TV Review: TRUE BLOOD 5.7 “In the Beginning”
True Blood followed up the best episode of the season with one of its craziest episodes ever. I’m still not sure whether this was a good or a terrible episode, but there’s one thing I’m sure of: "In the Beginning" was fucking nuts.
Let’s start with the Vampire Authority, who have all become a batshit crazy clan of tripping teenagers who roam the streets of N’Orleans sucking on human vagina blood and sharing hallucinations of a howling, naked, blood mist-spraying vampire goddess. (What I say? Nuts.) The scheming Vampire Bible humping lunatics drank of Lilith’s blood – or it could’ve been LSD spiked Kool-Aid for all we know – and basically went on a sick and twisted bender with Russell, Bill, Eric, Steve Newlin (hooray!) and Melty Vamp in tow. There were some laughs to be had here, mostly thanks to Russell phoning in his fake praise for Lilith and schooling the younger Vamps on how to party like a truly insane bloodthirsty Vampire motherfucker.
Funny preening Russell aside, I still can’t find a reason to care about Bill or Eric or their new Authority pals at all this season. There have been some intriguing scenes involving Salome recently, and Steve Newlin always makes me smile, but I’m nowhere near as invested as I should be in these Authority wackos, and I’m not looking forward to seeing them leading a potential war against the human race. A brewing Vampire vs. human war could be interesting, but not with these silly characters at the forefront.
Surprisingly, Sam’s story got a lot more interesting this week, and not only because he was rolling around on the ground and sniffing floor mats like a horny leg-humping bloodhound (but that was pretty damn great). As obvious and unearned as it is, I’m enjoying Sam’s slow detachment from humanity in the wake of the murder of his friends and the attempt on his and The Shiva’s life (Yes, I just realized the incredibly hot actress who plays Luna also plays Shiva on The League, but let’s just pretend I knew that all along, OK?). It’s good to see Sam accept who he is and get fired up about finding and stopping that stupid human hate group. Sam has an edge this season that’s starting to make him feel more interesting than all the other Supes on the show, and I look forward to seeing what the sad, screwed up world he lives in pushes him to do next.
Sam and Sookie had an interesting chat about life as a Supe. Sook seems set on the idea of becoming a human by blowing all her Fairy power on a pretty backyard lightshow. That’s just fine with me. Sookie is boring, and I hope she becomes human and spends the rest of the season scarfing down Mickey Ears Ice Cream Bars at Disneyland. Still, I enjoyed the conversation Sookie had with Sam about the pain and suffering that comes with being a Supe. I admire True Blood for attempting to explore the complicated dynamic between humans and supernatural beings here. Sook and Sam would probably be able to enjoy their special gifts and live happy supernatural lives if humans weren’t so angry and afraid of them. But the stupid, fearful humans probably wouldn’t be as angry and fearful if the world wasn’t full of crazy monsters parading around town hankering for a taste of their girlfriends’ vagina blood.
I’m kind of loving the pathetic True Blood hate group. They wear Obama masks! (I hope the Tea Party adopts the slogan, Hate groups aren’t just about hatin’.) It makes no sense that Hoyt has joined their ranks and is now an idiot jerk hell-bent on murdering innocent Vampers, but I’ll go with it as long as it stays funny. I guess Jessica screwed him up worse than I thought she did.
In keeping with the “Hey, Vampire-human relationships are a tricky thing, bro” theme, Jason shot Jessica in the head after their tender moment was spoiled when Jason tasted some other dude’s blood on Jessica’s mouth. Poor Jason, all he wants to do is fall in love and eat some bacon, but these go’ram sexy monsters make things so damn hard.
The Jason shoots Jessica in the head scene was pretty ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the sight of Alcide wearing bright red Jams and a giant red bandana on his forehead. Despite his ‘80s steez (because of it?) Alcide ended up making out with Wolf hottie Rikki during their cheesy training scene. Rikki encouraged Alcide to drop some Vampire blood before battling it out with the Wolf pack leader, but Alcide balked at the idea claiming that Vampire blood makes you feel all dead inside and such. His enemies in the Wolf pack had no trouble drinking up the V, and it sounds like Russell is manipulating them (Shocker!) to fight on the side of the Vampires in the potential war against humans.
Two of my favorite True Blood humans hit a low point in this episode. The Ifrit showed up to kill Terry, but it decided to laugh and fuck with him instead, which made Terry want to shoot himself (I feel ya, Terry). Jesus’ insane family tied Lafayette to a chair and sewed his lips shut with plans to drain the witchy power form his brain and feed it to a newborn baby. I’ll forgive you for tuning out during these ridiculous scenes. How about we just pretend Lafayette is hanging out with Pam and Tara and the rest of the slutty goth vamps at Fangtasia? That sounds like a lot more fun.
There was a little emotion that bled through the cracks of this nutty episode. Tara broke down after a visit from her moms, who dropped by the bar to say goodbye to her undead daughter for good. The slave master-slave dynamic between Pam and Tara is slowly evolving into a mother-daughter dynamic, which is actually pretty sweet.
As you can probably tell, I’m not taking True Blood very seriously these days, but I’m still having fun with the show. I’m looking forward to watching and writing about the rest of the season, and I hope you’ll continue to join me, even if Godric tells you it’s wrong.
