TRUE BLOOD: IN THE BEGINNING REVIEW

By Sean Smyth

Lies, Deceit, and Drunken Vamps! 

I didn't start watching True Blood till maybe Season 4, but I managed to check out Seasons 1-3 in just two weeks. It was a good time. Sitting in class waiting to take the train home and watch a few more episodes, before I had doing the same thing the next day. Those were the days. 

Now, watching the show is like a chore. Straining to understand what is going on, who hates who, who wants what? It's just getting to be a little out of the control. The past Season's arcs came together and all the stories pretty much interwove for the most part, but this Season people are just bouncing all over the place and their is so little time to get invested in something before another thing comes along. It's like, they've run out of things to do on the show for certain characters so they just give them crappy side stories because True Blood doesn't like to kill of it's main characters.

I swear if you take one individual character's story, lets say... Sookie for right now, her entire arc of scenes and story could be done in maybe two or three episodes. Instead she gets an entire season to wallow around and just cry about being different. 

I mean, each character (especially Sookie) have faced a life threatening moment in the show at least once, but they've all overcome those moments because someone else saves their ass, or instead the baddie trying to kill them has a change of heart or just doesn't feel like doing it at the moment, even if that character's story has run its course Season's ago. 

Well, In the Beginning has plenty of those moments and is made up mostly of those crappy side stories that you just don't care about and it feels a lot like a supernatural melodramatic Soap Opera. But even Soap Operas kill off their characters now and again. 

Some of those moments include; Andy visiting the old Sheriff Dearborne to ask if he sucks at being a cop, Arlene watching her Wedding Video with Holly while at work (they wouldn't be getting a tip from me with that kind of service), and Terry and Patrick gallivanting in a field and being mocked by the Fire Demon.... I don't know about you, but shouldn't these scenes be used more efficiently to produce greater understanding of what is going on in this already confusing show? 

Oh yeah, and this scene was pretty useless too. 

Besides Bill and Eric's excellent adventure with The Authority, or at least what's left of the Authority since the Guardian was betrayed by Salome (like I said, but the way they went about how she did it was anything but smooth. She basically just says, yeah I followed you when you were burying Russell, saved him and now I want to praise Lilith.), the rest of the episode is just there.

That's another thing this show has become known for doing. Over explaining. It feels as though we only learn one or two new plot points each episode because we are forced to sit through things that we learned in episode one because, and this is just my guess, the writers of the show think we are stupid. Hey Alan Ball take a page out of Justified or Breaking Bad and stop telling us what's happening. Just show us. I mean that's screenwriting 101. I learned that my first day in school. Lazy... 

But I digress, as usual...

Bill and Eric discover the plot to overthrow the Authority is centuries in the making,  Nora and Salome are a couple Vampire Bible thumpers and Russell is just being Russell. Ripping off heads and making a mess. 

This thing on? Is anyone listening to me? 

You see this episode is supposed to mark a change. A reversal if you will for the remainder of the season. Though I felt like things were just getting good with the Authority. Like we should have had the rest of the season with them being the big bad. Instead Russell comes in stakes the Guardian and things just fall apart. Russell apparently finds religion and doesn't want to hurt his nemeses he vowed to destroy and everyone in the council gets drunk of old Vamp blood and wanders around what looks to be New Orleans. 

Man does that leave a bad taste in my mouth. It is just boring. Even the climatic scene feels as though it falls short of being interesting, and has one of the worst special effects I've ever scene on True Blood (It literally made me laugh out loud). Hopefully the much talked about Human/Vamp War that keeps being discussed comes about and we can get out of this whole Soap Opera vibe and hit the more Epic tone as the show should be. At least Eric sees things are getting a little weird...

Besides Bill and Eric staggering around with the Authority and what I mentioned as pointless scenes before, we have the following:

Sookie learns she can be Fairy no more, Jason hates Vamps again, Jessica is feeding up on humans, Hoyt joins up with the Supe Murders, Tara makes a good stripper but her mom hates her so Tara looks at Pam as a new mother figure, Sam argues with Luna and smells stuff while looking for the people who shot him, and Lafayette goes to see Jesus' uncle who is not to pleased with him.

Overall the episode kind of falls flat on it's face. After having so much promise from it's previous episodes, and so much build up, things just bounce off the ground instead of landing. I don't know, maybe I'm not the target audience anymore. Maybe that audience has grown to be middle aged housewives or something... But this episode did nothing for me and thus only gets a 2.5 out of 5. 

Do you agree with that? Is True Blood falling apart or is it the best it's ever been? You tell me in the comments below. And as always, Thanks For Reading.