The Oncoming Hope

Do you remember when True Blood was good? Well, not good exactly; it was always prone to excess, excess of camp, excess of sex, excess of "Sookeh", and so on. But it was a trashy good time that didn't challenge the intellect too much. Then something happened. It was a hit! And like magic, the showrunners forgot everything they'd ever learned about plotting, character development, or just plain sense.

Season two had the nonsensical Maenad plot and Lizzie Caplan as the supremely irritating hippie V-addict, but kept viewer interest by recognizing it's secret weapons: Jason Stackhouse, Lafayette and Andy. The show never pretended they were anything more than dumb lugs, so when they did stupid shit (all the time!) we forgive them because hey, they're kinda pretty (except Andy), and we don't expect any better from them.

But season 2 brought the complete batshit nightmare lurking deep inside Tara to life. She wandered through the first half of the season in a Marianne-soaked haze, and the second half of the season screaming for Eggs, Eggs, and more Eggs! Will someone get that girl an omelette already?

Season 3 brought the complete batshit nightmare lurking deep inside Sam to life. Which had the effect of taking a sweet but un-interesting character and turning him into a screaming bore. While this storyline did introduce us to wholly new milieus of Louisiana white trash (and what new glorious lows of humanity they reach!), it also resurrected that irritating kid from Prison Break, who definitely should have stayed dead.

While the systematic destruction of key characters would be enough to ruin ANY show, Alan Ball created a new twist by nailing the coffin shut with the systematic deification of another character, the aforementioned "Sookeh." While we accept that Eric and Bill fall in love with her (or even if we don't accept it, we can handwave it with that whole "sookie's blood is magical and made of fairy dust (spoiler!)." But when one poor lumberjack who's not drawn into this nonsense and is TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE falls in love with Sookie for no reason? WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU, ALAN BALL!

Season four opened with promise; Sookie is not just in any land of fairies, but in the domain of Queen Mab herself! For just one moment, we are shown how good this show might be if Sookie is stripped of all the ballast that has ruined the Bon Temps storylines. But no. We find out Tara is now a lesbian cage-fighting champion (or something!), Sam is still a whiny drag (or something!).

So, despite my love of Hoyt/Jessica and of my genuine interest in Bill becoming King of the Vampires, I hereby quit. And fangs for the memories. NOT!