Spike Mention

[shipperx]

Not sure that I wholly agree, but I did smile at this Spike mention in Matt Roush's review of last night's True Blood:

Such a sad-boy bad-boy Eric is, TV’s most fascinating and entertaining vamp since Spike hit the scene on Buffy.

Most of Roush's review ...never before Sunday’s extraordinary “I Will Rise Up” episode have I actually been moved. With this hour, True Blood graduates from a ghoulish guilty pleasure to something more transcendent, more profound, truly worthy of being mentioned in the same pantheon of the supernatural as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Those who know what I mean will, well, know what I mean.) Which doesn’t mean it isn’t still great fun.

Oh Godric, we barely knew ye. But we’ll never forget ye. “2000 years and I can still be surprised,” says the ancient vampire (subtly played by baby-faced Allan Hyde) who no longer thinks like a vampire. He’s enchanted—who isn’t?—by Sookie’s selfless humanity as she cries for him and stays by his side as he prepares to meet the dawn in the ultimate sacrifice. “In this, I see God,” he tells her, turning to greet the sun with a beatific exultation, the golden rays engulfing him in flames as he vanishes into swirls of dust. Magical, beautiful, tragically euphoric.

But poor Eric, sired by Godric a millennium ago, weeping bloody tears as he begs his sire to reconsider in a scene of wrenching emotion. “There are centuries of faith and love between us,” Godric comforts his undead mate as he reveals his epiphany: “Our existence is insanity. We don’t belong here.” Eric is a long way from embracing that philosophy, quite obviously. But his aching grief reveals what Sookie has already discovered: “You’re deep … There’s love in you.”

Such a sad-boy bad-boy Eric is, TV’s most fascinating and entertaining vamp since Spike hit the scene on Buffy. If not for the ethereal Godric finale, this episode would have belonged to Alexander Skarsgard. Just try forgetting that wicked smile on his face as he manipulates Sookie into sucking the silver bullets out of his bomb-battered chest, after shielding her from the Fellowship’s suicide bomber.

Our hero. Our cad. You can’t help admiring while despising him as Eric smugly declares, “She was superb,” while Bill lays the truth out to Sookie, that by consuming Eric’s blood she’s now connected to him, emotionally and psychically. Sookie is disgusted and furious. So is Bill. Eric’s deadpan reaction: “I think I’m gonna cry.”

Worse yet—or better yet, depending on how you view such things—the blood swap means Sookie now feels a sexual attraction toward the Viking vamp. She’s all “ewwww” about it, at least to Bill, until Eric appears in her dream, and they cuddle naked together as he seductively insists, “You have the right temperament for a vampire.” (She demurs, arguing, “I don’t feel right without a tan.”) Anyone who didn’t go all swoony during this dream sequence—until, that is, Bill’s devious spurned sire Lorena revealed herself to be observing the dream—is fooling themselves. Hot, hot stuff.

What else did I love in this episode? Hoyt crooning “My Sweet Vampire” to eternal-virgin vamp-squeeze Jessica as she crawls into her cubbyhole for the day. Hoyt standing up to his mom, whose anti-vamp bigotry extends to Catholics, Methodists, blacks and so on. Sam turning into a fly to escape prison and Maryann’s calls for sacrifice, then being an actual fly on the wall as he watches Tara’s family kidnap her, for now, from Maryann’s orgiastic clutches. The touching heart-to-heart between sibs Sookie and Jason, as they realize they’re in it together and need to grow up. “I didn’t have any say about being normal,” Sookie tells her brother. “We’re born the way we are.”

(Wonder if the series will go the way of the books in explaining her gifts.)

Again, not sure that I totally agree, but I did like the BtVS mentions.  Will discuss my own thoughts regarding Saturday's Being Human, and Sunday's True Blood and Mad Men later.