Writers: Alan Ball
Grade: A-
Let’s get the Queen out of the way first: the jury’s still out for me on Evan Rachel Wood. On the one hand, I thought she was sort of fun, and her line deliveries indicate that she actually got all the little beats and quirks and jokes in her dialogue. That’s pretty much where the positive ends, though. As TOriginalCDG said over on the TWoP boards, “she was playing an attitude more than a character.” Her performance felt superficial and self-conscious, in the sense that I never got the feeling there was a person in there with mental wheels turning, but rather just an actress saying lines. It looked like what it was: a 21-year-old trying to mimic the body language of a 40s film star, but she got the timing all wrong and oversold it. She knew how it was supposed to look and how it was supposed to sound, but she couldn’t quite get the soul of it right.
I also feel like I should get the impression that she’s cunning, that wheels are turning under the façade, that she’s putting on an act… but I just don't see it. Even the "I insist" veiled threats felt like part of the persona she was working with rather than a hint at some hidden layer. That's not to say I don't think she was playing a game with Bill, I just think it was a pretty obvious game that matched her outward persona, which made it hard to imagine there was a deeper game there than what we, and Bill, saw. The only time I felt like there was a hint that she was really just putting on an act and felt like I saw a glimpse of a deeper, more calculated layer was when she told Bill she couldn't wait to meet Sookie.
Thus far, the only way that performance works for me is if she’s truly deranged and the horrid mimicry of a 40s movie star is a way to illustrate how unhinged she is. In other words, Sophie-Anne is supposed to be a bad actress?
Whatever the case, I haven't written Wood off yet by any means. She was given a lot to do, and a lot of exposition, for a first episode. I think next season is when I'll really make up my mind, after she’s had some time to reflect and get more comfortable with the role.
The other issue with the character has nothing to do with the actress. Sophie-Anne feels a bit derivative of the other crazy, manipulative females we’ve seen this season and last—Maryann, Daphne, Amy, and Lorena. It feels like overkill, and it makes the writing for female characters on the show seem rather limited. Would it really have killed them to give us a more reserved female character? I think I can handle her in small doses, but if she ends up being next season’s Maryann, I will probably grind my teeth down to nubs. Which brings me to…
I think I'm most worried about Ball falling prey to "When you get Evan Rachel Wood on your TV show, you use her as much as possible." Even if her performance is mesmerizing, I think the character will work best in fairly small doses, but I'm afraid Ball is going to shoe-horn her in to make full use of Wood while he has her interest. Considering the mixed viewer (and critical) reactions to her so far, and the predominantly negative reaction to the rumor that she’s dating Skarsgård, I'm not sure that would be in the show's best interest. I hope I'm worrying over nothing, but the Maryann overkill this season has made me nervous. (It’s worth noting that I’m fairly sure she’s starting on the Spiderman musical in January, so that may actually be a blessing if her performance doesn’t improve or the character ends up being simply off-putting.)
One thing I actually liked about the way the Queen was used, which also had nothing to do with the acting, is that she made a good Exposition Fairy when she was revealing more subtle information. She mentioned Bill being bonded to Sookie before they’d really talked much about her, which implies that either Sophie-Anne sent Bill to Bon Temps in the first place to bond to her, or Sophie-Anne and Bill have been in contact and we just haven’t seen it.
She also made the comment about the pissing match between Eric and Bill, which clues viewers in that there’s a bitter history there that goes back further than Sookie Stackhouse. I always had that impression anyway, and the Queen confirmed it for me. I think there were a few other similar comments where reading between the lines reveals interesting or important information.
Bill is starting to look shady even beyond his shitty parenting skills and somewhat old-fashioned gender issues. Hadley didn’t seem to know that Bill knew Sookie, but had they met before? For some reason, I got the impression that they had, especially since the Queen likely heard about Sookie from Hadley in the first place, but perhaps not. It seemed that Bill didn’t tell Hadley about Gran’s death because he doesn’t want Hadley trying to contact Sookie to offer her condolences—it might slip out that, “Sorry I didn’t call sooner, your boyfriend Bill just told me a couple days ago.” Between not telling Sookie about the Queen/Hadley and that ominous scene with Sam, I’m thinking Bill’s very much digging his own grave with regards to his relationship with Sookie. He can’t hide it forever, and methinks she’s going to find out before he gets up the nerve to tell her himself.
As for Eric, he was in top form. One of my favorite aspects of this episode was seeing the magnificent bastard in the flesh as compared to Sookie’s dreams—one is not like the other! I also think that Lafayette’s internal version of Eric is just as inaccurate in the other direction. I don’t see Eric as being quite as viciously cruel and evil as he is in Lafayette’s imagination, though I can absolutely understand why Laf would see him that way.
I’ve seen a lot of bitching about viewers not being able to see how he feels about Godric’s death, but it’s only been three or four days. I wouldn't expect some sort of immediate change in his behavior. He's probably compartmentalizing and trying to get some distance from it, putting his efforts into keeping up the old facade. As far as he’s concerned, what’s done is done, and lamenting will serve no purpose. Still, I’m sure there's plenty more in store as far as how the repercussions of Godric's death will affect him. He'd be a pretty boring character if he just remains static and we never see him change at all, and I think Ball is too smart to have him change just because of Sookie.
I wasn’t really thrown by Eric referring to children as “delicious.” I’m sure he’s done some horrendous shit in this incredibly long unlife, but he seems to have mellowed with time, so I didn’t get the impression he’d been feeding on any kids recently. Or it’s possible it was just showmanship for the sake of keeping Pam from noticing that there’s something off about him since he came home from Dallas. Either way, he seemed genuinely delighted with the kids, and not in a way that made me fear for them as future snacks.
I was talking about the faceoff between Bill and Eric with my mother (she’s TB junkie, too), and she threw out the idea that Eric didn’t know for certain that Bill gave Sookie his blood right away, but was going on a hunch, and Bill proved him right. That makes a lot of sense, because the only people who know about that are Bill and Sookie for sure, and probably Sam, none of whom have told Eric. I don’t think Sookie even told Tara that she almost died and Bill saved her with his blood. There’s also the fact that Eric says Bill shared his blood with Sookie the first night they met, but technically, it was the second night (on the first night, he offered her the blood that the Rattrays had drained from him, but she turned it down). It’s possible that it’s just a continuity error, but considering that Ball wrote both this episode and the series’ premiere, I’m going to assume it’s just a way of clueing observant viewers in to the fact that Eric was guessing. He guessed slightly wrong, but Bill didn’t have time to think about it before reacting.
In any case, as far as I see, the only way Eric could have known for certain is if the Queen told him, so either that, or he was guessing. I kind of like guessing better, because it just seems such an Eric thing to do.
Regarding Pam’s eye roll, I kind of wish we could have seen some Eric/Pam interaction in the previous episode to get a better handle on that dynamic. I wouldn’t think, from what we’ve seen of Pam and Eric so far, that Eric has been talking about Sookie nonstop or anything, but just that Pam knows him very well and can tell that he’s got a new obsession. This would obviously annoy her, because she’s supposed to be the center of his world, not some yappy human.
Having Sookie and Bill seemingly un-fuck Tara only to see her run right back into Maryann’s clutches seems like a waste of time at first, but it allowed Tara to make a conscious, non-mind-controlled choice. And she behaved like an addict, as far as I can see. All this nonsense about Egg’s being a great guy who loves her—when have they done anything besides have random shallow conversations and fuck? She’s known him maybe three weeks, and there’s no substance to that relationship! Don’t get me wrong, they’ve been through hell together, and I’m sure that means a great deal, but the writers and actors really haven’t done much to show viewers the strength of that bond. So either the writers fucked up, or Tara is delusional. Maybe I’m giving the writers too much credit, but I’m going for the latter.
I also wanted to smack Lettie Mae for falling for Tara’s empty offer of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not as simple as “If you do this for me, I will forgive you.” You forgive when you’re ready to forgive, not in exchange for something else.
Getting Tara away from Maryann and sending her right back also gave Sookie and Lafayette a chance to talk about and bond over their negative experiences with Eric and also provided and opportunity for Lafayette to have another PTSD Eric hallucination. I do wonder if this was some kind of foreshadowing that Lafayette may become a vampire after all, or simply reminding viewers of that fear for another reason.
Miscellaneous Stuff
-I can’t pile on enough love for the fact that Ball actually addressed two of the biggest viewer concerns regarding the blood bond—Lafayette is having scary sexy Eric dreams, and Eric knows Bill hasn’t been entirely honest with Sookie about their own bond. Things like that certainly strengthen my faith in the showrunner, even if I’m pretty miffed about Tara in this episode.
-There was certainly more to Sophie-Anne’s dialogue than just “Maryann is this” and “This is how you kill Maryann.” For one, first she said Maryann’s god never comes because gods only exist in people’s heads, and compared that concept to “morality or money.” Then she said she didn’t say the god in question didn’t exist, which seems like a contradiction, but might just make sense if you think about it long enough. Religion, money, and morality are all things that do not tangibly exist—they're systems of meaning that we made up—but at the same time, they're three of the biggest influences on human behavior. If these things can influence our behavior, they are real enough, even if they're only in our minds. Obviously mileage is going to vary by the individual as to whether we believe her statement to be true, but I think that's what she was getting at. It's as good an explanation as any for why Dionysus is "real" but doesn't make house calls.
- Eric's face in many of those preview shots is reminiscent of the look he had after the meeting with Nan, when Bill slapped him. He looked mildly turned on in maybe one shot in the preview, but for most of it, he just looked resigned and sad and not that into it, which seems like an odd reaction to being pounced on by someone as lovely as Sophie-Anne. I'm not sure if there's a Godric connection, or if he's just not that into other people exerting power over him…
-I’m dreading Jessica’s dark phase… I guess she didn’t have enough of one right after being turned, and most of it took place offscreen at Fangtasia when she lived with Eric, so she’s probably due for one. Still, I was hoping Bill might pull his head out of Sookie’s ass and start being a good Maker for her.
-Hoyt really had his world blown apart by Maxine’s reveal that his father committed suicide. Is Hoyt on the verge of a dark phase of his own, or will that information lead in a different direction?
-I’m wondering when we’ll get a shot of some seemingly random dude with “Arlene” tattooed on his stomach…
Quotes
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