Another season of True Blood is upon us. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting on my sofa, wishing for a beer, as the True Blood finale unfolded before my eyes.
While I still find elements of the show entertaining (Steve Newlin and Russell Edgington are back!!), the latter half of last season killed the rabid fan in me.
However, prior to the Season 4 finale, I had a couple of draft posts about True Blood I did not want to trash. I HATE starting something and not finishing it. One of the posts I was working on examined a series of page-to-screen adaptions and the challenges and creative decisions involved. Obviously, Ball’s treatment of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels was a subject of this piece.
After last season’s finale, I put this post on the back burner, and I only recently started getting back into it. It has evolved from how it originally began. Throughout my research, I have come across numerous articles about Ball (including some pre-True Blood) and, at times, I’ve found these articles really frustrating. My frustration stems from Ball saying something that doesn’t make a lot of sense or is in direct contrast to what is seen on the show.
In this post, I want to examine one of these articles and how it relates to this show’s inability to kill off key characters.
I feel it is timely given a majority of the reviews of Season 5, whether they be positive or negative, point to the show’s large cast as its weakness and puzzle over the show’s seeming reluctance to pare this cast down.
Killing off a key cast member provides not only a great storytelling opportunity but riveting emotional impact. Several critically acclaimed and award winning HBO shows have done this to great effect (Long Term Parking episode of The Sopranos for one). Yet, True Blood, seems stuck in focusing only on shock value and less on emotional impact.
To be fair, it is not like the show hasn’t killed off characters before. Sookie’s fairy godmother, Claudine, was killed by Eric last season (in an episode penned by Ball). Though, Claudine’s character also died in the books, her demise did not come until much later in the series and it was not at the hands of Eric.
But we all know this ain’t the books. Still, I was interested to hear Ball’s reasoning for this change; especially since the roles of many female characters of the novels have been minimized on the show.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year, Ball had this to say about Claudine’s demise:
“After everything that was going on with the fairies in the first episode, I think we wanted to sort of put a pin in that, but obviously it’s not over,” says Ball. “I felt it would have more impact if it was someone we knew as opposed to just a random fairy.”
(You can read the full article here.)
For me, Ball’s explanation raises more questions than it does answers. Taking this explanation at face value, it would appear that Ball is aware of the emotional impact when a character the viewers know bites the dust. Further it seems he wants to apply it to the show. Yet, this cast remains huge and to say that we “know” or came to care about Claudine is a bit … off.
Claudine was killed off in Episode 39 of True Blood. Assuming that episodes average 55 minutes, this is 2,145 minutes of True Blood. And Claudine was onscreen for a grand total of 9 minutes and 25 seconds of those 2,145 minutes (thanks, YouTube). Or, in percentage terms this is a big fat 0%.
Sorry, Alan. Your reasoning doesn’t make much sense but it definitely sounds better than something like, “We just did it to be shocking with an added bonus of potentially pissing off book fans that prefer the source material.”
RIP, Claudine. Though I didn’t care very much as you made up 0% of my viewing experience.
Screencap courtesy of black-celebration.net.
This cast is so huge, it makes me feel ADD trying to keep the (weak) plotlines straight. I didn’t give a toot about Claudine dying either….because I had absolutely nothing invested in her – not even residual crossover book feelings because her character was so different. I call S5 “the season we give up the pretense this show ever looked to the books”.
I remeber when they killed off Rita on Dexter – THAT packed a punch! I was shocked, sad, shocked, speechless…and glued to the tube the whole next season! Especially when those writers didn’t just sweep Rita’s death under the carpet & move Dex’s life forward like a torpedo. Oh, Alan…why oh why can’t you watch your former stars’ series?! That’s right, because he’s a “genius”.
I just watched my DVR’d episode last night. I remember when I couldn’t Wait for the premier – had my drink, food, smokes, chocolate all lined up – the dog walked, ringer turn off, bathroom run done – all ready to sit for 55 gloriously unenterupted minutes glued to my TV – then immediately texting or phoning my Trubff’s to dish on the ep. Now…I actually finished reading 2 other books, dusted furniture, gave the dog a bath…then finally when I couldn’t find anything else I watched it. Strangely, I felt like I was watching it solely to get it over with so I could clear the queqe & free up gigabytes! Again, in the past I kept every episode saved after viewing until the boxed DVD for that season was released! Hah! Well, S1 – S3. Didn’t buy S4. Dont care. Even Skars in the buff didn’t make me buy it and THAT’s saying something!
Speaking of Skars…maybe AB is saving all his ‘killing off main characters’ theatrics for Skars exit. He only contractually signed for 5 seasons when he was cast & hasn’t re-upped yet. I live in L.A. where Skars is gaining major juice & word is he’s not signing for more seasons. Sooooo…unless HBO finally gets clued in this series has jumped the shark/crashed & burned and cancells it from it’s lineup – then S6 will go ahead without Skars. Maybe AB will recast him – but then again, it’s more likely AB will use his probable exit to reunited Beookie – how could Eric fans be mad about it if Eric is dead dead? It seems to be the way AB thinks, instead of thinking those fans will just tune out.
I honestly don’t know what to say about what I just watched. I’d like to bitch & hen party over it…but that would imply I cared or was moved by what I saw. I’m starting to feel like I’m watching Telemundo – you see the pretty actors moving about, kinda get the gist of the ‘plot’ but really have no clue what they’re doing or *trying* to do, all the while sitting squinting at the tube with head cocked to the side like a dog. Yep, that’s how I’m feeling about TB. Lord help me but even Skars – half naked or naked Skars – isn’t enough to keep my interest. All the other stuff is just that much more annoying!
This is a perfect description of how I feel about TB… LOL!!! PERFECT!! “I’m starting to feel like I’m watching Telemundo – you see the pretty actors moving about, kinda get the gist of the ‘plot’ but really have no clue what they’re doing or *trying* to do, all the while sitting squinting at the tube with head cocked to the side like a dog”
Excellent post! I honestly do not think that Alan Ball would know an ‘emotional impact’ if it hit him smack in the face! Claudine dying would only have had the type of emotional impact he was aiming for if we had known her better. Second, seeing as she seemed to be up to no good where Sookie is concerned, it did not sadden me that she was dead. I was, in fact, grateful that she was gone. Alan Ball will never tell us what she was actually up to.
Now, even though I am not a big fan of whiny Tara, her death would have created the ‘emotional impact’ he was aiming to achieve. Jason , La La, Pam and other characters would have created the effect he was looking for. Alan Ball has been doing this TV thing for how long and still he can’t give a quality show to the viewers, so disappointing.
Claudine who?
Really? He thought her death would create emotional impact? Stop already.
I so wanted Tara to finally die. It just started the season off on the wrong note for me that they didn’t even have the balls to do that.
The whole episode was forgettable. I actually started watching it before I realized I had already seen it. THAT is how forgettable it was.
I hope this doesn’t bode for the whole season.
And Tara’s eye-popping vampire bitch is going to get to be too much already. Die already. AGAIN.
Renee