I’m with Poonther – the book Sookie’s awful behavior is explained, so there’s a reason for it and you understand where she’s coming from. The HBO Sookie comes off vapid, self-centered, and bitchy.
It seems to me as if the jangly bits, like Bill making that newbie vamp, are the bits that are not from the books.
Another one chiming in who couldn’t get Sookie’s “Bill’s off on vampire business” schtick, as if he was at a Shriner’s convention, instead of standing trial for something he did TO SAVE HER LIFE. All I can think of is that she figures that he could simply opt out of vampire justice if he wanted to, which is not very perceptive given the evidence she has as to what a dangerous bunch of bastards vampires are.
Oh, and since I knew, having watched TV before, that Bill was going to walk in on Sam and Sookie — I really wanted it to be when they were doing it doggie style. Give me one juvenile chuckle out of that situation.
(Bolding mine.) Snerk.
We also knew that Drew/Rene’s photo would be mislaid as soon as Sookie said “Fax it to the sheriff”. If they thought he was their killer, they would have waited for the deputy to find the photo. Bon Temps is small enough that they would have recognized the guy.
In a TV show featuring vampires, shape-shifters, and who knows what else, it didn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that they’d spin the exorcism as real.
Yup, Sookie is a right bitch. When I saw the preview of her disinviting him, I figured it would be because she found out he killed someone and made them into a vampire. That, I could understand. Instead, she had already written him off and was happy enough kissing Sam, and it was like Bill’s flying off the handle a little was just an excuse to kick him to the curb.
In other news, Eddie sure is dead - boo! And now Amy’s dead - yay! But she didn’t suffer - boo!
I don’t know, I like Tara. At heart, I think she’s a good person (she could have fucked her mother up and maybe undone her sobriety by telling about the exorcist, but didn’t), but her childhood has messed her up emotionally, so she has severe trust issues and a major anger management problem. But all that is at least understandable, and I have sympathy for her. Plus, she comes out with some great zingers in a way we all wish we could at times. (“How many nights have I spent in this jail . . .” “Not many, because I bailed you out!” Ouch!)
I may be way off base, but naked lady+strange animal companion+“No, I don’t have a problem with religion, but I’m not a Jesus person . . . enigmatic expression” = some kind of witchy person. And given that she has set up Tara so she can use her in some way, she clearly doesn’t embrace the Wiccan rede.
Was it just me, or did they make a halfway decent last minute feint that the killer might be the goofy kid (he was the only one other than Rene who learned that Amy was involved with vampires), or Andy (the brother’s name being Drew)?
Andy has a brother named Drew?
Who’s in the faxed photo? I assumed it was gonna be Rene, so I didn’t bother to look closely.
Mary Anne (or Marianne?) with the pig – maybe she’s an enchantress like Circe. Circe turned men into animals, which might explain why she was standing on the road with a pig.
I loved the newbie vampire girl totally loving being a vampire and wanting to be as bad as possible – the swearing, the petulant pleading to be allowed to kill someone – hilarious.
I also liked Lafayette making the gay-bashing politician squirm. Lafayette is awesome.
Not just animals but specifically into pigs.
Sorry, I phrased that poorly. The suspected killer is named Drew; he’s the brother of the first victim, from that other town. Andy is always bitching about people calling him by his first name (rather than Detective Bellefleur), thus calling attention to his name: Andy–>Andrew–>Drew. So I thought briefly it might be him. But no, the pic is of Rene.
Oooo, good thinking!
I too liked the newly made vampire. While she turned into an annoying petulant brat quickly* I liked what the actress did with “why, why, why,” first being flip, because she didn’t really get what had happened, and then truly saying, “Why,” when Bill flat out told her he’d made her a vampire. Bill’s answer was also good.
*Not that I didn’t get a kick out of Bill trying to deal with her like a wayward child - “You see how she is!”
A few episodes ago I thought that the exorcism could be real in the True Blood universe. I thought it might be interesting to have real demons doing things on the show. But then the witch was revealed to be fake. She said that the mom’s exorcism worked because the mom believed in it; it was just like a sugar pill working on a headache.
There’s no way that I can see for the exorcism to be real since the witch wasn’t real. It’s just like if I called on Zeus to smite an enemy of mine and the enemy died- it wouldn’t be a real supernatural intervention, because I know I’m not really a Greek priestess and I don’t believe in Zeus or that Zeus could smite someone.
I thought the demons might have been real when we saw Tara’s hallucination, but that was explained by ipecac and peyote. That, and the fact that it didn’t work.
I’m not all that sure it’s working with Tara’s mom either. A couple episodes back Tara came home to find mom sleeping on the couch in the middle of the day and not looking too good. When she came to the jail, she wasn’t looking nearly as tidy as when we saw her with her church friend. I think she may have had a few good days right after the exorcism, but now she’s gotta live her life without that crutch, and it ain’t as smooth sailing as she thought it would be.
Unauthorized Cinnamon, I think there is something gonig on with Andy, but maybe they’re saving it for season two. Remember how Bill did a double-take when he heard Andy’s last name? There’s some history, maybe. Do we know the name of the woman who turned Bill? And what happened to her anyway? Did Bill leave and never see her again? Who taught him how to be a vampire? And when did he meet Eric? We could use more backstory on Bill and less of Sookie pouting.
Yeah, and I thought it was going to occur to the mom that if the exorcism didn’t work for Tara, maybe it didn’t really work for her, either.
Ah AuntiePam you’re killin’ me! As you are aware, I know all the answers to these questions, but I promise not to tell. I will say that your reasoning is good w/Maryanne, but not exactly there yet…if that is in fact the gal from Book 2 that first appeared to Sookie. As for your questions above, they all should be answered in seasons 2 and 3. All of those answers aren’t dark and sinister, but some of them are. How’s that for a hint? 
Nobody likes a tease! 
I just hope they don’t end S1 with a cliffhanger. I hate cliffhangers. did Harris end the books with cliffhangers?
NO
I wasn’t getting all the Sookie hate here, but I guess that your phrasing here made me realize that, having read the books, I realized that I’m seeing more of Sookie’s motivation and reasoning than may be obvious to someone watching the story for the first time here.
Sookie didn’t really want to get dragged into Fangtasia and be forced into helping out ---- remember, she had to have the gumption to demand that if she helped Eric out by finding the thief that he’d prosecute the thief rather than just murder him. And, yeah, Bill killed a vampire to save her life. From the vampire perspective, a human life is nothing compared to a vampire’s ---- but, from her perspective, he OWED her that for having her dragged her into the situation in the first place.
Also, as viewers, we all saw what a serious deal the vampire tribunal was. Sookie didn’t have that view. Remember, she met her first vamp just a few weeks ago. For all she knew of the vampire justice system, it would be just like going to traffic court to ask for a prayer for judgement. Bill didn’t want to worry her, and didn’t give her the full details of what a serious and dangerous deal this was for him. So, yeah, she was justifiably (in her mind) very pissed that he hadn’t even called in the intervening couple of days. This was especially true because they had the blood bond, and (in her expectations) he SHOULD have zipped in when she felt so horribly threatened in the bar. Even without the fact that she was still pretty torqued at him for not calling, I think she was absolutely justified in being outraged at him breaking into her house and attempting to rip the throat out of her suitor. (What, you can’t be bothered to come help me out when I’m terrified for my life, but when you see me getting ready to kiss another man, then you have to come break in to MY OWN HOME and kill the guy just because he’s daring to kiss me? What’s next — peeing on me to mark me as yours?)
The books allow you to spend more time in Sookie’s head and see more of her motivation that you’re seeing on the screen. Yeah, she’s frequently a maddening little twit there, too (primarily for the constantly stubbornly putting herself into jeopardy sort of thing), but not deserving of the hating she’s getting here, IMO.
Me too! Ok, I didn’t scream. But that’s exactly what I was hoping would happen. Eddie was really one of the more interesting, sympathetic characters in the show if you ask me.
This is a lot of good stuff, and it helps. I know that in an hour TV show, you don’t have a lot of time to show motivation, but it probably would have been possible to have a few lines of dialogue to get this across.
In the last show, she claims to love Bill. She knows he’s being accused of murder, and how she couldn’t tell the situation was deadly serious from Erik’s demeanor I can’t imagine. Based on this, it is pretty obnoxious that she would a) expect him to be able to show up when she needed him and be mad when he didn’t. Why not assume that he is in dire straits rather than feel slighted? and b) make out with Sam before she even knows what Bill has been through. Doesn’t sound like love to me, at all. Bill and Sam both deserve better.
I started out loving this series and I was really getting pulled into the mythology, but as they shift away from setting the scene and more into developing the characters the less I’m enjoying it. Pretty much every character in this show is loathesome, with the possible exceptions of Bill and Eric so far.
Sookie is a whiny, vapid little twit. Early in the show I found her naivete to be pitiful in a bad way, but I’m sure the intent was to make her sympathetic and helpless. Since then it has devolved into making her simply stupid and irrational to the extreme. The fact that her telepathy has been largely ignored for the last few episodes is more than a little disappointing and that it seems to have little significance in the grand scheme of things makes me question the story-telling.
Sam’s uber-sensitive act is trite and the way he lets himself get walked over is a joke. The one time he asserts himself he ends up becoming a wannabe date-rapist with the girl he’s supposedly been putting on a pedestal. That that has been forgiving/forgotten by Sookie makes them both even weaker and less sympathetic as characters. Why Sam would tell different lies to different people regarding his streaking makes almost no sense and calls into question how he’s hid it this long.
Tara and her mother are almost so unpleasant to watch that I’m about ready to abandon the show. I hate both of these characters. The mother is perhaps on of the ugliest people I’ve ever seen on TV and her overly cartoonish addiction and bible thumping makes her both visually and emotionally grating. Tara acts so clearly against her best interests that I find it impossible to believe that she’s survived 20-odd years in the world. The unwarranted meanness and anger to her “friends” is one thing but when contrasted against her utter supplication to her mother time and time again is beyond frustrating. Think maybe they could tone down these two characters a tad and actually make them act like human beings? Oh yeah, and after being madly in love with Jason since being a child she’s apparently completely forgotten about him, perfectly natural.
Which brings us to Jason’s broad depiction as a stupid, meathead, jock redneck. Oh, and horndog, lets not forget that. Could they have shoehorned any more negative male characterizations into one role? Even so, he’s not even consistent at that. In one scene he’s a sex addict, then he’s madly in love with some hippy. Then he’s a Vampire hater before he’s a sympathizer and V-user. I’m ok with a little character development but it would be nice if they’d have spent a few minutes giving a motivation. How did Sookie and Jason end up being so aggressively stupid when they made the Grandmother out to me wise and firm?
Amy’s unlikablity is very well documented. I don’t think I need to go into it too much, but I can actually forgive her for it since that character is intended to move along the plot. She doesn’t really need to be likable or multi-dimensional.
Even Detective Andy is portrayed as every irritating stereotype of a law enforcement officer. He’s fabulously stupid and leaps to all the simplest conclusions and is unnecessarily belligerent to the townspeople he apparently has grown up with.
I mean really, at this point who exactly are we supposed to be rooting for? I’m to the point where I want the show to revolve around Bill and Eric’s conflicts and Jessica and Pam periodically getting naked and Bon Temps can be nuked from orbit.
Yet Jason doesn’t seem to be homophobic - hardly blinks an eye at Lafayette. (“Dude. You’re wearing gold pants.”) That seems inconsistent with his character.