Sookie and Lafayette quickly decide to call upon Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) to make Tara a vampire since that is the only way to keep her. Given Tara’s past experience with the undead, she doesn’t simply brush her grave’s dirt off and thank Sookie for the decision. Instead, Tara distances herself from all of her friends and starts to build some new relationships with Pam and Jessica.
Meanwhile, Eric and Bill attempt to flee the scene of their recent defiance of The Authority in killing Nan Flanagan, spokesperson for the American Vampire League, only to be quickly captured, and just as quickly freed. Unfortunately, their escape doesn’t last long as they are still brought into the cavernous headquarters of the vampire seat of government. It is here we are introduced to new characters like Chancellors Dieter, Rosalyn, Salome, Alexander, Kibwe and Nora as well as Guardian Roman (Christopher Meloni). Bill and Eric quickly learn that something is amiss as it seems a religious group is attempting to take over The Authority’s ... well, authority. The two find that they have to play a possibly deadly game as they root out who believes what and play along with the right people, that is, if they hope to survive the experience.
As for Terry’s visitor, he informs the shell-shocked character that many of their former squadmates are dying in fires and we learn about the events that gave Terry his post-traumatic-stress syndrome. Terry and his former Sergeant leave Bon Temps hoping to track down what is really going on, and while Terry is quick to accept the reason for their plight, not everyone is quite ready to face down yet another mythical creature.
This season had quite a few scattered plotlines that end up coming together rather nicely, but not all of them do. For instance, Terry’s arc plays out before the season is up, but it doesn’t really have any affect on anyone else. Meanwhile, Sam’s (Sam Trammell) story touches lightly on Alcide’s (Joe Manganiello) story of dealing with Debbie’s disappearance and how he deals with his pack, but that connection is very loose since it only involves Sam’s shifter girlfriend, Luna (Janina Gavankar), being Alcide’s pack’s former leader’s ex-wife. When it comes to Sam and Luna, they find themselves facing down a hate group bent on taking out all of the supernaturals they can find. In the end though, they will find themselves involved in Eric and Bill’s Authority storyline, which is more than you can say about Terry’s, Alcide’s or Lafayette’s stories.
Needless to say, I found this season wasn’t quite as focused as past ones. While I enjoy pretty much every character in True Blood, it really feels like they are trying to shoehorn some extra stories in just to give some characters a bit of extra screen time. While there were some elements I enjoyed, the bits that didn’t lend themselves to the main stories focusing on Sookie, Bill or Eric just didn’t feel as important.
At least True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season still excels in special features. The True Blood Lines feature expands to includes details on this season’s new characters and categorizes them by race and associations so you can really dig in and read up on everyone, including major characters only seen in previous seasons. The Inside the Episodes features combine with hints, FYIs and flash back/forwards to really give you as much information as possible. Not only do you get little featurettes about every episode, but if, while watching the episodes, the characters reference something that happened in a previous episode, you will get the chance to see that scene again. If there is a bit of foreshadowing, then you get a preview of that scene.
There is also an in-depth featurette picking apart the sixth episode, "Hopeless" as well as audio commentaries on five of the season’s biggest episodes. This last is always good to hear the actors and filmmakers banter back and forth, plus you get to learn some interesting tidbits. A good example of this is the fact that Jeffrey Nicholas Brown, who plays Sookie and Jason’s father, is actually a member of the Blue Man Group.
Last, but not least, is another recurring special feature. Past seasons have taken characters and interviewed them as if they were a part of a reality TV series so you get to see their reactions after major events. This time, the characters chosen are the ones that work for the Authority. They include Nora, Kibwe, Rosalyn, Salome and even Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian) and Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare).
Like I said, the Blu-ray release of True Blood has always been overflowing with special features, and while this season feels like it isn’t quite as good as the others, the added bonuses should help appease any fan who is looking for a bit of extra value.
