True Blood, Leverage, Icons, and Alexander Skarsgård

[charlieblue]

Alexander Skarsgård owns my soul. I fully believe that if this show was nothing but Pam, Eric and Lafayette running a vampire-blood drug empire by day and fighting crime walking around like cool motherfuckers with highlights, Gucci sunglasses and fabulous pumps making grand entrances and killing things, that it would be greatly improved in all imaginable ways.

All the reviews I've read seem to agree that Eric and Sookie are the main weakness of the show, and I honestly think it's just because there's nothing particularly compelling about them. Ideologically, they think the same way in terms of vampires, they are totally in love and fight only over temporary obstacles. All dramatic tension is imposed from the outside by physical danger. Bill is a young vampire, and Sookie, in comparison to him a newborn duckling, maintains that status quo of being younger, of being defined for us, the viewers, exactly as Hugo warned, in terms of Bill.

Now, I haven't read the books, but I've heard, and according to the indications, that the show is headed in a Sookie/Eric direction. Now Eric is one cool motherfucker, and I really have no desire to see a thousand year old vampire become fascinated by a - let's face it - while nice, open-minded, and fairly intelligent, still pretty vanilla, naive, oft-bone-headed, very generic, supposedly 'feisty' girl for the sake of an imposed narrative that in no way seems to trend naturally for the characters on their current course. That said, if the writers do a good job of it, the character of Sookie could bloom under that kind of a story line. But I swear by Pam's shoe closet, if Eric is woobified like Spike was for the sake of the romance, I am going to cut a bleeding bitch.

I'm disappointed that the orgiastic, devil-worshiping story-line wasn't played to its full potential. It could have been incredibly creepy, playing on the more suspenseful, horror and mystery elements rather than introducing the cause, in the lovely form of Michelle Forbes far too early on in the narrative for my liking.

Man, I hope Eggs survives this. I love him and Tara together, and I love the way Tara's gone through so much shit and is now slowly pulling herself together, broken piece by broken piece. She's so fucking gorgeous, that episode where she and Eggs were dancing at her birthday party, I literally had to replay it about ten times before I could bear to go on.

I <3 Jason Stackhouse, bless his empty, pretty little head. I especially love it when he gets all furious defending his sister, and quite steadfastly not being indoctrinated into the hate despite being totally and utterly lost to the influence of the church.

Mostly, I just want to see Godric and Eric interact. I want to see them have a fucked up power interplay, with Godric playing the soft, seductive, seemingly submissive master to Eric's lethal, thundering, utterly binding obedience and love.

Mmmm. Ancient vampire amoral psychopathic obsession. Now there's a compelling love story.

-



SHOW. YOU'RE BACK. YOU CAME BACK TO ME.

This is pretty much going to be a list of things I loved.

HARDISON. PARKER. ELIOT.

Argh. Not Sophie's new hair.

But, they must have done something to Nate, because suddenly I am seeing the appeal for the very first time.


Hardison pretty much fulfilled all the dreams of rahmbamarama right there. Hacking the White House email accounts? Where, thanks to the Obama administration's near-incestuous love affair with the hip new tech, pretty much everything from coffee orders to Rahm Emanuel's inter-departmental screaming Memos From Hell that send the interns to therapy on a regular basis goes through email.

...Now I want to write fic. The Obama Administration as seen through the eyes of Hardison first gleefully, then with growing horror, perusing their emails.

- "What you thought she was dressed as a nun for no reason?"
-"It's Parker"
PARKER DRESSED AS A NUN. THIS WILL NEVER NOT BE FUNNY. Made even more awesome by the fact that nobody mentioned it until the end of the scene. What other show could one of the main characters wander around dressed like a nun for no apparent reason at all without drawing any kind of explanation at all for whole minutes at a time?


The lock-picking set in leather strapped to Parker's thigh. Hot damn.

How much do I love that the whole team just rampages through Eliot's apartment as if it were fair game, treating it like a their own personal club house at the base of the garden? A ridiculous amount.

HARDISON BOUGHT THE ENTIRE BUILDING JUST SO HE COULD BE NATE'S LANDLORD. HARDISON I HEART YOU AND YOUR SHEER INCOMPREHENSION AT NATE'S DISPLEASURE.

Eliot with a chainsaw, destroying the apartment and beaming like a little boy. That is my new happy place.

My favourite parts of the episode were really just the fleeting bits of character interaction that Leverage does so well, scattering them through the action like little buts of cookie dough in triple-fudge-almond swirl icecream. ARGH. *squishes team*

In conclusion:

SHAKE THE BIBLE.




Um. Also, because I have an inordinate, entirely shameless amount of love for my icons, a writing meme:

Pick one of my icons here and I'll write you something based on said icon. If you choose a stock/text only icon, feel free to choose the pairing (or character) I write.

Comments

[bessemerprocess]

[charlieblue]

\o/ Toby you prickly, furiously despondent, sexy son of a bitch! I love that you picked this icon.

OKAY. WORKING ON IT.

[xancredible]

ELIOT HARDISON PARKER!

I agree to everything you said there (just one thing: It's Nate's apartment. Not Eliot's. But I see why you said Eliot. He's on my mind all the damn time, too!).

SHAKE THE BIBLE!


And regarding True Blood: I said it before, I'm saying it again: If that show was about Eric, Pam, LAfayette, Terry, Hoyt, jessica and Godric? That'd be my happy place. Jason is a little too stupid for my liking, Sookie is annoying as hell and Bill is a whiny softie who annoys me even more. And now youre telling me that the books feature Eric/Sookie in the end? As soon as that happens I'll have to stop watching. Seriously, I used to feel indifferent towards Anna Paquin but ever since I started watching True Blood I freakin' hate her and Sookie just as much. She's a hypocrite and everything you said. I don't even think she's pretty.

[charlieblue]

Ahahaha, you know, I fully meant to write Nate there. *g*

Yeah, see I feel a great deal of irritation toward Sookie too, but I honestly feel like it's bad writing, that a lot of it is due to almost all of her action being related directly to Bill and not much else. I have it on good authority that the Sookie/Eric in the books is actually fabulously done, so I'm withholding judgement and hoping that it'll bring Paquin up to Skaars' level and not the other way around. Yeah, it's the hypocritical kind of self-righteousness I can't stand, I just hope the writer's mature her as part of the process of breaking up with Bill - I guess I'm just an optimist when it comes to these things. :)

[xancredible]

That's what I thought ;o)

What annoys me the most about her is that back when she was still a virgin ... She complained about guys only seeing her as a sex object. Well, DUH! You dress and act like a slut so what did you think they'd do? Go all vanilla and lovey-dovey on you?

So, yeah, I hope the writing improves and that they'll make it believable. Else I'm right there with you when you cut that bitch.