.  O'Hare has just been killing it.

I thought it was a great episode, especially the last 20 minutes.  Tara was actually bearable.  Sam went bug-fucking nuts.  We got a Franklin money-shot, Paquin showed some soapy titties, and Talbot in a glass chalice?  Gold, Jerry.  Gold.

I could do without the Jason subplot, and Sam's brother, but everything else has been pretty solid.

I actually like the Jason wanna-be cop subplot. The scene with Andy in the office was great, I enjoy Jason's constant fuckups..yet as he said an ep or two ago, "I'm the best cop you got!"

Talbot in the urn was not quite McShane reciting soliloquies to the Indian head in a box, but it's a nice twist on the insane king plot. And the speech whilst holding a bloddy spine he just ripped out, casually? Nice.

I wouldn't worry too much about the new waitress. She's a new waitress without a prior plot, working at Merlott's. They may as well give her a red shirt.

Ok, I got a good laugh outta that!

The last episode was good. The season, overall, has been ok. Sure beats the never-ending Maenad BS of season 2. I actually don't even hate Sam's brother.

I like the Russell plot not just because it's interesting and the actor is great in his role, and obviously having fun with it. It's also really letting Eric break out of the cool collected character he normally plays, his face during the 'vengeance' scenes is amazing. My viking heritage has absolutely nothing to do with it!

Odd that Pam is only a 100 yr old vamp, though.

She may survive - she hasn't fucked Jason yet.

The new waitress and Lafayette's lover Jesus both seem played by stronger actors than their roles demand. Big reveal due on both.

Jesus is already in the opening credits, so I assume his role has more to it.

Given Tebonas' spoiler at the top of the last page, and what he showed Lafayette in the last episode, I think it's safe to say those two things are linked.

I am however getting tired of every single person in the show being special in some way, or having to be made to be special.  What is with Bon Temps and being a hotbed for supernatural activity, when it's a shithole in the middle of nowhere?

Maybe it's on a Hellmouth.

I always figured Sookie was some kind of magnet for supernaturals.

Sookie inspired me to learn, once and for all, exactly how to pronounce

This show is going places.

The next person to say "now you listen to me!"... gah!

Something I forgot to say last time. Why did they have to do that to Sam? He was OK as a troubled shapeshifting bar owner. He didn't need to be turned into ...
Otherwise I'm thoroughly enjoying this season.

I actually kind of like it.

I'm hoping he'll snap and murder Tara.  Someone needs to, I was really hoping that Franklin would get rid of her and we'd be done with all of that whiny bullshit, but then Jason had to fucking shoot him.  Sigh.

You know I enjoyed the first season... toughed through the second..... I barely got out of season 3 alive.... and then it ended the way it did....
I just don't know anymore.
I may have wasted 20 or so hours I'll never get back.

At least it's helping rejuvenate terrible vampire fiction?
No wait.....

Each to his own opinion. In my opinion, I just wasted 2 minutes I'll never get back in reading your post and responding to it.

I've never been a fan of "Oh my God! I hate this show! I wasted all my life watching every single moment of it and it sucked!" posts.

I'm more of a fan of threads that slowly go from "Oh wow this is awsome" to "GAAAAAAH THIS IS SUCH CRAAAAP"

Just mentioning.  :popcorn:

Show is still great, you guys are broken.

Hey I wasn't really intending to do the "wasted my life" shtick I was just sharing that I once liked it and have grown to not like it after this season.
I guess it was a worthless post but I was hoping it would lead to more discussion. Maybe some other people felt the same way since it just ended. Maybe some people loved the ending... whatever.
Wasn't trying to rain on the thread.
I'll leave you alone now...
*slowly walks backwards out door*

There is still one more episode. Last one was 11, there are 12 episode per season.

Oh man I thought they just did 11 this season. Must have misheard that intro thing they played just before this past episode. I screwed up all around it seems. Cool. :uhrr:
Sorry about that.

I'm still into the show, but the only thing keeping that last episode from being season 2 levels of bad was Eric, Pam and the King of Mississippi.  There were exactly 2 good moments the entire rest of the show: Lafayette's talking dolls, and Terry's clap dance.  The Hoyt/Jessica/Biscuit girl stuff didn't do anything for me, and the rest was pure shit

Well, I'm on Bloodworth's side here. While the show may not be perfect, it still is my favorite thing on TV right now. I've gotten a little tired of Tara, but the scene in the last episode between her and Andy was just brilliantly acted.

That being said, the Fall season (and sports season) really need to start soon. It's a sad state when I'm downloading Eureka just to have something to watch.

Terry's clap dance was indeed a good moment.

Agreed. I am not on the Tara hate bandwagon, but they haven't been using her as well this season, despite a bunch of chances to do so.

The Sam stuff seems contrived. Sookie's constant whiny naivete is also geting a bit contrived after all the shit she's been through.

I'm not sure I can get off the Tara hate bandwagon. Hell, just seeing her makes me angry these days. Still, that scene with Andy was pretty good but mostly because of Andy's reaction and her reaction to him.

I think Season 3 was pretty good for the most part. Season 2 was horrible as we all know and I nearly gave up on the show but I think Season 3 has mostly redeemed it.

Season 2 was completely saved by Ryan Kwanten. He really was amazing during the whole Church of the Sun storyline.

Finally caught up on all the episodes for this season.

Season 2 drug on WAY too long and the Maened storyline was tired by the end. But this season has completely redeemed the show. I've always said this was a campy satire on the whole emo vampire genre, and this season has not disappointed. Russell has been FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. When he punched through that newscaster's chest, I laughed my ass off. He's obviously having so much fun with the role. That's one thing I've always liked about the show, everyone seems to really enjoy the roles they play, and they act way above the material. Lafayette is the best damn character on the show, with the guy playing Terry right behind him. The least interesting part often ends up being the main plot of the love story between a fairy and a vampire.

I think the biggest thing bothering me about Tara this season is she's lost her edge. She never seems to have good lines like she did first season, the kind of lines like Lafayette has. She's just been such a victim since midway through season 1 and unfortunately, her character hasn't really figured out anything interesting to do with that. Franklin was goddamn brilliant, though - too bad he couldn't have hung around. Jason's story was more interesting last season with the Children of the Light thing - his wannabe cop stuff has been fun, but the rivalry with the high school quarterback hasn't been, and the werepanther has been equal parts cool and frustrating. Andy's entire season was redeemed by the scene in the bar with Tara. I've always like Sam as a character, and I haven't minded the Mickens arc but I don't know if Sam the crazy, barely-repressed nice guy is going to work. I'm hoping against hope that they manage to kill Russell without killing Eric though. He's really come into his own this season. I still wish he could have gotten the Thor role. Despite the comparisons to Twilight, I actually liked the werewolves and I really liked Sookie's werewolf bodyguard. I also dig the fact that Lafayette is finally getting something new to deal with in Jesus. Seeing him switch from happy to WTF? in seconds was great, and the actor playing Jesus is really good.

All in all, a much improved season. Season 2 was great up until they left the Children of the Light compound. Season 3 hasn't really had any bad moments.

Also:

(http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/demotivational-posters-gay-vampire-porn.jpg)

Finally finished getting caught up, on both the show and this thread. Season 2 sucked, so does Tara. I'd love to see Eric make it to next season, but it isn't looking very likely.

I don't think they'll let him go. After all this is a show written by professional screenwriters and they tend to follow what's popular and go with that.

The way they'll save Eric seems obvious (I hope I'm wrong, I'd love it if they'd do something surprising).

That was terribly disappointing.  What a horrible fucking way to end the season.

Yah, I thought so too.  The one television blogger/reviewer/whatever I read thought it was great, but I thought it was just a big unfinished mess with too many damn unresolved plot strings. 

Bill's character was so poorly written that episode. 

That's pretty much what the reviewer at IGN said. I felt the same way. The commercial was much better than the episode itself. "Who will die!?!" Uhh....I guess no one.

My wife did give me an odd look at one point. When Tara was in the bathroom and picked up the scissors and did that slow pause I suddenly yelled at the TV: "Stab yourself! Sink those scissors into your neck and slice your own throat!" Unfortunately I got a cliched hair cutting scene instead.

It felt like they were just moving all the pieces around at the last minute to get them where they needed to be at the start of season 4.  It was more like an epilogue to the season rather than a season finale.

I actually liked it, and I didn't have much faith in it being a good episode.

Anyone could be writing this show.
"Hey, kid! Yeah you in the dumpster, want a job in showbiz?"

I'm not sure what this post means.  It doesn't help that the first sentence refers to the writing while the second line, which looks like it is meant to support the first sentence, would refer to casting (which as a whole has actually been True Blood's strongest aspect).

It means you're digging deep in a shallow pool. Incorrectly, I might add. It was a joke, not a carefully calculated criticism of the show based on a reasonable analysis.
BUT
If you want to get up on your mighty nerd steed an analyze it then we'll just say it was a late tribute to the style of Conan O'Brien. In layman's speech it says: "A kid who lives in a dumpster (and therefore has no education) could write a better show." It's a heavily opinionated statement soaked in hyperbole. The only reason I can see you picking on it at all is that you took the joke personally. Honestly, I expected everyone to ignore it and allow it to be my epitaph as far as this thread is concerned as I won't be back in here.
Good riddance amirite?

Since you want to play around in the mud for no good reason I'll leave you with these two question instead:
How good can a show really be when it's "casting" is it's strongest aspect?
How good can the casting really be when only one character (Lafayette) is acted well?
These are rhetorical. Don't answer.

Sincerely, I hope you enjoy season 4. <-- Seriously sincere. I mean it. I wish I could enjoy it myself. I like enjoying good things.

Paragraphs motherfucker, do you know them?

Otherwise, meh. Shitty ending episode. Would've been fine if this was there was still an episode left this season, as it was we got no closure at all. They killed off the stupid hick dad and that's about it. Otherwise 10 dangling plot threads.

io9's Meredith Woerner always does a great recap. (http://io9.com/5637094/true-bloods-big-finale-will-burn-your-face-off?skyline=true&s=i)

The hick dad was actually a potentially good character, too. Ah, well. I really liked Tara's internal struggle for this episode. Seeing her fight to overcome her negative reactions is kind of a nice culmination of her incessant angry Tara act...and to be honest, they have put that character through so much shit, it's a pretty believable struggle.

Lafayette awesome as usual, the scene when he's freaking out on the phone and then you see him don his armor of coolness and strut back into the kitchen...great stuff.

Bill, as mentioned, was pretty poorly written this episode. There were a few forced scenes that the vampire characters seemed to kind of go in and out of character.

I thought this whole season was pretty lousy, with the last episode being the steaming crown for this pile.  The only good thing that came out of it was that Tara left, and that will only work if she stays gone, which you know won't happen.  The other problem is this removed the only main character who wasn't special or supernatural in some way (because lets not kid ourselves, Jason will be something sooner or later).

 I still like the guy playing Layfayette a lot, and I hope he goes on to do something other than this show, if it continues this downhill slide.

It did feel more like a mid-season episode rather than a finally.

Finale.

Would a been a finally if Tara woulda offed herself.

Here here! I feel bad for hating her so much but I can't help it.

Yeah, very disappointing episode. The Jason/Shifter Chick subplot which ends with Jason adopting a family of inbred lycanthropes went nowhere, Tara got on my nerves right after she escaped Franklin and never got better, Sam turned asshole and killer AND Cain, Sookie turned into a mega bitch (though this was at least understandable). Absolutely nothing got resolved other than the Russell plot, and while that made sense, what didn't make sense is how Eric escaped and Russell didn't. Less silver? Russell was hurt? Who the fuck knows? Bill wandered in and out of lover/killer without a lot of sense being made. And season 4 is a year away. This show could probably use a cast trimming. Start with Tara and Jason and move on.

Pam dug him out.

Well if nothing else, we got rid of Tara.  :heart:
Hopefully they stick to their guns and not write her into next season at all and just run with the "She went through so much, shes driven off into the sunset for a newlife."

You KNOW she will be back, maybe not in the first few episodes, but it will happen.

The best moment of the finale was Tara standing in front of the mirror with the scissors. I was yelling at the TV, "Down the road, not across the street!" and praying it wasn't going to be a dramatic haircut scene.

Finally got around to watching this. Not a big fan of the ep, but there were some fun parts. Sookie dumping Talbot into the garbage disposal was good times. Was begging for the camera to linger on Tara's car driving away, hoping it meant she was gone for good. Fuck that character.

Season 4 airs the 26th. The first 8 minutes of the first episode have been released to the webs by HBO, should you be inclined to take a sneak peak.

Yay!

Something to entertain me over the summer until Boardwalk Empire entertains me through the fall to get that much closer to GoT  :drill:

So far, so very good. 

I was pretty bored, tbh. Season openers are tough though, since they have to set the table for the rest of season. Not looking forward to the whole witch thing....a little Jesus and LaFayette goes quite a long ways for me. Ditto for Tara, although the little gratuitous sex scene was amusing at least. I enjoyed the recap of last season more than the beginning of this one. It always freaks me out to hear the cast speak in the own accents.

I thought the episode sucked. The fairy scene was worse than an old Angel re-run. Andy was entertaining at least, and Lafayette is still my favourite character. But yeah, overall I was underwhelmed.

Andy was indeed entertaining. Although I think he would be more amusing if he was just loud and grouchy all the time, and not strung out on V. Bleah.

Also Jessica needs to have break into the nude scene scene, baby.

Sookie and Bill were always amongst my least favorite characters, so I just took the fairy thing as necessary setup. Bill at least might be interesting as the King.

Only thing I really got a bit bored with was the witch plot, though I did enjoy the frumpy witch suddenly channeling Jimmy James.

I'm not sure any one part of the story excited me, but I do like the fact that it looks like its going to focus a lot on Eric and Pam.

I agree with the witch plot. My big worry is that we'll have yet another season where the biggest threat from the villains is that they might bore me to tears.

The faerie world stuff was ok until the magic energy balls started flying.

Tara didn't make me want to throw my TV into a lake so that's a plus.

Otherwise it is too early to tell. This show is being run as a soap opera and that makes it hard for me to enjoy. Combine that with the CW's Vampire Diaries being a better show in every single way except boobs and I think True Blood gets one more season to convince me it can change but I don't think it will.

I couldn't stop laughing when that happened.

Nothing could be worse than the Maenad plot. NOTHING.

Ugh. If it hadn't lasted ALL FUCKING SEASON it might now have been quite so painful, but yeah, it was awful. The very least they should have done is to give as a Michelle Forbes nude scene for our patience  :pedobear:

are you telling me the vampire diaries are......err... maybe i give it another go...

He was boastful and taken by surprise.

He was one of the few characters on the show I actually liked; I hope they fix it quickly.

I wasn't sure about the new direction after the first episode, but I like where they are going with the witches thing. Even shifters don't bother me, though the whole "we need to make Jason a werepanther" story really doesn't do much for me.

So... now we have vampires, werewolves, werepanthers, shapeshifters, telepaths, fairies, witches, necromancers, one maenad, possibly some more that I've missed. What's next? Surely they can't stop there.

Weretiger?

(Quinn)

I wondered how we were going to get to the obvious S(n)ookie Erik relationship - pretty easy to see now though. As for the rest of the episode, I did like that they put a little doubt on the whole contracting lycanthropy through biting thing with Jason - is he turning, or just plain dying from a bunch of festered wounds? The shot down the hallway from his room was just plain unsettling though.

Still not really feeling the werepanther or addict Andy stories, but the witch conflict could be interesting.

"You just killed my fairy godmother!"


"Oh, im sorry".


 :grin:

Totally not his fault, though. She looked and sounded like he forgot to put the toilet seat back down after peeing.

I'll take addict Andy + werepanther over the utter shit that is the Sam and Tommy subplot. 

Yeah, that one doesn't appear to be going anywhere interesting either.

There has been one question that has been eating me about true blood since season one and I would really love to hear any answers people might have about it.  How is it that True Blood hasn't been sued by white wolf by now?  The rip offs of the World of Darkness are both many and glaring.  Anyone have an answer?

Everything is a ripoff of everywhere. Unless you use names places and exact events you're going to be pretty safe.

Uh, like what? Is there a dot system in the show I am not aware of?

I'm not that up on World of Darkness, but I just don't see it....  even leaving aside the fact that the World of Darkness stuff is pretty derivative to start out with. 

Vampire hierarchy for one complete with the prince and the position of sherif.  This was directly ripped off from the world of darkness.  You could go even further from vampire/werewolf interactions and blood used as a doping mechanism.  Almost everywhere you turn there is a direct rip off to be found.

When White wolf sued the Underworld movie makers I was quite astonished for I didn't see very many parallels save the existance of the mythical beasts.  This series rips off quite liberally entire sections of source material and curiously WW doesn't seem to care.

I figured this couldn't be a coincidence.

Vampire hierarchies are far older than WW. Its sort of embedded in that whole 'count' Dracula thing, for a start, and de facto hierarchies stem from at least Interview with a Vampire from 1976. WW was only founded in '91.

Throwing in a bunch of arbitrarily assigned titles/ranks at tacit pre-existing hierarchical structures is hardly original.

people forget how old the anne rice books are.

Also the position of sherif is not something invented by Vampire novels. In fact thats an old english term for the person that keeps the peace in the area for the designated local ruler throughout the Commonwealth.

I kinda like this season. Cept for fuckin' Pam's face up. Leave my Pam alone.

The shire's gerefa, shortened to reeve (which means roughly, the shire's chief).

I'm not really watching this series anymore, but my wife is. When I saw they had cursed Pam with that awful face I cried a little inside.

They seem to have taken this a little more to their female audience at the start of this season. It has always been there of course, and I don't mind, but I would enjoy some of the craziness that came with the previous king or the lunatic vampire that courted Tara. Maybe Pam will provide.

Yeah, if they kill off Pam and Tara survives I'm just fucking done with this show. Hell, if I want to watch interesting vampires I'll watch the Vampire Diaries. All TB has going for it these days are tits and they're getting more rare.

And we are seriously due for some Pam tits. And not of the rotting sort!

If not Pam, then Jessica please. I thought Jason's dream was going to deliver but all we got was Hoyt.  :ye_gods:

They wrote themselves in to a corner as far as Jessica's boobies goes. Her body is technically under age.

Technically... but Technically her Vampire age should be over 18 and legal now shouldn't it?  :drill:

Think back to Interview with the Vampire, and then think about the implications that would have. That should kill off your libido for a bit.  :drill:

Kirsten Dunst naked at any age will kill a man.......('s libido).

These last 2 episodes might have been the worst ones they've ever done.  It's like they were written by someone that won a fanfic contest.

I've resigned myself that this show is completely terrible yet I can't stop watching it.

Agreed, last few have been terrible.

Yup. We have an overabundance of characters and not enough decent plots to occupy them all. I expect more will die soon (and good riddance).

There are a few that need to die. Tara. All the witches. The vampire PR bitch. Hell, Jason should have died on stupidity alone a while ago. The werewolf's girlfriend. Thankfully they finally got rid of Tommy.

I agree with most of your list Haemish, with one exception. Jason has been a good source of T & A for most of the show, and he fills the Hurley 'normal guy' role pretty well.

Jason is funny as hell and I also love Nan (the Vampire League woman). 

I actually wouldn't like it if they killed Jason, as he's always good for a laugh. But he's one of those characters who should have been dead long enough just on being a dumbass.

Yeah, but surviving is part of his powers I believe. The fool.

I still watch this show with my wife, but I do believe it jumped the shark back in season 2.

My wife and I just blame the character "Eggs".

I think we groused about season 2 quite a bit here.  It was mostly terrible.

I'd blame the Maened.

This show came on TV pre-shark jumped.

This. Season 2 wasn't some massive decline in quality. I remember watching season 1 and thinking "man, this show is fucking stupid".

I still watch it though.

To me, every season has had the same issue.  The writers feel the need to stretch every single plotline out through at least an entire season and in some cases longer.  Andy's V addiction started last season.  Tommy being a selfish dick who keeps fucking over Sam likewise started last season.  Arlene thinking her child could be evil because Rene is the father went through a good part of last season.  Tara started off with some promise this season, having built up a stronger and more confident persona for herself, only to rapidly revert back to being the same whiny victim she's been in every previous season.

And yeah, there's also the issue of too many characters.  What has Alcide's plot really been this season aside from occasionally being concerned about Sookie?  It's like they wanted to keep him and Debbie around in the cast, but didn't really come up with anything for them to do.  What has Tara added to the plot?  Sadly, I think Hoyt needs to go at this point also.  He's a funny character a lot of the time, but his only connections to the plot are Jason and Jessica, and the Jessica/Hoyt thing has run its course, and the show doesn't need another ongoing love triangle.

The "too many characters" issue is also what makes everything take forever; each group of characters only gets ~10m of screentime per episode so things move at a snails pace.

To be fair, they did whittle down the cast a little over the last few episodes.

For me the most jarring part of this season was the ridiculous Hot Shot plot point. It's as though you had a whole new group of writers look at the Hot Shot stuff from last season and went "how can we wrap this up and be rid of it in three episdoes?"

Jason went from hillbilly patriarch to rape victim to potential werepanther to "I forgot about all that and now I'm banging my best friends girl" in the course of three days.

Still, I keep watching for some reason. Have to admit I laughed at the drinkbox scene with Eric.

Scenes like that are exactly why I watch. Their seasons really are too long for some of those plots. We've spent what 3, 4 episodes with these idiot wiccans imprisoned in that magic shop? The show could do what it does well with about 10 episodes a season instead of 13, and a few less characters as well. Now we have Rapy Smurf humping Andy in the woods which I'm sure will have some effect next season as the child of Retarda Sheriff comes back fully grown and Fairy Free. The whole Lafayatte possessed by the baby momma (and really the whole baby is possessed by the spirit of Rene thing) didn't really need to be there to establish Lafayatte's status as a medium.

Game of Thrones has too few episodes a season, this has too many.

The last episode was fuckin' atrocious. Horrible acting all around, probably points toward script or directing as being the real problem.

My girl and I just kept looking at each other in amazement of the bad.


Everything this seaosn just feels like a set. The big vamp conference wasn't so big. The empty ass town when Marnie bunkered up... idk. Still watching...not really sure why...

Ten years from now, when this has officially become the new Days of our Lives, you'll find yourself sitting next to your spouse or daughter watching a particularly awkward and campy episode, when suddenly embarrassed by the utter crap she's watching, she'll say something like "yeah, it's over the top but it's all good fun" or "I can believe I'm still watching this shit" and you'll just nod and smile sagely while you think to yourself "fuck me man, I missed every historical event in my lifetime but when this shit started, I was there".

So....I win the no empathy award for doing a fist pump and saying "YES!" at the supposed tragic ending.

Then my wife had to destroy my happiness by looking at me and going "Lafayette is a medium you know..."

Actually seemed like it was going to be a fairly non eventful finale  :awesome_for_real:

Pam had the best line of the season:

“I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name. Fuck Sookie!”

Little Red Riding Hood.   :grin:   :drill:

And people say there is no god!

Best finale of any episode of any series ever.

(http://de.myemoticons.com/emoticon-avatare/bose-jungs/images/headshot.jpg)

Now everyone can spend the next six months worrying about / fearing

That was my favorite part of the episode season.  To hell with sookie, Jessica is smokin hot!

Before the finale, I always thought Debbie Pelt was a total waste of screen time.

Now, she is the season MVP.

Yeah Debbie went from my least favorite to most favorite character with one shotgun blast!

 :oh_i_see:

Jessica is in fact smoking hott ... with two tees ....

I am sorry hoyt for I do have love for you but seriously it does not matter how long you are friends with somebody banging jessica would always be worth it so you cannot be hating on jason.

Oh this show is too cluttered with plotlines!

Than how about we follow the main plotline lets see

Sookie is a mind reading waitress who is superhot but a virgin in a super dink hillbilly town in Lousina
She can't get with any man because ALL MEN THINK ABOUT SEX WITH HER AT ALL TIMES, a fact she never got over since she was 14
Eventually all eligible males either stopped talking to her or doesn't live in bontomp

CUE VAMPIRE BILL

Now sookie is wetter than 14 year old girl back stage with an R&B artist, she is ready for some hard fucking, mostly because she can't read all his dirty thoughts (despite the fact that he is undressing her with his eyes at all times). But...

CUE FAKE LOVE TRIANGLE

Sookies boss, a mild mannered guy who just happens to be a shifter but is afraid to tell people cause supernatural shit + hillbillies don't work together, he holds a mad crush on sookie and unlike every other guy in the place he can think about baseball while checking out her ass. Oh did I mention that his emotions have a tendency to run high, bordering bipolar at the slightest touch of his berserker button? Anyway one night with jittery sookie getting her face melted by the otherwise reasonable sam, generally ends that romance. The real kick to this story is that Sam, being the hopeless romantic he is, is so overly concerned with not showing his real self that hooking up with sookies, whose powers he had guessed, was to him the one way he could possible be himself (she can hear you jerking off). Such his want for that type of companion, he DOESN'T vent his sex drive on the miles of ass he could be tagging but instead pines for sookie and later tara, much to the irritation of the audience.

TO THE HANDS OF THE NOT SO EVIL VAMPIRE

After falling for vampire bill....yeah she falls for vampire bill gets into further hilarity of near death experiences pilled on top of each other, while clinging to bills virgin busting penis like a life boat. For 3 seasons.





Wait that is kinda bad, what about another relevant character....there is none but lets take Jason.



Jason spends his days fucking girls, working out, and fucking more girls (no seriously that was season 1 for jason). One day the chicks he banged were murdered, que hilarity he ends up in jail, being a v drug addict and a vampire killer (yep that was season 1).

SEASON 2

Jason joins the fellowship of the sun, it gets rather campy from here on out, a christian group that hates vampires and trains an army of humans to fight vampires. Jason having killed a chain up vampire in his girlfriends basement, gets auto initiated in the cult, hit on by the preachers super hot wife, and learns how to stake vampires and praise the lord at the same time. Being jason, he is far too stupid to drink the koolaid, but he is more than happy to shoot guns, fuck hot women, and generally piss of the local alpha male. Than his sister sookie walks in and all hell breaks lose.

OK NOT REALLY

Sookie volunteers to infiltrate the fellowship of the sun after everyone insisted that it was a bad idea and she is likely to get herself killed.

5 MINUTES OF SPY WORK LEADS TO

Nearly getting raped by the second in command of the fellowship. Much of the stupidity committed by this woman would have ended right there (another 3 seasons worth)....if she wasn't saved by the suicidal vampire (who is the reason why season 2 has a plot) who agrees to let a vampire hating cult cook him in exchange for letting them know that vampires are really nice guys after all.

Got through a third of that WALL OF TEXT. My head hurts.

Dewalled it but head is likely to hurt anyway.

Que?   :awesome_for_real:

Well, that was... explosive. Literally.

It was kind of funny that they got halfway through the damn thing before any vamps showed up. Really slow. I kept waiting for the shoe to drop. And boy did it. Right on a really annoying character's fucking head. I cheered as well.

Jessica in Red Riding Hood gear... MORE PLZ KTHX.

Finished watching the season.  How fucking awful.  Let's abandon reason or sensibility.  The characters do the dumbest shit, the acting is bad and everyone is flat.

Also, kill Sookie.

You got this confused with Jersey Shore ?

Finally got around to binging through the 2nd half of the season. So glad Jesus is dead- I was over that storyline 10 minutes after it started. Hopefully Tara is dead too.


Dear god, yes. My wife, when she showed up - "OK, she is really hot. And this is coming from your wife"  :grin: More skin please.

New season started last week, surprised no one's commented yet.

It just seemed like they tried to cram too much into one episode.


Essentially it seemed like they started the season with a plan for 18+ episodes and had to cram the first 6 into the season premiere because they only got a buy for 12.

--Dave

--Dave

EDIT: This latest one was a little better, some parts still seemed a little rushed, but not more than usual for the show.

*sighs* Really HBO?

Damn, third episode I've been tricked into watching and the King still hasn't shown. I want some insanity with my vampire sugar and I want it now.

I think they are building up to plenty of insanity this season.

Show remains a guilty pleasure for me.

I thought that was the King was saw lying all burned up looking at the end of episode 2.

It was but that was just a teaser, really.

I keep watching, and I don't know why. I'm about halfway into the 3rd episode and I only give a shit about a few of the storylines running.

Fucking Tara as a fucking vampire. I really thought we finally fucking got rid of her, but NOOOOOOO, we have to turn her into a fucking vamp. Sookie is just being pants on head retarded this season, moreso than usual. Chris Merloni is doing well as the Guardian. He seems to really relish being allowed to chew scenery like Willem Dafoe. The shapeshifters and wolfpack storylines I don't give a shit about, and the Jason Stackhouse drama is reaching for a reason to exist. The gay preacher turned vampire thing is kind of amusing, as the actor is perfect for it but I don't know how much meat is on that bone. But really, I'm just waiting for Russell to return.

Nailed it, Haemish.

I'm in the same boat as Haemish. The vampire council/Erik & Bill story is at least going somewhere, Pam's backstory has been pretty interesting, and I can't wait for Edgington to start ripping out hearts. As for the rest, I don't give a single fuck about Terry's war flashback shit, Tara just needs to die, and Stackhouse and Sobotka's Adventures in Fairyland just put me to sleep.

I'm with most of you it sounds like. Bill and Eric away from Sookie was great. Any scene with Jessica in it is good for me though pairing her with Tara made me want to find the writers and shake them hard. I'm sort of interested in Pam's back story and wonder if some of Pam's awesomeness can rub off on Tara and make her a tiny bit less annoying. I doubt it. More than likely Tara will drag both Pam and Jessica down the road to shittiness with her.

This X a million.

Completely. Fucking. Predictable. 

The foreshadowing was rather stupidly heavy handed, but really, they had to go that direction with the plot. Otherwise, what was the point of the season so far.

Decent season so far!

I hadn't watched this show since episode four of the last season, and then I watched the very latest episode a few days ago. This show is a fucking unwatchable mess. Granted, I don't know what happened in between but they're just trying to cram in too many different storylines that seem to have nothing at all to connect them to one another and everyone was an unlikeable dick.

It's a soap opera. You can't miss 20 episodes and expect to pick it up right away.

This past weeks episode was fucking terrible. It was one of the worst paced and constructed episodes of TV I've ever seen.

What  a disaster.  You have all the characters doing crazy shit that defies what you know about them.  The scenes are changed so rapidly the show now comes with a seizure warning.  Then you are forced to endure what felt like 20 minutes of 2 people watching tv in a cleverly pointless flashback scene because, you know, all 58 plots need equal screen time.

I was lost at the end of the episode. 

This show.
(http://i.imgur.com/2UPTx.jpg)

So, I was feeling a lot more optimistic with the beginning of the episode... then.. that Two Sams shit happened and that terrible CG of whatthefuckever Vampire thing that told Sookie it was going to swallow her soul or some such.

it's starting to feel like a bad pen and paper RPG LARP (thank you Ingmar... wait, what the fuck are you doing reading this thread?).

I think you mean LARP.

This season has been better than any except the first and the one with Russell. Still, that's not exactly high praise.

High points:

Russell coming back.
Erik/Bill actually sort of interesting again.
Pam (in fairness, she's always a high point)
Jessica(see above)

Neutral:

Tara makes me want to slap her instead of stab her repeatedly. That's progress right? As I told my wife I think it's because Pam is just so damned awesome that she is making Tara less shitty simply by being around her.

Low points:

Still too many characters. This show really should figure out which characters it wants to focus on and do something about the rest. I'd personally narrow it down to Bill, Jessica, Erik, Pam, Sookie and Jason. Sam and Lafayette can be recurring guest stars.

I find myself actually liking vampire Tara.

Most of the show is just a mess though.

Tara needs to be staked - she is only tolerable by being Pam's bitch. And even then, not so much. Does becoming a vampire mean you dress like a retard or something?

I want someone to kill Sookie already. I've just come to hate her doe-eyed Mary-Sue-Ness. Sam is way overused, IMO, though if I get to see Luna naked I suppose that's a fair tradeoff. I like the Erik/Bill dynamic this season but fuck me, is everyone so goddamn dumb they can't see that "Lilith's blood" is just from Salome? It's not like it isn't obvious or anything. The Russell Edgington/Gay Preacher aside is fun, and there are a few things like that which make the show watchable. But I'm seriously done with at least half the storylines they put out.

I happen to like Tara, or I did before all the dumb garbage they heaped on in the last few seasons.  I think that character could be salvaged if they gave her and Pam more than 3 minutes of screentime.  Sam is great, but overused.  Sookie needs to die.  Kill Bill too at this point.  Most others need death or a return to background characters that need not be prominently featured in every episode.  95% of the vampire stuff is beyond retardation at this point.  And who gives a damn about the werewolves? 

Any of these elements could be salvaged but it would take more than a glance or two a week to develop them.  That cannot happen when you have 435390 plots.  Terrible terrible terrible.   

Most of the show is supernaturals now and it is ridiculous.  Also, Fuck Sookie.

Yes, fuck Sookie lots. And lots.

I think Bill is finally an interesting character. I haven't liked Tara since season 1. Pam is my girl. Russell is the shit. Overall, the season has been better than the last couple IMO.

This season has been a vast improvement over the last.  However I want to also reiterate what has already been mentioned we have too many characters in this show.  It really has detracted from the story telling and I also think it would be best if we saw a purge.  Mind you I think it would be nice to see characters move on instead of being simply gratuitously killed off.  I would like to see the following as PoV characters:

1.  Sookie
2.  Erik Northmen
3.  Alcide (I would actually like to see more of a ruthless werewolf horde instead of the panzies they have been so far).
4.  Bill Compton
5.  Jessica Hamby (just for the red riding hood outfit)

The rest, simply guest stars for story arcs.  Though I think killing off both Sam and Tara would be something to strongly consider since their characters have done nothing for multiple seasons.

Kind of funny considering this episode.

 

I don't know but didn't you answer your own question in the same sentence? Maybe she's dressing that way because she's now Pam's bitch? I mean she kind of dresses like Pam.

I really hope when Russel storms into the Fairy club and gorges himself, they do it to "The Fairy Fellers Master Stroke". Then he has done a lasting good and can die by oversaturation.

I can't believe no one mentioned the lack of naked sookie? I mean her banging random guy twice her size is 90% of the show  :awesome_for_real:

In all seriousness vampire Tera works out better than I'd possible imagine. Watching her deal with vampire shit and going "oh" is plenty of lolzy for me. Feels like there is magically less storylines, or maybe its the fact most of the side ones wrapped up in midseason.

Anna Paquin is pregnant.

Eric or Bill  :oh_i_see:

Bill. They are married in RL.

I know just fucking with you.