True Blood Season 4 Ep 1 – She’s Not There SPOILER Note

Blog Originally Posted in Vampire Loving Dorks June 2011 – Reposting as Season 5 2012 Blogs will be here

Greetings and Salutations!!!! If you are reading this note today (Saturday June 25th) then congratulations lol you are probably as bad a spoiler whore as I am 😀 lmao.

BUT I don’t actually have any spoilers to post today.  I am posting this NOW in preparation for Sunday’s premiere and hoping it will help keep spoilers off the wall.

I will post my review on Monday but everyone should feel free to post their reviews / comments/ questions about episode one below.

Edit – Monday 27th to add MY REVIEW

So after almost a year of speculation and anticipation the night of the premier finally arrived.  As many of you already know from the spoiler videos season 4 starts out with Sookie trapped in a SyFy channel movie special … no wait its Fairyland (sorry the TERRIBLE special effects confused me for a minute there!).  So Sookie is in Fairyland and quickly works out all is not as it seems and that it is its own little time zone where her Granddaddy Earl has been for the last 20 years even though he feels it has only been a couple of hours.  Cue 8 mins of total yawnville stupidity which thankfully ends with Sookie plummeting back to the cemetery.  LOVE the moment she arrives and you get a quick flash to Eric and Bill and they suddenly become aware she is back.

Once Sookie is back (complete with Grandaddy Earl but not for long …. he ate the fairyfruit)….. she discovers that she has actually been gone for over a year!!!!!  Now in many shows this for me would be the kiss of death …. anytime you skip great big chunks for me is normally a cop-out but in this case it REALLY works.  It allows for a lot of changes and developments that could not have been accomplished any other way.

Well then what has happened in the year Sookie has been gone.  Jason has become a cop and sold Sookie’s house to a mysterious initialed company (more on that later).  He seems a lot older and more confident and we later learn that he has continued taking care of the creepy hotshot freak show by taking them food and trying, unsuccessfully, to get them to be a little closer to normal.  On top of that he seems to be having to handle a V addicted Andy Bellefleur who continues to obsess over the silliest things (in this episode he is mad he lost out on this plaque for safest streets just because of Sookie).  He continues to provide me with some fun comic relief and distract me from some of the less appealing storylines.

Sam continues to run Merlottes but we are definitely seeing a harder side to him than in the previous seasons.  We get to see that he didn’t kill Tommy although he did cause some major damage to Tommy’s leg.  Tommy for his part has become a good little Christian boy apparently and for some reason yet to be revealed he is living with Maxine Fortenberry … yes weird!!!!  Sam alludes to an anger management group he has been attending and we actually get to see this group a little later in the episode and it turns out they are either “true shifters” like Sam – or – they are Were-Horses.  Yes you read that right ….. HORSES!!!  Dear Mr Ball ….. WTF are you on?????

SO …. onto the witches that have been highly advertised as being this years villains.  Lafayette and Jesus are going strong and Jesus is responsible for bringing Lala to the crazy coven that Holly is already a member of and we get to meet crazy Marney.  On the first visit Lafayette feels that Marney’s show of power is just a trick but when he returns the next day and they bring a bird temporarily back to life he just knows that things are about to get a little insane in quiet old Bon Temps.  Lala seems to have triggered this new power surge in Marney and we all know that this is going to be a bad, bad thing for the Louisiana Vamps.

Talking of bad, bad things …. Terry and Arlene have had Rene’s evil baby and with the skip in time we get to see  the little creep at about 7 months old having just pulled the heads off of a bunch of Barbie dolls.  Just “boy” behavior as Terry thinks or the first signs of Rene raising his little psycho head??? I am sure we will be seeing more but either way this baby looks creepy IMO!!!

Before we get to the vamps, which lets be honest is them main reason most of us watch this lol … I feel the need to briefly mention Tara.  *sigh*   To me this was the “Mickens” story of this season.  Is it just me or would this episode have been just as complete with just a reference to the fact that Tara has gone.  Instead we get to see her in her new life as a fighter called Toni in New Orleans complete with fighter girlfriend.  I honestly have no idea what the point of this story is and I don’t think I care either.

Onto the vamps …. Jessica and Hoyt are living in not so much happy bliss.  There are definitely cracks starting to appear in that relationship …. cracks that Pam is more than happy to point out when she finally stops laughing at the whole idea of being monogamous with a human.  Talking of Pam she was in fine form in this episode with her reluctance to do a vampire PR commercial to her spot on analysis of Jessica’s relationship.  It’s great to see they are keeping her edgy and as disdainful of things as ever!!

So finally onto Eric and Bill.  There are many clues early on that things have changed in the dynamic of their relationship but it isn’t until the very end that it is revealed quite how drastically things have changed.  At the end of season 3 we saw Bill fighting the Queen.  Well its obvious right at the beginning that he survived but what we find out at the very end is that not only did he survive … he is now THE KING and thus Eric’s BOSS!!!!  For me this was just a complete travesty and I cannot for the life of me work out what Alan Ball thinks he is doing but I really hope his plan turns out not to be as stupid as the whole Maenad thing from season 2 ….. can you say giant egg anyone?????? The ONLY plus  for me was that Eric was the only one not to have given up on Sookie to the extent that he bought the house so can now come and go as he pleases …. and he seems to be more than happy to take advantage of that fact claiming Sookie as HIS after appearing in her room as she emerges naked.  Oh Eric how we have missed you!!!

Cliffhangers for this week ….. sneaky witch for Lala’s new coven is actually a spy for Evil King Bill …. and crazy hotshot panthers have shoved Jason into a freezer and locked him in.  Poor Jason had been doing so well too lol ……..

Memorable Lines (nothing as outstanding as Conscience On Dick off from last season’s premier)

“It smells like where old air fresheners come to die” – Lafayette

“It’s just boys ….when I was a kid I used to put squirrel heads on lizard bodies and create new animals” – Terry about his possibly psychotic baby lol

“I have proof – scientific – that people are far dumber than they realise” – Nan Flanigan

(M V””V)

Start With Jeaniene Frost, Add A Dash Of True Blood, And Finish With A Pinch Vampire Law……. V””V

 Lots of things have been going on in my crazy vampire filled life since my last posting,  from starting a sister, “TimeLine” banner making site for the Vampire Loving Dorks Facebook page, to watching reruns of True Blood, and scouring the web for spoilers and teasers as June approaches with Season 5 (AND the exciting release of Once Burned by Jeaniene Frost – We finally get to read Vlad’s story), to harassing my friend Mish’s boyfriend who is fast learning that vampires are not just a part of fictional adventures but feature heavily in some people’s everyday life.  Add to that running a family and breaking in a new puppy it is safe to say insanity has reigned here for the last month or so.

Well now I’m back with thoughts and so many things to say that I will try to keep things organized but I make no promises.  After all I don’t call it vampyric musings for nothing.  The posts go where my vampire obsessed mind takes them.  So with that in mind let us begin with Jeaniene Frost (Who actually posted on my Vampire Loving Dorks Site yesterday …… yes all the moderators were more than a little thrilled to say the very least …. picture very girlish squeals, some general screaming and immediate texting and that will give you the idea).  Jeaniene is probably my all time favorite Vampire novelist (and no not just because she took the time to post on my site).  Don’t get me wrong I adore too many writers to list them all here, from Anne Rice to Bram Stoker, Kerrelyn Sparks to John Polidori, and pretty much ANYTHING vampyric in between, but there is something about Jeaniene’s vampires and their world that has captured me and is holding me hostage with little chance of escape.

On a daily basis I will make at least one reference to her version of vampire rules, laws, hierarchy, or adventures.  My friends that I introduce the books to call me Sire and we refer to the Master hierarchy frequently referred to in the books. A little strange perhaps but as I have stated before I am beyond addicted, often skirting the line between reality and fantasy, with darkness surrounding me like a cloak, lurking around every corner, so deeply a part of me that sometimes I am amazed that any light escapes.

With that I am going to jump to a slightly different obsession which whilst not as prevalent as it was a couple of years ago it still occupies a large amount of my thinking time as I try to work out what plot twists are going to occur, and reading far too much into actions and objects that often pan into nothing.  I am of course talking about the TV show True Blood. As June comes closer and little clips start leaking out I start trying to guess what will be happening.  How the cliff hangers from last season will be resolved.  How the questions that I have been mulling over for the last year will finally be answered. I look forward to the heated discussions with my husband, who just loves to bait me with his adoration of Bill Compton, who is, quite possibly the most useless vampire ever created in my opinion!  As I re-watched Season 2 recently it was clearer than ever that as vampires go he is pretty near the bottom of the pyramid.  I think so little of him that I even missed a complete error when Bill referred to Hoyt when talking to Jessica.

Now to many people this would not be a big deal but I scour this show looking for inconsistencies, signs that may or may not mean something in the larger scheme of things. I have read numerous books devoted to the philosophy and deeper meaning in the show from the colors that people wear, to a step by step break down of possible meanings in the credits. Apparently I am not alone as my lovely Lauren informed me that there is a blog (unfortunately she couldn’t remember the link), where they analyze everything that is shot stating that sometimes furniture is deliberately misplaced when you are supposed to be seeing things through Bill’s eyes as his regard for these things “Human” are really non-existent except for Sookie.

 My husband noticed the quite blatant name mistake so how did I, after watching this episode too many times to even count, fail to catch it?  Well my answer is this.  I care so little for what Bill says I tend to pretty much tune him out, but now I find myself wondering, was this a deliberate mistake thrown in there to show how little regard Bill has for humans that he can’t be bothered to learn a name?  With a vampire’s superior memory surely this would not be likely? Or is it that Stephen Moyer just got it wrong with filming and the directors, like me, didn’t catch it because they didn’t care … or they did catch it and just said leave it for the obsessives to make something out of *sigh*.  Either way, now that I know, it is bugging me!

Talking of things that bug me,  I wish they would leave Eric Northman alone!  As I have been watching from the beginning we have seen the stong, enigmatic, viking vampire slowly devolve into a pussy whipped poor imitation of himself.  His voice has lost its detached, bored quality as he looked with contempt on the world around him having lived for a 1000 years and seen a multitude of changes.  Some have argued it was the loss of his maker in the show that started the decline but I am not convinced.  Even at the beginning of Season 3 while he is “entertaining” in his basement remnants of the original Eric are clearly visible, but by the end of Season 4 you can hardly see them.  Now you would think with my hatred of Bill Compton, my general annoyance by Sookie (not discussed but I assure you I am with Pam having had more than enough of her), my dislike of Eric’s humanized attitude, and don’t even get me started on the Weres, that I would not be looking forward to the new Season.  But you would be wrong!  I can’t wait!  I am anxiously waiting for Sunday as HBO has promised the first sneak peek to be shown before Game Of Thrones. So I will be glued to the set for that and then will watch over and over looking for clues that probably mean nothing, but I will be amused and desperately waiting and hoping that we get another new one next week.

Which brings me nicely to the final part of today’s musings. The pinch of Vampire Law. As I mentioned earlier we have been having fun tormenting Mish’s boyfriend who had no idea how deep our little vampire addiction went and lead to the little sign made at the end of the blog. A reflection of the rules as discussed by Jeaniene Frost in her Night Huntress Series and their Spin Off Novels.  Little did he know, to use Annette’s classic words, that he would be a “Fang Toy Boy” if we so chose and as we pointed out to his poor confused self that under said law I could call him my property should the notion take me.  Oh to tell him that he should have read the vampire small print before starting his relationship was hilarious.  To give him credit he was amused by the whole thing …. however, he may change his mind if he really knew how seriously we take this  ………

Remember “There is only one way to fight, and that’s dirty. Clean gentlemanly fighting will get you nowhere but dead, and fast. Take every cheap shot, every low blow, absolutely kick people when they’re down, and maybe you’ll be the one who walks away.” (Bones – Halfway To The Grave)

V””V

Rules Adapted From Jeaniene Frost’s One Foot In The Grave – A Cat And Bones Novel 

Yes I Am In Love With Fictional Characters – No It Does Not Mean I Love The Actors – And Yes My Vampire Obsession Lurks In Every Facet Of My Life! V””V

So this is something that after watching a True Blood Panel at the June first event 2010 was lurking around in my mind and was originally written back in October of 2010 …. and rewritten and edited for the Vampire Loving Dorks page in April of 2011 and now here it is again, re-edited, revamped, and still very much a topic in my everyday musings.

A lot of us here would probably agree that we love vampires.  Many, such as myself , find that vampire links are possible with everything … even a trip to Chuck E Cheeses!  Characters appear on-screen and are referenced to various portrayals in previous vampire based shows, for example we were watching “Amy Burley” from True Blood on Fox’s show “New Girl” …. I recently spotted “Spike” from “Buffy” (Or Angel) as the camera guy at the beginning of the movie House on Haunted Hill … “Daphne” from True Blood was in “CSI Miami” …. and so the list, and the connections would seem to me to be endless.

So where does the character end and the actor begin?  Many who are into True Blood or the Sookie Stackhouse Novels would probably consider themselves either Team Eric or Team Bill to some extent or another, but is it Eric the character that people adore or is it the way Alexander Skarsgard portrays him??? What if the original talks had gone ahead and Alexander Skarsgard played Bill???? Would there be more Team Bill fans now with the same adoration for all things AS or does the character create the buzz???

For me its easy … I love Eric from the books and adore the screen Eric and feel that AS really embodies him but I do feel that as long as the portrayal was similar I would probably have felt the same devotion to another Eric. Would I have paid more attention to Bill with Alexander Skarsgard playing him??? Quite probably as he is certainly very easy on the eye lol but would I be a Team Bill player??? Somehow I can’t see it.

My latest “Character love’ is Mitchell from the BBC UK Show “Being Human” (Not to be confused with the poor attempt American copy of the same shown which had a vampire named Aiden – Possibly a nod to Aidan Turner that plays the UK vampire Mitchell?? and pale insignificant versions of the same stories … anyway .. I digress …..  As I was saying Mitchell is possibly one of the darkest portrayals of a vampire on television I have seen EVER.  And yes I adore him.  I love the darkness … I get excited when he vamps out and goes murdering people .. and I especially like it when he decides humanity has wronged him and along with a friend totally destroys a train full of perfectly innocent passengers in the most gruesome way you can imagine.  Rather than being shocked I embrace this side of the vampire. I prefer it to the twinkling tortured “vegetarian” teen vamps or  love-sick, pining to be human again creatures trying to fit in.  But now that Mitchell is no more (makes me want to sob all over again just typing it) I see a lot of fans now looking to see what he is going to be in next just as many “Eric” fans watch everything that Alexander Skarsgard does.  Not me ….  mine is definitely entrenched in the “character love” category.  It is Mitchell the vampire I am in love with and not Aidan Turner (sexy and gorgeous though he might be.  If I ever met him I would only be thinking Mitchell).

This “Character love” can be applied to many other vampires such as those in the Twilight Saga.  Team Edward is “alive and well” (yes I don’t understand it either but just look around and you will see that it is absolutely thriving).  Take my mother for example, she, who has never understood my love for all things vampyric is suddenly Team Edward in the largest way almost to the point of being delusional.  She refer’s to “Edward” as the main part of Robert Pattinson’s being, for example a recent phone call involved her berating the English Press because of how they portrayed “Edward” in the papers as drunk and uncouth.She is constantly telling me that she is going to watch, or has watched the new film that “Edward” not “Robert” is starring in.

So when does the fictional character take over the actor that portrays them?  For me it’s never! I love my fantasy book vampires and whilst I enjoy (for the most part) seeing them portrayed on the screen and it certainly allows me to discuss them more with my husband, who might die rather than read one of my vampire novels, never do the actors portraying them quite match the image in my head.  That is one of the best things about Mitchell from Being Human ….. he has never had to live up to an already living vision in my head.  He was always Mitchell as portrayed by Aidan Turner.  Even though I watched a couple of the US version episodes with basically the same character he was never him!!!

A perfect example dates back to when Interview with the Vampire was being made and Tom Cruise was cast as Lestat.  I was devastated.  How could this actor, whom I had never really liked (although I will confess to enjoying some of his movies), possibly play my blonde hair, blue-eyed devil?  Anne Rice apparently shared my concerns but I must confess when I went to see the movie he had done an admirable job.  He was Lestat, just not my Lestat, but it does however, remain my favorite Tom Cruise movie to date. Then came the Queen Of The Damned.  A mish mash of the next 2 vampire chronicles with none of the actors from the first attempt and a slaughter in the casting department when it came to the lesser vampires.  Stuart Townsend definitely embodied the darker, sarcastic side of Lestat but again fell short from my vampire lover from the books.  This is more relevant now than ever with the question of who will play Lestat being thrust front and centre once more as the movie rights to “Tale Of The Body Thief” have recently been picked up.

So I ask you all …… are you in love with the vampires, or is it the people who play them.  With many books out there waiting to hear about movie or tv deals I am sure there are more fictional vamps just waiting to be bought to life by actors who I am sure dream that their character will become such an obsession that the lines blur between the character and them, and they find themselves stalked to the point of insanity.  As for me, I will keep my love affair with the vampires in my books and my new vampires on the screen, as I am lucky, in the real world I have found the one person to share my darkness and my eternity with.

 V””V

Hush, Hush: The Graphic Novel #1 – A Review V””V

So today’s post is something a little different.  I was offered the opportunity to see an advance copy of the new “Hush Hush” Graphic Novel by Becca Fitzpatrick , illustrated by Jennyson Rosero, due to be released towards the end of March from Sea Lion books in return for writing an honest review of what I thought.

Seeing as this covered 2 of my loves, vampires (actually they are dark angels … thanks for the correction Polly…. I often see vampires where there are none ….) and stating my opinion, how could I resist??? Really it was a no-brainer!

Let me start by saying I had previously read the book “Hush Hush” and so had a perception of how I thought the characters should be, and this is where graphic novels and I often have disagreements. They generally like to take images and run off in a direction that normally makes me yell and scream and want to pull them all kicking and screaming back the other way.  (For those that haven’t read the story without giving too much away this is a typical YA story of high school girl and immortal vamp masquerading in high school for whatever reason is deemed appropriate this time.)  Whilst the depictions are not exactly how I imagined them (let’s be honest they are never going to get my fictional characters exactly right), I have to say for me this wasn’t bad.  Patch definitely hit the right notes of sarcasm and confidence and would definitely be the bad boy who most high school girls would be drawn too even when they don’t want to be.  Nora is a typical confused teenage girl with the slightly “frumpy” best friend and you know that no matter how much she pretends to protest that her and Patch are destined to be drawn together.

I felt that the black and white images kept more to the feel of the original story than many adaptations often do although I did feel the drawings weren’t quite sure whether they wanted to have an anime feel or something with a little more bite and sometimes felt a little “soft” in relation to the story.

Overall I think this was a good YA graphic novel that would appeal to both previous book readers and pure graphic novel enthusiasts looking for something a little different.  It cut off JUST when it started to get into the story making the reader wanting to grab for the as yet non-existent book 2.  Always a good plan!!

V””V

Soul Mates, Psychic Connections, And A Little Black Cup V””V

If you had asked me 15 years ago if I believed in Soul Mates I would have answered with an emphatic NO!  The idea that there is one person out there that you are destined to be with always struck me as ridiculous, especially when my best friend died just after I turned 16 leaving me on a downward spiral which probably ended up at least in some way adding to my love affair with darkness that I so easily embrace today.  That being said growing up being so different never bothered me but I never dreamt that I would find the other half of my soul living over 3000 miles away.  A connection that was so immediate that after I saw him I knew I had to be with him forever.  Not only does he accept me for who I am, he embraces my darkness and completes every fibre of my being.  When I am feeling lost and overwhelmed a simple touch from him helps ground me and reminds me that I am not alone as I stand precariously close sometimes to losing touch with reality. 

This wonderful man has helped me understand that the commercial concept of love that I abhor with all that I am is not the only way despite what Hallmark would like to have everyone believe.  An antique poison ring for an engagement ring, a trip to a cemetery for my birthday, a random vamp inspired jewellery box picked up at a gas station, and sitting through hours and hours of various vampire based musings from tv shows, books, and movies just because he knows I adore them is just the tip of the iceberg.  I cannot even list everything that he does to make my life complete. That is real love.  The shared look, the laughter, the tears, a feeling that your life would end if you couldn’t be together. And he is MINE!

Which leads me to a slightly different connection.  A connection in fact that was initiated by my wonderful husband who had been talking to a lovely woman called Meagan for months and suggested that we should in fact talk to each other rather than the odd message passed through him.  I am pretty sure that he never dreamt that the simple suggestion would lead to a connection so strong that from the other side of the Country we type the same thing at the same time, buy the same things without realizing it, and can often read each others thoughts despite never having physically been in the same room.

People may want to pass things like this off as coincidence, my husband for example used to laugh until even he had to face that something was weird as I was in the emergency room one day and he got a frantic text from Meagan as she “felt” something was wrong.  Now she could have easily have sent me a message and then contact my husband when I didn’t answer but she was so sure something wasn’t right that she went straight to him. And this is not a one-off occurence.  Things like this happen on almost a daily basis.  There are so many things that if I was to begin listing them I would probably still be here several hours from now and not have written them all.

So I will just say this ….. Little Black Cup …. a seemingly innocuous little phrase except that when looking for a name for her coffee company Meagan and I both came up with exactly the same name at the same time, one posted to Facebook as one sent a text.  The time stamps are within seconds. There is no explanation for this it just is what it is.  Take from it what you will but I know that I must have done something really right at some point in my life to have discovered both my soul mate and through him a friend that I would be lost without.  Sometimes life is not so bad after all ………

V””V