True Blood, Season 5

Earlier this year it was announced that the next season of True Blood, the seventh, would be the last. I read many comments from the culture vultures out there that it was about time. Indeed, many TV shows outlast their shelf life, desperately trying to remain original even as the wheels spin.

I just finished watching True Blood's fifth season, and I think this is where it starts. The central plot focuses on the Vampire Authority, the church/government of the world's vampires. While there is plenty of vampire/werewolf/fairy action, having the whole thing center around vampire bureaucracy is kind of a bummer.

Anyway, our intrepid hero, Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), along with his former enemy, Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgaard), end up arrested by the authority. Eric has a sister (in that she was turned vampire by the same man), played by Lucy Griffiths, who is a chancellor in the Authority, which has a massive underground bunker in New Orleans. Why the world's vampires are governed by a handful of vampires in New Orleans seems to be just a matter of convenience for the producers.

Anyway, the Authority gets that old time religion, in that their legendary goddess, Lilith, appears to them (played gloriously naked and covered in blood by Jessica Clark). They turn against the "mainstreaming" movement, which sought to form an alliance with humans, and instead toward the "Sanguinistas," those who believe in the superiority of vampires, and who see humans as food.

Other plotlines have Sookie (Anna Paquin) trying to find out who killed her parents, which leads her more into the fairy world, Tara (Rutina Wesley) is turned vampire to save her life by the acid-tongued Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten), werewolf Alcide (Joe Mangianello) deals with his pack, a group of rednecks hunt down "supes" while wearing Obama masks, and an Arabian fire spirit, (an Ifrit) torments the shell-shocked Terry (Todd Lowe), who commited an atrocity in Iraq. This latter plot line is an example of the show coming off its wheels. It feels completely extraneous and ends abruptly.

Returning to the show was one of its best characters, Russell Edgington, the 3,000 year old vampire played vividly by Dennis O'Hare. Though, in true soap opera fashion, he was left alive when he was last seen, his return smacked of desperation.

But the bulk of this season was about the vampires religious fundamentalism. Clearly this was a metaphor for the world at large (and certainly the Obama mask gang was a symbol of intolerance in all forms). I find it interesting that almost across the board in vampire fiction that they are portrayed as having a rigid set of laws, (the same in the Twilight films). You'd think people who only come at out night would be much more solitary and free-thinking.

I do want to stick with True Blood until the end, but if this is indication, there will be further bumps along the way.