Episode Title: “Dead Meat”
Writer: Robin Veith
Director: Michael Lehmann
Previously on “True Blood”:
“True Blood’s” most inconsistent season – and that’s saying something – continues with “Dead Meat,” an episode that simply rearranges the pieces on the board for the big endgame. With two episodes to go it seems unlikely that Season 6 will whip out a climax big and satisfying enough to go down as one of “True Blood’s” finer accomplishments. But crazier things have happened in this series before. Remember when they wasted a fifth of a season on a lame werewolf subplot nobody cared about? Oh wait, that was this season. Never mind. This really is “True Blood’s” nadir. So far anyway.
Alcide’s term as packmaster apparently comes to a close this week when Rikki and Danielle challenge him to a fight to the death. Funnily enough, Rikki knows she’s going to lose (have a little confidence, sister), and only fights to prove that Alcide doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to kill. Rather than make a stirring speech about having the courage “not” to kill, and then change the pack for the better and maybe save more lives down the road, Alcide simply quits and brings Nicole and her mother over to Sam’s place. Sam and Alcide get drunk together, and Alcide notes that Terry’s death leaves a vacant position in kitchen at Merlotte’s, and I swear to god if “True Blood” wasted this much screen time just to get Alcide into the position of a short order cook I’m going to kill somebody.
Look, werewolves are cool. Everyone (of consequence) likes werewolves. But this completely divorced from the A-plot of “True Blood” all season and it never felt like it was worth filming. All of the characters involved are relatively new and tragically underdeveloped except for Alcide, who has been acting out of character, and Sam, who only got involved in the first place to protect Emma. But if he was willing to give her away as easily as he did in “Don’t You Feel Me” then clearly even he didn’t care very much.
More proof that Sam didn’t care very much: he seems to have completely forgotten Emma’s mother, who died, in his arms, just a week or two ago. Sookie comes to Sam at a moment of crisis, offering him the opportunity he wanted for so long – a relationship – right after he says he’s in love with Nicole, whom he just met. Plus, Sam can smell that Nicole is pregnant with his child. So he shirks Sookie, Sookie seems to wish him well, and nobody even once mentions that, once again, a couple of weeks ago he was ready to settle down with another woman who – once again – died in his arms just a couple of weeks ago.
If “True Blood” isn’t going to invest any emotion into these storylines, there’s no reason why anyone else should. So again, let’s just call everything werewolf-related in this season a total wash and move on to the good stuff.
“Dead Meat” opens with Eric confronting Billith on his failure to find Warlow and save Nora’s life, leading to another great Eric moment where he responds to Billith’s telekinetic powers by yelling, “Mother, I can fly!” Billith and Eric fall out, sending both of them on their own path to finding Warlow, who is still tied to a gravestone in the faery land of Cybill Shepard filters. You’d think Sookie would at least leave him something to read.
Billith appeals to Sookie’s better nature, and tries to get her to give up Warlow freely. Warlow tells Sookie he’ll only give Billith his blood if she agrees to become his vampire bride, sending her on a soul-searching mission that involves settling for Sam (again, that doesn’t go well) and finally deciding to go through with it just to spite her asshole parents. It is refreshing to see Sookie waffling between good ideas, bad ideas, altruism and pettiness. Her subplot feels a little forced this season, but the last few episodes have admittedly given Anna Paquin more to work with than she’s had in years. Also, I don’t know if they tweaked the lighting or what, but Paquin looks ridiculously good in this episode. Maybe it’s the dangly hairstyle.
Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately, it’s so hard to tell who to root for – Eric found the portal to faery land, and drank Adilyn’s blood to get there. He’s nice enough to let her live, but he seems to have drained Warlow just about dry, screwing Billith over. Adilyn, who can’t make a good decision to save her life (literally), was out drinking with Holly’s kids because Arlene blamed her for freaking Terry out enough to commit suicide.
Carrie Preston gives a particularly remarkable performance in “Dead Meat” as she tries to plan Terry’s funeral with a family that simply didn’t understand him. Although it exists separately from all the supernatural storylines, this subplot doesn’t feel like a digression. It feels like a very human drama that everyone suddenly has to balance with the rest of their crazy lives, just like death and funerals do in real life. If “True Blood” manages to tie all this into the other storylines by the end of Season 6 it might go a long way towards making this whole slew of hodgepodge episodes feel worth it. Maybe.
As for the vampires, Steve Newlin finds out that the True Blood has been spiked with Hep V and turns prison snitch for Sarah, who has Steve, Pam, Tara, Jessica, Willa, Violet and that one studly guy Jessica’s fallen for in the white room from Billith’s prophecy. The fate of Jason Stackhouse, whom Violet was using as a personal vending machine throughout the episode, is unknown. Presumably someone will have sex with him, wherever he is.
As for Sarah Newlin, she pops her murder cherry this week when a True Blood representative stops by the plant and uncovers the conspiracy. As usual she’s a season highlight: thoroughly willing to kill, almost completely incompetent at it. The murder is particularly funny and gruesome as a result of the contrast, although concluding every evil thing she does with some variation on “Praise God” is getting preachy, or rather “anti-preachy,” even by “True Blood’s” standards.
“True Blood” doesn’t do done-in-one episodes, so “Dead Meat” can once again only be judged for its individual moments and relationship to Season 6 as a whole. The highlights are many, but too much of the episode seems dedicated to getting to the next one for it to really register as a strong piece of television in its own right.
Only two episodes to go. Can “True Blood” pull this off? Eh, probably not. But let’s find out anyway.
