‘True Blood’ 5.06 Recap: “I Love a Good Execution”

I happened to notice in the credits that series creator Alan Ball wrote this week’s episode of ‘True Blood’, his first of the current season. One would presume that means that something important must happen in this one. Strangely, the most notable aspect of the writing this week is the way that Ball has every character drop f-bombs in almost every single line of dialogue. It’s so overt and so forced that it actually becomes distracting and annoying. Is this really the man who wrote ‘American Beauty’ and ‘Six Feet Under’?

Episode ‘Hopeless’ picks up with Russell Edgington’s sneak attack on Bill, Eric, Alcide and Sookie. As they think they’ve got him captured, he unleashes a bunch of werewolves and pounces on Sookie. This doesn’t go as well as Russell may have hoped (or so it appears). The vamps and Alcide take care of the wolves, and Sookie blasts Russell with her fairy magic. Eric wants to kill Russell, but Bill insists that they follow orders and bring him in alive, so as not to get iStaked.

Long story short: The Authority takes possession of Russell. Roman gloats for a bit and arranges to have him executed. This is when Russell launches his real sneak attack. As should come as a surprise to precisely no one except the characters in the show, Salome reveals herself as the traitor and foils the execution. Russell gets the jump on Roman and stakes him right in the middle of the Authority’s boardroom. He declares, “Peace is for pussies!”

I guess that’s the end of Christopher Meloni’s run on the show. Did he really leave ‘SVU’ for this?

The easily-telegraphed nature of the plot twist aside, I’m fine with this direction for the season. Roman was a fairly dull villain. Russell makes a much more colorful and charismatic “Big Bad” for the rest of the season.

Other Stuff That Happens
  • Pam breaks up Tara and Jessica’s catfight in Fangtasia. Jess: “Guess that whole friendship thing’s on hold.”
  • Terry and Patrick see the fire demon and run away. Terry returns home and confesses to Arlene about what he did in Iraq, then tells her that he has to leave her in order to protect her and the kids. I still don’t care about this storyline.
  • Bill and Eric are ordered to glamour Sookie and Alcide. Bill fakes doing anything to Sookie. Eric not only mind-wipes Alcide, but hilariously plants the suggestion that he should be revolted by the thought of sex with Sookie. However, the next morning, Sookie un-glamours him.
  • The Authority soldiers slaughter all of the humans who saw Russell, including poor Doug.
  • Both Luna and Sam survive being shot. Luna’s daughter Emma runs to her grandmother for protection. This may lead to a possible reconciliation (or at least a détente) between Martha and Luna.
  • Sam convinces Andy to let him help find the rednecks who shot him. They trace them to the gun shop, where Sam recognizes the owner as one of the men who shot him. Sam kills him with a crossbow as the guy reaches for a gun.
  • The rednecks stake a vampire feeding on Hoyt, and kidnap Hoyt to “deprogram” him or something.
  • Alcide challenges J.D., the current leader of the wolf pack, for his role as Packmaster.
  • Sookie finds the fairy night club and tries to convince Hadley to leave with her. Hadley insists that these are good fairies. Sookie is skeptical. When one of the fairies gets a little pushy, Sookie tries but fails to use her own fairy magic, and is captured by a bunch of other fairies with their magical beams of light. Yawn. Why the hell are we back on fairies again?

1 comment

  1. I didn’t notice this episode having any more language in it than any recent past episodes. What I have notice about this season is how ‘unsexy’ the show has become. The copious amounts of nudity in the early seasons didn’t have a direct affect on my enjoyment of the series but it was an added perk that is rarely touched upon anymore.

    I’ve been re-watching the series from the beginning for a little over a week now (just started the 4th season) and I have to say that the earlier seasons flowed better with fewer characters and storylines. Too many episodes get bogged down with too many unrelated storylines with even less is being accomplished every episode. When you marathon a season that’s easier to deal with but when you’re waiting a week between episodes it becomes frustrating to never get any resolution on any topic.

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