"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  

Scary Children

It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!


Fans of Dr. Seuss, like me, will get the reference. Standing frozen in the snow, incredulous, the Grinch pondered thusly how Christmas could appear to the Whos down in Whoville without fanfare after he had so cruelly snatched their holiday trappings under the cover of night.


I feel like Arlene's baby has appeared in sort of the same way. Seemingly unannounced. Unheralded. Suddenly, he's just here.

Smiling sweetly up at his momma amidst a scattering of decapitated Barbies as if he'd been there all along.


Sure, we knew he was coming, what with Arlene's bizarre Season 3 experiences leading up to baby Mikey's appearance. Like when she first found out the little critter was on the way...

...and that the child she was carrying was not Terry's but René's.


But when Season 4 premiered and Mikey was, well just there...it felt oddly out of whack for me. As the audience, we did not get to witness Arlene's journey through the rest of her pregnancy and the pain, doubt and conflict - both inner and outwardly with Terry - she experienced as part of it.


We weren't there for Mikey's birth, and suddenly, he's just there. I'm sure the writers cooked up this little bit of cognitive dissonance for us quite purposefully.


Everyone gets so worked up over Bill's perceived betrayal of Sookie, what about René's deception of Arlene? Imagine her horror at the revelation that the fetus growing inside her was the offspring of the double-dealing serial killer who had conned his way into her heart and home using an invented persona? That the baby would be a constant reminder of the man who had wormed his way into her life and the lives of her children; the same man that she had slept next to each night, having been kept oblivious to his unspeakable acts of murder and butchery?


This could easily spawn thoughts and feelings rancorous enough to choke on, or be choked by, if you ask me!

 And is it any wonder Arlene's extreme unease would transfer to the unborn baby?  

That she would feel stifled, suffocated, and utterly snuffed out by the prospect of bringing this child - René's child - into the world? 

As a social worker who spends quite a bit of time seeing clients in the community, I'm in my car frequently; this affords me the opportunity to listen to the radio a lot. On June 23rd, I caught the tail end of a program on WBAI that I like to describe as one that plays the most edgy, underground-of-the-indie music you'll never hear on radio otherwise. It's called Shocking Blue and the DJ Delphine Blue spun one particular track that crept into my consciousness in such a creepy-crawly way that I just had to pull over and take note of it.


The song is called "Scary Children", and even though we had not yet met Mikey it made me think of Arlene's baby immediately.


Give it a play and maybe you'll see why.



In my mind, Arlene's body had been colonized by a baby she did not want to bring to term. As Sanchez-Grant (p. 77, 2008) writes, "The female body, as a site of oppression, has always been the means by which patriarchy exerts control over women".


The song's eerie, foreboding tone - it's plodding, incessant beat - conveys such an encroaching, inescapable sense of doom that I felt it captured and distilled the helplessness to express her own will that I imagined Arlene must have been feeling. Her confusion as Terry - generally benign, wise, battle-addled Terry - forced, imposed his will on her.


His need to be validated by this baby that is not biologically his robbed her of her free will and ability to choose as he insisted that she keep and carry the baby. He developed an irrational attachment to and love for this unborn child - a baby Arlene did not want and tried desperately to rid herself of...

...a baby growing inside her that reminded her of all the pain, betrayal, and devastation wrought by René - something she does not want back in her life.

Terry's over-identification with Mikey continues.

There were practical, economic concerns - can they afford this baby - that Terry ignored or denied while Arlene was pregnant.


Elsewhere in the blogosphere I've read other analyses suggesting that through this story arc woman is yet again portrayed as the crafty deceiver...

...this fallback trope is revealed as Arlene supposedly uses her feminine wiles to dupe the trusting Terry into believing that he is indeed the unborn child's father.

Yet, ultimately, even after he learns the truth about the child's paternity from Arlene, he emotionally manipulated her into keeping the baby, to be the conduit  through which his needs could be satisfied - his sense of self and worth bolstered, his desire for his life to mean something fulfilled.


This, coming after their joint experience at having both their wills subverted by Maryann...

 ...their relationship, which grew from a spark of genuine caring, consummated while their consciousness was not their own. That Terry, who even while under Maryann's influence was driven to protect his "special lady" would attempt to exert such control over Arlene and her reproductive sovereignty is surprising, and frankly, disconcerting.

But Terry gets to be the good guy, doesn't he? The bottom line is that Terry is a good guy, and it's admirable that he has stood by Arlene and been a father to her child, even if, because of Arlene's distrust and emotional rejection of the baby, continuing to do so will require that he (and Mikey) will have to "love on her more". Even so, the fact remains that although only he and Arlene know it right now, Terry is playing father to a child that is not his, and by doing so he can be judged positively as having "manned up", taken responsibility, and stepped in as a loving dad.

But, were it to get out that Arlene hoped and strived to miscarry her unborn baby - even though she is already a loving mother to Coby and Lisa...

  

...she could well be recast in the image of the deviant woman who throws off the role of the maternal, her "reproductive destiny" (Sanchez-Grant, p. 78, 2008).

Not unlike Bram Stoker's Lucy; who, as a vampire, "violently thrusts an infant from her breast" ( Parlour, ¶11, 2009):

With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there motionless. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile, he fell back and hid his face in his hands.

Is this not the type of harsh judgement many women who wish to exercise their right to choose to have an abortion - and sometimes even just to practice birth control since initially, proof of marriage and a husband's written consent was required for American and British women who requested the Pill (Sanchez-Grant, 2008) and much more recently, pharmacists have denied filling prescriptions for it on religious or moral grounds - are met with? As a veteran of the 2004 March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C.  during which a million women demonstrated for our reproductive rights and health (Rebecca was there too, and so was our Mom) and were met by Bible brandishing, moralizing extremists, I would say yes.


I think there's plenty more mileage left in this story arc now that Mikey is with us:

• Sanchez-Grant (p. 78, 2008) quotes David Morgan & Sue Scott, editors of Body Matters: Essay on the Sociology of the Body, "Historically, women have been defined by their 'biological potentiality', and the female reproductive system has worked to reduce women to the sum of their child-bearing parts". Arlene has, as Adrienne Rich argues (Sanchez-Grant, 2008), been controlled by lashing her to her body in this way. If he is to be seen as inherently evil due solely to the genes passed onto him by his dead father, will Mikey, too, be the victim of the "biology as destiny" fate that the feminist movement has been battling for decades?
• Will he become a wedge between the newlywed Arlene and Terry?
• Is there something off about him, or will his alleged evilness become a self-fulfilling prophecy unfolding in response to Arlene's projections?

I, for one, will be watching this Season 4 sub story closely!


How about you?


Please use the comments section below to let us know.


~ Rachel

References

Parlour, S. (2009). Vixens and Virgins in the 19th century Anglo-Irish Novel: Representations of the feminine in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Journal of Dracula Studies, # 11.

Sanchez-Grant, S. (2008). The Female Body in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Lady Oracle. Journal of International Women's Studies, Vol. 9, #2.