View from 'the gods'

The end of Episode 5 – showed Sookie Stackhouse’s grandmother – Lois Smith – apparently lying dead on the kitchen floor. There were no plot flips at this stage; she is dead and this episode is arranged around her death and burial.

We are introduced to a number of Bon Temps traditions; like the wake. Well this really an afternoon tea of sorts where the neighbours and the curious come round with food. This is all very tiring for her grand daughter, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), finds it too intrusive – their presence in her home and in her thoughs; the visitors say one thing and generally think other things. The final straw is her brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) – blames Sookie for the death of ‘granny’; the current police theory is that the serial killer is targetting women with close associations with vampires; maybe Sookie was the intended target. Her friend Tara (Rutina Wesley) has to send all the visitors away.

Another tradition is the burial. All sorts of future plot lines are introduced: Tara’s mother claims to be possessed by a demon – is a it a real one or a metaphor; Jason has another run-in with the police; Jason’s growing dependency on ‘V’; and there is an estranged uncle – Uncle Barlett. Uncle Barlett – played by Cheyenne Wilbur – resembles Mr Burns from Simpsons.

Then when I thought they had managed to avoid it the producers bring on the sex: Tara with Sam (Trammell); Jason with who-ever; and Sookie with vampire Bill (as he is now known)!

This episode is really about the loss of innocence: Sookie’s and Paquin’s. The murder of her grandmother and the subsequent events must surely strip away much of the innocence from Sookie. Indeed, after the funeral, and once the sun has gone down she puts on a virginal white night gown and runs over to the Compton estate and gives herself to Bill (Stephen Moyer). It is a loss of innocence for Paquin too: the love scene with Moyer is very revealing – she isn’t the little girl dancing on the beach in The Piano anymore!

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