On the eve of its third-season finale, I come not to bury HBO's True Blood, but to praise it. Good thing, because burying the vamps and vengeful spirits in this wild supernatural series wouldn't have much effect anyway...
Alan Ball's wonderful series, which concludes its summer run Sunday night at 9 ET, has been TV's richest summer treat. Let me count some ways:
It moves with such breathless pace, it's as though each episode were stuck on fast-forward.
It presents such charismatic and entertaining characters, you could follow any one of a dozen of them for an entire episode without complaint.
Its images and its music are equally bold and bracing. Not an hour goes by without seeing a visual tableaux you won't forget, or hearing a song you're happy to remember, or eager to seek out.
Its imagination knows no bounds -- and almost every episode, there's at least one WOW moment, when you're hit broadside, without warning, with something you didn't expect, and think about long after the TV is turned off.
Young vamp Jessica is a regenerating virgin? Eric and the King of Mississippi are facing the deadly sun together? Sookie is a... fairy?
The cliffhanger from this year's penultimate episode had Eric handcuffing Russell in broad daylight and awaiting the "true death" as Sookie's magical sunscreen-blood-infusion wore off, beginning to sear and fry them both.
On any other show, that would have ended the season... but Ball and company, on a reckless yet confident tear, have so much up their sleeves, they have cliffhangers to spare.
A tip of the hat, by the way, to Denis O'Hare's Russell. His King of Mississippi is such a fabulous character (when he first saw proof of Sookie's unexplained light-shooting power, rather than be fearful, he screamed a delighted "Faaaan-TAS-tic!") that I'd hate to see him go.
(Especially since I remember him displaying similar verve, in Broadway musicals, as Ernst Ludwig in Cabaret and the gun-wielding Charles Guiteau in Assassins.)
But he's only one of many supporting characters I positively adore. Carrie Preston's flustered Arlene, Debroah Ann Woll's frustrated Jessica, Rutina Wesley's haunted Tara, Kristin Bauer's defiant Pam, Evan Rachel Wood's literally-to-die-for vampire queen -- and, okay, the list isn't limited to women. Nelsan Ellis' fiery Lafayette, Chris Bauer's clueless Andy, Jim Parrack's Baby Huey-ish Hoyt, Sam Trammell's shape-shifting Sam, and especially Rwan Kwanten's hot-headed Jason... What a cast.
And that's not even counting the major leads. Anna Paquin, as Sookie, is not only one of the best actresses on TV right now, but indisputably is the best screamer. Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgard, as Bill and Eric (respectively), complete television's most heated romantic triangle of 2010.
The heat they generate is astounding, considering that two of their characters are cold to the touch -- and by the time the season finale is over, their romantic triangle may well have expanded to four points, or shrunken to two.
All I know is, I'll be there -- and when True Blood goes back underground to hibernate for the winter, I'll be sad. TV this entertaining is as addictive as vamp blood, and where am I supposed to get my fix?
Oh, yeah. Showtime and Dexter. Thank goodness -- or thank badness -- THAT bloody good series returns Sept. 26, and is just around the corner.