'True Blood' Saturdays: Let's talk about spoilers

It's probably time for us to have a chat about spoilers here at the Show Tracker "True Blood" blog.

I know that the series is based on a series of very popular books. I know that many, many of you who are into the TV series have read the books. And I know that it can be very hard to sit there and watch the series string out big revelations from the books when you already know what's going to happen. But I'm going to ask one thing of you: Please, please don't spoil the experience for the rest of us.

I haven't read the books "True Blood" is based on. The show could reveal tomorrow that Eric is actually a man-eating plant of one variation or another, and I wouldn't bat an eye because I'd have no idea that this revelation was made in Book 7 or whatever. Now, honestly, if you spoil me, I won't be terribly upset. I don't have a huge aversion to spoilers, and I'm just going to shrug it off. But many, MANY of your fellow readers and comments section dwellers don't want to know what's coming up, even though you do. It's easier to avoid spoilers for books that have been out for years than it is for popular movies or TV shows, sad as that may sound. So when you say with all certainty just what Sookie Stackhouse is in the books and that she's likely the same thing in the show, well, it kills a little bit of the fun for a lot of people.

Here's the thing: The people who approve comments here at Show Tracker don't always know what's a spoiler and what's not a spoiler. So it can't be on them. It'll have to be on you guys to police yourselves and be polite. I know the temptation is always there, particularly when it seems like those of us who haven't read the books are being intentionally dense, but we want reading the Show Tracker blog for "True Blood" to be just as fun an experience as watching the show. So -- and let me bold this for emphasis -- let's ONLY discuss what's happened on the show up until the episode that just aired. Speculation is fair game, but if you know spoilers (thanks to reading the books or reading other spoiler sites), please, please keep them to yourselves. If this policy doesn't work out, I'll have to figure something else out about deleting comments or making sure spoilers aren't published.

In the meantime, let's talk about last week's episode. There were 34 comments on last week's article, and I got over a dozen e-mails, so I won't be able to get to all of your points. Suffice it to say that many, many of you have some interesting things to say about the series. Onward!

Lots of you seem to think I shouldn't be dismissing the "Sookie is a fairy!" argument out of hand. And I'll agree that what's surprising to Eric -- who hasn't necessarily given this much thought -- may not be surprising to us -- who have given it more thought than it probably deserves -- but I still think the show might want to do something more surprising than the first place my mind went to when I saw the dancing sisters of the Activia commercial. Then again, obvious can be good sometimes, and I'm willing to see how all of this plays out. If it is just a fairy, though, I'm going to feel gypped after all of that research I did for my write-up last week. (I didn't even know what a naiad WAS until I wrote that.)

Meanwhile, a number of you are saying that Bill being able to walk in sunlight after drinking Sookie's blood must be a big part of the puzzle. That certainly seems likely, and I feel remiss in not pointing it out in the write-up (I just forgot). How this all ties into the larger mystery of what Sookie is remains to be seen, but I'd imagine it has to do something with the interplay between light and dark in the weird dream world she went to while in her coma. Bill is, after all, the darkness that clouds the light in that world, and Sookie drank from a pool of water that seemed to dissolve in glowing light. I don't know how all of this fits together, but it does seem an important part of the puzzle.

san frann wanted to know just why they didn't find Jason to give Sookie blood. So far as I know, they did, and it just took him a while to get to the hospital. That said, though, Jason doesn't seem to have the same blood as Sookie (who has no discernible type). Whatever happened to bring Sookie into our world, it was vastly different from what brought Jason into our world.

markiejoe begs to differ that this season has been good:

"True Blood has jumped the shark this season. Nothing is interesting. Absolutely no sense of humor about itself. Divergent plot lines where never the twain shall meet. Blood and guts everywhere to no purpose. And the 'plot' (such as it is) is incomprehensible."

I can see where the increased amount of gore this season would be bothersome to some people, but I think the plot, so far, mostly makes sense. We just don't have all of the pieces in place yet to figure out why, exactly, these things are happening. Once we have the answers to some of the bigger questions of the season at the end of the season, I have to imagine that some of the incomprehensible events markiejoe is complaining about will make much more sense. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I also certainly wouldn't accuse the season of not having a sense of humor about itself. There have been moments throughout this season that have been quite funny.

Finally, cinders23 was really bothered by something:

"Heck yeah, this episode was filled with blood & guts. But no one mentions the dogfight. They shot a dog and threw him (her) onto a pile of dead dogs. There was NOTHING campy about this scene. I am still sick to my stomach over this. All the blood has a kind of 'wink-wink, yeah this is gross' quality to it. Although I had to cover my eyes with Lorena & the scalpel.) There was a whole undertone in this dogfight scene that no one is addressing. The vamps spewing blood and the werewolves reverting to human when killed is all FICTION. The dog fighting IS NOT FICTION!!! This really bothers me more than trying to answer the question, "What is Sookie?" And I can't wait to see how Alan Ball answers that one!"

I think we should feel confident in Ball and his writers after this scene, actually. They clearly know that the dog fighting scenes aren't fictional things they're making up (well, outside of men shape-shifting into dogs to compete in the fights), and they're treating them with a certain degree of seriousness. I'd be less worried about the show proving that it's firmly against dog fighting than I would about the show figuring out a way to tie all of this into the main action of the plot. But I can certainly see where something like this would be disturbing to someone. I'll just say that "True Blood" has always trafficked in potentially disturbing storylines, and it usually knows when to pull back and when to treat something with a suitable degree of realism.

And that's all until Sunday night, gang. Remember, you can always get in touch via e-mail and Twitter.

--Todd VanDerWerff (follow me on Twitter at @tvoti)

Photo: A feistier Tara (Rutina Wesley) is a more interesting Tara. Credit: HBO

Related articles:

'True Blood': The mystery that is Sookie Stackhouse

With 'Game of Thrones,' HBO is playing for another 'True Blood'

Complete Show Tracker 'True Blood' coverage

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Comments

[nez]

'Sookie series' author Charlaine Harris says to treat the books and the show as two separate entertainments. The show is based loosely on the books with enough changes and differences to keep even us 'readers' guessing. Just when I think I know what's about to happen AB throws me for a loop. I may or may not be spoiling it for the 'non-readers' if I blurt out a 'spoiler'. I like to think of the show as getting even more exciting adventures of our heroine Sookie.

[SVB]

It's a nice sentiment but ultimately futile.

Charlaine Harris' series has been running for almost 10 years now, and a new book is published every year.

The characters are the same, the setting is the same, the basis of the plot is similar (although the details are often very different).

Would you expect discussion of the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings films to not reference the books on which they are based?

At one point last year, all nine (at the time) of Harris' books were on the NYT bestseller list at once. ALOT of people are reading them.

I run a popular blog and forum on this series and my approach has been "spoilers be damned". If you don't want to read them, don't visit my site. Because it's impossible to speculate or discuss True Blood in any depth without reference to the source material.

[evie]

Admiral of you to try to stop book spoilers. I haven't read the books either and hate hearing spoilers. There are people already talking about what's going to happen in Season 4. Annoying. However, I can't imagine how effective your plea will be. The book readers just don't seem to be able to stop themselves. Unfortunately, the only way to avoid spoilers completely is to stop reading blogs.

[Nicolerene]

I thought the dog-fighting was extremely true to life. Those scenes were very moving, and yes just like real life, equally disturbing.
http://animals.change.org/blog/view/10_ways_itrue_bloodi_got_dogfighting_right

[Allen]

Think you know True Blood - think again...

Check out this clip featuring the ORIGINAL Tara - before the current actress Rutina Wesley took over...

Plus check out the show's ORIGINAL titles - not a patch on the iconic credits we're all familiar with...

http://www.remotepatrolled.com/2010/07/original-casting-true-bloods-tara/

[Todd VDW]

SVB: I don't mind comparisons of things the show has already done to what was done in the books. That's fair game. But talking about events coming up, occasionally whole SEASON ahead? That's just unfair to people who haven't read the books.

[hurtfeelings21]

the word "gypped" is very insensitive.

[Lindsey]

So, I hate to sound trite here, but I kind of think you should suck it up and read the books, Todd. While I respect your desire to experience TB as a sovereign text, I think it's a bit shortsighted and limiting. I know you (and others who watch the show and have no interest in reading the books) don't necessarily mean it to, but this whole separating-TB-from-the-Harris-series kind of comes across as a gendered/powered divide, in which a book series aimed at (and originally largely consumed by) women who read urban fantasy/romance novels are asked to be silent for an "upscale, quality TV" (and often, though not always, male) audience who is watching TB w/o reading the books.

Again, I stress that it's clearly not necessarily you're intention, but for some, it can be read that way. Just sayin. Part of the fun of speculating on TB is how, where, and why it might be following and/or diverging from the Harris series. Granted, there are other sites on which to engage in said speculations, but to outright discourage those pleasures, to ostracize and make that fun unwelcome here at a widely-read, mainstream blog about media, can perhaps seem insular, misplaced, and for lack of better words, boring, hierarchical, and judge-y. If people are reading recaps and commenting on reviews, chances are they enjoy engaging with the story world beyond just the TV show. Great. It seems logical then, that a fair amount of your readership might have read the novels? Perhaps opening up the conversation to include other iterations of the text and/or story world might add to the conversation here and bring interesting things to bear on your (and your readers', whether they've read the books or not) outlook and enjoyment of the show.

(wow, that ended up being a longer diatribe than I intended. Apologies).

[sleepdawg]

If you don't want to read conjecture about upcoming events on the show, how about not reading the column? Or looking at Facebook or Twitter? Why should the rest of us dumb down our conversation because a few people can't handle a little bit of imagination?

[bumbedaboutspoilers]

Not posting spoilers isn't about asking anyone to 'dumb down' their posts or thoughts. It's about respect. "I" make it a point not to visit other sites that are clearly for readers of the books, because that's my choice. There should be a site for the NON readers - where their wishes are respected also. That's also just plain ol' playing fair. It's not about who's wright or who's wrong. It's simply about respecting each others experiance.

[Jim Z]

I'm not a huge fan of the show but I end up watching it anyway. What I have noticed was that the first season was so strong that each season seems to be weaker in comparison.
The main reason for this is that it's just getting too big for its own good. Too many characters. too many plotlines. Getting too complicated for its own good.

My girlfriend has read the books and she has basically told me some of the characters in the show don't have big parts in the books. But in the show the characters are popular so the shows writers have to come up with something for them to do. I think Tara's character is an example of this this season where she doesn't really add much to the plot but she's in the story for some reason.

Honestly this season you could have had the central plot with Bill and Sookie and the king of vampires as one show, and had everything that is going on with Merlotte's and the town spun off into an entirely different show. The plots are that divergent.

I think True Blood probably has one more season left after this, unless it really starts to simplify things, maybe get rid of a few characters. It's definitely jumped the shark.

[puzzle book lover]

Congrats to Sookie and Bill!