True Blood has tried to take the high-minded road. It has asked questions about religion versus mercy. It has raised attitudes towards vampires as an issue similar to racism in America. It has even touched upon the topics of gun violence and governmental hypocrisy. True Blood has certainly tried to deliver thoughtful elements in a sea of sex, drugs, and violence, but anyone who kids themselves into thinking they watch this show for its social commentary has lost his or her mind. That's why there is only one way to fix Season 6's painful trajectory: Do as Sunday's episode suggests and "Fuck The Pain Away." Step one: Just give in and get Sookie another vampire boyfriend. Even if he's got a ridiculously unsexy name like Warlow.
I'm not usually one to suggest that a series stop trying to be smart and progressive and just give us the saucy goods. After all, it is possible to tread the line between lofty and salacious. (Don Draper is a household name for a reason.) Unfortunately for True Blood, it's old enough that it's high time to end its dreams of conveying stories with a greater meaning. The show needs to accept the truth, and settle back into its tried and true pattern of impossibly unabashed sex. Sookie, as usual, is the perfect person to get the ball rolling.
After she threatens to kill Warlow upon seducing him on her couch, Warlow turns the whole theory about his desire to kill her on its head. He claims that he loves her and that she was betrothed to him, not promised to him as some sort of doomed bounty. What's more is that Warlow claims her parents tried to kill her and that his only recourse was to kill them in order to protect her. This makes a tiny bit of sense when we go back in time with the help of Lafayette (who is once again doing another character's bidding): Warlow's plan was to keep Sookie, the faerie princess, safe from vampires by making her a vampire. As we learned when Jason went temporarily psycho, the Stackhouses were very racist (speciesist?) against vampires and they decided that they'd kill Sookie rather than let her fall under Warlow's protective plan.
Suddenly, it's pretty easy to believe the handsome gentleman with a British accent when he says he's in love with Sookie and that they're destined for each other. Plus, after running both the Eric & Sookie and Bill & Sookie plot lines into the ground and vaporizing any hope that Alcide & Sookie might have something, a new love interest might actually work to breathe a little life into this cold, undead series.
Look, I understand that True Blood has been trying to make Sookie more independent over the course of the past season. She's been on her own a lot more and her dreams about being double-teamed by her vampire suitors are at an all-time low, but if there's one thing we've learned about Sookie's character it's that she's simply not written robustly enough to be on her own. Sookie's not a progressive character, at least not the way she's been portrayed on television. When left to her own devices, her story lines are boring or worse, obnoxious. The writers simply do a better job with the occasionally cantankerous blonde when they're pushing her up against a love interest... like this:
So, after six seasons, it's time to just age gracefully and do the things that come naturally to you, True Blood - even if those things ruin your Bechdel score. And now is the perfect time. Sunday's episode ended with poor Lafayette being relegated to the tired role of spirit vessel. This time, he's Sookie's dad and he's come back from the spirit world to keep Sookie away from Warlow by kidnapping and killing her. You know, the usual. The episode ends with Sookie gargling river water as Laf-Dad tries to drown her, and this is a perfect opportunity for Warlow to prove his love so they can start getting steamy on the regular.
There's just one small problem: Bill has Lilith inside of him, so he's able to command Warlow as his maker. That means Warlow's currently trapped in Bill's underground bunker taking trips down caveman memory lane. Convenient? Completely. Do we care? Only if it prevents Warlow from coming to Sookie's aid, dispelling the spirit of her murderous pop, and giving her a reason to kiss him (among other things) for real.
The series already did us a solid and reopened the case file on Jess and Jason's turbulent love affair (after Jason revisits his sexual past with Sarah, of course). He's on a mission to rescue Jess from the LAVTF because he thinks he possibly cheated on her - he can't really remember what happened before he went all psycho-racist for a few episodes. But aside from Jason's unfolding story line, the only sex we seem to encounter is a pair of inmates going at it like lab rats for the LAVTF researchers and the implication that Sam and Nicole slept together.
True Blood is a simple thing: The live-action equivalent of a tawdry romance novel. It's got oodles of violence and supernatural elements to make it a little more palatable for those of us who aren't impressed by stories about "Reginald's quivering member," but it's not a series sought out for its revolutionary character development. It's a mindless escape meant to make us drop our jaws at the horrors and delights of a vampire-laden world. That's it. And if the series has any hope of hanging on to those of us still watching, it had better to get back to the business, starting with Sookie and her unfortunately-named vampire-fae suitor.
Image: HBO (2)
