True Blood Season 3 ep 2

[shapinglight]

So I watched this last night, thanks to a wonderful person on my flist. Loved it.

Spoilers within, of course.



I don't think there was a single thing I didn't like about this episode. All the character interaction was great, with special mention for Lafayette and Tara, Hoyt and Jessica, Jason (aww, cute!) and Andy, and Terry and Arlene. There was some very funny stuff - Jessica and the chainsaw had me in stitches, her scene with Pam in the ladies' room was pretty good too - some poignant stuff - Sam's meeting with his real parents, Lafayette's mother in the asylum, the aforementioned Hoyt/Jessica scene - some downright disturbing stuff - Eric and Godric as Nazis (though I suspect it'll turn out they weren't 'real' Nazis, but just using the uniforms, or possibly even actual ranks in the German army, as a cover for dodgy vampire business), Bill biting the werewolf's ear off, the vampire king of Mississippi's 'blood' feast, Bill setting fire to Lorena etc.

I liked all the new characters (and I expected not to like Sam's brother and was pleasantly surprised), and was particularly intrigued by the Brit vampire (though since the actor's been allowed to keep his own accent, he'll undoubtedly turn out to be evil), and I loved the Eric/Sookie scene. Not really attached to any particular 'ship, as I've said, though I do like dear old Bill, so enjoyed that bit of interaction between them that showed the more 'human' vulnerable side of Eric. I was thinking Eric would pretend to go on helping Sookie look for Bill while all the time putting obstacles in her way, and am glad I've turned out to be wrong, because it's more interesting this way.

Favourite scene: so hard to pick - anything with Jessica in it, and Tara beating up the rednecks. Roll on episode 3.

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know how long he sticks around in the books. I gathered from google that it may be for more than one book. But I also gather that there may not have been much plot involved, although I think that's also primarily because Tara doesn't have much of a plot. My impression is that the series if far more ensemble than the book series. So characters like Lafayette may have been expendable in the books but aren't in the tv show.

I think that a tv show has a greater need to maintain a core cast so while characters disappear in the books they're less likely to in the series. So I don't think that Tara or Bill will be scaled back into obscurity as they seem to do (at least my impression from wikipedia) in the books. They're already departing from the books in the continued existence of Lafayette, the existence of Jessica, and the fact that Bill didn't more or less fall off the face of the earth until the very end of the season. I think that Ball's needs for a tv series are somewhat different than Charlaine Harris's need for her books, hence Lafayette remaining alive, Tara probably remaining more prominent and more developed (and she already is more developed than I gather that she was in the books), Jason more developed, etc.

That said, I don't know much about Mott. I only think that Ball, having invested so much in Tara, is less likely to shuffle her off to a backburnered ordinary life than the books. He has greater need of her character than Charlaine Harris did/does.

[shapinglight]

Yes, that sounds about right. And of course Alan Ball needs a regular cast that the audience will want to see, though I expect he still goes with what works up to a point - by which I mean, if Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin hadn't gelled, he might have been more likely to stick more closely to Bill's storyline in the book (though obviously he would have known the two were going to work together pretty quickly).

[shapinglight]

I just watched the ep again, btw, and this time it was so obvious who took the body that I feel quite stupid for not realising before. :sigh: