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).
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-06-15 05:21 pm (UTC)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).