True Blood Sex and Violence Meter: Buried and Fairied
· Alcide! He enters Fangtasia, super excited: "Guys, I'm a series regular next season!" There is a tremendous amount of eye-f**king in this scene, as Alcide gives Sookie his puppy-dog stare and Bill his angry-dog laser eyes. Sadly, Alcide eye-f**king Bill disproves my theory that Bill is only interesting when he's kinda gay. Perhaps they should have rubbed their pecs together as I'm sure they do in Sam's fantasies. (Sex: +1)
· At Merlotte's, Sam finds the safe stolen, gets angry, and pulls out a gun. His pancake buzz is so harshed right now. (Violence: +1)
· Lafayette is still hallucinating, and after he sees a vision of Rene strangling Arlene, Jesus comes to reveal to Lafayette that he's "a witch who's a nurse who's a dude." Aaand that's a season three wrap for these characters. It really built to a climax! (Violence: +1, Questionable Finale Inclusion: +5)
· At home, Tara picks up scissors and gets a little suicidey (sex with Sam is so often fatal!) until deciding to simply give herself a kicky new hairdo. "I just needed to make a change," she tells Sookie downstairs, adding, "I feel like it's been forever since we've hung out." Somehow, the increasingly on-the-nose and apologetic Tara barely resists saying, "Sometimes, I want to groan when I do things that are boring," and "Do you ever feel like you're being controlled by invisible writers who got kind of tired of you?" (Questionable Finale Inclusion: +5)
· Eric and Bill decide to bury Russell in cement, in case Alan Ball needs him next year. Bill tries to wrest the episode away from Eric by knocking him into the cement, then putting a hit out on Pam. Well OK! Now things are kinda moving. (Violence: +4)
· FINALLY, a Jessica scene. Debits all around for making us wait this long and for giving Deborah Ann Woll almost nothing to do all year. It looks like Jessica and Hoyt may marry and have domestic bliss ahead of them, except for the fact that Hoyt's mom is buying a gun. But don't worry about a confrontation, because that's a season three wrap for these characters! Really, that's it. (Violence: -15, Sex: -15, Questionable Finale Inclusion: -15)
· The newly energized Bill tells Sookie that he'll kill everyone that has tasted her fairy blood. Wow, a good Bill plot....and it's immediately defused when Eric casually strolls up, having escaped the cement offscreen (that certainly would not have been a dramatic, action-packed scene to watch -- thank God they kept it from us!). Sookie is just so pissed by the revelation that Bill was sent to date her by Sophie-Anne, and she rescinds her invitation to both vampires, which she had kind of done at Merlotte's earlier, but now Anna Paquin is nose-crying, which is commitment. (Violence: +2)
· Tommy? Oh hey. Sam runs him down and chases him, causing Tommy to cry out "I'm illiterate." REVEAL! Sam fires his gun at an offscreen point near Tommy to be determined during the season four premiere. (Violence: +2, Questionable Finale Inclusion: +5)
· Sophie-Anne swans into Bill's wearing the winning gown from Project Runway's very sad funeral challenge. He tells her that only one of them will be leaving the house alive. Vampire Matrix fight! (Violence: +1)
· Sookie runs to the graveyard (Things Anna Paquin can do well: cry, cuss. Things Anna Paquin should not do: run) and sees her fairy cousin there. The music is very Ocarina of Time. She decides to escape to the Fairy World of Midday Drinking and Casual Nudity, and apparently that's what we'll get in season four, because those scenes went so well the first time around! (Questionable Finale Inclusion: +10)
FINAL TALLY: Befitting this bloody season, Violence positively massacred Sex, earning 24 points to Sex's negative 11. Still, the finale's winner (with 25 points) is the weird feeling that every other episode this season felt more like a cliffhanger-packed finale than this one.
So, did season three bite? Or did it start strong and end in dire need of a blood transfusion? Let's hear it.
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I hate this season, Kyle, only because it makes us fight. I didn't mind the finale at all! It was fun, I thought. Which isn't to say that I disagree with your points. While there have tended to be multiple climaxes at different points in each season, the climaxes after the spine-buster just weren't high enough to compete. More than with the other two seasons, too, instead of the last fifteen minutes of the finale being next-season setup, we've had multiple episodes of introducing witches and Hoyt's mom getting guns which might be great for starting out strong next season but isn't so great for this one.
Still, as much as I love them, I don't really watch True Blood for classically-crafted plots, I watch it for sheer insanity and its lyrical characteristics. I mean, Matrix Vampire Fight? Tara's kicky new haircut? Eye-fucking? Hoyt and Jessica just existing? Tommy can't read? Jesus and Lafayette being really hot? That's enough for me.
Who is Russell? The one that Bill called to kill Pam and then Pam killed? I agree that everything after the spine ripping was anti-climatic, but I also agree that it is still more fun than watching the VMA's or anything else that was on last night. I think they have fallen into a pattern of one great rip-roaring burst of fun (Maryanne's impalement, for example) and then they don't know how to rebuild the momentum. But I forgive them. Anyone who searches for logic is watching the wrong show.
I kind of get the feeling that they had no idea how major Russell's spine moment would be...that maybe it was a 3am rewrite and then suddenly, it became this major moment that the rest of the season couldn't really do justice to.
I also watch TB for its sheer craziness and Hoyt/Jessica existence...I just wish the finale had more of both.
You may be on to something, Kyle. They probably thought the spine-ripping was just another Patented True Blood "WTF?!" Moment and not a cultural phenomenon. Also, I think they realized halfway through the season that there was no frickin' way they couldn't have Denis O'Hare come back, so they rewrote the climax.
Spot on. Also, Kyle, w/ the Jessica/Hoyt thing...don't forget about the telltale doll left on the floor of their new joint!
I'm pretty sure they had some idea the spine ripping scene was a big deal as the original casting notice was for (I'm paraphrasing) "the most famous national newscaster we can get." Which apparently they could not achieve because I did not recognize the news anchor.
I agree this season sucked. Which isn't to say it was without its fun moments, but on the whole, what really happend between episode 1 and episode 12...not a lot. It's like after the pandemonium of season 2 someone thought that true blood was too exciting and so they decided to tone it way back. too far back is what they got.
I mean Crystal?? really??? she was the worst addition to the show since day 1, every hook-up of Jason's has been way more interesting (lizzy caplan! lynn collins! tara!) and what's with the were-panther thing that happened all of one time and apart from jason telling her to run in this episode was never mentioned again.
Arlene's having Rene's baby??? ok i know not much time has passed in the world of Bon Temps, but for us watchers Rene, was waaaaay back in Season 1, so it keeps messing with my head that she's pregnant with his kid, because I keep thinking didn't he die years ago.
Poor Tara had shit day after shit day all season long, but if she's not returning next season I will be PISSED! I've long had a love/hate relationship with this show and that will be the last straw.
With the exception of the beautifully delicious Alcide, this season was pretty limp compared to its predecessors, and I can only hope that Season 4 makes a miraculous turn-around.
In other news, I have LOVED reading your recaps for this show and look forward to more from you in the future.
The show peaked with the spine ripping, since then, everything seemed to be a set up for season 4 (I also think they rewrote Russell's fate so the possibility that he can return is there, as opposed to having him being burnt to a crip in the sun). The highlight of last night was Sookie disposing of what was left of Talbot and laughing, but overall it was a pretty boring S3 finale.
as a response to: "So, did season three bite? Or did it start strong and end in dire need of a blood transfusion?" I would really say the latter, if they don't give us Amnesia Eric in Sookie's bed and a proper shower scene next year I will cancel my HBO subscription
You are 1000% right. What really concerns me is that the big cliffhangers (Hotshot, Sam & Tommy, Arlene & Holly, Jesus & Lafayette) are really lame and not compelling enough to build a season around next year.
Hoyt & Jessica and the creepy baby doll in their new house are intriguing.
Yes! Agree!
Talbot's remains down the drain, with the garbage disposal on no less, made me laugh out loud. I agree with all the posters who say we don't tune in to TB for the writing, but the shirtless sexy time. This also happens with Alan Ball stuff. I watched the whole weekend marathon of Six Feet Under last week and there was a real fall off from season one to the end -- the middle seasons were especially boring. This probably has about two years left, then put a wooden stake in it.
It's a shame but it looks like Ricky Hatton's last big fight has ended in a knockout he lost - to cocaine. Not so much the champ is dead as the chump is dead. A sad occasion.
I hated the "grand finale". Where is NIALL? Eric found him for sookie--claudine is her fairy "god mother"--that's been left out. And what about Eric , Sooki and Pam? Sam is turnng into a creep--and Hoyts mother is one also. Season three was good in the beginning--but how they ended it was so BAD!
I personally think that this jail sentence for Paris Hilton might be the big break she long needed. Hence, by being confined in jail for 45 days, she might start to reflect on her life and realize that she has a bigger role to play in society.