Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [65]
Tribute: Chris Bauer (Detective Andy Bellefleur)
“[Chris has] really brought so much humor to the part [of Andy], and he’s got a carefree attitude of just, ‘What the hell, I’m gonna go for it!’ He’s just great.”
— Sam Trammell
Andy Bellefleur is first introduced to us as both a bully and comic relief, a Keystone Kop whose incompetency and thirst for Happy Hour keeps him from achieving the respect he thinks he deserves. When he’s put in his place, we experience a mix of relief (because it usually means the good guy gets away) and disappointment that he didn’t get his man again. Chris Bauer’s take on Andy is brilliant, a mixture of boyish wonder and jaded adolescence. As big and burly as he is, Andy isn’t a grown-up, he’s just playing at it, the same as when he plays bad cop in an attempt to get suspects to confess. Yet we can’t help but root for him, because while he’s often off the mark, he’s never far from the truth. He wasn’t born yesterday. In a small town like Bon Temps, he knows each citizen like the back of his hand. What most mistake as predictability could just be a rock-solid nature.
Where you’ve seen Chris Bauer: 8MM, Flawless, High Fidelity, Law & Order, The Wire, Criminal Minds, CSI, Numb3rs, Fringe, The Good Wife
1.10 ~ I Don’t Wanna Know
Original air date: November 9, 2008; Written by: Chris Offutt; Directed by: Scott Winant
Sam: Must be nice to come from such an old family.
Terry: All families are old, Sam. Some just keep better records.
Sam reveals his true identity to Sookie. Tara learns the truth about Miss Jeanette. And Bill accepts his punishment for killing another vampire.
The last few episodes have provided a platform for some of the supporting cast to take center stage, in particular Adina Porter, Nelsan Ellis, and Alexander Skarsgård. While some of the plot points of late have left me wanting — Jason’s V addiction has been overplayed — with this episode, we’re back on track!
Stephen Root turns in another fine performance as Eddie. His scenes with Amy and Jason are some of my favorite this season. He reserves what energy he has to pay forward the tutelage he couldn’t offer his own son. Jason is Eddie’s chance to be a maker.
As viewers, we need Eddie. He can speak in a way the others can’t because they’re too close to their situations. They’re literally boxed in. Sam lives in a trailer. Tara lives in crowded house with her mother. Bill sleeps underground. Lafayette’s house is littered with cameras. Sookie’s world is infringed upon by others’ thoughts and feelings. And Jason, in his own way, is trapped inside a body so tight, only the sweat can get out. As an outsider in life, and in death, Eddie’s view of the world is narrated from the sidelines, not as a participant but as a voyeur. And because he’s a vampire, his logic isn’t clouded by the emotions and traits affecting everyone else: frustration (Sookie), resentment (Tara), selfishness (Amy), delusion (Maxine), suffering (Sam), or, in a rare vampire exception, martyrdom (Bill). Whether it was a conscious decision to make Eddie tempered and compassionate like Gran, his demeanor is a haunting likeness, kind in a way that Jason respects and responds to.
For these, and other reasons — notably, Sam coming out as a shifter, and Sookie’s reluctance to forgive him for not telling her earlier — this episode has more LGBT ties than most. Eddie’s newly vampire, so it’s not centuries of living that have made him wise. When he was turned, he took with him the lessons he learned from not being out to himself or his family. Eddie’s a moderate vampire, but he’s an iconic gay male. Sure, he’s not what the popular media trumpets as the ideal (see Jason), but he’s more in keeping with the message and reality of gay/vampire rights, that it’s less about lifestyle and all about changing assumptions of what you presumed to be straight/human, in the first place.