Saturday, June 21, 2014

TV REVIEW: True Blood "Life Matters"

I know that penultimate episodes are usually action packed drag out battles but True Blood did something rather unique by setting the episode in two incredibly different settings Vamp Camp and Terry Belflour’s funeral. I will start by saying for me this is simply the best of the current season and perhaps of the series as a whole from my point of view.


Let me talk about the raid on Vamp Camp, gruesome action packed and actually in some points moved character development on which to be honest was a bit of a surprise. Personally I would have thought that they would be better prepared for a vampire attack after the whole escape thing but between it being the day and the fact it had to go that way I am willing to give it a pass.


Did Eric really have a plan? It seemed a little bit loose as he knew that there was a deadline for the death of Pam and Nora even if he didn't care about the others yet he seemed to be just strolling up and down the installation at least until he found and healed Jason, then things began to seem like they actually mattered. Also that little dialogue between the two blonde bombshells was good with Jason’s almost apology for being all crazy and racist for awhile and to be fair Eric seemed to be in a forgiving mood so that whole thing worked out.


How did Bill know where the Vamp Camp was? Hadn't this been something he had been trying to ascertain for most of the season with no luck? Anyway I feel for Bill being painted into a corner as a saviour and trying to do the right thing where mostly everyone else thinks he’s completely lost it. He tried to help Eric and Eric screwed him over royally, he goes to Sookie for help to rescue their friends in common and she shuts him down and doesn't even apologise for staking him.


The way this episode moves between the funeral and the vamp camp is amazing and poignant. The service itself was beautiful though I was amazed by how fast the turnaround was. The speeches and those new scenes where we got to see Terry and his struggles with PTSD. All the speeches except for Sookie’s which came across more than a little self-centered with her coming out and all.


Jason missed out on the funeral which was a shame but ultimately made sense as he had a lot less time with Terry and his confrontation with Sarah Newlin was powerful I had more than a moment when I thought he might actually pull the trigger and his speech shows that despite appearances he isn't just a dumb hunk.

I can’t properly put into words how well-crafted this episode was and the fact that this is my undisputed favourite episode of True Blood. I have admit to myself that this season has been a hell of a turnaround from the shenanigans of recent times.

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