This post contains spoilers for the second season of True Blood, so if you haven’t watched it…well, read ahead anyway, because I’m doing you a favor.
Last summer, I spent a not-insignificant portion of my week at the shore catching up on the HBO series True Blood. My sister and her friend were both captivated by the dark, edgy show and its portrayal of vampires, which seemed more honest to canon than the ubiquitous Twilight versions. I devoured the first season quickly and caught up on the second in time to watch it finish out in real time, spending the majority of it praying that Maryann, the godlike minotaur who co-opted Sookie’s house and brainwashed the entire town, would go away. With her killed, I thought the third season would prove more watchable.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
Allow me to quote the brilliant folks at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago to sum up why True Blood can’t be trusted to deliver good television anymore:
One friend [of Sookie's] is absent because he is busy turning into a dog to rescue his brother, who also turns into dogs, from his job, which is dog fighting; her other suitor also is missing because he’s a viking secretly carrying out a millenium-old blood feud, the present step of which involves playing best man in a coerced royal vampire wedding held in a torture-chamber basement and officiated by a veteran of the Spanish Inquisition.is suffering w
You see, True Blood was so intriguing – and so good – at the beginning because there was a struggle between vampires and day walkers, and the members of the latter group who supported (or loved) the former. You knew what the stakes were: you knew who was good and who was bad, and you were able to pick a side.
Now, we don’t just have vampires. We have werewolves, the aforementioned deceased minotaurs, shape shifters, and god knows what else. True Blood is suffering from what I’m calling Heroes syndrome, which the superhero drama contracted in its second season, where it seemed everyone and their pet gerbil had a power. When everyone is special, nobody is special, and it makes the reveal much less interesting when you find out someone has an ability. Even Sookie’s telepathy, which was lightly touched on in season one, now seems annoying.
True Blood is, and will probably remain, very popular trash television. But because they sprinkled too much of the mythical gothic fairy dust on all their characters, it has lost its interesting edge, and my attention, for more worthwhile Sunday night viewing.