True Blood: Season Two

I'm sure the people that hated the Maryanne story before this episode will have hated the end too but I liked that entire storyline.

I thought the first season of this show was pretty good but they really stepped it up this year.

 "If a tree falls in the woods, it's still a tree ain't it?"   

Some strong episodes in the beginning, but I also thought the second half of the season was kind of weak.

Glad Maryanne is gone and we can move onto something else.

Jessica remains my favorite character of the show.

I thought the end was really weak.  If it was as in the book, fine, but it made no sense to me..



Warning Spoiler! Click to show Thought the entire ending was weak.  Season 2's best moments went totally unresolved, as I think we didn't spend even remotely enough time on Godrick's storyline.. which could have been really interesting.   Combine that with spending way to much on Marriane.  

 

The S3 storyline appears to be something about the Queen needing Bill wacked to cover up her V selling scheme.. why?  Who knows. 

What he said.  Started out good then ended  with a weak wrap up.

Regarding your spoiler, Maryanne seemed to be crazy with religious fervor at that point. And call me crazy but if I've just gone through some ancient ritual to summon God and then a big bull (the same animal that Maryanne wears a mask of during her ceremonies) walks up to me, I'm going to think that it's God too .

In the previous episode when Maryanne knew that God hadn't come, it was because she hadn't read her incantation that brings him. Plus, the Queen had said that maenads had been trying different ways to call God for centuries so Maryanne most likely has no definite idea what form god would take and what he would do when he came.

Warning Spoiler! Click to show

My question about last night's episode is what did the Queen mean when she said that Eric was the oldest and most powerful Vampire in her Queendom? I realize that would have been Godric(or was it?)...but what about Vampires like the Magistrate(that forced Bill to turn Jessica)? Why would Eric just be a Sheriff if he is older and more powerful than the Magistrate was?

The good parts of Marianne never came through, like her tearing some people up with those claws, and the bad parts dominated all her time.  Glad it's over.  It will be better in season 3 I hope. 

I thought this was one of the worst Sesaon finalies I have seen, I was bored all the way through the Marianne plot and how it all ended was just way to weak.  Thought the episode was totally lame.

Thought the last three episodes were bad.  Quite bad.

Any character investment I had was sorely tested, and I'm not sure I'll be back for S3.

I thought the most interesting thing about last nights episode was during her conversation w/ Maryanne,Sookie saying someone was looking out for her, in her opinion God, and it showed the flashback to season1 premiere where she hit the guy with the chain and it wrapped around his neck.

The reason why, was when I saw that last year I had a issue with the way the chain "conveniently"did that when Id seen that scene. I thought it was stupid how the chain clung around the guys neck and killed him the way it did.

Political maneuvering? Many of the vampires seem just as petty as humans so maybe the magistrate just kissed ass better or knew the right vampires or maybe Eric didn't want the gig.

^^ For instance, they said quite plainly that Godric could have been King had he wanted.

Remember too, she's the queen of Louisiana, not the whole country.

Godric was Sheriff of the Dallas/Ft.Worth area of Texas (under King Steve I think). It so far hasn't been explained which governing system the Magistrates fall under, there may be one for every kingdom, maybe several kingdoms share the same magistrate.

Perhaps the Magistrates are parallel to the sheriffs/kings/queen? 

They seem to be like the "judicial" branch, while the sheriffs/kings/queens are the "executive" branch?

Overall I enjoyed this season but did feel that the finale was a bit weak. Here is a link to a cool interview with Alan Ball. Warning, there are some spoilers about the next season. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32843969/ns/entertainment-television/

^ Thanks for the link.

Well, the interview kind of answered my question. Apparently each state has royalty.

Alan Ball did say the Lousiana Queen was 400 years old though...a friend of mine who read the books said that she was many thousands or years old. If she's only 400, then Eric(being 1000 years old) could have had her teeth as earrings.

That's exactly what I was coming here to ask about... Why would a 400-year-old vampire be that much more powerful than a 1,000-year-old vampire (assuming age is a big factor in vamp ability)? If it's a change from the books, it's a change that doesn't seem to make much sense.

Interesting article.

I just took it as that she was speaking more in the sense of power. She could kill Eric or have him killed and no one would blink an eye but Eric could never get away with killing the queen. While Eric may be able to physically best her, she pinned him to the ground to show him who was the boss and he couldn't do anything about it.

Plus, the audience doesn't really know anything about the vampire hirearchy so maybe a king or queen gains a 'mystical' power over their subjects when they achieve that position. Either way, it's an obvious question so I can't imagine that it's an error.

Man, aside from a handful of highlights, season 2 was a major disappointment.  The Maryann storyline was a complete uninteresting waste of time from beginning to end.  Those hoping there would be a payoff certainly didn't get it.  I echo that someone said that was one of the worst season finales I've ever seen.  I looked at my DVR timeline at least 6 times throughout to see when it was ending.

Horrible season with a tinge of interest with the Eric/Godric/Church stuff.  I didn't even finish watching that finale.

As for vamp age...I haven't read these books, but many modern vamp mythos use age as a measure of vamp power.  From the way these vamps speak, I assume they are using this as well.  Remember when Bill's maker talked about being older and more powerful?  There have been other references to age too.  Basically, the myth follows that the older you are the more powerful your blood is - stronger, faster, more seductive, the works.

I almost got to the end of your post, but not quite..
 

Great season!  Up until Godrich's death.  The Dallas storyline was great.  So was the Maryanne until the Dallas one ended.  Then everything went into the tank.  Depressing bad ending to the season with 3 terrible concluding episodes.

I loved season 2 up until the last 2 episodes (the finale), which were terrible. Like others, I was appalled that nearly every bit of dialogue and action in the last 2 episodes was done for laughs (as Ian pointed out earlier). Not only was the town-gone-mad veering into farce, but also all the scenes in the palace of the Valley Girl-esque Queen. All the regular characters felt like their actors were barely in character, like maybe it was all shot after a holiday break or something. Eric Stackhouse may be stupid, but he was never, ever, portrayed as a joke before. It upset the reality of the show to have characters being written so poorly. I'd have thought the actors would have objected when they saw the script.

That said, the very ending of the finale -- the last of the many Lord of the Rings type endings that kept coming up before the end credits finally emerged -- was solid. Sookie not knowing what to say, trying it on in the bathroom, coming back out -- that was perfect because it felt real. Probably the only perfect moments in the last two hours. Poor Bill.

I can forgive the whole Maryanne storyline since, even if it was sort of a B-story not relevant to the larger Sookie/Bill or Vampire arc, I'd rather have them play out an irrelevant story now, rather than, say, using up all the vampire story elements too quickly. At least this way we have season 3 to look forward to. That said, this show will never reach season 4 if they do this kind of tangent for that long again. These diversion storylines should be maybe 3 episodes long, max. The Mayanne storyline was important only to the extent that it gave Sam Merlotte a brief connection to others of his kind.

I HATED THE QUEEN! I was confused by the dichotomy of her supposedly being an old vampire, and yet having the interests and expressions of a modern teenage or early-20s girl. That the tv show changed her to a "younger" 400 year old vampire helps smooth that out a bit, but not entirely. She doesn't command any respect, and I'd assume that is because the actress sucks, but, I believe I've seen her in a Wim Wenders film where she was good. But I wouldn't mind if they recast her, or at least rewrote her so that she was not one degree away from a Valley Girl.

I assume she wants her blood distributed so that she can sense the mood of the entire local population (or at least everyone who has taken a dose of her blood).

I wanted the new redhead vampire to find out if there was indeed an operation she could resolve her problem. I imagine there'll be some kind of "surgery done by silver blades" or something. I'd have thought she'd have gone straight to Eric's nightclub to find out from Eric's female partner what can be done. About her last scene in the truck, I'd like to think she was just doing that out of despair, and she will eventually get back together with her boyfriend. The writers did a lot more with her character this season than I ever expected, and I am glad for that. Though believe it or not I did expect the virginity issue to come up (and was surprised it did!).

How was Jason portrayed as a joke?

In the way that his dialogue during his Rambo trip was far more stupid than a real person could be.