TRUE BLOOD TRIMS THE FAT
By Todd Schultz
Season four of HBO’s True Blood was messy – Misandrist witches, hick panthers, redneck biker werewolves, boring shifters, oh yeah, and vampires. This is all well and good if you are Roger Corman making a grindhouse double feature.Thankfully the season finale pared everything down and now we can start fresh with season five.
Starting fresh means sticking with what worked in the first place- those lecherous lovable vampires!
Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) and Bill (Stephen Moyer) are on the run from the vampire authority, becoming budding anarchists on the same team with a common enemy and finally, finally, free of Sookie (Anna Paquin). This is fine, because now she has Alcide (Joe Manganiello) the werewolf, who matches her banality along with Sam the shifter, whose rift with the wolf pack over the murder of their leader looks to become one of the subplots whose time I will use to cook dinner, go to the bathroom, or hit myself on the head with a large and cumbersome object.
One subplot I will be paying attention to is with Jason (Ryan Kwanten), who stayed on pace by cracking me up within ten seconds of him coming on screen. Though I have had my fill of love triangles, including the one between he, Hoyt (Jim Parrack), and Jessica (Debra Ann Woll), the return of Reverend Newlin (Michael McMillian) as a vampire is very intriguing.
Another subplot with some of my favorite characters (you know, the ones that actually SOUND like they are from Louisiana) is regarding Terry (Todd Lowe), Arlene (Carrie Preston), and Terry’s mysterious war buddy Patrick (Scott Foley) who is very curious about the fire that consumed their home.
More than all this, however, is that Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare) is back. That, and there was a familiar face in the trailers, some of you may know him as Detective Eliot Stabler from Law and Order: SVU, but to me he will always be the bisexual sociopath Chris Keller from HBO’s Oz. I am talking about Christopher Meloni, and he’s got fangs (or ‘twin hard-ons’ as Jason would quip).
Less is more, said the minimalist, and I think after shoving every sort of supernatural element imaginable down our throats these last few seasons keeping things simpler is a wise plan for this installment. Sure, I guess you need to keep the shifters and the werewolves, but this season it looks like the vampires will be taking the reins once again. The prospects look good; hopefully they stick with lesser evils and make them eviler.
