ING
Yes, I had issues with True Blood's sixth season, but the new 10-episode structure wasn't one of them. And no, it's not just because there was less True Blood. 10 episodes allowed the show to focus on three main storylines, instead of the usual five or six. It streamlined the show like never before while revealing the simple truth that True Blood stories don't need twelve episodes. Can you even imagine this season getting padded out with two more installments? As it was, a third of the screen time was devoted to Terry mourning.
The downside of 10 episodes though is that it really shines a spotlight, even more than before, on the fact that this show just has too many damn characters. Characters who rarely arc. They just mostly remain the same while reacting in their usual manner to the new dangerous things that happen or the new crazy characters who wander into town. All while often mentioning how insane their lives have all gotten (or how they can't remember the last time things weren't totally bats***) as a way to meta-defend the series for giving us disorder instead of direction.
In fact, the character who had the most noticeable arc this year was Alcide, but his story was boring and his arc really just brought him back to the guy he was before he went alpha male pack-nuts. And even though Tara wound up having a nice scene in the finale with her mother, the 10 episode structure really left her nothing to do this year. But I suppose having nothing to do is better than having terrible things to do, like Jessica, who spent this season doing dumb things for dumb reasons. Which is all more the shame because I like(d) her a lot as a character.
Yes, in place of character development, True Blooders just bounce around from story to story. Although, with less stories this year, there was less bouncing. But that didn't stop Lafayette moving from Sam's story to Sookie's story to Terry's story. Or Jason from Sookie's story to Andy's story to Jessica's story to getting his own story with Violet. Oh yeah, and then rounding third and winding up back in the Warlow story he was in during the first couple episodes. Jason changed at the very outset of the season, once the weird "vampire hate/dead parents" delusions wore off, and at the end he found himself in new, unexplored sexually territory. But please don't mistake any of that for actual growth.
In the midst of all this, the vampires had a fairly straight-forward, blood-soaked story that I wish I could have watched separate from the rest of the season. Governor Burrell, who was one of two main villains (the other being Sarah Newlin) developed a scheme to poison vamps with tainted True Blood. And instead of it being a self-contained seasonal disappointment - especially considering that Burrell perhaps bought it too early in the run - the Hep-V will continue to poison vampires into next season and remain his legacy. Plus, Sarah escaped to Jesus another day. Overall, the vampire/human war brought the most satisfying moments of the season - including Sarah's insanely fun murder-chase with Ms. Suzuki and Bill and Eric's bloody day-walking rampage inside the prison itself.
Sure, the show immediately took back the monster-Bill who we saw flashing his fangs in last year's finale, opting instead for a powerfully prophetic Bill who's shown visions of things to come. In the end though, I'm not sure why Lilith was so concerned about, and took such extreme measures to protect, the twelve vampires who were going to die in the sun room, but perhaps she wanted Bill to just take care of the internment camp as a whole. Still, her presence was murky at best. The show also never made up its mind about whether Lilith was an actual evil monstrosity to be destroyed. Nora, who wound up dying from Hep-V, spent the first few episodes vowing to kill Lilith, telling everyone that only Warlow could do it. But Warlow and Lilith never wound up crossing paths in the modern day and that whole thing got dropped.
Bill and Eric both got to rebound as the "heroes" in the end, leaving the show to flip-flop on itself and switch Warlow back into a true villain. But the show changes it's mind a lot. We know this. Within the first few episodes two characters actually exclaimed "You're dead to me!" at Sookie, only to totally forget they said that one or two episodes later. But Bill and Eric still remained strong parts of the season. Bill's stern, half apology to Andy about the murder of his fairy girls was good, as was most of Eric's stuff; going undercover as an animal rights nerd, turning Willa into a vampire, and, finally, his hilarious fire-burst in the midst of the Swedish arctic once Warlow's blood wore off.
Now let's talk Terry. A character who never should have been given his own side adventures (see: last season's Ifrit). Still, I suppose I'd rather watch Terry battle a Middle Eastern fire demon than a flashback of him feeling sad over a catfish. Look, Terry was fine. I didn't hate Terry. But he shouldn't have been made to be more than what he was - a peripheral character. Ambiance. He was the "kind, gentle guy" of the show, so no one out there should have, you know, loathed him. But long ago, True Blood made the dire mistake of thinking that each member of its supporting cast was integral. And beloved. After they spared Lafayette's life between Seasons 1 and 2 (he died at the end of the first book), the entire core cast was safe. Six years later, they killed off the most expendable members and received a slow clap. The show couldn't leave well enough alone though and, in a gross overestimation of his importance, spent the next three episodes, including an entire half of the penultimate episode, dealing directly with Terry's death.
In fact, the episode about Terry's funeral would have been great if they'd taken out the half containing Terry's funeral. The rest of it contained the gorgeously gory assault on the vampire camp. The Terry stuff was grading, boring, and, to be honest, a little insulting since they foolishly tried to use the sentiment to juxtapose the cartoonish violence being perpetrated by Bill and Eric. Which would have worked is A: Terry was more important than he was, and B: the actual violence over in the prison wasn't played for outrageous laughs. Some have argued that the entire funeral scene was more about Sookie saying goodbye to everyone before she started a new life as Warlow's vamp-fairie bride, but the show didn't even go through with that. So all her talking with Sam and visiting Gran's grave set us up for nothing.
Warlow was a big problem too. Since his character started off as a mysterious, wandering loner with absolutely nothing going on, he was easy to spot. Then the show decided to turn him into a momentary love interest for Sookie, contradicting the malevolent spirit we caught a glimpse of last season. Then, on a dime, Warlow returned to being vicious in the finale, allowing a ton of characters to team up to take him down. True Blood, like Twilight, has always been about men falling in love with a girl because of some intangible, etherial "quality" that has nothing to do with her personality. And Warlow was the most extreme case of that; a creature holding a centuries-long sexual obsession for a small town nobody because of her unique scent.
By the end, the show had taken a leap forward in time and genre, morphing slightly into a zombie series - complete with hordes of wandering (and weaker) "infected" vampires attacking towns looking for blood. I don't mind the shift though. If no one's going to make any huge strides character-wise, then at least we can watch them get savagely ripped apart.
SEASON INFO
The sixth season of the adaptation of Charlaine Harris' Southern vampire novels opens on a messy reincarnation for Bill (Stephen Moyer), but no one, including Sookie (Anna Paquin), Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) or Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), knows who or what he is, and they're not anxious to get close enough to find out. Meanwhile, Alcide (Joe Manganiello) takes over as pack master and discovers there are certain perks that come with the job; Andy (Chris Bauer) deals with being a new father; Louisiana governor Truman Burrell (Arliss Howard) declares war on vampires; and the Stackhouses receive a visit from a distant relative, Niall (Rutger Hauer), who arrives to share dire news about Warlow, the vampire who killed their parents?and is now coming after Sookie.
Full Season on Xmovie8
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