Allusions to the Feminine in Season 4 of True Blood, OR, Has the Season of the Witch Brought Compelling, Multidimensional Female Characters to the Screen?

And since we're talking about the Season of the Witch, I've noticed that the past five episodes have been rich with to the allusions to the Feminine.

For example:

Moon Goddess Emporium
The sacred, feminine-feeling space Marnie and her eclectic circle of Wiccans call their own.

Luna
This newly-introduced character's name is evocative of the elusive, watery moon-governed depths associated with the Feminine.

Sookie's being gone for thirteen months, the number of moon cycles in a solar year.


As The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World's Sacred Feminine Hallie Iglehart Austen (1990) writes, The Great Goddess of Laussel (left) points to her belly with left hand, and in her right she holds a horned crescent notched with thirteen lines, representing the ancient honoring of the mysteries of the female body. In this image is reflected the waxing and waning of the moon parallelled by the ebb and flow of menstrual blood; it embodies the wisdom of non-linear, cyclic time - spiraling eternal growth.


According to Austen, in the French limestone cave where this relief is found, "The soot of countless fires has darkened the ceilings, and the floors have been beaten down by many feet" (1990, p. 6). Indeed, She once pervaded.

On her gorgeous website The Suppressed Histories Archives, Max Dashu explains that rock murals, clay and bronze pots, and countless figurines recovered from archaeological sites worldwide show that in the earliest cultures, representations of humans were almost exclusively female.

These recurring signs reflect spiritual concerns and ritual & everyday life of the people who created them.








Commonalities recur in artifacts of diverse archaic cultures; same patterns appear in more recent indigenous societies in the Americas, Africa, parts of Asia. Austen (1990) writes that for 25,000 years the female body was revered as sacred. The hold of the Goddess may go back much farther.

According to Ward (2006) some of the earliest work of human art in existence consists of female figures dating to at least a quarter million years old.

For example, the Berekhat Ram Figurine, a small yellowish-brown pebble the size of a jellybean (left) found in the Golan Heights in 1981, is dated to approximately 233,000 B.C.E. - a time when early humans weren't even supposed to have developed symbolic thinking, or even language yet. In fact, this carving dates to 100,000 before the appearance of Homo sapiens; the race that carved it was only just evolving into "us". And yet, one of them thought to shape a woman out of a small stone.

How might living in such a culture make you feel about women? The world?

This was not art as we know it, to be displayed on a museum shelf. Though these figurines, the Goddess truly lived amongst her people; they have been caressed, danced with, sung to, had oils and ochre rubbed into them.

Acheulian Goddess
Golan Heights, 800,000 yrs. old

Great Goddess of Willendorf
Europe, 25,000 B.C.E.

Imagine holding one of these Goddesses in your hand.

Feel her roundness, the comforting security of it.

Imagine carrying her throughout your day’s work…on your travels, sleeping with her beside your bed, waking up beside her (Austen, 1990, pp. 4-5) as our Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestors did.

How might being in such close contact and communion with Her form change your relationship to the female body?

Austen implores us to imagine a world in which images like the Great Goddess of Laussel were carved over the entrances to our houses of worship, or over our supermarkets and schools. She seems to be asking how a cityscape covered with (positive, representative) female images might shift our collective ways of being.

Do you agree that there is a dearth of such female images in our society?

Season 4 of True Blood  may offer a remedy, at least according to writers like John Kubicek of BuddyTv who in his June 24th piece describes it as the Season of the Witch and the Women.

With the addition of "a number of new strong women to the show" via two new female main characters (the powerful witch Marnie & shapeshifter Luna) and the promotion of Nan Flanagan (vampire spokeswoman) and Holly (witchy Merlotte's waitress) to series regulars joining Sookie, Jessica, Tara, Arlene & Pam, Kubicek feels the women really get their chance to shine.

Besides Marnie and Luna, we've also met three new female supporting characters, including the lawyer Portia, Wiccan-cum-vampire security woman Katerina, and Naomi, a cage fighter with an unlikely romantic connection to Tara.

Plus, the credits are now more evenly disbursed in terms of gender, with nine female and ten male primary cast members.

Clearly, Kubicek isn't just talking about quantity, he's also talking about quality.

When he talks about "strong women" on the show I get the impression that he means well-written female characters as opposed to ones who are invulnerable to pain and strife, etc. And goodness knows we need more of those; the lack of good writing for women in Hollywood - not to mention in literature - is what drove Tanya Wright (Deputy Kenya Jones) to pen the script for her film Butterfly Rising, which she later adapted into a novel of the same name. If you can't find solidly written female characters, you've gotta develop them yourself, right?

Here's an archetypal model for such a "strong woman"...

...Look familiar? Yup, this painted terracotta female figure circa 3,500-3,400 B.C.E. was the model for the artifact the maenad Maryann struck the pose of while summoning and channeling her considerable power.

All the other images in this post came from books or websites, but I took the picture above myself; when I visited this pre-dynastic Egyptian figure in person with Rebecca and our mom at its current home in the Brooklyn Museum I was awestruck.

So taken was I by this statuette that I took photos from several angles.


A plaque near its display case reads:


This female figure, shown in a long white skirt, was found in a tomb. Does she represent a goddess, a priestess, or a mourner? Is she grieving, dancing, or manifesting her power?


So striking is this statuette - one of the most famous pre-dynastic works in the world - that all of the museum's educational and PR materials are anointed with its image.

Another similar, "triumphantly female" (Austen, 1990, p. 8) terracotta piece also comes to us from pre-dynastic Egypt:

  

As Austen writes, she emphasizes her breasts and buttocks with a dignity and strength that reminds us of women's power and beauty.

These are compelling, multidimensional female images.

So what do you think, has True Blood stepped up to the plate in terms of writing women characters that bring such strong presence to the screen?

Let us know below!

~ Rachel

References

Austen, H. I. (1990). The heart of the goddess: Art, myth and meditations of the world’s sacred feminine. Berkeley: Wingbow Press.

Dashu, M. Icons of the Matrix. Retrieved March 15, 2011 from: http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/icons.html

Ward, T. (2006). Savage breast: One man’s search for the goddess. New York: O Books.

I am your daddy and I'm gonna teach you how to hunt, shoot, trap and fish and…and how to take clothes out of the dryer

So a bathrobed Terry Bellefleur promised the baby boy he cradled in his arms in I'm Alive and On Fire. Contrast his words with Melinda Mickens’ to her prodigal son Tommy when they were reunited after a time apart: “Don’t you cry too, you’ve gotta be the man”.

Do you see a difference in terms of the image of manhood and masculinity; what it means to grow up and be male in our culture conveyed by these scenes? I do. 

On the one hand, we've got a sensitive father figure imagining aloud his future as a male role model for his wife's son Mikey who, although not his child biologically, he is raising as his own. They'll do all kinds of typical red-blooded American outdoorsy guy stuff together, and yeah, he'll show his boy how to do things that until recently were reserved for the domestic womanly sphere, too.

And on the other, we've got a [conniving and manipulative in her own right] mother trapped in an abusive patriarchal marriage encouraging her son to adhere to more retro-rigid models of masculinity and repress his emotions. 

We need different – more like new - images of maleness and masculinity to replace the ones that reassert the genderized ethos of domination, as Tommy’s mom does when she entreats him to bottle up his feelings, dry up his tears.

In the words of womanist midwife (and professor of women’s studies at my alma mater, the California Institute of Integral Studies) Arisika Razak:

The last time I checked, men had tear ducts. They had arms for holding babies.They cared about their children. And they cried at births. (1991, p. 172)

Maybe she was checking Season 4 of True Blood!

tear ducts - check!

arms for holding babies - check!

caring about children - check!

The current season of True Blood - and the episode I'm Alive and On Fire specifically - have delivered several such images that run counter to our culture's image of male heroes as warriors, conquerors of women and nature; a picture of masculinity a growing number of men are increasingly uncomfortable with.

Take Eric, for instance.

No, no no - not that Eric....

...the new Eric.

Nope, wrong again! Not the jogging suited Eric of Season 2 who showed up freshly shorn at the Forever 21-esque boutique where Bill was shopping for Jessica, declaring, "it's the new me".

I'm talking about the new-new Eric. Amnesia Eric. He's contemplative. Playful. Vulnerable, even. And seemingly contrite for the sins of his [distant & more recent] past. Sookie sees the change, noticing out loud to Eric, "It's just that you weren't always like this; gentle, sweet, but it suits you.” (S4E5 Me and the Devil)

Indeed, this [perhaps temporary] version of the Viking, Eric 2.0 seems light years away from the swaggering, coldly calculating, at-times viciously cruel (or as Sookie said in last week's episode, the "smug sarcastic ass") side of the vampire sheriff we have come to know best.

YOU LIKE?

*Sorry, couldn't resist adding that in - truebies will get the reference!.

Sookie certainly seems to. Yet despite her obvious warming to him, Eric doubts himself. Something deep within him knows that he has drifted from society's expectations of an [alpha] male and he fears Sookie will reject him for it.

In the I'm Alive and on Fire scene below, Sookie climbs down into her basement cubby to rouse the uncharacteristically [for the Eric she thinks she knows] morose vampire moping there. She comments that the "real" Eric would not be so down. He begs to differ, replying in protest, "I AM real".  

This exchange is particularly relevant to the point I'm trying to make about True Blood offering up new, more expansive images of masculinity:

Eric: You think I'm weak.
Sookie: No.
Eric: You want the Eric that doesn't feel.
Sookie: It's not that.

Feminist scholar and CIIS professor Carol Christ (1997, p. 161) writes:

Rooted in the ethos of the warrior, modern societies have been described as "dominator cultures" by cultural historian (also on the CIIS faculty) Riane Eisler. The ethos of dominator cultures states that power stems from control. Dominators are taught to control women, nature, children, animals, other men, their own bodies, and their feelings and sensations. The ethos of domination denies or disparages human embodiment, relationship, and interdependence. In the ethos of dominator cultures, finitude, vulnerability, and limitation are called weaknesses.  

We've seen Eric's emotional side before; with Godric, Pam, even with Sookie. But this new openness to feeling, this often being lost in emotive reverie stuff would likely not have jived too well with his human life as a Nordic warrior - or with his present duties as a figure of considerable authority amidst the shifting sands of the cutthroat vampire hierarchy.

It must feel strange and unsettling to Eric; like weakness. On the contrary, in the new Eric I see an image of masculinity that's a step towards changing the patterns of domination that govern our lives and society.

"In a society that wishes us to see men as devoid of feelings,
let us hold an image of men as nurturers (Razak, 1991, p. 172)

And then, we've got Terry who - as we wrote on our Forum's Scope page - describes himself as "a nurturer". This seems an odd juxtaposition with his military background, since the military identity tends to be traditionally hypermasculine in the U.S.  

In Christ's thinking, military training figures prominently in the indoctrination into dominator cultures; into the way such social systems define masculinity and power. "Manhood" is equated with the denial of Eros (defined as a transformative force of intelligent, embodied love which connects us to each other and the web of life) and its replacement with violence. Feminist political scientist Judith Hicks Stieham's quote underscores her point:

The appeal to manhood is very much part of military training...the familiar "This is my rifle, this is my gun [pointing to the penis], one is for killing, one is for fun." (1997, p.162)

The ethos of this institution that breaks down young men's defenses (that which connects them with others) in order to turn "boys" into "men" who readily submit to authority and are prepared to kill has permeated the whole of our culture. In the rituals of daily life we reenact its basic training.

Christ ponders, what would happen if all the energy and resources (money and human capital) spent on war and the cost of repairing its damages were instead devoted to the nurturing of life?

Razak (1991) proposes that new images can be created by men who participate in childbirth and affirm themselves as nurturers of life. Could Terry as a wounded warrior/ wounded healer - someone who [usually, except for that whole Arlene pregnancy thing] responds well to the emotions needs of others, doesn't shy away from holding another wounded man in his embrace, and finds fulfillment in nurturing family life - be seen as positing a new model of maleness? And a particularly potent image of masculinity for our times, at that, given that scores of battle-worn soldiers will soon be returning to our shores from the Iraq and Afghanistan fronts? 

And finally, there's everyone's favorite shape-shifting bar owner, Sam Merlotte. Sure, he's interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with Luna, so getting on her daughter's good side just makes good sense. But did you notice that initially, Luna seemed hesitant to even let Sam know she had a daughter; much less let him meet or get close to her?

Luna's shady behavior when he showed up at her door to return her seducing favor almost led me to believe that she was harboring not a pint-sized dynamo of a kid, but another man inside. Her leeriness to allow a strange man into her daughter's life is perfectly understandable; she's instinctively protecting her child, and part of her probably thought Sam would bolt at the sight of such "baggage".

But he proved her wrong! Sam was immediately at ease with Luna's daughter, crouching down to ask her, "which Barbie doll do I get, I hope she has a bunch of pretty dresses." If a rugged, scruffy-sexy guy sitting on the floor playing with Barbies isn't masculinity stereotype busting, I don't know what is!

Children are usually pretty adept judges of character; from the image to the right, it appears as though Luna's daughter has given Sam her stamp of approval. She can probably sense his genuine vibe.

Men in our culture are not raised to see themselves as relational; they have long been socialized to accept the model of the linear hero’s journey in which others he meets along the path are seen as either assets or barriers to his achieving his purpose.

As Christ writes, many thinkers have portrayed “man” as an isolated rational and moral individual – an island, if you will – and have posited an intrinsic opposition between the self and others who are perceived as impinging upon the freedom of the self. This ideal “independent self” of traditional philosophies and theologies can be seen as a fiction.

Theologian Martin Buber says, there is no “I” without a “Thou”, no self that is not created in relationship with others.

The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a You to become, becoming I, I say You. All actual life is encounter. (Christ, 1997, p. 137)

Buber states further that it is wrong to say that first we “are” and then we “enter into” relationships. "Rather, the longing for relation is primary, the cupped hand into which the being that confronts us nestles…In the beginning is the relation – as the category of being, as readiness, as a form that reaches out to be filled" (Christ, 1997, p. 137).

Too often, the models for being extended to men are more accurately represented by a closed fist than by an open hand reaching out to clasp with another. 

The men of True Blood profiled here - at least in their current incarnations - seem to have hands open and outstretched; they seem ready for relationship, for conceiving of themselves as relational. 

We absolutely need new images, integral models of maleness and masculinity, but, as Razak (1991, p. 165) writes, we must also answer "the critical need our society has to make a new model for human interaction". My eyes are glued to True Blood for what I hope will be a continuing stream of alternative images that can add to the discourse in this regard.

~ Rachel    

References

Christ, C.(1997) Rebirth of the goddess.  New York: Routledge.

Razak, A. (1991). Toward a Womanist analysis of birth. In Diamond, I. & Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.), Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. (pp. 165-172). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 

Why wouldn't Hoyt like Jessica's vlog?

As you can see from our response to Season 4 thus far, we're pretty interested in the story arc following Hoyt & Jessica's relationship, or - as we like to say using a play on Alan Ball's words (AB has said that one of the themes he wants to explore through the show is the "terrors of intimacy") - the "terrors of domesticity".

Jessica Hamby's vlog Babyvamp Jessica (not a typo, short for "video blog") offers a great extension of this True Blood subplot; it brings added emotional tone and tenor to its characters, twists, and turns.

Her first two posts of 2011 were put up three days before the Season 4 premiere episode "She's Not There" aired, likely as a means of adding to the media buzz while, at the same time, feeding the appetites of Truebies hungry for anything True Blood.

Aside from being a marvelous marketing ploy, Jessica's June 23rd posts open a new window on her relationship with Hoyt.

Here's the first one; Jessica's hiding out in the backyard to tape the vlog from a disapproving Hoyt...


Jessica's Blog: Blowin' Smoke

...and the second; he's found that she's still vlogging by rustling through her private things.

Jessica's Blog: Snoopin' Around

Here's some of the serious questions these posts have raised for me about the dynamics of Jessica & Hoyt's relationship:

• Why doesn't Hoyt like her vlog? Is it because he's a quiet, private person who fears such a public platform will lead to an invasion of their privacy? Has he become controlling? Maybe he'd like Jessica to himself, instead of having to share her with the anonymous Internet "friends" she discloses personal things to in each post? Has he communicated clearly with her as to why he is uneasy with it, can they strike a mutual understanding that will work for both of them?
• Must Jessica hide any action of hers she thinks Hoyt won't like or disagree with?
• How can they both ride the razor's edge of maintaining their individual identity while being part of a relationship - not let the "me" be subsumed by the "we"? Can they learn to allow each other the space they need, or will one smother the other? Can they respect each other's privacy/choices within the context of their relationship?     
• What are the consequences of Jessica's continuing to do something she told Hoyt she would stop - and his finding out about it via snooping? Will this whittle the foundation of trust a relationship should be built upon further? Will they have an open and honest discussion or will this drive her further underground with her vlogging? Give rise to his further snooping?
• Should Hoyt have veto power over Jessica's activities and pursuits? What is the role of compromise in healthy relationships? If he can legitimately make the case that her vlog is negatively impact him and/or their relationship does she have a responsibility to her partner to be considerate of his feelings and stop the behavior that is upsetting to him?
• What role in her life is Jessica's vlog playing; what needs is it fulfilling? If it is an important outlet for her, should she have to hide it/give it up? Should Jessica and Hoyt - who are both somewhat isolated in their relationship, without family support or many close friends - be exploring ways to build up their supportive circle together?

What do you think? Has anything similar ever happened in your relationship? How do you negotiate the terrors of intimacy; of domesticity? I'm curious, please let me know in the comments section below!

~ Rachel

"She's Not There"

There's so much I could talk about when it comes to the premiere episode of True Blood Season 4, "She's Not There". What to tackle first? There's Sookie's brief Alice in Wonderland-esque hiatus in Faerie with granddaddy Earl - who himself was gone for 20 years - and the pulse-pounding escape sequence that follows. Or, maybe the "who would you rather trust, a vampire or a politician" propaganda-off between Eric and Bill. And then, of course, there's the introduction of several new supes and magical personages for us to contend with.

But most of these have already been addressed elsewhere on the web, and with so many worthy and intriguing points of departure for contemplating the new season I think I'll veer off in a different direction altogether, thank you very much!

I want to explore a feeling.

The sucking, vacant, wanting feeling several scenes of "She's Not There" inspired in me - and with such a title, is it any wonder?

Sookie's not the only one who wasn't, or isn't, there.

What happens when one goes away - and stays away - departs the premises, or withdraws emotionally? How do those left behind deal?

Let's plumb this pattern of "not being there" a little deeper, shall we?

Arlene's not there, not really, for her son Mikey. She fears him; what's in him, what he is, how he reminds her of René. The guilt is killing her, and she professes to love Mikey, but she doesn't fully, she can't. How will her emotional distancing impact her baby boy, her new marriage with Terry, her sense of self? Will this darkness leach into her parenting of Coby and Lisa? As Terry (over?)identifies with Mikey, claiming him as his true son, will he begin to drift from Arlene? Will they become isolated in their troubles?

When someone withdraws from, or isn't there - fully present - in a relationship or community, tension and resentment are inevitable, whether the missing party returns or lingers, partly detached, not truly invested.

Conflict breaks out.

Images of sparring or downright pummelling were everywhere in "She's Not There"...

...from Tara (or Toni?!?) the cage fighter, pounding on the woman who is ostensibly her lover:

...to the colliding behemoths both Jessica and Sookie paused on while flipping the TV channels (did you notice that?!?):

And speaking of Jessica flipping through the TV stations, I gotta tell ya, the scene that unfolded between she and Hoyt, with her sitting on the couch - remote and Tru Blood in hand - as he's coming in the door from work really, really got to me. Maybe it's because I'm in a long term, committed, co-habitating relationship that I can feel their pain. Maybe it's because the person I'm in that relationship with - the man I married - is the one and only romantic partner I've had since I was 17, the age at which Jessica was turned and that she will remain for all time. So perhaps I feel a certain sense of kinship with her.

But, man - o -man, did that scene throw me for a loop. As the scene played out, I could hardly believe my eyes and ears. Who was that angry, resentful Hoyt, and where did he come from? How could their happy relationship devolve, dissolve this way? How could they verbally tear at each other so?

Some deeper, more allegorical questions took shape in my mind later.

Alan Ball has repeatedly stated that True Blood delves into the "terrors of intimacy"; here, I see a foray into the "terrors of domesticity" - and what can happen when the shine on a brand-spanking-new relationship dulls with time and apathy.

Hoyt: "You remember I eat, right? Like, food? Be nice to have some in the house".
Jessica: "You remember I don't eat, right?" (referring to human food) "It's all dead, permanently, forever, dead". 

What happens when what feeds one partner doesn't feed - or even revolts - the other? When one's hunger is not satiated in the relationship? Where can common ground be found? If one or both of them is looking for something outside of the relationship, are either of them really there?

On their post-fight date night at Fangtasia, Hoyt apologizes to Jessica for losing his temper with her; she says she's sorry too but she can't help staring at another man upon whom she wishes to feed from across the room. The smell of the "O neg with a twist of B pos" cocktail Hoyt buys for her at the bar turns her stomach. We know Tru Blood isn't enough for her; she can subsist on it - barely - but she's not living, not really.

And Pam, in the very special way that only Pam can - points this out to Jessica, remarking that if she's asking Hoyt to bring her to Fangtasia, their relationship probably isn't enough for her. Pam more than alludes to the idea that for Jessica, living with Hoyt is not normal or natural; it's not enough. Is she right? Do Jessica and Hoyt have irreconcilable differences?

Believe me, I totally understand the concept of the honeymoon being over, and that puppy-love doesn't last. But there was just something so sharp and jabbing about Hoyt and Jessica's ways of being towards one another that was totally jarring for me.

I can't help but hear the words to "Losing a Whole Year" by one of my favorite bands, Third Eye Blind, when I think about this scene. Not only is the title appropriate for this episode, but the lyrics are so choked with bitterness that I feel the song captures its emotional tenor, unfortunately, all too well.

I remember you and me used to spend the whole goddamned day in bed
lying in your room we'd lay like dogs
and the phone would ring like a joke that's left unsaid...

...and now I realized that you never heard
one goddamned word I ever said.
It always seemed the juice used to flow
in the car, in the kitchen you were good to go...

...now we're stuck with the tube
a sink full of dishes and some aqualube.

And if it's not the defense then you're on the attack...



And what about that freaky baby doll? It wasn't shown in "She's Not There" but it came back into play in a subsequent episode...could it represent that gangrenous appendage that infects, insidiously rots a relationship away from the inside out?

You know, the meddlesome in-laws...

Jessica: "I'm cooking for ya. Just like your mama."
Hoyt: "Look, don't bring her into this. That woman's dead to me".
Jessica: "Yeah, and if her aim were any better, I'd be a pile of goo and she'd be making your eggs".

...or money, or sex, or jobs...or just different expectations of what makes for a fulfilling and happy life. Can that diseased element of a relationship - the thing we find ourselves fighting about most - be excised, or at least worked around, or through?

The fact that this disturbing scene ended with both Hoyt and Jessica laughing - being able to find a common ground of humor and caring in spite of their conflict - gave me hope that there is still something of their original connection to build upon and salvage what they've got together. I do believe they love each other, but sometimes love isn't enough.

And what about when the life you've got isn't enough; when it's left you feeling vulnerable, exposed, traumatized?

Tara has responded by leaving it behind. All of it. Her friends. Her family. Her job. Her town. Her look. Her name.

She has taken on a new identity, a new life. But it seems to me that she's not really there for it. She's got a girlfriend, Naomi, who seems to truly care for her, but doesn't know her - anything at all about her, who she really is. I get it that we are all in constant states of flux, that there is no core, base, true self - that our entire lives are journeys of discovery. And not in the sense of a linear trajectory bringing us through a progression of trials and tribulations until we find ourselves; our real, true, selves. We are constantly in the process of becoming, until the day we die.

It was my favorite poet, afterall - the sage Walt Whitman, who wrote in his masterwork Leaves of Grass:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

We may very well all contain multitudes - but which of her multitudes is Tara revealing to Naomi, what of herself is she sharing? Naomi believes her to be Toni, from Atlanta. And while it's possible that Tara may be bisexual or lesbian - that the Tara we have known throughout True Blood's run thus far, is a front, a facade - honestly, there has never been any hint that Tara might be gay. Is her sexual relationship with Naomi just another part of her escape? How can Tara be present in their relationship, or to herself, for that matter, if the self she shows to Naomi is a fabrication woven as a protecting wrapping against her past?

Now, we know that Tara has been fighting an internal battle for quite some time...

...but now, with all she has done to sever her new self from the old, might she become lost to herself - as amnesia Eric does in subsequent episodes?

Coming back to Bon Temps and rekindling her relationships with Lafayette, Sookie and the rest may be good for her. And what of Naomi's place in her life? We'll see.

Right now, that question's sort of making me think of more "Losing A Whole Year" lyrics:

I kind of get the feeling like I'm being used...

...When you were yourself it was tasting sweet
soured into a routine deceit
well this drama is a bore...

...and I don't wanna play no more.

Sam doesn't want to play anymore, either. With guns, at least. In this episode, he spills to his shifter "anger management" group:

I knew it was wrong, even before I pulled the trigger. It was like some other person fired that gun and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Sam feels like he wasn't there - wasn't in his body. Sam's description of this kind of "out of body experience" sounds an awful lot like dissociation - a disruption of normal psychological functioning in response to stress or trauma - that is often triggered unconsciously as a means for the self to, in essence, protect itself. To or retreat from or insulate the self against something too threatening to face. In Seasons 2 & 3 we saw that Sam does indeed have things in his past that he's running away from, actions he deeply regrets. Now he can add shooting Tommy, his own brother, to that list. Can he get back to himself in Season 4?

As the episode wound down, we found ourselves at Hot Shot with Jason, observing his friendly and good natured rapport with the youth of the town as he doled out foodstuffs from the back of his truck. He has stepped into and more than filled the vacuum left by Crystal, who is also among the missing - she's not there. Jason feels her loss. He's tired. He comments to the kids, "We really need to get your Aunt Crystal back here ASAP. Y'all could use a momma and I could use a break". When Becky asked had he spoken to Crystal, he replied, "not yet, but I can think of one or two things I'd like to tell her when I do find her". His resentment comes through. It doesn't feel good to be abandoned - to be left holding the bag. To be on the hook for other people's responsibilities.

And by the end of the show, we knew that others might soon be feeling the way that Jason felt about Crystal having taken off, disappearing, about him - since people would eventually notice that he was missing, not there, but wouldn't know why - that he was being held against his will.

I'll be interested to see how this theme carries through the rest of Season 4.

Any thoughts? Please share them in the comments space below. Thanks!

~ Rachel  

Character Spotlight: One of my favorite "characters" in True Blood

"Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

     One of the many reasons I have fallen so passionately in love with True Blood has been because of its character development. I want to take some time to discuss a character so strong, so well developed, a character so integral to the story without her the show could not survive. No, I'm not talking about Sookie! This character has been in every episode, every scene, and almost if not every frame of True Blood.  The character I turn my spotlight on in this post is.....MUSIC!

     You may not even notice her at first, but she is there. She hangs around in the background...off camera, out of sight, but never out of mind. She lays in wait to prey upon the emotions of the characters; fueling their fears, their desires. She builds pressure, creates anxiety, she gets our hearts beating with her deep crescendo as we follow along to her pulsating rhythm.

     Music is the soul-the backbone of True Blood, and we have composer Nathan Barr and the many talented musical supervisors of the show to thank. From the romantically haunting strings that permeate throughout Bill and Sookie's love theme to the sinister rattle and hiss of Maryann's theme music in season 2, music and song been established as legitimate vehicles meant to drive the audience into the very heart of the story. Music and film have been partners from the very start. Even silent film couldn't resist the power that music possessed. According to the silent film page on Wikipedia "From the very beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues."

     If the power of the instrumental score were not enough, the musical department takes it one step further by introducing song, that is music plus vocal performance. It's no secret that every episode title of True Blood comes from a song used within the episode, so it should also be no secret that listening to the lyrics of said song may further inform the viewer to "vital emotional cues" as well. The title song, which plays at the end of every episode may get lost if you don't pay close enough attention. That being said, I offer this challenge...go back and watch your favorite episode. Take note of the title. Watch the episode carefully, looking for themes. Allow yourself to get caught up in the sonic landscape and when the credits role sit there silently and listen. Listen to the lyrics, let the poetry get inside of you. After all is said and done let me know if your insight to a certain character, scene, or the episode as a whole hasn't changed...I bet it has!!

     We here at The Pierced Pomegranate Tavern would like you all to raise a glass for this often overlooked, but never underestimated character. Here's to you Music...for your commitment to greatness, for never settling to play a bit part, for never "phoning in" a performance and for always challenging us to look beneath the surface! In the immortal words of Russell Hammond (from the movie Almost Famous) "I dig music!!!" ~ Rebecca