'TRUE BLOOD' 3.8 - "Night On The Sun"

[SPOILERS] I have mixed feelings about "Night On The Sun". One the one hand, it was an hour of largely dull commentary on the state of everyone's love life; on the other hand, it contained some of the best acting this season from Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer. Ultimately though, despite an exhilarating climax (the type True Blood often delivers to try and make you forget the preceding idleness), I'm growing impatient with several stories and the incessant teasing...

Best not mention the ant hill...

This week, to recap the big developments: Sookie (Paquin) broke up with Bill (Moyer), unable to forgive him for nearly drinking her to death; Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) tried to console the brokenhearted Bill, taking his mind off things by having her "maker" tutor her in vampirism; Crystal (Lindsay Pulsipher) arrived at Jason's (Ryan Kwanten) house with bruised skin and wet clothes, having fled her abusive fiancé; Sam's (Sam Trammell) parents left town, meaning Tommy (Marshall Allman) could continue working at Merlotte's alongside his brother; Tara (Rutina Wesley) had a nightmare about Franklin (James Frain); Lafayette's (Nelsan Ellis) crazy mother Ruby Jean (Alfre Woodard) turned up on his doorstep, having run away from her care home; Arlene (Carrie Preston) had a nightmare about the possibility her unborn baby's father is her serial-killer ex; Edgington (Denis O'Hare) went on the offensive to reacquire the invaluable Sookie; and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) used Edgington's absence to kill his adored lover Talbot, as a means of avenging his own family's slaughter at Edgington's hand...

"Night On The Sun" actually had a decent theme running through its veins: can love and reason conquer evil and base instincts? This was tackled best with the Sookie/Bill storyline, with Sookie admitting it's just too dangerous to be in a relationship with someone whose nature poses a risk to her life. Tara likened Sookie's recent experiences to a battered woman from a clichéd Country & Western song; always going back for more punishment from a violent lover, convinced it's the price you pay for true love. Interestingly, Crystal's situation might fit that same description, but I don't get the impression she's in love with her fiancé -- more under his control and looking for an escape in Jason.

True Blood loves a mysterious tease, but they can become irritating over time. We still don't know what Crystal is yet, although I'm imagining something aquatic given how she had to escape by swimming -- even if she claimed that was just to ensure they couldn't smell her scent. It makes sense that she's a shape-shifter like Sam, but that would make her entire situation far too similar to that of Tommy's this season. If Crystal's a creature we haven't seen on the show yet, well, I already think this universe is too overcrowded with vampires, maenads, werewolves, 'shifters and whatnot -- do we really need to keep adding to that menagerie?

Of course, we've heard from showrunner Alan Ball himself that witches are on the way next year -- verbally foreshadowed by Ruby Jean in this episode, in the same way werewolves were mentioned in season 1. There was even the suggestion from Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) that he knows Lafayette has a great "power" he's in danger of abusing with his drug-dealing, but am I alone in hating the idea that more human characters will be revealed as having supernatural qualities? It's only a matter of time before Tara discovers she can levitate and Arlene becomes a soothsayer...

It all reminds me of latter-day Heroes, when the writers started to give uninteresting "normal" characters a few super-powers to keep them "appealing" to audiences demanding bigger thrills. Of course, Lafayette's still one of the most interesting personalities on the show -- so if the writers turn him into, say, a latent warlock casting spells, I won't be happy. This is all possibly unavoidable, because once you have a show where 90% of the characters are super-beings, the remaining 10% are too easily conquerable without some magical defenses of their own. There's already a danger that someone with Edgington's powers should have no problem kidnapping Sookie single-handed, and there are only so many times the writers can devise a way to keep Sookie safe when the sun goes down -- without turning her into a hermit. Mind you, if the residents of Bon Temps cut down on their nightlife and didn't work late shifts in bars, they'd have far less to worry about.

I liked the echo of women (Tara and Arlene) being tormented by their experiences in this episode, both taking the form of nightmares -- first with Tara imagining sadistic vampire Franklin joined her for a hot shower, then with Arlene seeing serial-killer ex-boyfriend cooing over the prospect of him having a posthumous child. A shame both scenes were so brief and had no lasting relevance in this episode, because both were moments of relatable human concerns.

Jessica goes out for dinner

As I said earlier, what rescued a lot of this episode was the tender moments of heartache between Bill and Sookie, with Paquin and Moyer both doing good work in their scenes together. I especially liked how it was Jessica who gave Bill the perfect way to parse his feelings, with the line "I want you to have the life you deserve and I cannot give it to you" in reference to Hoyt. The only downside is that the Sookie/Bill break-up lasted all of 50-minutes, because once Bill and Jessica had seen off Edgington, his wolves and Debbie (Brit Morgan), they were soon having passionate sex by way of celebration and realization they need each other to survive in this crazy world. I'd have liked to see their division last much longer, with Sookie perhaps growing closer to werewolf Alcide (Joe Manganiello) in the interim-- similarities to Twilight, be damned! -- considering how the split elicited better performances from both actors.

Overall, "Night On The Sun" was pretty good, but the soapy nature of the show's construction means it's still a blitzkrieg of great, good, bad, tedious and pointless moments. Some of it finds form, some of it doesn't, but True Blood usually finds a way to leave you wanting more -- apparently now Eric's called on the wrath of Edgington by giving the king's long-term boyfriend a different kind of penetration than the one he was expecting mid-coitus...

Asides

• Interesting to note that Crystal's fiancé and his friends could sense Sam and Tommy were 'shifters, and that they themselves carried a strange scent. They're definitely not human, that much is obvious.
• It disappoints me that True Blood's writers have given their two black characters crazy mothers -- in the shape of the near-identical characters Lettie Mae and Ruby Jean.
• Merlotte's got another waitress called Holly. There are now more waitresses than customers, surely! As usual for any newcomers to True Blood, I'm guessing the remaining episodes will tease us about what Holly is, or who she's connected to. Blah, blah, blah - that's getting old, guys, please do something interesting.

WRITER: Raelle Tucker
DIRECTOR: Lesli Linka Glatter
GUEST CAST: Kevin Alejandro, Marshall Allman, Chris Bauer, Todd Lowe, Denis O'Hare, Jim Parrack, Carrie Preston, Lindsay Pulsipher, Alexander Skarsgård, Deborah Ann Woll, Lauren Bowles, Kate Luyben, Joe Manganiello, Brit Morgan, Don Swayze & Alfre Woodard
TRANSMISSION: 8 August 2010 - HBO, 9PM