review
While this is still a very good show, it's already come dangerously close to jumping the shark (jumping the Sook?), in just it's second season. I wanted to give it 3 1/2 stars but that's not possible here. I just couldn't bring myself to give it four, so I went with three.
For starters, the show has veered much too far off on a tangent concerning the Maenad Maryann, and many, many viewers have been frustrated by it. Too little time was spent on the vampires of Dallas, which I found to be far more interesting. Too much attention was also spent on the Jason/Fellowship of the Sun arc, which was a deviation from the book series. All in all, there was too much "filler" to get to the good stuff.
The penultimate episode (#11, "Frenzy") was a disconcerted illogical mess with few highlights, and the portrayal of the vampire Queen of Louisiana, despite Evan Rachel Ward's beauty, left much to be desired, for whatever reasons. I think Holly Valance, who played "Lola" in the (now regrettably defunct) Moonlight episode "B.C" would've worked out better. "Frenzy" is widely regarded as by far the worst episode of the series so far, for various reasons.
Still, inevitably, many characters have been been interestingly further fleshed out from the first season, adding depth to the series; notably, Eric, Pam, Sam, Jason, Tara and her mother, but mostly the effervescent Lafayette, played by the very talented Nelsan Ellis. While many deviations from the books have been made, some good, some bad, the decision to keep the character of Lafayette alive was definitely a good move. We also get to see, briefly, the darker, more powerful side of Eric. Anna Paquin is playing the role she was born to play, she just shines in her role as Sookie, and all in all, the cast is amazing, despite some lapses in judgement this year from the writing staff.Read full review
