True Blood Season 4 Finale...damn it, not again.

[shadowkat]

Very little to say here. Gotta go to bed and tummy is a mess again.




*Best parts of the episode outside of the theme music and score (got to hand it to HBO they really do score/handle the music on their series well):

1)the first 20 minutes or the Marnie possession 2)how Tara/Sookie and Holly defeated her, 3)the confrontation between Bill/Eric and Nan (although would have preferred Nan to survive, Nan was funny.) and 4) I was relieved that Sookie decided not to go with either vamp, because boring (find Bill and Eric more interesting when they aren't drooling over Sookie) - she'll probably end up with Alcide. Which is equally boring. (I don't like Sookie very much, can't you tell? All three men can do a lot better. Must be that damn fairy blood.)

*Tara pushed Sookie out of the way of Debbie Pelt's bullet and got shot instead. Why?? Why did you do that Tara?? Why??

I'm pretty sure that the idiotic writers just killed off my favorite character (does not help that she was also the only character I really gave a fig about and I really don't see much point in watching the show now that she's dead.)

* I probably should mention that King Russell is back, the Fellowship Guy appears to be a vampire coming after Jason, and Eric/Bill united against Nan and killed her - because she knew about Sookie.

* I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I really do share Pam's sentiments...I'm so over Sookie. The girl with the stupid name. And the whiny voice. What do people see in her?

*I want my Tara back. When Tara was in the room Sookie, Jason, and Sam were more interesting. Same with Lafayette. Otherwise there really is no point in watching, except maybe to see what King Russell does (will he kill Sookie?) or for that matter Eric/Pam/Bill do, or how Lafayette handles his new found power without either Tara or Jesus to ground him.

Really wish Tara had stayed in New Orleans, then at least she could visit.


[As an aside, is it just me or does it feel a bit tacky to anyone else that they have only two black characters in this series, both clearly token characters that weren't really in the books, and they kill off one of them to save the blond heroine and further her emotional arc. Add to that the one they kill off is a tough, kick-ass, human female, who only this year started a lesbian relationship. Which would be fine and dandy, if they aren't at the same time in various episodes making satirical jokes about the Civil Rights Movement and comparing Vampires to disenfranchised persons of color. It's tacky. And a little obvious. Making me wonder a great deal about these writers. Can they really be THAT oblivious?]

Comments

[kwritten.livejournal.com]

Which would be fine and dandy, if they aren't at the same time in various episodes making satirical jokes about the Civil Rights Movement and comparing Vampires to disenfranchised persons of color. It's tacky. And a little obvious.

WORD.

I've been worried about Lafayette from the beginning of the series - black, effeminate-gay, poor, drug-dealer... now we strap on medium? He has had very little actual character development because he is so weighed down with Otherness.

Making me wonder a great deal about these writers. Can they really be THAT oblivious?

There was a scene in the previous season in which Tara was running through a field with bare feet, in a white old-fasioned, high-lace collar dress, with a white plantation house in the background and (weres)wolves chasing her. I really thought at this point that the writers had completely lost their minds:
because either they ARE that oblivious - or they are disgusting on purpose.

Niether option sits well with me...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm not completely certain what they are trying to do here. How much of it is meant to be social satire/criticism, and how much is well just ignorance.

I wonder the same things about Supernatural and
Glee...

Satire, I think, is really hard to do well. If done poorly - it feels in bad taste, if done well it can be brillaint. It always skirts that line. And in an environment (Hollywood) where one group (white guys) holds most of the power...you need to be a bit careful if you are a white guy doing a social critique about how your group and society treats the other, even if you identify with a disenfranchized minority (as Ball does - he's gay).

[shapinglight]

I don't believe Tara is dead personally. I just don't think whether she was dead or not would be left as the big season end cliffhanger if she really was just dead. They would just have killed her mid-episode like Jesus and Nan Flanagan.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. It's possible they'll pull the same thing they did with Jason Stackhouse/Sookie in previous episodes and Sookie will get Bill and/or Eric to give Tara blood to save her life.

Which would make Tara indebted to the vampires.
Or she could die and come back as a ghost and inhabit Lafayette at some point?

Could go both ways.

Personally, I hope you're right and she isn't. Because as I stated above, the alternative is well, tacky not to mention a tad offensive. If you are going to be making jokes about the Civil Rights Movement and huge metaphorical comparisons using vamps...you need to be a bit more careful about this sort of thing.

[shapinglight]

I found this post finale interview with Rutina. She is definitely back for season 5 but she doesn't yet know in what capacity. So semi-good news.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Which would be fine and dandy, if they aren't at the same time in various episodes making satirical jokes about the Civil Rights Movement and comparing Vampires to disenfranchised persons of color. It's tacky. And a little obvious. Making me wonder a great deal about these writers. Can they really be THAT oblivious?

Right. Because the vampires are clearly so oppressed. Blargh. It's so hard being mass murderers. SO HARD. Some days, Eric and Bill can barely work up the will to glamour the witnesses after ripping out their victims' hearts and spines.

True Blood feels like a parody that's lost hold of the joke and has now become a parody of itself.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

True Blood feels like a parody that's lost hold of the joke and has now become a parody of itself.

Exactly. It feels like it is almost parodying itself. I'm losing the characters. Last night's episode? I found it difficult to care.

The bit between Bill/Eric and Nan should have been funny, but it felt more cartoonish.

Compare to S2 - which was more subtle and I did care, with the moving story regarding Godric braced against the religious satire.
That worked far better.

Here? It feels like the characters themselves are the joke. Or a parody of themselves. It's hard to take the characters seriously when the writer doesn't. And as a result, even harder to care what happens to them. The only character that did not feel like a parody was maybe Tara - and well...look what they did to her.

The show is becoming increasingly little more than a one-dimensional cartoon, although not quite the same caliber as Chuck Jones (the Looney Tunes creator). At least I actually cared about Bugs Bunny.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Bingo. I've stopped caring, too. The Bill/Sookie/Eric stuff is where the parody really comes on full-force -- they're just caricatures now. And it started out okay this season, but around the time Bill freed Eric and the snowscape lovemaking happened... I don't even know. It all just got unhinged and OTT.

And you're right, the one character who still felt connected was Tara. She was mostly on the outside commenting on how messed up Marnie was acting and she still had her emotional connection to Sookie intact (despite it being baffling that Tara still cares after some of what Sookie's done).

Ugh. This show just makes me want to quit it. But I kinda want to keep watching if only because it's still somewhat amusing. Especially now that they've brought back Russel. But yeah, I miss the emotional weight from Season 2 -- I loved the Godric storyline and the Eric/Godric relationship.