HBO: True Blood

[Southofnowhere]

I think Snookie is apart of Bill's Family!

His Wife said she sent their Daughterm away!

[Sylph]

LOL, Eric can't be trusted when all he does is praise Kreizman , Agnes Nixon , Loving and Alan Ball.

[EricMontreal22]

When did I praise Kreizman And I'll keep to my deluded Alan Ball, Agnes Nixon love thank you very much.

[EricMontreal22]

I dunno, Alan Ball likes to wallow in issues, but this isn't a Bill Bell soap...

[BadZoe]

In the Books:

That was quite the episode. I have to see it again before commenting.

[Juliajms]

No way. I do suspect Bill's daughter may still be alive though.

I'm really enjoying the lack of Bill/Sookie interaction this season.

[BadZoe]

Well this episode had its really good and bad points. As usual I really enjoyed the Eric scenes, with Sookie and especially the ones later with Laf, "Hello Sweetheart". Eric points out what I've been saying since before the season aired, fresh dug graves Jessica.

Please let something eat Sam's father, and spit out those dirty nasty underpants. Was it my imagination or did the old sicko have a hard on while watching poker and grasping his son's leg. Man that family is fucked up. Since the one playing Tommy is a regular I sure hope he's the only Mickens that will be sticking around. Maybe Jessica can scare him straight.

Tara is getting on my last nerve with her poor pity me act. I really hope she returns to the butt kicking bitch from season one that I'm still clinging to hope she'll become again. If she doesn't, kill her off.

That sex with Franklin was so not sexy. We're supposed to think that sex with a vamp is all that, but all I saw was a lot of eye fluttering that someone accurately described as watching a seizure.

Another thing that bothers me is Sookie making all the amends in the relationship with Tara? They could have at least showed Tara cleaning the house when her new Boyfriend came over, since she's the one who let in the monster that trashed it in the first place.

Despite Tara, Franklin is one of my new favorite characters, especially with Jessica. Pulling that head out of the bag and moving the mouth while talking has me hooting and hollering every damn time. It is such a vampire thing to do. Lestat did a similar thing in Interview with the Vampire when he was dancing around with Claudia's mother's corpse while Louie stood there horrified.

My other favorite new vamp is Talbot. Whining about his prized tapestry being used to put Lorena out. I also love Russel with his comments about it being Armageddon every time someone chips a dessert glass. Priceless. No concern over the un-evolved bitch. Then again later when comparing werewolves to boxes of rocks and finding the boxes and rocks being insulted. Please TB writers, keep Talbot.

Speaking of boxes of rocks, where are Sookie's brains? Eric is right that her obsession with Bill is going to get her killed. Well not really (star of the show and all) but probably others will be unnecessarily injured, or killed, saving her from herself. Why was she going off with that Ware when she'd already found out that he was involved in taking Bill?

How was Alcide able to get an upper hand and land several punches on Gus before Gus's buddies held him so Gus could fight back. I found the intro to Alcide a little bit of a let down since all his scenes had basically been shown in the previews. In the Book he and Sookie get to know each other a bit in the truck ride to Jackson and I would have liked to see that. Even if they did do it like a drop of true blood to ease the two week wait till the next episode.

Now onto the main line of the story, Bill's poor life stuck between a rock in and a hard place. Just what does he do for Sophie Anne that makes him such a "promising young vampire" that Russel would piss of Lorena by letting Sookie go free, just to have him on his team? It can't just be his IN with the Telepath, because Russel does not seem to know that about Sook, unless he's just playing his cards close to his chest.

I sure hope at some point to get a flashback to Lorena's life. There is something seriously wrong with a woman that carries an 80 plus year torch for a man who hates the sight of her. Surely in all her time she has run across men who want her. There is a lot of talk going on about the final sex scene and whether Bill raped Lorena or whether she raped him with her makers compelling. To me it came across as Bill trying to get his point across in a horrible way that they will never have or make "Love" but to her anything he does to her is alright because she loves him enough for them both. Even the National Organization for Women (wow) are having a hissy, but where were they when Tara and Eggs were beating on each other and acting like it was ok?

[Juliajms]

Lorena can't compel Bill to do anything. She released him back in the 30's (or was it the 40's ). She is physically stronger than Bill, but notice that she had to physically restrain him last season. She couldn't simply say " As your maker, I command you to sit your ass down". She had to hold him down. In fact, she never has used those words with Bill since she released him. Having hate sex with Lorena was Bill's choice and it was Lorena's as well since she asked for it and could have stopped it (since she is stronger), at least in the beginning.

I did find that scene pretty misogynistic overall, but misogyny is all over pop culture.

[EricMontreal22]

Wow, I have to agree, the final scene was disturbing, and everyone I know has spoken about it. But to have the National Organization of Women complain, after all the scenes we've gotten seems weird.

I can agree with all that, though I'm not sure I find it misogynistic (I feel I may wish I never said this)--is it just because it's violence towards a woman from a man, that it's misogynistic? Do earlier scenes (arguably less shocking) not count?

[Juliajms]

Not necessarily, but would I really be wrong in saying it's usually (not exclusively) men that have a deep rooted, generalized hatred of women and get off on seeing them violated? I'd say the fact that it happened during sex also has something to do with it. If Pam had twisted the head of of her female lover during sex, I would say that springs from misogyny as well. It really seems that the charge of misogyny is being laid at the door of the writers rather than at the character. It's not like we have any reason to think that Bill hates women. The person who came up with that scene is another matter.

Our culture as a whole seems to have a fascination with sexual violence towards women. That doesn't make sexual violence against men any less important or horrific. I just don't think it's anywhere near as common nor as glorified in the TV/Movie (especially porn) industry.

It seems weird to me as well. I might see their point if it were on a network, but this is HBO. Why single out that scene when there are so many scenes of extreme violence towards women out there? It's unfortunate, but I don't think censorship is the answer, even if it were practical.

[BadZoe]

Censorship is not the answer. I really don't believe that some man is going to suddenly break the neck of his sexual partner trying to repeat this act because he saw it on tv. If that happens, that man was looking to do it anyways, or something else, and is only using this show as an excuse. I am far more fearful of the video games out there that promote violence and even rape towards women, because they are aimed at pubescent males.

[EricMontreal22]

JuliaJms--you obviously haven't seen a lot of the more popular gay porn out there (but I know that's an entirely different issue). What you say makes a lot of sense, and maybe in this case I agree. However, Bill did throw a lamp at her trying to kill her as soon as he saw her--it doesn't seem too out of character for him then to try something similar while having sex--since that didn't work. But the scene WAS nasty, and I think it did go a bit too far. But I agree with your final sentence.

[Juliajms]

I haven't and since we don't get that many examples of gay male relationships in the mainstream media, I had no idea violence was a popular theme. Probably 10 years from now we'll be seeing people of all genders and orientations trying to kill each other during sex.

[JackPeyton]

nasty? Too far?

No. Was it... more than most people have seen before? Yes. But it was 100% in character and fitting for the story.

[marceline]

You think so? I found it somewhat gratuitous but I admit that the TB world is an extreme one so maybe you're right. But think it was definitely nasty and mighty close to too far. However, I think that the audience for this show is sophisticated and/or committed enough to handle it. Anybody watching TB expects crazy [!@#$%^&*], the audience for say...Parenthood, not so much.