Well, now. This episode had more gore than a GWAR concert. Vampires were staked, bludgeoned, sliced and diced. Even Tara (Rutina Wesley) got to rip out some juicy neck flesh with her bare (human) teeth. But did all this violence add up to anything? Or have we reached a point in the series where all it has left is over the top blood and guts to try and shock us into caring?
The answer lies somewhere in the middle. But there’s no denying that 3.06 was as entertaining an episode as True Blood has had all year.
Maybe it was watching Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) go all homoerotic on Russell in the name of vengeance (or threatening to rip Evan Rachel Wood‘s head off…that was a particularly frightening moment for me…NOOOOO!). Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) partaking in a bathroom snack. Or Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Tara putting the beat down on a werewolf. But there were a lot of great, fun moments here that gave one the feeling that perhaps True Blood got back on V.
Above all, where this episode truly shined was in its many explorations of how one’s humanity can be lost. For the first time, we saw a shred of hope buried deep within Lorena’s (Mariana Klaveno) cold, dead heart. Is it because she’s a vampire that she has such a healthy love of pain and suffering or the fact that her Maker made her that way as a result of forcing her to partake in his sick, carnal massacres? Bill (Stephen Moyer) wishes to die to “end this disease” … but is it a disease of the body… or the heart?
In fact, the entire season seems to be shaping up (no pun intended) as one major nature vs. nurture argument. Is it Eric’s vampire nature that makes him so cold, or the fact that he saw his family murdered? Is Tommy (Marshall Allman) really a bad seed, or is it because he’s apparently been forced to become a member of the Shifter Fight Club (the first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club until Sam asks you about it at least one thousand annoying times). Even Crystal (meth) (Lindsay Pulsipher), as she tries to “live in the now (and then forget it ever happened)” seems to be stuck in her inbred past, possibly denying her true nature even to herself. And what will such an argument bode for Jesus (Kevin Alejandro), whose mother was raped?
And can anyone really argue with Russell’s (Denis O’Hare) reasoning for wanting to destroy the human race? Living all those centuries, he’s seen the reckless destruction we’ve caused to our planet and ourselves. Who knew he’d turn out to be so green? I wonder how he plans to recycle all the body parts.
Most Disturbing Moment: “Bite me, open me up, feed on me.” I can’t think of a single person watching that who wasn’t turned on.
Favorite (and most redundant) quote: “I don’t know anything!” Sookie. Well duh.
Grade A-
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