True Blood’s biggest weakness has always been the writing, with its strengths being in the characters, aesthetic and world of Bon Temps. That’s what made Season One so damn enjoyable. Despite the fact that the acting was B-movie (on purpose) and the plot wasn’t by any means profound, it was a unique and interesting world to get lost in. But as the show progressed, the writers tried to expand on this universe—with mixed results.
Last season, this started to catch up to them. Too many new characters were introduced; every main character had their own individual sub-plot, and usually without any of the other characters involved; and the jump in locations was jarring. The problem with this kind of writing is, if a particular arc isn’t any good, the audience has to endure it all season long. And without the other characters involved to balance it out, you’re kind of just stuck riding out the arc until they jump to another. And ultimately what this does is take the audience away from the world they once knew and break it up into pieces.
Season Four carries over some of those bad habits. Two episodes in, we’ve already been introduced to new characters. Sam is hanging out with new group of shape sifters and already has a new love interest. Lafayette and his lover Jesus have joined a Witch covenant where we meet the leader Marnie. And there are already singular arcs being developed that are completely unrelated to one another—such as Jason being turned into a werepanther by Crystal and her pack. On top of that, we’re having to deal with a plot device introduced in the season premiere, which had Sookie gone for an entire year. So just like Sookie, we’re all having to come to terms with Bon Temps having these drastic changes. On the one hand, it made the premiere interesting. It started the season off with a “starting new” vibe. But now that that has worn off, we have to deal with the fact that we didn’t get to see any of the progression that led up to this point. This is a dilemma. Either the writers are going to have to spend the rest of the season using exposition in the form of flashbacks to fill us in on how things went down, or we are just going to have to accept that a year went by without getting to see how things became the way they are.
Take for instance Jessica and Hoyt. Last we saw of them, they were madly in love and had just moved in together. Immediately into the season, they are at each other’s throats fighting. And now she is off feeding on other people behind Hoyt’s back. Because it’s been a year that they have been together, it’s realistic. Couples fight. But to the audience, we just saw them an episode ago being deeply in love. It’s these kind of moments that make the jump ahead in time device somewhat risky. On the other hand, this “reset” also worked to their advantage. Tara’s stories for instance, were a complete drag the last two seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved her as a character. But the writers made her play the victim way too long. There are only so many times she can get kidnapped and abused before it starts to get annoying. I missed the foul-mouthed badass Tara from the first half of season one. So getting to see her as a cage fighter, and with all her confidence back was refreshing. Similarly, it was nice to see Jason finally make something of himself as a police officer. What is perhaps the most interesting change of all of this is Bill becoming the new King of Louisiana. This new position really gives his character a lot of possibility in regards to his plot, but most importantly, it changes his dynamic with others. I loved when Eric had to answer to him, even though Eric had been taunting Bill all last season for being his younger.
It remains to be seen if the addition of the Witches is enough to shake up the world of Bon Temps. They don’t come across as particularly villainous, as half of the covenant is characters we’ve already come to know. And based off what we have seen, it only seems like they are a threat to the vampires. But even with the vampires, there was no indication of a threat until Bill sent Eric to shut them down. So it will be interesting to see how they develop Marnie, and what exactly is so dangerous about her. Just like Jesus says, it’s not the magic, but the person that uses it. My guess is that Marnie will open up something she shouldn’t (spiritually), and something will possess her. As the Marnie we saw in this episode was very absent-minded and generally seemed harmless. Then again, it wasn’t until the middle of season three that we really got to see how evil Russell Edgington was; there is a lot of room to develop the witches.
“You Smell Like Dinner” was enjoyable, but mostly served as a stepping stone to set up all the various plot arcs for the coming season. Because of this, most of it was just jumping around from character to character and planting the seeds for what is to come. Thankfully, they kept most of the individual stories in Bon Temps this time. And hopefully they will find a way to bring it all together. Unlike Season three, for the most part, all of the new plots seem interesting from the start. Eric losing his memory offers up a lot of potential, as we finally got to see him truly vulnerable again with all of his ego and confidence stripped away. Jason having a new strength and power will finally allow him to be a part of the game, instead of being on the sidelines. And Bill’s newfound position really breathes new life into his character. Although, I am a bit worried about the “Andy being addicted to V” and “Arlene thinking her baby is evil” arcs, because for the first two episodes they just came off as being distractions. Generally though, season four offers a lot of possibility. And if they focus on what made the show great in the first place—the characters and the world—then this could even be a great season. But for now, we are kind of left on the outer edges as they are setting up the season, and only time will tell if this develops into something fully great, or just another season of hit-or-miss stories. Either way, there is enough to keep fans hooked in and coming back for more.