True Blood

[shipperx]

So, I have the weekend off, yay! (I had another 100 hour time sheet. However, the building that will not die, went to the printers Friday. So, again, yay!) However, it began pouring rain late yesterday afternoon and continued to do so until this afternoon, and I've had little energy to do more than vegetate. In that vein, I've ended up watching the entire Season 1 of True Blood on HBO OnDemand, and now I have a few things to say about it.

First off, let me admit that I found the series to be entertaining. It is watchable and it goes at a fairly fast clip. On the other hand, entertaining though it may be, I don't think it's very good. I'll get to what I feel are the flaws in a minute. I first wanted to stress first that I watched the entire season and that says something. I found it entertaining or I wouldn't have done so. And, at the very least, the vampires don't sparkle.

Now, my issues, let me show you them:

* Vampire aesthetics. There are several artistic choices they've made with the vampires that I simply dislike. I don't mind how they die when staked. Joss Whedon invented dusting, so if "True Blood" wants to go the "dissolve in a blood puddle of disgusting goo" I'm okay with that. It's more disgusting, but it's HBO and makes as much sense as anything. So of all my vampire aesthetic issues, the pure grossness of their death isn't one of them. However, the special effect with their teeth really bothers me. I don't like the switchblade sound. And I don't like the way that instead of their canine teeth becoming the 'vampire fangs' it's the two teeth beside their front teeth. It makes all the vampires look buck-toothed when they go fangy. It's... dorky. Also, speaking of dorky, I don't like the speeded up look of the 'superfast.' It too looks awkward and dorky. Where the show has done a pretty good job of making vampires menacing, the menacing quality is changed with just how darn awkward the vampy things are on screen. Those artistic choices don't work for me.

* The southern accents are excruciating. Look, I'm southern. I grew up in Alabama for goodness sakes. But the accents on the show are deplorable. They seriously need to tone down the twanginess.

* Another artistic choice issue, why is every house -- other than Mary Anne's -- falling into ruin? What is it about vampires and living in complete decay. Bill has a freaking projection TV and a Wii, but he can't be bothered to notice that the wallpaper is literally falling off the wall? And, okay, I can see some metaphorical point to the vampire's house being in partial decay, but every house is. I'm sorry. I know that the characters aren't exactly upwardly mobile to any large degree, but still. Southerners don't all live in hovels or Tara. Not every character's home should look like there's a million years of mold mixed with peeling paint.

* The biggest issue of all is that I frequently and perhaps mostly find the two leads to be annoying. Bill (and Eric for that matter) just are not that hot. Not that they have to be hot. But sheesh, the show keeps pretending like they are, but Bill has a strange (okay Victorian) haircut and Eric looks like a posuer (I'm sorry, Owen Wilson playing Hansel in Zoolander rendered that look (and posing) useless for 'cool'. Get a brush and get the blond locks out of your eyes!) Back to Bill, while I don't find him nearly as hot as Sookie, I don't have actual issues with his looks or dress (though it does little for me). But at least not parody (or sparkle). Where he falls into cliche is...

Dear god, did he sit hunched over in a dark room reading poetry by candlelight? Angel couldn't pull that broody-boy shit off and it's still not working! Bill has entirely too much brooding vampire-hero stuff going on. Maybe having the -- excuse me from using the word -- childe forced on him will help because she at least cuts through the crap. With Angel it still had some whiff of "not done to death" about it. But it's now over a decade later, and Bill really needs to get his own schtick. And since I'm bringing Buffy characters into it... I must have had civil rights drilled into me in 8th Grade civics or something because when they had Bill go out and murder Sookie's uncle who had molested her as a child it reminded me of how happy Riley was to announce they he had the keys to all the stores in Sunnydale. I have some inkling that I'm to think it's cool and yet my first reaction is draw-back and have an inner voice bitch about civil rights. And, speaking of civil rights, hand it to Tara for flat out saying that Bill actually owned slaves. Himself. All in all, this just isn't a vampire that makes me swoon. And even with all of that, he annoys me less than Sookie!

I'm not sure at what point in the season Sookie began to annoy the crap out of me but I suspect it was right around the time that she and Bill consummated their relationship. The OTT perkiness began to grate. Are we supposed to view her reactions as natural or unnatural? Because they seemed unnatural to me. And the entire world -- and whether or not it was worth being happy about -- seemed to begin to revolve over whether or not she was having sex with Bill. Giddiness is one thing, but walking around on air the day after finding her grandmother murdered in the kitchen just felt inappropriate. When it got around to Sookie's big fight with Tara, was I supposed to be on Sookie's side? Because I wasn't. Sookie was accusing Tara of being self-involved? Really??? Does Sookie know anything about the crap going down in any of her friends lives? No. For her everything revolves around whether she is getting laid. And having everyone just fascinated by her, be it Bill, Sam, Eric, or Pam is overkill. The girl is skirting quite close to Mary Sue, so they don't have to have everyone fascinated/in heat/in love with her. It was enough at two. And then there's the hypocrisy in her. Good grief, the hypocrisy! She gets mortally offended at anyone calling her a "fang banger" but she also looks down on... 'fang bangers.' What, pray tell, is the difference between her and the other men and women who seek out vamps for titillation and sex because I swear with the way she is so myopically caught up in having sex with Bill, I really am not seeing the difference here. She may say it's 'love' but, I'm not really buying. It's not like she and Bill have conversations where she actually knows the stuff he's doing -- or even asks. Hell she rendered his whole issue with having killed Long Shadow as "vampire politics" and pouting as though he had abandonned her rather than his being tried for vampire murder. And then there's stuff like when he arrived at the end of the season saying he'd healed himself because "I've fed", my thought was "On what?" Sookie, on the other hand, just went straight into the kissing. I guess I can cut some of this slack if we're supposed to see Sookie as a hypocrite who is as intoxicated by vampire blood as her brother who is addicted to the stuff, but I keep feeling that we're supposed to see it as "true love" and... um... I don't.

So, there it is, the two leads annoy me. That can't be good. And, I have to say that their romance was the least interesting thing on the show to me. The characters I actually like were Tara, Lafayette, and Sam. Tara and Lafayette at least have humor and a way of pointing out the real truth of a situation. Unfortunately Lafayette was murdered by the finale which is a shame because he was the most dynamic and interesting character on the show. And as far as Tara and Sam go, I feel more for both of these characters than I have for anything involving Sookie or Bill. I've enjoyed Tara's storyline more. And I'm also more curious about where her plot is going. (What is Mary Anne anyway? And, well, Mary Anne is Michelle Forbes so she's bound to rock.) And Sam comes off as someone with an actual heart (though he really needs to cut out the love of Sookie before it turns into stalking. Tara was right when she told him that is never going to work out. Damn fool should know, shape shifters and werepeople never 'get the girl' over the brooding vampire. Besides, Sookie isn't all that and a bag of popcorn.)

I even found Sookie's brother storyline interesting. Not rootworthy because he's a dog and because of what he and Amy did to that poor vampire. But even if he's an oversexed idiot, at least his plot was interesting.

Basically, I like most of the characters. I like Tara, Sam, etc. It's just that I wish that Sookie and Bill weren't quite so cliched and annoying.

Comments

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Hee! A big, fat, "word"! I too just did a "True Blood" marathon!

I have to say that their romance was the least interesting thing on the show to me. The characters I actually like were Tara, Lafayette, and Sam.

Yup. I heart Sam hard, and Tara is much more interesting to me than Our Heroine, though I don't really dislike Sookie.

I've been avoiding spoilers, but I hear there's a possibility that Lafayette isn't actualy dead. I'm hoping that's the case. He so much fun!

I grew to kind of sympathize with Jason and his odd relationship with the basement vamp. I'm curious to see where they take his character.

Just curious-- have you read the books? I haven't, though most people I know in fandom seemed to have enjoyed them. I guess I'm less a "vampire" fan than just a BtVS fan!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I do think that Tara is a far better modern heroine than Sookie. I think they just make Sookie too obvious. I'm over the diaphonous white dresses with pumped up cleavage and intermittant perkiness/moping. Tara is straight-up honest, that goes a long way when dealing with flaws.

I think it's lead character syndrome. So often secondary characters are allowed to be flawed without being propped whereas with leads we're always being nudged to root for them in a way that we're never sure whether we're to take their bad actions as actually being bad... or maybe that just Post-Joss Whedon syndrome. At some point during the run of BtVS I lost the ability to really tell whether or not I'm seeing what a show wants me to see.

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

Boy, right there with you on the accents. They put my teeth on edge. I, too, don't find Bill attractive. At all. Sookie either. Anna Paquin brings no life to the role. The sex is also not sexy. What's up with that?

It seems the peripheral characters are keeping this entertaining for me, and I'm gonna try some more. The books are frothy and fun, something this show is not bringing. Sookie makes more sense on the page than on film. Here's hoping they capture some of that in Season 2.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It's not that I think that Bill is unattractive. It's just... he's not hot to me. Charisma can take an unattractive person to attractive. Intelligence and personality can as well. But Bill.. something about it just doesn't hit for me. He seems rather blah with a dose of brooding and mostly humorless. None of those things adds up to "hot" for me.

And, good grief the sex. That sex scene with his crawling out of the ground, grabbing Sookie and penetrating her right then and right there... My first thought was "I bet that gets dirt in places it doesn't belong!" It's got to be a sign that a sex scene isn't working if I'm worrying about hos unsanitary it is! (Another thing that hotness can gloss over. It's the lack of hot that has me thinking about these things). And, also, the 'superfast vampire sex', if it's supposed to be sexy it shouldn't have me thinking of SAtC's Carrie Bradshaw bent over complaining about "jack-rabbit sex" because that's exactly what I thought about "jack-rabbit sex" and, no offense to jack-rabbits, but I don't think that's all that appealing.

I have assumed that the books are far more frothy (though I only read part of the first one) simply because when the first ones came out, they were marketed as romance.

And I am hoping that it becomes more... complete, I guess in Season 2. Sometimes shows take a while to find their footing. And, besides, it's summer and little is on.

[silverusagi]

True Blood only works if you don't put too much thought into it, LOL. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me as the show went on. As you said, it's entertaining and fast paced. But the accents bothered me to no end. It's almost like they're too forced. And the teeth thing...what was wrong with vampires having teeth that didn't change, teeth that were just there? (Was that in the books, I wonder?) So we get stuck with the pop out fangs.

I thought Bill killing Sookie's uncle was cool, LOL. He's a vampire. Killing is no big thing to him, and probably his first reaction to any problem is "kill it." But I also expected there to be some sort of consequence. Since he's supposed to be playing nice with humans, this isn't the sort of thing he should be doing.

Tara is awesome, from the first moment she threatened her manager at the store that her "baby daddy" would come beat him up.

I haven't read the books, but it seems that everyone is just as enamored with Sookie in them. She dates different supernatural guys and discovers her otherwordly heritage. Which borders more on Mary Sue for me. But I haven't read the books, so someone who has, feel free to call me out.

I think Bill and Sookie's problem toward the end of the series is not communicating. He won't tell her about his vampire problems, and she accuses him of abandoning her. And really, Bill, could you not have stopped Longshadow from killing Sookie without staking him? You knew the consequences for staking a vampire.

>>What, pray tell, is the difference between her and the other men and women who seek out vamps for titillation and sex

Tru wuv, obviously. Though, remember how excited she was when Bill first came into Merlott's?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think Bill and Sookie's problem toward the end of the series is not communicating. He won't tell her about his vampire problems, and she accuses him of abandoning her. Except that they had a conversation about how he'd told her that everything was okay after he killed Long Shadow and then Eric and Pam showing up to take him away. She knew it was as a consequence of killing Long Shadow, so I just took the abandoment thing as her having convenient amnesia.

And I think the problems related with Bill killing Sookie's uncle is the fact that it was an isolated scene without consequence. If he's mainstreaming and there's all this stuff about vampire-rights, then they have to live by the law. Not doing so should result in the same penalty as anyone else. Secondly, because there were no consequences and because it was a totally isolated scene, I'm left wondering whether we really were to see it as a "white knight" action, because... no. It needed some more consequences so as to make a bit more sense of how the show intended it.

And I truly see no difference in Sookie and the other 'fang bangers' other than her feeling she's just 'better' because she's doing the exact same thing. She lit in on Bill because he was a vampire. She gets off on being bitten while having sex. She's all about getting off on the vampi-ness, so other than naive claims of 'twu wuv' she's doing the exact same thing as all the people who go to Fangtasia looking for excitement and sex with vampires. She's just wrapped her urges up by romanticizing it, but, at the end of the day it's not very different, not enough for her to feel particularly superior to anyone else having sex with vampires.

That said, the show is entertaining and I'll continue watching.

[rahirah]

I read the first three books and yeah, it was all about Supernatural Hottie of the Month falling head over heels for Sookie. Yawn.

[silverusagi]

It seems that many supernatural series are just this. Girl caught between supernatural lovers, girl getting a new boyfriend or power in every other book.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Fortunately for the show (because I do indeed find the whole Sookie/Bill romance to be 'been there, done that'), they seem to have expanded the secondary characters far more than the books and given them their own plots, and some of those plots are actually interesting.

I enjoyed Tara's voodoo priestess plot because it made sense in that universe. She lives in a world where fairly recently vampires (and increasingly other things) have been proven to be real, so when her alcoholic and abusive mother announces that she (the mother) needs an exorcism because she's posessed by a demon, Tara is skeptical... but eventually gives in because it might be true. So, still fully skeptical, she goes along with her mother's exorcism, which seemed to actually cure her mother, only for the voodoo priestess to tell Tara that she (Tara) is possessed by an even worse demon. Tara scoffs at that, but it preys on her because (as the adult child of an abusive alcoholic) she does have issues. Eventually, even against her own best judgement, Tara comes to believe that, yeah, maybe she is possessed and forks over a not insubstantial amount of cash to pay for her own exorcism, which was pretty scary... only for her later to discover that the voodoo priestess is in fact a fraud. She chose not to tell her mother, as faith in the exorcism has kept her mother sober for several months, but the whole thing did send Tara off the rails, making her easy prey to Maryanne and the audience knows that Maryanne is in fact some sort of supernatural being, we just don't know what (other than she a)doesn't believe in gods b)seems to have an endless supply of tropical fruit c) has a house with copious amounts of white d) is played by Michelle Forbes who usually turns in interesting performances. And in the season primiere the NotReally!Voodoo Priestess turned up dead with her heart having been ripped out with Tara pulled in for questioning... best part of that being that it was Voodoo Priestess dead in the car instead of Lafayette! Lafayette lives! Yay!

Because the gay prostitute drug dealer or, as he thinks of it, 'entrepreneur', Lafayette, is the most interesting character on the show. Even if he's locked up in the Vampire Sheriff's basement chained up like Kunta Kinte in retribution for his having dealt 'V' (which is vampire blood which is a hallucinagenic drug in their world) he lives! And has a storyline. So yay.

And I was even somewhat interested in Sookie's brother's plot. Not because he's interesting in and of himself, but because it provided necessary counterbalance if they really want anyone to take the whole "vampire rights' plot at all seriously. When even the vampire 'hero' Bill is in fact murderous, it makes it hard to think that the anti-vampire people are prejudiced rather than just 'not crazy'. Having the plot where Sookie's brother and his girlfriend had a nice, wholly non-threatening vampire chained up with silver in the basement in order to drink his blood because of their 'V' addiction at least muddied the waters on exactly who is the victim and who is the victimizer here.

Unfortunately, as promising as some of the secondary characters are, I find the Sookie/Bill thing to be rather lame. Been there, done that, shouldn't the people producing the show know enough about the genre to know what has already been done to death? (I saw an interview with the writer/producer that he'd never seen Buffy or read Anne Rice. Well, if you're going to be treading some of the same ground, it would behoove him to know what ground has already been trod).

[femmenerd.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to see what it's going to be like watching this season having now read the books. I mean, I don't mind that they're different on principle. And there are things I like more and less about each. But I *like* Sookie a lot more as a character in the books. Luckily, the books are more about her than the show is, so.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I figured that she was probably more likable in the books because I'm not sure exactly where the stuff that's bugging me in her characterization is coming from. It seems to be a combination of things. Part of it is probably from my having watched Season 1 back to back to back for the most part and that probably made it a little more obvious than it would have been otherwise that Sookie's mood varied from obnoxious perkiness to pouting in quick succession based primarily on whether she was getting laid. It just got to be a bit much. Plus the degree of perky may have been an actor choice. It's probably a lot easier to take and to understand in a book that takes longer to read and where we have a far closer POV with the heroine.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Disagree with you on two points:: I find Eric (and Skarsgard) to be excruciatingly hot and fascinating (his detachment and ennui are more interesting to me than any of either Sookie's or Bill's trials), and I think Jason is a boring, disgusting character on whom the writers spend entirely too much time (Kwanten is a mediocre actor as well, although the writers/producers obviously love him, and love him naked and rutting). However, I mostly agree with everything else you've written, although I think I like (and forgive) both Sookie and Bill a little more than you.

That said, I'm looking forward to the premiere tomorrow night. As you've said, TB isn't a good show by most anyone's standards, but it is hugely entertaining and certainly better than the sea of idiotic reality shows and "high concept" series running this summer. S2's prospects seem good: Eric's role is beefed up this year, I've loved Michelle Forbes since her days as Ensign Ro on Star Trek: the Next Generation and I have hope that Lafayette isn't dead (Nelsan Ellis showed up at the premiere AND Alan Ball has changed a lot of Harris's story, so maybe...).

Those accents are atrocious, though. ;)

[thedabara-cds.livejournal.com]

Just had to say - Icon Love!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen enough of Eric to say whether or not he's fascinating, though he does get bonus points for going down to the dungeon with his hair in bleaching foils! LOL! It's just the studied nature of his having his lovely blond locks drapped over his eye just so reminds me of a fifteen year old girl trying to be seductive. Fortunately, Season 2 previews make it look like he'll be amending the look a little.

As for Jason, it's not a matter of liking him. He's a complete idiot who reminds me far too much of One Live to Live's Rex Balsom (http://www.soapcentral.com/oltl/whoswho/rex.php), another character that is too dumb to live. However, I do think his storyline provided a necessary counterpoint to the season in order to maintain the story. If they're going to continue equating blanket vampire hating as being "prejudiced" they can't continue showing all the vampires as murderous. Having Jason and Amy victimizing a seemingly harmless vampire by sucking the vampire's blood muddied up the question of "who's the predator and who is the prey?" Without that story as counterbalance, I'd have to say that it only makes sense to vier vampires as murderers because every other vampire they show is. So I think the story was a good addition to the season though it relied far too much on Skinimax at Night scenes.

And finally, yay! Lafayette isn't dead!

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

The characters I actually like were Tara, Lafayette, and Sam. Tara and Lafayette at least have humor and a way of pointing out the real truth of a situation. Unfortunately Lafayette was murdered by the finale which is a shame because he was the most dynamic and interesting character on the show.

Well... don't be too sure about not seeing more of all three of these characters this Season...
I actually like Bill, Sookie and Eric but your points are valid. I just regard the whole thing as brain candy, the books aren't exactly great literature so I went in expecting the same from the series. And being from the North, I wouldn't know a good Southern accent from a bad one.

Actually, I'm just happy to find something to watch since these days I don't even turn on the set after the local evening news.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well I'm thrilled that Lafayette is alive! (I'm still rooting for the Sookie/Bill romance to implode, though. >:)

[bluekaty.livejournal.com]

Perhpas because I've recently had a hard time to find TV series I really like, I actually quite enjoy True Blood (I've watched up to episode 7 now) and like most of his characters. Probably my favourite character is Tara, I just love her sarcasm and dry delivery and Lafayette is also a hoot. But I don't particularly like Sam, his "straightness" and dislike of vampires makes him a bit too similar to Riley for my taste, while I really like Bill and Sookie and find they have a lot of chemistry together (although their "sex scenes" verge on being silly). I don't like everything although I've not decided what are the things that bother me most yet. Like you and other people here I find the series very entertaining and although sometimes it seems to expect your brain has gone on vacation, I think there is a lot of room for improvement. Perhaps, because it is adaptated from books, it has yet to find its own way of saying what it wants to say.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was entertained by it. It's got a lot of campy good fun in it. It's just flawed. But, hey, it's summer. Campy and fun but flawed still works. And sometimes series need some time to find their feet. Hopefully that'll be the case.

[empresspatti.livejournal.com]

Loved your post!

I've only watched the first 4 eps (Netflix). Its been fun, but I am never going to be really invested in TB. It's kind of like Dexter to me, entertaining and I don't think very much about it after watching. Still, given the lack of goodness on regular broadcast television - this is just fine for entertainment.

Mostly, lately, television has pushed me back into reading books...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, I do think it's campy summer fun, so I'll continue watching. It may be flawed, but it's fun.

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

In the books, their is a reason why the supernatural espically vampires are attracted to Sookie, though I wouldn't spoil you on them. I haven't watched the sereis, I just read the books.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Isn't she part faerie or something? Or is it going to go some Laurel K. Hamilton route? Generic Mary Sue I can handle but Laurel K. Hamilton-like I don't think I can.

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

She is 1/8 th faerie, in fact of royal blood line. So that counts for why the supernatural are attracted to her. I read her and Laurell K Hamilton for brain candy.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think my perceptions of faerie are hopelessly mixed up with Jim Butcher novels. Faerie? I don't trust 'em. >:)

[thedabara-cds.livejournal.com]

I've read the the first few books, and the increasing Mary Sue-ness of Sookie definately originated from there. That's the reason I haven't gotten around to reading the last few books in the series yet.

They've also followed the books storyline more closely on Sookie and Bill then they have any of the supporting characters but those storylines have been better for it. I love this Tara, and Lafayette's my big ol' gay TV boyfriend.

That being said though, there's a couple of interesting things in books 2 through 4 that I think will be fun to see what the show's writers do with them.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Really, Sookie's Mary Sue quotient in the series is pretty high, I'm willing to believe it may reach critical mass in 9 novels.

I love Tara, though. A nd Lafayette is awesome. So glad he's not dead.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering if I wanted to marathon Season One; I seem to see either raves about it, or more like your opinion.

(Of course, I'm just now filled with "dang" because my vampires dissolve into a puddle of goo when they're "eliminated"... and I created that back in 2002. *sigh*)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's entertaining enough. It's worth marathoning. It's just not totally 'teh awesome' or anything. There are things about it that bug. That said, Tara and Lafayette are worth it. They're fun. (Though poor Lafayette is in a whole hell of a lot of trouble. But, hey, at least he's not dead!)

And it's more like a puddle of coagulated blood.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Well, we'll probably rent it sooner or later. (I just started renting "Deep Space Nine" since it's been so long since I've seen it...)

Ah, well, mine are more like a pool of grease, unless you know what you're looking at.... *g*

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

I've been watching this on DVD the past couple of weeks.

I kind of don't mind the over-the-top Southern gothic-ness of it although I snorted during the broody vampire Bill reading poetry scene. I've always found myself more emotionally invested in the supporting characters than the couple whose love is SO EPIC AND TRUE!!! At some point, those lovers become annoying and self centered (e.g. Angel and Buffy).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the poetry reading was (unintentional, I think) camp. And, yet the oh so epic and fated lover thing frequently turns self-centered and annoying. It's why I tend to loathe 'fate' and 'soul mate' type romances.

But, there's enough that isn't Sookie + Bill 4 evah in the story, that I can enjoy it (though find it flawed).

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

I've only read one of the books and not watched the show, but I was tremendously annoyed with the killing without consequences even though the author gave lip service to the vamps supposedly mainstreaming and being subject to human laws). Kind of made me think of cyclists who want the same respect a car gets but don't want to stop at stoplights...

And your description of the "dirty" sex cracked me up :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

To be fair, they at least had Sookie find out about the murder in the season premiere, and she was upset... for about three seconds. I suspect that the series is much darker than the books, though. The series is fairly dark and at times deliberately ookie.

I mean, I have to wonder at the Bill/Sookie sex scenes sometimes because they deliberately make some of the ookie. I mean the 'dirty' sex was dirt-filled filthy literal dirt in cracks and crevices and honestly, it just looks like potentially there would be rocks and sand where they really don't belong. And even the sex in last night's episode. I mean, I know that bill is a vampire and there's deliberate kink for both of them when he's biting her during sex, but to have the blood spilling out all over the sheets and them him kissing her while his mouth is full of blood so that when he pulls away her mouth is full of blood. She's human, the blood isn't supposed to taste good to her.

But, still they've developed the secondary characters and given them plots of their own and I find several of the secondary characters to be entertaining enough that I can put up with how unexcited I am by Sookie and Bill.