True Blood, Laissez les bons temps rouler (spoilers for non-Terrestrial pls) Options

[Serafina_Pekkala]

Yes we need a True Blood topic. This is it.

17th of May - Season 2 UK version is released, y'all.

For Zoe and Stackhousers everywhere (*giggles*)

[maian]

I finished Season 2 yesterday after the third of three bulk watching sessions with a couple of friends. I really enjoyed the last couple of episodes - including the finale, which was quite odd in the way that it resolved everything quite early on, but did set up some nice plot threads for Season 3 - and thought that the season overall overcame a weak opening to become even better than Season 1. Alexander Skarsgard really came into his own this season, and I thought the show managed to make much better use of its splintered cast than in the first season (Tara, in particular, felt less like a third wheel than she did the first time round) by developing each of them fully and not letting any one of them drag on too long. Case in point; the fundamentalist Christian lot, whose plotline was good but who were dropped before they got too boring.

One thing that struck me this time around was how good the show is at cliffhangers. When we started our second session, we were on episode four, but every subsequent episode had such a shocking or fun cliffhanger that we had to keep watching until we'd watched six episodes in a row and it was 3 in the morning. I think only Breaking Bad does better cliffhangers than True Blood, but never episode after episode.

Jason and Eric continued to be the most fun (the line: "If a tree falls in the woods, it's still a tree, ain't it?" had me in peals of laughter) but I was surprised by how much I liked Jessica by the end of the season. When they introduced her in Season 1, she was petulant and annoying and I was so glad that they moved away from that towards making her more vulnerable and scared. Her relationship with Hoyt was quite sweet, if weird, and I'm really interested in seeing where they take her character in the future.

So, yeah, I really loved it. Can't wait to see Season 3.

Skarsgard was in 'Beyond the Pole' on Saturday with Rhys Thomas and Stephen Mangan - did anyone see it?

We had the director (sadly not Skarsgard) in for a screening a few months back. He's very nice, but the film's pretty rubbish. Mockumentaries are very hard to do well, and a good cast can't make up for a lack of comic invention.