• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Now that Sookie and Bill are together, and Tara and Sam are done like dinner, could there be new love in Bon Temps? Hoyt asks if Bill might know of any female vampires just as Jessica returns to the roost, feistier than before and ready to make things hard for Daddy. Jessica is a creation of the True Blood writers, not a carryover from the books. With her around, the writers will have to work hard to make Sookie more mature in season 2, a transformation that began when she started wearing her hair down, and now in a tussled do. Jessica’s character commands a lot of attention, but she’s such a revelation, from her youth to her playfulness to what she brings out as Bill, a surprise as a father figure. There’s a lot of material to mine from their relationship.

As we round out the season, we’re given some takeaways to remind us how art imitates life. We’ve been given a chance to escape, but Alan Ball doesn’t shy from showing us the ugly truths of our real world, offering us the tools to help build a better one. Notably, he doesn’t pander to us. Like Gran or Eddie, he gives us the choice, asking only that we see things for what they truly are. For instance, Rene doesn’t just beat Sookie and Sam; he bashes them. It’s an all-out hate crime. And while Alan Ball has been flexible with his mythology, the idea of letting vampires construct their own myths in order to protect themselves mirrors the LGBT community perfectly, especially closeted gays and lesbians who still build narratives into their day-to-day lives to control how they are perceived. We are delivered a hopeful message, though, vampire-human marriages becoming legal in Vermont, the first state to legalize same-sex civil unions. Vampires: 1. Haters: 0.

Highlight: Terry [to Arlene]: “Your hair’s like a sunset after a bomb went off. Pretty.”

Nightcap: The painting behind Tara’s bed in Maryann’s home is La Grande Odalisque. Painted in 1814 by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, it depicts a concubine. Critics saw Ingres as a rebel, favoring sensuality over anatomical realism. When Sookie’s doorbell rings, she’s watching The Little Princess (1939) starring Shirley Temple, possibly an inside joke as the film was originally based on a novel but introduced a number of new characters and storylines when adapted to the screen, not unlike Alan Ball’s adaptation of Charlaine Harris’s novels. The novel was entitled A Little Princess (1904) written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and told the story of an orphaned girl at a boarding school who takes up with a number of friends considered “undesirable” by the school’s standards. She develops a rich fantasy world, all the while learning that her friends are now her family, and that she’s not alone in the world, as Sookie (and Jason) would have felt after Gran died. As Eric drops Jessica off at Bill’s house he says, “O du ljuva frihet” as he leaves, which is Swedish for “Oh sweet freedom.”

Relationship Crypt Falls: Can we really blame Sam for being so upset that Bill’s back? He needs to cool off a lot, but he’d finally won Sookie and most of the audience over with his sincerity. Sookie doesn’t seem to care that he’s mad, having settled on her choice of Bill. But Sam isn’t as loyal a friend as his pet dog. He’s said that it’s hard to shift into the model of another human because they’re too complex; he’s barely used to being inside his own skin.

Paging Dr. Creepy: Severing Rene’s head from his spinal column was pretty gross, as was Bill’s charred skin receding back from his face. But it’s Maryann’s shimmering that gets my vote this episode. The effect of her vibrating like Liam (seen in a reprise of his sex scene with Maudette) upset both my mind and body. All told, very effective, even if I got the tummy grumbles.

Encore: “You’ll Be the Death of Me,” performed by Johnny Winter, is heard when Sam asks Tara if she knows the whereabouts of Lafayette. Johnny Winter is an American blues guitarist and singer, a born-and-raised Texan, who began his recording career when he was 15. Even though the town in which he was raised, Beaumont,