TRUE BLOOD Season 7 Episode 2
Episode Title “I Found You”
Writer: Kate Barnow
Director: Howard Deutch
Previously on “True Blood:”
What does it say about a show when it’s no longer distinguishable from its own slash fan-fiction?
“True Blood” opens the second episode of its final season with a bizarre sex dream featuring Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) and Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård) that may be the most pointless bit of fanservice that this show has ever done. And “True Blood” has had plenty of pointless fanservice! So there’s a lot to choose from.
But here’s why this was a particularly bad choice: the rest of the episode almost completely ignores what happened in the dream. The only followup is that Jason looks very upset and uncomfortable when the show comes back from the opening credit sequence. And that’s it. Writer Kate Barnow overlooks what could have been a very funny recurring gag as events in Jason’s waking life remind him of a dream he’d much rather forget.
Barnow’s script actually has some truly funny moments with Jason scattered throughout the episode. Jason’s “pizza-forensics” was an instant classic and I loved his initial inability to distinguish a Starbucks card from an actual ID. I used to call Jason the King of the Idiots, but his stupidity has morphed into a much more entertaining form.
Unfortunately, instances of real humor are pretty scarce in this episode. While Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) leads Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell), Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello), Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer) and Jason on a roadtrip to find their kidnapped friends, Sam’s political rival, Vince (Brett Rickaby) takes advantage of the situation to work the remaining residents of Bon Temps up into a fanatical desire to arm themselves to the teeth.
When the people of Bon Temps finally get their hands on some guns, they transform into even more cartoonish versions of themselves. They’ve become so clown-like that they seem less real than Sookie and her supernatural friends. These people are all that is left of Bon Temps and they don’t feel worthy of being saved or of receiving any extended screentime.
The one bright spot is that Adilyn Bellefleur (Bailey Noble) — the half Fae offspring of Andy Bellefleur — almost becomes a season one version of Sookie when she telepathically picks up on the mob’s intent to raid the Sheriff’s station and when she convinces Deputy Kenya Jones (Tanya Wright) to try to keep the guns safe.
But it’s incredibly insulting that Kenya turns on a dime when one of her colleagues points out that she’s more deserving than Jason and that Andy has constantly overlooked her and taken her for granted. I think I would have liked Kenya a lot more if she had acknowledged that all of that was true and she still did the right thing. Arming the village idiots was definitely not the right choice.
Over at Fangtasia (I can’t believe no one thought to even look there), Holly Cleary (Lauren Bowles), Arlene Fowler Bellefleur (Carrie Preston) and their extremely doomed fellow captives try to convince one of the Hep-V vampires to let them go. Some of these scenes actually land, as the older woman who once taught their children really empathizes with them… while still slaughtering their companions. And I have to admit that it was amusing when the poor woman basically became a blood puddle while feeding from Arlene. Though it has to be said that Arlene and Holly seem like the only two characters who will survive that ordeal.
I kind of like the way that Andy takes Holly’s kidnapping as a wakeup call to settle down with her and even his reluctant partnership with Jessica Hamby (Deborah Ann Woll) has potential. Jessica violently convinces Andy that she senses Adilyn is in trouble and she secures his assistance. This is the most useful that Jessica has been in a long time.
Elsewhere, Lettie Mae Daniels (Adina Porter) finally gets her wish for V when she gruesomely burns herself and dupes Willa Burrell (Amelia Rose Blaire) into giving her some blood. Lettie Mae’s subsequent vision suggests that Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley) really is dead, but Tara’s message from the vision is garbled and impossible to understand. I’m not sure what to make of this. Tara deserves an exit story, but this is more about Lettie Mae’s grief than it is about Tara.
Barnow tries to create a parallel between Sookie and a deceased young woman from another town whose life was also changed by the presence of a vampire. However, it lacks any real emotional resonance largely due to the fact that we never really meet the other girl and the scene relies on Anna Paquin’s ability to read some pretty bad lines from the dead woman’s diary.
The hope of a true hero turn for Sookie is partially alive when she refuses Alcide’s offer to just drive off and forget about everyone else. Sookie even goes behind Alcide’s back to visit Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and ask if he can still sense her through their blood bond. I’ll bet Sookie plans to get captured so Bill can use their connection to find her. Somehow, I think we’ve been down this road before.
Right before the end, Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) finally catches up to Eric in France… and he’s a Hep-V vamp now. As a cliffhanger ending, it didn’t work.
Calling “True Blood” a hot mess is being too kind. It’s a shockingly inept show that seems to have forgotten everything that it did right in its first few seasons. The only reason to keep on watching is the vain hope that the “True Blood” writers rediscover what made the show so fun in the first place.
