As I firmly believe that when it comes to True Blood episode recaps I am basically the Internet’s version of Ernest Hemingway, there is one person’s opinion that I value almost as much as my own. That person is Parks and Recreation star and Joe Manganiello Fan Club Empress Retta, and as soon as Alcide Herveaux met his maker in the closing minutes of last week’s episode, I knew her reaction was going to be priceless. The only problem with Retta’s TV viewing habits, though, is that she’s usually late to the party, so I was almost as upset that she waited until Wednesday to watch as I was about Alcide being killed off in the laziest, bullshittiest way imaginable.
But then Retta finally came through with her Twitter recap, and she reaffirmed my belief that she’d be the best person in the world to watch TV with. Especially since she’s friends with Manganiello, and maybe he’d come over and tell me that Sofia Vergara told him that Sarah Hyland won’t stop asking about me. Damn, that girl needs to give it a rest already. As for Retta’s wonderful commentary…
You and us both, Retta. Let’s not get our hopes up too much, because this week’s True Blood episode, “Death is Not the End,” or “The One Where They Kick Eric Northman in the Balls” as I’m calling it, wasn’t much better. It had one or two moments, but the rest is just the delay of the inevitable letdown.
True or False: First thing’s first, the guy in the t-shirt is the best vampire in series history.
I want a spinoff about him before he became infected with Hep-V, and it should be called Vampire Bro and feature a talking bat named T-Bone.
True or False: A Stackhouse is the last person you’d want to call you to tell you that your mom or son died.
In the wake of the trap on the rural road and the shootout in the woods, during which two hicks who have never touched guns in their lives were able to fire off two rounds through fog and bushes and perfectly strike a massive, hulking werewolf in the heart and head to kill him, there were some other meaningless people who died. One of them was Maxine Fortenberry, the wiseass old lady who had her heart hilariously ripped out by Violet when she threatened Jason Stackhouse. We haven’t heard from Maxine’s son, Hoyt Fortenberry, since Season 4 (I think?) but Jason had to call him to fill him in on her death. Meanwhile, Sookie had to call Jackson Herveaux to let him know that Alcide is dead. They also informed some other people, and it really worried me that the whole episode was going to be one long pathetic mourning for one character that got a raw deal and some others that were pointless.
But don’t worry, everyone – there was some other terrible crap mixed in!
True or False: Dude, Eric Northman is a humongous dickhead.
Damn, we knew that Eric Northman was a cold-blooded killer when he wasn’t being a suave pimp of the night vampire, but infecting the hot flight attendant with Hep-V and just giving her the nonchalant news like one of those awful AIDS urban legends that we heard when we were younger? That is just so wrong. But that’s Eric, yo.
True or False: Meanwhile, Pam is the absolute best.
She didn’t have just one Line of the Night winner with this:
But she also killed with this line:
True or False: It’s simply impossible for this show to tell a straight-forward story.
Holy crap. So it took two episodes to get us to Eric, and three to get us to Sarah Newlin, whom he wants to brutally murder for infecting Nora with Hep-V, and now he’s still being punished by the Authority? I spent most of this episode wondering what the f*ck the point of the video store in Shreveport was, other than to let Pam remind everyone how most people feel about Shreveport, and for once I’m giving credit to the writers for tying it all together to make a point in the end. That was pretty decent, I admit; however, they shouldn’t go popping any bottles just yet.
There’s very little left to care about on this show, which is why so many people are struggling to remain on board through these final seven episodes of this 10-episode final season. Eric’s relationship with Pam is one of the things that we (or I) still care about, and watching them waste 10 minutes of an episode in a video store as punishment, when they could be out fighting the diseased vampires, searching for a cure for Hep-V and/or fighting back against the Authority, pharmaceutical company and Yakuza, just plain sucks. That is, until it comes full circle and it kind of makes sense, but even then they are wasting way too much time.
True or False: Twizzler is always better than Red Vine.
This is never up for debate.
True or False: Sam needs to treat that Bronco better.
The main thing that made me throw my hands up in the air for this episode was the revelation that the diseased vampires have been holding Nicole and Arlene in the basement of Fangtasia, because nobody in Bon Temps ever thought to look there. And when Sam finally learned where Nicole was, he had a hissy fit and believed that Jason would actually shoot him in the head to stop him from going there in the daytime. Why didn’t Sam go straight there and pull the rat act as surveillance? Because that would be the smart thing to do, and nobody in Bon Temps is ever smart.
But the way Sam was driving that classic Bronco of his was downright criminal. That car is a piece of art and deserves to be treated as such. Also, if the producers of True Blood would like to give me that Bronco, I would be willing to write the most glowing tributes to each episode of this final season. Give me a call.
True or False: Jessica needs an intervention… a lovelife intervention, am I right?
Oh my God, you guys, would Lafayette and Bam Margera just get a room already? At this point, ten bucks says Hoyt comes back to Bon Temps to bury his mom and he ends up with Jessica. And even that is stupid, but it’s better than this awful story about her barely relevant emo boyfriend being torn between her and Lafayette. They should have just made him a vampire in love with Lafayette and it all would have worked out so much better.
True or False: This whole time, all I’ve been thinking is, “We sure could use a refresher course on how Fangtasia was started.”
Again, the video store and the flashback to 1996 did nothing but annoy me more than usual, because I was counting every minute that went by without any action or progression of the story. By the 31-minute mark of “Death is Not the End,” I had a grade of F- written down because nothing happened, and this flashback with Ginger made so little sense. But again, it taught us something that was moderately important to the climax (which didn’t need two set-up scenes, but we’ll get to that shortly).
True or False: At least the show’s writers understand how stupid it is to keep saying this is war.
“This is our Normandy!” Goddammit Jason Stackhouse, you are as dumb as you are handsome.
True or False: 44 minutes of this show passed before they told an interesting story.
And it was a brief recap of Eric’s adventure after he burned up in Sweden. Listening to Eric describe his world travels made me so hilariously mad. THAT WAS THE SH*T THAT WE WANTED TO SEE!!! Give me a two-hour movie of Eric creating an avalanche that kills an entire town. Show him traveling from continent to continent having hilarious, sexy and deadly adventures. Any of that sounds better than watching Sookie mope as she pretends that she’s upset that Alcide died right after she admitted to Bill that she didn’t really love him. I really feel like we were all robbed of what should have been at least the first episode.
True or False: FINALLY, some real action… and Arlene’s horrible death scene lasted longer.
Would it kill the producers and writers of this show to have one fight scene that looks believable in terms of violence? Bring in one fighting expert and have him teach Stephen Moyer and the diseased vampire with the terrible British accent how to have an all out brawl for, like, four minutes. Is that impossible? Of course it is.
Obviously, Arlene is not dead. She was, however, hanging on for dear life, and the ghost of Terry Bellefleur was inviting her over to the other side. I laughed so hard at that scene, because it reminded me of the South Park episode, when the shop teacher’s wife died in the hilarious plane crash. But Arlene’s crying and calling out for Terry did last longer than the action in and outside of Fangtasia, which is stupid, because it was a threeway battle between the diseased vampires, idiot humans and Bill’s crew of hero vampires, who rescued Nicole, Arlene and that other lady with the distractingly huge breasts* because – trumpets! – Eric and Pam took them in the secret back entrance that only we knew about thanks to the video store side story and flashback.
As much as we’ve grown to despise Vincent and his gang of moron humans, his death was not as awesome as I had hoped it would be. I was also surprised that he died this quickly, but I’m content with it, because it sort of made up for the drawn out non-drama of the first 50 minutes of this episode. Then came the moment that turned this episode from an F- to a B+.
True or False: Sometimes five seconds of hilarity can make up for 55 minutes of crap.
Even though we kind of felt bad for Kevin’s wife after Jason and Sam informed her that he was eaten by vampires, she was still a C-word to Sam because he’s a shapeshifter. That’s made it so fantastic when Pam and Willa were calling out for Eric after the battle was over, only to find him feeding on Kevin’s wife’s dead corpse in the back of the minivan. I laughed hard at that. Very well done.
On the Next Episode of True Blood
The logical next step would be the hero vampires going after the pharmaceutical company for, you know, creating the Hep-V strain and infecting so many vampires, or at least enough that entire towns were wiped out. Instead, someone’s having a party, while Eric and Pam are still going after Sarah Newlin. Since I’m an imaginary betting man, I’m still throwing down a cool, shiny nickel that Sarah knows where the cure for Hep-V is, and Eric will team up with her to get it. As for Bill, Sookie and everyone else, if we end up getting six episodes of wrapping up character stories with Alcide’s funeral and rebuilding the town… I’m gonna be so pissed.
Also, Jessica walks in on Lafayette and Bam Margera at some point, and they could have done that in the first episode and saved so much time, but why do something that makes sense?
*This lady…
