How to Save True Blood (Bonus True Blood Drinking Game)

True Blood logo

Back in April of 2010 I wrote a review of how badass the first season of True Blood was. And it was good. Really good. With all the blood, tits, and foul language it was easily the television highlight of the year. Since that time I watched season two and season three, although the latter was difficult due to the loud-talkers in the room. Now, season four is currently airing, and I regret to say that compared to the highs of the first season, the fourth season is a sack of shit. So where did they go wrong?

The reason that the first season worked so well (besides the sex and violence) was that the story was simple and straightforward. It centered on the relationship between Sookie and Bill, and the other characters were more or less peripheral. Eric, Jason, Lafayette, etc were all involved to some extent, but they played smaller roles in the central storyline. Really, though, there was just one story, told from Sookie’s perspective, and it worked.

Season two was a little more divided as it had two main stories: one involving Sookie, Bill, Jason, and Eric; and the other involving everybody else. Storyline A with Sookie and the vampires was interesting and held my attention. Storyline B was a non-stop sex orgy which at first seemed awesome, but when it dragged on for 12 episodes with nothing else happening, it started to wear on me. The secondary characters were fleshed out a bit more, which seemed fine. Overall, Storyline A worked really well and Storyline B not as much. But it was still a good season.

Moving on to Season Three, things became problematic. There was still the main storyline with Sookie, Bill, Eric, and vampire king Russell. Simultaneously, they introduced a number of stories involving a shitload of secondary characters. Almost everyone had their own storyline. Sheriff Andy had one, Jason and Crystal had one, Arlene had one, Sam had one, Hoyt and Jessica had one, Lafayette had one, and Tara had one. It was too much. Tara annoys the fuck out of me, and since she cries her eyes out in every scene, I could hardly stomach her own subplot. Arlene is annoying too, and she is not interesting enough to deserve her own plotline. Sam’s family was stupid. Hoyt and Jessica were idiotic. Jason continued to be a dumbass. While the main storyline with Sookie was strong enough to carry the season, the quality of the series was dragged down with all the other unimportant crap that was going on.

Which brings us to the current season, number four. Gone are the days when Sookie was the main character. True Blood has now become an ensemble show. Every character is given almost equal amounts of screen time whether it’s heroine Sookie, or shrill, annoying Arlene.

We have storylines featuring Sookie and her faerie godmother, Eric losing his memory, Bill becoming vampire king of Louisiana, Sheriff Andy as a drug addict, Jason as “ghost daddy” getting raped non-stop by werepanthers (LOL WTF), Tara suddenly becoming a lesbian, Lafayette as a witch, Lafayette’s boyfriend Jesus as a witch, Jesus’ grandfather as a witch, Lafayette and Jesus joining a witches’ coven (I’m detecting a pattern), Arlene’s baby has evil devil powers, Sam is in love with some shapeshifter lady, Tommy becomes Hoyt’s mom’s surrogate son, Tommy plans to rip-off his surrogate mom, Tommy kills his biological parents, Hoyt and Jessica continue their turbulent relationship, Pam gets her face melted off and wants revenge, and Alcide gets into trouble with a new local werewolf pack leader. And that’s by the end of episode five, not even halfway through the season.

Get the picture? There is way too much shit happening. Nobody cares about Lafayette, Jesus, Tara, Hoyt, Jessica, Tommy, Arlene, Sam, or Andy. There is absolutely no need to dedicate equal screen time to each of them. Really, the only people they should focus on are Sookie, Eric, and Bill, and to a lesser extent Jason and Alcide. Those are the only characters that should be get storylines. Characters like Sam, Pam, or Andy can make appearances, but should only show up occasionally, have a few lines, and then be on their way.

The first season worked so well because it was simple and had purpose. It dealt with Sookie’s introduction to the world of vampires, and her relationship with said vampires. The second season was still decent because it only had two storylines, and not a lot of other nonsense to clutter it up. The third season had too much extraneous nonsense, and it got bogged down by the excess weight. The fourth season is a schizophrenic clusterfuck with so much shit going on it has become bloated and messy.

But all is not lost. There is a way to salvage True Blood. So, HBO executives, if you are reading this, take careful notes.

1. Kill Tara.
2. Kill Lafayette.
3. Kill Jesus.
4. Kill Tommy.
5. Kill Hoyt.
6. Kill Jessica.
7. Kill Sam.
8. Kill Arlene.
9. Kill Andy.
10. Kill Crystal.
11. Kill Terry.
12. Kill Debbie.
13. Kill anyone who started out as a secondary character.
14. Keep Pam alive, she’s cool.
15. Bring Franklin back to life, he was a crazy motherfucker.

That’s pretty much it. If they go ahead and wipe out all those people in a giant vampire massacre, the show could be saved.

True Blood doesn’t need a shitload of characters to be good. The book series it is based on has fewer characters than the show, and it is told in the first-person, from Sookie’s perspective. Naturally, being first-person, you are only aware of what is happening to Sookie, and 90% of the books are all about Sookie. The mess of multiple, concurrent storylines isn’t there. Not surprisingly, the book series was a hit prior to True Blood, and it didn’t have to rely on subplots involving evil devil babies and gay witches.

There is no good reason why every character needs to have their own storyline. Perhaps the popularity of the show has given all the actors bloated egos and a trumped-up sense of self-importance so high that they feel the need to be included more often? Yeah, that’s probably it. At any rate, True Blood is dying a slow death. I suspect this won’t be remedied by the end of season four, and will likely continue on to season five. Eventually the weight of all this shit will cause the show to collapse, create an even more convoluted mess than we have now, and bring the series to cancellation. It could still be saved, but if it keeps on its current trajectory, more likely than not, it will end up in the shitpile with the rest of the crap that’s on TV.

Verdicts:

Season Two – Good

Season Three – Average

Season Four – Eh…

Bonus: True Blood Drinking Game

Drink every time:

• Bill says “Sookie” in his weird husky voice.
• Sookie uses her magical powers.
• Sookie gets mad at someone.
• Jason is shirtless.
• There is graphic sex.
• There is graphic violence.
• A vampire drinks human blood.
• A human drinks vampire blood.
• Pam says something sarcastic.
• Eric acts menacing.
• Tara cries.
• Tara overreacts.
• Sam shape-shifts.
• Alcide turns into a wolf.
• Andy gets annoyed with someone/something.
• A vampire glamours someone.
• Lafayette calls someone “bitch”, “hooker”, or “motherfucker.”
• Someone says, “The True Death.”
• Arlene is the only employee working at Merlotte’s.
• There is a dream sequence.
• The episode ends on a cliffhanger.

Can You Shut the Fuck Up While I’m Watching the Show?

I used to think that most people were like me, you know, rich, handsome, dashing multi-millionaires with countless ladies swooning at their feet. It wasn’t until later that I realized most people were actually not like me at all. While I prefer to be quiet and pay attention to a movie or TV show, most people do not. It seems that most people do not have the ability to shut the fuck up for a 30 minute – 2 hour period of time.

Whether it’s a TV show, a DVD at home, or a movie in the theater, people are constantly talking. This drives me fucking crazy. It’s something I don’t do, save for the occasional joke or random comment. If other people made a comment here or there, things would be fine. But people don’t do that. They feel the need to have an entire conversation throughout the course of the show.

Watching TV or a movie is not the same thing as going out for dinner. There are other people around who want to concentrate on what they paid money for, rather than hearing your inane drivel. This phenomenon seems to be getting worse every day. What is so hard about being quiet? Why is it only I seem to be able to do it? Maybe it’s natural selection? Either I have progressed to the next point in evolution or everyone else has devolved back to the apes.

Case in point: Mrs. Brik and I were at a friend’s house watching the premier of the third season of True Blood. We are big fans and so are our friends. Our friends had also invited other friends, one of their parents, some siblings, and their significant others. It wasn’t a big gathering. There were about 10 people altogether. I thought, “Oh cool, there are a bunch of True Blood fans here. This should be fun.” Of course, these thoughts were entirely incorrect. What I should have been thinking was, “Oh fuck, there are a bunch of talkative retards here. This should be a disaster.”

And a disaster it was. Half of the people there had never watched True Blood before. Two of the people who had seen the show spent every minute explaining shit to the people who hadn’t seen it. “Oh, that’s Sookie. She’s the main character. She has the power to read people’s minds. She is also dating Bill, who is a vampire. She lives in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Jason is her brother. She works as a waitress at a bar called Merlotte’s. At the end of the last season…” It was annoying because this happened every time a new character, location, or supernatural power appeared on screen.

If you are going to watch a serialized show, it would only make sense to start at the beginning and not jump in somewhere in the middle. Don’t expect people to tolerate you asking, “Who’s that? What’s going on? Why are the doing that?” every five minutes. If you are guilty of this kind of thing, here’s a tip for the future. Either start at the beginning, or be quiet and just hope things will start to make sense. If you don’t follow my advice, expect to get bludgeoned.

Worse than that, was this one girl’s boyfriend. Apparently this guy is a world class expert on vampires. He wouldn’t shut the fuck up throughout the whole episode. Every ten seconds he would have to interject a comment or personal insight regarding the mythology of the series. Imagine these quotes in your best, lispy nerd voice.

“Oh, I see that silver harms the vampires in this. That’s kind of lame. I prefer the traditional way of killing vampires. You know, with fire or beheading.”

The “traditional way,” asshole? I could have sworn the “traditional way” to kill vampires was a stake in the heart or sunlight, neither of which you mentioned. Besides, there is no “traditional way” to kill vampires. They are fucking fictional characters. There are no hard and fast rules about how to kill fictional characters. I didn’t realize I was dealing with a vampire scholar here. Traditional or not, all I care about is that the show is consistent. If they set up rules in the show’s universe (e.g. silver harms vampires), they should always stick with those rules. Hell, they could say that vampires could only be killed by a wooden stake up the ass, but as long as they didn’t deviate from that rule, I could care less.

Here are some other annoying quotes from that guy:

“Can vampires cross running water in this show?”

“Are vampires stronger than werewolves in this?”

“Does garlic do anything to vampires in this?”

“Oh, they don’t turn to dust when they are hit with a wooden stake? That is really lame.”

“I don’t think that sunlight should kill vampires. It should be more like in Dracula where their powers are weakened.”

And of course my favorite, and most relevant, comments of the night:

“The opening to this series isn’t nearly as good as the opening to Dexter.”

“You know, the characters in Dexter are so good.”

“I think the sex scenes in Dexter are better.”

Wow. Way to have a hard-on for Dexter. Why the fuck would you compare the openings (or any aspects) of Dexter and True Blood? The only thing these shows have in common is that they are both on TV. Also, way to talk through the entire show, motherfucker. Would it have killed that guy to shut up for a fucking hour? How about ten minutes?

Between him constantly talking like he’s the godfather of vampires and the other people constantly explaining what the hell was going on to the people who hadn’t seen the show, I couldn’t hear a goddamn word coming out of the TV. I had no fucking idea what was going on in that first episode of True Blood. In fact, after we got home, we had to watch it online so we would understand what the hell happened. Suffice it to say, we did not return to our friends’ place for episode two.

This kind of thing really needs to stop. Nobody cares what you have to say. Even if you wrote your Ph.D. thesis on Traditional Methods of Killing the Vampire: A Retrospective Analysis, I don’t want to hear about it while I’m watching some awesome vampire-killing action. If you are talking non-stop about bullshit, it’s going to piss me off. It’s impossible to enjoy the movie or TV show when you are constantly yapping. Also, if you are too stupid to understand what’s going on and need to constantly ask for clarification, you need to step out. Maybe seeing the latest Michael Bay shit-spectacular is more up your alley.

In summary, can you shut the fuck up while I’m watching the show?