'True Blood': The center cannot hold

 After Sunday night's episode of "True Blood," it's becoming immensely clear that not all of the storylines the show is spinning are going to come to closure points by the end of the season or tie together in any way, shape or form. The question, then, becomes whether the individual storylines were entertaining enough to keep the show afloat or whether you think the lack of cohesion has fatally damaged this season.

I realize I should pick a side in this fight, but I think this season has been the best for "True Blood" while simultaneously being the worst. The main plot has been riveting throughout, helped out by splitting up Sookie and Bill and giving them each compelling plot threads and by casting Dennis O'Hare as the villain. Any time one of those three or Eric was on screen, the season has been terrific, more or less.

But "True Blood" is a massive, massive show, and that means those characters can't always be on screen. The series solved this last season by splitting all of the characters up into two storylines. The storyline in Dallas — wherein a bunch of the characters confronted a band of fundamentalist Christians bent on wiping out vampires — was often fun. The storyline back in Bon Temps — wherein most of the other characters were enraptured by the machinations of a maenad named Maryann — was less consistent, but it certainly had its moments, and it had the side benefit of involving every character who wasn't in Dallas. That meant that the show didn't need to go out of its way to incorporate a scene featuring Sam or Andy every week, because both characters were involved in the Maryann storyline. 

At this point, I'm wondering just how much of the show's disconnection this season stems from its source material. I can't imagine that Charlaine Harris features plotlines that have nothing to do with one another from chapter to chapter and plots that seem as though they're going to just end with no resolution one chapter before the end of the book. Since the show and the book seem to share a compressed time frame, it's possible that a storyline like Arlene's pregnancy played out over several books. But at the same time, it probably would have been less important to the books, where Harris can keep Arlene in the background and remind readers every so often that she's pregnant with apparent demon spawn. On the series, Carrie Preston is a regular and has to be worked into a good number of the episodes, which leads to the storyline essentially repeating the same information over and over. Books may have ties between volumes, but series usually find a way to have a story that is told and closed off in a single volume. "True Blood" has gotten so big that it's virtually impossible for the series to do this at this point.

It doesn't help that the series is even more chock-full of characters than the books. Lafayette died in the books and is still around on the series, so the series has to come up with something for him to do. This leads to the poor guy standing around and staring at various voodoo knickknacks that come to life and dance around for him. Similarly, Jessica is an invention of the series, and the show needs to toss her a scene or two every week. But it often seems uncertain of what to do with her, which has led to a long, rambling storyline about her reunion with Hoyt (who's now inviting her to drink his blood) and her killing of a trucker and realization that she prefers human blood. But in addition to these two storylines, the show has had to come up for weekly business involving Jason, Sam and a host of tertiary characters, like Crystal and Alcide. When it could bring these storylines into contact with the Russell plotline, they got more interesting, but none of them were ever able to stand on their own like the show wanted them to.

So roughly half of any given episode this season has been the worst this series has ever been. It's been a centerless mess where it became harder and harder to ignore that the show wasn't sure what to do with nearly two-thirds of its ensemble. Every so often, there would be a scene where one of these storylines would spark to life, but those scenes have been few and far between. What's more, the resolutions to these stories have been mostly big anti-climaxes. Crystal's a were-panther? OK. Sam uses his family issues to take out his aggression on everyone else, then has sex with Tara? If that's the direction you want to go in, show.

But — and I can't stress this enough — the main plotline has been borderline amazing throughout this season. Even the Sookie and Bill scenes, which I often couldn't stand in previous seasons, have been much better written and acted than usual. Take a look, for instance, at that scene in Sunday night's episode where the two rue the life they can never lead. It's a fantasy they get lost in, this world where Bill is a third-grade teacher and Sookie is a real estate agent, but it's easy to see the sadness of that fantasy never coming true shine through in the faces of both Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer in this scene. It's ultimately heart-rending, and it ends with Russell nearly flipping their car. Nearly every scene in this storyline has landed. The action scenes have had punch and great pacing. The emotional scenes have been thoughtfully written and nicely performed. And even the exposition has been well handled.

The question then becomes whether the show's riveting main plot is enough to excuse everything else it's doing. For me, it has been, with the sizable caveat that much of the rest of the show hasn't worked at all. Every week, I've grown more and more disheartened at how little the show has been able to pull itself together, and these last two episodes have driven that point home more than anything else. At the same time, I love scenes like Eric tricking Russell into coming outside so he can slowly burn himself and the king to death in the sunlight and have his ultimate revenge. "True Blood" has always been a show that feels like it's holding itself together with spit and twine, but the twine and spit have mostly given up trying this season. If that works for you, great. But I'm hoping next season can find a model that feels less chaotic and somehow keep hold of the strong center that's kept this season so much fun.

Other thoughts

• The "True Blood" post-mortems are often kind of silly, but I liked Sunday night's, particularly Alan Ball's thoughts on how the fairies in the series' world are like aliens, playing off a tossed-off line from last week's episode. It's a cool idea, and it appeals to my inner "X-Files" fan.
• The football scenes all play like bad parodies of "Friday Night Lights," right down to the dialogue. And vampire blood as steroids? That was such a groaner of a line.
• My home state of South Dakota gets a shout-out Sunday night when Lafayette says it's one of two places you could end up in when high on vampire blood. The other? Hell. We South Dakotans, current and former, appreciate the comparison point.
• Looks like "True Blood" just lost the best drama series Emmy to "Mad Men." I didn't encounter any hardcore "True Blood" fans who thought the show could win, so this wasn't exactly a surprise.
• On the other hand, Anna Paquin seemed really nervous when presenting her awards with Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgard. It was kind of cute, actually.
• Violently disagree? You can e-mail me or Tweet at me. Or you can talk in comments. But we'll be off next weekend for Labor Day. Boo, HBO! Boo!
• "This is not just about your relationship, you infatuated tween."
• "I'm having trouble switching tenses. You understand."
• "You are nothing more than a lump of muscle with a blood grudge."
• "Can't even reach up on my own closet shelf without a grabber."
• "You are cute as pigs!"
• "Nothing in my blood is a supernatural sunscreen for y'all."

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

Photo: Sookie (Anna Paquin) is the lynchpin to Eric's plot to trick Russell "True Blood." Credit: HBO.

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Comments

[MJ]

The article writer has obviously not read any of Charlaine Harris's books or he would know that there is only a very loose connection of characters and storylines between the books and the TV series. This was frustrating to my friends and I who have read and loved the books, but we have come to just accept that the two have minimal content in common. The producers and writers of the TV series have played fast and loose with Charlaine Harris's books, I think to the detriment of their end product.

[Book and Show fan]

Todd, I agree completely. The problem this season is that the show has made up story lines just to give their large cast something to do. You mentioned the books, so I'm going there. The entire Sam's storyline, more than half of Tara's storyline, Jason shooting Eggs/wanting to be a cop/high school football player storyline, Arlene being pregnant storyline, and Jesus storyline are all inventions of the show. I'm NOT a bookie fanatic at all. I love many of the unique story lines that the TB writers have created. I love Jessica and Lafayette. Godric being Eric's maker storyline was original to the show and it was the best part of last season. Eric's revenge against Russell storyline is original to the show and is the best part of this season. But I think the problem is that the writers are giving characters that were minor characters in the books and that are not very interesting a lot of screen time. I've loved this season and have anxiously awaited every episode, but I wonder how this season will hold up once it is all over.

[Ira]

I'd forgotten about the books when I came up with this idea, but I still think it holds -- this show is vastly different from any other primetime show, and as a graduate screenwriter it's something I'm definitely keeping in the back of my mind as something that could influence television in the future, considering True Blood's immense popularity.

In the end of the first two seasons, there were stories introduced that set up the next season. Miss Jeneatte made sense in the context of season one, but also set up the MaryAnn story. The Queen made sense for season two, but set up the Russell story. But these stories that are being set up for future seasons aren't doing that. In fact, the show is written more in the model of a daytime show, where it has nothing in common with a traditional TV episode where a specific story is set up and resolved by the end of the hour. I'm not just talking procedurals, even shows like Breaking Bad or Damages have something introduced dramatically that is resolved in some way at the end of the hour. Because it's set up as a weekly TV show. But this season, True Blood has evolved into some weird daytime hybrid where anything that happens in an episode doesn't seem to have been necessarily thought up for that episode. It's as if the storylines have been plotted out for season three, then just placed in a line and a couple beats from each storyline take place in each episode.

Sure, there are some ups and downs in the stories, but I think the show would operate the exact same way if season finales and premieres were taken out of the equation. Would True Blood be any different if it aired every week, without breaks? Even the cliffhangers that happen at the end of each season get picked up in the premiere, the only time that we get real time passage is in the finale after the big climax, then it's business as usual. I feel like if the show had no seasons and aired non-stop, those time passage episodes would just get stretched out a bit more.

[foozlesprite]

You are absolutely correct about the side stories not being as prominent in the books. Mostly the books concentrate on Sookie and her relationships. There was nothing in the books about Sam's family/bad boy past, Lafayette/Jesus/voodoo (obviously), Russel Edgington going batshit, Arlene getting pregnant with demon spawn, Jessica/Hoyt, or Andy becoming Chief of Police, and Tara had pretty much dwindled into obscurity after the Franklin thing. At the same time, Alcide was a bigger character than he's been this season.

I, too, have a love/hate relationship with the side plots. They add a lot to the series for someone who's read the books already, and often provide some hilarious lines/circumstances (Jason posing as the Horned God, anyone?) but too often, they feel forced. I think Season 4 will pick up the pace though, since they're meshing books together and there's a lot of big stuff that happens in the next few books!

[Pasha]

This season has been fairly disappointing for me. I'm a fan of the books, but was thrilled to see the show deviating a bit from them last season. I love that they kept Lafayette around. He was a very minor character in the books, and I think the show has done a fine job developing his character to his fullest potential (although where they're taking him and his made-up boyfriend is a little worrisome). I'm also happy that they've made Andy more of a stand-up sorta guy, and I absolutely adore Terry. On the other hand, there are characters they have developed beyond interest who I would rather see fade into the background as they have in the books. To be specific, these characters are: Tara, Arlene, Hoyt, and, above all, Bill.

This season has deviated very far from the books and I'm worried about the massive amount of disjointed story lines. Nearly all of them do not exist in the books at all, and it is really hard for me to tell at this point if this is going to be a wonderful thing or a terrible mistake.

Again, I do love a bit of deviation (I thought last season was better than the books), but this season seems to be pretty out to sea with no land in sight. What disappoints me the most is that they are on the verge of turning Sookie into a helpless floozy who, at this point, is sickeningly reminiscent of Bella Swan of Twilight. In the books, Sookie is an absolute heroine. She saves Bill single-handedly, and then has the guts to cut him loose for his betrayal. She moves on to other love interests, and is more guts and glory than weak and dependent.

I truly hope they can wrap this season up in a way that makes sense, and I hope it ends up being fantastic. Charlaine Harris is a wonderful author, and I would hate to see the wonderful world and characters she has created distorted beyond recognition. True blood has been, and still is, a fantastic show, but I just don't know if it can stand on its own two feet just yet with so many distorted and made-up stories being added to the mix. Up until this season, it was a wonderful homage. I am desperately hoping that certain things they have been hinting at end up bringing them more on track and able to re-develop main book characters who have fallen behind.

...Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best!

[Katrine]

I just started watching this season, True Blood is dis-jointed, campy and over-the-top. I am continually bored by most of the charactors. However, I continue to watch because it is entertaining in spurts - and campy and over-the-top can be fun. I completely agree with you on Eric, Sookie, Bill, and Russell being the reason to watch. Russell, in fact, makes the whole season. I do miss Talbot too. The vampire world is interesting, the werewolf world was not, and I the Jason/were-panther, as well as the Sam/crazy gross family storylines are just terrible.

[Shannon]

I couldn't disagree anymore with this article. While some subplots may be less interesting as the main plot, it doesn't change the fact that this show is one of the best shows out there. It's clear that you've never read any of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. It's based on her view and it's in first person. There is absolutely no way possible True Blood would be where it is if it was mainly based on Sookie and her experiences.

You're in the minority, Todd VanDerWerff. Get over it.

[KatherineM]

Please quit blaming 'the books'. The books are done. You seem to think the show is trying to adapt boring storylines from the books. Wrong. The worst parts of the show are original show storylines. Book 3 was about the vampires in Mississippi, the best part of this year's series.

Place blame on the show writers of TB who simply suck at writing original Southern Gothic plots/mysteries, and who can adapt the books sometimes very well, but often leave great parts out for their lesser work. Perhaps blame casting and whoever wrote the contracts that force 40 minutes of screentime per episode on irrelevant characters/weaker actors--Tara/Sam/Jason are ranked higher in the show casting than Eric/Pam.

Harris's books were never intended to be 'great literature', but she had the sense to drop or not mention existing characters when they were not relevant to the overall storyline. And often the Bon Temps back-ups that take 40 minutes per episode are not included or marginal in her later books. But in the show, the Season 1 characters are still being crammed on top of the Book 3/Season 3 show. And lots of good Book 3 moments relevant to the storyline are left out.

When the show is good (Mississipi/vampires), it is some of the best TV ever. Eric and Pam are a much bigger part of the books, esp. upcoming books, than the Bon Temps back-ups are. That's more Harris wisdom--Evolve and focus on the best characters most.

[Cin]

You hit it on the nail head. Alan Ball and company have tried to keep alive certain plot lines from the books and this could be very well be the issues of the disconnected plot lines, inconsistencies and too many characters doing and reacting in unbelievable ways. Ms. Harris's books were filled with this and continued to get worse with each book. True Blood should do itself a favour and dump the use of future books. Too many characters doing too many things in too short a period of time. I'm dizzy!

[Jeremiah]

I love "True Blood," but that doesn't mean I am blind to its flaws. Last night's episode was the worst of the current season. I was expecting, like with seasons 1 and 2, that the myriad of plot threads would begin connecting, but they just became more disjointed and sprawling. Another commenter already said this, but as I watched, I couldn't help but think about the daytime soap operas I watched when I was a kid during those drawn out summer months. They were just a collection of different stories tied to a location (Port Charles, Hill Valley, etc.), and "True Blood" has gone the same direction. In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing, except when the stories are not balanced in quality. Season 3 has had little qualitative balance -- Jason's story, which has had no less than three iterations, is the poster child for all that has gone wrong here.

I'm hoping the finale has some great moments that at least give a few of these stories a payoff (Sam's especially), but I'm not holding my breath. As much as I love "True Blood," it's beginning to wear on my patience.

[Kathy]

I completly agree with you and have been saying this for the last two years. The first year clung fairly close to the books and I thought was a great season.

In the second season, the Dallas story line worked but the Maryann storyline, I thought, was dreadful. Maryann or Calista in the book was featured on about 3 pages and really that was all that was necessary. Had they stuck closer to the book, all the characters could have still been involved, they could have killed off someone a little more important than voo doo woman, had they wanted to save Laffy, and all would have worked.

This season, the same. I don't mind they switched the Jackson story too much, but had they stuck closer Alcide would make more sense than he does. The other characters, yeah they would have had problems finding things for them to do, but at this point, we're all just sitting there yelling at the TV to get on with it. I'm also so disappointed with what they've done with the faeries, as the fact that all the supes are living among humans is what makes the story most interesting. As it is there aren't many humans left on True Blood.

I fear what will happen next season, there are definitely strong storylines in the book, but sometimes it seems they make changes just for the sake of making them, not for the good of the show or the storytelling. Guess all we can do is cross our fingers.

[xicanoboy1331]

GODRIC RULES!

[lostfansincedayone]

Omigod get over yourselves already. I've never read the books, never even heard of them until the show came on. This is a show BASED upon the idea of the books....no one ever promised it would follow the books at all. It's a wacky sunday night HBO vampire-porn soap opera. If it annoys most of you that much, stop watching. There's lots of other channels to change to. I didn't even think I was going to like the show when it first started, i thought the acting was terrible but I hung around for the 2nd episode to give it another shot and the cavalcade of characters drew me in. I stayed because it entertains me. If it doesn't entertain you, stop complaining and find something else to watch.

[Elizabeth]

Yes, True Blood is an imperfect show. Way too many story lines that seem to go no where, but in the end the show is always entertaining. It's campy, fun, tragic, romantic, silly and has way more WTF moments than any other show I can think of. I'm already looking forward to the next season.

[Markus H.]

The hubris on True Blood is true "Hollywood" -- i.e., egos who think they know how to write better than Charlaine Harris. Not an encouraging sign. The Charlaine Harris-based storylines (Dallas, Mississippi) always, ALWAYS, stand head and shoulders above the invented plotlines (Sam/Tara/Jason, etc.) and for the life of me I can't figure out why Alan Ball either agrees with this approach or simply can't see that the invented stuff on True Blood is a pale imitation of Ms. Harris' real gothic writing. Take the "scheme" (and I use the term ever so loosely) for killing Russell. Really, Eric? That's it? Using the carrot stick of daywalking to lure Russell out into the open? Yawn. I feel cheated. After such an excellent build-up of Russell as an almost indestructible entity, I expected no less than an Ocean's 11-style elaborate team effort to trick and destroy him. But no, here, have some fairy blood, you'll be able to walk in the day. Ugh. I've yet to be inducted into vampire-dom myself, but the FIRST thing I would be is suspicious if somebody were to try to lure me into the daylight. Surely a 3,000-year-old one would be even smarter than me and know immediately that it was a hoax. VanDerWerff's right -- this HAS been both the best and worst season of True Blood.

[markiejoe]

Too many characters, too many storylines, all over the place.

After getting the audience to know and love the several main characters in season one (far and away the best of the three), they now drown those characters in a sea of peripherals and relegate those original characters to infrequent, silly and mostly incomprehensible sideplay .

It's a mystifying way to think you can hold an audience.

[Houston Fan]

As a fan of both the books and the show, I couldn't agree more with the author of this commentary (and some of the comments). I'm a book fan, but I think TB has adapted and deviated significantly but very successfully with *some* of the storylines, namely the Godric/Eric plot from Season 2 and the Russell/Eric plot from this season. I definitely agree that it's impracticable (and boring) for TB to simply faithfully reproduce the books (which are not flawless in any case).

But, I certainly agree with whoever noted that devoting 40 minutes per week to the secondary Bon Temps characters has been a huge waste of time. Alexander Skarsgard should be one of the headline lead actors in the series, for starters (I hope his agent is reading this and working on that oversight). Alan Ball gave lead actor status to Sam Trammell, Rutina Wesley and Ryan Kwanten, and while I think they are all very fine actors, the storylines that have been given to them are ill-conceived at best. For Skarsgard, the writers can truly adapt from the existing source material, because Eric is a key character. Tara is a fairly minor character in the books, and while Sam and Jason have important roles to fill in Sookie's life, neither has been consistently integral to the book plots. Thus, the TB writers have tried to fill out the roles to justify the lead billing given to those actors, and I think audience reaction is that they have not been terribly successful at the completely original plotting.

So, while I wholeheartedly support the idea that TB should be broader in scope than Sookie's viewpoint, I think the writers would do well to develop the CORE storyline each season from the main characters in the books and include the Bon Temps characters in a single related plotline that has less overall screen-time. The core storyline this season is perhaps the Russell/Eric plot, but it gets lost in the other competing and distracting plots. The series would be stronger for devoting less screen time to the Bon Temps secondary cast and more to the core characters of Sookie, Eric, Bill and even Alcide and the werewolves. Again, I don't think the writers have to "stick closer to the books" in terms of the actual plots, but I think the show is strongest when the focus is on the core characters from the books.

[Kathy]

"lostfansincedayone," if you read this piece correctly you would see that the author is blaming the weak "side stories" on being taken directly from the books. See, they're NOT from the books, but the main vampire story has the spine of the story from the books, which is why people are talking about the difference between the show and the books.

Geesh! I don't know why people who haven't read the books get so upset when people who have, bring them up. Defensive much? For the life of me I don't understand why.

[KarenJ]

Todd - I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not going to 'compare' to the books because I haven't read them. And wouldn't even try. But, all these side plots are just a distraction it seems. On my cable guide for the last two episodes there were SIX plot points mentioned in the preview for that week's show. SIX!! That's rediculous... and the six weren't even all of them. Normally, when a story goes from book(s) to film, the plots are 'paired down'. This season seems to have done the opposite. Probably not... but the season has certianly been disjointed and watches as 'half I care - half I don't'.

I was talking to my sister recently regarding the show - she and her daughter-in-law thought the show was going to leave us at the end of the season with some kind of cliff hanger. Personally, I don't see how they can leave us with a TRUE cliff-hanger (as compared to the last episode of Dexter last season). But, I do think that we'll just be left with a 'to be continued' at the end here. I suppose I should have more faith in the writers. But all these side plots are just so... dangling. And, they already know they've got next season.

Have a good week off! (BAD of HBO wasn't it! The other shows on Sunday have a new episode!)

kj

[Mel C]

I'm probably repeating other people's comments, but bear with me...

Whenever True Blood followed the books as close as it could, it turned out to be awesome seasons (Seasons 1 & 2). This 3rd Season, I feel, is lacking because it took off from the book in such a wide way. I know, I know... Even Ms. Harris says they're two different forms of entertainment, but my point stands. The closer to the books, the better and more cohesive.

Another point: Arlene never becomes pregnant in the books, by anybody, nor does she date Terry. Other things are in store for her in the books.

Yet another point: the books are narrated by Sookie, so we only see her perspective. That would be impossible (or nearly impossible) to do on the show. I can certainly understand that. So there, Todd. That's your answer.

Back to my previous whining: the fourth book is one of my favorites, and I just don't see how they're going to make it work on the show. I won't give anything away, for those of you who are faithful only to the show, but just know it's one of the best, right up there with the first book.

I will continue to watch, because I finally enjoyed THIS episode (as opposed to the two before it). I certainly enjoyed the very trippy scene where Lafayette was channeling "Wonderfalls" (does anybody remember that show?), with all the tchotkes talking to him. And Eric's scene with Sookie, where he tries to prepare her before taking her blood, is very sweet and VERY well acted by Mr. Skarsgard. And finally, the very last scene when Eric handcuffs Russell left me flabbergasted in the coolest way, and wanting more.

Per usual, my favorite line was delivered by Pam: "Colloidal silver, in stock and overpriced at your neighborhood health food store." But a close second was Yvetta's: "Idiot? In Tallinn (sp?) I was a cardiologist!"