'True Blood' - 'You Smell Like Dinner': The naked time
Eric takes on the witches in the season's second episode
Fiona Shaw on "True Blood."
Credit: HBO
Once again, y'all should know the drill by now with "True Blood," where I provide these short posts for everybody who wants to discuss the episode immediately after it's over, rather than waiting for Leslie Gornstein's recap to show up at our Monkeys as Critics blog within a few hours (or for people who prefer to keep all their HitFix TV discussion in one place).
What did everybody think of it?
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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Login or create a HitFix account Login Signupchris_littmann
July 3, 2011 at 10:22PM EST Reply to CommentMy only comment on your very last point of the night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trtfyNvS30I
"Shivakamini Somakandarkram!"
webdiva Clearly, weres are a *lot* more casual about nudity than the rest of us. It's not that I was startled, given that the books prepared me, or that it bothered me -- but really: Too Much Information without actually adding anything to the scenes, y'all. Alan Ball ODs on the naked. He should just quit cold turkey for a while and see how that works cratively (it may force the writers to think harder about dialog, which would be an improvement).
July 4, 2011 at 4:06AM ESTwebdiva Sorry sorry sorry: should be 'creatively.' Damn typos ...
July 4, 2011 at 4:27AM ESTxbrooklyngrrl
July 3, 2011 at 11:26PM EST Reply to CommentI keep swearing off this show, and keep watching it. is it my tv crack habit? have I been glamored? This is the most gleefully demented show on tv, which explains it some, and the main characters -- almsot all of them -- are great. In fact, this season could be a terrific premise, drop Sookie into Bon Tomps a year later. Bon Temps Place: the perfect vampire soap, I don't need any more gods, or demons, fairies or witches. Jessica and Hoyt's honeymoon hell, Tara's Sapphic awakening, Bill the vampire king, Arelen's demon baby, anything with lafayette and Sam's new crowd, it's juicy enough.
The Jason/Andy mess is crap. And Sookie is even more of a void, she's just wallpaper.
webdiva To be fair to Sookie, she's just been dropped back into her life after a year's absence; it takes a while to catch up. I wouldn't exactly call her wallpaper, but this storyline, too, has been drastically altered from the original, wherein Sookie not only didn't lose her house, she had used her position to negotiate compensation from Eric in exchange for her services, and she drove a hard bargain, like an equal -- and that compensation paid for a remodeling job of *her* choice and a new driveway. In the show, she has almost none of that leverage and almost no opportunity to negotiate appropriate compensation. Ball has seen fit to virtually neuter her and make her unable to make herself be treated as an equal. That''s all *his* fault. Put the blame where it belongs. It ain't the character's fault.
July 4, 2011 at 4:22AM ESTxbrooklyngrrl Reply to comment...
July 4, 2011 at 12:14PM ESTxbrooklyngrrl @WEBD I couldn't agree more; Sookie's not to blame, it's lousy scripting and plotting, it's Ball squandering some great characters and potential conflicts, you're right, he telescopes too much of the action. The women have always been poorly drawn; Sookie too often floats through, Tara the angry, Arlene shrieking. Pam is the only one who looks awesome and has a sharp tongue and great lines. I haven't read the books, so I see this for what Ball is showing me, and I keep watching, but nonsense like jason and the panther story is the kind of hot mess that Ball creates that just pulls you out of the core human (and vamp) stories. I fully blame Ball for taking a great concept and mismanaging the elements.
July 4, 2011 at 12:21PM ESTCarrie Well, the Jason panther story is in the books but it comes about in a bit of a different manner, and plays a lot better (at least so far). I really think the only thing Ball has gotten right from the books is Eric, most of the time.
July 5, 2011 at 12:59PM ESTChrissy
July 4, 2011 at 1:51AM EST Reply to CommentThe only part of the show that I 100% don't want any more of is Jason and the Hot Shotters. It's too stupid. I like Jason, and I really enjoyed his plot line with the church group, so I know it's not just the character. I can't watch a story line that revolves around a character being so in love with Crystal that he would put up with everything Jason is putting up with.
Also, making him supernatural too is a misstep. We need some humans to care about. Right now it's pretty much down to Terry and Hoyt, and Terry is a pretty minor character.
I did like Sam's flirtation with Shiva (from The League; didn't catch the character's name here). It felt normal, relative to everything else going on, and I like that it wasn't all about animal attraction and sniffing one another.
webdiva To be fair, they've really dumbed-down the werepanthers storyline. It made far more sense in the books, but it also took more time to play out. It's almost like Alan Ball is the polar opposite in True Blood of David Simon: Simon really knows how to work those lo-o-o-o-ong story arcs, and Ball doesn't bother -- he just telescopes the action forward and concentrates it into a much shorter period of time. Which doesn't always work that well. It's obviously *not* working well re: the panther people. Maybe Ball should take a clue from Simon and lay much better groundwork first if he's gonna condense the action that much.
July 4, 2011 at 4:15AM ESTAs fpr Terry, he's not that minor anymore. remember, he was so traumatized that he barely spoke at all the first season.
Michelle Schultz I agree 100% Webdiva. I like the books better but not for lack of trying. I really want to like the show but it seems like he doesn't care what makes sense, it's like he's trying to tell completely different stories. I can understand straying from it a bit but why even base it on the books if you're not going to include the critical points?
July 8, 2011 at 12:15AM ESTJoanne Bates
July 4, 2011 at 4:33AM EST Reply to CommentFiona Shaw is great as a foil to the vamps. Cant wait to see where it goes! At present the character is human, but not weak. I agree that there need to be human characters to care about. The vamps not only feed on humans but the emotions as well, rarely getting put in check except by each other. Sookie's chastising is not enough, and kind of old. It's nice to see a challenge to them other than Tara, who def put up a great fight or two. This show is interesting because the vamps and such are a part and not all of it. Sookie could grow a pair.
Guest
July 4, 2011 at 10:53AM EST Reply to CommentFor all your harsh language about spoilers what's with all the plot summary before the jump?
Victorycurtis I went back to read Alan's very brief recap just to make sure. There were no spoilers there. This thread is for those who have already watched the current show (you know, the one that came on last night). When Alan scolds about spoilers, he's talking about episodes or events to come not events that have already passed.
July 4, 2011 at 11:46AM ESTNate
July 4, 2011 at 1:07PM EST Reply to CommentVictoryCurtis - I think what Guest is talking about is the fact that this entire post also appeared on Alan's main page. Of course this article is for people who've watched the episode, but I'm sure there are plenty who browse Alan's blog that haven't seen last nights ep yet and thus wouldn't click on this post. This looks like a slip up from how Alan usually operates and hopefully it will be corrected.
sepinwall Guys, what I wrote about was incredibly vague, less specific even than what might appear in the episode description on your DVR, and is the sort of thing I've written before the jump nearly every week I've done one of these posts.
July 5, 2011 at 3:38PM ESTSanitized for your protection.
done with this show
July 4, 2011 at 6:17PM EST Reply to CommentAs soon as I heard that Alan was doing this adaptation I was worried. Sure he claimed he loved the books, they were perfect and he was going to stay 'true' to them. But look at what he's done so far with other shows. None of it fit the quirkly dark humor of the books. That's more the style of someone like Bryan Fuller (hell I heard George when I read the books). Alan is more of Anita Blake with the sex, sex and more sex.
I wanted to give Alan a chance to live up to his word. Alas I can't do it anymore. His antics with the show have proven to me that he had and has no intention of doing the books in a respectful way. He's basically doing Anita Blake with Sookie et al's name on it. At least in terms of the horn dog antics.
John Doe It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that you were referring to Alan Ball, creator of the series (which I didn't know until I hit up IMDB just now) and not our favorite TV columnist, Alan Sepinwall.
July 6, 2011 at 4:47PM ESTKathleen
July 9, 2011 at 8:03PM EST Reply to CommentSomeone may have covered this question previously but I am confused about the baby-murderer subplot. She (Arlene) already had two other children by the psycho before this one right? So A. Why have we not heard anything about her two other kids and B. Why isn't she freaking out about them being psychopathic murderers? I know not to expect amazing cohesive plots from this show but this seems like a gaping hole.
I don't normally comment so I may be wrong but I don't think this breaks the spoiler rule right since it is first season stuff??