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14 Suggestions for the New Season of True Blood

Eight months is a long time to wait for a fix of Southern Gothic exsanguinations. Especially after a sputtering end to a deliciously campy, promiscuously metamorphical season. Even longer when the bloodletter in question is a 1,000-year-old Nordic ice king with a deadpan delivery as cadaverous as his heart. With the third season of True Blood starting Sunday, our minds have fixed on what we’d like to see more (Eric) and less (Bill) of from Alan Ball’s backwater bayou theater. By the looks of the previews — werewolves, death wishes, and revenge sex, oh yes! — things are headed in the right direction. But it’s about time the show lives up to its William Eggleston–meets–Trent Reznor opening credits.

Enough with the wish-fulfillment-dream sequences. We want to know what happens when Sookie and Eric give in and devour each other. Half the appeal of the Viking vampire sheriff of Shreveport is his aloofness. It’s hard to imagine him breaking a sweat, much less cuddling afterward. Sure, you could chalk up the source of their heat to that whole Eric-tricking-Sookie-into-drinking-his-blood business (which gives him access to her thoughts). But even before she slurped shards of silver out of his chest, they relished insulting each other a little too much — and we want to see where the show takes it. If the preview of her jumping him (in Gran’s bed?! Bad Sookie!) is yet another nocturnal fantasy, we give up.
It seems oddly prudish for True Blood to deny its most unabashedly sexual character an actual love interest. We’ve seen Lafayette Reynolds throw on a gold thong to seduce a web cam and dance provocatively with an armchair (a celebratory humping, high off a hit of Eric’s blood), so why not give some deserving fellow a chance to benefit from all that pent-up lust? Bon Temps’ hardest-working resident (short-order cook, V-dealer, construction worker — and “still no health insurance”) is also one of its most charming. Keep him celibate any longer and we’re going to start to feel like it’s an indictment of his otherness. On the other hand, where in this swamp pit would Lafayette find a worthy plaything?
After Buffy and Spike brought down an abandoned building with the force of their sexual tornado, it was hard to muster much feeling for goody-two-shoes Angel. And so it is with Bill Compton, who plays the lifeless moralizer in this particular love triangle. When Sookie was a virginal telepath trying to shut out the voices in her head, Bill Compton’s impenetrable skull and Confederate-era manners were the perfect high-romantic counterpoint. A dilapidated mansion? Swoon! But we’re bored with the dynamic — Sookie does something risky, Bill scolds her and tries to fix it. (To be fair, sometimes he fixes it first and scolds her after.) Besides, Sookie’s gotten pretty good at saving herself. Obviously no one’s offing Bill, no matter how nice we ask. But once he escapes his kidnappers, we hope Bill starts channeling his freshly fanged self — you know, before he developed a conscience.
Like Brittany in Glee, Jason Stackhouse’s bimbo one-liners are sometimes the only relief from the surrounding ridiculousness. Ryan Kwanten (the Aussie who plays Sookie’s good-hearted but hapless brother) manages to utter them convincingly, often while topless, and still not turn his character into a joke. Jason’s take on the fundy preacher who brainwashed him into signing up for spiritual war against vampires? “That sonuvabitch. It’s like he sucked out my brain and planted all his own babies there.” But our favorite Jasonism might be from the finale: “If a tree falls in the forest, it’s still a tree, right?” More, please.
We didn’t blame Sookie’s cousin for offering up her femoral artery to the vampire queen for dessert. Looks-wise (fifties bathing suit, Lolita shades), Evan Rachel Wood couldn’t have been better as spoiled royal Sophie-Anne Leclerq. Only problem was EWR played her with all the emotional range of a wooden stake. We suspect that the producers will cast Tony-award-winning character actor Denis O’Hare as the vamp king of Mississippi as a peace offering to disappointed fans.
Sure he can morph into a dog, but Merlotte’s shape-shifting owner hasn’t tapped into his animal nature. For a man that inspires patrons to want to “wear his jeans like a scrunchie,” his romantic overtures and heroic efforts seem to go unappreciated. Last season he found a kindred spirit in sometimes-pig, sometimes-waitress Daphne, but it turned out she was another of Maryann’s minions. Now that Sam’s off searching for the biological family that abandoned him, we hope he drops the woe-is-me act and accesses some of that animal aggression.
When Maryann first came to Bon Temps with her limitless supply of tropical fruit and tuning-fork-vibration dance, setting the town’s boots a-knockin’, we were psyched. “Cool, backyard orgies,” we said to ourselves. But after about the 90th one, it became less titillating and more like a set piece. “Oh look,” we remarked to our couch, “another backyard orgy.” We’re all for unbridled fornication. But something about the dead, black zombie eyes and lack of emotional build-up sucked the fun out of it. Maybe we’re being puritanical, but the nudity felt unearned. For more of what we were looking for, please see slide one.
What is it about that Mountain Dew slingin’ girl from Merlotte’s? The off-brand white Keds? The round derriere? Word of her tastiness having traveled as far as the vampire queen’s palace? (“Have you tasted her?” Sophie inquires of Eric, over a game of Yahtzee in the solarium.) In addition to reading minds, last season’s climax revealed that our girl Sook can now also flash white lightbulbs from her fingertips. And Maryann the Maenad has “never felt anything like it.” Not even in swinging Ancient Greece? With a pack of hungry werewolves on the loose, yet another species is bound to come under Sookie’s thrall. Will someone clue us in about her supernatural appeal?
Anyone who can make blood tears drip from Eric’s dead eyes (picture a watery emission from the ketchup bottle) piques our interest. When Sookie told Eric it seemed like he had “real love” for his maker Godric, Eric told her not to use words he didn’t understand. But Godric’s the only figure that Eric seems loyal toward or vulnerable around. We’re curious about what Zen magic the tattooed sheriff of Area 9 used to get beyond the need for human blood. (Um, isn’t that Vampire Rule One?). Too bad Godric self-immolated on the roof of the Undead Marriott. Luckily, Alan Ball hinted (click and ye shall spoil) that we might not have to wait long for the backstory.
The metaphor that True Blood goes to most consistently: vampires as stand-ins for the gay community (which explains pitting the hateful, fundamentalist Fellowship of the Sun as their political enemy). We know this show is the last place we should be looking for moderation. But by the end of last season, it seemed like the vamps posed an actual threat to society — murder, drug trade, fangbanging sex slaves. (Vampires as a metaphor for addiction!) It might complicate things nicely to hear about what that means from someone that’s not as broadly painted as the bigoted Reverend Newlin and his frisky blonde trophy wife.
Can we get a little more gender equality in casting? For every dependable (Stephen Root as Eddie) or surprising (Allan Hyde as Godric) male supporting actor, we get mediocre, hovering just-below-B-list-ers like Daphne and Lorena. They’re attractive and they’re trying their best, but it makes us feel like we’re watching the SyFy channel.
Oh gawd, y’all, those ackh-sens! They need to get better once we arrive at the Mississippi biker bar to meet the wolf pack. Sookie Mae’s a lost cause, but God save the Delta weres! Alan Ball’s originally from Georgia; hopefully he’s gotten enough flack for his portrayal of Southerners to spring for a dialect coach.
By our estimates, the entire special-effects budget for last season’s Maryann subplot consisted of the following: the production costs for that sped-up vibration effect, a bull headpiece, the price for hand-molding a cloven hoof over an oven mitt, and whatever a bulk load of black contact lenses runs you these days. From what we hear, once they’re fully transformed, the weres will be played by actual wolves (yikes!). But this doesn’t mean the end of special effects one price point above Teen Wolf.
Life hasn’t handed Tara Thorton any breaks. Her mother’s an alcoholic, her boyfriend’s a murderer, her mentor’s a Maenad, and she can’t seem to find an off switch on her self-destruct button. This makes for visceral, if painful, television. But somewhere between playing fight club with Eggs (after unknowingly eating heart stew) and getting handcuffed by her family members, we started to feel really awful. With a dark drifter coming to town in season three, the countdown’s already begun on another bad decision. We’re not asking for comic relief — just let Tara have a little fun on her way to rock bottom.
14 Suggestions for the New Season of True Blood