Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead)
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What a difference a year makes, you guys. Around this time last season, True Blood and I were in a fight. The turgid Maryann business was driving me crazy, the subplot in Dallas felt disconnected from everything else… it was rough. Now, however, the show and I have more than made up. We’re thinking about moving in together. Because seriously… the series is having its best run of episodes ever.
Case in point: “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues.” An exceptional hour of television—written by Alan Ball and directed by John Dahl—it hurls scene after scene at my gut, my heart, and my brain. In fact, so many moments strike me so deeply that I’m hard-pressed to anoint just one Sucker Punch. But since they don’t pay me the big blogger bucks to be wishy-washy, I’ll make a choice.
Before I do, however, let me ask you this: Have you noticed that most of the action is unfolding at Russell’s Mississippi estate? Every room has its own drama, from Franklin and Tara: Totes in Love in the upstairs bedroom to Stealing Daddy’s Crown in the basement. Meanwhile, the slave quarters have become Lorena and Bill’s own Grand Guignol theater, and the manicured grounds are being prowled by werewolves.
When I think about this place, which feels removed not just from Bon Temps, Louisiana but from the entire world, I feel a physical sense of dread. Russell’s estate looms in my mind like a nightmare world, where passion and violence are physically manifested. I mean, this is a place where the bedrooms have hatchets on the walls, where the basement hides crowns that were stolen from dead kings, and where the kitchen serves nothing but flowers and blood. It’s not a “real” place in my mind: It’s a place out of time, where terror rustles up behind you in a hoop skirt.
Earlier this season, I was worried that by moving the action to Mississippi, the show was going to feel fragmented like it did when it detoured to Dallas. Now, however, I realize that many of the stories this season need to be happening in Mississippi… or at least not in Bon Temps. The characters are caught in primal struggles that seem bigger than their “real world,” and just like I sometimes need to go on vacation to get a fresh perspective on my home, they need to get out of Louisiana to sort through their ordeals.
Take what’s happening to Tara. When she artfully seduces Franklin, then bashes his head in, then “think-talks” with Sookie so they can concoct an escape plan, she’s doing more than saving herself in the present moment. She’s slicing through a season and a half of passivity and victimhood. Forget that scene a few years ago where she stabbed the ghost girl in the woods: This is her week for liberation. I mean, when Sookie insists on staying on the grounds to look for Bill, Tara refuses to help her. Instead, she does what’s right for her and keeps on running. Damn right! Way to finally take care of yourself, hooker!
On the nastier side of “getting what you want,” there’s Eric, who’s flowing through Russell’s house like poisoned perfume. Alexander Skarsgard’s doing a great job playing Eric’s shameless seduction of Russell and Talbot, and in his big scene with Sookie, he totally sells the rage that’s driving him to abolish his recent relationships (with Sookie, with Queen Sophie) in order to avenge his father’s death.
We can read this as more than just a vampire honoring his dead Viking daddy. It’s also an evocation of how destructive the past can be, how destructive the family can be, to our present-day lives. Because really… Eric could screw up everything with this little caper, but down at Russell’s place, vengeance is always going to defeat common sense.
Oh, and speaking of family? I know that Sam and the Mickens are not in Mississippi, but damn… their stuff this week is slaying me. It’s just so awful… this revelation that Joe Lee forces Melinda and Tommy to earn their keep by shifting into dogs and entering illegal dog fights. And Melinda’s apparent belief that this is all she’s good for, that Joe Lee has done her and Tommy a favor by forcing this life on them… it’s heartbreaking. Some of you have been wondering in the comments section if Joe Lee is sexually abusing Tommy, and I’ve thought you might be right. But this is worse. This is child and spousal abuse extrapolated to Greek proportions. Joe Lee is literally turning his wife and son into beasts so that he can break their spirits and their bodies. What a monster. I want to reach through the screen and pull Tommy and Melinda out of there myself.
Whew. I know you’re reading this ona computer screen, but if you were here with me right now, you’d probably notice how much this recap has shaken me up. Russell’s place, Joe Lee’s nastiness… it’s powerful. I think I’m especially moved because the terror in this episode does more than just scare me… it evokes my sympathy, too.
And no one evokes my sympathy like Bill and Lorena. Bill, obviously, because his conflicted nature has turned him into a literal slave, strapped down and bleeding in Russell’s slave quarters. But there’s an awful majesty in Lorena’s suffering, too. As Bill tells us, she’s not just maliciously wounding him: She’s acting out her own agony over how her Maker stole the light in her eyes, stole her goodness and her soul. As she weeps of tears of blood,I sense that she both loves and hates Bill for his ability to remain decent. She loves him for what he hasn’t lost and she hates him for reminding her of what she has.
Or wait… that’s not quite right, is it? The whole thing is that deep down, Lorena does have that compassion, but she’s clearly been stomped on by a violent Maker and by a community of vampires who keep telling her to her face that they hate her. She wants to be good, but she can’t figure out how… and that has created a swirling disaster that’s pouring out in the slave quarters. The emotional complexity of this scene is thrilling, and it’s matched by Mariana Klaveno’s performance. Plus, the lighting in the slave quarters underscores what’s happening: We can see slivers of sunlight creeping around the edges of the floor and glinting off Lorena’s bloody tears. That’s death creeping up on every vampire in the place. That’s a visual represenation of what Lorena and Bill are doing to each other. Taken together, all these moments in the slave quarters create a serious Sucker Punch.
13 responses so far ↓
1 La Verne // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Oh Mark, you so hit it on the head. I loved this article. I have read all your Sucker Punches, but this one got me. I could not help but feel bad for Lorena, and I don’t even like her.
2 Alf // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Just a tiny thing the director was Michael Lehman, John Dahl will direct I always liked”last seduction” I will add that the beginning was itself a masterpiece, when Sookie walks in slow motion moving her blondes into the mansion where all the main players look at her as something out this world even Lorena knows that Sookie has arrived. Bravo Anna she has made a completely different and new type of heroine that we haven’t ever seen before Not even CH and her novels. Anna is so forward that some critics and Bloggers hate her because is new and different she doesn’t a girl that becomes a FBI agent in 2 seasons she is Sookie, something that she or we viewers have not experience before. Her desire to save Bill reminds me when she took the silver chain from Eric even thought she could have run away and will be justified, her impulse was to get someone out of pain and death. Anna’s performance is so austere and impulsive at the same time that make her unique. Because at the end she is the connection between all this characters and situations. Being the force underneath TB story line. I am not sure if we ever again will see such a flawless cast.
3 Alf // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Posting such a large comment from a BB is not a easy task. So I left out that John Dahl will direct the next Episode. I love when Michael Lehman and AB join forces.
4 Gonzalo // Jul 27, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Damn right. Between last episode and this one, the show is on a roll. I thought Tara stole the episode (character redeemed!), but you’re right that Lorena’s plight was full of pathos (character redeemed #2!).
A few other moments that I really enjoyed:
- Between the cute awkwardness of Jesus asking Lafayette for a kiss, and then the super-sexy making out that happened, I’m totally on board with this relationship. And I like that they brought Lafayette’s drug-dealing down to reality by having Jesus be adamantly against it (cause I’m pretty sure “take me to my car” is exactly how I’d react in real life).
- Jessica and Arlene make a great comic team (”Please don’t kill me. I’m pregnant. That probably just makes you want to eat me even more. This is why people hate y’all.”). I could watch a whole sitcom centered around them working at Merlotte’s.
- Jason using a total cliche line (”Here’s the difference between you and me”), and then being too dimwitted to follow through.
Just about the only thing I’m not digging is this whole Crystal thing. I hope there’s something more to that story, because the drug-dealer-fiance/not-quite-a-cop romance issues seem a bit too mundane for this show.
5 Fran // Jul 27, 2010 at 11:21 pm
I need to watch that episode again. What did we do before DVRs? When the preview of next week’s episode aired at the end of this week’s, I was (I think) yelling “ALL of THAT is happening next week????” I will pass out. It is not normal to like a show this much.
I wonder if Crystal and her clan are wrapped up not only in meth, but also the dog fighting that Sam’s family is into. That might bring some storylines together in a satisfactory way.
6 Michael // Jul 28, 2010 at 8:18 am
If this note seems a little heavy, blame a powerfully disturbing episode. Part of what fascinated me about this dark, dark episode was also how deeply Southern the show is feeling to me now (remembering that Alan Ball is from the Marietta suburb of Atlanta): this episode was a fantasy re-imagining of so many strands of current Southern culture, including the undertow of meth and of dog-fighting (now made newly strange and horrible through horror/fantasy), the unquestioned presence of weapons in homes, the aristocratic (and gay-aristocratic at that) mansions where inconceivable energy has gone into the accumulation of antiques (in a culture so determined to forget or rewrite its past), the easy masculine objectifying and controlling of a beautiful black woman, the basic conviction that one is part of a “master race,” with all the accompanying cold contempt for others, the pettiness of disempowerment where it feels ridiculously important how the peas are prepared or which waitress gets tips, the cluelessness and aimlessness of the law in the face of all this, and above all the haunting presence of slave quarters (never mentioned on the show before, I believe), the marker of what really distinguishes the region, where Bill and Lorena’s opposed allegiances to human sympathy and to vampire cruelty are played out as forms of enslavement. It’s a culture deeply wounded by its own past, its own historic contempt for human equality, and that legacy of inequality spins itself out now in fantastic, troubled ways that give great material to a Gothic imagination. This episode (with its title reflecting the blues, the music of the slave inheritance) seemed deeply immersed in the way Southerners–especially, it must be said, white Southerners–consciously or unconsciously play out the violent inequality of their past. (By the way, Mark, Lorena may be pitiable in the misery of her submission to the vampire values and culture that will never reward her, and her love for the vampire who by definition will hate her for these defining values–but to say that she wants to be good? Hardly. She wants to prevail, untroubled by conscience or opposition, in the vampire culture–and she wants Bill to affirm that choice by joining her.) Fantasy has roots in real experience–and this was disturbingly resonant.
7 cinders23 // Jul 28, 2010 at 11:17 am
Michael, good call on the southern thing. I was a “Yankee” in a small town in South Carolina for 2 years and I felt like a fish out of water. There is no way to describe southern culture unless you live it. You are correct, this episode is covered in “South”. It’s been 3 days & I can’t stop thinking about all that transpired Sunday night. So many strings to tie up, and I don’t think it will be in a pretty, little package!
8 Gridou // Jul 28, 2010 at 1:31 pm
First time I read your blog and I have to say : I’m quiet impressed ! I don’t know about the southern culture a reader was referring to (I’m a French living in France so…) but I know for sure that this is a great analyse of last week show ! I especially like the part where you talk about Lorena. I really, really don’t like her but watching the show I feel so sad for her. She’s so damaged. Bill’ sentences are so terrible for her.
He is actually the one I can’t figure out in this season. How can you go from goodness to darkness to goodness again the way he does. Very strange and I don’t think it will end very well for him and Sookie.
All others stories are great too, especially the one with Eric. How will this end end ?
9 Mark Blankenship // Jul 28, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Hi Gridou… thanks for joining the conversation and for the kind words!
Michael… lovely analysis. As a Southerner (but you know that), a lot of what you said resonates with me. And I was wrestling with how to incorporate the mention of the slave quarters into my analysis. Your take on it makes a lot of sense.
And I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree about Lorena. To me, her desire to prevail comes across as a defense against centuries of abuse. I still believe that somewhere, she still has a small spark of desire to be like Bill… to keep the human part of herself alive. But hey: More power to the series for giving us so many options for interpretation.
10 kaspi // Jul 28, 2010 at 2:53 pm
In reading various recaps and talking to friends, I know that a lot of people have been put off by the multitude of story lines and characters but I knew to trust Ball and company. Boy howdy has it been worth it. True Blood is one of those great shows where you can be completely shallow and enjoy the sex and violence yet also have wonderful conversations like the ones here. I’m with Fran, after reading Mark’s observations and everyone’s comments, I need to see the episode again.
11 torpedama // Jul 28, 2010 at 3:56 pm
@ Gridou: I think Bill has never really embraced that dark side as Lorena (and the other vampires) did. I think his behavior during the first half of this season was more of a desperate attempt to protect Sookie by keeping her away of all the pain (both physical and emotional) that he knows the vampires can inflict her…
12 April // Jul 28, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Mark, I agree with your take on Lorena – remember she is the one who has said to Bill on more than one occasion that Vampire’s only hurt humans and that Bill needed to stay away from Sookie (and his wife in that flashback). It did not seem to be out of anger – it seemed to me she was recalling something from her own past. I think she envies Bill for his ability and desire to keep his human side because something happened to her that forced it out of her. This would explain her reaction when he made the comment about how he wishes he could have seen the “light” in her eyes before she was turned. Why would a comment like that affect her if she were a purely evil monster?
13 Alf // Jul 28, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Is my obsession, I just adore Lorena, or did she says to Bill “Sookie me!”
That says it all.
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