TV Review: True Blood 5.8, "Somebody That I Used To Know"
By the way, when Russell Edgington and Steve Newlin inevitably get their own spin-off series, I’m totally going to watch the crap out of it.
rating: 3.5
Somebody That I Used to Know treaded a lot more water than Id like to see with only four episodes remaining in the season, but it wasnt entirely without its charms. Bill totally lets himself be bullied, Alcides fights and fucks, Sam and Luna have the weirdest cute moment together, Tara inches closer to the misanthropic side, Hoyt finds the one brain cell he has left, Arlene drags poor Lafayette into Terrys mess, and Sookie sees dead people. In the transition from Bill to Eric as vampire protagonist, last episode definitely focused on Eric whereas this episode looked more closely at Bills motivations. Over the course of the series Eric has progressed from the shallow archetype of the mysterious bad boy to a more refined amoral loner, pledging allegiance to nothing but his own personal code. Bill has always been cast in the more human and heroic lights and deservedly so for even when his motives were questionable theyre ultimately revealed to be in the service of the good. But more and more recently the characters ages have been showing. Im curious to know how True Blood compares to the countless other depictions of immortals in regards to their temperaments, personalities, and ethics, but apparently in this case the older one is the more reluctant he or she is to affect a facade. Eric continues to serve as the unflinching beacon of integrity (except for when hes tripping harder than a hippie in bad sandals), confronting Bill after he experiences that moment of clarity when one realizes, Oh shit, Im super high right now, and showing enormous restraint as I was sure he would decapitate anyone else besides Nora whom would utter the words, Fuck Godrick, to Eric. Bill on the other hand is still a relatively young vampire, one who may still be manipulated into new identities just as he was by Lorena and again by Sookie. Where Eric failed to recruit his former comrades on to the not-so-sadistic train, Bill excelled in, well, what? Survival? Deception? Or as he put it, evolution? Considering Bills penchant for playing politics, Id like to wager that his drinking of an unwilling young mother was just part of a long con, but at what point do you go from feigning behavior for survival to simply selling out? Bills flashback to 1910 Baton Rouge where he refused his dying adult daughters plea to, make like , was originally perceived to be illustrative that Bill respects the sanctity of humanity even in the face of death and disease, but perhaps this was instead meant to be seen as the straw that broke the camels back. After nearly four years with this character Id be more excited to see Bill embrace a new change rather than playing both sides until eventually revealing himself as fighting the good fight as he did in seasons three and four. This still may be the case, but Bills brilliant and devious plan to bomb the TruBlood factories of the world make it hard to imagine. Where Bill caved in from resisting feeding on a human, Alcide was ever the Hemingwayesque picture of honorable machismo by officially forfeiting the vaguely WWE tinged bout for heavyweight champion of the Shreveport Wolfpack, but nevertheless fighting the V using JD to save a young track star from being hunted. This was a pretty badass fight and even though Alcide ended up getting a can of whoop-ass opened on him (I love late 90s American pro wrestling vernacular, dont you?), the young athletes life was apparently spared as was Alcides thanks to Emmas grandmother, Martha. Speaking of True Bloods cutest pup, remember when JD gave a vial of V to Emma? (I know you do because the show made a point to remind you during the previous episode recap.) Well, despite the recap this was again not touched on. Im sure well see the consequences of this eventually, but I wonder what a child werewolf on V will look like? My hope is that shell use the V and become exponentially strong ala Gohan of Dragon Ball Z and defeat JD both physically and politically as hell be exposed not only as a V addict but someone who pushes it on kids. Itll probably just be the latter, not the former, but how awesome would it be to see a tiny ten year old girl toss around a grizzled patriarch the way the Hulk did to Loki in Joss Whedons The Avengers? Anyway, Im still not seeing how this wolf plot will tie together with the seasonal arc of the supe civil war, but I have to say that it was pretty darn adorable to see how Alcide and his new girl, Rikki (thanks, Wikipedia), went from vigorous wolf sex to tender puppy love after they officially started going steady during the act. The less adorable and sexy but way weirder couple moment of the night belongs to Sam and Luna as the pair had to deal with Luna uncontrollably shifting into Sam and then dealing with the painful consequences like Sam holding himself in his own arms and lovingly stroking his own hair. All kidding aside I have to commend Sam Trammell for his skillful acting in playing his characters girlfriend wearing his face. Unfortunately though this is all that came of this story in Somebody and if there isnt some significant resulting consequence then it was really just killing time, a huge misstep for any plot, especially one that saw Sam finally gaining some traction as the vengeful detective. On the other hand, Sams cobra interrogation was quite refreshing to see. Seeing him and Luna meet up with the stranded Jessica was also a relief as the seasons plots appear to finally be coalescing a bit. Too often True Blood gets caught up in its own drama and forgets to have fun with the world of supernatural beings in which it takes place. Another really fun moment was seeing Pam take off her fabulous Im the Boss corset and put on her even more fabulous My mad face and happy face look the same corset to deliver to Tara the uber-bitch from her high school whom made the brilliant decision to mouth off to a vampire in Fangtasia. Who wouldnt want to lay the smack down on that out of line customer even if it costs you your manager job at that fast food chain (not that anything like that ever happened to me...*ahem!*) Last episode I complained how despite the Tara and Pam story being enjoyable and done well, I was getting kind of bored with it and hoped it would pick up some steam and as satisfying as this episode was for these characters, it felt a bit like treading water. Whats worse, treading water or being painfully predictive? Like we all saw coming, Hoyts new anti-supe hate-group buddies somehow captured Jessica and served her to Hoyt for some truly intolerable, adolescent grade school bullshit vengeance. Seriously, how did they do that? I know Jess is young but you cant have her taking out werewolves in season three and walking down a street in black leather firing a bazooka in season four then have her getting her ass kicked by a younger vamp, getting shot in the head by a human, and then kidnapped by a bunch of hillbillies in season five, its just too humiliating. Even less logical has been Hoyt this season. Not that I believe anyone from HBO is reading this, but on the off chance they are -- find the writer that pitched this plot and promptly kick him or her in the crotch because this is just that dumb. This is worse than were-panther rape, witches, and faerie civil war all rolled into one terrible, migraine inducing pile of shit. If youre gonna make a fan favorite character, the penultimate nice guy, go from pissed off to heartbroken to borderline homicidal, then you damn sure better earn it. At least there appears to be some resolution gaining traction with the televised abortion that is the Terry and Patrick run from an Ifrit plot. And the hilarious cherry on the misguided sundae is that Lafayette is now involved to clean up the mess/make fun of it, as if sitting with us in spirit. Sure, this is essentially exactly what happened last season when this plot was the slightly less insulting yet equally boring ghost story scenario, but whatever wraps up this story and unites disparate characters gets a pass in my book. And at least Lafayette had the good sense to charge them for it this time. On a similarly bittersweet note, I thought Lalaa car ride home from the crazy pregnant ladys hut in which Jesus appears after a small application of V was very lovely although hardly a decent resolution to Lafayettes struggle with magic in mourning Jesus. Finally, Sookie got the being normal sucks and being unique is awesome speech from Jason whom is nothing if not a loving and supportive brother. Im a sucker for when otherwise pretty dim characters exhibit greatness or profound insight of some kind and despite this pep talk not really venturing into either territory, it was still nice and similar to when Holly had to remind Arlene what series theyre on, it was good to hear Jason remind Sookie why having her powers is pretty useful in this universe. So with newfound determination, Sookie finally joins Jason on the quest to discover who killed their parents. At first I thought this would turn out to be either Bill or Eric, but it looks as though this might be an entirely new character, Worlow. Usually this would be the point where I bitch and moan about how True Blood has more than enough characters already but in this case I think itd be a necessary breath of fresh air for both Sookie and the audience. Now if only True Blood can get some better music for the moments that straddle the line between effective and silly like when her parents vampire killer seemed to astral project to Sookie to threaten her. I must point out how much I loved Claudes little info dump about faeries looking into the past because Einstein was half-fae and all matter is energy, blah, blah. Seriously though, this is the exciting part of speculative fiction, not which supernatural creature with whom some attractive young blonde is having a torrid affair. Also, I should state that after eight episodes, Im at least preferring this seasons treatment of the faeries as opposed to the last. So while almost every plot except for that of The Authority, which is finally starting to crystallize into a story which draws clear lines to make specific statements about its characters and the world they inhabit, and Sookie as fae detective, either kind of bored me or pissed me off (damn you, Hoyt), I feel as though that if I squint hard enough, I can start to see them all beginning to reach some sort of climax. The overall theme of integration versus intolerance is one that this series was made for and Id be so happy to see the finale live up to it and in less than a month well find out. By the way, when Russell Edgington and Steve Newlin inevitably get their own spin-off series, Im totally going to watch the crap out of it. Praise Moses cock, indeed.