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So, I spent this sunny summer weekend safely up North basically sitting around on the beach/lake/cottage drinking and relaxing and avoiding what must have been an insane weekend for Montreal traffic (what with the Jazz Fest, fireworks and every major tunnel and bridge being shut down fully or partially). It was pretty great. I got back just in time to watch the latest episode of True Blood “Let’s Boot and Rally”. I have been on the fence about True Blood for the past 3 seasons or something, yet somehow I keep watching it. This most recent season has been my favorite season in a long while, however, the usual stuff keeps bothering me. What usual stuff? That’s the worst part “the usual stuff” is so broad in this fucking show that I will get into my discontent after the break since I also get my spoiler hat on. I really should be writing tomorrow’s Zombies and Loathing right now. I just had breakfast with Sophie though and a lot of this was bugging me so… the first Fuck Monday in a while here we go!

If someone who has never watched the show asked you what True Blood was about, you would probably answer the same way that I did in that masterfully edited photo right there.

“True Blood is a show about vampires.”

You would be a liar though. There are like 5 storylines going on in this season and only one of them (I’ll admit, it’s the main one, which is what keeps my interest) has to do with vampires and vampire politics.

Full disclosure, I used to play a lot of Vampire: The Masquerade back in college and we used to have a rule of thumb: the main story is about vampires and every once in a while you can throw in other supernatural elements to add flavour. That’s where True Blood seems to mess it all up. Think of it like a chef, the main ingredient is vampires, the rest should be spices. The point we’re at now? You barely taste the main ingredient.

So what’s going on in True Blood this season? Well, there’s that cool main story about Russell Edgington not being dead and Bill and Eric having to kill him (side note: am I the only one who thinks that Russell is basically a vampire version of the hairdresser in American Dad? The one who rides around on the poodle? I couldn’t find a clip but here’s a photo). There’s also Alcide, who happens to be a werewolf, but he’s tied in pretty heavily with the vampire stuff, so he gets a pass since he’s not adding weird side storylines for no reason. Like what?

Shapeshifters:

Because I guess Sam has a contract to be fulfilled or something and he doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere in the main story arch: he gets his own storyline! You know what I don’t understand? Why don’t shifters shift into better animals? Oh no, Sam! You’re being attacked by a pack of werewolves! Shift into a fucking elephant or grizzly bear or something and go to town. We’re used to Sam storylines though, they’ve always been going down on the side. Like with his family, they could’ve milked that for a little while right? Oh right, they killed off his entire family. They also killed off his shifter girlfriend in Season 2. Better do a storyline with his ‘shifter friends! Oh, killed all them off too. It seems that the most dangerous “supe” to be in the True Blood universe is a shape shifter, the writers will kill you off without a second thought. They actually brought characters back only to kill them off immediately. Anyhow, we’re approaching the halfway point of the season and it seems that humans hunting supernaturals is going to be a thing and killing off shape shifters seems to be the way they’re leading into it. I guess it doesn’t make sense to have them hunting vampires since vampires would more or less kill the shit out of them in a hurry. What else is going on?

South American Witch Doctor Stuff:

I get it, Lafayette is one of everyone’s favorite characters, so he needs powers or something, right? Heavy emphasis on “or something”. What the hell are Lafayette’s powers exactly anyhow? Go on, try to explain them in a sentence. He’s some sort of spiritual conduit who can sometimes cast spells on his own, but is also super easy to possess and is now possessed by some South American witch-doctor spirit thing and can also speak with the dead. Yup, that’s Lafayette. Was I the only one who liked it when Lafayette was just a cool, resourceful human who made the best of the fucked up shit going around him? That was cool. I have no idea where they’re going with this storyline and honestly I don’t really care. I thought it was dumb when they gave him powers in the first place, now that they keep messing with those powers it’s just boring and confusing.

Fairies:

I also sort of understand that they had to explain Sookie’s telepathy somehow, so they decided to make her half fairy. Here’s the thing though: remember the beginning of last season where they ran around in fairy-town and had some weird Power Rangers special effects and fairies seemed pretty much evil as shit? What happened to that? Is that still a thing? Now they run a strip club in the meadow? Fuck these stupid fairies and everything about them. I love fairies, but these fairies are stupid and shitty. So with all this going on you’d think that’d be enough. We’ve got witch doctors, vampires, werewolves, fairies, and shape shifters all running about in one small town. How small? According to some True Blood wiki I just found Bon Temps’ population is 2,712 (though dwindling all the time I imagine). That’s not enough to keep us interested though.

Fucking Ifrit:

Known the world over for being a super-sweet early game summon spell in the Final Fantasy series (or maybe the more traditional Arabic/Islamic supernatural Jinn), True Blood now has an Ifrit storyline. Yep, a crazy winged fire genie is now stalking about in Bon Temps too. We should’ve known though, the ghost of murderous serial killer warned his former wife about it on Halloween a year ago. Sort of.

Why True Blood? Why can’t you just stick to vampires? They’re pretty awesome. The Tara being a vampire thing isn’t even that bad since it means more Pam. Stick to vampires and I wouldn’t feel so mixed about watching this show all the time.