Entertainment Weekly reviewer Ken Tucker gave True Blood Season 3 a B+.
“How difficult it is to be sleek, sexy, and swift — all qualities True Blood displayed so effectively last season — when you’re straining to introduce new friends and enemies to your audience. That’s the challenge of True Blood‘s third season. There’s so much going on with the characters to whom we’re committed (Anna Paquin’s Sookie, Stephen Moyer’s Bill, Alexander Skarsgård’s Eric, Rutina Wesley’s Tara, and Sam Trammell’s Sam Merlotte, to skim the surface) that the first few episodes of the new season are crammed to bursting with plotlines — and faces — old and new.
The big addition this season is the introduction of werewolves to the true bloodiness of the show. Remorseless shifters with superstrength who get hopped up on vampire blood as though it were some combination of Ecstasy and crack, the werewolves arrive with a World War II backstory complete with flashbacks of Eric and Godric (Allan Hyde) posing in Nazi uniforms. In a show this stuffed with goodness, may I offer a small suggestion? Flashback scenes just take up valuable time we could be spending in the present.”
The crowded set has been mentioned by many reviewers and critics, although I have to respectfully disagree with Ken Tucker – in the previous season, the flashbacks have been parts of the show I’ve most enjoyed. With so many wonderful characters who’ve lived such long (albeit dead) lives, not tapping into their back-stories would be tragic. (Maybe Alan Ball and Co. can consider doing Biography-style hour-long specials?)
In conclusion, Ken Tucker wrote, “What show creator Alan Ball has brought to True Blood‘s pulp-horror trappings is a unifying theme of power versus helplessness: an insistence that victims are capable of toughening, of overcoming their powerlessness to become smarter and stronger. It’s a positive message that Ball and his writers and directors smuggle into a show that only seems to revel in decadence, gore, and duplicity. True Blood‘s dirtiest little secret is that it may be among the most ethical, even righteous, shows on television.”
just watched the 1st episode of season 3!!!LOVED IT!!! and loved the “Eric ass shot”keep it comin’ guys.best show on TV hands down!!
i like the flashbacks, they make sense of whats happening. As long as the flashbacks dont take up 2 much time in an episode, and as long as TB stays away from the confusion that was ‘lost’ multiple storylines… TB will last a long time…Besides that, a liked this review. I would give A- :)
This guy is a fucking idiot. NO FlASHBACKS? Please. This show could survive for years just on the awesome flashbacks.
agreed!!!
Flashbacks are awesome, not quite understanding the logic in not having them. I mean, our knowledge and personal experiences are a huge part of what makes us what we are, and vampires have lifetimes of it to explore. It helps peel back the layers, plus it’s just a fun jaunt through history :D
Flashbacks are damnfinethings. Apart from being fun, they have a legitimacy that Konfetti points out. They also speak to individual vampire evolution. Do these ancient creatures ever personally change from the moment of their making (beyond Alan Ball-dictated hairstyles)? Lorena stays the carnal savage, the Magister will ever be the mediaeval brutality-makes-morality inquisitor, but formerly horrific Bill is trying to re-establish his humanity, and Godric has gone from thrill-killing night warrior to sacrificial pacifist and chief exponent of co-existence. The flashbacks so far have given us a real bang for our buck, I reckon. Full marks, though, to the warm and well-written analytics of the review, and the reviewer who clearly relishes the characters.
PS. Yes, I know that hasn’t been a Magister flashback, just threw him into the mix because we know what he was, pre-making. I’ll shut up now.
Oh my goodness, I think you may have just added something to my True Blood wishlist: a Magister flashback! I agree that Vampires can certainly evolve, the Loerna and Godric conversation from S2 comes to mind.
And btw, liked the hair joke ;)
I agree the flashbacks are kick ass. Who isn’t a sucker for cool period costumes?! I was thinking the same thing with the hour long specials. I want to see a Halloween and Mardi Gras special!!!!!!
Depends on how long the flashback is, but I think Ken Tucker is full of shit generally. The flashbacks give the vamps some emotional depth. Otherwise they may come across as cartoon characters. I know I fell in love with the character of Bill during the first season due to the flashback to his turning, and visting his family the last time. I became totally enraptured with the show after that episode, before then I was like ‘LOL, WTF is this crazyass show? Wow, boobies and hot men.’ Fail review.
Yes, that was a heart breaker scenem Bill’s turning. He was SO close to home.
And it was in such a similar circumstance to Jessi’s turn-by-force, and in direct opposition to Eric’s turn by choice. Those events, specifically the makers, set the stage for vamp life.
Will say that Eric’s appeal for me was etched up when I saw his Viking men were willing to stay with him until he died, build him a Kingly funeral pyre and even spoke of Valhala to comfort him. Then Eric’s first question to Godric was about his men. That scene worked for me.
That kind of loyalty back then couldn’t be bought or bullied, I’d wager on it and I suspect it will give us a peek at the Eric to come when the politics – the current battleground of the civilized – come to the fore. I’d hate to be on the wrong side there. *shudder*
I also think there will be more to the Bill Caroline story as well, as hinted from spoilers. Perhaps a glimpse as to why Bill is willing to hold on so tightly to his current wife. Almost wife, anyway.
Yes, Bill turning – literally – away from his family was the first moment of real poignancy, real sadness in the sries. The Caroline flashback will wrap up that story, no doubt, and as no humans get out of these flashbacks alive, I bet she’ll die by Lorena’s fangs – or :urg: Bill’s? Which leaves Bill’s children to dispose of. Maybe they died of scarlet fever or something virulently Victorian, while Bill was away vamaging with Lorena. (Say, what is the protocol when vampires who have human offspring meet their adult children decades later and/or their descendants a few centuries hence?)
Bill does have human descendants still living in Bon Temps, or at least they do in the books.
I think that will come out eventually on the show because of the *spoiler* Bellefleurs being all present and correct.
I certainly hope that Bellefleur storyline is left intact, or better yet, expanded. *crossing fingers*
I love the flashbacks, without them the show would lack depth and the vampires wouldn’t be so solid as characters. Why make your characters have such long lives if we don’t get to find out what they’ve been through… that would be pointless.
The consensus in my house is LOVE the Flashbacks too! For all the reasons already stated. F to the reviewer who wants them gone.