Monday, July 30, 2012

My Review of True Blood's 5x08: "Somebody That I Used To Know"


Written by Mark Hudis
Directed by Stephen Moyer

Eric: “What are you doing?”
Bill: “Evolving.”

It’s amazing how Bill’s idea of evolution seems to entail the idea of mass genocide and vampires basically taking over the world by reverting to their true form. Also, the urge to compare and contrast this storyline to the main one from Being Human’s fourth series is rather tempting but it seems that Eric falls more into the Hal way of thinking than the Mr Snow/Cutler one too.

I started this season keeping an open mind towards Salome as a character but now that we’re hurtling towards the end of the season, I’m eagerly counting the moments as to when the true death will befall her and trying to guess who will end up doing the honours. Surely, Russell will be in the mood to do a little usurping again, won’t he?

Salome like Lorena before her has managed to become something of a bad influence on Bill. Yes, the character has always had his slier of moments but even I believed that Bill was genuinely committed to the idea of mainstreaming. Lilith’s blood must be powerful stuff to sway his opinion because Salome’s rationing sure as hell wouldn’t convince me to eat my most loathed of vegetables, never mind actually declare war on humanity.

I did like seeing the after effects of everyone tripping out on Lilith’s blood though. Steve and Russell’s nonstop flirting with each other was a joy to watch but Eric’s realisation that he’s currently the only sane vampire of the bunch was even more gripping. I was hoping that he would’ve gotten through to Nora as well but sadly, she’s under the influence of both Salome and Lilith that she dared to sully Godric’s name by calling him an apologist.

I really before this season is done with that that we get some meaty flashbacks with Eric, Nora and Godric because I really do want to see how this particular trio came about and I have a feeling that Nora will also be one of many casualties within the next four episodes as well. I still prefer to Salome but not by a great margin though. On the plus side, at least with Roman out of the way, the Authority storyline has finally had some spark of life injected into it.

Speaking of injecting things into the show – it would take Sookie and the fairy folk to go and forge a psychic link with Warlow the vampire but I like the fact that it allowed us to get an appearance from Claudine, more involvement from Claude, Claudia and Claudette and even some quality scenes with Sookie and Jason as well.

I liked Jason a lot in this episode. He was empathetic with Sookie while giving some solid reasons as to why she should maintain the faerie abilities that she has and his determination to avenge his parents’ death is far better than having just banging random girls instead. Overall, this is a solid enough storyline for the Stackhouse siblings and their fae kin and it works for me, plot wise too.

Keeping with the things that worked – thank you, Hoyt. I’m glad that Jessica being kidnapped by those idiot supernatural killers was the very thing to snap him out of it. It’s just too bad that by rescuing Jessica (by not shooting her with wooden bullets/silver core), he only went and made an enemy of that lot but with any luck, Luna will do us all a favour and kill the evil feckers and pronto too.

Speaking of Luna – her turning into Sam was interesting and once again, bloody fantastic acting from Sam Trammell in duel roles again. I liked that Luna ultimately survived this episode too. I know she’s not to everyone’s tastes but there are certainly worse characters out there and at least her and Sam’s current storyline has a purpose to it as well.

Last but not least, I really hated seeing Tara taking Tracy as a food whore because of Pam. Yes, the woman was an idiotic, racist bitch who needed taking down a peg or two but I don’t like the idea of Pam trying to make Tara into her image and I wish Tara would fight her on it as well. Lafayette really needs to step in there right about now as does Sookie too.

Also in “Somebody That I Used To Know”

Purple and green beads were a thing this week with Russell and Steve and also Nora and Salome as well.

Eric: “What the hell happened?”
Bill: “We saw her. She appeared to us. We saw Lilith.”

We also saw Bill refusing to give his dying daughter, Sarah immortality in flashbacks as well as a brief appearance from Jesus as well.

Jason: “If you were normal, you never would’ve met Bill.”
Sookie: “Yeah, big loss there.”

Russell (re Lilith): “God has the most beautiful tits I’ve ever seen.”

Why the hell is Nigel being allowed to join the group? Even vampires should have standards considering his unhealthy interest in eating only kids.

Alcide: “Do you wanna be my girlfriend?”
Rikki: “Maybe.”

Sarah: “I want to live.”
Bill: “No.”
Sarah: “Why?”
Bill: “Immortality is a curse.”

Alcide lost out to pack master to JD but he did manage to sleep with Rikki and both her and Martha prevented JD from killing him as well. JD also seems keen on hunting college kids as well, which ain’t good.

Claude (to Sookie/Jason): “I care about the two of you. Our families have a bond. We have a bond.”

Lafayette: “Are you fucking real?”
Jesus: “Does it matter?”

Zaafira, the woman that Terry killed wants both him and Patrick to kill each other in order to get rid of the Ifrit. I got a laugh out of Lafayette charging Arlene and Holly for his medium services. Also is Maxine the supernatural killers’ leader?

Tracy: “Jeez, you’re the same as you were in high school, all uppity.”
Tara: “Uppity? Listen, you white trash fuck twat, we’re not in high school anymore, so if you let anymore of that racist bullshit fall out of your mouth, I’m gonna open up your heart and fry it up with some grits.”

Stephen Moyer also directed this episode as well, making him the first cast member of the series to step behind the camera.

Pam (to Tara): “You don’t know me that well. My mad face and my happy face are the same.”

Standout music: Not a certain Gotye song (which didn’t feature) but Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokescreen Lightening” instead.

Lafayette (re Zaafira): “I ain’t playing. She is talking to me and she is fucking mad.”

Chronology: From where “In The Beginning” left off.

Overall, “Somebody That I Used To Know” is a strong enough episode, forwarding a lot of the plots, adding some more chaos into the mix but for an impacting shift in attitude when it came to Bill, the final scene lacked a certain bite to it. Am I the only one who thought as much?

Rating: 8 out of 10

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