True Blood News - Season 4 news and spoilers

As you have seen, last night’s episode was dedicated to Jesse James Cartwright. Jesse was part of the True Blood transportation crew and lost his life earlier this year, leaving behind his wife and three children. True Blood Staff, Cast and Fans are uniting to raise funds for Jesse’s family.

TrueBlood-News, Sam-Tramell.com, AlexSkarsgard.net & FYeahJoeManganiello are auctioning off the script for season 3 Ep 302, “Beautifully Broken” signed by Alexander Skarsgard! It’s Alexander’s own copy and has Alex’s notes, creases marking his pages and his germs all over it ’cause he cuddled the script against … ok I better stop now.

This auction is to benefit Jesse’s family.

Script 302: “Beautifully Broken”

Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi, concocts a plan to consolidate his power; Eric remembers his past (and hangs with Godric in wartorn Germany); Sam tests the strength of his family bonds; Tara finds an ally in shady vampire Franklin Mott.

CLICK THE SCRIPT TO BID

The Vault is also auctioning a True Blood Season 2 Pack consisting of a dvd signed by some of the cast, signed photos and a couple of signed tees. Head over to their auction and bid, bid, bid!

Find out more about Jesse, then please, if you can, donate to the family directly.

Catch Evan tonight in Mildred Pierce

If you are interested in watching your favorite True Blood actors on TV tonight, you are in luck. Not only will HBO be re-airing episode 302 tonight at 8:00 pm EST, but you can also watch Evan Rachel Wood’s debut as Veda in Mildred Pierce immediately following True Blood at 9:00. The final two parts of the Mildred Pierce miniseries wraps up tonight.

Also of note, Michelle Forbes is in The Killing on AMC also at 9 pm EST. You will remember Michelle as the crazy maenad Maryann from Season 2, although in this series she plays a much more somber role as Mitch Larsen, the mother of a missing girl. Also in The Killing, Jamie Ann Allman plays Terry. She is the wife of Marshall Allman (Tommy Mickens).

Stars Michelle Forbes

Gianna Sobol from the Inside True Blood Blog provides us with some notes on tonight’s epidsode, ’Beautifully Broken.’ According to writer Raelle Tucker, “This was one of the most difficult stories I’d had to figure out in my four years on ‘True Blood.’ I wrote three completely different versions of this script. In one version, Eric tricked Sookie into a surprise date at Fangtasia. He had a metal band serenade her and Ginger had prepared a feast of tube top sandwiches. Another version had Sam’s mother, Melinda Mickens, turn into a goat. I have no idea why anymore. We call figuring out an episode breaking story… and this one had been such a bitch to break, that when I came across this song ‘Beautifully Broken,’ I thought it was the perfect title.”

The song, “Beautifully Broken” is by the band Govt. Mule. You can listen to it here. The song is played when Franklin is talking to Tara at Merlotte’s.

If none of the above tickles your fancy, you can always re-watch episodes 1-6 of True Blood Season 1 on HBO On Demand. FYI, the other 6 episodes of Season 1 will be available On Demand starting tomorrow and the first 6 episodes of Season 2 will be available on Monday, May 2nd.

Scott Winant directs Anna Paquin and Alexander Skarsgård in "Beautifully Broken"

Season 3 DVD/Blu-Ray comes out May 31, 2011 in the US

The list of DVD extras for True Blood Season 3 is out thanks to play.com.

For the DVD:

For Blu-Ray:

Thank you to KaysGetaway for the news!

Sorry I’m late with this but I was on vacation last week. Honest. Here’s the music list from episode 26 for your viewing and listening pleasure:

• Collide, “Slither Thing” available on iTunes
• The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (courtesy of Extreme) “Rondeau from Abdelazar”
• Jonathan Clark, “Ride My Train”
• Steve McComb, “Walk First” available on iTunes
• The Hampton (Rock) String Quartet, “Evil Ways”
• Gov’t Mule, “Beautifully Broken” available on iTunes
• Derrick Procell, “Dixie Rocks”
• Sean Patrick McGraw, “Anyone But You” available on iTunes
• Eduardo Ponsdomenech, “Classically Inclined”
• Shelby Lynn, “I’m Alive” available on iTunes

Source

Burn the Witch

This week on True Blood, CE learns to spell Mississippi, a bunch of new characters but so far no fairies (thank God), Bill may recycle but he’s not kind to furry animals (unless its Sam, of course), Eric won’t gerroff Sookie’s porch until he gets to prove what a nice guy he is, sorta, the ugliest, skankiest pair of undies EVER, and what’s even better than a 52 inch plasma to the face?

I did wonder people, whether it was possible to be funny about this episode in my weekly recap because OMG, what a pit of despair and devious trickery our fictional friends have fallen into. They’re so not bothering with the amusing glimpses into the daily life of Bon Temps and Shreveport this year, we’re straight into everyone’s personal hell. Seriously, I think I might have joined Tara and necked a shitload of happy pills if it wasn’t for the gloriously ewwww dinner of blood (I’ve always wondered why vamps didn’t get bored and invent some fun recipes, so that was fricking sweet), and Terry B’s list of reasons why he’d make a good stepdad. And Bill all covered in icky werewolf, laughing at that Cooter guy cos his name is simultaneously tres redneck, and means the pussy. Aside from those flashes of LOL and the fun mind bending plots starting to unfold, it was kind of a ADD misery trip for me, especially with Mommy Dearest showing up at the end like a horsey bondage mistress, buzzkilling yet another party. Le sigh, her again?

I confess...Nazi Eric is hot.

While I loathe Lorena, I do have a respectful girl-crush on the lady who wrote this episode, Raelle Tucker, who is my absolute favourite True Blood scribbler due to her insane ability to walk the line between woe and misery, and wickedly witty shit. She is also very good at making characters you generally dislike show some sympathetic layers of personality to ensure you can’t write them off entirely. Last year the sneaky minx did it for Mommy Dearest, this week its Eric. As everyone knows, I have a low tolerance for the Viking’s annoying physical perfection, constant ‘I’m soooo awesome’ arrogance and duplicitous plotting, but this week…nope, couldn’t swear at him like I always do (and I assume that was the idea). Maybe its because I’m a sucker for Nazi uniforms? Man, I’m a sick bitch. Anyway, damn you Raelle for messing with my head. It won’t last though, because just like ole Sook says, whenever he does something nice, he does something nasty straight afterwards.

The show opens with our normally fastidious gentleman Bill finishing off his third werewolf. It’s super gross and impressive, but really, they were skimping on the special effects showing only a few seconds. Or maybe they were worried the actor wolves would bite Stephen’s very insurable face? Anyway, it’s almost over when a dude turns up on a horse. The lead werewolf is the same guy who masterminded the rather crap kidnapping, and he’s instantly awesome because he’s a Kiwi, from the only decent TV show produced in New Zealand ever (it’s called Outrageous Fortune, fact fans). Anyway, dude on the horse is the very classy King of Mississippi, who far from coming to Bill’s rescue, actually ordered him ‘napped. After shooting another Were to punish Cooter for sucking, he invites a politely pissed off Bill to stay at his fancy pad. Back over them state lines, Lafayette is making Tara puke up all those pills she swallowed, whilst cussing out her negligent momma. Continuing his role this season as the straight up, dependable hero with a deliciously smart mouth, he marches the suicidal, self indulgent madam out to the car, threatening her with a trip to the nuthouse.

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Salon.com has a wonderful take on “Beautifully Broken”‘s theme of what happens when “parents” abandon their “children”:

“The children grow up bitter and vulnerable, never having learned how to change quickly from a dog into an owl should they find themselves about to be hit by a Mack truck (Sam). Or they walk away from true love (Jessica) and when they have to dismember the trucker they accidentally killed and hid in the basement, they have no idea how expensive chainsaws are! Or they end up suicidally depressed, grieving the accidental death of their zombie serial killer boyfriend (Tara)… “Life is suffering,” Lafayette reminds Tara, on the way to visit the nasty, cold, grinch-hearted woman in the hospital who is apparently his mother. True. But it’s nice to know you can still rent chainsaws.”

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Personally, I enjoyed last night’s episode, “Beautifully Broken.” There were some things that I would’ve preferred to be different, but the ‘net abounds with some rather harsh criticism. If you’re interested in reading what non-fan(g)s are saying, here’s a well-written, well-reasoned example that rates Skin vs. Scare.

“Skin overshadowed scares last week, but Episode 2, titled “Beautifully Broken,” made up for it by pandering to the horror crowd with a chainsaw (wielded by the wonderfully immature young vampire Jessica, who will hopefully take on a larger role), a completely unnecessary reference to Stephen King’s Christine, and a flashback involving werewolf Nazis. This really was the Tarantino episode.”

“The show began and ended with a burst of excitement, but in between, it fizzled, burdened by a strained plot and too many long close-ups of very serious faces. Thus far, the major battle of the third season of True Blood is not between light and dark so much as between light and heavy. Heavy dominated this time.

Tara and Sookie were both in tears over lost loves. To which I say: Get over it, ladies. That was an entire episode ago, a lifetime in soap-opera years. Lafayette hardly brightened the mood with this groaner: “The Buddhists weren’t lying when they said life is suffering.” Did “the Buddhists” write this episode? And look, one plotline about reuniting with lost parents can slow a pulp soap opera down, but two? That’s dramatic quicksand. Moreover, when Sam sat down with his parents (Lafayette also visited his mother), his moody new brother stormed out of the room because … why exactly?

You know the writers are getting lazy transitioning from one heated moment to the next when they rely too much on the stomping-out-of-the-room gambit. When Sookie ran into the bathroom after Bill proposed marriage, you almost wanted him to take back his offer—that is, if you didn’t know enough about the conventions of the show to realize that storming out of a room is just True Blood code for Something Big Is About To Happen.”

Ouch. I have to say, he does make some valid points. There’s much more to this review – Eric’s tender side and some of the many new additions to the cast. Click on the link above for the entire article.