Review: True Blood – “Sunset” The Sun Isn’t Setting Fast Enough For Me…

Air Date: Sunday, August 19, 2012, 9/8C on HBO

RATING: ★★★★★

“I am the chosen one! Lilith chose me!” – Bill Compton

The penultimate episode of True Blood is dark, predictable and meh. I wasn’t surprised or appalled, nor did I learn much of anything that will help wrap up this season with a neat bow. I’ll give the writers their due for leaving us with an interesting cliffhanger, but I’m not sure what we were supposed to get out of “Sunset” except the Authority is ruining things for everyone and there will be a select few around to save those who need to be saved. The end is coming or is nigh, blah, blah, blah. The doom and gloom sentiment is overrated. It would be nice if there were a point to this season. I guess I’ll have to wait until next week to find out what it is and why I should care.

Observations:

Oh, Jess… you are certainly growing up.

Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) gets my vote for most awesome character this week. She stands up to her maker, Bill (Stephen Moyer) and puts her neck out there to save her only friends. Now, while I don’t think she truly considers Jason (Ryan Kwanten) and Sookie (Anna Paquin) just friends (Jessica may see them as family), she knows how much they mean in the grand scheme of things. Jessica realizes Bill isn’t in his right mind and once he comes back to his senses, he’ll regret any idiotic decisions made during his high-on-Lilith (Jessica Clark) phase. Once again, a baby vamp steps in to do what’s right and gets herself in a bit of a bind. It wasn’t unexpected but I was surprised when Jessica pulled out the big guns when trying to find sanctuary with Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten). “I know where Eric is,” she tells the desperate vampire proprietor of Fangtasia. Of course Pam would jump all over that. How could anyone anticipate another reaction? But now that Pam knows where Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) is and eventually ends up there herself, what’s to be done?

Eric and Nora (Lucy Griffiths) finally make their big escape. As an aside, the fact that Eric rids them of their “security detail” so easily not only had me rolling my eyes, it made me question what the hell Bill was thinking sending anyone less than 1,000 years old to guard Eric. Hello, he’s a Viking, for crying out loud! Not that I care about Eric and Nora’s great escape because the whole secret underground vampire lair plot is getting boring. However, I do wonder where the two will go. They are as free as the wind, can fly like the wind, and are…you guessed it, in the wind. The Authority still has power though. Will they run and hide, or come back to take some vampire bitches out?

Jason was not faking. Sorry, didn’t buy that. Russell had him hook, line and sinker.

Russell (Denis O’Hare) once again makes his invulnerability known by outsmarting and ending an elder faery. I know I’m not the only one who thought ‘WTF is this faery buffoonery’ the entire time the elder was on screen. I didn’t laugh; I didn’t even pay attention to what she was saying to Sookie because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. True Blood never allows us to learn the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about anything mysterious until we’ve completely forgotten about it. So when the elder ends up drained by a bloodthirsty Russell, were you surprised? The elder never gets to finish telling Sookie the goods on her “15 times great-grandfather” or anything else relevant to her family line because that would have been too much like right. Let’s have Sookie ponder what her existence means and why she’s so “attracted to vampires,” or basically a vampire slut. The little snippets the elder gives Sookie are intriguing, but also kind of not. I’m just tired of the ploys to keep me watching. Give me something solid to go on and I’ll want to watch.

Now, let’s get back to Bill. He’s gone to his dark side again, living in a nest and getting high off Lilith’s blood. So what’s the point? To see just how far he will go to be the “chosen one” or to test his bounds in finding his place in the vampire world? Of all the new Lilith converts, Bill went effortlessly into that dark night. He believed right away, saw Lilith and thought ‘this is what I was meant for.’ Now Lilith comes to him in her only form: naked, covered in blood (except for her hair), and fangs drawn to tell him he is the “chosen one” to lead the entire vampire race to whatever. I get the point behind this since she’s supposed to be a deity; it only makes sense she have someone reveal her divine plan to her followers. But, we as viewers are tired of seeing her as the essence of all that is pure (naked), and as the embodiment of a vampire’s hunger (covered in blood). Actually, I don’t believe she’s real, even with the bloody fingerprints left behind. I think she’s merely a hallucination created by those who ingest the precious tainted blood protected behind a simple glass case. If you think about it, shouldn’t that blood be kept in a more secure area since it’s sooooooo important? You don’t show everyone who visits your home where you keep your most valuable possessions and give them the combination to the safe, do you?

Will someone tell me how Sookie got the faerie gene and Jason didn’t? Please?

Oh, and there’s no way Jason can shoot fast enough to kill two vamps without any problems. You’d think they could hear him breathing or his heart beating! Not one of them lurched toward him; they simply looked at each other and exploded. Not to take away from Jason’s shooting ability, but come on! He’s HUMAN!

“Sunset” doesn’t leave me in suspense or dying for the season five finale of True Blood. It leaves me wondering how much worse will next season be now that the story lines all seem to be heading toward the end of this series. With Russell being almost impervious to defeat, who will stop him? The faeries are exposed and left to fend for themselves against an unstoppable force; who will rescue them from their fate? Two vampires have escaped the tyranny of vampire authority but what can they do to bring down a regime? I can’t see how the show will bounce back from this ridiculous path it’s on, but I’m sure not everyone feels the same.

Tune in to the season finale of True Blood, Sunday, August 26 at 9/8c on HBO. For more information on the show, visit: http://www.hbo.com/#/true-blood.

Follow True Blood on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/TrueBloodHBO @TrueBloodHBO using Hashtags #trueblood #waitingsucks #tbmoments.

LIKE True Blood on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TrueBlood?ref=ts.

Photo credit: John P. Johnson/HBO © 2012 Home Box Office, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Elle

Writer, mother, realist, cloud lover, daydreamer, dessert enthusiast, sweet tea addict, perfectionist, and lover of life and Christ, but not in that order. http://www.fanfiction.net/~vikingloverelle

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