Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Draining

New photo from True Blood's official Facebook page.
There's been so much True Blood news in the last weeks that I need a day to recoup, drain my cuppa and see what I missed. 
TVbythenumbers-True Blood was again the number one cable program on Sunday night, earning a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating, down from last week's 2.9 premiere rating. 
All you lucky people, I know you will be tweeting pics for the rest of us. On Friday, July 13, the Game of Thrones panel will take place in Hall H, while True Blood's panel follows on Saturday, July 14 in Ballroom 20.
TVFanatic has their roundtable recaps back (in full at link)What was your favorite scene from the episode? 
Matt: I'll narrow is all the way down to our very first look inside the authority offices. Who knew they were Mac people?!?
Jim: Hands down it was Jessica teasing Steve into a "fang boner." Remembering how she had trouble controlling her fangs early on, it was a lot of fun seeing her turn that on the former reverend and his lust for Jason.
Leigh: I'm with Jim. The scene between Steve Newlin and Jessica was hilarious and awesome. Jessica is so much fun when she asserts her power over people and has confidence in herself as a vampire. Steve is just awkward, uncomfortable and nursing a serious schoolgirl crush on Jason!
Chris: As much as I loved seeing Jessica toy with Newlin and call him out for having a fang boner and real boner, I thought the scene where Roman gave “communion” to the members of the Authority was the most compelling. For one, it was a nice deviation from the brand of scenes we have grown accustomed to. I am very excited to see more of the mythology surrounding vampires revealed. It was so intense and amazing. I’m in a real pickle here boys.
Liz: When Bill pulled the Russell card to bargain with Roman for his and Eric's lives. Once again he showed his knowledge of politics and how to play the games. I love when he shows that side of himself.
I like Dieter yelling about Russell, "What an epic deeeesaster" in the promo for E3.
TVFanatic's review- Just posting this because it is part of the many questions I have and the contradictions were unnecessary. This is why we have to suspend belief a little too much sometimes. Then again, they (Bill and Eric) had nothing to lie about, which was my main question while watching the interrogation scenes and later when Meloni's Roman quizzed the duo on the Sanguinistas.
Why would the Authority possibly believe Bill and Eric were part of that movement? Is the Authority not watching at all times? Is this ruling body somehow unaware that Bill and Eric are the last vampires to ever view humans as a mere food source, considering their shared love for one of them?
Okay, Sookie is a faery, not a human. But you get the idea. I would certainly assume the Authority has eyes everywhere - it didn't take it long to track down Nora and the boys during their escape - and it seems like a stretch to think it would suspect Bill and Eric to be anywhere but on its side when it comes to harmony between people and vampires.
As for Meloni, the actor clearly has a strong screen presence and is instantly more mesmerizing to watch than just about anyone else on the show. His character appears to be everything you would expect or want in a leader: Decisive, well-spoken, aware of a cause beyond his own emotion, respectful of his colleagues.
But why would he free Bill and Eric to track down Russell Edgington? Does the Authority not have its own security team of some kind? Why would it entrust this key mission to a pair of vampires it doesn't exactly trust? And how did Russell grow to be such a disruptive force in the first place (edit:especially since he was made a king by them????

OK, the Authority has all this ultra hi-tech equipment, weaponry, spies all over the vamp world, a SWAT team to do their bidding and yet they are so wrong about Bill and Eric?Then they have their bible which they seem (to me) revering in the Lilith nonsense and this very telling prayer they keep repeating “So as the beetle nourishes the lark, so shall human nourish vampire.”, yet are looking to torture and stake any other vamps who do the same?  Is this all a front for something more? Also Bill is becoming all Ned Stark-y under interrogation, we know where that leads. 
Interview with Michael McMillian (as usual, all at the links)-"Shooting that was just fun," McMillian told me over the phone this week. "Ryan [Kwanten] and I love working together. He's an actor I can try anything with and vice versa. We spend most of our time trying to crack each other up, and then trying not to laugh as a result." But even though the scene was True Bloody in nature - over the top, humorous, full of nudity - McMillian said those involved wanted to "make sure Steve was coming from a real place." "This is really something he's been struggling with," the star said. "We never really saw Steve's inner life on Season 2. You were seeing the public figure and wondering what is going on with him. So it's fun and kind of a relief as an actor to play a scene where his soul is coming out."
Our Campblood besties are back early this week with another LULZ vlog, Andy as Tara!
Meredith has her Pros and Cons at io9.com- Here's a few, but you'll want to read some funny captions on her pics at the source
True Blood’s got 99 plot lines, and now Rick Santorum’s one?
Pro:Our first Historical Vampire Flashback of the season! And it contains Campari and Cocaine and Pam. Delightful. Let's just cut to the chase on this one, and lump the whole completely unnecessary flashback into one Pro. So we're going to learn about how Eric and Pam met? Excellent.
Pro: Pam's angry voice message on Eric's phone. That fact that she used their "business" as an excuse to call him, and that her voice cracks on the final "call me." We've been there, lady.
Pro: MELONI, MOTHERFUCKERS.
Pro: Meloni gives a creepy Vampire Communion with the blood of Lilith the first vampire. Which is fairly accurate as far as beliefs into how vampires were created. After the ceremony, Meloni walks around rubbing his hands on Nora's face while she's tied up, ME NEXT, ME NEXT.
Con: Meloni says "pickle." And "Lilith help me." Because Lilith is their god, GET IT? You get it.
Con: Meloni's lines are kind of... awful. This is not good Meloni usage. HOWEVER Meloni is kind of like pizza, even when it's bad, it's still pizza you want to have sex with.
Pro: Meloni regains his form by lowering his eyelids and screaming. Kind of a soft opening for such an amazing dragon of a man. But that's OK, don't want to blow our wad this early on, we get it. I will wait for you Meloni. I will wait for you forever, in a ice cream shop with a milkshake and double straw. Forever.
Pro: Is Lilith behind the doors inside The Authority's meeting room? If so, there's your finale right there.

TrueBloodComics did a recap in all screencaps.
Carrie Preston and inimitable Michael Emerson at Monday Night's Critic's Choice Awards. via ZIMBIO
From Miss Taurilla, a Paric-nista.

A very good read at Mr. Porter, interview with Stephen Moyer and photos. Just a bit-

"I'd been coming to LA for pilot season and I just couldn't do it anymore," he says. "You wouldn't believe what it's like. You're doing five auditions a day, literally cramming lines and you don't know which one's going to be good. It's a total crapshoot."
But no sooner had he returned to London when his agent called. "She said, 'There's this script.' I said no, I'm not interested, forget it. She said, 'I won't ask you to read anything else all year.' And it was True Blood - definitely one of the top three scripts I've ever seen. I put myself on tape the next morning and had it emailed to the creator, Alan Ball. He saw it that afternoon. And I got on a plane the next day."
He considers how swiftly his life changed in those few days. After all, he didn't just win the role of a lifetime, on that trip to LA - he met his future wife and settled in California.
"Yes, True Blood has been good to me, I'm not going to argue with you," he laughs. "But the important thing that happened was a psychological shift. I'd reached a point where I was like, 'OK, I'm not chasing this anymore. I don't need it.' And when you make that shift, it's very profound. Things happen. That's why I got the part that day. There's just a different feeling in the air when you're not worried about getting the job or not. You might want something but when you realise that you'll be OK without it, that's when it comes to you." 
Photography by Mr Blair Getz Mezibov, Styling by Mr Christopher Orrell, Words by Mr Sanjiv Bhattacharya
Daily Mail has a ridiculous article but the pics of Joe are good, he was in Miami last week.
Seems True Bloodthe popular vampire series finally incorporated a Jewish theme—and played into a centuries-old slur. SOURCE


An interview with the great Christopher Heyerdahl (aka The Swede, Todd the Wraith, Druitt, Dieter etc. to infinity) from Crave Online, read more at the source.
Crave Online: Tell us about Dieter Braun.
Christopher Heyerdahl: Basically with a group like The Authority, they need someone to search out the truth. And when you’re dealing with vampires, getting the truth is a bit of a tricky operation. It requires somebody very creative and passionate about getting the truth. Dieter is definitely that man. He’s been around a long time. He knows what he’s doing. He enjoys his job but I’m not sure how much because when you’re dealing with interrogation, you don’t want to say that someone enjoys their job. It makes them sound like a bit of a sadist and that’s not him, but he definitely gets the job done.
Crave Online: What was Dieter on the page, and what were you able to bring to him?
Christopher Heyerdahl: Well, in the first episode where he’s introduced, it’s 502, you get a lot of information about Dieter and certainly in playing the scene with Stephen Moyer and working on the scene with Michael Lehmann, we discovered a lot about the character. A lot of times that’s the way you figure out who these characters are when they haven’t been fleshed out through the time of seasons, you discover it as you go. You can do all the research you want ahead of time and imagine where the character is and what he’s doing, but until you actually get into the room and start playing with excellent actors and excellent directors and together you create the character at hand. So he was a work in progress and he was a fascinating creature to discover.
Crave Online: How is he introduced?
Christopher Heyerdahl: You’ll see him very creatively drawing out, trying to figure out where the boys’ leanings are. The last we saw them, they were grabbed by The Authority and obviously they’re with someone who they shouldn’t be with. He’s there with a chancellor of The Authority and this of course gives great pause to what’s going on within the walls of the authority and there’s obviously some dissention in the ranksSo the idea is to try and figure out what that is and what they have to do with that. Very interesting too, each member of The Authority has different ways of getting information. That is definitely part of the fun of the scenes starting next week.
Crave Online: Who are those juicy, dramatic scenes with?
Christopher Heyerdahl: Well, really we get to deal with our two boys of course, our bromance brothers.
Crave Online: Is there a lot of action with Dieter?
Christopher Heyerdahl: There’s a fair bit of action in Dieter’s storyline but mostly Dieter is for the most part very silent, direct and creative in the way that he gets his information. So he’s not really a man so much of flash action as much as an intellectual danger.
Anna makes a very good point on actors and plastic surgery, from THRPaquin has been outspoken about her unusual grin: "I think anyone is as critical as they have the energy to self-obsess, but I also know as an actress you are more limited if you interfere with your looks. If you have a whole bunch of work done with your teeth and your face and your boobs, then you’re only going to play modern people. That’s a big choice to make. Very limiting.”
Recap all in stick figures!

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