Monday, August 9, 2010

'True Blood': What would we do, baby, without us?- LATimes

"Family ties" may as well have been the theme of tonight's "True Blood," "Night on the Sun," which slowed the plot way down in favor of scenes where characters who haven't spent a lot of time together this season got to check in with each other, while other connections were forged and broken. It was also quite a come-down after the last two blisteringly paced episodes, though I suppose that sort of thing is inevitable. I just wish that the whole episode hadn't been a long journey to a place we already knew we were going back to and that it hadn't undid one of its most interesting plot developments within the same exact episode. It makes it seem like the writers don't have a great deal of confidence in their characters to sustain interest, outside of the way we first came to know them.

Here's what I'm complaining about, less obliquely: In the first scene of the episode, Sookie breaks it off with Bill. Then, in the last scene, the two are back together again and having ravenous sex. I suspect that this is a part of a general motif in the episode, of people going back to things they should know are wrong for them, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating to have the show dangle a potentially interesting storyline -- let's see what Sookie and Bill are like apart, instead of together -- then take it away from us within the same episode. Anyone who's ever watched TV ever is going to know that these two are going to end up back together again by the end of the series. It's just the way the medium works. But along the way, we should get some interesting stories of what they're like both separate and apart. This episode is frustrating in that regard, though, again, it seems possible that this is all set-up for a more permanent break-up down the road.

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