<\/p>\n
Well, I knew it would happen eventually: I am no longer drinking<\/span> watching True Blood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As far as I\u2019m concerned, it jumped the shark<\/a> in 2.7, Release Me,<\/a> when Sookie\u2019s best friend Tara and her sort-of boyfriend Eggs fell under the black-eyed influence of Maryann the maenad,<\/a> provoking Eggs to kill Daphne for no apparent reason. I have been willing to overlook a lot of gratuitous sex and consequenceless violence in this show, but the incredible creeping crud of Maryann has just been the final straw.<\/p>\n Maryann, as a maenad, induces uninhibited behavior, causing orgies of sex and violence with her magic powers. Fine. She\u2019s also charismatic and manipulative. Also fine. But I feel like her status as mind-bending orgy-maker is being used by the writers as an excuse to mess with character consistency.<\/p>\n For one example, Tara, Sookie\u2019s friend, has always shown ambivalence and mistrust toward Maryann. While she clearly hankers for Maryann\u2019s approving, soothing company, Tara [like anyone with a brain] rightly suspects that Maryann\u2019s flamboyant generosity might have a rotten core. Hence Tara leaves Maryann\u2019s house and goes to live with Sookie instead. When Maryann and her groupies come over to Sookie\u2019s house with a birthday orgy for Tara, Tara enjoys the party reluctantly, but also evicts Maryann afterward. Any time she is seduced by Maryann\u2019s power, Tara always wakes up and rejects it later.<\/p>\n Therefore, it makes no sense characterologically when, due to Maryann\u2019s magic manipulation, Tara reverses her decision and allows Maryann and groupies to stay at Sookie\u2019s house along with her. This makes no sense because we have seen Tara resistant all along. It also makes no sense because we know the bond of friendship and respect between Sookie and Tara, and it\u2019s hard for me to believe that Tara would disrespect her bestest friend ever by inviting some sexy weirdoes to live in her best friend\u2019s house without her best friend\u2019s permission. Oh, but Tara reversed her eviction of Maryann because she was under Maryann\u2019s power, right? No. Tara reversed her eviction of Maryann because the story required her to get closer to Maryann and Eggs for some reason.<\/p>\n For another example of Maryann\u2019s power thinly disguised as plot machinery, please see her enchantment of Eggs. Basically [hey look a spoiler!] Maryann magicks Eggs so that he kills Daphne, another of Maryann\u2019s groupies. I haven\u2019t watched the ep in which this occurs because I refuse to; it\u2019s too stupid. I understand that Maryann\u2019s power makes people uninhibited, but I have yet to see anything in his character that would suggest that, if uninhibited, Eggs would kill someone. Why yes, we know he has a violent, criminal past, but all his behaviors have been those of a nice, gentle pothead. I remain unconvinced that he is secretly a murderer in his heart of hearts. I think he is just a murderer because the plot needed to off Daphne, and doing it through Maryann\u2019s magic of Eggs was an expedient way.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s why I\u2019m done with the show. \u201cThe orgiastic influence of Maryann\u201d only goes so far as an explanation; I see less evidence of overwhelming Dionysian power in the show and more evidence of the plot forcing people together because someone\u2019s creaky, unconvincing idea of \u201cstory\u201d demands such turns of events.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, I knew it would happen eventually: I am no longer drinking watching True Blood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[657,656],"class_list":["post-1686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-people-of-color","tag-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6176,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions\/6176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}