Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Season 4 Premiere: Witches, Vamps, and Fairies…?

True Blood Season 4, Episode 1 Recap

Finally! True Blood is here. And I know I’m late but I just got back from New York, and I’m not wasting any time digging into the first episode.

I love this show. It’s my dirty little secret that I’m way too uncomfortably to watch in the presence of polite society. But, damn it, I’m here, I’m addicted to vampire-fare, and I’m not going anywhere!  

Blogging while I watch, of course.

Season 4, Ep. 1:



Ah, hello terrible True Blood green screen. How I’ve missed you these past few months. The show opens with Sook-eh, looking just as lost and juvenile as ever in one of her stock dresses. Seriously, is this Doug? Does she have a closet full of identical baby-doll frocks?

Sookie appears to be trapped in one of those cheesy, hazy, dream sequences from 1995. I think she’s dreaming of “The 10th Kingdom”. But really, it’s not a dream because, who the hell would dream about Larry the bellboy. She’s in some gold-leafed fairy land; Larry is apparently a fairy, with his own sexy “godmother” to boot, and everyone in fairyland seems to be stuffing their faces with strange fruit. Oh, and her “granddaddy” who disappeared 20 years ago to abandon his other kin: Ricky Bobby and Sarah in Chuck, is there too but thinks he’s only been gone for a few hours.

I just don’t get it! It doesn’t matter how many throngs of viewers this show gains, HBO just wont increase the CGI budget.

Well, guess what people? Turns out it’s a trap. The queen of fairies, Maab, is apparently forcing everyone to eat the “light fruit” to blind them from the fact that they’re really all troll people, trying to feed off of their “light”. Sookie’s granddaddy, the best damn transient father ever, grabs her and burst out of that CG nightmare through some vortex before promptly dying in the real world. No one who eats the “light fruit” can survive in the real world.

But Sookie isn’t in the real world. The moment she walks back into her house, I realize that with all the werewolf and vampire mischief that has befallen her, poor Sookie has forgotten to pay her mortgage. Workers seem to be packing up her things and the police are there, probably to evict her.  

The police is really just Jason, who explains to her that she’s been gone for a year, and he’s sold her house. Everyone searched diligently; “We even made a website”. Even though she was only in fairyland for 2 minutes, all of Bon Temps was convinced she’d been dead/kidnapped for 12 months.

Beeel and Eric Northman arrive to commence this season’s penis measuring contest, right there on her front porch. “I was worried about Sook-eh more.” “No, I was more worried.”

Holy Mohawk! Forget those three; Lafayette is on the screen! Yes, I am wearing my “Team Lafayette” T-shirt. Love, love, love him and everything he does. Let the fabulous Lafayette quotes begin. “It smells like where old air fresheners go to die.”

Lafayette and his main squeeze, Jesus, go on a date to see the most powerful witch in the area. The old witch seems instinctively drawn to Lafayette, who, as I learned from season 3, is a natural mystic. Honestly, this is the most disturbing scene I’ve seen on this show in awhile. Kudos to the director here. I am never accepting roses from old women. Ever!

This is where I need to cut the lights on.

They cut to Arlene and her new demon spawn (The now toddler child of Renee), who is recreating a particularly disturbing scene from Toy Story. “Decapitating baby dolls, what the hell kinda baby does that?” “Boys,” Terry says, “Regular curious boys.”

Cut to New Orleans, to find that Tara has finally found a way to work off all that nasty aggression: cage fighting—and she’s good at it. Thank the Lord they’ve done something with her hair! Cage-fighting, freshly relaxed Tara is kinda hot! Work that up-do, girl!

As much as I love Tara and her new weave, my favorite dysfunctional couple: Hoyt and Jessica, are having typical couple’s troubles. Jessica, I know you’re an undead blood-sucker and all, but would it kill you to make your human boyfriend an omelet once in awhile? The boy is hungry enough to eat a dozen raw eggs in one take!

It’s a post Russell Edgington world, and the Vampire League is working overtime to boost their rating in the polls since Russell performed open heart surgery on the six o’clock news. Pam is dressed spectacularly prim and looking exceedingly bored as the head of the vampire league tries to drain a human-friendly PR announcement out of her.

Less impotently, Andy Belleflour is now a V-addict, Sam’s a member of Shape-shifters anonymous, and Hoyt’s mom is conscious enough about her weight to be ordering Spenda.

More importantly, Lafayette joins the creepy old lady and her band of witches. One of those witches, Miss Bellum, is actually a spy working for the new King of Louisiana: Bill freaking Compton—which explains why Eric was taking orders from Bill during their penis measuring contest.

Eric, as sexy as he is, is still failing miserably at conveying some semblance of sexual chemistry with Sookie. I mean, he’s really pulling out all the stops: he wears those tight black shirts, he bought her house… Yes, Eric’s the mystery buyer and his reasoning is that nothing turns a female on like a deed in lieu. “I knew that if I owned the house, I would own you.” Makes perfect sense. Whatever you say Viking. Not even True Blood’s signature male grounding out the line, “Sook-eh. You. Are. Mine,” with fangs could thrill me this time.

If they’re going to sell Sookie and Eric this season (which shouldn’t be hard since most people, including myself, are Team Eric) they’re going to have to seriously work on their chemistry 101.

What did you think of the season premiere?

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