True Blood News - Season 4 news and spoilers

This is essential to S4 why?

XFinity asked Alan Ball which episodes are worth going back and checking out before season 4 begins. He gave them a list of nine and the reasons why the episodes are integral. He said, “It’s tough because so much has happened before, and I also have this season and parts of next season in my head too”

So without further ado, here are Alan Ball’s most essential True Blood episodes for us to watch in preparation for S4:

Season 1, Episode 2
“This is the first time Sookie (Anna Paquin) drank Bill’s (Stephen Moyer) blood, and the first time they kissed.”

Season 1, Episode 5
“This has the Civil War flashback and told how Bill was made. Also, it’s where Gran was found dead.”

Season 2, Episode 4
“In this episode, Maryann (Michelle Forbes) threw Tara a (Rutina Wesley) birthday party and you finally got a sense of what she was up to.” Read More »

I know this can be considered “old news” but if you are like me, you like any news about True Blood that you can get. Life Story magazine put out an issue mostly about Twilight, but there are 6 pages of an episode guide to Season 2, complete with comments by Alan Ball.

Alan Ball’s comments about episode 209: “I Will Rise Up”. “My favorite episode of [the] season. I love the whole story between Eric and Godric, and Sookie gets to see Eric’s human side. Then there’s the whole choice by Godric to move on; his attitude of, ‘I’m done and I want to embrace whatever is going to happen to me now, even if it means oblivion, even if it means the end.’ That last sequence was tough to shoot, because we shot part of it on a building rooftop in Los Angeles – where we basically had 20 minutes to get it because of the light – and then we shot part of it on a stage with green screen, then we went to Dallas and shot background plates so that you would have recognizable landmarks. Then there were all the special effects technology questions of how we were going to have Godric go up in flames. So it was tough, but I thought it paid off.”

Click the pictures below to view each page.

L.A. Times photos by Tom O'Neil

Alexander Skarsgård did just participate in an Emmy Round-table, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that HBO is looking ahead and thinking ’bout the gold.

So how does all this work? HBO shipped 14,000 campaign boxes to members of the TV academy. The boxes contain various samples of the programs HBO thinks should be considered. For a full listing, click here. For True Blood, two episodes were included, “Shake and Fingerpop” and “I Will Rise Up.”

Just as a quick refresher, “Shake and Fingerpop is 2.4, written by Alan Ball. It opened with Jason at FotS camp and the fake-out death scene, and included Bill threatening to throw Hoyt out of a window that’s closed, the one Maryann orgy that played well on-screen, the hilarious Sarah Newlin bbq stripper-tease, Sookie’s “booze for dolls” line, Eric heals Lafayette before flying to Dallas and having a lovely chat with Bill in the bar, and Sookie meets Barry. “I Will Rise Up,” which was nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award, opens with Lorena’s “I wish you hadn’t said that” as she runs off (I think that might come back to bite), and then Luke blowing up the Dallas nest. Eric takes the opportunity to get Sookie to suck his bullets, which results in a sexy yet also disturbed  dream featuring both Eric and Lorena. Back in Bon Temps, the jail is bursting at the seams with Maryann’s revelers, and Sam escapes Maryann’s wrath by turning into a fly. Jessica meets Hoyt’s mother, which is mostly a disaster, and Lafayette and Lettie Mae wrestle Tara from Maryann (literally). And the episode ends with Godric being reprimanded by the American Vampire League, and the scene on the roof between him and Eric, and finally Godric and Sookie.

What I would like to know is who picks the episodes because they didn’t ask me. Like Terry Bellefluer, no one ever asks me, but they should.

Good luck, HBO and True Blood!

The 2010 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees were Announced today. True Blood’s episode nine: “I Will Rise Up” was nominated!

LOS ANGELES, NEW YORK — The Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East today announced nominations for outstanding achievement in television, radio, news, promotional writing, and graphic animation during the 2009 season to be honored at the upcoming 2010 Writers Guild Awards on February 20, 2010, in Los Angeles and New York.

EPISODIC DRAMA – any length – one airing time (and the nominees are…)

• “Broken, Part 1 and Part 2” (House), Written by Russel Friend & Garrett Lerner & David Foster & David Shore; Fox
• “Come, Ye Saints” (Big Love), Written by Melanie Marnich; HBO
• “The Grown Ups” (Mad Men), Written by Brett Johnson and Matthew Weiner; AMC
• “Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency” (Mad Men), Written by Robin Veith and Matthew Weiner; AMC
• “I Will Rise Up” (True Blood), Written by Nancy Oliver; HBO
• “Phoenix” (Breaking Bad), Written by John Shiban; AMC

I know some of you loved loved loved this episode. Personally, I was very meh about it. Not one of my favorites – how about you? Did you love or hate episode nine – “I Will Rise Up” or were you just meh, like me?

Bulletsucker is a Sucker

This week on True Blood, a thousand years of night classes in manipulation pay off, Hoyt’s momma hates a lot of stuff, including Jessica, Vampire Jesus is tired of Dallas and life, Lafayette and Lettie Mae stage an intervention and get smacked around for their pains, Sam proves very versatile and the zombie minions are given a Get Out of Jail Free card. Also, the return of Stupid Sookie!

I thought I would start this recap with a cautionary tale involving lions that I saw on Animal Planet last night. I stored it in my brain for possible use later, having read the books and gobbled all the spoilers I could find this week, as you do. In this tale, a confused and lonely lion adopted this cute n’ brave baby oryx (um, a kind of deer). The lion followed the oryx around, snuggled it, defended it from all comers, tried to keep it from falling in holes and shit, basically ran its silly ass ragged trying to care for this annoying, bleating thing. After two weeks it was a starved, frazzled mess, and so, of course, another bigger lion came along and ate the oryx. The lion grieved for a while, then did the lion equivalent of a meh, and went out and killed something and felt better. Are you getting my clever little parallel?

Mwahahahahahaha!

Anyway, on to the show, which opens with a quick rewind to remind us the Lukenator has just gone all Al Qaeda on the vampire party while Bill is outside telling the ex to piss off. Lorena speeds down the road unscathed except for her pride and able to return in Sookie’s pornalicious dream and probably in Season 3, just guessin’. The bomb goes off, lots of gooey bits get splattered all over the lounge, many vamps lie around and groan, and Bill hops it back inside looking for the oryx. Sookie’s fine, but she’s got a big lump of Viking on top of her. Said Viking cunningly sends Bill outside to go get some marauding church geeks, which he dutifully does, except he doesn’t kill them because hes too much of a NICE GUY. Man, this is getting old. While conveniently occupied, Eric persuades Sook to suck bullets out of him because he’s like dying maybe. She thinks this is gross, but does so, and Eric grins in a fangy and smug way. Bill comes back inside, immediately gets the point of the little exercise and the invisible string quartet makes lots of Sad Bill music while Sookie babbles defensively and Godric wanders around checking the survivors. I’m glad to see Isabel is still alive, and glad that bespoke cowpoke Stan is dead. The Lukenator is pulp, but Jason is cool, praise Jesus.

Bill has had a very sucky day.

Everyone not in bits gets sent back to the hotel to recuperate in ugly grey robes, except Sookie, who’s in cute pink pyjamas. She demonstrates enough smarts to know she’s done something very unwise indeed, and when told the implications by an absolutely gutted Bill she is suitably disgusted. Unfortunately, this instant sexual attraction thing doesn’t gel with what he told her last season. And while I’m here, how can there be a blood bond when Eric hasn’t had any of hers? Continuity editor has gone on vacation perchance? Time for a less confusing trip back to Bon Temps, where Hoyt is comforting Jessica about her indestructible hymen. Hoyt is so sweet and loving and considerate he makes every boyfriend or husband out there in the real world look like an asshole. In a neat parallel with Bill and Sookie last season, he escorts her to the hidey hole under the stairs and tucks her in, and sits there warbling love songs until the sun comes up. The cuteness!

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