Summer TV List

Family Tree- May 12

Arrested Development- May 26

The Fall- May 28

Teen Wolf- June 3

The Fosters- June 3

Switched At Birth- June 10

Twisted- June 11

Pretty Little Liars- June 11

Wilfred- June 20

Copper- June 23

Under the Dome- June 24

Big Brother- June 26

Dexter- June 30

Ray Donovan- June 30

Orange is the New Black- July 11

Web Therapy- July 22

The Bridge- July TBA

Breaking Bad- August 11

Low Winter Sun- August 11

We are dropping True Blood, which gets more and more boring each season. We couldn’t give a crap about a single character anymore.

Why We're Not Watching the True Blood Finale Tonight

Gage Skidmore [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

We’ve seen 10/12 episodes of this season, and we just can’t bring ourselves to watch another minute. Yeah, it’s better than season three and arguably better than season four, but we’ve been finding it hard to watch. We have to make ourselves look at it. The show has always been overrated, and now we’ve decided that it’s nowhere near as good as most of the other shows we watch. The religion stuff didn’t work for us. It’s too annoying and most of it really has nothing to say about the world or religion. One line that rang true was when Hoyt talked about feeling accepted in the hate group. Yep, a common enemy bonds. It's a component. Moving on. 

Another thing we hate about this show is that it takes so long in an episode to get exciting, and then just when it amps up, it ends. Then in the next episode, the exciting things are solved in the first five minutes. Rinse and repeat. We remember when this show was FUN to watch. Still, it’s seen worse days. This season was pretty good, for this show. As for bringing Lilith to the show, that’s been done to death in fiction. Our favorite Lilith appearance was in Simon Green’s Nightside books. True Blood didn’t top that.

There are just too many storylines on this show. Not everyone needs to be a main character. Next year, this show should have two storylines and just put everyone in them. Or it should consult HBO’s other overpopulated show, Game of Thrones, to see how to juggle so many people at once and still have a coherent, entertaining story. Things jump around too much, and it’s hard to get too attached to any one storyline. We know this show finds it difficult to fill an hour, but come on…

We like that Tara is better and Jason is staying sweet, but then the show adds more people we hate, like Nora and Salome. They took Jesus from us and then only bring him back in dream sequences, but Tara is back for real? Wtf. We liked some of the gross stuff this season. Getting our lips sewn shut is on our list of Top 100 Things We Never Want to Happen to Us. We also liked when Bill climbed onto Eric’s back for a piggy back ride through the streets. Yeah, that happened. Yeah, it was funny. 

We also started liking Martha. She’s a badass. We liked the Jessica/Hoyt relationship, but that seems pretty over. We also liked Tara and Jessica when they were friends for a time, but that didn’t last long. Terry’s ifrit storyline was all for nothing. There was no real consequence, and heck, he killed a woman, so there should have been.

We like Lafayette as a paid, fabulous medium, but it’s not enough to distract from stupid things like the Hate Group/pig farm stoyline. When Bud and his girlfriend were monologue-ing, we were like, “What the heck is this? Scooby Doo?” Sookie looked really nice in that scene though. Luna chased Bud’s girlfriend down and beat the crap out of her. That was the first time we’ve ever liked Luna. Crazy violent Luna beats boring, mommy, sexy Luna any day. Things were going alright until they took Tina Majorino away from us. We hate the fairies.

We think everything to do with the Sanguinistas and the Authority is boring, heavy-handed, talky, and too weird to take seriously. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. We don’t know if Bill is faking conversion or if he’s really a Lilith worshipper. What’s worse, we don’t care. We don’t care about Bill at all anymore. We kind of care about Eric, but not enough to keep watching the show. Why are Russell and Newlin still on this thing? Why did Roman die so early? Why does it take so long for something to happen on this show? We’re out. We should have been out years ago. The Jesus season was okay though because of the witch stuff, particularly Jesus and Marnie. 

True Blood - Let’s Boot and Rally

Oh, that first scene, God love it. Nobody was expecting Sookie’s first sexual encounter with Alcide to involve vomit. It was his own fault for saying something as weak as, “I’ve waited so long for this.” We were like, “Um, yeah, us too, and you two are ruining it by being drunk.” Of course Eric would interrupt it with a one-liner and some trespassing. We liked this scene due to the pure unpredictability and hilarity. Like we said last week, we already had super romantic and gushy with both Bill and Eric (and Eric and Eric and Eric. They boned for like a zillion episodes). Alcide is just a fun bang for Sook. Sookie’s reaction to her situation (“Must be Thursday! Onwards into the jaws of death! Boot and rally”) was funny. We are starting to like Sookie this season. She’s losing it, and it’s about time she had the good lines.

Lafayette decides to call on God, and he does so while looking at a bunch of idols/porcelain figures and waiving sage around. Yeah, the Old Testament Christian God is all about statues. Hilariously, Lafayette says, “I’m good enough. Better than most. So cut me a break.” Um, a former prostitute and druggie is “better than most”? Doubtful. Even if he had a squeaky clean past, it’s doubtful. Lafayette means well and loves his family/friends, but doesn’t everyone? That’s the thing: Everyone thinks they are better than lots of other people. Everyone. But nobody is really better. Until you had the upbringing, past, and psychological material of the exact person you think you’re better than, you don’t know if you would actually make better choices. Why would True Blood show us Jesus’ head like that? It’s bad enough that we miss him. He was the only boyfriend of Lafayette’s we’ve ever liked. Not that he’s had many, but still.

Anyway, we got to see Jason’s parents in a creepy dream. They didn’t look like we’d imagined. They were less attractive. Arlene isn’t so awful this season. We still prefer the actress on The Good Wife. It’s been forever since we’ve seen Tara look attractive. We don’t like the way Rutina Wesley was playing New Vampire Tara in this episode, but we do like Pam getting to slam Tara down every time she has attitude. This is the best thing that could ever have happened to Tara. DOES EVERYONE ON THIS SHOW HAVE TO WHISPER when conversing seriously? No one whispers in real life. We’ve mentioned this before, because it’s one of our pet peeves, and this show is one of the biggest culprits. The Vampire Diaries is the only show that’s allowed to do that.

Holy Ifrit, Terry, no wonder you are traumatized and crazy from war. Obviously, he did the wrong thing, but that’s a tough situation with lots of pressure. There are so many storylines and characters on this show, and we only really care about a few. Right now, we are interested in seeing Sookie and Jessica, but that’s it. Sure, things change from time-to-time, but watching Jason and Andy frolic around being cops and talking about fairies is trying our patience. A storyline for Sam is really happening now, and while we hate him less than lots of people on this show, we’re not anxious for his conflicts with the pact/shifters to start taking up more time. The more time taken up for collateral matters, the less time we get to watch A-plot. This show is all B-plot. Glad to see Luna go though.

Jessica being sweet to Tara was adorable. We’re so glad Tara responded like a nice person. That made us like her for the duration of that scene. If Jessica can convince Tara to love life as a vampire, instead of just sulking, Jessica will be even more awesome than she already is. Then Hoyt shows up, looking ridiculous. We were really bummed when he and Jessica broke up, because they were so cute in their mindless puppy love. Even better than seeing Jessica and Tara almost turn into friends was seeing Jessica rip Tara off of Hoyt. Don’t toy with us, True Blood. We want that pairing back.

Episode grade: B-

True Blood - We'll Meet Again

The episode starts. We think, “Man, this episode had better be worth it. A whole hour’s break is quite the sacrifice.” The show needed to start moving forward and changing the game. Did it happen? Either read on or just skip to the last paragraph, haha. Tara was so nasty coming out of the tanning bed. Pam, just let her die! Sookie is having a crisis of conscience and wants to start remembering Gran’s teachings and do the right thing. 

Man, it’s about two seasons too late for that, Sookie. Your character has really lost her way, morally. But hey! She turns herself into the police: Jason. Predictably, Jason doesn’t arrest Sookie. Way to leave your sister in the lurch, Eric. Nora is still screaming and Eric is back. God, Pam’s body is sick. She’s 45. We know it’s an actress’ job to stay thin, but damn. Eric thinks that Pam dug up Russell and doesn’t trust her. Pam is hurt and we feel for her, mostly because we know how loyal she is to Eric. And we love her. We can’t believe Andy excused the judge’s son’s ticket! Just when we were starting to like him a little…

Sookie is getting judged hard for what she did to Tara, but Alcide is the one taking all the heat for what happened to Debbie. Tara’s right, there will always be someone willing to take a bullet for Sookie, even if it’s her car. Demon Lafayette is after her, and we love that development, because at least it’s something interesting. We got to see a little of what happened to Terry in Iraq, and so far, it's not nearly disturbing enough. Sookie is becoming an alcoholic, which is JUST what this show needs. Jessica is officially our favorite character, which is crazy, because when she first showed up, we wanted her gone. Way to do something useful, girl. She brainwashed Andy into closing the Debbie Pelt case. 

We like seeing Pam's maternal side toward Tara and Eric's fatherly side toward Pam. Releasing her was one of maybe ten kind things Eric has ever done on this show. We can't wait to see Pam be her own boss now. Bill reveals that he's proud of Jessica (or at least the work he's done with her). Nora finally cracks, telling the Authorities the identity of that leader of that extremist group trying to bring them down. Fortunately, she secures Salome's blood oath to spare Eric and Bill. Meanwhile, Sookie continues to fall apart without her two men. It's pretty funny. Ern likes to change song lyrics while singing along too. Then Alcide showed up. Yesssssssssssss. 

The Little Boy authority member meets the true death when a video surfaces of him feeding on humans. He's really dead, because he turned into sludge. That's the new rule for this show: if they aren't sludge, they are coming back. We actually felt bad for Tara when Pam made her kill a woman. That's devastating. Jason, Andy, and the Judge get taken to a Moulin-Rouge-y dance club by fairies. Okay. Jason is going to be Harry Potter now, since he finds out that vampires killed his parents. Okay. The Terry quest is getting interesting. Please let the Terry thing involve zombies, show. Sam's old shifter friends turn up dead.

Alcide and Sookie. FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY. We actually didn't think this was ever going to happen. We knew Eric/Sookie would happen, but this was more surprising, so it was more satisfying than that hookup. But where was our gratuitous sex scene? The one time we want it, show, and you deprive us? Ugh. To make things juicier, Bill and Eric get to see it through a window, and Bill decides to use Sookie as bait for Alcide. Things just got real. We don't know where things are going from here, but at least now we care. 

Episode grade: B+

True Blood - Whatever I Am, You Made Me

We didn’t realize Tara was that into the cross or Christianity. Seeing the cross made her forget her hunger, let her victim go, apologize, and leave. We’re all for a more religious Tara if it helps her be less angry. The angst is getting real old, y’all, and we’ve realized that Tara is probably on this show to stay. We loved her going to Sam for help though. It’s so easy to forget that they are friends. The best scene of the first part of the episode was Pam and Sookie fighting. We often have the same attitude toward Sookie that Pam does lately, so it was lame to see Pam lose the fight. But if it means Sookie is getting less useless, then we are okay with it.

We guess Newlin has a reason for being back: to be the new Nan Flannigan. It’s too on-the-nose that some of the vampire Authority scenes have Catholic church music playing in the background. Those scenes are also played a little too overdramatically. Maybe that’s to make things more fun and cheesy, but we aren’t digging it. Seeing Tina Majorino on this show nearly made this season good for us. We love her from the P!nk "F*ckin Perfect" video, Veronica Mars, Napoleon Dynamite, Andre, and Big Love. She’s lost a lot of weight, and we think she looked better with it. They gave her a decent line: “You guys are too cute to be goo.”

Don’t expect me to be waiting for you when you get back?!! DON’T EXPECT ME TO BE WAITING FOR YOU WHEN YOU GET BACK?!! Umm, Terry should be more forthcoming with his wife, but he is clearly going through something, and if you married someone, you should wait for them while they deal with their deep, dark army past. Terry has been really cool to Arlene and her kids for four seasons, and that should get him some kind of loyalty. Is the search for Debbie Pelt going somewhere? Are we supposed to feel tension from Sookie’s possible murder prosecution? Because we’re not. We know Sookie won’t go down for that.

The funniest thing in this episode was Andy’s naked body ending up on Facebook. At first, we were unimpressed with the Pam/Eric flashbacks, and bringing Bill into them didn’t help. It just emphasizes how much shorter Bill is than Eric. Bill, you have no chance in this show. Everyone thinks Eric is hotter, and that includes Sookie. We did like the way Pam forced Eric to turn her though. That was a good scene. How is the princess who had John the Baptist beheaded portrayed as a symbol of “dangerous female sexuality” in the Bible? True Blood added the sex angle, as usual. Salome danced, but there’s no proof that the dance was actually sex. She’s very pretty in the show, even though her accent isn’t exactly what we’d expect for the role. She’s sweet on Bill. We hope she’s gone soon.

We liked Nora’s reactions to getting tortured. It made us like her more. Jason reuniting with the older woman who apparently deflowered him is an interesting change from his usual love stories. She should be sorry. She started Jason on a path that led him to make many unwise decisions that put him in peril multiple times in the show’s history. We didn’t expect Jason to actually realize this though. But near the end of the episode, he realized he was using sex to fill a hole inside him, because he was taught at a young age to have and seek it. That’s really mature for this show, and we hardly believe it. But it’s true. Jason’s addictions led him to hurt his best friend. Jessica’s reaction was more helpful than we expected.

Tara spent most of the episode in Merlottes’ freezer, but when our “Lil’ Hooker” came out, it was worth it. She very nearly told Alcide what Sookie did to Debbie. That meant Sookie had to do it herself. Alcide was appropriately upset, especially that Sookie hid the news from him for so long. It looks like Sookie has no boyfriends this season. Tara sounds hilarious with her new vampire lisp. Demon Lafayette is back! We love that. He looks to be out for murder. Tara tried to end things in a tanning bed, but it looks like Pam is going to save her. This episode wasn’t slow at all, and that’s a good thing. It must have been the decent direction, because not much actually happened (as usual).

Episode grade: B

True Blood - season 5, episode two “Authority Always Wins”

Spoiler warning

This episode wasn’t much of an improvement from last week. Tara rises like an animal, and it’s actually kind of cool and morbid. She can’t be tamed. At least she’s quieter. Then she gets back to herself a little, says, “I’ll never forgive you” to Lafayette and Sookie, and runs off. Tara’s angry at someone?!! What a change! It seems like she will be getting completely different storylines now that she’s a vampire and it’s a whole new season! We hope you are getting all the sarcasm there.

The much-hyped backstory of how Pam met Eric is lame so far. Steve Newlin just needs to go away. He’s the kind of gay guy that gives gays, Christians, Republicans, and men everywhere a bad name. He isn’t funny and he isn’t scary. He’s still in the closet about being gay. The best thing about his existence is Jessica throwing him out of her house and throwing his hair. We liked Hoyt’s mom’s reaction to Jason breaking up Hoyt’s relationship. Pies for Jason!

Luna acted pretty crazy when Sam suggested that Luna not cut Emma off from her grandmother, Martha. Emma is a cute little wolf. Marcus’s body looked too fake to be gross when it was all partially eaten. We don’t get to see a ton of Alcide and just about everyone keeps their clothes on this week. We don’t get much progression on the Terry stuff. He just acts crazy and agrees to go with Patrick to look for their missing fellow soldier.

We liked Nora getting shut up and slapped when she tried to lie. We also like Chris Meloni as the head of the Authority (the Guardian). True Blood is tackling religion, the church, and fanaticism by showing us the vampire religion. They are like vampire Catholics from the Inquisition days and they definitely believe the government should be a theocracy with them at the head. Greeeeeaat. That will be so fun, True Blood of all the dumb f*** shows getting political and throwing out commentary.

We’ve seen the Lilith myth used in much better ways. Most of the effort is devoted to the Authority torturing Bill and Eric. They tell the Guardian that Russell Edgington is alive and about. That way, they can be offered to Russell as bait so that he can be caught and killed. Then he won’t go after Sookie. Sookie’s got a mean air freshener on her side though. She might not need their protection! Yeah, that was more sarcasm. Sookie needs to get a sawed-off shotgun with silver ammo and start working on how to get better control of her fairy powers. This show makes one of us miss The Vampire Diaries.

Overall, this episode was boring and mostly set-up. But the last image was gross enough to make it worth watching. This season had better get good, quick. We miss Jesus. Kill Tara and bring back Jesus!

Episode grade: C+

True Blood premiere - Turn! Turn! Turn!

Spoilers contained. Most of it was written while watching the episode (rather than later after we knew everything).

The first season without Alan Ball! Woo hoo! Time for this show to possibly get even crappier than the last two seasons. We forgot how last season ended until the recap. Man, that sucked. No Jesus and Sookie dumping both guys? The only good thing was Tara’s death. We hope that would stick, but we doubt it will. The episode started off cartoonish, with cartoon-y music and Eric speedily cleaning up blood. We don’t like when this show goes cartoon. We like when it’s dark and semi-serious with a few one-liners to lighten the mood.

Then lots of things happened quickly. We liked Eric’s reaction to being dumped (f*ck Sookie) and how quickly the Authorities swarmed on Eric and Bill. Sookie convinced Pam to turn Tara, even though she has half a head and hates vampires. How was she still alive enough to turn?!! Ugh. Now she will never die. We hate death fake-outs so much, even when we like the character. Cue theme song. We love that theme song as much as we hate stupid Tara.

The new girl trying to kill Sam is so beautiful that she’s making Luna look unattractive. Blue eyes with that hair and skin tone? Wowser. Jason is so dumb for letting that Fellowship of the Sun Steve Newlin vampire in. We always knew that guy was gay. “This dog don’t bark that way” is one of the best ways to say “I’m straight” that we ever heard. Jessica bursting in to save Jason was most welcome. We love her. She should be annoying like almost everyone else on this show, but she isn’t.

We like Nora (she’s not a waffler or a spineless jellyfish as far as choosing loyalties), but she and Eric are never going to rival the Lannister twins in incest. They aren’t even real siblings by blood. And does Bill forget his bout of incest a while back? No judging, Mr. Compton. Sookie committed murder and she knows it. She doesn’t even seem to feel bad. We don’t really like that. Sookie is a far cry from the sweet, moral girl she was back in season one. Lafayette is having trouble dealing with what he did to his boyfriend, and he wasn’t even in control of himself when it happened.

We had forgotten about Terry’s just-arrived war buddy. Uh oh…things are going to go down. We’ve been waiting for Terry to snap all series, but we aren’t going to like it, because he’s one of the characters we like. Both Tara and Sookie sure got prettier as they grew up, didn’t they? We wonder how long we are going to have to watch Lafayette mope. We’re sad about Jesus too, but you don’t see us in the bathtub, eyeing pink razors. Alcide was in this episode! Now is the time, Sookie! Get with that. Just don’t tell him what you did to Debbie…Oh man, actually do. We can’t wait until he finds out. He’s going to freak.

Hoyt is being a jerk. We hope he and Jason make up soon and admire Jason for making the first move, even though he IS a girlfriend f*cker. Russell is back in play, because just what this show needs is another character back in play. Sookie tried to tell Alcide about Debbie right off the bat, but Lafayette ruined it. Good girl in refusing his protection. Lafayette is bald now. Okay. Cut to Sam getting tortured. Poor Sam. We meet Martha, a real straight shooter. Cut to Eric and Nora having sex while calling each other brother and sister. Stop it, guys. You’re not Cersei and Jaime, so don’t even try to creep us out on that level. We are desensitized from your HBO sibling show.

“We fight like siblings, but we f*ck like champions” – Eric. Good line. Cut to Queen Jessica, living it up and partying. Go to college, Jessica. It’s fun. Her dress is so short you could see her tampon string, were she human and wearing a tampon. Watching this show is making our minds disgusting. There really is too much sex and nudity. It’s not necessary and borders on porn occasionally. We actually don’t want to see all of that. Just some of it. Terry’s looking stressed with Patrick around. What happened in Iraq? We guess we’ll find out. We don’t like seeing the usually chill Terry freaking out and hitting people.

Meanwhile, Jessica rocks. We wanted to hear her a little more, because what little singing we got was pretty good. Jason turning down the sorority girl’s sex offer was completely adorable. He has really redeemed himself from season one when we hated him more than even Tara. Cut to the werewolves finding and eating Marcus’ body. That doesn’t even faze us on a show this weird. Cut to Kat doling out passports and stupid names. Eric and Bill had better not be leaving for any significant amount of time. Oh, thank God. The Authorities found them again.

Back to Sookie and Lafayette sitting shiva over Tara’s grave. Pam rises, aggravated, with dirt in her bra. And Tara is still dead!!!! Praise the TV gods! How unpredictable and awesome! But then. Aw, poop. She rose, attacked Sookie, and the episode ended on one of this show’s usual violent cliffhangers. We liked the song in the credits. At least this episode wasn’t boring and didn’t have a dumb fairy world sequence like last year’s premiere. It’s summer, so beggars can’t be choosers, but seriously. This show is no The Vampire Diaries. For all the sex and nudity in True Blood, it doesn't come close to being as sexy either.

Episode grade: C+

True Blood Finale - And When I Die

Be careful what you wish for, True Blood fans. Last night, we got something we’ve all been wanting for a long time: a dead Tara. Of course, it was mixed with so many things we didn’t want that we didn’t get the enjoyment out of it that we anticipated.

Things we didn’t want: Sookie to pick NO ONE (dumb, and it’s all Gran’s fault), Sookie to be so brokenhearted and holding Tara’s body, Sookie shooting someone in the face (let’s face it, that character would have let Debbie live to terrorize another day), Jesus dead (nooooo), and the Marnie thing being anticlimactic and easily solved. The thing about Tara’s death was that it was just so freaking sad that it made us feel guilty for wishing for it.

How did Lafayette/Marnie even subdue Jesus after stabbing him in the hand with a fork? Jesus seemed pretty strong. And how did Lafayette/Marnie get Eric and Bill chained to a wooden post? You could say, “Magic, duh” but vampires are pretty strong and pretty fast. It seems like we should have gotten to see those fights.

It was also rude the way Sookie made both of her guys think that she was going to pick them, but then turned down both. We know it was for the benefit of messing with the viewer, but in reality, it would have been cruel of Sookie to draw it out like that. It pulled us out of the fiction.

We did like that the Marnie and witches stoylines are wrapped up going into season five. Marnie is such a whiner. It was cool to see Gran again, but was she always that scary? She’s totally misleading too. She told Sookie there was nothing to be afraid of regarding being alone. Ummm, what about growing old, being lonely, getting sick and having no one to take care of you, no one who has to have your back no matter what you do, and no sex with hot supernatural creatures? How could you not at least bone Alcide?

We liked the killing of Nan by Eric and Bill, because she had found out about Sookie’s fairy blood. We also approved of Pam’s hilarious lines about Sookie ("I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name!”) and Eric calling Nan’s henchmen “gay stormtroopers.” Nan’s death was one of the nastiest on this show, with all her sludge underneath her still slightly intact head.

The most interesting thing to us about this finale was the Terry/Rene/Marine friend thing. Ghost Rene showed up to warn Arlene that Terry is about to get crazy again. It sounds ominous and we don’t think he is lying. The boring? Jason telling Hoyt about his sex with Jessica, getting punched in the face, and then having sex and pillow talk with Jessica for most of the episode.

We’re pretty sure no one cares about Jason’s love life at this point. He is never going to pick the right girl. And Jessica really just needs to slut it up for a while. We did like the way Jason iced his eye with a popsicle. We’ve done that! What single person has an ice pack who doesn’t have chronic back problems or sports injuries? (Other than the other blogger, who thinks the original blogger is wrong).

We left Sam about to be attacked by a werewolf and Jason about to be attacked by that reverend fellow from season two, only the reverend is a vampire now. Lafayette is really sad over the stabbing of Jesus, and he also has Jesus’ demon face (that’s a weird sentence for a Christian to write, haha). We left Bill and Eric with a bounty placed on their heads by the Authority AND someone dug up Russell Edgington.

We know some baddies who are going to be back for season five and we’ve had a few crazy warnings about some of the drama to come. We feel bad that Terry is going to bring some darkness, because we’ve always loved him, and not just because he was on Gilmore Girls. But mostly because he was on Gilmore Girls.

This season was a huge step up from season three. The show got rid of a lot of dead weight and stupid plots, and it seems to be bringing back the things that can scare us. Sookie is single and ready to fall in love with all of her guys all over again (which is dumb but probably best for the show). We were entertained and amused, and we are looking forward to season five. And few people weren't surprised by the events of the finale.

Episode Grade: A-
Season Grade: B-

True Blood - Soul of Fire discussion

What an action-packed, entertaining episode, especially for one that was so contained. Most of the episode took place in and around Marnie’s hidey-hole, where she was keeping her witches, Tara, and Sookie trapped while the vampires tried to break in and kill her. Our favorite part might have been when Marnie accepted a high five from one of her followers. It was so comedically/awkwardly done.

This episode, Marnie makes us completely lose all sympathy for her by stabbing one of her witches and trying to burn Sookie alive. Weirdly, Eric and Bill didn’t look very panicked when they heard her screaming. That would have been a great opportunity to see them lose it. Also, they talked about being able to sense her fear. That seems like a dumb thing to mention when, again, you can hear the screaming. Antonia turned out to be the kind and sane one. Jesus got even more bad ass. We get a good look at his demon face before he saved the day. Sookie used her fairy powers to help save the day.

There is a dumb part where both Eric and Bill try to sacrifice themselves to save Sookie, as if that will solve anything or protect their vampires. But we guess they are both in equally intense love. They made up for it when Eric pulled the heart of Aunt Petunia’s henchmen and sucked on the artery like the heart was a juice box, and then Bill shot Marnie full of holes. Sookie looked disturbed at these acts, but she needs to get over it, because Marnie was a murderer and that was some cool violence.

One part in this episode actually scared us. We were hella-creeped out when Marnie’s ghost came back to possess Lafayette. Maybe it was the music. Maybe it was that we actually didn’t expect it (even though we totally should have). But that made us cringe. We don’t even think that Debbie coming after Sookie, as she inevitably will next week, is gonna be as scary. Sookie, you’d better study up on how to use your powers at will.

This Marnie stuff has been fun and scary, but she needs to go for good after the finale. This needs to not go into season five. It would be nice if some side characters (ok, just Tara) got killed in the finale so that we could go into season five with a little more room for fresh meat and the focus on the ones we actually care about. They made a good start with Tommy, even though one of us actually pitied and rooted for him. Please keep Pam though. She has such good lines.

Although Eric, Sookie, Bill, and Jesus were pretty cool in this episode, we liked Sam the best. He threw away his weapon so that he could beat Marcus in a fair fight and then let him live. Alcide killed him and dumped Debbie with a very serious sounding werewolf speech. Finally, Andy is not useless anymore. He made a promise to protect a fairy and then had sex with her. We know that’s going to come up later…

We are pleased with this episode and this season. Can’t wait for the finale.

Episode Grade: A-

True Blood - Burning Down the House discussion

First off, we love the Antonia material this week, specifically finding out that she has a good side. She was horrified by the killing of people at the Tolerance Rally, and she used to be a healer. Petunia Dursley had to talk her into staying in possession of their shared body and continuing the war against the vamps.

Secondly, YAYYYY Tommy is dead. One of the most repulsive and useless characters on TV is gone. While Sam was hoping that Tommy would end up heading toward the white light, we agree with Tommy that he should just disappear. We know that the scene was written to be sad, but we were not sad.

Sam was awesome in this episode and we can’t wait to see him get revenge on Marcus for killing his brother. Does Alcide really not want kids? Or does he just not want to have kids with Debbie? We are annoyed with Sookie for breaking Eric’s heart. She needs to choose between Eric and Bill, feelings be darned, and it needs to be Eric. We like him even more with his memory back. He still knows what it’s like to be all cute and nice and in love, so now it’s the best of both worlds. The bad ass and the good guy.

When is Sookie going to be able to have control over her faerie powers? When are we going to figure out their limits, what they are, and exactly what she can do? Because this “oh I will just randomly save everyone and be surprised at opportune moments” thing strikes us as a little cheap. It’s like the plot device that kills the tension, allows Sookie to be useful, and solves all the problems instantly. They could have at least let us watch Bill and Eric fight for a little longer. This show really gyps us with the fight scenes. At least with Eric back, we will get a break from watching Sookie and Eric sidelined, having sex and playing house.

Terry and Andy shoot guns in the woods and talk about Terry’s year living in a treehouse like a squirrel after he came back from the marines. “I’m drug free now, except for the anti-psychotics,” was the best line of the episode. Hopefully Terry’s weird, manly intervention results in a clean Andy.

We’re still loving Jesus (the show Jesus, not the Jewish one, duh. Although he’s alright too.), but what’s the deal with his “demon face” thing? Antonia mentioned that he had a demon helping him. We hope the demon doesn’t make him evil. Or half evil, like a Gollum/Smeagol thing. We like Jesus as an attractive good guy who is probably the best thing to happen to Lafayette in the history of this show. Ok, second-best thing. The best thing was when the showrunners decided not to kill Lafayette like they did in the books. Lafayette said, about the demon head, “It’s a Latin thing.” Psh, that’s racist, haha.

The biggest gripe we have with this episode is the final shot. It had Pam, Jessica, Eric, and Bill dressing all in black and carrying cool guns, walking in slo-mo to blow up the witches. And if you are going to play The Talking Heads, ever, play the real version. It would have been cool if they were wearing what they normally wear. Or business suits. Or anything except what they were wearing. So cliche. What is this, The Matrix part four?

And for the record, we couldn't care less about Hoyt, Jessica, and Jason's little dilemmas. Jason had just started getting tolerable and then they had to plunk him into this boring mess of a triangle. Waste of our lives.

Only two episodes left in the season.

Episode Grade: B (Points off because we were a little bored during it.)

True Blood - This Week and Last Week reviews

Here we have one of the most bad ass, awesome episodes of True Blood, followed immediately by one of the lamest. But we still like the action-packed nature of this season.

The baby and evil doll thing did NOT pan out. It seemed like a side plot that had nothing to do with any of the main action or characters. Lafayette got possessed by a women and if it weren’t for the French accent, we wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between regular Lafayette and Ghost Lafayette. In other news, apparently the actor who plays Lafayette is straight and dating a woman. We’re 100% serious.

The only good thing about the evil doll/ghost/baby plot was that we got to see Brujo Jesus be awesome. When he cast the ghost out of Lafayette, he was a major power player mixed with some sort of loving angel of light. Maybe he can take down Petunia Dursley…We think we're in love.

We didn’t feel bad for Jessica for even a moment during these last two episodes, even though she had her heart broken and Hoyt is being mean and petty, calling her a monster. That’s how lots of people are in breakups though. Show me the person who got dumped and acted with total class, grace, and unselfishness. We don’t believe they exist. We’ve never been dumped ourselves, but we wouldn’t be surprised if we say a few rude things if it ever happens.

Jessica is the cheater and the brainwasher. Hoyt can be as much of a butt as he wants. For a few more episodes, anyway. And Jessica ended this week’s episode by nailing Jason while a Taylor Swift song played in the background, which is one of the best uses of Taylor Swift ever, because it just felt so wrong. We can’t blame Jessica for boning Jason though. He’s more tolerable than ever. As a cop, he now has a purpose on the show and in its action. He’s grown a conscience too.

One of the things we loved about the good episode (Spellbound) was the vampire/witch battle that saw Sookie and Tara on opposite sides, Bill offering peace, and Petunia Dursley casting spells even as she negotiated. It was lame that it all ended with Sookie getting shot (it’s not suspenseful when you know she can’t die), but we enjoyed Eric’s battle-commencing attack. Bill saved Tara from Pam and forbade Pam from killing Tara, ever. Petunia Dursley regained control over Eric.

Alcide carried an unconscious Sookie home. This is bad, because he told Debbie and his new werewolf pack’s leader that he would stay away from the vampire vs. witches war…and Sookie. Speaking of the pack leader, Marcus: How can he be such a cool, laid-back guy with Alcide and such a dick to everyone else? We thought Marcus was going to be threatened by Alcide’s strength and much-hotterness (shut up, that can be a real term). But the two came to an understanding and Marcus suggested that Alcide might fulfill a leadership role. But then Marcus was revealed to be Luna’s ex-husband, and he has a real problem with Luna moving on.

Then the next episode came and it all went to hell. At least it was just a filler episode and not a finale or something, because it wasn’t good. We had the weird Lafayette stealing the baby plot. The healing of Sookie was as easy as two prayers from Bill and Alcide, plus some vampire blood. There was a boring dream with too much gender-equality commentary where Sookie tried to get Bill and Eric to have a threesome or something.

The battle between the vampires and the witches didn’t seem to end in any deaths. We guess they all just ran away after a skirmish in the mist. That was it? Seriously? There was way too much Arlene in the episode too. It WAS pretty funny when Jesus responded to one of Jason’s homophobic questions with, “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that” and then just moved onto the action.

The only cute part was when Sam took Luna and her daughter camping and turned into a bunny rabbit so that Luna’s daughter could pet him. Marcus tried to track Sam down and threaten him, but he ended up finding Tommy, who was pretending to be Sam again. Tommy got beat up. We didn’t mind that. We actually feel a little sorry for him, but we don’t really want him on the show.

Also stupid? Petunia Dursley trapped the yellow-bellied witches (the ones who didn’t want to be in the war anymore) in their meeting building. Tara tried a door handle and burned all the skin off her hand. Then, immediately, the witches said, “Try the back door!” Another witch touched the handle of that other door and….burned all the skin off her hand. Idiots. Use a cloth or something. You just SAW someone get burned by magic. It’s not a leap of logic to guess that Petunia would have cursed BOTH doors.

It was revealed that Jessica likes both Twilight and Taylor Swift. This is sort of endearing, because it’s a reminder of how young Jessica actually was when she died, and how some of her girlish human nature remains, even as her life got a hell of a lot less innocent. Both Andy and Debbie are back on V. Yayyy. Bring on crazy Debbie! But then the show made it confusing as to whether Debbie is trying to help Sookie or betray her to the witches. Debbie might not even know.

Petunia Dursley’s master plan was to compel Eric into killing King Bill at a tolerance rally. Sookie ran into the rally and shouted “RUN!” to Bill, even though just about everyone in the building was already running, as it was clear that witches were attacking. This episode was really dumb, especially after the streak of good episodes we have had. We are also sick of Sookie’s sex dreams. We never thought we would be, but this season has done it. Dear Sookie: Stop getting high on V. Your time of blissful sex is over. Get into the fight. You’ve been playing house with Eric for, like, a whole season now.

Spellbound Episode Grade: A
Let’s Get Out of Here Episode Grade: C+

True Blood - Cold Grey Light of Dawn discussion

Debbie and Alcide: Joined the local werewolf pack and then went looking for Sookie to make sure she was safe. They got a front-row seat to Sookie and Eric having sex in the woods. They went home to have their own sex, and Debbie started crying because she thought Alcide had feelings for Sookie. Debbie seems to have really turned her life around, but she is probably going to lose Alcide to Sookie, and then she will have glorious, insane, drug-fueled, lycanthrope revenge. We feel bad, but we are looking forward to that.

Jesus and Lafayette: Lafayette is a medium and Jesus’ dead uncle possessed Lafayette temporarily in order to save Jesus from rattlesnake poisoning. But don’t worry, Jesus’ evil grandpa would never actually want to kill Jesus. Jesus is his last witchy hope to leave a legacy, descendant-wise. Lafayette went back to Merlotte’s and saw, through his new skills, that Arlene’s evil baby has an evil ghost lady following him around and causing trouble. You mean that evil baby stuff is actually going to turn into a real plot line? A serious one? Wow, ok. Good.

Pam: Has to get daily injections to promote healing, stop her rotting, and start looking better again. She had to let Tara and Naomi go because a bunch of humans showed up and would have put her killing spree on the internet with their cell phone cameras. Can’t have that.

Tara: Dumped Naomi for Naomi’s own safety and joined Petunia Dursley and the other witches to help take out the vampires, especially since Pam is personally gunning her. We find this surprisingly useful and bad ass for Tara. We still don’t like her though. In fact, we are wondering if there is anything this character can do to redeem herself in the eyes of viewers after her uselessness in previous seasons.

Sam and Luna: Figured out that Tommy is a skinwalker and that Luna never slept with the real Sam, after a funny cell phone conversation where he didn’t know that she thought he was the ultimate jerk. We like that they didn’t drag that reveal out. After all, Sam had all the ingredients to figure out the truth. 1) He knows about skinwalkers and how they are created. 2) He knows Tommy killed family members. 3) He knows Tommy is the freaking worst. Sam went home and kicked Tommy out, after choking him for a little while and saying, “I wish I could forget everything about you.”

Now, we are not Tommy fans, by any means, but we actually felt bad for the kid there. He looked genuinely heartbroken to lose Sam. But we are also worried that Tommy will take Sam’s “kill Sam and take everything he has by pretending to be him” plan into his head. After all, what else does Tommy have to go to or to do? Stupid move, Sam.

Bill: Found out about Petunia Dursley’s possession by powerful, dead necromancer Antonia through Luis shooting him in the chest and saying “resurrection.” Bill healed and sent all of the vampires (except a few) out of town and bunkered down with Jessica. He ordered all remaining vampires to chain themselves down with silver so that Petunia Dursley wouldn’t raise them from the dead and have them walk out into the sun when dawn came. He stopped by Sookie and Eric’s to warn them to do it too, and that was nice. Who knew Bill would make such a good and trustworthy king?

Sookie: Had plenty of sex with Eric and then comforted him during the big incident. The two new lovers have a conversation about whether Sookie will still want Eric if he regains his memory. Her answer was pretty much, “Maybe. I hope so.” That’s promising. That means that her memory of who he is underneath his experiences and her memory of their time together might trump the times he acts like a jerk. And, really, he was adorable when he was a jerk most of the time anyway. So, who cares? We know they are going to be together for a while. We hear that it’s that way in the books. The only person who will be sad about that is Bill. We think he’s handling things well this season and being an honorable guy, but we don’t want Sookie back with him.

Jessica: Had a hard time with the silver, and it was sad. She confessed her doubts about her relationship with Hoyt to Bill and then thanked Bill for turning her and being her vampire daddy. Bill didn’t chain her up securely, so she managed to get up and out the door when the sun came up. We ended on that “cliffhanger.” We put that in quotes, because we are pretty sure that Jason is going to save her.

Jason: Jason is still crushing on Jessica. When Jason heard from Sookie that the vampires would rise, he ran off to save Jessica. Because, yes, the witches wasted no time in getting a circle together and trying to kill of the vampires. There was a really funny moment with Hoyt’s mom where one of her neighbors walked out into the sun with curlers and a bathrobe on. She burst into flames and Hoyt’s mom exclaimed, “I knew it!” Good stuff. Maxine is a great character. There's so much hilarity to be had there, and we feel like almost every episode delivers as far as Maxine goes.

This season has wasted no time getting things to happen, getting characters to realize things, and moving the show along. We approve. This episode left us wanting more. It's safe to say this show is back as far as quality summer entertainment goes.

Episode grade: A-

Decent Plot Lines for All the Major True Blood Characters This Season (So Far)

Surprisingly, this season has been really good so far. There’s been the sex, the shock factor, and the self-aware weirdness we’ve come to know from this show, but there’s also been a relatively fast-moving plot (for True Blood), and the witches have brought it and really mixed things up.

Necromancers are just what this show needs. For three years, vampires have been the biggest kids on the True Blood playground, but the new Petunia Dursley witch has the means to make mincemeat out of the bloodsuckers. We give the whole witch thing an “A”. Here, we are going to look at where the main characters have been this season and during the last episode.

Jason: Crystal is the freaking worst, so we are glad that he is off of that and back to bonding with his best friend and his sister. In this episode and the last one, it looks like he is developing a crush on Jessica, which could complicate things with Hoyt. His storyline was disgusting at first (what with all the raping), but the way he acting during it showed that he is a decent, normal guy who we can root for, unlike in the first couple of seasons. We are glad he’s not going to be a wereleopard. We need the humans on this show to stay human, for now. Plotline Grade: C+ (We weren’t really digging all the raping, and we don’t want him to steal his best friend’s girl, even if their relationship is really bad right now, because she erased Hoyt’s memory of her cheating.)

Sookie: We aren’t fully onboard with her sudden love of Eric. So she likes him when he is little more than a sweet child? Does she like submissive, immature men? Meh. Maybe she does. And really, we will take any plotline from her as long as it gets her sleeping with Eric, FINALLY. We hooted and hollered at the TV screen when they got it on. We guess that Sookie couldn’t let go of Eric’s selfish past easily, and it took a clean slate to get her to come around to him. We think it’s going to be interesting when Eric gets his memory back and has to reconcile who he has been for hundreds of years with who he has been these last few weeks with Sookie. Maybe he can find a happy medium? Plotline Grade: A (because they finally did it)

Eric: Has had his memory taken by Petunia Dursley witch, and he is so adorable it hurts to watch him interact. On reset, he also has a newfound integrity, sense of honor, and a willingness to take responsibility for his actions. Plotline Grade: A-

Alcide: His is an interesting plot, so far. He’s with his ex, Debbie, again and resisted joining the local pack. But this week, he’s willing to give the pack a try. We love werewolf hierarchy. It’s so dangerous, and it sounds like a great way to get rid of Debbie so that Sookie can sleep with Alcide too. Plotline Grade: B+

Bill: Is so much more useful as King. Even with all the incest, he’s way less annoying now that Sookie is no longer his. He’s been pretty hardcore lately, but he showed his soft side letting Eric go back to Sookie this week, rather than just killing him when he had the opportunity and permission. Plotline Grade: B

Lafayette and Jesus: Are at Jesus’ creepy grandpa’s house in Mexico trying to get some witch info. We don’t really get this yet, but it’s weird and it looks promising, so we like it. Plotline Grade: A- (especially considering most of Lafayette’s previous lame plotlines)

Tara: Her lesbian girlfriend showed up in Bon Temps, they made up, and Tara has stayed relatively sane. But will her girlfriend survive Pam’s attack? Plotline grade: C+. Plotline grade comparing this plotline to Tara’s other plotlines: B+

Pam: Is rotting and hilarious. Plotline Grade: A

Arlene and Terry: Have a pet armadillo?!! We like them a lot more now. They are still being haunted by the ghost of Rene (presumably) and have an evil freaking baby. Their house burned down this week. Plotline grade: C

Andy: Is addicted to V. Plotline grade: C- But he is also interested in Holly and has secured himself a date! Plotline Grade: B-

Sam and Tommy: Tommy is a horrible person. He accidentally killed his mom and her husband, so now he can impersonate people in his family. He started by impersonating Sam and sleeping with Sam’s current love interest, (Luna, another shapeshifter), and then yelled at her to get out when he was done. He also fired Sookie from Merlotte’s. And then he vomited on Sam’s carpet and passed out, looking like himself again. Sam’s pretty much been dealing with this. Plotline Grade: C

Due to quality and reader response (ok, one reader, but that's enough sometimes), we will be talking about this show more during the second half of the season.

True Blood - If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?

So, at the end of last episode, Petunia Dursley channeled someone and took Eric’s memory. Cue eye roll, because no one likes amnesia. It’s too soap opera-y. But darn it, on True Blood, it’s a lot of fun.

Apparently, without years of power and hanging out with that twisted Pam, Eric’s base personality is that of a sweet, shy, apologetic, protective 15-year-old boy. And this is giving the viewers what we want. The girls, at least, want to see him playing house with Sookie. Living with Sookie, he had to wear Jason’s old clothes, so naturally he got an awful sleeveless hoodie, which almost ruined all the cuteness. Eric ate Sookie’s fairy godmother, which was not surprising and we don’t really care.

The episode had lots of the one-liners and funny moments. Eric calling Sookie “Snooki.” Keep him away from South Park, Sookie, unless you want him to think you want SMOOSH SMOOSH. You know you do… We also liked these lines: “What does he think this is, Nazi Germany? He did look kind of Aryan.” We’ve decided to find Arlene’s devil baby funny rather than silly. The baby enjoying Jessica’s evil doll was hilariousity. Tommy as Maxine’s new son needs to last a little while. At least she’s teaching him how to read! We'd grouse about Tommy's plan to steal from his new Mommy, but it's expected. The characters on this show often do atrocious things like that.

We have to mention Jason now. We were eating pasta when we first saw him, and seeing his ruined chest and the panther hicks eating meat off of bones totally ruined our dinner. Crystal was never a great person, or even a fun girl. But OF COURSE Jason would fall for her. Mysterious + beautiful + needing protection + hard to get/forbidden = SPROING. Even if she is just God-awful. And she is. Crystal raped Jason to get a baby, and with that, he was finally over her. There was a whole line of girls out waiting to get them a baby daddy as well. This plan will probably succeed, because you know their breeding problems stem from inbreeding. It seems like guys would like a bunch of girls to rape him, but we know from this case, they don’t.

Crystal is not the only woman running all over her guy. She’s just the creepiest/rapist one. Jessica brainwashed Hoyt into forgetting she’s a cheater. Alcide is with Debbie, so Sookie can’t have sex with him yet. Remember Debbie? She was Alcide’s V-addict ex who tried to kill Sookie. She’s clean and sober now, AND she’s found Jesus. Well, praise the Lord. NOT. Look, when addicts find Jesus in real life, that’s more than fine with us. When they find Jesus on our TV shows, that ruins a perfectly good TV show. Bring back psycho murdering Debbie! Even after all she put him through, Alcide took her back. Most guys would be done with that. Maybe that’s why he’s never had sex with Sookie. Noooo balls.

Bill is much more interesting now. His new PR tactic is to kill everyone who makes the vamps look bad on YouTube. That wasn’t exactly what they taught this blogger in her college major (PR), but we have to admit, that sounds effective. We like hard-core Bill. Half of the problem with Bill was the pathetic look on his face and what a poontang he was. That’s gone. He and Jessica have a sweet relationship now, too.

Portia and Bill had sex after she pretty much threw herself at him. He was into it, as long as she was ok with him “never loving her.” We think Portia is pathetic and desperate for being into that. No one deserves to settle like that. But we are happy that there is one man in this episode (besides Terry, who is always cool) who knows how to not let his girlfriend totally and completely abuse him. If Bill were human, he’d be enjoying some good sandwiches right now.

Petunia Dursley let some younger spirit woman use her as a conduit while she slit her wrists and offered herself up. What kind of sad freak would do that?

People who need to die update: Andy.

Episode grade: A-

True Blood - She's Not There review

We love the song “She’s Not There”! It was featured in the closing credits too. Anyway, the season four premiere actually had a lot going on. Thankfully, there was a one-year time jump so the characters who were just mopey and lame (Bill, Tara) are interesting again.

When we left Sookie Stackhouse, she was in the land of the faeries. She spent what felt like fifteen minutes there, but apparently time is different on another plane, so when she got back to the normal world, more than a year had passed. Sookie must be special, because she is the only part-faerie who figured out that it was dangerous for part humans to stay in faerieland. Unrealistic. She grabbed her grandfather (who was also there) and escaped. Queen Mab showed up, and she was ugly. Some ugly bat dudes appeared and randomly helped Sookie escape. Sookie’s grandfather died once he got back to earth, because he had eaten the faery fruit.

So….yeah….that was that. The best that can be said about those events is that they happened quickly. The show didn’t waste too much of our time on such stupidity. Or maybe that’s the WORST thing that can be said about it. It felt really rushed and it made little sense. After all the faerie build-up, we are a little annoyed at how that panned out.

Sookie returned to find out that Eric bought her house so that she would be “his.” He stole Bill’s “Sookie is mine” line, only he butchered it. Jason is way less annoying than he has ever been and seems like a decent cop. His backwoods creepo were-panthers locked him in a freezer though. He’s still hanging out with them and caring for them even though Crystal is gone. Andy is still annoying.

Bill and Eric have been trying to clean up the vampire community’s reputation post-Russell, and they are particularly smooth at it. Seriously, we would listen to them. And vote for them. And sleep with them. Pam tried, but she came off as super-stiff and fake. Kind of like…nope….we’re not going to go there. No politics. But we are voting for Romney, in case you were wondering.

Bill and everyone else thought that Sookie was dead, but Eric “never gave up on” her and has to remind Sookie of that a LOT, as if denial makes him a much more attractive option than everyone else she loves. Bill and Sookie remain broken up (good), Bill is the new vampire king (too bad we didn’t get to see him fight the queen), and he is dating Andy’s sister Portia. Way to move on quickly.

Jesus is trying to get Lafayette to embrace his witch powers and keeps taking him to a Wiccan coven that contains Petunia Dursley from the Harry Potter movies. She does not have a British accent in this, but we are still pretty sure that it’s her. We guess her latent witch powers for which she envied her sister Lily finally surfaced. She must have shunned Hogwarts for some middle school goth’s backyard and some serious drugs though. She is looking scarier than ever, bringing dead birds back to life, and channeling dead Eddie (who used to sleep with Lafayette). We’re kind of impressed with her acting skills. She’s weird. And she will be sticking around. This is the year of the witch. Honestly, we kind of wish Lafayette had died in season two like he was supposed to. And we preferred Jesus on Southland.

Tara is now some ultimate fighter dating a beautiful lesbian martial arts master. We find this superior to everyone else Tara has ever been involved with. The lesbian lover doesn’t know Tara’s real name or where she grew up. Tara is kind of a liar right now. We still find her useless.

Tommy has replaced Hoyt, living with Hoyt’s mom and taking care of him. It’s really funny. Jessica and Hoyt fight a lot and even that just turns out to be adorable and purehearted. Sam found some friends who share his same powers. He was really mad at Sookie and is far from the mopey nice guy he started out as on this show. Arlene’s baby seems to be a devil baby. He ripped the heads off of Barbie dolls. Arlene is more concerned than Terry, and we are not concerned at all.

So, to recap: Tara, Andy, Lafayette, Bill, Arlene, and Crystal still annoy us. Sam and Jesus just started annoying us. We still like Pam, Hoyt, Jessica, Eric (yum), Terry, and Hoyt’s crazy mom. We just started liking Petunia Dursley, Portia, and Jason Stackhouse. We go back and forth on Sookie. Where was Alcide?

This show is such a mixed bag. But we like the way things are heading. New positions for Bill, single Sookie, and creepy witches. It has to be better than last year, right? Fans of the show should be pleased with this premiere. It's more of the same, only different enough to still be interesting. This season has been hyped like crazy. It needs to come through.

Episode grade: B+

Plots We Hate

TV Plots we want to omit

Beef: Sometimes, you are watching a TV show, and it’s going well, when all of the sudden if completely jumps the shark with one stupid, outlandish, or just plain boring plotline. It has happened to the best shows. Here are a few plotlines that make us want smack the writers.

Friday Night Lights, the season two murder - Friday Night Light’s is a certain kind of show. It involves small town and family politics, high school issues, marriage, and sports. It should not involve murder. That was stupid.

Grey’s Anatomy, George cheats on his hot wife with Izzie, “Gizzie” officially happens, and then they just fizzle - Did ANYONE like this plotline? This was worse than Dead Denny (and we hated that too), because that at least had a good explanation later on, unlike this. It just made no sense. It ruined both characters involved, and it was one of the things that made the George actor want to leave the show. He signed onto Grey’s hoping to play the nice guy, but the writers did things with the character that came out of left-field, namely, this. The actor didn’t understand or believe in the character anymore after this, and neither did we. (Note: We will actually defend the ferryboat accident episodes where Meredith died, if anyone asks us to. Sure, they had a dumb, supernatural element to them on a non-supernatural show, but we enjoyed many parts of those episodes.)

24, Kim goes on some random adventures in season two and wastes everyone’s lives - Even though one of us loves this show, it’s hard to pick just one stupid moment from it. There have been countless lists and articles written about its unrealistic plots and pointless deaths. But we have to go with the season 2 Kim Bauer tangents. Kim Bauer is an idiot. No one liked Kim Bauer. So naturally, the writers spent a third of season two on her getting into trouble. Her kidnapping a kid, fighting off an abusive employee, getting a guy shot, getting caught in a trap for a wild animal, getting taken underground by a paranoid creeper, and escaping police custody all coincidently happen on Jack’s Bauer’s busiest day. First of all, yeah right. Second of all, stop wasting our time, show.

Flashforward, Everything after the pilot - In light of this week’s poll, we just have to mention what a dull, pointless waste of time this show was. Way to waste a good premise.

Alias, Vaughn gets shot like a million times by a machine gun, leaves the show, but then is suddenly alive again - One of us loved when Vaughn died, because she was never a fan of him. The other loved Vaughn, but was annoyed at how he was treated in the final season. First of all, it was completely unbelievable that he survived. The end of Alias was a tacked-on, nonsensical fail too. We waded through four years of mythology (and lame Dixon) for THAT? Sydney’s mom was the Big Bad? But we kind of liked her. UGHH. Ok, we have to mention two other things we hated in that show. 1) Sydney’s half-sister. Useless. 2) The genetic goo that changed people into other people. We couldn’t even try to believe that was possible. Jack Bristow was the best thing about that show. Sydney was ok too.

Arrested Development, the whole weird British/Rita thing - We cringed at Charlize Theron’s mentally retarded character, Rita, through most of her stint on this show. For the most part, we enjoyed AD’s frenetic, silly third season. Because the show knew it was getting cancelled, it could be as crazy as it wanted. But we didn’t laugh during the Rita thing until the last episode where Michael almost married her. That was pretty funny, but it didn’t make up for the fact that the show made us think it had become something other than the show we loved by spending so much time on the weird British Rita stuff.

Bones, Zach is Gormagon’s assistant - We miss Zach. That made no sense. We will always miss Zach. The only things on Bones that we hated more than this plotline are Hannah and that one (nearly unwatchable) dream-sequence finale.

True Blood, nearly the entire third season- What WAS that? Ugh. Get it together next season, please.

The Vampire Diaries - Nothing. The show is flawless.

Sex and the City, Carrie dates Berger - Did anyone like that guy? The only redeeming thing about that was the post-it breakup episode. Second place: Samantha’s foray into lesbianism. It was offensive to lesbians to watch Samantha try this, Samantha is straight, her girlfriend was creepy, and it just wasn’t funny.

Dexter, Lila and what happened to Doakes - Doakes was a pain, but we respected him. What happened to him was completely unfair and just plain sad. Also, Lila was too crazy for us, and we can’t believe Dexter spent so much time with her.

LOST, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer spend way too much time captured by The Others - Way to slow this show down. We get that they had to, because the writers didn’t know how long they had to stretch out the show, and they needed an end date. Also, it helped the show save money, since they were over budget. But the slow start to season three lost the show a lot of viewers.

Friends, any major love plotline with Joey, especially the Rachel hookup - Joey was never going to have a serious relationship. All the girls he dates were so temporary and none fit. It was cute when he was helping Rachel with baby Emma, but it was oddly weird when he started liking Rachel. We think it’s because Joey was such an emotional and mental infant. He is sweet, but he should never have a relationship. It’s just awkward to make us watch him try.

Glee, Will’s love life - What a disaster. Why isn’t he with Emma now? We feel like the show changes the reason every time it’s brought up. This is an example of a show annoying us by purposefully dragging something out. His wife faked a pregnancy too, and no one liked that. Dishonorable mention: Jesse St. James dumping Rachel so abruptly and hatefully. He had no reason to hate her that much. It was out of nowhere, and we never got closure on that surprisingly engaging relationship.

Gilmore Girls, Luke’s daughter - This girl broke up Luke and Lorelai and was the source of the most useless Gilmore Girls plots. Lorelai got with Christopher (WRONG) and Luke bummed around in a custody battle, and the whole thing just wasted our lives in the last two seasons. If April had never shown up, the show would have been much stronger for it.

Joan of Arcadia, Adam cheats on Joan with Bonnie - Adam spent the entire first season pining after Joan, and when they finally get together, he cheats on her? Because Joan wouldn't have sex with him? Stupid and (though probably realistic) not what we had come to expect from the otherwise amazing Adam Rove.

Any plots you hate? Tell it to the comments.

15 Couples We Say Belong Together

So the usually good site, Entertainment Weekly, made a list of “Couples that are meant to be,” and we didn’t like it. For example, they had Hannah and Booth as their example of a meant-to-be couple. We know they were just trying to shake us up, but this suggestion is so wrong.

Here is the offending list (with our commentary):
9 TV Couples We Say Belong Together (What kind of a number is NINE? That’s not very round, is it?)
1. Don and Faye, Mad Men - Fine. That’s fine. Mostly because we don’t care about Mad Men.
2. Seeley Booth and Hannah Burley, Bones - This is just. No. Just no.
3. Michael Scott and Holly Flax, The Office - Fair enough, but kind of a “duh” thing.
4. Liz Lemon and Wesley Snipes, 30 Rock - Carol is better.
5. Jeff Winger and Britta Perry, Community - We don’t think ANYONE on that show belongs with another person in the study group. That’s what makes it such a great study group. Sure, they hook up and tease us with the possibilities. But at the end of the day, this group is “friends first,” and that’s how we like it. The show just can’t pull off a cute romance. It will always come across as sleazy. The show is funny, not romantic.
6. Stefan and Elena, The Vampire Diaries - They can’t stay faithful to each other through the whole show, or we will never get to see the hook up just about every fan wants.
7. Tina and Artie, Glee - Tina can do better, they weren’t that satisfying together, and a big Who Cares?
8. Serena and Dan, Gossip Girl - Sure, but they are stepsiblings and not the couple we watch the show to see.
9. Mark and Lexie, Grey’s Anatomy - Believe it or not, a lot of people think this is creepy and that they don’t actually work together. Mark needs an older, confident woman, like Addison, and Lexie needs a sweeter, younger guy.

Ok, maybe that list wasn’t as bad as we thought at first glance, but we still thought they left out some good couples. So we’ve made our own list. We’ve also included couples on shows that are over.

15 TV Couples
1. Jack Bauer and Audrey Raines, 24 - The ending of 24’s worst season (six) had to be one of the most depressing things we’ve ever seen. Audrey went all the way to China to save Jack Bauer, only to end up a zombie/vegetable. Jack Bauer has never had the best women for his lifestyle. Let’s face it, Terri was not a strong woman, Kate was a little blonde stick who at least tried, and his season 3 Senorita died too soon. She was cool though. Renee was also good, but she’s dead too. Some of you will cry for Chloe, but even though the actress played her as if she loved Jack Bauer, we think it’s better for Chloe to stay with her husband. This leaves Audrey, who was lame in season four but really stepped it up later. They deserve their happy ending, because they really loved each other. Hopefully they see that in the movie and at least give us some resolution on her character.

2. Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock - We KNOW it would be cliché. We KNOW Tina Fey has said that the series won’t end with Jack and Liz “doing it.” But can’t they just get together without sex? Have the sex happen in the future, off screen? Can they at least do it once, regret it, gag, shudder, and move on? Come on Tina Fey, it would be fun. And hilarious.

3. Booth and Bones, Bones - DUH. Who cares if Hannah is “perfect”? These two characters carried this show for all these years. Their characters are well-defined and irreplaceable. We’ve watched them flirt, support each other, fight, work together, avoid each other, and grow together. If they don’t end up together before the end of the series, we may lose faith in TV altogether. It has been way too long as it is.

4. Mal and Inara, Firefly - We are ok that we didn’t see this couple hook up. Once they did, we don’t know what the show would have done with the characters, plus, THAT might have been too cliché. It just wasn’t their time yet, even by the end of the movie. But we know that they ended up together. Inara stayed in the ship, and the writers left it with a smile and a glimmer of hope.

5. Rory and Jess, Gilmore Girls - Jess was perfect for Rory. He just had issues, ran out on her, and needed to grow up. Later in the series, we saw signs of Jess getting his life together by writing a book and getting into small business. We like to think that, ten years later, Rory and Jess find each other again, marry, and have many babies.

6. Puck and Rachel, Glee - Don’t get us wrong, Finn and Rachel are cute, but the Puckelberry romance was way too brief. We don’t want Puck with Quinn after seeing her chemistry with Sam. Wowser. And we don’t want Puck alone. Rachel needs a bad boy, and she’s the only girl on the show who could both handle and potentially soften Puck. Dear Rachel, Finn is going to end up mowing lawns for the rest of his life, and he’s not smart enough for you. Go for a fellow hot Jew.

7. Chuck and Blair, Gossip Girl - Another “duh.” These two are the heart of the show. Period. They will end up together.

8. Robin and Barney, How I Met Your Mother - There comes a time in almost every man’s life when they realize that one-night stands with women they will never see again leave them lonely and disconnected. What a guy really needs is a girl who won’t bore him because she’s just plain fun to be around. Robin is cool, pretty, smart, and someone Barney actually cares about. It’s not their time yet, but we hope that Barney sees how much fun it would be to hang out with Robin forever.

9. Alicia and Someone Else, The Good Wife -Neither her husband nor Will are good enough or hot enough for her. Alicia is gorgeous and classy. They need to bring on a guy who fits. Although, it would be extremely interesting to pair her with Eli Gold, at least for a time. It would be unpredictable, no? And it would bring the drama.

10. Dwight and Angela, The Office - These two were able to keep a secret, stable relationship for years. No one else is going to tolerate either of these two forever. Besides, Dwight needs five German boys to turn into mini, weird Dwights. We are sure he has screened Angela’s health records by now.

11. Richard and Kahlan, Legend of the Seeker - Apparently, after the series finale, they can now be together. This is good, because whether it’s the books or the TV series, these two won’t settle for anyone else. These are the only two on the list who aren't currently together. A requirement to get on this list is to not be a couple that is currently together. This is our exception, because, hey, it's our list.

12.Smith and Samantha, Sex and the City - The series finale ended everything perfectly, leaving us sure that each of the girls was with “The One.” Then the movie had to go and royn it. Also, for the record, Steve would never do that to Miranda!!! Ugh.

13. Matt and Caroline, The Vampire Diaries - After Caroline sacrificed her relationship with Matt to protect him, we knew it was true love. We never thought she was worthy of Matt, but we rooted for the relationship anyway. Now that’s she’s awesome, we are even more into this couple.

14. Sookie and Eric, True Blood - Sookie isn’t the quiet Southern belle Bill obviously needs. She’s the sex-loving, optimistic, non-human, spitfire Eric clearly needs.

15. Andy and Nancy, Weeds - We don’t want this one to happen until the end, but it clearly needs to happen. Andy stuck with this crazy family through all their crime and killing, so he deserves to get the girl. Plus, he’s a fun guy. Who doesn’t want to be with the fun guy?

We know there are some we missed, because no list is perfect. So let us know if we did!

The Vampire Diaries- Bad Moon Rising Review and Recap

Damon, Elena, and Alaric went to Duke University to look at Isobel’s research in an attempt to find information on the Lockwoods and Katherine. We love this show, because it doesn’t drag out what we already know by making it take a long time for the characters to catch on. About two minutes in, the main characters brought up lycanthropy. The three went on a research trip to confirm the information and find out more about werewolves vs. vampires. We were happy to see Alaric back. At Duke, the trio found a very pretty research assistant. I don’t know if anyone working on this show has actually SEEN a real research assistant, but they look less like models and more like they haven’t seen the outdoors in a decade. The research assistant recognized Damon and Elena (thinking she was Katherine) from Isobel’s research and tried to shoot Elena with a crossbow. Damon took the hit for her, making us wonder if Elena is going to start liking him again soon. Not freaking likely. After an amusing moment where she pulled the stick out of Damon’s back, she continued to snub him while manipulating him into helping her find information about her doppelganger. Damon was mostly concerned about the lycanthropes, especially when the research assistant (with whom they made friends, after the shooting) informed them that, according to legend, a bite from a lycanthrope will kill a vampire.

Meanwhile, Caroline was still adjusting to her transition, and Stefan stayed behind from the research trip to help her. We love that Stefan let Elena go on a trip with Damon. This is just another reason why this show is so much better than Twilight. Controlling, weird Edward would never have Bella go. Just as we were wondering how Caroline is going to go to school when summer is over, Bonnie showed up with a day-walking ring and a willingness to do the spell, as well as a few threats. Caroline was having none of Bonnie’s cold smack talk. We are hoping for a Bonnie/Caroline showdown, where Caroline takes Bonnie on for being such a shrew lately. For now, Caroline’s main concern was that she “doesn’t get to pick the ring she has to wear for the rest of her life.” Very Caroline, but we sympathize. Stefan informed us that Caroline’s emotions and personality are going to be amplified. Oh dear. In the middle of the episode, she was starting to remind us of Bill’s annoying protégé on True Blood, but then she calmed down.

There was a little run-in with a new girl, Amy, who is after Matt. Caroline compelled Amy to go find someone single to flirt with, and Matt got upset, thinking Caroline was running too much drama. Caroline apologized to Matt later, promised that there would be no more drama, and started kissing him at night, in the woods. Somehow, Matt cut his wrist. We think it was on a tree. This prompted Caroline to start eating him, until Stefan stopped her. Then there was a little run-in with Uncle Werewolf Mason where a finally useful Tyler saved the whole crew. Tyler ended up discovering the truth about his uncle. Caroline compelled Matt to think he was attacked by a wild animal. Later, at the town restaurant everyone seems to like, Caroline saw Amy talking to Matt again. Realizing that she can’t be in a relationship until she figures out her new inhumanity, Caroline freaked out about Amy again, purposefully causing Matt to dump her. That was really mature, especially the way she went about it. If she had dumped him, it would have hurt him. This way the only person really hurt was Caroline. She is really starting to become a useful and likable character this season.

At the end of the episode, Damon gave Elena a book on Katherine that he picked out of all the research. Damon was honest with Elena about the Jeremy incident from the premiere. He even apologized. But it wasn’t enough for our heroine, who said that Damon had lost her forever. Damon called Elena out for using him by making him think there was hope for their relationship. Alaric hooked up with Aunt Jenna. Katherine appeared at Caroline’s bedside, saying, “Don’t be frightened. We’re going to have so much fun together.” Love.

We liked this episode, because there was a lot of good Damon/Elena time. They flirted, he saved her, and the episode ended on an intriguingly cold note with them. It opened up lots of potential storylines for Matt and Caroline, who are quickly becoming two of our favorite characters. It finally got the werewolf thing out in the open to everyone. And the werewolves don’t look like large Chihuahuas like in Harry Potter! Plus, Katherine is back. The makers of this show are not interested in giving us filler episodes, and we are grateful.

Episode Grade: A

True Blood Finale Review - Evil is Going On

Why is the picture boring? Because the season was boring.

After this dud of a season, we had forgotten what a decent True Blood episode was like. Now that we saw one in last night’s finale though, we are anxious for the next season. A ton happened, and it set up a lot of possibly interesting storylines, like “bad Sam,” “witches,” and “single Sookie.” Maybe a little TOO much happened, making the finale seem overpacked and choppy. The episode also lacked shocking moments. We could have written in ourselves, it was so predictable. Part of True Blood's appeal is that it delivers gross, weird, or shocking moments. This episode just tied up all the season's loose ends. We liked the writing and dialogue though.

We loved when Sookie dumped the gory remains of Russell’s annoying lover down the garbage disposal in front of him, but she seemed to enjoy it too much. A lot of her lines seemed out of character, and maybe she has a right to be angry, but Sookie is getting a little mean.

We were disappointed in Lafayette’s storyline this season, but it looks like the show is setting him up for a good one next year. We guess it’s time some people had a dull storyline, just living their lives. We are liking his boyfriend so far.

One of us may have jumped from team Eric to team Alcide, because he was looking nice when he showed up midway through the episode. Too bad Sookie had to ruin it by shutting him down when he made a move on her. We hope he comes back. And we’re kind of glad Eric isn’t real so that there is no chance of us ticking him off and getting encased in cement for a hundred years. Kind of. He IS pretty hot.

The biggest surprise of the night, for us, was watching Sam shoot his little half brother over stealing his money. We wonder if Sam only winged him or if he is really dead. Despite Sam’s abrupt change from the nice guy we love at the end of this season, he gets points for telling Tara he is a shapeshifter. He’s not ashamed anymore.

The two most touching moments for us were Tara’s last words to her mother and Bill’s last words to Sookie. Tara’s mother was sleeping with the minister, waiting for him to leave his wife. “I’m finally gonna be happy, Tara,” she said. There was a moment’s pause while Tara had what Oprah would call an “Aha Moment." Sitting around and waiting for something in the world or someone to make you happy isn’t going to work, and it’s what Tara had been doing with men and friends and booze all her life. Tara wished her mom luck, sincerely, and apparently left town. Before she left, she gave herself a haircut we don’t like at all. Tara, never cut your own hair. One of the bloggers did it once, and it was an even worse disaster, because she didn’t have the True Blood hair-and-makeup team.

After Sookie dumped both Bill and Eric, Eric was relaxed, letting Sookie know he was sorry and telling Bill he wanted his cell phone back in the same minute. Love him. He is consistently practical and hilarious. But Bill declared his love and (earlier) his desire to protect Sookie by killing everyone who might want to drink Sookie. One writer has never been a big Bill fan, finding him possessive and pathetic, but we must say, we felt sorry for him here. We loved when he took on Evan Rachel Wood’s queen at the end of the episode (“I’ve got nothing left to lose”). The episode ended, lamely, with Sookie joining the fairies.

Episode grade: B
Season grade: C

The Vampire Diaries-- Best Premiere So Far

A lot happened this episode. After last season’s cliffhanger ending, The Vampire Diaries treated us to a whole episode of intense, jaw-dropping happenings. We are developing a minor obsession with Katherine. Loved her face after the brothers stopped her fight with Bonnie. (What was with the way Bonnie was holding her jaw last night? Did she pop it out of joint?) Loved how the show doesn’t waste time having the characters figure out something the audience already knows (like other shows we could mention here). Jeremy is looking older and hotter this season too. We love the new, more aggressive Stefan. He is less of a wet blanket now that he has a new enemy threatening Elena. And how hard are we shipping Katherine/Stefan now? Answer: harder than we want to admit.

Another awesome addition: Tyler Lookwood's Uncle Mason. It definitely doesn't hurt to add another hot werewolf to this already ridiculously attractive show.

The last 15 minutes of the episode were fantastic. Holy cliffhangers. Caroline is a vampire; Damon is heartbroken. Jeremy is killed. And then not. And how about that seriously steamy Katherine/Damon near hookup? True Blood should take notes. And while we're on that note, we just want to say how well we think Nina Dobrev is handling both Elena and Katherine. The subtle changes she makes to Katherine's character really improve the show, while still maintaining Elena's genuine nature. Well done.

So far, still obsessed. If only they could change the name of the show. One blogger hates telling the other people in law school that she is obsessed with a show with the words “vampire” and “diaries” in it.

Episode grade: A