True Blood: Cold Grey Light of Dawn

 

The very end of last night's episode left me screaming noooooo at my television.  Alan Ball, you sir are a supreme tease.  With Jason stopped by Bill's security will he manage to get away long enough to pull Jessica inside the house?  There are a lot of characters that I think are extraneous to the show but Jessica is certainly not one of them, though I could do without the Hoyt, Jason, Jessica love triangle.

Last night we got a lot of Eric and Sookie getting it on in various positions.  I wonder if Sookie has enough peas for her yahoo palace after that much shagging.  I don't know about you but the whole Eric mooning over Sookie thing has gotten old.  I love bad ass, take no prisoners Viking, and not the musty I don't want my memories back because you may not love me anymore Eric. Perhaps Sookie just brings the musty out in men.

When we last left Tara she was in the middle of a huge fight with Pam.  Fortunately for Tara, humans arrive and start taking pictures, causing Pam to leave.  After sending her girlfriend away Tara wonders along the road until she is stopped by Marni/Antonia and asked to join the coven.  As I watched Tara chanting in the circle I could not help but wonder if this is going to be her last season.  There have been rumors that someone big is going to die this season, and now that Tara has aligned herself in a real way against the vampires, I fear it might just be her.

If you think about it, this season is far more complex than any other season, because it is filled with grey rather than just pure Black and White.  The humans that align themselves with Antonia have been raped, beaten and savaged by vampires.  Unlike Russel Edgington,  the quest is not about power but justice and revenge. On the otherside we have our vampires.  Antonia's plan is to have all vampires walk into the sun whether or not they are actually guilty of any crime at all, simply because they are vampires.  Even Bill the king is guilty of terrible acts and though Eric is being constructed as innocent thanks to his memory loss, his own past is awash with blood.  How can we root for either side?

After cussing and leave Don Bartolo's Lafayette returns to work at Merlotte's. I just have to add a small aside and say that it was good to see some normalcy.  These characters are supposedly working poor but they certainly don't act like it.  We hardly ever see them at work unless it is to advance the plot, but yet they all certainly need to work for a living.  Lafayette was in the kitchen solely so that he could  see the Black ghost woman singing to Arlene's baby.  I guess I should be thankful that this was the only reference to the haunted baby this episode, but it really was just more Black people and woo woo. I know that some don't see it this way because of the racial diversity of the witches but given Alan Ball's treatment of race in the past, it doesn't feel right to me.

I wish I could have seen more of Sam Trammell's imitation of Tommy this week.  As an actor he should really be proud of the job he did last week. This week, once again Tommy gets busted by Sam.  After choking him, Sam gives him ten minutes to leave town as Tommy begs for forgiveness.  I actually don't blame Sam at all for his rage because now Tommy has proven himself to be a rapist but that was not the first thing he pointed out.  Sam first asked Tommy if he was next, because obviously for Tommy to live as Sam Merlotte he would have to kill Sam.  I was very upset that all he cared about was his money and his bar and that he barely mentioned Luna.  I think once again this is another case of the writers not taking rape seriously.  

All in all, I have to say that for me, this was the best episode this season.  The touching interplay between Bill and Jessica as they related to each other as father and daughter, both desperately saying things to calm the other was sweet.  Bill's tenderness may well have cost Jessica her life though because he did not put as much silver on her as he should have. They have come a long way since Bill tried to give her to Eric. I loved this scene because it showed just how far the characters have come and to be honest having Jessica walk towards the sun provided far more tension than having either Bill or Eric do so because we know that no matter what those two will live.