True Blood Season 2 Finale
HBO
Michelle Forbes is a beast. Does anyone play villains with such relish? Would anyone dare? She’s been fortunate to get roles as well written as stone hearted war criminal Admiral Cain in Battlestar Galactica and now brings her pagan intensity to batshit crazy Maenad MaryAnn Forrester in True Blood but they were lucky to get her too. The statuesque Texan doesn’t just have something of the night about her. She is the night, the barren winter, handmaid of the Moon. Abandon all hope as ye enter her. She says that she cannot see MaryAnn Forrester as a villain and this is because she is a satanist 1. It’s also why she’s made True Blood’s second season such a blast.
"Forbes doesn’t just have something of the night about her. She is the night, the barren winter, handmaid of the Moon. She says that she cannot see MaryAnn Forrester as a villain and this is because she is a satanist."
And fun is what this girl is all about because the Maenad? Something of a party animal. She has Bon Temps literally under her spell with her wild bacchanalian orgies – violence, sodomy, tree fucking, just a few of the vices practised. But don’t just dismiss MaryAnn as some kind of gangbang scenester. Hell, no. She is fixing to bring forth god.
Which god? Why, the GOD WHO COMES. Dionysus to me and you. He and MaryAnn are to be wed and she’s going to offer the human sacrifice of the slightly more than human Sam Merlotte, bartender and shape shifter.
“SHE’S SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING IMMORTAL. If that was all it took why didn’t you knife her in the tits 12 episodes ago?”
Naturally, we can’t have that so Bill hatches a terrific plan to deliver Sam into the clutches of MaryAnn: let Sam get captured and stabbed, have Sookie create a distraction, feed Sam his blood for a lightning fast recovery, get Sookie chased by MaryAnn, have Sam shapeshift into a celestial looking bull to fool MaryAnn and into thinking her horned god (a.k.a. the GOD WHO COMES) has come among them, take advantage of her excited state by having Sammy the Bull (no, not that one) gore the living shit out of her, impaling her heart and killing her to death
OK, I don’t really know where to begin on the logical, practical and timeline holes in this particular plan but I know my finishing point will be she’s SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING IMMORTAL. If that was all it took why didn’t you knife her in the tits 12 episodes ago?
"So fuck Rev Steve just like you fucked his wife, Jase. After all, he was planning to burn Godric alive in that weird ceremony. Godric ended up on a rooftop immolating himself for kicks at sunrise making Eric cried tears of pure blood. It was all quite moving."
While you were at it you could have skewered Jason Stackhouse who continues to be one of TVs most slappable characters. Jason spent much of season two rising through the ranks of the Fellowship of the Sun, the vampophobe God botherers. Jason was treated like a brother by Fellowship head Rev. Steve Newlin and repaid his mentor’s trust and loyalty by getting into his wife’s panties when the first opportunity arose. Thanks, brother!
You can’t really blame Jason (and I like blaming him for everything). It’s not like Sarah Newlin took much persuading and it is very hard to turn down fresh pumpum when it’s placed on such a pretty platter. So fuck Rev Steve just like you fucked his wife, Jase. After all, he was planning to burn Godric alive in that weird ceremony. Godric ended up on a rooftop immolating himself for kicks at sunrise making Eric cried tears of pure blood. It was all quite moving.
That’s melodrama for you – hysteria, romance, heightened reality – making an art of the daft . In that tradition True Blood have turned in an artful, thrilling second season. It’s fitting that most of it revolves around sex because True Blood has always been filth – the filthiest filth currently muddying up our screens. But it’s well written filth so you just can’t resist. Some gibberish, it is so serious.2
The best thing about it: MaryAnn, slutting it up in the Deep South. BEAST.
The worst thing about it: By default it’s usually Jason but Bill is starting to bore me quite consistently.
The verdict on True Blood Season 2 Finale: Oh Maenady, well you came and you gave without taking. But I sent you away.
Marks out of 10: 7.5
1 May not be factually correct in the literal sense.
2 Thus spake Frank Black.