True Blood
HBO
I like it when the credits encapsulate the show in some way – it’s surprising how rarely it happens. HBO‘s True Blood‘s effort features Jace Everett growling "I want to do bad things to you" over cut-and-spliced scenes: writhing bodies dancing at a bar, a charismatic white preacher laying hands on a black congregation, a baby frog eaten by a Venus fly trap, a stop motion wolf devoured by maggots; a butterfly struggling from its pupae; red lips inhaling some smoky intoxicating hell. Sex, death, decay, rebirth – it’s all there. Swamps, snakes, toddlers in KKK garb, roadkill bleeding onto tarmac – the lengthy parade of grotesques that is the American South. It’s just so cute.
"Sex, death, decay, rebirth – it’s all there. Swamps, snakes, toddlers in KKK garb, roadkill bleeding onto tarmac – the lengthy parade of grotesques that is the American South. It’s just so cute."
Adapted from the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, True Blood is Alan Ball‘s first project since 6 Feet Under. In the True Blood world, set in the fictional Louisiana town of Bon Temps, the genesis of great tasting Japanese synthetic blood (‘Tru-Blood’ – we rikee!) has seen the human-daemon hybrids come out of their closets and walk among the living in an uneasy alliance with humans as slick vampire advocates lobby for equal bloodsucker rights. There is a none-too-subtle allegory with slavery and segregation but we can live with that.
"’Tru-Blood’ has seen the human-daemon hybrids come out of their closets and walk among the living in an uneasy alliance with humans."
Our heroine, Sookie (Anna Paquin), is a cute-as-a-button blonde piece of pie who is working as a waitress in a shitheel bar when we meet her. She has an unwanted ability to hear people’s thoughts and she flounces around looking weirdly hot. Angel to her Buffy is Bill "straight outa" Compton (Stephen Moyer), a 200-year-old vamp who is "mainstreaming it" (vamp slang for being a Japanese synthetic blood drinking pussy who no longer kills humans). But don’t let his Southern good manners and decency fool you — he’s killed, like, a bunch of people in his time and has the damaged, wounded, dangerous thing going on that the honies just can’t get enough of.
"Sam pwns the restaurant where Sookie works and wants to put his cock in her more than a well-known premiership footballer wants to put his cock in The Backstreet Boys. And that’s a lot."
Elsewhere in Bon Temps, Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten), Sookie’s brother, is an unbearable fucking cunt. Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), Sookie’s sassy black friend is a slightly more bearable fucking cunt, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) Tara’s cousin is an occasionally amusing homosexual chef, Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) pwns the restaurant where Sookie works and wants to put his cock in her more than a well-known premiership footballer wants to put his cock in The Backstreet Boys. And that’s a lot.
"Watch True Blood and you’re somewhere between Little House on the Prairie and Fire Walk with Me, which is obviously a good thing."
Sookie’s cunt friend is in love with her cunt brother. Sam is in love with Sookie but begins a fuckbuddy relationship with her cunt friend instead. Brothercunt gets into rough sex after watching a video of a vampire bang this dame he was seeing. Isn’t love complicated?
There’s a serial killer doing his thing in Bon Temps. He appears to be targeting human women who associate with vampires. And given that fangbangers are becoming more brazen by the day, he’s getting lots of opportunity. Whatever can it all mean?
Watch True Blood and you’re somewhere between Little House on the Prairie and Fire Walk with Me, which is obviously a good thing. There’s a heroic amount of shagging in it, some amusing relationshit intrigue and a likeable, quirky lead in Sookie. The chemistry between her and Bill bubbles: swampy, filthy and convincing. From those we have loved and lost: Frank Sobotka! from The Wire plays a cop, E. B. Farnum! from Deadwood, plays his partner and The Iceman! from Generation Kill plays a thousand year old Viking vampire who is all senior, powerful and shit. I choose to take these appearances as a good omen. This show will go far.
The best thing about it: Sookiepie.
The worst thing about it: Brothercunt.
The verdict on True Blood: It’s fangtastic!!
Marks out of 10: 7.5
Imagined: 22nd October 2008