'TRUE BLOOD' 3.10 - "I Smell A Rat"

[SPOILERS] This was a lazy episode from Kate Barnow and Elisabeth Finch; an hour where a lot of the season's questions were answered in mostly uninteresting ways, almost because there was no other way to push the story along without people just blurting out truths and secrets. It also laid groundwork for the witches-centric fourth season, and that already feels as lame and ridiculous as I'd feared.

The kitsch rabbit ornament was a mistake

To recap the blitzkrieg of storylines: Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) and Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) took V together and shared a trippy altered state that allowed them both, as latent "shamans", to jump back in time and witness their mystical, freaky ancestors; Bill (Stephen Moyer) revealed to Sookie (Anna Paquin) that she's a faerie, an ancient race who were hunted to near-extinction by vampires; Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) prepared to battle Edgington (Denis O'Hare) by updating his Last Will & Testament, before being persuaded by progeny Pam (Kristin Bauer) to use Sookie as bait; Jason (Ryan Kwanten) was tasked with protecting his sister from harm, later admitting to Tara (Rutina Wesley) that he killed her boyfriend Eggs; Hoyt (Jim Parrack) told Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) he still loves her, only to be attacked by love-rival Tommy (Marshall Allman) in the guise of a pitbull -- thus requiring Jessica's blood to heal his wounds; Sam (Sam Merlotte) grappled with his guilt over nearly beating a man to death, stirring memories of his past as a clean-shaven conman who accidentally killed two thieves; Crystal (Lindsay Pulsipher) revealed she can shape-shift into a panther; Arlene (Carrie Preston) told Terry (Todd Lowe) that her unborn baby is most likely Renee's; and the grieving Edgington slept with and killed a male prostitute, fantasizing that the gigolo is his dead lover Talbot.

It's become a familiar response from me now, but while most episodes of True Blood are entertaining in their general attitude, violence/sex/gore, and breadth of storylines, it's all put together in a very slapdash manner. My feelings towards "I Smell A Rat" fluctuated every five minutes, making me think it might be kinder to rate each storyline on its own separate merits. Every time I compile the above synopsis of each episode's events, it always reads as incredibly exciting stuff, but the problem I have with True Blood is how it's putting its pieces together these days. It lacks grace and focus.

Sookie's a faerie, which she amusingly pre-empted the audience in proclaiming as "lame". It's okay to manipulate existing folklore to your own ends, but since when have faeries been adult-sized and unable to fly? Still, the reveal that vampires basically hunted faeries almost to extinction because their blood is so delicious was a nice touch, although I'm not convinced that a 3,000-year-old vampire like Edington wouldn't have been able to guess what Sookie is. Telepathic, scrumptious blood, able to project energy blasts from her hands -- surely he'd have known that's indicative of faeries. Sophie-Ann knew about maenads from Ancient Greece, and those who learn what Sookie is don't seem to look that surprised.

I'm not sure what to make of Lafayette and Jesus's storyline, and I use that term loosely. It's so late in the season that I suspect their entire storyline has been preparation for next year, but the idea of them being shamans with magical abilities doesn't interest me. The show's becoming awash with too much hocus pocus for my taste. The extended sequence of Lafayette and Jesus having a delirious trip through time and space was wonderfully constructed and filmed by director Michael Lehmann, but it also dragged into abject tedium and felt irrelevant to the season at hand.

I was again reminded that a lot of True Blood's storylines rely on teasing a simple question: "what are they?" In season 1, what was that mysterious dog? It was Sam, a shape-shifter. In season 2, what was Maryann? She was a maenad. In season 3, what are Sookie and Crystal? We discovered both in this episode, but Crystal's was by far the silliest explanation. She just appeared in Jason's room in the form of a black panther, assumedly because the writers just couldn't think of any other way to dispense this answer. I assume she's not a shape-shifter in the usual sense, as that would be incredibly boring. But the alternative is that she's, what, a were-panther? I'm telling you, Big Foot's going to be waiting tables in season 5.

Much better was Jason's scene with Tara, where he consoled his childhood friend and became guilty about her outpouring of affection for him, in light of the fact he killed her true love. Kwanten doesn't get many decent emotional scenes on this show, but this was one of them, with Jason unexpectedly telling Tara the horror of what he did and risking their friendship. A pity True Blood doesn't engineer more scenes like this; simple human drama.

One strange subplot was the flashback to Sam circa 2003, which seemed to exist as another way to try and make his character interesting. They've tried making him a shape-shifter and giving him a reprobate family, but it hasn't really worked, so now he's been give some "edge" with a scurrilous past as a conman. I guess it helps clarify why Sam's so willing to give his tearaway brother a chance of rehabilitation, and explains a few questions about Sam's relative wealth in Bon Temps, but this is all happening very late in the season. What other TV show throws up brand new avenues like this in the home-stretch? I suspect Alan Ball and his writing staff know there's no threat of cancellation, so they can plan ahead much further than other TV shows dare to. But I'm not sure this is a good thing, because when a season should be getting tighter and more intense in its final batch of episodes, True Blood still feels like it's at mid-season and adding weight.

Bad breath, bad breath!

It was also disappointing that Edgington's marvelous threat to mankind on live TV wasn't capitalized on from last week. I appreciated the background debate on TV, with Nan Flanagan and the return of Steve Newlin, but Edgington himself was pushed to the rear of the episode. I'm hoping this is the calm before the storm. I just wish there had been more about the fallout of Edgington's horrific broadcast, because that would surely have been the topic of discussion on the world's lips, but the Bon Temps characters couldn't care less. Still, the moment when an anti-vampire mob put a flaming cross on Bill's lawn perhaps hinted that the show will do more with this development soon.

Overall, "I Smell A Rat" was hopefully just an unfortunate bump where the writers unburdened themselves of questions they can't find a compelling way to answer that unfolds naturally. It was generally quite fun, because there's no way to re-code True Blood's DNA in that respect (it features a mad vampire carrying round his dead boyfriend as a trifle, for goodness sake), but that doesn't mean it's particularly clever or inventive. I just hope the remaining episodes focus on the questions at hand, without so much distraction and foreshadowing of next season.

Asides

• Look, nobody tell Sookie's nephew Hunter that he's a faerie. That kid's going to suffer some real beatings at school if word gets out.
• Now that Hoyt's tasted Jessica's blood, I guess they're bonded for life. Tommy's not going to like that.
• The whereabouts of faerie-land is still vague. I'm not sure if the characters there exist in the real world, or if they're stuck in that limbo.
• When Sookie was dying in hospital a few weeks ago, would clapping have helped, now we know she's a faerie?

WRITERS: Kate Barnow & Elisabeth Finch
DIRECTOR: Michael Lehmann
GUEST CAST: Kevin Alejandro, Marshall Allman, Todd Lowe, Denis O'Hare, Jim Parrack, Carrie Preston, Lindsay Pulsipher, Lauren Bowles, Jessica Tuck, James Harvey Ward, Natasha Alam & Melissa Rauch
TRANSMISSION: 22 August 2010 - HBO, 9PM

moreless