True Blood 2x11 Review
Jun. 7th, 2010 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaFrenzy
This was not a bad episode but like the one before it felt very much like a set up episode.
• My favourite part of the episode: Sookie/Lafayette. I loved them. Hopefully next season we’ll get a lot more of them because they’re fabulous together. I loved them bonding over their dislike of Eric – “Someone need to slap that bitch.” / “I have.” / “Look at you.” – he said that but I don’t think he ever thought of it as a possibility. Lafayette and Sookie’s feelings for and about Eric aren’t the same though. Not at all. Eric does scare Sookie but not the way that he does Lafayette (and this is very understandable). Not to mention that when Sookie gets scared she lashes out – and for her, when it’s aimed at him, Eric pretty much always just takes it. Her fear of him is more of an unknown danger, the idea of danger and perhaps even an inner attraction to it she doesn’t like. But for Lafayette it’s a fear that’s very real, that he lived and is now always with him. Eric broke him a bit, while with Sookie he’s been very careful not to.
During their talk about dreams (and I loved Sookie bringing that up) Lafayette admits that he has sex dreams that he calls ‘nasty and fantastic’. There is nothing in Sookie’s dreams of Eric I would call ‘nasty’. So clearly the dreams are very specific to the human and their relationship to Eric. Lafayette’s relationship with Eric was one of fear and pain and confinement and helplessness. He let Eric further into his life to save it but it doesn’t make him happy about it. So his dreams are nasty, and I don’t know if I want to know what’s happening that he would call it that, but also fantastic... because this is Eric (hot, male vampire who Dawn called the best sex in her life.) Sookie’s seen the nastiness of Eric but it hasn’t truly been directed at her person and in the end there before the bond and then just after it she also saw the vulnerability and love, and humanity in Eric. It’s not that surprising that her dreams of Eric would be so much softer.
• “It’s like he’s always in my head.” – Lafayette. I find this a bit interesting because Eric does seem to be affecting both Sookie and Lafayette more than Bill affected Sookie. Is this down to him being so much older than Bill?
• “If Maryann gives us any trouble you have to shoot her. I mean it! Shoot her in the head!” – Sookie. I find this fascinating because of how this ties back into Sookie’s first dream. In that dream Eric told her she was ruthless about protecting those she loves (and that is what would make her a good vampire) and she laughed it off but now, here, it’s shown to very much be true. She is ruthless and it comes out when she needs to protect her people. It’s as much a part of her as her compassion is – her compassion that makes her human and which Bill notices about her most. I love how this show ties things in to each other.
• There was so much stupidity in this episode that it was actually kind of painful. I don’t even know where to start! Sookie tells Tara: “You are being a fucking idiot.” and my first thought was: ‘yeah, that seems to be going around.’ and, wow, was it ever. Stupidity, listed in no particular order:
- Jason (and Andy but mainly Jason). Sigh. Oh, Jason. And he just had that lovely discussion with Sookie about using his brain too. “Sometimes you have to destroy something to save it” when he was talking about people; talking about his neighbours and his friends and yeesh almighty! Yet he gets even worse – “The time for thinking is over. It’s time for action.” – and honestly that pretty much is exactly what he is about. Why think when you can just do something? When he pushed that man down it really looked like he was going to shoot him if Andy hadn’t stopped him and he never seemed to realise how wrong that was. He talks about having to save the town and everyone in it (by killing them) and just... god, not using his brain at all. Sam tells him: “You’re a damn fool Jason.” and sadly I have to say nothing truer has ever been said about him. I’d like to blame it on Maryann but I really can’t. It’s just Jason being Jason being what he’s always been.
- Tara. Oh, Tara. I understand where she’s coming from here and I was with her first argument with Sookie but going back to that house without a plan and knowing what she knew was just fucking stupid. How the hell did she expect things to go? I mean it took Bill and Sookie’s combined power, used at full, to pull her out of Maryann’s power how was she expecting to save Eggs, from the heart of Maryann’s territory at that?
- Sookie and Lafayette going after Tara. Oh, guys. It’s only a little bit smarter than what Tara did and only because they thought about it a bit, and took a weapon, and went in cautiously... and no, it was stupid. They knew nothing about how to stop Maryann, had no seeming plan on what to do if they ran into townspeople, or even about Tara if she was already changed. Like with Tara, it would have made more sense to wait until they had more information and a plan.
- Sookie and Lafayette splitting up at the house made no sense whatsoever. I mean not even in the sense that they damn well shouldn’t have split up and should know better, which is true, but because there was no freaking reason for them to split up except that TPTB needed them to. So for this bit of idiocy I’m going to blame TPTB entirely not the characters. Lafayette could have easily just dropped the bag of ecstasy for Terry and Arlene to lose themselves in, hell he threw a couple out and they were already thoroughly distracted. Why the hell wouldn’t he just walk by them and head into the house with Sookie? There is no reason. Ergo, it’s TPTB fault more than the characters in my eyes.
• I would add Lettie Mae setting Tara free to the list of stupidity, because it really was, but I’m not going to because I mainly find it really sad. She always seems to want to take the short and easy way to fixing problems (drinking in the first place, then doing an exorcism instead of actually working to stay sober) so it makes sense to me that she would grab a hold of the possibility that with one action she could just wipe away all the wrong she did to Tara. I find it sad.
• I did find myself being a bit torn between wanting Sookie to stay put at Lafayette’s, and thus being smart, and wanting her to go with Tara, and having Tara’s back as family should. I love the idea of Sookie arguing with and yelling at Tara and then sighing and going ‘fine, idiot, let’s go’ and then the two of them sneaking off and working together. That would have been awesome. But very stupid so I was torn. Then we go back to Lettie Mae having the gun on them still and I was like, ‘oh right’, and that explains part of why she didn’t go after Tara, and then I saw Lafayette cowering there and Sookie holding him and that was the other reason she stayed. Tara isn’t her only friend, and Sookie’s compassion is very much a part of who she is, of course she would stay with traumatised Lafayette. (Though now I’m thinking about it if she’d offered to go with Tara there was some way she might have stopped Tara from going through with it. Or maybe not.)
• Does Sookie not know how to shoot a gun? When Lettie Mae came out of the house there seemed to be an assumption that Sookie was never an option to get the gun, and after taking out Lettie Mae Sookie doesn’t grab the gun though it would have been just as easy for her to do so but rather made traumatised Lafayette getting the gun part of the plan.
• I wonder how it feels to Eric to have Lafayette under Maryann’s control? Does he just not feel Lafayette anymore, can he feel the more intense emotions, or does he feel the darkness/abyss that Sookie saw?
• I’m surprised that Sookie didn’t call Eric after she got Bill’s message that he wasn’t coming.
• I feel like I’ve missed or forgotten something – how the hell does Sam know Eric and vice versa? Eric was at Merlotte’s once but they never interacted. It could just be Sam knowing about Eric via Sookie, and Eric sensing Sam being a shifter, and/or knowing Sam by reputation (him not liking vampires) but it seemed like they actually knew each other. It felt weird.
• “Can you get me Sookie Stackhouse?” – Eric. Pam’s eye roll made me go heeee. That was perfect. And Eric... it’s seems he’s pretty obsessed with her. I mean he has been from their first meeting but at this point he really does want her and is willing to take any opportunity to get her. Sam says that he might be able to give Eric something he needs – needs – Eric thinks he needs Sookie? Why?
• It felt weird to have this Eric right after the Eric of the last episode. In this episode we get the same Eric as always complete with his taunting/games with Bill and life moving on just the same as always. As if the night before he hadn’t been reduced to tears and begging. As if last sunrise he hadn’t lost his maker. The fact that the episode began with Sookie’s dream of comforting him in his grief and then we get just normal Eric with no hint of that grief – it was just a bit peculiar. I wasn’t expecting him to be angsting all over the place... or maybe I was, which probably wouldn’t be right for the character but him being perfectly fine doesn’t seem right either.
• “They’re like humans, but miniature. Teacup humans!” – Eric. So Eric’s interest and fascination in the kids was definitely creepy especially when you get the translation of what he said to Pam in Swedish (that they also delicious). This way he has of seeing them is also kind of creepy and also kind of idiotic but it’s also completely hilarious. It made me laugh out loud.
• When Cody asked to see Eric’s fangs it immediately brought to mind him asking Bill the same thing, as I’m sure it was supposed to, and how both vampires react is so them. Bill says okay and then puts in food fangs and makes a joke of it. Eric just pops fangs, all serious. He is what he is.
• I love Pam and Eric speaking Swedish to each other but I really need to find an episode source that has subtitles or a website because you lose a lot when you don’t know what the hell is being said. This didn’t matter so much during the Godric/Eric goodbye surprisingly because it was the emotion of the scene that mattered.
• The Eric/Bill fight – I think Bill has made another misstep in their ongoing antagonistic relationship over Sookie. Threatening Eric to keep him away from Sookie, threatening him with something that could seriously harm Eric at that, it’s going to come back to bite Bill in the ass. Eric is not just going to let this go. Bill asking if Sookie had mentioned him – I’m choosing to take that as yet more poking at Bill because it seems to weird that he would be seriously wanting to know (well, at the same time not... it’s just it came off very grade school girl of him ‘does she like me’ sort of thing.) I did love Eric calling Bill on feeding Sookie his blood on the night he met Sookie (and thus creating a bond between them) though I too want to know how he knew about it.
• So Sophie-Anne knows all about Maenads – is this an age thing or a Queen thing? Does a vampire get like an instruction manual/encyclopaedia when they become queen/king?
• “This alpha male posturing – you two should just fuck each other and get it over with. I can watch.” – Sophie-Anne. Hee. I like her. So she likes to watch two men together, only sleeps with women, and feeds on both.
• “Of course not. Gods never actually show up. They only exist in human’s minds. Like money or morality.” – Sophie-Anne. For some reason this struck me as hilarious.
• “They will try any other being that straddles the two worlds.” – Sophie Anne. And when Bill gets confirmation that it’s true as long as that being has a beating heart you can see him know that it’s going to be Sookie Maryann will want as a vessel. Is this why he shows up at the end at Sam’s house – is he hoping to use Sam as a sacrifice to protect Sookie (after all its Sam Maryann was looking for, and he doesn’t know she already has Sookie).
• I actually agreed with Tara calling Sookie out on her being allowed to risk her life to save or help Bill, but her not allowing Tara to do the same for Eggs. Tara is an adult to make her decisions herself even if they are stupid not that I don’t think that they were doing the right thing in trying to protect her from herself.
• Other stuff:
- I wonder if Sookie, and what she is, is what the Maenads have been looking for all this time?
- It was very interesting to see Hadley as one of the Queen of Louisiana’s pet humans. I liked her talk with Bill. Now the question becomes – will he tell Sookie about her or not. Hmm.
- Tara having been the one to summon Maryann makes so much sense (oh, Nancy, helping and scamming people and having no clue about what she was messing with) and it definitely explains Maryann’s obsession with Tara.
- Tara, in her right mind and no longer lost to Maryann’s power, lashing out and hurting the people she loved and that loved her was rather painful. People don’t need to be let free to chaos to hurt other people.
- I guess the explanation for Sookie lying down with Mike was that she was playing along with Mike until the other two had left and she could knock him out? That’s what I’m going with.
- Poor Jessica. But while Hoyt was all mad what I took notice of was the fact that Jessica let him pull her away – even though she was hunger and mad and is oh so young – she let him pull her away. That girl has impressive control.
- You’d think that Lafayette would be a bit worried about giving his friends all of the drugs he had. They aren’t in their right minds and wouldn’t taking that whole bag be enough to kill them?
- We get more vampire lore – in this universe vampires can fly (!) and they can only drink human blood. I wonder if animal blood is harmful or just doesn’t do anything for them? Probably the latter. I wonder why? Wouldn’t blood be blood? Can Bill fly as well? Or is flying something age dependent or specific-vampire dependent.
This was not a bad episode but like the one before it felt very much like a set up episode.
• My favourite part of the episode: Sookie/Lafayette. I loved them. Hopefully next season we’ll get a lot more of them because they’re fabulous together. I loved them bonding over their dislike of Eric – “Someone need to slap that bitch.” / “I have.” / “Look at you.” – he said that but I don’t think he ever thought of it as a possibility. Lafayette and Sookie’s feelings for and about Eric aren’t the same though. Not at all. Eric does scare Sookie but not the way that he does Lafayette (and this is very understandable). Not to mention that when Sookie gets scared she lashes out – and for her, when it’s aimed at him, Eric pretty much always just takes it. Her fear of him is more of an unknown danger, the idea of danger and perhaps even an inner attraction to it she doesn’t like. But for Lafayette it’s a fear that’s very real, that he lived and is now always with him. Eric broke him a bit, while with Sookie he’s been very careful not to.
During their talk about dreams (and I loved Sookie bringing that up) Lafayette admits that he has sex dreams that he calls ‘nasty and fantastic’. There is nothing in Sookie’s dreams of Eric I would call ‘nasty’. So clearly the dreams are very specific to the human and their relationship to Eric. Lafayette’s relationship with Eric was one of fear and pain and confinement and helplessness. He let Eric further into his life to save it but it doesn’t make him happy about it. So his dreams are nasty, and I don’t know if I want to know what’s happening that he would call it that, but also fantastic... because this is Eric (hot, male vampire who Dawn called the best sex in her life.) Sookie’s seen the nastiness of Eric but it hasn’t truly been directed at her person and in the end there before the bond and then just after it she also saw the vulnerability and love, and humanity in Eric. It’s not that surprising that her dreams of Eric would be so much softer.
• “It’s like he’s always in my head.” – Lafayette. I find this a bit interesting because Eric does seem to be affecting both Sookie and Lafayette more than Bill affected Sookie. Is this down to him being so much older than Bill?
• “If Maryann gives us any trouble you have to shoot her. I mean it! Shoot her in the head!” – Sookie. I find this fascinating because of how this ties back into Sookie’s first dream. In that dream Eric told her she was ruthless about protecting those she loves (and that is what would make her a good vampire) and she laughed it off but now, here, it’s shown to very much be true. She is ruthless and it comes out when she needs to protect her people. It’s as much a part of her as her compassion is – her compassion that makes her human and which Bill notices about her most. I love how this show ties things in to each other.
• There was so much stupidity in this episode that it was actually kind of painful. I don’t even know where to start! Sookie tells Tara: “You are being a fucking idiot.” and my first thought was: ‘yeah, that seems to be going around.’ and, wow, was it ever. Stupidity, listed in no particular order:
- Jason (and Andy but mainly Jason). Sigh. Oh, Jason. And he just had that lovely discussion with Sookie about using his brain too. “Sometimes you have to destroy something to save it” when he was talking about people; talking about his neighbours and his friends and yeesh almighty! Yet he gets even worse – “The time for thinking is over. It’s time for action.” – and honestly that pretty much is exactly what he is about. Why think when you can just do something? When he pushed that man down it really looked like he was going to shoot him if Andy hadn’t stopped him and he never seemed to realise how wrong that was. He talks about having to save the town and everyone in it (by killing them) and just... god, not using his brain at all. Sam tells him: “You’re a damn fool Jason.” and sadly I have to say nothing truer has ever been said about him. I’d like to blame it on Maryann but I really can’t. It’s just Jason being Jason being what he’s always been.
- Tara. Oh, Tara. I understand where she’s coming from here and I was with her first argument with Sookie but going back to that house without a plan and knowing what she knew was just fucking stupid. How the hell did she expect things to go? I mean it took Bill and Sookie’s combined power, used at full, to pull her out of Maryann’s power how was she expecting to save Eggs, from the heart of Maryann’s territory at that?
- Sookie and Lafayette going after Tara. Oh, guys. It’s only a little bit smarter than what Tara did and only because they thought about it a bit, and took a weapon, and went in cautiously... and no, it was stupid. They knew nothing about how to stop Maryann, had no seeming plan on what to do if they ran into townspeople, or even about Tara if she was already changed. Like with Tara, it would have made more sense to wait until they had more information and a plan.
- Sookie and Lafayette splitting up at the house made no sense whatsoever. I mean not even in the sense that they damn well shouldn’t have split up and should know better, which is true, but because there was no freaking reason for them to split up except that TPTB needed them to. So for this bit of idiocy I’m going to blame TPTB entirely not the characters. Lafayette could have easily just dropped the bag of ecstasy for Terry and Arlene to lose themselves in, hell he threw a couple out and they were already thoroughly distracted. Why the hell wouldn’t he just walk by them and head into the house with Sookie? There is no reason. Ergo, it’s TPTB fault more than the characters in my eyes.
• I would add Lettie Mae setting Tara free to the list of stupidity, because it really was, but I’m not going to because I mainly find it really sad. She always seems to want to take the short and easy way to fixing problems (drinking in the first place, then doing an exorcism instead of actually working to stay sober) so it makes sense to me that she would grab a hold of the possibility that with one action she could just wipe away all the wrong she did to Tara. I find it sad.
• I did find myself being a bit torn between wanting Sookie to stay put at Lafayette’s, and thus being smart, and wanting her to go with Tara, and having Tara’s back as family should. I love the idea of Sookie arguing with and yelling at Tara and then sighing and going ‘fine, idiot, let’s go’ and then the two of them sneaking off and working together. That would have been awesome. But very stupid so I was torn. Then we go back to Lettie Mae having the gun on them still and I was like, ‘oh right’, and that explains part of why she didn’t go after Tara, and then I saw Lafayette cowering there and Sookie holding him and that was the other reason she stayed. Tara isn’t her only friend, and Sookie’s compassion is very much a part of who she is, of course she would stay with traumatised Lafayette. (Though now I’m thinking about it if she’d offered to go with Tara there was some way she might have stopped Tara from going through with it. Or maybe not.)
• Does Sookie not know how to shoot a gun? When Lettie Mae came out of the house there seemed to be an assumption that Sookie was never an option to get the gun, and after taking out Lettie Mae Sookie doesn’t grab the gun though it would have been just as easy for her to do so but rather made traumatised Lafayette getting the gun part of the plan.
• I wonder how it feels to Eric to have Lafayette under Maryann’s control? Does he just not feel Lafayette anymore, can he feel the more intense emotions, or does he feel the darkness/abyss that Sookie saw?
• I’m surprised that Sookie didn’t call Eric after she got Bill’s message that he wasn’t coming.
• I feel like I’ve missed or forgotten something – how the hell does Sam know Eric and vice versa? Eric was at Merlotte’s once but they never interacted. It could just be Sam knowing about Eric via Sookie, and Eric sensing Sam being a shifter, and/or knowing Sam by reputation (him not liking vampires) but it seemed like they actually knew each other. It felt weird.
• “Can you get me Sookie Stackhouse?” – Eric. Pam’s eye roll made me go heeee. That was perfect. And Eric... it’s seems he’s pretty obsessed with her. I mean he has been from their first meeting but at this point he really does want her and is willing to take any opportunity to get her. Sam says that he might be able to give Eric something he needs – needs – Eric thinks he needs Sookie? Why?
• It felt weird to have this Eric right after the Eric of the last episode. In this episode we get the same Eric as always complete with his taunting/games with Bill and life moving on just the same as always. As if the night before he hadn’t been reduced to tears and begging. As if last sunrise he hadn’t lost his maker. The fact that the episode began with Sookie’s dream of comforting him in his grief and then we get just normal Eric with no hint of that grief – it was just a bit peculiar. I wasn’t expecting him to be angsting all over the place... or maybe I was, which probably wouldn’t be right for the character but him being perfectly fine doesn’t seem right either.
• “They’re like humans, but miniature. Teacup humans!” – Eric. So Eric’s interest and fascination in the kids was definitely creepy especially when you get the translation of what he said to Pam in Swedish (that they also delicious). This way he has of seeing them is also kind of creepy and also kind of idiotic but it’s also completely hilarious. It made me laugh out loud.
• When Cody asked to see Eric’s fangs it immediately brought to mind him asking Bill the same thing, as I’m sure it was supposed to, and how both vampires react is so them. Bill says okay and then puts in food fangs and makes a joke of it. Eric just pops fangs, all serious. He is what he is.
• I love Pam and Eric speaking Swedish to each other but I really need to find an episode source that has subtitles or a website because you lose a lot when you don’t know what the hell is being said. This didn’t matter so much during the Godric/Eric goodbye surprisingly because it was the emotion of the scene that mattered.
• The Eric/Bill fight – I think Bill has made another misstep in their ongoing antagonistic relationship over Sookie. Threatening Eric to keep him away from Sookie, threatening him with something that could seriously harm Eric at that, it’s going to come back to bite Bill in the ass. Eric is not just going to let this go. Bill asking if Sookie had mentioned him – I’m choosing to take that as yet more poking at Bill because it seems to weird that he would be seriously wanting to know (well, at the same time not... it’s just it came off very grade school girl of him ‘does she like me’ sort of thing.) I did love Eric calling Bill on feeding Sookie his blood on the night he met Sookie (and thus creating a bond between them) though I too want to know how he knew about it.
• So Sophie-Anne knows all about Maenads – is this an age thing or a Queen thing? Does a vampire get like an instruction manual/encyclopaedia when they become queen/king?
• “This alpha male posturing – you two should just fuck each other and get it over with. I can watch.” – Sophie-Anne. Hee. I like her. So she likes to watch two men together, only sleeps with women, and feeds on both.
• “Of course not. Gods never actually show up. They only exist in human’s minds. Like money or morality.” – Sophie-Anne. For some reason this struck me as hilarious.
• “They will try any other being that straddles the two worlds.” – Sophie Anne. And when Bill gets confirmation that it’s true as long as that being has a beating heart you can see him know that it’s going to be Sookie Maryann will want as a vessel. Is this why he shows up at the end at Sam’s house – is he hoping to use Sam as a sacrifice to protect Sookie (after all its Sam Maryann was looking for, and he doesn’t know she already has Sookie).
• I actually agreed with Tara calling Sookie out on her being allowed to risk her life to save or help Bill, but her not allowing Tara to do the same for Eggs. Tara is an adult to make her decisions herself even if they are stupid not that I don’t think that they were doing the right thing in trying to protect her from herself.
• Other stuff:
- I wonder if Sookie, and what she is, is what the Maenads have been looking for all this time?
- It was very interesting to see Hadley as one of the Queen of Louisiana’s pet humans. I liked her talk with Bill. Now the question becomes – will he tell Sookie about her or not. Hmm.
- Tara having been the one to summon Maryann makes so much sense (oh, Nancy, helping and scamming people and having no clue about what she was messing with) and it definitely explains Maryann’s obsession with Tara.
- Tara, in her right mind and no longer lost to Maryann’s power, lashing out and hurting the people she loved and that loved her was rather painful. People don’t need to be let free to chaos to hurt other people.
- I guess the explanation for Sookie lying down with Mike was that she was playing along with Mike until the other two had left and she could knock him out? That’s what I’m going with.
- Poor Jessica. But while Hoyt was all mad what I took notice of was the fact that Jessica let him pull her away – even though she was hunger and mad and is oh so young – she let him pull her away. That girl has impressive control.
- You’d think that Lafayette would be a bit worried about giving his friends all of the drugs he had. They aren’t in their right minds and wouldn’t taking that whole bag be enough to kill them?
- We get more vampire lore – in this universe vampires can fly (!) and they can only drink human blood. I wonder if animal blood is harmful or just doesn’t do anything for them? Probably the latter. I wonder why? Wouldn’t blood be blood? Can Bill fly as well? Or is flying something age dependent or specific-vampire dependent.
