true blood is knocking my socks off

Have I mentioned how much I am loving True Blood right now?

Well, I am. When season two first started, I have to admit, I didn’t know if I was going to stick with it because the first couple of eps were so…nasty. Horrific. Gross. Lafayette in the basement, Jason being wooed by the Fellowship of the Sun, and no romance with Sookie and Bill. I thought…this is too yucky. And there’s no one to root for. Why was it I liked this show again?

But I did stay with it and now, with only three eps to go, I’m really glad I did.

If you haven’t seen season two yet, when the DVD comes out, I highly recommend staying the course.

And if that is you….

!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!

Really! Don’t read any more if you haven’t watched up to this point!

I mean it!

GO AWAY!

…………………

Okay. If you are still reading, it’s because you’ve already seen Season Two up to tonight’s episode. Agreed?

So. We’ve had this Fellowship of the Sun arc, Jason and Sookie on parallel paths, but with little cross over, each infiltrating the church in their own ways.

Here we have the freakiest Christian couple I’ve ever seen on tv. I mean, weird, hilarious, fucked-up, weird.

Below we have Sookie and Bill, probably arguing about how Sookie is going to sneak into the church and read everyone’s minds, as a favor to Eric. More on Eric in a minute.

By the way, why have Sookie and Bill had so little chemistry this season? I just barely care about them as a couple. Interesting. There is always that gorgeous string (violin? cello?) music theme when they kiss, standing in for real emotion that I should be feeling, but am not. Sorry Bill, but your arc with your maker is kind of boring. Although, early in the season, it was pretty funny when Sookie and BIll were fighting over the ‘parenting’ of new vampire Jessica.

Anyway, here is Jason doing his feel-good Christian Camp experience.

Holy GAWD that dude has a body.

Ahem.

So Sookie and Jason go about getting into the slimy underbelly of the Fellowship, and it’s kinda interesting, only I’m not sure, do I want to keep watching? And then, WHAM, we get Godric, a two thousand year old vampire who has offered himself to the church as a sacrifice, sparking a near war between vampires and humans. From his first moment, saving Sookie from rape, he immediately became the center of both stories, and one of the most interesting characters I have seen in a while.

I was HOOKED. Of course, he is GOD-ric, wink, wink. Well, he IS playing out a Christ-like role, right up to the sacrifice at the end. His death scene is AMAZING. Good work Anna Panquin on the acting!

Isn’t it interesting how Anna can look totally, gorgeously beautiful in one shot and then kind of dorky-plain in another?

Anyway, the church is nullified as hateful, greed-filled, and silly (“I hate your hair!”) and we find the real spiritual messages of bettering oneself, compassion, and forgiveness coming from a vampire. Cool. Sookie, Eric, and the others have now been exposed to Godric’s decisions, his calm, kind presence, and been changed by them, I think. I’m anticipating interesting things from these characters as a result.

There have been a lot of these reversals in the show, all the way back with the opening sequence in Episode One where the spooky, tattooed, black-haired dude is NOT the evil, threatening vampire, but the red-neck, good ole’ boy, IS a vampire, and he is just buying a six-pack and trying to mind his own business. I’d go so far as to say that reversals such as these are the POINT of the show, or at least one of the biggest tent-poles holding the whole thing up (accompanied by Exposing Prejudice of All Kinds, and occasional, but regular, raunchy sex scenes just to remind us that Hey, This Is HBO You’re Watching, and Don’t You Forget It.)

Meanwhile, back in Bon Temps, Tara has fallen under the sway of the Forces of Evil, in the form of Marianne.

Poor Tara has eaten of the shape-changer-heart casserole and participating in some rather disturbing, violent, sex orgies…

(okay, I looked for a picture of the sex orgies, but I couldn’t find one. Sorry.)

…and has gotten a a really hot boyfriend with the odd name of Eggs. Everything looks lovely between them, but he’s just a brainwashed minion of the devil. Another reversal. Poor Tara.

Interesting that Tara can be lost so far down this dark hole and not even realize it. The devil Marianne took out the voo-doo gal who did the exorcism on Tara last season (sheesh, I can’t remember her name!), by ripping her heart out (who got to eat that one, I wonder). Tara’s mother, changed now into a born-again-Christian figure, has repeatedly been shown as too weak to accomplish much, although her transformation from alcoholic-demon-mother to church-going-prayer-making-mother, seems to have stuck. It’s an improvement, but not by much, as her abandoning of Tara in jail is what opened Tara up to Marianne to begin with. Will Lafeyette and Tara’s mother be able to save Tara? We’ll find out tonight….

Or maybe Sookie, with her new exposure to GOD-ric, will come to her friend’s aid. And to the aid of all of Bon Temps. Because from the look of last week’s teaser, Bon Temps needs some serious saving from Marianne and her Evil Parties of Death.

Which brings me to the Transformation of Eric. Eric has gone from vaguely menacing, funny, and brutal (in the first season), to horrific monster (the basement freak-show scenes at the beginning of this season), to now, where he shows up as a more potent love interest for Sookie than Bill has ever been. Huh? How did that happen? His passionate devotion for his maker, Godric, has revealed depths to him that I never would have expected, depths that have moved me without my noticing it was happening, until here I am, rooting for him, this twisted (tearing the arms off the guy in the basement and being pissed about messing up his hair), lying (getting Sookie to suck the blood out of his chest by feigning near-death), brutally violent creature. Weird! And, Really Good Writing and Acting!

He’s cute, too. What do you think? Short hair or long? I was all for the long, but now I’m liking the short after that naked-pillow-talk scene, what with the muscles, and the broad shoulders, and the intimate smiles….

Uh…what was I saying?

Oh yeah! What in the world will happen with the very sweet love story between the perpetual Virgin Vampire Jessica, and the 28 year old just-barely-not a virgin Hoyt? They seem so profoundly DOOMED I can’t stop cringing every time they come on screen. I’m just waiting for the Bad Thing. I’m guessing Hoyt gets killed in the whole Marianne situation, and Jessica goes on a killing rampage. I hope not, for Hoyt’s sake. I like Hoyt. Didn’t you love how he stood up to his mother, and then took the potato-chip sandwich with him as he stomped out the door? Kind of detracted from the otherall statement he was trying to make, but increased his general adorableness, don’t you think?

And what about Sam? He’s done nothing but run away and sneak back this whole season. But he’s going to step up, I think. I hope. That turning into a fly business was pretty cool. He seems fated for more than bartender work, with such power at his disposal. Or maybe not…?

Anyway, I can’t wait for tonight’s episode! I’m a bit scared the show won’t succeed in carrying through all the themes and threads it has set into motion, but I’m feeling more and more trust in Alan Ball’s storytelling hands. He’s got me for the next three eps, that’s for damn sure. I wonder where he plans to take me?