Rarely does a tv series show its, if I may, “teeth” this late into the game. True Blood season 5 glamoured me and made me forget about the other seasons that have lead up to this. A welcome change of pace to the series, it’s fun, exhilarating, jaw-dropping, and bloody good! Season 5 is loosely based on the 5th book in The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Dead as a Doornail. I have not read any of Charlaine Harris’ books, so I only know the world created by HBO and some of the drastic liberties they’ve taken with their screenplays. I just finished watching the season finale, titled Save Yourself, now it’s time to talk.

 

Tara becomes a bad-ass vampire

From start to finish, this season has provided a wide array of action and terror for every character. Think back to the end of season 4 when Tara took the bullet for Sookie! Role credits, fast-forward to this season. With Tara laying dead on the floor Sookie and Lafayette try to deal with the horrifying situation that has just unraveled in front of them! That’s when Pam shows up. Sookie strikes a deal with Pam that if she saves Tara, Sookie would help “repair” her relationship with Eric. A bit cheesy but by the end of the season Sookie truly repays the favor to Pam. What I love about Tara’s vampire transformation is  how she character evolves. She goes from an uncontrollable monster, to trying to commit suicide in a tanning bed to defending her vampire turf. When a newly assigned Sheriff of Area 5 arrives and claims Fangtasia for himself, Tara doesn’t take his shit. She tricks him and then swiftly deals him the true death. Pam, in return, gives herself up to the Authority for murdering the Sheriff. Back and forth you see the relationship between them grow and strengthen. Finally after rescuing Pam and Jessica, Tara kisses Pam, her love for her maker shines through and provides a “cute Jessica moment”. Incorporating the “it’s all in the family” philosophy that Eric holds so dear. This season we saw some “meh” character step into the spotlight!

 

Russel “Effin” Edgington

So you thought it would be a good idea to NOT kill the , “I’m over 3000 years old!” homicidal vampire, Russel Edgington so that he could be unburied from his concrete tomb only to wreck havok all over again!? Well Russel plays it very cool and political for AWHILE. Russel even has a lackie this time around, good old Reverend Steve Newlin, remember this religious nutbag from season 2? His obsession with Jason Stackhouse is what makes him uber-creepy this time around. The good Reverend even becomes Edgington’s boytoy, oh the homo-erotics are not toned down in this season. Russel goes as far to assassinate Roman, leader of the Authoirty all well exclaiming, “Peace is for Pussies!” Little time after the Authority starts their war against mankind, the members begin to act against each other. While Salome wants to stay the path that Lilith has laid before them, Russel’s act comes to an end as he let’s The Authority in on what he truly thinks about tradition, he would walk in the sun!  His eventual departure fro the “crazy” vampire cult, becomes his eventual downfall. His obsession with Fae blood and walking during the day is what drove the final stake into his relationship with The “newly re-formed” Authority and would soon end his 3000 year tenure. After murdering a bunch of franternity brothers, Russel and Steve find Jason. Russel glamours Jason into revealing where the fae are hiding. When the villains and Jason arrive in the field, the fae have no choice but to fight.  The elder fae decides to take on Russel but the combined strength of two vampires is too much and she falls victim to Russel attack! Drinking this magic blood gives him the ability to see the fae den, and he is ready for dinner! Sookie and the Fae try and hold him off, but to no avail. Suddenly, Eric swoops in and stakes Russel, ending this monster’s life. I will always remember and love Denis O’Hare’s over the top performance of this disgusting creature.

 

 

Sookie and the tease of season 6

There were a lot of Fairies this season, ALOT. The Sookie gang went on a mystery with them, looking for the truth behind her parents death. Later Sookie finds out that they died at the hands of the mysterious Warlow. Her great-great(i think that’ts enough greats)-gran dad had sign over the families first fae born child, Sookie. Warlow had murdered Sookie’s parents to get to her!! After that we don’t hear much more about this vampire and his deal. Sookie’s story collides with the final showdown at the Authority’s den. Head on over to Screen Rant if you want a special sneak peak into this Monster and what role he will play in season 6!

 

Random Acts of the other citizens of Bon Temps

William “Blade Runner” Sanderson reprises his role as Bud, ex-Sherif of Bon Temps. This time around he’s part of a group of terrorists who wear Obama masks and murder Supes (supernatural creatures). Hoyt, poor Hoyt, gets himself mixed up in all of this after his run as a “fang-banger”. Hoyt’s anger and sadness over Jessica and Jason’s betrayal basically drove this good man over the edge. As a “recruitment” present, the Obamas kidnapped Jessica and Hoyt has to kill her in order to be initiated. Of course this doesn’t happen and Hoyt frees Jessica. Due to it being daylight and all, Hoyt leaves to find help, but is captured by the Obamas, who’ve also kidnapped Sookie. Eventually they’re saved and the Obamas are stopped, Hooray! Hoyt sadly decides that he is going to move to Alaska, but before leaving asks Jessica to glamour him so he will forget about her and Jason forever. Sam Merlotte spends this entire season hunting down the Obamas for shooting him and Luna, then trying to save Luna’s daughter, who is a werewolf. She was captured by Russel who gifts the wolf pup to Steve Newlin. One of my favorite scenes this season is when Sam is a fly, and he flies into Chancellor Roselyn’s mouth and then transforms to human-form inside of her, dealing out one of the best true deaths ever!! Andy Bellefleur continued to hand out the laughs this year. The comedic duo of Jason and Andy, is always enjoyable! The shocker of this season is when Andy has sex with a fae, twice! She then she shows up pregnant, 2 weeks later none the less, and pops out 4 kids in an orgasmic fury, only to leave them to Andy for safe keeping…as long as 2 outta the four survived! Too good! Lafayette took a back seat this season as he dealt with the death of his boyfriend Jesus, from last season. This time around Lafayette is captured by Jesus’ crazy shaman uncle, who sews his mouth shut, he eventually escapes and tries to begin forgetting about the tragic things that have happened to him. Alcide begins the season dealing with Debbie’s death, hooking up with some hot wolf lady, loosing a pack master fight, getting advice from his father, played by Robert “T-1000” Patrick, to killing JD. Now JD was a nasty guy, taking the blood of Russel and feeding the V to his pack, he would force feed young women-wolves and then have his way with them. Alcide, in order to defeat JD, accepted a gift of V from his father who promised it was 1000 times better than the shit that JD and crew were so obsessed with. Imagine what vampire it came from…..Anywho Alcide takes his rightful place as pack-master by the end of the season. Worst arc was the Terry Bellefleur, Ifrit, Iraq, filler arc. It ends up that the fires from last season were because Terry got cursed in Iraq for accidentally killing an innocent person. I don’t want to get into it, watch the show if you wanna find out. Finally, Jason Stackhouse is once again dealing with the supernatural in his own way. When visions of his parents appear and egg him on to not trust supes, and to kill as many vampires as possible, one has to wonder what season 6 will for hold Jason. He is a total bad-ass in the season finale as he storms in and lays down a bulletstorm, annihilating every vamp in sight!

 

The Authority and the Cult of Lilith

Where do I even begin with this one? The main story this season is the choice between mainstreaming and being a true vampire and following nature by feeding on the “True Blood”. This is the first time I got a real sense of what the underlying irony of  the title and favorite vamp beverage, True Blood. Then there’s Lilith’s blood. The True Blood? Ha. We will see. The council members, including Bill and Eric drink the blood. It gets them so effed up that they go on a tripped out night on the town! Of course they end up murdering a bunch of innocents. Suddenly,  Lilith appears out of the blood, right in front of them convincing them all to drain every last human! All but one is caught by her hypnosis. Godric appears to Eric, tells him that Lilith is only chaos and that he must save his “sister”, Nora who is part of the Authority. So Lilith’s blood creates chaos and through her the Authority wreck havok upon the “mainstream” world and humans, going as far as bombing Ture Blood factories! This act of war drives many vampires to the brink of starvation and they begin feeding on the humans, CHAOS.   The interesting aspect of this season was the dramatic change in characters. Eric, who spent all of season 4 as a gentle puppy,and a stone cold killer in previous ones, took on the hero role by rescuing basically everyone, but most importantly “saving” his sister Nora from the corruption of Lilith. Tara became what she hated most and eventually embraced it. Pam made you love her even more. Alcide became a leader, not a loner. Sookie kinda disappeared into the background, while I didn’t mind her arc as much as some of the others, it was more about setting up “what’s to come”. But the one plot twist that really got me, and what I enjoyed most about this season was Bill becoming the villain and watching him fall into madness. He manipulates his way to the top of the Authority. When the  members start having the same vision of Lilith asking them to drink the entire vial for her, we finally understand that Lilith cares for only death! Naturally, Bill starts knocking off the members who have also had Lilith “appear” to them. Bill even convinces Salome that she was the true chosen one, allowing her to drink out of the vial, only to reveal that he had replaced it with silver contaminated blood. It was comical and shocking at points, but  in the end Lilith’s blood fully corrupts Bill as he drinks the entire vial and suddenly explodes! Moments later Bill rises out of the blood… just as Lilith had in the visions. Eric tells Sookie to run, cut to final credits. Instant vampire blood deity! Wow. Thank you HBO and the writers of True Blood for getting me excited about this show again. One year may be too long.

5 outta 5 Stars: A welcome, action-packed season that may just TURN you non-believers still on the fence about this series.

stay tooned 🙂

~CynicNerd