Review: True Blood: 'Keep This Party Going'

The second episode of Season Two of True Blood fairs much better in comparison to it's predecessor. Where my complaints, if they can be called, with the first episode revolved mainly around the fact that it felt like an episode of season one; the second episode takes great strides to distance itself. As I stated in my previous review, emulating the first season is not a bad thing. More precisely, I felt the first episode dealt more with the remaining threads from season one than it did with introducing the new arcs and plot threads of the new season. As far as premiere episodes go it was more than adequate and a better hour of television than likely to be found elsewhere this time of year.

Thankfully, Keep This Party Going pushes the ball rolling and begins to reveal some of the new direction of the season. Eric continues to hold Lafayette after dismembering one of his fellow captives. He interrogates Lafayette only to send him right back to captivity. An attempted escape and gunshot later, we get the most interesting character moment of the episode when Lafayette asks his captors to make him a vampire. It's an interesting development for the character and perfectly in step with his portrayal thus far as a survivor.

Meanwhile, Sookie has troubles of her own as Bill's new sire Jessica is having difficulty living under the rule of her new protector. To further this dilemma, Jessica sees her family on TV (though which TV I don't know considering Bill doesn't even have electricity in his home) and begs Sookie to take her to see them. Sookie, thinking that she will only want to view them from a distance, reluctantly drives her home. Of course this backfires in a radical way when the teenage-minded, impulsive new vampire rushes right back into the graces of her family with Sookie in the middle. Things take a decidedly more violent, if not predictable, turn when Jenny reveals her issues with her oppressive father and is moments from killing him when Bill arrives. None too happy with Sookie, Bill kicks her out of the home and the episode ends with a foreboding sense that to "clean up" Sookie's mess, Bill may have to kill the entire family.

The episode also deals with Tara's continued tenure with her overly rosey overseer, Maryanne, and Sam's inability to stop her from causing chaos all around him. Jason also continues to naively dive headlong into the cult-like Fellowship of the Sun, and one gets the impression his hyper sexualized persona and dumber than sticks mindset are going to get the better of him.

This episode was much more enjoyable from a story standpoint as it started to build onto the established series progression while finally pushing forward into unknown territory. The pretty edges in Tara's oddly perfect situation are beginning to fray as predicted, but in a subtle enough way that it doesn't feel heavy handed. Something is obviously up with Maryanne, but it is yet to be specifically painted as evil or just plain shady. As cited before, the development with Lafayette opens tons of new doors and storytelling opportunities. Whereas before the character was indeed amusing and at the very least intriguing, as a vampire it's hard to imagine the limits someone like him could go to now. As for Bill and Sookie, the writers of the show do a wonderful job of portraying a complex to say the least relationship. At the risk of sounding too overblown, it almost reads like an abusive relationship. Bill is not necessarily symptomatic of such a case, but his vampiric nature and the oddities that come with it definately put a very unnatural strain on the pair. As shown in these first two episodes, they find something to argue about and Bill says something sweet and they end up staring googly eyed at each other for a while (mostly naked too). But as is the case with this show it doesn't seem to last very long. It will be interesting to see how this plays in the next episode as it can be imagined Bill will be rightfully upset with Sookie's foolish move with Jessica.

So what more can be said? Season Two of True Blood is starting to fire up on all cylinders and it looks like the story could go anywhere from here. As far as TV series go, this is just the place to be. Too often it's easy to figure out the pattern of the show as it gets comfortable with its various characterizations. True Blood may not completely buck the trend, but it definately is presenting its material in such a way that it continues to pull the viewer in each week. I for one look forward to next week's episode to see if it can satisfyingly capitalize on all of the payoffs it set up this week.