Loaded Couch Potatoes

“Nothing But the Blood” — True Blood season two, episode one

The season premiere picks right up where the final episode of season one left off — with Sookie and Tara screaming at the discovery of what appears to be a dead Lafayette in the back of Andy’s car.  Happily, it’s not Lafayette; less happily for any big fans of Aisha Hinds, it turns out to be Miss Jeanette, the faux-exorcist who supposedly cured Tara’s mom of her alcoholism last season.

Like many a show’s season premiere before this one, “Nothing But the Blood” seems to primarily be serving to set the pieces in motion for the rest of the season.  Maybe this explains my ever-so-slight disappointment with the episode; it felt more like pieces being moved around a chessboard than it felt like a genuinely satisfying episode in its own right.

Here are what I took away from this episode as being some of the major elements the show will be exploring this season: who (or what) killed Miss Jeanette, and why; the devlopment of Bill’s reluctant “parenthood” of Jessica, and how it will affect his relationship with Sookie; Jason’s puppyish attraction to the Fellowship of the Sun Church in general and to the Newlins in particular (I’m going to go ahead and predict that he fucks the Reverend’s wife … because, really, why wouldn’t he?); Tara’s relationships with Maryann, Benedict, and her mother; Maryann’s mysterious origins, and her relationship with Sam; the new Merlotte’s waitress, Daphne (played by Ashley Jones, who IMDB claims was in nearly 600 episodes of some soap opera!); the downward spiral of Andy Bellefleur; and, of course, whatever the hell is going on with Eric Northman’s Saw-meets-Conan the Barbarian contraption … which is in a basement somewhere and just so happens to have Lafayette attached to it.

I’m interested in every single one of those plot threads, so I definitely enjoyed this episode … and yet, I find I have almost nothing of any substance to say about it.  I think that may be because it is an episode built out of an hour’s worth of individual moments rather than an episode with a strong central plot or theme.  I’m okay with that … for now.

Let’s talk about some of those fine moments.

*  Bill recycles; now, that’s the sort of fastidiousness that I admire in a vampire.  I also enjoyed later in the episode when Jessica, in a fit of pique, demonstrated how little she cared by putting an empty bottle of True Blood in the recycling bin for paper products instead of the glass bin.

*  The entire scene between Lafayette and Royce was gold.  I have to admit that I am very disappointed Royce got killed off; there was probably more 10-karat nuggets of comedy to be mined out of that situation.

*  It also made me chuckle that Eric was in the process of getting his hair done when he decided to go down and tear off some arms.

*  Pretty much every time Jason did anything was amusing.

*  This season is obviously going to give Michelle Forbes some juicy scenes as Maryann.  I’ve been a fan of hers ever since her Ensign Ro days on Star Trek: The Next Generation, so I’m pleased to see her landing a quality role like this one.  (She was awesome as Admiral Cain on Battlestar Galactica, but was in far too few episodes for my tastes.)  Speaking of Maryann, I’m curious to find out exactly what she is.  She’s obviously not the devil.  I’m going to guess the Greek references (to Pan and whatnot) are fairly meaningful.

*  A fine moment between Steve Newlin and Nan Flanagan came when Newlin said to her, very faux-pleaantly: “It’s a bright sunny day, I wish you were here!”, or something like that, and she responded, “Give me twelve hours and I’ll be right there!”  Flanagan has been popping up here and there ever since the first episode of the series; I wonder if she’ll become a more central character at some point?

*  I noticed something that might be purely coincidental.  It might also be attributable to my extreme lack of knowledge about makeup.  In any case … Tara is wearing a dark-purple-based outfit during the opening scenes, and has purple eyeshadow that looks pretty awesome on her.  Later on, when we see Sarah Newlin, she is wearing a lighter shade of purple (there’s probably a word for this color, but I don’t know it) and a small amount of corresponding eyeshadow.  Is this meant to subtly imply some sort of thematic connection between these two characters?  Probably not, but I noticed it, and now I’m passing that info along to you.

*  I loved how nonchalantly threatening Maryann was when she came to visit Sam at Merlotte’s.  Something about the way she squatted down to investigate Sam’s garbage sack full of money seemed very … authoritative.

*  William Sanderson in a squaredancing (or was it linedancing?) outfit.  Say no more.