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You are here: Home / TV & Movies / Television / True Blood Open Thread

True Blood Open Thread

by John Cole|  June 29, 20148:53 pm| 53 Comments

This post is in: Television

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Yes, I’m still watching.

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Previous Post: « Yellow! Watermelon!
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Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    Yatsuno

    June 29, 2014 at 9:01 pm

    I saw an episode. I think. Once. A long time ago. I’m not certain now.

  2. 2.

    SuperHrefna

    June 29, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    They had better feature Eric tonight

  3. 3.

    PaulW

    June 29, 2014 at 9:11 pm

    So… any word on Gilligan’s Island making a comeback?

  4. 4.

    Morzer

    June 29, 2014 at 9:12 pm

    Yes, I’m still watching.

    I knew that enormous fiery eye glaring out over the world from a dark tower in West Virginia had to mean something.

  5. 5.

    gbear

    June 29, 2014 at 9:21 pm

    …but we were still having so much fun talking about booze that made us toss our cookies in the last thread.

  6. 6.

    ulee

    June 29, 2014 at 9:23 pm

    @Morzer: I find solace in this. Cole, the benevolent yet very pissed off God.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    June 29, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    I gave up when she turned out to be a fairy. Not sure why that was my breaking point after all of the other supernatural stuff, but it was.

  8. 8.

    ? Martin

    June 29, 2014 at 9:25 pm

    @PaulW: Wasn’t that ‘Lost’?

  9. 9.

    Morzer

    June 29, 2014 at 9:26 pm

    @ulee:

    The only god in that household is Steve – and he hasn’t actually devoured Cole’s corpse yet, so I guess we can assume his benevolence until proven wrong.

  10. 10.

    Keith G

    June 29, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    I am soooo behind. Thanks to Amazon Prime, I am now working my way through the first season.

  11. 11.

    Mike in NC

    June 29, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    Watching “The Last Ship” on TNT. Based on a book that was published 20-25 years ago. Pretty cringe inducing if you were ever in the Navy. The captain of the ship likes to go around carrying his cover (hat) so as to not mess up his perfectly gelled hairdo. Everybody salutes each other uncovered, which never is done.

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    June 29, 2014 at 9:43 pm

    @PaulW: Aren’t they still on the island?

  13. 13.

    Bob In Portland

    June 29, 2014 at 9:45 pm

    Let’s have martial law!

    Over 1,000 protesters led by the Ukrainian army’s Donbass Battalion fighters gathered for a rally in central Kiev on Sunday. The demonstrators are demanding that President Petro Poroshenko end the ceasefire and impose martial law.

    The Sunday rally was organized by Donbass Battalion Commander Semyon Semenchenko, who told the pro-Kiev protesters on his Facebook page to gather near the presidential administration building. Some Azov Battalion fighters also reportedly took part in the demonstration.

    A Donbass Battalion representative read out a petition to President Poroshenko on behalf of Ukrainians, with a demand to “stop the truce, impose a martial law in the country, provide the military with necessary armaments and measures to destroy terrorists and request the EU and the USA to impose a third round of sanctions against Russia.”

  14. 14.

    Steeplejack

    June 29, 2014 at 9:46 pm

    * Incredibly mild, inoffensive spoiler contained below. *

    It’s Endeavour for me. I did a spit-take when I saw in the first minute that Morse apparently is coming back from a gunshot wound. I beat it to IMDB to see if I missed an episode from last season. I didn’t, so presumably all will be made clear.

    I really like the “I’m not quite Tim Curry” guy who plays Morse’s boss, D.I. Thursday. (Roger Allam; thanks, IMDB.)

    And Alan Cumming is a good actor, but why does he need to pointlessly Brit-splain us into each episode of Mystery!? It was kind of endearing when Alistair Cooke did it for Lord Peter Wimsey 40 years ago, but not anymore.

  15. 15.

    Morzer

    June 29, 2014 at 9:48 pm

    @Bob In Portland:

    Kindly fellate Putin on your own time, little propagandist.

  16. 16.

    ulee

    June 29, 2014 at 9:50 pm

    @WereBear: There was no island, no moon landing, no Iraq invasion. Cole doesn’t write this blog, Emmanuel Goldstein does. It’s all fakery.

  17. 17.

    gbear

    June 29, 2014 at 9:51 pm

    @ulee: I KNEW IT!!!

  18. 18.

    gbear

    June 29, 2014 at 9:57 pm

    @ulee: I’ve always liked this video of Buzz Aldrin punching a guy in the face for saying the moon landing was fake.

  19. 19.

    Belafon

    June 29, 2014 at 9:59 pm

    @Morzer: sorry, this religion requires that you do it in public.

  20. 20.

    ulee

    June 29, 2014 at 10:01 pm

    @gbear: Thank you. You made my day. Now that’s real entertainment.

  21. 21.

    ? Martin

    June 29, 2014 at 10:05 pm

    @Mike in NC: Not the fact that the ship was hit with missiles what, 3 times and shows nary a scratch, or decided to shoot down a helicopter with the 5″ gun rather than the R2-D2? Or the random nuke incident that only serves to show how bad-ass the captain is and is then ignored and forgotten? And of course, all of these impossibly unlikely things all happen to one ship in a 3 day period. It’s like stumbling across a bigfoot fucking a unicorn while santa claus watches from a UFO. What are the odds of discovering them all at the same time?

    No, you’re right: it was the improper use of hats that ruined the show.

  22. 22.

    PurpleGirl

    June 29, 2014 at 10:15 pm

    @Steeplejack: Yes, Endeavor.

  23. 23.

    SuperHrefna

    June 29, 2014 at 10:16 pm

    @Mnemosyne: that was when the books completely broke down too. I love Charlaine Harris, but she let the Sookie Stackhouse series get way too complicated. She couldn’t handle all the ins and outs and the whole thing crashed and burned. She’s at her best with a small, well defined cast, I loved her latest book, first in a new series that ties all her previous series together.

  24. 24.

    ulee

    June 29, 2014 at 10:19 pm

    ISIS declares caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Our overlord muslin Obummer is succeeding in his agenda.

  25. 25.

    SuperHrefna

    June 29, 2014 at 10:22 pm

    For some reason FYWP won’t let me add a link to my previous post, so here for anyone that is interested is Charlaine Harris’ latest, Midnight Crossroad: http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Crossroad-Texas-Charlaine-Harris/dp/0425263150

  26. 26.

    Morzer

    June 29, 2014 at 10:29 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Chemtrails, man, it’s all about the chemtrails.

  27. 27.

    ulee

    June 29, 2014 at 10:29 pm

    16 shot in violent night in all 5 boroughs of New York. This American gun carnival is working out just swell. This is going to be a super summer.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    June 29, 2014 at 10:30 pm

    @ulee:
    Since they’re now claiming to be the Caliphate, they’ve declared that they are now just IS (Islamic State) rather than ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). Got to get the PR right.

  29. 29.

    gbear

    June 29, 2014 at 10:32 pm

    @ulee: Anything to do with this being Pride weekend? NYC’s been having a rough time with violence against gay men recently.

  30. 30.

    gogol's wife

    June 29, 2014 at 10:34 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Thanks — I was wondering what I had missed last season too.

    It was great, although the plot was ridiculously convoluted! But Allam rules, Evans is also quite good, and I love the guy playing Strange.

  31. 31.

    ulee

    June 29, 2014 at 10:34 pm

    @Roger Moore: But ISIS is so catchy. I think this is a mistake on their part.

  32. 32.

    brettvk

    June 29, 2014 at 10:35 pm

    @SuperHrefna: The four-volume Harper Connelly series was pretty good, possibly because of the relatively short arcs.

  33. 33.

    hildebrand

    June 29, 2014 at 10:35 pm

    I am far more worried about the Caliphate of the Supreme Court – those bastards are quite likely to gut public unions and declare that corporations have religion beliefs tomorrow – those two decisions frighten the piss out of me.

  34. 34.

    bago

    June 29, 2014 at 10:38 pm

    Dave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJdQuKHiGrw

  35. 35.

    Nicole

    June 29, 2014 at 10:38 pm

    You’re not alone. I’m still watching, too. After the magnificent scenery chewing of Russell Edgington, I figure I owe the show my eyes until the end.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    June 29, 2014 at 10:39 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    I’m still in the middle, watching on the DVR.

    Strange is such a colossal dick! Puts me teeth on edge. Which means a great acting job by whoever that guy is.

    ETA: The thing that kills me—not only about this show but a lot of cop shows—is how the hero never gets any respect for his “hunches” or insights. Morse has solved everything in the vicinity—including things that they didn’t even think were crimes at first—but they’re still always “Oh, you and your wacky theories!” any time he says anything. Never “Hang on, maybe we should check this out.”

  37. 37.

    SuperHrefna

    June 29, 2014 at 10:39 pm

    @brettvk: Yes, I loved that. And my favorite character from that series, Manfred Bernardo, plays a big role in the new series as does my favorite character from the Lily Bard series, Bobo Winthrop.

  38. 38.

    Morzer

    June 29, 2014 at 10:42 pm

    @hildebrand:

    I almost feel that giving ISIS.. well, say Arizona, in exchange for them taking Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts and Kennedy off our hands would be a reasonable bargain. Mind you, what use ISIS would have for those rabid, misogynist, ignorant, religious fanatics is hard to say.

  39. 39.

    gogol's wife

    June 29, 2014 at 10:43 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    I guess that’s the only way they have a story at all . . . .

    Strange absence of gold slacks for 1966.

  40. 40.

    hildebrand

    June 29, 2014 at 10:46 pm

    @Morzer: Done. I will make the trade tomorrow. We will need to do it quickly, as anybody with a pulse will figure out that we are dumping crap, but maybe it will work. Lets do it!

  41. 41.

    Keith P

    June 29, 2014 at 10:51 pm

    I feel like watching True Blood at this point is work. Kinda like getting through the last season of Sex and the City just because I saw it from the beginning.

  42. 42.

    Steeplejack

    June 29, 2014 at 10:52 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    Strange absence of gold slacks for 1966.

    Ha! I believe they were introduced later in the year in that seminal movie the name of which I can’t remember.

  43. 43.

    PurpleGirl

    June 29, 2014 at 10:56 pm

    @Steeplejack: Bye Bye Birdie?

  44. 44.

    CaseyL

    June 29, 2014 at 10:58 pm

    Cole, you are not alone! I still like True Blood; it’s completely over the top, has left sanity and coherence behind, and I respect that.

    Caught an episode of Masterpeice/Morse in progress, without knowing what it was. Kinda surreal: I couldn’t figure out why I saw so many vaguely-familiar character actors in a show apparently filmed in the 60s. I was relieved when it turned out to be Masterpiece Mystery rather than a very localized time warp.

    @Steeplejack: Um… Velvet Underground?

  45. 45.

    John Revolta

    June 29, 2014 at 11:16 pm

    @gbear: Actually, he punched the guy in the face for calling him “a coward and a liar”.

    Now, what’s the legalities of this? How much shit do you have to take before you’re allowed to paste a guy? Because it seems to me that that’s what this jerk was angling for all along.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    June 29, 2014 at 11:18 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    I’ve been re-reading Sherlock Holmes (nice before-bed reading) and it’s a big part of those stories, though it’s mostly because Holmes is officially an amateur and the police detectives have a vested interest in him failing.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    June 29, 2014 at 11:27 pm

    @PurpleGirl:

    Pop Gear, discussed at length here when it ran on TCM.

    The gold pants number.

  48. 48.

    brettvk

    June 29, 2014 at 11:28 pm

    @SuperHrefna: I’m in queue for the audiobook from my public library, aithough I might get impatient and buy it. I like authors that worldbuild in various ways and then bring characters together– growing up on Marvel Comics and Heinlein will do that to you.

  49. 49.

    brettvk

    June 29, 2014 at 11:30 pm

    @Morzer: Ayatollahs. They have the temperaments.

  50. 50.

    Steeplejack

    June 29, 2014 at 11:38 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Inspector Lestrade was another small-minded dick.

    I know the whole “detective thinking outside the box” thing is a big trope of the genre, but the whole “colleagues snorting in derision” sidebar has gotten really old. It rarely serves to advance the plot, and after the first go-round we get it: detective X sees things the others don’t. And he gets results. How can the others not see that?

    We don’t have to have their utter disbelief repeatedly pounded into our heads, and it just makes them look stupider than they are (or than they need to be). Like tonight: D.I. Friday could have said, “Well, I think you’re clutching at straws, but tread carefully and keep me apprised.” It gets across the skepticism without making Friday (a good guy) seem like a dolt.

    Now there are characters that are dolts, like Superintendent Strange, but it is conveyed in other ways: his hidebound class worship and blinkered blindness to 90 percent of real life.

  51. 51.

    Steeplejack

    June 29, 2014 at 11:41 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    Just watched that dance number again. Lord, it never gets old.

    ETA: The wide-screen version.

  52. 52.

    big ole hound

    June 29, 2014 at 11:58 pm

    @Mike in NC: The white hat miscues are a small part of the shipboard mistakes from my time at sea. The biggest screw up is how no ship ever rolls or pitches or has the bow drop when just kinda cruising along.

  53. 53.

    J R in WV

    June 30, 2014 at 2:36 am

    My ship was a sub tender, a huge flat-bottomed thing with every kind of repair/rebuild facility, we carried huge sheets of steel, hundreds of thousands of gallons of bunker fuel and diesel fuel, 600 spare torpedos, a floating rebuild base. But we never saw the captain walking around the ship, never. Mostly the officers stayed in officer country and we didn’t.

    Once we put to sea to avoid a tropical storm, the ship was ptiching and yawing, and there was rampant sea sickness. The movement didn’t bother me so much, but the constant puking all around me finally got to me the one time. After I hurled the once, I was OK the rest of the trip. Which meant I got to work double time, as so many guys were really incapable of doing their jobs from the misery.

    This was the first time I was out to sea after schools at Great Lakes. All the rest of the voyages were really quite fun, even though there was a huge amount of work to prepare for putting to sea with a ship that was usually building 16, moored with 2 or 3 subs alongside for repair work.

    I enjoyed most of my short hitch in the Navy, and was in the best shape of my life when I got out.

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