Review

Bill seeks help with defeating Maryann from the Vampire Queen. Unfortunately for Bill Sophie-Anne, the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, isn't overly interested but does finally give him the information he's after. Maryann continues with her plans to summon Bacchus but the forces of good in Bon Temps are rallying. Jason and Andy are convinced they are the last hope for the town, which pretty much means Bon Temps is rooted. Lafayette and Sookie need to rescue Tara again, after she escapes with some help from Lettie Mae and tries to get Eggs out from under Maryann's influence. And Sam in a surprise move drops in on Eric at Fangtasia seeking help from the most unexpected of sources.

Did I mention Hoyt storms out of Casa del Compton with his Mom after Jessica goes the fang on her. Bit of trouble in the relationship there. Eric and Bill have a major confrontation and a few interesting tidbits of information come to light, more on those later. Let's rock the penultimate season two episode.

Further vampire lore learnt in Frenzy, vamps can only apparently drink human blood and will get sick drinking other supernatural entities blood, hence Bill's reaction when he tried to drain Maryann last episode. Does this mean Sam is also immune from Vampers trying to suck him dry? That's a pretty cool fact, and as long as the franchise adheres to it I'm happy with the explanation.

Sophie-Anne finally gives us the rundown on Maryann, which helps formalise what the Maenad is up to. Okay stay with me here, a Maenad needs to find the perfect vessel (must be a supernatural being but can't be a Vamp due to the whole beating heart thing), with the aid of her minions summon her god, she is then devoured by her god thus achieving the “true death”. Maenads are only vulnerable after their god has been summoned. Doesn't sound like much of a career path to me, but then I'm not in the supernatural business. Would explain Maryann's almost obsessive interest in Sam Merlotte. The Vampire Queen can also inform us that supernatural beings have willed themselves into existence rather than spontaneously happening, but hey I'm not here to hit the metaphysical debate.

Amazingly this season still manages to go surreal on us, right up to the final confrontation. Got to love that.

We also get some juice for I'm guessing next season with Bill and Eric's confrontation. Bill warns Eric off contact with Sookie threatening to inform the Queen that Eric is selling “V” via humans, clearly that threat is going to carry some weight. However Eric retaliates by questioning Bill forcing Sookie to drink his blood on the night they first meet. Yes I know it was the second night, and was due to Sookie getting bushwhacked by the Ratrays, so stop your geeky whining, how was Eric to know which night it went down? The inference I drew from this exchange was that Bill has a deeper motivate in making Sookie drink his blood than we first thought. I'm still unsure what Eric's motive in being obsessed with Sookie is, guess that's going to come home to roost at some stage in the future.

Perhaps the most shocking reveal of the episode however concerns how Maryann came to be in Bon Temps. Without giving too much away, the use of magic concentrates power, and that kind of has consequences. Since a certain person was proved to be a fake this would indicate someone has previously unknown powers. Now just how weird is this paragraph going to read if you are not a fanatical follower of True Blood! Suck it up folks, some of us live and breath the show, okay feel free to contact us regards true enlightenment if confused. Anyways I'm wondering if a certain major character doesn't have some supernatural firepower hidden away.

Gosh almost through the review and haven't hit the Vampire Queen scenes, read on McDemanding. One can reasonably assume the Queen has a few Roos bounding around the top paddock judging from the bizarre nature of her court. Besides having a whole bunch of people in various stages of undress (no complaints over here), she is fixated with the dice game yahtzee, and doesn't seem to operate in any sort of reality. One would assume there would be affairs of state to look after, apparently not given the decadent pleasure dome going down. I rather liked the whole hint of art deco thing she had happening, and the Queen is certainly worth watching. The opening scene where Bill wonders if he has arrived at an inopportune time had me picking my jaw up off the coffee table, but then dirty minds and all that.

Strangely Frenzy pretty much concerns itself about rescues, trying to actually hit the review style thing here, we're talking lots of rescuing going down with Maryann of course being the culprit. While Bill looks like he wont be of much use in this battle, he does appear to at least have a plan gleaned from the information the Queen provided. Jason and Andy only needed one more person to form a Three Stooges troupe, as Alan Ball attempts to lighten up the episode. I also found the whole Tara, Lafayette, Sookie rescue thing a hoot. Talk about your cluster! There was a degree of “because the script required it” going down, Coby and Lisa for example, but overall it was good times as the main players started to focus in on the final conflict of the season.

Director Daniel Minaham for the most part did an excellent job behind the camera, but have to say some of the scene transitions were groan inducing. Minham, here on his third episode, kept things moving and managed not to lose anyone along the way with a plot that was going in all directions. Passing mark and come back again sent to the Director.

Another episode that I rocked along to, but would imagine might stretch a few people with the number of characters and sub plots in play. Clearly there's a bunch of things going down that aren't going to get resolved this season, but we don't care, Maryann v Sookie is on the agenda. Bon Temps is still rocking, though it does seem like a long season for some reason.

Confirmed: Season three does involve lycanthropes, hell yeah!