Trueblood: Season 5 Premiere, A Shaky Start

When a good show begins to get bad it is almost like a parent watching their honors student fall into the deep recesses of a crack addiction. You watch, you think about how they could have had it all, but instead you give your ratings, you standby them for a while but in the end it’s just not the show you knew, that you watch developed, a show that you loved and nurtured with your DVR, and you have to turn your back on them. Trueblood was one such show for me. Its first two seasons were incredibly well written and giving a new spin what is becoming a tired genre. However as the third season progressed, the writing got sloppy, its sense of pacing was gone and in as their fan base grew, so did the extravagancies and complications of its plotlines and characters- and not in a good way. I stopped watching three episodes into the fourth season and after careful deliberation, decided to see what the fifth season premier had to offer. After watching it, I can’t decide if it is getting better, or buttering me up before robbing me blind and spending it on a new crack pipe.

To start with the negatives, not much has changed since season three- there is still too many extravagancies and too many characters the audience is trying to pay attention to and care about. Certainly after watching the recap of season four they’ve trimmed away some of the excess characters (Tommy, Jesus, and Debbie) there is still too much of a concentration on characters in a sense we don’t need. While I like Arlene and Terry, they do not need their own plotline and certainly not a plotline involved with the supernatural. They had it right in the first two seasons, keeping them on the fringe, having Arlene deliver some type of comic relief- they didn’t need a supernatural baby, and they don’t need this new plotline with Terry and the mysterious death of his war buddies. Trim it down Ball, keep it simple or if you want to include them- don’t have it be supernatural because that is where the show is becoming too cluttered. In a world where vampires have just com out of the coffin, how is it so many people are already in some way tied to supernatural events and how are they all in the tiny little southern town of Bon Temps?

Like the complications in too many characters, the extravagancies of having all of these characters deal with some separate supernatural story element is becoming too difficult. These were normal people, and now Lafayette went from just being your simple, sassy, gay drug dealer cook to being a medium. Again, Arlene and Terry, supernatural baby and now what is hinted at as supernatural fires.  And now sadly, Tara. One of the only characters I had respect for and the only one with a smart enough head on her shoulders and physically capable of handling herself without supernatural means, she was untouched, she wasn’t magical, or psychic- just a girl trying to live. And then they turned her into a vampire, after shooting her in the head. Not only could her story have ended as she left Bon temps for New Orleans in season three, it also could have ended there, saving her best friend- going out like a hero. Instead they are prolonging her character, turning into another complication by her being a vampire, which while a good element for most characters ins tory telling, it wasn’t needed here and they certainly could have whipped out some secret fairy power Sookie has that could have saved her. But Sookie would probably be stupid to use it.

With all of these things said, with all of my nitpicks and grimaces I had when Eric and his sister began having sex, how they brought back Reverend whathisface, made him a vampire and then made him gay, the murder of Nan Flanagan (although the bitch in sheep’s clothing has already been established with Pam, so I guess it is okay) there are some things that are intriguing me to watch. The first is the return of Russell Edgington- not as great a villain as Maryann, but he did hold his own being a smarmy ass. The second is the return to what could be considered the heart of the show, the revelation of vampires as being real. Jessica is invited to study at a college that is vampire friendly, to join a sorority which seems to be establishing a small connection with the shows roots and what first hooked me on Trueblood.

I think I will watch the second episode, if only to see how it is they handled turning Tara, and the response she gives to Sookie and Lafayette on their decision. After all, being my favorite character, I want to see just how bad they screw it up, or turn it around.

 

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