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I like to watch from Salon: Nov 3 2008
Narmed to the teeth
Blood" (9 p.m. Sundays on HBO). Admittedly, Alan Ball's kooky vampire
mystery baffled me at first. I guess I half-expected those small-town
vampires to seduce the mortals in their midst with vitriolic psychoanalysis
and ultra-witty complaints about the pretensions of art school, then adopt
scrappy, adorable foster children, indulge in illicit affairs with relative
strangers, and finally, fall down dead from scary brain infections out of
the blue. (Narm!)
Instead, Ball offered up a kitschy town full of oddballs and misfits with
seriously fake Southern accents. For someone who grew up in the South, these
exaggerated drawls couldn't be more chafing. Imagine a British guy attending
a production of "Hamlet" put on by a bunch of 8th graders in Texas, and you
get the idea. Tara (Rutina Wesley) is particularly awful at the Southern
drawl, and seriously needs to tone it down. That's the trick, see? You take
your idea of a Southern accent (hopefully not derived from watching "Gone
With the Wind" because, uh, those accents were fake, too) and then you cut
it in half. Otherwise, you sound like a space alien.
But there's something so tasty and irresistible about "True Blood." Even
when the dialogue is a little predictable, even when there are lots of
ignorant rednecks milling about, gossiping to each other (How many times
have we seen the same stereotypical Southern nosy neighbors and sugarcoated
snakes before?), even when the vampires other than Bill (Stephen Moyer)
really do seem like the scary perverts most of the townsfolk take them to
be, I'm always anxious for the next chapter in this story.
Why? Somehow I want to know how Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill fare as a
couple. He's brooding and intense, she's picky and untouchable: It's the
ultimate high-maintenance girl's fantasy of a passionate affair with a
libidinous artistic type. He's a little bit depressed and slightly creepy,
she's a little bit prudish and stubborn, plus she's a tease. They're made
for each other.
And I need to know what's going on with the creepy bartender, Sam (Sam
Trammel). He was easy to dislike even before he started sniffing dead
women's dirty sheets and dashing through the swamp naked as the day he was
born. (Didn't a character on the show actually use those words? See how this
Southern crap writes itself?) But wouldn't it be too obvious if Sam were the
killer?
Obviously it couldn't be Sookie's hapless whore of a brother, Jason (Ryan
Kwanten), either. But I did love the addition of the totally understanding,
drug-wieldin' new-age-hippie girlfriend, Amy. That character is pure Alan
Ball. She's the open-minded, affectionate, idealistic, gorgeous, utterly
perfect lover -- until she's not getting exactly what she wants, and then
she manipulates and twists the knife until she does. Amy proves once again
that Ball has a serious knack for modern archetypes. Think Lisa, Lilli
Taylor's character on "Six Feet Under," one of the most loathsome,
irritating humans ever to be depicted on the small screen. Ball drags Lisa
into Nate's life, turns him into a sniveling, soft-pedaling wuss in front of
our eyes, and then -- surprise! -- she's secretly rotten to the core. For
all of his very enlightened perspectives on life and death, Ball is clearly
a man who finds many, many people wildly distasteful -- and that makes him a
great writer.
OK, so "True Blood" isn't exactly a brilliant, layered narrative, heavy with
insights and thoughtful moments and weighty images. I almost wish Ball would
fly free of Charlaine Harris' "Sookie Stackhouse" series of novels more
often, and follow his own, seemingly less stereotypical instincts.
But I'm still hooked on this TV version of a page turner, with its quick fix
of goofy interactions, sexy vampire lovemaking and backwoods nastiness. It
may not be groundbreaking television, but I really do look forward to it
each week -- which is much more than I can say for most of the new shows to
air this fall.
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