Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: True Blood season 1 ::
by William the Bloody
Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in a bar & grill type restaurant in a small town in Louisiana. She is young and pretty, friendly and outgoing and generally well-liked... except that she seems to have the uncanny ability to "just know" stuff which kind of weirds people out. Actually, if you are close to Sookie then you know her real ability is to read people's minds. She's gotten used to it and it doesn't bother her so much any more, except that it makes it hard to date what with knowing all of the dirty, filthy things your date is thinking about you and all. So, Sookie has resigned herself to not dating anyone for a while (despite the fact that her boss and close friend Sam is crazy about her), until one day a new face enters the bar and she can't "hear" his mind. Immediately, Sookie has a feeling that her small town has just welcomed its very first vampire patron. Yes, two years ago vampires came out into the public forum, no longer hiding in shadows a secret because the Japanese have developed a synthetic blood called True Blood which vampires can drink and it maintains all of their nutritional needs thereby eliminating the necessity of killing humans to stay alive. With vampires out and about comingling with regular people, True Blood is available to buy like any other bottled drink in convenience stores and restaurants. Unfortunately, Sookie's customer is their first vampire and all of their True Blood has long since gone bad, but he doesn't mind and in fact behaves like a perfect Southern gentleman. He is, in fact Bill Compton, a Southern man of the old school, a veteran of the Civil War with roots in this very Louisiana community, and having just received word that his last living relative in the area has passed away, Bill has come to claim his old family estate and move back in to the old Compton house which his own parents' built. Sookie is thrilled to have met her first vampire and have him be such a polite and handsome gentleman, but others in the community don't feel the same and are very wary of his presence and when some local women start turning up dead it's only natural that "the vampire" be among their first suspects.
The Good: Curse you, Alan Ball! First American Beauty (a great film!), then "Six Feet Under" (a great five season series!), and now this, "True Blood," another fine achievement! I was worried since the series was vampire based that he would miss the mark with it, but brother, it is right on! It is always interesting to see how a new writer will tackle the mythology and I'm liking his take on vampires so far. Vampires DO have reflections, on the basis that vampires perpetuated the "no reflection" falsehood in order to "prove" that they weren't really vampires if in a tight spot. Garlic is kind of annoying to them due to their strong sense of smell, but nothing else. They do not cower before the cross and it in fact has no effect on them. The sun does not cause them to burst into flames, but it will weaken them, cause their skin to blister, and then slowly and painfully kill them after prolonged exposure, which I can agree with seeing as to how Bram Stoker wrote that Dracula could go out during the day but was in a weakened state. They do not have to sleep in coffins; Bill doesn't but we meet other vampires later who do. Other than extensive sun exposure, vampires can be killed by a stake through the heart and by fire and can be restrained by silver (even a dainty piece of jewelry silver is impossible for a vampire to break or remove). These vampires have fangs that extend and contract either on command or by instinct (which is accompanied by a cool little "snikt" type sound effect). One thing I like in particular is that the vampires have a sense of rules and organization within their own community with a pretty strict sense of adherence to their decorum when it comes to each other, and that some are trying to extend a certain courtesy to humans while others couldn't give a damn about human "cattle." Onto other aspects of the show, the main cast is is pretty darn great. We have Academy Award winner Anna Paquin as the lead Sookie Stackhouse and British actor Stephen Moyer as vampire Bill Compton and let me just say that since they are both foreigners they do an outstanding job faking and maintaining Louisiana accents. It really is spot on. There is a lot of nudity on this show since it is on HBO and all, but there is goodies for the guys AND the ladies to like since Sookie's womanizing brother is half-naked half of the time and even I'll admit that he is one fine looking guy. Heck, if I looked like that maybe I'd be half naked half the time, too. The show is pretty darn well written and well directed, delivering funny, dramatic, and sad moments in a genuine way. Oh and the the opening theme song is totally wicked!
The Bad: Quite a bit of the time I felt like Sookie's character was bipolar or something. She just seemed to go from being really furious to happy-go-lucky very often, but then this could subconsciously stem from her mind reading ability. I was really disappointed with the season finale episode. Sure, it resolved the season long arc of who the murderer was and all, but at the end I was kind of hoping for something bigger, especially in the cliffhanger department. The series had some really well done episode to episode cliffhangers, so I naturally thought they'd kick it up a notch for the season ender, but they really didn't and it was a let down.
All in all, I liked it. This brand of vampire is their own take without bastardizing it (*cough*Twilight-sparkly-vampires*cough*), which I like. There are also some really good characters and interesting situations which make this series easy to sink your teeth into. I cannot stress enough the amount of nudity and the violence with blood the show has, so if you don't like that stuff, this show may not be for you. But, if you like vampires or dramas with a supernatural twist, this is right up your dark alley.
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