True Blood 4.3 "If You Love Me..."
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 7:30PM Another Monday, another day spent thinking about last night's True Blood eppy. My favorite B story thread this season is definitely Arlene's devil baby so we must begin with my single favorite shot in the episode. The little monster slobbering all over Jessica's Capital C Creepy family heirloom doll.
He's so cute. Don't you just want to procure victims for him and grind them up into mushy baby food?
"If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?" is a solid episode but can't help but feel like a smidgeon of a comedown after last week's instant classic in which Eric was robbed of his memories by the new witch coven led by Marnie (Fiona Shaw). This week's episode provided several fun moments and some promising future-implications but the plot mostly was little beats in which characters were trying to decide how to deal with the major events of the previous episode: where should Sooki hide Eric? is Tara getting sucked back in for good? will Lafayette's fear of Eric continue to get everyone in trouble? who is Pam going to eat if she gets too angry? exactly what is Marnie channeling?
Cheers: True Blood is giving both Lafayette and Tara more subtle emotions to play this season.
The major B story his season appears to be Jason's stud captivity in that redneck nightmare village (they mean to use him to sire new werepups). Someone rescue him!
The story is still disappointingly static three episodes in. No other major characters are involved and how long can you keep one of your best characters chained to a bed? This is turning into Misery or 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jason?' only without the benefit of a worthy Bette Davis or Kathy Bates adversary to keep things crackling.
If only he weren't chained to that bed. But y'are Jason, y'are.
Draining It Dry...
Body Count: 2 one vamp (offscreen) by Bill's orders and 1 fairy, Sookie's godmother in point of fact; Sex Scenes: 2 Bill and Portia (he chooses not to bite her confirming my suspicion that Courtney Ford tastes bad) and one highly disturbing reprise of Jason's once passionate rutting with Crystal. It's no longer between consenting adults; Fresh Meat & Trashiest Moment: Pam's too-willing blood donor Jethro "YEAH. FUCKYEAH. SUCKIT. BITETHATNECK." Dial it back a notch, Jethro. You're starting to piss Pam off!; Funniest Moment: "I know I'm a vampire, Snooki!" Eric's empty headedness. LMFAO
Best Sookie Moment and the Episode MVP: The episode's closing joke came brilliantly full circle to that opening laugh with Eric & 'Snookie' reteamed. Eric devours a fairy right in front of Sookie only to adopt one of those sheepish 'who stole the cookies?' chocolate-smeared grins.
Alexander Skarsgård steals the show again with his newly minted comic timing. Episode Grade: B+
Reviews, TV, True Blood, sci-fi fantasy horror, vampires
Reader Comments (10)
totally agree, the episode belongs to MR SKARSGARD - he is showing a side of him we have never seen before
Yeah, Alexander Skarsgard is knocking "Innocent Eric" out of the park. All of his moments were great. Perhaps I am blinded by his hotness, but I needed MORE of him in the episode. More Eric, less Tommy (seriously...he's worthless)
Pam's "I will eat, f*ck, and kill you all" has to be the 2nd place moment of the episode.
The Jason/Hotshot storyline is soul-crushingly awful. It was bad last season, but I seriously hate it this season.
I started off the season thinking that I might find the Arlene/baby (what the hell is its name? Mikey? Maggie? Mickey?) storyline entertaining, but I'm concerned that it's going to be thirteen episodes of Carrie Preston staring intently at the baby, and that's a criminal waste of Carrie Preston.
Plus, what's with the creepy doll? I feel like it was supposed to be some kind of callback, but I don't remember anything about it. Did it show up sometime last season? I must have briefly left the room or something.
"More Eric, less Tommy (seriously...he's worthless)."
So on the same page with you on that. He's another secondary character that should get the chop - dude is a waste of time and space.
"The Jason/Hotshot storyline is soul-crushingly awful. It was bad last season, but I seriously hate it this season."
Ryan Kwantan's hotness aside, I find myself wanting to fast forward through his scenes. It was boring last season while he continuedly whined about wanting to be a cop, and now this season, when the Jason character has some much needed new founded maturity, he's being dragged down by this over the top storyline. Granted, I know this storyline was taken from the novels, but it's still grating.
I also really disliked that Crystal raped him, his anguished crys mixed in with hers of pleasure was fucking disturbing.
"Plus, what's with the creepy doll? I feel like it was supposed to be some kind of callback, but I don't remember anything about it. Did it show up sometime last season? I must have briefly left the room or something."
The creepy chucky type doll was first shown in last season's finale, when Hoyt was showing Jessica their new home. There's definitely some sort of evil entity shit associated with it as that both Hoyt and Jessica mentioned that they tried getting rid of it, either by throwing it into the lake, or leaving it at the town dump.
Ah, thanks, Blinking Cursor. I don't know how I missed that! Yeah, if there's any toy that child doesn't need, it's a distant cousin of Chucky.
Blinking -- yeah. Seasons 1 & 2 were such great material for ryan kwanten and it's been downhill ever since :( i wonder if he's enjoying himself or if he's like "get me out of this mother fucking storyline"
Liz N -- now that you bring that up i do worry regarding demon-baby. 13 episodes of a plot in slow motion is never good. but True Blood has done that before.
I love Arlene and her (possible) demon-baby. The music cues totally turn it into an almost camp parody of Rosemary's Baby-type new mother freakouts. Makes me laugh every time - although I'm honestly not sure if we're supposed to be taking it seriously or not. Yeah, it's moving slowly, but I think this is the one plotline that can move slowly this season and survive.
Also, Thank God for Fiona Shaw. Best moment of the episode for me was her pitiful, begging, child-like "PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE????" That whole monologue was a great showcase for her, and she really showed every aspect of Marnie's character. Can we give her an Emmy now? Pleeeeeeeeease??
Denny -- i can't wait for the episode when she completely owns it. We keep getting all these delicious side moments but i want a full on FIONA FOR THE EMMY episode.
Love Alexander Skarsgard as Innocent Eric and, even more than that, I love how Anna Paquin is playing Sookie opposite him. So much better than the histrionics she has with Bill. Anna's struck just the right mix of duty, perplexity, and unexpected attraction Sookie's feeling towards this new (improved?) version of Eric.
I absolutely agree with Kim and Emily