Monsters of Television

“Soon there will be anarchy. And then there will be me.”

Recovering from last week’s Faerygate, True Blood reminded us of evils of non-supernatural origins. In a show featuring vampires and werewolves and (fuckin’) faeries, there are still many real and terrible demons of other kinds that people have to face.

And Sam’s are coming out of the woodwork.

After a look back at Sawyer Sam’s past last week it seems it is catching up to him in a hurry. His anger issues getting the best of him, he goes on a drunken tirade, kicking all patrons out of Merlotte’s and insulting Terry, Arlene, Tommy and Holly.

Sam has finally had enough of being a door mat. Piss drunk and pissed off he has pushed all those close to him away in an attempt to shed his “nice guy” persona. Alienating yourself from those who care about you should surely help with that. But not everyone leaves him alone. Tara, Queen of anger and alienation (and shitty story lines) is there to lend an ear. And some other body parts as well.

Getting in bed with Tara (and by proxy his own demons) is a continuation of the sad spiral Sam’s been taking recently. With all the drinking and anger he reminds me a bit of Don Draper. Or as Tommy points out a lot like Joe Lee. One would think that comparison alone would be enough to pull Sam out of his rut but apparently not.

In an eerily evil scene, Maxine (Hoyt’s mother) consoles a heartbroken Summer after Hoyt breaks up with her. Maxine gave off some evil Disney villain vibes as she thanked Summer for what she has done and assured her that they weren’t done with that red-headed harlot who has put on a spell on their precious Hoyt.

On a more PSA note: drugs are bad (Mmkay?). Lafayette is having some not so pleasant residual effects from the V induced TARDIS trip he and Jesús took. He sees Jesús with some sort of demon face and gets reacquainted with the talking statues in his living room. I am just as confused as he seemed as to what the hell is going on here. Jason finds out that Kitch (a randomly woven season long  storyline) is using V to enhance his skills on the football field. Ok, maybe these problems deal a little with the supernatural being V related, but the drug message still applies.

To make matter worse for Jason, there’s not a thing he can do about Kitch. V is apparently untraceable so there’s no drug test to prove he’s taking it. And Jason can’t go to the school because they’re supplying Kitch with the V or his parents because they’re paying for it. Defeated both as an athlete and as a “cop” Jason returns home to his panther-girlfriend. She wants to head back to her home of inbred jungle cats to save them from the coming raid. In need of a serious ego boosting win, Jason agrees. I have a feeling this is gonna be more blaze than glory.

I don’t know if I’m still jaded from the fuckin’ faeries (love that this phrase keeps coming up in the show by the way) reveal or what but I was once again not very impressed this week. The episode wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the usual “Oh man True Blood so good I can’t believe what just happened I can’t wait for next week let’s watch it again run on sentences” inducing spectacle that it’s known to be.

Sure, Eric handcuffing himself to Russell and waiting outside for the sun to kill them is very noble and pretty cool, but it begs a very Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers question. Why not just transform into the Megazord and stomp the bad guy from the get go? Similarly, why not just stake Russell and get it over with. You’re three vamps and a (fuckin’) faery to one. Sure, Russell is one of the oldest and most powerful vampires ever but give it a shot.

I can’t help but draw comparisons to LOST season three when the show stared losing viewer interest due to (supposed) bad story and the show becoming increasingly more Syfy sci-fi. And Angel season three. And Heroes season 3. Forget jumping the sophomore season hurdle, the tertiary season is the tough one. But all of these shows eventually triumphed (except Heroes. Christ.) so I should give the same treatment and have the same amount of faith in True Blood as I do/did in my beloved LOST and Angel.

Besides, the finale is next (next episode but not next weekend because it’s labor Day weekend) so there’s sure to be nonstop awesomeness. If LOST can give us flash forwards and Angel can give us the sinking and ascension of Angel and Cordelia respectfully in their season three finales, I’m expecting big and badass things from True Blood.

Final Thoughts:

• Jessica and Hoyt are back together. Hooray! More blood drinking and sex please.
• Andy’s apology scene was great.
• Arlene’s Wicca miscarriage didn’t work. Big surprise. /sarcasm