For one, someone seems to have bought her house. For another, it seems that Bill not only won that fight, but he has claimed the title of King of Louisiana. It seems that Lafayette’s (Nelsan Ellis) relationship with Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) has been proceeding nicely, but Tara (Rutina Wesley) has moved away to New Orleans and is living under a different name.
Those familiar with the books will realize that the show has started diverging from the novels. There are still a lot of common elements in this season when compared to the book “Dead to the World,” but it is nowhere near as close as the previous seasons have been to their respective novels.
The main focus of the season has a new coven of witches, led by a woman named Marnie (Fiona Shaw), retaliating against Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) and giving him a serious case of amnesia. When Sookie finds him aimlessly wandering on the side of the road, she takes him in and starts to care for him. As she gets to see the new side of Eric, she actually begins to fall for him, but she is a bit cautious, especially when considering how her last relationship, with Bill, ended.
While the events of the witch’s coven escalate, the rest of the Bon Temps citizens have their own storylines. For one, Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) and Hoyt’s (Jim Parrack) happy life living together seems to be falling apart, while Jason’s dealings with the Hotshot werepanthers become more and more … interesting.
Also in the list of supporting character story arcs, Sheriff Andy Bellefleur has gotten hooked on V and the youngest citizen, Mikey, Arlene’s (Carrie Preston) child that Terry (Todd Lowe) is raising as his, seems to be a bit mean-spirited. Of course, Arlene is worried that the boy’s real father, Rene, has passed on some of the serial killer’s bad habits. And none of this even touches on Sam’s (Sam Trammell) family problems, his new shifter friends, or Alcide (Joe Manganiello) and Debbie (Brit Morgan) moving to Shreveport and having to deal with the local wolf pack.
As always, True Blood manages to pack a lot of content into 12 episodes, and while there is a lot happening, I have to say I wasn’t nearly as captivated as past seasons. Usually, starting up a season of this series means I have to completely clear my plate of all other obligations because I won’t want to do anything else until I’m done with the season. That wasn’t really the case with True Blood: The Complete Fourth Season.
At least The Complete Fourth Season comes with a large collection of special features. Like past Blu-ray releases, this release comes with Enhanced Viewing on all of the episodes. This feature lets the viewer jump into a wide variety of episode-centric featurettes and interviews as well as clips from other episodes that show the importance of a particular scene. The Complete Fourth Season also adds to the growing True Blood Lines feature. This series of menus lets the viewer read up on every major or minor character in the show. It groups them by their species and you can go to the Archives section and read up on characters from past seasons.
This release also comes with a half-hour long featurette about the show’s post-production stage where everything from visual effects to sound and music is talked about. This is a good featurette for any aspiring filmmaker to watch.
Overall, it’s nice to see the True Blood series break away from the novels a bit and give it its own legs to stand on, but there seem to be a few places where it’s obvious that the writers are trying to find their own way. Like past seasons, The Complete Fourth Season is something fans will want to grab, I just hope you aren’t the type of viewer to dislike a show based on a book because it diverges from the original text. If that’s the case, then you won’t like Season Five, at least not based on what’s aired so far.
