When I finished season 1 of True Blood I had little but good things to say about it but yet for some reason it took me a while to get round to watching season 2 (so long in fact that the third season will soon be starting in America). I'm not sure why it never rose to the top of the pile but once I started it I immediately was into it and all too soon it was all gone, with one episode a night seeing the whole season watched in less than two weeks. Unlike season 1 I did not have any hesitation over what to expect and as a result I was right there from the start (albeit the internet had to help me a little bit by refreshing my memory over some of the detail of the conclusion to last season).
As with the previous season, the second has just as much going on. Bill and Sooki's relationship is as complicated as ever; Jason has found himself joining an anti-vampire church and before he can say "amen" is clocked as leadership material and sent away to a training camp; a missing vampire in Dallas sees Eric requiring Sooki's unique skill-set; Bill's teenage "protégé" turning out to be the handful he feared she would be; Tara's new friend Marie-Anne gradually turning out to be too good to be true as we suspected; Lafayette being held by Eric for crimes against vampires – and it goes on. It is no surprise that there is hardly a dull moment in it and, even if some of the cliff-hangers are a little disingenuous at times, their "conclusion" is followed by yet more stuff that is engaging.
Of course the show is taking a big risk in some regards because if you took someone who had never seen the show and sat them down in the middle of this season for one episode I suspect their conclusion would probably be "nonsense" – or at best, "amusing nonsense" because it is rather daft. They would be right because here we have a show that has threads of romance, sex, vampires in the real world, shape-shifters, cult membership, suicide bombing, vampire politics, a whole town turned destructively crazy by a mythical creature and the sweet blooming love between two young, slightly awkward people. It does all these with a mix of comedy, horror, emotional drama, sex, violence and gore. To put it bluntly there is a huge scope for bits of this season (or large chunks of this season) to simply not work for one reason or another. The comedy could hurt the drama, the sex could detract from the relationship part, while the sheer scale and nature of the characters could be such that the viewer is kept at arm's length in terms of getting into it. But yet it works.
It does this by yet again making the show a believable world where all of the stuff it is doing in terms of tone, plot and characters just makes sense – so once on the inside as it were, the viewer can easily accept everything that is happening because it rings true. To a foreigner the Deep South setting, with its dense greenery, humidity, accents is perfect for the material and it certainly helps in the same way that a urban setting would not. The direction (and overall production) gets the mood just right and you can feel the humidity and heat in the air even as you watch it. The cast also "get it". Paquin maybe grates a little as she constantly gets into trouble, but she is good at the many facets of the material she has to deal with. Moyer continues to be good and has more to work with here than in the previous season (a lesser man would have said "get his teeth into"). Kwanten is great value in his threads and he gets his comedic value just right, producing great laughs without detracting from the plot or his part in it. Wesley is good but as with season 1 I thought she overdid her face in terms of playing out her feelings there although it is effective when used sparingly. Trammel's performance is good while Ellis continues to impress even if he has less unabashed flamboyance than in season 1. Forbes is strong throughout, while Skarsgård, Sanderson and many others are equally good – "getting it" across the cast.
If I did have reservations it would be about the final episode, the second half of which is a little bit of an anti-climax once the Marie-Anne situation is sorted out, and the way that some things are done seemingly for no other reason than tidiness (Egg's fate doesn't really ring true to me and seems to have been done to remove the character and not much else. Otherwise though I enjoyed all 12 hours of this season. It is gaudy and daft but yet also dramatic and engaging; it is filled with blood and gore that does have some horror to it, but yet manages to be funny and engaging. It walks a fine line and makes it look effortless – I hope season 3 can maintain this perfect balancing act.
As with the previous season, the second has just as much going on. Bill and Sooki's relationship is as complicated as ever; Jason has found himself joining an anti-vampire church and before he can say "amen" is clocked as leadership material and sent away to a training camp; a missing vampire in Dallas sees Eric requiring Sooki's unique skill-set; Bill's teenage "protégé" turning out to be the handful he feared she would be; Tara's new friend Marie-Anne gradually turning out to be too good to be true as we suspected; Lafayette being held by Eric for crimes against vampires – and it goes on. It is no surprise that there is hardly a dull moment in it and, even if some of the cliff-hangers are a little disingenuous at times, their "conclusion" is followed by yet more stuff that is engaging.
Of course the show is taking a big risk in some regards because if you took someone who had never seen the show and sat them down in the middle of this season for one episode I suspect their conclusion would probably be "nonsense" – or at best, "amusing nonsense" because it is rather daft. They would be right because here we have a show that has threads of romance, sex, vampires in the real world, shape-shifters, cult membership, suicide bombing, vampire politics, a whole town turned destructively crazy by a mythical creature and the sweet blooming love between two young, slightly awkward people. It does all these with a mix of comedy, horror, emotional drama, sex, violence and gore. To put it bluntly there is a huge scope for bits of this season (or large chunks of this season) to simply not work for one reason or another. The comedy could hurt the drama, the sex could detract from the relationship part, while the sheer scale and nature of the characters could be such that the viewer is kept at arm's length in terms of getting into it. But yet it works.
It does this by yet again making the show a believable world where all of the stuff it is doing in terms of tone, plot and characters just makes sense – so once on the inside as it were, the viewer can easily accept everything that is happening because it rings true. To a foreigner the Deep South setting, with its dense greenery, humidity, accents is perfect for the material and it certainly helps in the same way that a urban setting would not. The direction (and overall production) gets the mood just right and you can feel the humidity and heat in the air even as you watch it. The cast also "get it". Paquin maybe grates a little as she constantly gets into trouble, but she is good at the many facets of the material she has to deal with. Moyer continues to be good and has more to work with here than in the previous season (a lesser man would have said "get his teeth into"). Kwanten is great value in his threads and he gets his comedic value just right, producing great laughs without detracting from the plot or his part in it. Wesley is good but as with season 1 I thought she overdid her face in terms of playing out her feelings there although it is effective when used sparingly. Trammel's performance is good while Ellis continues to impress even if he has less unabashed flamboyance than in season 1. Forbes is strong throughout, while Skarsgård, Sanderson and many others are equally good – "getting it" across the cast.
If I did have reservations it would be about the final episode, the second half of which is a little bit of an anti-climax once the Marie-Anne situation is sorted out, and the way that some things are done seemingly for no other reason than tidiness (Egg's fate doesn't really ring true to me and seems to have been done to remove the character and not much else. Otherwise though I enjoyed all 12 hours of this season. It is gaudy and daft but yet also dramatic and engaging; it is filled with blood and gore that does have some horror to it, but yet manages to be funny and engaging. It walks a fine line and makes it look effortless – I hope season 3 can maintain this perfect balancing act.