True Blood 1.12: You’ll Be The Death of Me
Umm. Yes, this episode was good (for the most part). It was suspenseful and entertaining. It had action and wrapped some stuff up. But: This all felt very rushed and frantic. HBO should definitely take a course in What’s a storyarc and how do I keep viewers interested for 12 episodes. You just can’t go and introduce a murderer in the first episode, then add a few other bodies, then pratically forget about the murder mystery and have the show’s lead figure it all out IN THE LAST EPISODE. There were no clues as to who murdered these women during the season, but then they go and shove about a thousand clues right in the viewer’s face about five minutes before the bad guys goes to kill Sookie. I’m sorry, but that’s totally half-hearted. In other words: it’s cheating.
I could also have done without Bill rising from the dead and walking in the blaring sun catching fire. Ughh. Which part about dead during the day didn’t they get? Yikes!
And just because I think I haven’t mentioned it before: I adore Terry. I also like him in the books, but I think his role there is even tinier than it is on the show. His character is proof that understatement works. You don’t have to shove everything in the viewer’s face. Usually, it’s enough to provide a scene, a detail, a gesture. Let’s hope he’ll stick around.
My personal verdict after watching the first season? Undecided. I understand that they invented different storylines for the characters, that they moved away from what’s in the books. But I’m very wary of the fact that they changed the characterization of the major characters. I’ve made my complaints about Sookie, but watching the end of this episode I noticed the same thing about Jason. Yes, in the books he isn’t the smartest either. He’s plain, he gets by. He’s normal. But here on the show he’s not just not smart, he’s as stupid as its gets. If there’s a decision to make you can trust Jason to make the wrong one. Not a good thing, and definitely not something I want to watch go on for several seasons.
Originally published at Unspoken. You can comment here or there.