Everything Wrong-- and Right-- with 2008's True Blood

With the recent announcement of Roberto Acguirre Sacasa's True Blood reboot, I was inspired to revisit one of my favorite TV series-- the original, 2008 True Blood. As a lover of the beautiful American South  and all things paranormal romance, True Blood was right down my alley. While I was too young to watch it when it was first airing, I watched it all on streaming services a few years later and instantly fell in love. A show centered around vampiric love triangles and all set in Louisiana? How could I not love it. 

So, when they announced in December of 2020, they were rebooting the show, I was ecstatic. Then I saw who the show runner was, and I got less excited. And then I read some of the books and became even less excited. Not because the books weren't great (because they were), but because I started to see and remember some glaring issues from the show. However, since that December 2020 announcement it's been difficult to find any more recent updates on the shows progress, so to sate my True Blood craving, I decided to re-watch the series. 

Although I had some pretty big issues with the first three seasons, I did remember why I loved it originally, and even found some things I love now. First and foremost is Eric Northman in general. I love him so much I have a sims version of him in my Sims 4 save right now. I have stood strong in my stance that Eric and Sookie should have ended up together and the fact that they didn't in either the show or the book series is the most depressing thing I've heard. Ever. 

Eric and Sookie have such great scenes together and his redemption arc is legendary. I genuinely think that Eric knew Sookie better than anyone else in the show and he still loved her. The fact that he bought her house when she disappeared at the end of season 3 because he "knew she was still alive" is all the proof I need that they're soulmates. 

So while a lot of my positives are pretty Eric-centric, there are a few more things that the series did well. I love the original concept, I feel like all of my other vamp-media sets its sights on vampires being a secret and it's so boring to me. Especially when these shows use vampirism as allegory. For example, True Blood pretty clearly utilized vampirism as a homosexuality allegory. The entire A-plot of the second season is Sookie investigates a human church that pounds the message that "God hates Fangs" (really subtle) into its congregations head. The first major vampire rights advancement in the show is the legal right to vampire marriage. The Vampire Diaries did the same thing-- remember Carolyn and her vamp-phobic-gay dad's conversion therapy plot? 

I loved the opening credits. I know it's a small thing to enjoy, but I did. I think it's great. The whole thing kind of reminds me of the American Horror Story openings (which I also love), with the choppy, short shots, loosely related to the show. And the song is perfect. Every time I hear it I think of the show.

I also loved that these old vampires actually felt old. Bill's old attitude towards dating is very apparent as he asks Sookie if he "may call on her" and they have arguments about Sookie's modern clothing choices (a bit sexist, but goes to show Bill's age). Eric barely talks like a person for the first season and a bit. 

The show also uses one of my favorite vampire tropes-- that they can't enter a home unless invited. This is a trope often forgotten and I don't understand why. If there's really all these crazy strong, killer vamps out there, then no where is even remotely safe for humans. Unless these vamps can't enter the humans house. Then within the walls of their homes, no vampire can get to them. However, this plot is quickly ruined as in Season 2, bad-vamp Franklin compels Tara to invite him in-- therefore negating any power any human had in defending themselves and staying safe. 

Lastly, the acting is really, really good. A scene that I've thought about since I saw it and will continue thinking about weekly until I die is the Season 3 episode 9 end, where Dennis O'Hare rips out the spine of a newscaster and delivers an epic monologue to the camera, all while holding a bloodied spine in his fist. It's one of the best moments in television, in my opinion. Lafeyette and Tara's relationship genuinely makes the characters feel like family. Honestly, I love any scene Lafeyette is in, the actor is incredible and so charismatic. 

While there's a lot that I loved, I also had a lot of issues with the show. First and foremost, I hated how many characters there were and how each and every one of them had their own plot line-- plot lines which almost never cross over with the A-plot! 

For example, what was the purpose of having Sam have any plot line after the end of his love triangle with Sookie? Who cares about Sam's found-family pack of shifters? Or his terrible real family, whose names I already can't remember. Why is Jason anything more than a casual character after he escapes the Fellowship of the Sun? Even Sookie and Tara's-- her best friend-- plotlines cross over maybe once a season. The perfect example is in season two. The majority of season two is spent with Sookie in Dallas doing vamp stuff, and Tara being dramatic in Bon Temps, then Sookie's plot wraps up and she comes back home for 3 episodes and solves Tara's problems in those episodes. That's it. They don't interact outside of those 3 episodes and for most of those episodes, Tara's evil anyways. So what's the point? 

They don't feel like best friends, they don't talk for large sections of most seasons. 

I think this show would be so, so much better without all these various side plots. Keep Sookie's A-plots and let the side characters just be side characters, with maybe 2 or 3 side plots for them. I think I enjoyed the books a lot more than the show for this reason. In the book, we only get Sookie's point of view. There's no extra information of various side characters that I don't care about. 

It's these side plots that I blame for how terrible the show gets after the end of the potential Eric-Sookie love story. I think the first time I watched this show, I stopped watching maybe a season (if not sooner) after Eric and Sookie break up. I just stopped caring, I skipped through most of the scenes after that, they ruined Bill, Sam was never really an option (except in the books), and Alcide was just there for a Twilight moment. Boring. 

The supernatural effect is the phenomenon that many paranormal TV shows encounter where a couple seasons in, the show completely forgets what made it good in the first place, and starts trying to do these big, "time to save the world" things. In Supernatural, they forgo the cool, ghost hunting plots of each episode and start trying to fight the devil. In comparison, Good Omens starts and ends as a save-the-world plot. There's no episode in the middle of them trying to find the antichrist, where Aziraphale and Crowley just go on a trip to the Grand Canyon. True Blood stops being a love triangle in a small town and then they're fighting vampires with magic fairy light (a whole other issue) and B+E-ing vampire lairs.

The last thing thing that ruined True Blood is Bill's terrible arc. Sookie goes missing for a year at the end of season three and by the time she gets back, Bill is the absolute worst. I get that in the shows timeline it was a year, but to the watcher, especially one streaming the show, it's like 5 seconds, and Bill's change is jarring. I hate it. 

All in all, I do still regard True Blood as one of my favorite vampire dramas, but mostly because of the first 3 seasons. Eric really saves the show for me, and everything after their love plot gets really boring for me. If we do ever get the reboot, I'll probably watch a few episodes and hope for a different ending, but I can't imagine anyone else playing Sookie than Anna Paquin. And Acguirre-Sacasa's writing will probably ruin the show pretty quickly.