True Blood Season Four Coverage: Bewitched

Episode Commentary: “Me and the Devil”

If you thought there wasn’t enough tension between Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton this season, that’s all about to change. The ending of this past episode of “True Blood” has finally laid the foundation for the love triangle everyone wants to see with Eric Northman. With Compton now aware that Sookie has been hiding Eric for so long, the drama is about to pick up. That, combined with the smaller storylines beginning to unfold more, “True Blood” continues to entertain.

However, the show isn’t without its problems. The storylines involving Tommy, Sam and Marnie are still entirely too slow to develop. Whenever they are on-screen, the pace of the show drops significantly. While Marnie’s role is still being defined and viewers are intrigued by any developments involving her character, Sam and Tommy’s roles on the show are completely up in the air. The fact that it doesn’t appear that these characters are headed anywhere interesting doesn’t help the precious minutes the show dedicates to them every week either.

Add in a few new characters and Lafayette’s travels with Jesus and it’s becoming clearly obvious that there’s too much going on at any one given time. For this show to continue to entertain the way it should, it needs to devote more time to fewer angles and clearly define them, rather than jump around the way they have been this season.

Other minor plotlines involving Arlene, Terry, Hoyt and Jason are interesting, but too need something to set them apart from everything else going on in Bon Temps. The idea that Rene’s baby is somewhat possessed is a perfect hit for the series; the same thing goes for Jason’s situation with the panthers. More than anything however, they are teased every week, when they quite possibly have the ability of being fantastic secondary storylines.

As the case with any show such as this, the writers have a tough job of what storylines to develop over the course of every episode. While the choices the creative team has made this season aren’t perfect, the show continues to induce sighs every time it changes focus from Sookie and Eric.

Because of this, perhaps it is time the smaller storylines are developed to the point where viewers can enjoy them as much as the main arc. This may work in True Blood’s benefit in the long run, as the exploits of Bill, Sookie and Eric can be teased for a few weeks while the other stories get up to speed.

Regardless of this however, with its primary storyline beginning to unfold, “True Blood” is at its most entertaining point of the season thus far.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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