written by Daniel Kenneth | directed by Howard Deutch
My feelings on season 6 have waxed and waned because each episode offers a different combination of good and bad storylines, and your overall thoughts on any True Blood hour tends to be determined by how strongly the good stuff lingers in your mind. There are still some monumentally pointless and boring stuff going on here (the werewolves, the 'shifters, Terry Bellefleur), but the core idea of putting the emphasis back on the friction between humans and vampires is working very nicely. And as silly as it sometimes gets, the whole thing with Warlow (Robert Kazinsky) and Bill (Stephen Moyer) as "super-beings" with Sookie (Anna Paquin) in common is quite fun, and I like how this season's been about fathers losing daughters: Sheriff Andy (Chris Bauer) and his three quarters of his fairy girls, Governor Burrell (Arliss Howard) and his vampire-turned daughter Willa (Amelia Rose Blaire), Sookie's father (Jeffrey Nicholas Brown) being disowned by his daughter, and even the situation with Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) and dead Luna's child carried the same undertone.
- The cliffhangers to True Blood episode are usually resolved very quickly, so the two from last week didn't take up much time. Sookie was being drowned by her intolerant father's spirit in Lafayette's (Nelsan Ellis) body, but was rescued by daywalking Warlow with Bill's blessing. I was surprised to see Sookie can transport herself and others to the fairy realm, to escape Bill's "pull" on Warlow, but maybe I'd forgotten that fact. Although it feels more likely the show just granted her that power to get themselves out of a corner. And why can't half-fairy Warlow do the same thing anyway? We've also had so much evidence that Warlow's a genuinely misunderstood hero, rather than the opprobrious villain he was presented to us as, that even self-confessed "danger whore" Sookie's decided to reward him with luminescent sex while tied to a tree in fairy land. How will she react when it's revealed Warlow has banished her great-grandfather to purgatory, though?
- As usual, the more interesting parts of the episode were everything set in the Vamp Camp facility. It was perhaps inevitable Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) and Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) wouldn't kill each other at the Governor's behest, although I was confused that Pam has the ability to fly. She's approximately the same age as Bill, who never had that ability before he drank Lillith's blood. Still, the situation moved on with Eric having to watch Nora (Lucy Griffiths) die in front of him after an injection of 'Hepatitus V'. This would have been a brilliant moment for the show and a way to get rid of boring Nora, but unfortunately Eric put an escape plan into action that didn't make much sense. He summoned his new progeny Willa to his cell to release them both, after she managed to glamour a guard. Really? These guards don't wear those contact lenses to protect them from glamouring?! All it takes to escape is to glamour a guard? It wasn't a very plausible outcome.
- Jason's (Ryan Kwanten) a tricky character to do right, and he tends to pinball around seasons, but his plan to rescue Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) by joining the LAVTF and impressing them with his heroic vampire-slaying tales showed him in a better light. It wasn't a bad plan, and he even found a way to leverage Sarah Newlin (Anna Camp) for her obedience—although she couldn't help tormenting him by trying to make him sit through watching Jessica get raped by another vampire called James (who I'm guessing we'll be seeing more of because he was so noble, and will become Jessica's new squeeze).
- Bill also acquired the daywalking ability he's been after thanks to Warlow's blood, having communed with Lillith (who has discovered clothing at last), and stormed into Governor Burrell's complex to end his tyranny and rescue Jessica. It's hard to see how he can be stopped and be prevented from destroying the Vamp Camp now, but maybe there's a twist to come that will extend this storyline a touch. Or maybe it was designed to only last half the season and we'll be moving onto something else now? It's always entertaining when True Blood pulls of a fun death, too, and Bill biting Burrell's head clean off elicited a grin.
- Elsewhere, Tara (Rutina Wesley) played Connect 4, Sam gave Luna's daughter Emma back to her grandma, Alcide (Joe Manganielllo) ordered Sam to leave town (so Merlotte's Bar & Grill will be up for sale soon?), and Terry finally died after being killed by his army buddy (despite being absolved of his PTSD by having his Iraq memories glamoured away by a vampire at his wife's request). I only hope Terry's long-overdue exist somehow allows Arlene (Carrie Preston) to move onto better things, story-wise, although that's nigh impossible for the human characters.
In summation, "Don't You Feel Me?" was a pretty good episode. The surprising thing is how it feels like season 6 could easily end next week, although we actually have five more episodes left. That's either a wise move because the writers know this storyline wouldn't last the full ten, or the season's about to slide into a less interesting second-half.
21 July 2013 | HBO
