True Blood season 5 has its first big casting news, and it’s Christopher Meloni, formerly of Law & Order: SVU which he recently left. I remember his badassery from Oz, so I know he can play just about anything. According to the story I read he’s playing an “ancient, powerful vampire who holds the fate of Bill and Eric in his hands”. Sounds good to us.

Season 5 is set to go in June 2012. We can wait.

I felt the witches were rather lackluster and predictable. They were missing the magic (I will not change that pun) that we had in Russell. Speaking of witch, OOOOH GURL, THE BITCH WILL BE BACK.

True Blood defied the odds and made the Sookie-Eric-Bill triangle the most dull thing ever. Especially with Sookie randomly growing a feminist backbone and spouting talking points. Bored now.

I’m mildly disappointed I didn’t even do a drunk recap video but I just might go back and make one. Or at least do a fashion recap.

Also, PRAISE HIS LIGHT, Vampire!Steve.

Find out who’s a zombie after the jump…

Ni-hao, TB’ers! Well that’s finally it, people. The season from hell came to an end last night, and uh, well, hmmm, thank god it’s over? We should have just skipped the entire season and gone straight to the last five minutes of the finale, where some shit finally happned, in order to suck us all back in for season five. Fuck you, show, for all your Season 5 teases (I shall count these S5T’s as a service to you, dear reader). In tribute to the writers who seemed not to have cared for this season, I do not care to work hard writing this recap. So I will write one snarky bullet point or decent line (Pam kills it again) for each scene, in order:

• Lafarnie stabs Jesus with a fork. Don’t worry Jesus, it will get better worse;
• Mmm, awesome sexy freaky credits;
• Dead Gran + Sookie/Tara bonding = foreshadowing;
• Tommy’s sparsely-attended funeral is only notable for the excitement of Mrs. Hoytenberry’s pork rind casserole later.  Mmm, pork rind casserole;
• Jason telling Hoyt about fucking Jessica is noble, if a little stupid. So, Jason-like;
• Nelsan Ellis is doing a nice job acting as Lafarnie, even though the concept is just dumb, and will resolve itself so stupidly you can’t even imagine. Wait ’til I get to that bullet point;
• Sookie is back at Merlotte’s, where it’s Hallowe’en. I thought it’s always Hallowe’en in Bon Temps;
• Lafarnie stabs the fuck out of Jesus and gets his magical bruja powers. Ok, whatevs. Bye Jesus, you were always gonna be a redshirt;
• “Janelle, from Teen Mom 2″ is the best costume ever;
• Is Terry’s military past gonna be a thing next year? Probs, because his army buddy is played by Scott Foley, who’s an actual actor;
• Alcide professes his love for Sookie over a beer after having killed a guy/wolf. Romantic!
• Weed is “Mother Earth’s Valium.” Amen, Holly!
• Sookie, Holly, and Tara are going to save Lafayette from Marnie or something. They’re like Charlie’s Angels;
• “I liked you better when you were brain damaged” (Bill to Eric);
• OK, so here is the big “dramatic” scene that wraps up the witch story line, such as it is. It is so mind-numbingly stupid I can’t take it. Lafarnie has Eric and Bill tied to a stake and lights the slowest burning fire in the history of the universe. Charlie’s Angels use salt and chants to call up some zombies, one of whom is Antonia. After some stupid dialog between Lafarnie and Antonia and some Sookie glow light, Zombie Gran pulls out Marnie from Lafayette via horrible special effects and Antonia cools the fire with, oh I don’t know, a magic ice machine? Anyway, after more stupid talking, Marnie cries a bit and accepts her lot in life to be a zombie, the zombies walk off, Lafayette is fine, Bill and Eric are just a little crispy, and it’s all over. That ending could not have been more useless, and the whole witches thing was just useless, stupid, dumb, crappy, and a waste of my fucking time for 12 episodes. Gah;
• Hey look, René! Ghost René warns Arlene about Terry. S5T #1!
• Nice job by the director to really stretch Deborah Ann Woll’s no-nudity clause to the limit. I looked for nipple like it was the Zapruder film. I swear I saw side-nipple, if that’s a thing;
• “Sookie! I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name. FUCK Sookie!” (Pam, obvs);
• Oh my fucking god this next scene was even worse than the witches crap. Bill and Eric are both healed of their crispiness by some Sookie blood, and the big threesome story line is coming to an end. Sookie loves them both so much she will choose… neither of them! Sad violin plays. Sookie cries. I am crying too at how annoying Sookie’s speechifying is. This is all supposed to be some big emotional moment, but it isn’t. My only emotion here is anger. Well, and love for Eric and Bill’s matching bathrobes;
• A despondent Lafayette is somewhat cheered up when Ghost Jesus tells him he would have died of cancer anyway. Aww, sweet!
• This touching little scene between Andy and Holly was practically the highlight of this episode (besides the side-nipple). Nice job, Sheriff Andy!
• Luna and Sam are going to live happily ever after, until a black werewolf shows up and growls at Sam (S5T #2);
• “Maybe next time we can try oral?” (Jess to Jason). S5T #3, hopefully;
• OK, the teasers are coming fast and furious now. Long lost Reverend Steve Newlin shows up at Jason’s door, and he’s a vampire. Alrighty then. (S5T #4);
• Hey look, Russell Edgington has escaped from his concrete hole in the ground! (S5T #5);
• Nan and her gay storm troopers show up to Bill and Eric, she announces she’s left the AVN and The Authority all at once, and Bill and Eric have a True Death order on their heads (S5T #6). There are factions among vampires who want to rebel (S5T #7). Eric and Bill bloodily dispose of the gay storm troopers and Nan in quick succession. Bye Nan, we’re gonna miss you!
• Debbie is pretty pissed that Sookie is the reason Alcide left her. Or something. I’m sure Alcide didn’t leave her because she was fucking the pack master or anything. No, Debbie needs motivation for this cliffhanger to work. So she shows up wanting to kill Sookie with a shotgun (pretty please!), but Tara gets in the way and takes the bullet to her head. W00t! (S5T #8). But I’m sure it won’t last, I want Tara to die too much for it to happen. Sookie is pretty pissed Tara might (won’t) die, so she grabs the shotgun from Debbie and murders her in the face! (S5T #9). That might have been interesting if it made any sense whatsoever, if it was in Sookie’s character, or if Sookie didn’t have some magical light she could use to hurt people or stop them from shooting. Guess the writers forgot about that.
• And… that’s all, folks.

Grade: D. Though I’m not sure if that’s for the episode or the whole season. Probably both. The ep was saved from an F by some side-nipple and one or two decent cliffhangers (the Russell one most of all). But this was a limp end to a limp season. What was this season about? Witches? Total waste of time. Wasn’t this season supposed to be all about fairies? Hahaha, sure it was. Or vampire politics? I guess next season… We wasted a ton of time this season on all kinds of shit that went nowhere (Hotshot werepanthers, remember those?) and sidebars that went further than nowhere (where’s the devil baby now?). Ah well. At least we’ll have many months of hoping that Tara is dead.

And on that note, thanks to all of you who popped in this year to read these recaps and give your own excellent opinions on how much this show is now sucking. You’re the best. Uh, see you next season?

“Every single day, I wake up and look in the mirror and think, five times, motherfucker, five times.”

— Alexander Skarsgård on being voted Sexiest Man in Sweden five years running

Because it’s Labour Day, I’m not working. I will say there was a lot I actually sort of enjoyed last night. But I will sum up my feelings about the ep and this whole season with help from one of Pam’s greatest quotes of all-time (and that’s saying something):

“Holy shit gentlemen. Do not tell me you’d put our entire species at risk for a gash in a sundress!?!”

I miss you…do you miss me? I miss your kind of crazy and fabulous wardrobes.

Find out who regrets what after the jump. SPOILER – I regret watching this season…

Bongiourno, TB’ers! Well, now down to 2 episodes left after tonight. THANK GOD, because I am getting real sick and tired of a few things. And by “a few things” I mean “just about everything.” This ep actually had a real solid opening and a real solid finish. Well, maybe not real solid, but at least entertaining. No wait, that’s not it. How about “not crappy”? Sounds about right. Along the way, however, well, there was a lot of crap. Let’s dive into the crap!

So we open where we left off at the Woodstock ‘o Tolerance. Things are pandemonium, what with all the blood and vampires and people screaming. Nan gets to stab one of the vamps under Martonia’s spell in the neck with a pencil. Nice work, Nan! Eric and Bill are fighting while Sookie begs for them not to hurt each other or something. Just as Eric gets the upper hand and is about to knock off Bill (yeah right), Sookie remembers all of a sudden she has some glowy powers in her and sends a big blast of it at Eric. This has the effect of both stopping Eric dead in his tracks and breaking Martonia’s spell, returning him to old kickass Eric. About fucking time.

Awesome sexy freaky credits.

Martonia seems to regret all the killing that just happened (that she wrought), and we even see Antonia’s face for a brief bit. Martonia manages to magically make her and her minions vanish, but without any cool Star Trek transporter effects. Nan immediately and hysterically jumps back to PR mode. I am beginning to really like her.

Jason really regrets sleeping with Jess as they chat post-coitus in the back of the truck. Jason wants Jess to glam him so Hoyt won’t find out about the truck sex, but Jessica isn’t buying it. She regrets NOTHING. Later, Hoyt shows up at Jason’s and he’s all depressed, and because he can’t stand being in the house he shared with Jessica, moves in with Jason. Awkward!

Alcide is busy rescuing Tommy like the hero that he is, but Tommy is too far gone to be rescued. So Alcide takes him to Merlotte’s and lays him on the pool table for a quick game of 9-ball. No actually he lays him down there so HE CAN DIE. W00t! About six episodes or two seasons too late, but at least he’s dead. It’s supposed to be all sad and shit, what with Tommy and Sam crying and regretting and  apologizing to each other as Tommy dies, but really, just get it over with already. Sam is so pissed about the death of the brother he always hated and who tried to kill him once that he wants to go after the man who did this, Marcus. Because this season doesn’t have enough stupid stories, we need to add a shifter vs. werewolves plot with two eps to go. Marcus is too busy sexing up Debbie to notice Sam is coming.

Let’s get to the other story line we can recap in a paragraph, the continuing story of Andy on V. Terry and Arlene have found his stash, and Terry has a plan to get him off the juice which involves a tree house and shooting tin cans and some enjoyable Bellefleur banter along the way. It seems to work, as Andy is duly impressed with Terry’s honesty or something. Storyline over!

Martonia’s still got her prisoners, but Holly thinks she can get them out with a spell of her own. Fighting fire with fire, nice thinking Holly. Too bad you have to have Tara as your helper. Martonia and her minions have transported back to the Emporium ‘o Wiccans. Martonia is having a crisis of conscience it looks like, and this manifests itself later when Antonia and Marnie split up (literally). It turns out that Antonia is no longer down with the killing all vamps business, but it’s Marnie who wants to keep going because people made fun of her as a child or something. Marnie and about ten different accents try to convince Antonia that they need to keep up with the plan, and for a 16th century witch with a shitload of powers, Antonia gives in pretty easily, and Martonia is quickly reintegrated. There are so many things wrong with this I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just move on.

Eric wants to keep the relationship with Sookie alive, but Sookie isn’t down with that, because  – get this – she is still in love with Bill. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST GET OVER HIM ALREADY YOU STUPID FUCKING [C-WORD I am too PC to use]. The scene picks up when Pam comes in and we see her spell is broken too as she’s looking all VILF-y again. She is hysterical as she has to reluctantly thank Sookie for getting rid of the spell. My new spin-off show will be Pam and Nan simultaneously fighting and doing crimes while trading quips along the way.

Nan and Bill aren’t getting along. Nan is all about PR, while Bill is all about killing necromancers. Bill gathers his force of Eric, Pam, and Jessica to blow up Wiccans ‘r Us. Sookie doesn’t want the explosions to happen, because Tara is in there. Funny, I had the opposite reaction. The demolitions team (with Nan) spends the day tied up in Bill’s Dungeon ‘o Fun and it’s the best scene of the ep, with Nan comically threatening everyone with True Death and Bill making small arms deals via Bluetooth.

Jason needs to escape from Hoyt and his beer farts, so he comes over to Sookie’s. Sookie complains about the plan to blow up WiccanMart with Tara in it, so the two of them go over to get some help from Jesus and Lafayette and Lafayette’s new corn rows. Jesus thinks he can get Marnie to kick Antonia out of her body (whoops!). So this crime-fighting team heads over to Wiccan Depot only to discover a force field around the place. Martonia comes out to greet Jesus and invites him to join the circle. Jesus manages to get through the force field, turning into a demon along the way and coming to the realization Marnie is no innocent victim during a totally pointless conversation and vibration-feeling the two of them have.

The action begins to heat up at Best Wiccan. Holly and Tara’s spell-casting actually has an effect, and the two of them are able to run out of the store into the street, looking for a better bargain on patchouli. Sookie and Lafayette run to greet them, only to have the four of them be magically transported into nothingness or somewhere else by Martonia. Jason lagged behind (because the ex-football player is obviously the slowest runner) and doesn’t make it onto the transporter pad in time. Two minutes later it is suddenly nighttime, and Bill and his A-team show up in a black van, all dressed in black. Because they’re so badass! They strut toward J.C. Wiccan all Reservoir Dogs-like, weapons at the ready. They fire! Nah, just kidding. The ep ends with strutting.

True Blulz

“Fucking humans. I’m gonna go find someone to eat.” (Jessica)

“No drugs for me… except the anti-psychotics.” (Terry)

“I don’t care what happens as long as I get to kill shit.” (Jessica)

Grade: I dunno, C+ maybe? I guess it’s good that the vamps vs. witches thing is coming to a head with some action. But really I just don’t care.

Sookie’s proposition had so much potential. But instead she gave a speech with talking points and I could HEAR THE PLOT. The premise really was aces. Of course Sookie would think cheap red lingerie is the way to go. At least she imagined Eric being his suave, bamf self we know and love. Bill, well, I do like bad Bill. Sookie did call them both out for their bullshit. But we all groaned because we know what is being set up for next season.

We’ve got three epis left. Are we gonna survive?

Want to know who is rolling into Bon Temps this season? That’s right, it wouldn’t be True Blood if more people weren’t added at the last minute.

SNEAK PEEK: Scott Foley as Patrick, Terry’s military buddy, in the Season 4 finale of True Blood. According to TVLine.com, Foley’s character will be introduced in the final episode of this season and play a major recurring role in Season 5. Scott’s episode of True Blood airs September 11 on HBO.

The former Felicity actor is currently reprising his role as Teddy’s husband on Grey’s Anatomy. The ABC show began filming it’s eighth season in July. See the first promo here.

Just got home from post-work drinking and I thought I would record this. BIG MISTAKE. The audio and video are both terrible and I have clearly had a few, but what the hell. I’ve been meaning to learn the guitar solo part, but I’m too drunk, so here you go. Still the best part of this season. Sorry if my look at the end of the vid is frightening. Well, just like this season.