True Blood Sucker Punch: Episode 4 by Mark Blankenship

From Huffington Post
** Mark will be on Talk Blood radio with us next Sunday!

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week's episode of True Blood.

I'd probably have guessed that series creator Alan Ball wrote this installment, "Shake and Fingerpop," even if I hadn't seen his name in the credits. Like American Beauty and many episodes of Six Feet Under, it unites multiple plot lines with a single theme.

In this case, the theme is "unexpected vulnerability." Almost all the major characters are weakened in some way, which creates a queasily exciting energy: We can sense a bomb's about to drop, but we can't quite tell where it's going to fall.

It makes sense for everyone to be vulnerable, of course, since we're entering the second quarter of the season. The first three episodes defined this year's major arc -- Maryann is powerful, there's a beast ripping out hearts, etc. -- and the next three will probably prepare everyone for the climactic conflicts in episodes six through twelve.

In other words... now that we know something crazy's going on, we need to understand that the Bon Tempians are susceptible to it.

Read on