Alan Ball And Charlaine Harris Discuss That Death In Sunday's Episode
'True Blood': Alan Ball and Charlaine Harris discuss Sunday's shocking death of [SPOILER] -- EXCLUSIVE
by Tim Stack
SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t watched this week’s True Blood…
...Okay, now let’s continue. This past Sunday’s episode concluded with Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) sucking the life out of Claudine (Lara Pulver), Sookie’s fairy godmother. The twist surprised many fans of Charlaine Harris’ book series, because Claudine doesn’t bite the dust until much later in the novels. Executive producer Alan Ball tells EW that just because Sookie’s mentor is gone doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the fairy world. “After everything that was going on with the fairies in the first episode, I think we wanted to sort of put a pin in that, but obviously it’s not over,” says Ball. “I felt it would have more impact if it was someone we knew as opposed to just a random fairy.”
It’s also another example of Blood diverging from its source material, like keeping Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) alive and introducing the original character of Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll). Says Ball, “If we did just do everything in the books, there would be no surprises. It’s not like we have a formula for what we’re going to keep from the books and what we’re going to change. If there’s a consensus that something makes sense, that’s usually the way we go.” For her part, Harris says she “was surprised” by the death of Claudine, but trusts in Ball and where he takes the stories. Says the author, “If he can be gracious to me, I can certainly be gracious enough to wait and see where he’s going.”
This week’s episode also saw the horrific scene of Jason Stackhouse being raped by the women of Hot Shot, something my colleague Mandi Bierly referred to in her recap as one of the series most disturbing moments. “Well of course it’s twisted - Hot Shot is twisted,” says Ball. “They’re crazy inbred freaks. They call each other Uncle Daddy! Hello! It’s a twisted world.”
No doubt this season of True Blood will hold even more surprises, but Ball gave EW a tease of what to expect. “It gets ugly between the vampires and the witches,” says Ball. “There’s more than one fight coming up. There’s also a very unexpected romantic attachment which you’ll start to see the beginnings of I believe in next week’s episode. We’re gonna find out a lot about Jesus’ magic that’s in his family. We’re gonna get to the bottom of what’s going on with Arlene’s baby.”
Follow me on Twitter: @EWTimStack
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/07/12/true-blood-alan-ball-claudine-death/
by Tim Stack
SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t watched this week’s True Blood…
...Okay, now let’s continue. This past Sunday’s episode concluded with Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) sucking the life out of Claudine (Lara Pulver), Sookie’s fairy godmother. The twist surprised many fans of Charlaine Harris’ book series, because Claudine doesn’t bite the dust until much later in the novels. Executive producer Alan Ball tells EW that just because Sookie’s mentor is gone doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the fairy world. “After everything that was going on with the fairies in the first episode, I think we wanted to sort of put a pin in that, but obviously it’s not over,” says Ball. “I felt it would have more impact if it was someone we knew as opposed to just a random fairy.”
It’s also another example of Blood diverging from its source material, like keeping Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) alive and introducing the original character of Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll). Says Ball, “If we did just do everything in the books, there would be no surprises. It’s not like we have a formula for what we’re going to keep from the books and what we’re going to change. If there’s a consensus that something makes sense, that’s usually the way we go.” For her part, Harris says she “was surprised” by the death of Claudine, but trusts in Ball and where he takes the stories. Says the author, “If he can be gracious to me, I can certainly be gracious enough to wait and see where he’s going.”
This week’s episode also saw the horrific scene of Jason Stackhouse being raped by the women of Hot Shot, something my colleague Mandi Bierly referred to in her recap as one of the series most disturbing moments. “Well of course it’s twisted - Hot Shot is twisted,” says Ball. “They’re crazy inbred freaks. They call each other Uncle Daddy! Hello! It’s a twisted world.”
No doubt this season of True Blood will hold even more surprises, but Ball gave EW a tease of what to expect. “It gets ugly between the vampires and the witches,” says Ball. “There’s more than one fight coming up. There’s also a very unexpected romantic attachment which you’ll start to see the beginnings of I believe in next week’s episode. We’re gonna find out a lot about Jesus’ magic that’s in his family. We’re gonna get to the bottom of what’s going on with Arlene’s baby.”
Follow me on Twitter: @EWTimStack
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/07/12/true-blood-alan-ball-claudine-death/