Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [70]
Relationship Crypt Falls: When it comes to Bill knowing when Sookie is in a heightened state of emotion, it remains unclear how he discerns the difference between Sookie in danger and Sookie in flagrante delicto. If he can’t distinguish the two, then he showed up at Sookie’s house thinking she was being attacked, likely by the fangbanger killer. If he can, then his jealousy has cost him the one thing he could do better than any other, protect Sookie from the inevitable attack.
Paging Dr. Creepy: I’ve about had my fill of vampire slop. My stomach is pretty strong, but when Amy poured the contents of Eddie into the garbage disposal, I made a little wish that the next creature to expire would have fed only on tinsel and pixie dust.
Location, Location, Location: A few blocks from the location used for the Bon Temps Police Station, the scene inside Big Patty’s Pie House was shot at Chip’s Restaurant in Hawthorne, California, close to the Los Angeles International Airport. It was built in 1955 and is still open for business, serving fluffy scrambled eggs and creamy grits.
Encore: As Jason and Amy reconcile over dinner, they listen to “To Love Is to Bury,” performed by the Cowboy Junkies. The band formed in Toronto in 1985, and three of four of them are siblings. “To Love Is to Bury” is from their 1988 album The Trinity Sessions recorded in 1987 at Church of the Holy Trinity, using just one microphone. The album includes a mix of originals and covers, the most notable being their take on The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane,” which Lou Reed once called the best cover of the song he’d ever heard. The album also produced the haunting track “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis),” which combines the original with a new song by the band. It’s arguable whether or not Amy knew enough about love to trust what she felt for Jason, but his love for her was genuine if naive. It’s likely that without pharma-psychedelic assistance, they could have connected just as strongly. This song sets up their final hyper-sexualized romp, less sensuous than playful; unfortunately, the only trip during which their inevitable disconnect meant that Jason wouldn’t wake in time to save her.
1.12 ~ You’ll Be the Death of Me
Original air date: November 23, 2008; Written by: Raelle Tucker; Directed by: Alan Ball
Maryann [to Tara]: Maybe life had just cleared out all the things that weren’t working for you. Now you’ve got room to rebuild, decide exactly what you want your life to look like, and make that happen.
Sookie discovers the identity of the killer, putting herself in harm’s way. Jason finds new salvation in an anti-vampire church. Tara embraces Maryann’s teachings. And Bill risks his very existence to save Sookie.
Now that’s a season finale! One door closes; several others open. The writers have given us more than enough to keep ourselves busy with anticipation for the next season, but have also tied up enough loose ends that we can go back to the beginning to critique their methods. We’ve earned it! There’s a lot of escapism in True Blood, but it makes you work. It’s smart, sexy, and subversive, its finger on the pulse, as it were, of contemporary politics. It’s hard to believe with an ensemble cast this size that we covered so much territory in only 12 episodes.
There are some flaws in the season finale. Let’s get those out of the way. We know that Sookie can elect to stay out of people’s thoughts. But as people get angry or emotional, their thoughts get odder. So it’s difficult to believe that once Rene knows she’s close to identifying him as the killer she wouldn’t be hit with a torrent