True Blood: “Jesus Gonna Be Here” Review

‘True Blood’ begins its final season strong and brings things back to basics.

Note: The following review goes into detail about the episode. SPOILER ALERT!

True Blood is back and that means cheesy acting, ridiculous stories and flat characters right? Not this time. In the premiere titled “Jesus Gonna Be Here,” we jump right back in to where Season 6 left off. The town of Bon Temps is under attack by the Hep-V vampires and they are a wild bunch. Characters (and storylines) sprawled out from there, with things halting at the realization of Tara’s death. It was hard to feel anything due to a lot of factors: it was off-screen, it was rushed seeing as she got very little screen-time, and it’s True Blood, so anything could happen.

Thought: A whistle caused all of the Hep-V vamps to retreat. Who’s the whistleblower?

Nothing major happened this episode. We basically got an extended version of the closing minutes of Season 6 but with more crazy, infected vampires and the more-than-usual Sookie hatred. This isn’t a bad thing particularly. It gave us a chance to see what the tone is going to be for True Blood in its final season. What I saw in this episode was the show actually taking itself a bit more seriously. I felt the acting was definitely stepped up from its eye-rolling induced actions and dialogue of the past. I can take Sheriff Andy Bellefleur seriously now as the writers have re-written him into a man who’s a caring father as well as being smart and threatening for the sake of protecting the ones he love. I don’t think he’ll enjoy a vampire slumbering in his house when he returns home though.

Jessica is a character who hasn’t changed much. She still seems overly emotional even without her guy troubles. I was disappointed by this because even Adilyn Bellefleur grew up and seems to be more of a mature character. The hits keep coming with her portion of the episode as she stood guard the whole night with each of her scenes not being much different than the next. A pro from the situation does come from a sweet bonding moment both women had together. Another interesting bond this week came from Lafayette and James (Jessica’s new boyfriend). I honestly expected him to be a flat character, but his story about how he lost all of his friends in Vietnam and was beaten in the streets was a touching one, something I didn’t expect given True Blood’s track record.

Pam’s (or Go Fuck Yourself’s) story this week made this new True Blood even more worthwhile. Her story felt very unique and grounded. She’s still on the hunt for Eric, a hunt that has taken her to Morocco where she seems to have given up on life. We are reintroduced to her character playing Russian roulette with a wooden bullet accompanied by another vampire and an audience. Her dull, sarcastic “I don’t give a shit” attitude remains to be a comical presence on screen which didn’t disappoint. Her line where she says, “Your god and my god can go to a motel and have a circle jerk for all I care. I’ll be in hell having a threeway with the devil” is what makes her character one of my favorites to see on screen.

Question: Shouldn’t Pam have felt something when Tara died? Pam is Tara’s maker after all.

Finally, let’s catch up with the Stackhouses. Jason is still in an inferior position to his vampire girlfriend Violet. As we’ve seen throughout six seasons of True Blood, Jason never has a place or depth as a character, but at least we see him doing what he does best: f***ing! And apparently it took four months for him to stand up to Violent for this lustful affair to occur, but hey, we need sex on top of a cop car somewhere in this episode. Sookie dealt with the hate she has always experienced, but more painful was that it came from Alcide, her current boyfriend as we saw last season. This causes her to dangerously wander the roads on Bon Temps. Sookie is fed up at this point and is just sick of seeing the death of people around her, and rightfully so as she is responsible for a lot of it, something she admits in the end.

THE BREAKDOWN

“Jesus Gonna Be Here” was a good way to start this final season of True Blood. Season 6 did some things to correct the mistakes of seasons’ past, but Season 7 seems to be doing that and then some, taking the show back to its Bon Temps roots. A lot happened this week and some rising conflicts were planted. Sam is mayor and has that position threatened by his shapeshifting secret revealed, and Holly, Arlene and Nicole (with Sam’s child) are stuck in the basement of Fangtasia. This season seems to be taking the goofy and cheesy feel of the show out and brought it back to reality, something that made the show appealing, to me at least. It’s just a shame a fix had to come so late in the show’s life. Overall, this was a really good episode of True Blood and the start to a seemingly fitting end to the series.

How do you feel about this last season of ‘True Blood?’
Do you think the show can redeem itself in its final hours?
Fang bang the comments below.