True Blood Sucker Punch: Episode 5
Note: This post contains spoilers
Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week's episode of True Blood.
So ... Are you guys excited for Turned By a Twink: The Eric Northman Story? Because after watching last night's installment, "Never Let Me Go," I'm positive that's gonna be the name of Eric's memoir.
Set in some ancient Viking forest, Eric's transformation at the hands of Godric, a ripped and barely-legal teenager with no shirt and a torso full of runic tattoos, is a homoerotic fever dream. It's also a compelling new vision of how vampires are made. We've seen Lorena turn Bill with deceitful selfishness, and we've seen Bill turn Jessica with a tidal wave of guilt. When Godric makes Eric, however, he does it with admiration. He's so impressed by Eric's warrior soul that he decides he can be a "companion of death". He bestows vampirism like a gift on a great man who is about to die.
Since Lorena rolls up in the final scene, baring her fangs when she hears Bill and Sookie hooking up in a Dallas hotel room, this episode consciously contrasts the different roads to vampirism. I don't know how that's going to play out, but for now, it's interesting to see that while some vampires are made through violence, others are made through a weird kind of love. For some people, becoming a vampire isn't a curse, but a salvation.
Because of that resonance -- and Godric's man-boy sexiness -- Eric's transformation is our Sucker Punch runner up.
Really, it's one of only two moments that even merits consideration. Despite some interesting bits and pieces, "Never Let Me Go" spends more time setting up future action than depicting action itself.
We see two sets of "power twins" just getting to know each other, for instance: telepaths Barry and Sookie and shapeshifters Sam and Daphne. The former are a prickly match and the latter are instant bed buddies, but right now, that doesn't mean much of anything. (Well, it means that Sam and Daphne make the world's lamest jokes about having sex on a pool table, but let's ignore that.)
Meanwhile, Maryann and Tara's arc takes a baby step forward as Maryann moves her creepy posse into Sookie's house (!) and starts dressing like Sookie's gran (!!) in order to convince Tara that she's an honest-to-goddess mother figure. That's cool, but like many of you, I'm impatient for Maryann to stop moving the pieces into place and start playing the game already.
Part of my impatience comes from watching so many disconnected storylines. I hope that True Blood learned from Heroes and Lost that if you keep your main characters separated for too long, your master arc loses focus. These tiny dramas need to feed something larger, or they feel inconsequential.
Granted, Sookie's decision to infiltrate the Fellowship of the Sun could bring her and Jason crashing back together, since Jason is traveling further into the Fellowship's inner circle. He's getting praised during training sessions for the Light of Day Insititute (LODI), he's learning about secret stashes of high-tech weapons, and he's even catching wind of Steve and Sarah's marital problems. (Sidebar: thanks to the readers who noted last week that "Lodi" is also one of California's most conservative cities.)
And oh yeah ... Jason's also getting sexual favors from Sarah Newlin.
Snap! What a perversely over-the-top way to address the mounting sexual tension! As Jason sits in a bathtub, Sarah sneaks in, locks the door, and gives Jason a sponge bath while comparing herself to Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus. Then, claiming she can bring Jason "back to joy," she gives him a happy ending.
Obviously, this is our Sucker Punch of the week. Any scene whose combination of religion and sexuality could spark a protest from Fred Phelps deserves the title.
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Please tell me why Tara has become as dumb as a post, she was sharp as a tack in season one.
Ah, now I'm the one who's late (sigh...lol). Seeing Maryann dressed like Gran, I wasn't prepared for how mad it made me - my hub was startled by my jumping up and yelling about "..scummy pseudo-maternal, emotional blackmail.." as well as several variations on that theme. After watching Maryann pull off such a conniving maneuver, who knows WHAT she's capable of, in order to achieve her ends (whatever they may be)..
I hardly think that tattoos were "gay" 2000 years ago...
I couldn't stop laughing at Sookie's fake appall when Jessica told her the hotel had pornography. Priceless.
Maryann is seriously getting on my nerves. I guess she is the human bull that attacked Sookie? So did she also attack Daphne? I am really beginning to like Daphne. Jason's storyline is also one of my favorites. I can not wait until Sookie joins the Fellowship of the Sun! There is just so much going on this season; it is hard to keep track of sometimes. True Blood is getting better and better!
I've seen the episode a second and a third time, and each time, there's something that I missed the first time through.
The interesting thing is that Maryann is apparently not in the books?
I also suspect that, unlike in the books, Lorena will not drive Sookie away from Bill forever.
The Eric thing was alternative-Wagnerian. In "real" Viking mythology the Valkyries patrol the battle fields selecting the best warriors to be taken up to Valhalla. At the moment when Eric would expect/hope for that to happen, he is picked by an entirely different type of "Valkyrie."
BTW Godric is also different from Eric's maker in the books.
I've only read four of the books so I don't know if the books have a Valkyrie come into a story line, but I think it would be absolutely terrific if they were to write one or two into the True Blood series. Like those Valkyries in the series of books by Kresley Cole, the first one of which is the book A Hunger Like No Other.
Since they keep bringing more and more characters from the books into the tv show (great to see Barry), they had better plan on bringing in Bubba!!!
Do you really think they could do him justice? I am skeptical. It would surely be comical.
I personally can't wait for Eric's book! I'm pre-ordering my copy today, but wasn't that book already released under the name "Interview With A Vampire"?
No.
I think the storyline regarding what is happening at Sookie's house while she's away is very interesting. But I'm worried about Tara and why she's letting them play her for a sucker. No way is Tara so stupid. She has to be under a spell. I mean, come on, Mary Ann dressing and acting like Gran? I'm also worried about the Rosemary's Baby aspect of the relationship with "Eggs". Maybe she's going to become a vessel for a new maenad?
I didn't like the tattooing on Godric. I thought it would be "more" somehow.
There isn't enough interaction between Eric and Sookie in order to explain what might happen in the series in the future, but then, it might not follow the books in this regard at all. I wish in the scratches episode that they would have followed the book more closely in regards to Pam, Chow, Bill and Eric all draining Sookie of her blood so that she could get the transfusion. It's a important ingredient in Eric's becoming "interested" in Sookie, getting to taste her blood he wants more.
One last thing. I think that maybe the writers are going to keep Mary Ann around and that she's going to play a role in the whole witches storyline from one of the books - or maybe not.
AHA!!!!! I thought as much. If what you say about witches is true, then Eggs is Maryanne's familiar. (I wish you hadn't told us about all of them draining Sookie's blood. I never read the books.)
Oh, but I didn't mean to imply that she IS a witch. Far from it. But in scratches, the Minotaur did tell Sookie that the attack was meant as a message for Eric.
Kind of a weak episode. he does miss the great line from teenage vampire jessica that strict limits on her feeding by bill are "going to give her an eating disorder"!!
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Agreed Scotia: Jessica's eating disorder line was one of the best of the week. And I love that she seemed excited to hear about Hoyt's silly comic book. The first time I was seriously crushing, I did stuff like that all the time. It's only love that made me watch "Ally McBeal," y'all. Only love. .
Why doesn't Sam just ask Daphne about those scars on her back? You would have thought he would have by now. Just doesn't make any sense.
Yeah I don't get that. Sam has already noticed the scars but he doesn't bring up the subject. Hmm... maybe he is too busy bring up other things ;-)
I think one of the reasons why Daphne doesn't talk about her scars is that she was attacked by the minotaur when Daph was a doe/deer and doesn't remember being attacked. But then again, how would she survive the attack that nearly killed Sookie?
Perhaps it wasn't the Minotaur at all, but was a werewolf?
I don't have a problem with the Maryann story line. I like a good mystery and love the idea of mixing characters in Greek mythology into TB, but I agree that the writers could move the story line along a bit faster.
I am a huge fan of the Sookie Stackhouse books and I am giving this series one more week to prove it's worth. I would like to see Sookie more. They are dragging the MaryAnn thing out so long that I just want the crazy "witch" gone already. It was cool to see LaFayette come back to Merlotte's though.
Loved this weeks episode. The show is straying more from the books but in a good way. I find myself on the edge of my seat wanting to know what's going to happen next even though I've read the books, the new storylines and characters are throwing me off but in a good way.
The Maryann storyline needs to pick-up though. I'm waiting for something big to happen and I'm pretty much sick of waiting. That's the one storyline the last two weeks that I haven't wanting to see anymore about.
If the story is still going to follow the books at all, as it has been, all the main characters will more then likely be together again really soon.
Can't wait for the next episode and love you re-cap every week.
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