Monday, June 24, 2013

My Review of True Blood's 6x02: "The Sun"


Written by Angela Robinson
Directed by Daniel Attias

Burrell (to Eric): “It’s time for humans to bite back.”

Well, so far the human race seems to have finally caught up to vampires and it seems that Truman Burrell is actually a legitimate threat to vampires in a way that the Fellowship Of The Sun managed to be but only better. He even managed to get the better out of Eric until the latter resorted into a little kidnapping in order to even the playing field.

Silver bullets with UV light and contact lenses to prevent glamouring are the sort of things that you would’ve thought humanity would’ve been using for a while but it seems that Burrell’s influence and his growing laws against vampire rights has made things into a living hell for those with fangs.

Tara suffered with the bullets until Eric had saved her and the latter’s attempts of getting Burrell to call things off with his battles against vampires backfired on him big time. At least taking Burrell’s daughter captive might help Eric but I get the feeling it won’t work entirely in his favour. I’m not supporting Burrell’s actions but I like that in two episodes he’s become a credible foe and we need that seeing as his opposite Warlow still hasn’t materialised yet.

Getting onto Warlow – it seems Rutger Hauer is actually playing Sookie and Jason’s grandfather Niall and it even seems like he might not be that too far off from the book depiction of him as well. His scenes with both Stackhouse siblings in this episode were some of the best ones we’ve had as well.

Jason himself seemed to be easily charmed and awed by his grandfather and even seemed a tiny bit bummed out when he realised that he wasn’t a fairy prince. More to the point, he was also thankfully far less head wrecking than the previous episode but Niall wasn’t wrong about him being unprepared for Warlow though.

Of course the better scenes involved Sookie though as we learned that Warlow massacred Niall’s family and because she’s a Halfling, any ball of energy she might use to destroy the thousand plus year old vampire may use up her fae powers altogether. It’s interesting timing for Sookie given that she had already indicated to Ben that she had a change of heart of losing her fae abilities altogether.

Speaking of Ben – is he just a nice, charming Halfling himself or is there something more there? It did seem a little too convenient that he met Sookie in the manner that he did and he was a little quick to point out that she reminded him of a former flame of his. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it and he’s just a nice bloke but you can never tell nowadays with those who come to Bon Temps, can you?

Keeping with newcomers – I didn’t care that much for Nicole at all. I get that she has point about shifters making a stand and coming out given that Luna forced their hand with her televised reveal but the way she was badgering Sam and then recording Emma being taken by Alcide and Martha pissed me off to no end. Hopefully Nicole improves as a character because so far this was a pretty bad start to her presence on the show and Sam’s been through enough, especially in this episode.

Which leads me to my point – I don’t like this side to Alcide at all. Martha’s actions I can understand but Alcide and Sam are friends and the fact that he did nothing as Danielle attacked Lafayette to get Emma from Sam seriously left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m really hoping we’re not going to see Alcide drunk on werewolf power this season, especially if it leads to horrible moments like this episode.

As for power – I did not need to see Bilith drain blood from that woman in the manner that he did. On the plus side, at least Bill’s trance scenes with a fully clothed Lilith were both useful (in that we learned some much needed stuff) and weren’t as tedious as the crap we had to endure last season. I also liked the fact that Bill can now see the future and Jessica’s prayer for everyone towards the end of this episode was the most affecting thing we’ve seen this season so far. Jessica really has been placed in quite the unenviable position with Bill.

Also in “The Sun”

Both Rob Kazinsky (Ben) and Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Nicole) have been added to the opening credits.

Niall (to Jason): “I am not Warlow. I am your fucking fairy grandfather.”

Warlow has been in Bon Temps for the last 24 hours. Then again so has both Niall and Ben and that’s obviously not a coincidence.

Nora: “They fucking did it. The humans are fighting back.”
Pam: “What did you expect? They’d lie down and take it?”

Nicole: “I know what you are.”
Sam: “Excuse me?”
Nicole: “You’re a shifter, right?”

Nora and Pam seemed to get along a little better in this episode and it was nice to see the latter share some blood with Tara out of a milk carton.

Lilith: “You must complete my work.”
Bill: “Why me?”
Lilith: “You proved yourself when you won the battle for my blood.”

Sookie: “It wasn’t so long ago I wanted to get rid of my light.”
Ben: “Why would you do that?”
Sookie: “I’m sick of being different. Sick of all the pain.”

Andy tried and failed to contact Maurella in this episode and Arlene and Terry had to lie to Patrick’s wife about his whereabouts.

Burrell: “What’s your point fella?”
Eric (re whooping crane): “I’m just saying it’s a tough fucking bird.”

Standout music: The Naked And Famous’s “The Sun” at the end of the episode.

Lilith: “You must save us, save us all.”
Bill: “How?”
Lilith: “You will know what to do. Trust what you see.”

Chronology: Pretty much from where “Who Are You, Really?” left off.

“The Sun” was a pretty solid episode with some great set up moments with the likes of Niall, Lilith and Burrell but I really do hope they’re not going to try and drag out Warlow’s identity for too long though.

Rating: 8 out of 10

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