Sunday, June 26th saw the premiere of the fourth season of our favorite bloody addiction, True Blood on HBO. In fact, if you have access to the cable network’s new enhanced viewing site HBO GO (not everyone does) then you got to see a two hour double episode premiere. However, since that’s not the case for everyone, we’re only going to cover what we saw during that first hour in our Recap and Review. Man was it worth seven month itch. Read on for more …
In series Episode 37, “She’s Not There”, it’s one year later in Bon Temps, Lousiana and it seems like the world has turned upside down. Our heroine Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) just got back from (narrowly escaped, more like) a trip into a whole other realm where her Fairy friends turned out to be not so cool after all. Getting back home ought to have been a relief for her. But what seemed just fifteen minutes from the time she left to get away from it all, turned out to be twelve and a half months. The lost year saw her go missing with half the town searching for her, her house being sold, Bill getting a promotion, Tara skipping town and a coven of witches brewing up a storm.
Here’s our Recap and Review:
5 BEST
- Jason The Responsible. Seems Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) and Andy Bellefleur (Chris Baur) have changed places. Not only do we find Jason in a police uniform, with bigger muscles and a goatee (to make him look older and more mature you see) but having sold Sookie’s house to an anonymous (and rich) buyer after an emotional and exhaustive year-long search for her. He’s also taking care of Andy, his agitated Sheriff, who seems to have gotten himself strung out on V since the last time we saw him curiously examining a bag of the stuff in evidence for the raid on Hotshot last season. On top of that, Jason’s got his newly responsible hands full with those same Hotshot residents – a whole pack of poorly Were-Panthers who count on him to bring them food and clothing and stuff. Aww, “poor Jason”, you say. That’s a lot for someone as dumb and panicky as he is to handle. But no, “good for Jason”, we say! We like this new and improved responsible man he’s become. Who knew a person (especially a dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks man-whore like him) could change and grow so much in the space of a year? It’s a complete turn-on and we hope he can keep this up by demonstrating a series of good decision making. Starting with getting out of that pickle he found himself in by episode’s end. More on that later.
- Kingly Bill Compton. Sookie’s back, and of course Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) knows it. He hadn’t felt her presence in a year, as he explains when he shows up on her porch as soon as the sun goes down. Andy and Jason put him through the ringer, accusing him of her murder. They even dragged the lake in search of her body. He was worried we know, but he understands she still doesn’t want anything to do with him. This is quite obviously leaving the door open for his rival Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) to weasel his way into her heart. He knows Sookie’s back too, and shows up mere seconds after Bill to make the point that he always knew she’d return. He provides proof of that knowledge later by revealing he was the one who purchased her house and pouncing on her while she’s naked and defenseless. This will probably irk the hell out of Bill. But that’s ok! Because all Bill has to do is issue an order, and guess what? Eric has to obey. The tides have turned, and it’s Eric who has to do the reluctant obedience thing. At first we thought it was just a merely more dapper Bill-turned-politician doing his civic duty by holding press conferences and cutting ribbons and giving speeches and what have you, in the wake of former Mississippi Vampire King Russell Edgington’s (Dennis O’Hare) ghastly display of evil malcontent last season. But the big reveal at episode’s end let us know that Bill is the new Big Man On Campus. We assume he won the match in that little tussle with Queen Sophie Ann (Evan Rachel Wood). We also assume that throughout Season 4, we’ll be let in on just how Vampire King Bill came to be. We like this development because it means Bill no longer has to hold himself back from protecting Sookie (or doing anything he wants to do really) for fear of angering some higher authority, except, perhaps The Authority.
- Tara The Cage-Fighting Lesbian. Well, well, well. There were rumors going around that one of True Blood’s main, straight characters would go the other way this season. Guess we’ve found out who. We honestly hope Tara Thornton’s (Runtina Wesley) new-found love for women is genuine, and not just some temporary hook. But let’s ignore this ever-increasing go-to ratings gimmick for a minute and focus on what’s actually good about Tara’s transformation, shall we? Besides the fact that her hairstyle has finally left the early 90s, and the completely awesome fact that she is channeling all that rage and crazy into female cage-match fights, we are loving the otherwise softer, calmer person she seems to have become. We know that eventually, she’ll have to go back to Bon Temps to see Sookie, thusly getting herself all embroiled in the ensuing insanity coming everyone’s way this season, but we hope that she’ll take what she’s learned and put it to good use. No more flying off the handle, cursing up a storm and getting mad at Sookie. Instead, Miss Tara, go kick some ass and take some names with a cool, calm, collected purpose. Pretty please?
- Sam’s Club. Aww, Moody ol’ Door Mat Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) has got friends. Yay! We are made to believe that they are an anger management group he had to join after he shot his onry younger brother Tommy Mickens (Marchall Allman) in the leg. But, psyche! It turns out to be a group of Shifters having a good time drinking, complaining, playing games, turning themselves into horses and racing off into the night. Seriously, how cool is it to be a Shifter? Getting to turn into whatever the heck you want and go have all that unbridled fun must be one hell of an adrenaline rush. Plus, unlike Vampires, they’re you know, alive and can walk in the sun without bursting into flames. Advantage Shifters. We have a feeling we’re about to see a Sam who’s a lot less nice (especially after his less than warm welcome home to Sookie), a lot less bottled up and a lot more fun. See, Tommy got just what he wanted. It only cost him a bullet in the leg.
- The Witches of Bon Temps. Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) is in for some sh*t now, boy. He’s still dating that cutie Nurse Jesus (Kevin Alajandro), even though he knows he’s a Brujo, or male Witch. And now he’s gone and gotten himself talked into joining a coven. Not just any coven, but one his co-worker Holly (Lauren Bowles) belongs to. She’s already done her damage on Arlene (Carrie Preston) in the guise of helping out, but it seems that what she has in store for our favorite sassy cook will be even worse and more bothersome for the citizens of Bon Temps than a fake failed miscarraige. We already know from the mouths of his crazy mama (played by Alfre Woodard) and Jesus last season that Lafayette has some strong supernatural stuff inside of him. But it isn’t until he unwittingly helps the coven’s leader Marnie (Fiona Shaw) briefly bring her dead pet parrot back to life that we understand just how powerful he actually is. This coven of witches has been set up in teasers as Season 4’s primary antagonists, and we just can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next, especially if it involves cherries (which it probably won’t, dammit).
5 WORST 
- Sookie’s Fairy Tale. Ok, we always felt that this was the weakest and most uninteresting part of the whole Sookie narrative. It’s just, effin’ lame man (to borrow Sookie’s own expression). In the first eight minutes, Sookie appeared in another realm and found out that there was an actual thing as a Fairy Godmother (ugh), whom she let know wasn’t doing a very good job of taking care of her. Sookie then reunites with her long-disappeared Grandaddy Earl (Gary Cole), who thinks he’s only been in this lovely place for two weeks, but turns out to be twenty years on his granddaughter’s end of things. Sookie smells something fishy when she sees people tearing into this weird glowy fruit like they hadn’t had a decent meal in ages. She tries to tell her Grandaddy Earl with her mind to book it, but that’s silly right, because she’s in the middle of a crowd of telepathic Fairies and their Fairy Godmothers. Needless to say she is heard, the jig is up, and some evil Fairy Queen pulls back the curtains and tries to force feed Sookie that weird-ass fruit, causing Sookie to shoot purple light bombs at her with her hands. Oh ho! But guess what? That too is not special anymore, because everyone can do it! So it’s a purple light bomb fight between Sook and a bunch of ugly-ass Fairy-turned-Goblins as she tries to get back home. Finally, some rebel Fairies save her, but poor Grandaddy Earl disintegrates to dust on the other side because he ate the nasty fruit. Our verdict on this eight minute live action Disney short? One word: Goofy.
- “Nice” Vampires. Russell Edgington killed a man on national television by punching a hole through his back and pulling out a chunk of his spine. The Vampire ‘Authority’ didn’t like that. It goes against all that PR work they hired Nan Flanigan (Jessica Tuck) to do for them, spinning the story that Vampires can play nice, live off of synthetic blood and co-exist with humans in a world where we are not their primary food supply. So now, because it’s partially their fault, Bill and Eric have to clean up the mess. Kingly new Bill the Politician seems to fit right into his role as Spokesman For Good Vampires Everywhere, as he’s from a time where gentlemen had manners and charm. Eric, although from a time of barbaric brutes, can switch it on and off with a creepy smile and a tongue-in-cheek air, but his progeny Pam (Kristen Baur) isn’t having it. She’s not a pretender, see, and that’s why we like her. Vampires are dark, mischievous, mostly evil, blood-sucking creatures. We like that about them. We cannot wait until they get to cut the crap.
- Panthers In the Hood. Here is another of our least favorite story lines. We couldn’t stand Crystal (Lindsay Pulsipher) and her inexplicable (not to mention annoying) presence in Jason’s life to begin with. Then she goes and gets herself kidnapped by her crazy ex-fiance, leaving Jason behind to take care of all her in-bred cousins. The fact that she charged him with taking care of these people like he had absolutely no choice in the matter really pissed us off. It sure caught poor Jason off guard too. But, never fear, Responsible Jason is here. Or was anyway. Yeah, he was bringing the people packs of hotdogs and ice cream and clothes and whatnot, either ignoring or completely oblivious to the fact that Were-Panthers would probably prefer fresh, bloody meat to ingest as opposed to processed junk food. And Poor Oblivious Responsible Jason was doing handiwork too, fixing their freezer box for them, so they could store the junk food they weren’t going to eat. But one of the Nephew-Sons of the Uncle-Daddy who got shot by the crazed V-hooked ex-fiance tells Jason it’s broke again, and in our hero goes to fix it. But, hold on Admiral Ackbar, it’s a trap! Into the busted unit he goes, latch done up, fresh-meat-for-the-having. We absolutely do not fancy the idea of a tied up and screaming Jason Stackhouse getting Were-Panther bites taken outta him like he’s an h’orderve on a big tray. We hope this gets sewn up real quick-like, preferably without the inexplicable and annoying return of Crystal. We’ll probably lose that bet.
- Baby Psycho Killer. Qu’est que c’est? Barbie heads? Really? The kid at what, six months old or some such (our math is crap, yes) is pulling heads off of Barbies? Poor Arlene. Poor poor Arlene. So now she’s stuck with a devil baby. A devil baby who probably has the spirit of his deceased, Fang Banger Lady Killer daddy inside of him, waiting to grow up and unleash hell on all of Bon Temps. The spirit probably put there by that oddly foreheaded Witch waitress, Lafayette’s coven buddy Holly. This is just silly. Even if this is the case, how long is the show going to last? Long enough to see this kid grow up and start killing people? Listen, we love True Blood so much we’re like V junkies, but probably not. No. Not that long. Unless, well … unless the writers decide to leave Sookie and The Gang behind and take another, but massive leap into the future. We aren’t fans of that idea either. Let’s not do that. In fact, please let this be just a cute little “what are the odds” kind of side-blip that we quickly move on from and forget about. We’ll probably lose that bet as well. (Before you ask all uppity-like, no we have not read the books.)
- Stepford Brother Tommy. Wait a minute Batman, Tommy is being polite, hopping around in preppy clothes, sporting a combed, geeky hairdo, and saying grace at the Merlotte’s dinner table with … Hoyt Fortenberry’s (Jim Parrack) mama? Huh? First off, let’s back up and express our gratitude that he isn’t dead. We like this for three reasons. One: even though he was a little thieving creep with a bad attitude, he had a vulnerable side that he was hiding we found out when he confessed to Sam that he couldn’t read last season. Two: he challenged his big brother Sam and brought out (what we hope will be) his dark side. And three: this means Sam didn’t kill him, which would be a little too dark for us. So there’s that. Tommy is still around and he’s still throwing little daggers at Sam, who’s grudgingly paying for his physical therapy. But we don’t get why he’s hanging around that highly unlikeable woman, the mother of his former rival for Jessica’s (Deborah Ann Woll) affections. Hoyt easily won Jessica back, so what gives with Tommy and Hoyt’s mama? Are they plotting on a way to break them up again? Makes no sense, but we suppose we’ll reluctantly go along for the ride.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F7sgxbJZN8[/youtube]
So that’s it, boom, we’re done. There were things we didn’t mention (like Hoyt and Jessica’s totally hawt domestic fight over feeding the living vs. feeding the undead), but we’ll cover that when we review next week’s episode, “You Smell Like Dinner”. All in all, this season looks like it will be just as bloody and sexy as the last. Goody. True Blood airs Sunday nights at 9pm on HBO. For an enhanced viewing experience, including exclusive sneak peaks and a look at the second episode before it airs, check out HBO GO (for Verizon FiOs and Direct TV subscribers).
ETA Update: The second episode of Season 4, “You Smell Like Dinner” is now available to watch on HBO OnDemand for cable subscribers.
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