True Blood's Final Season Off to a Strong, If Imperfect, Start

The final season of HBO's veteran supernatural drama True Blood kicks off tonight, and the show -- which has seen some pretty uneven quality over the last few years -- starts off strong out of the gate, although not without some flaws.

Warning: Minor spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of True Blood.

The more the series has diverged from the novels that spawned it, the more tortured some of the plots have sometimes felt...and this year's premiere is actually pretty straightforward and well-paced. The acting -- particularly from series lead Anna Paquin (Sookie) and recurring vampire Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica), who carry big chunks of the episode -- is some of their best work, even while Paquin is delivering some dialogue that isn't A material.

Picking up where last year's disorienting and menacing finale left off, "Jesus Gonna Be Here" delivers a few crushing blows to members of the cast right off the bat and builds on that. It's cinematically a very interesting episode, with director Stephen Moyer (you know him as Bill) doing some really cool stuff.

Of course, the show is still a little held back by decisions made years ago, when it was new and maybe had a lower budget, especially as it pertains to the way the vampire speed tricks -- which are used really heavily this week -- play onscreen. The effects on True Blood haven't evolved all that much with the show and sometimes the action-heavy episodes suffer for it.

The other area that the show could have improved is, as hinted above, in the dialogue. There are some monologues in this episode that are so hamfisted you'll come away from watching it smelling like bacon, and in one instance, it's such a key emotional beat for Sookie that it really undercuts Paquin's performance.

There are a couple of key story points in this week's episode that fans will have been waiting for for a long time -- and not just readers of the books who think they know what's coming, either. It feels like an episode that's clearing the deck for big things to come -- and even some of the big things that happen this week feel like they're being put off.

The H-vamps are as monstrous a monster as we've had in the show, and give tonight's episode a horror movie feel that the usually-dramatic True Blood usually doesn't fall back on. There's some gruesome stuff here, though, and more promised.

There are also elements of the Western or war genres here; there are a lot of people who work together out of necessity, and aren't at all happy about it. There's a sense that any number of characters could betray those they're working with at any moment, and even a beat or two where it happens.

And last of all, we have some police procedural stuff here, with Jason and Andy playing big roles as the Bon Temps police investigate the fallout from the cold open's flurry of tragedy.

All in all, the episode itself is a kind of patchwork of different genres, having done each of them some justice. It works well for a single episode, although it sometimes feels like flash over substance...and if they try to carry this schizophrenic approach through the full season it will probably wear as thin as The Walking Dead's "split everybody up and meet back in a year by the railroad tracks" did in Season 4B.

What's most remarkable so far is that the season has started out already in full swing, with things hopeless and some really bad stuff on the way. With so much they need to tackle between now and the series finale in thirteen (or so) weeks, one has to wonder whether the plot-heavy layout of this week's episode will be primarily the feel of the first half of the season, with some character work coming in the middle or end of the season to bring a satisfying conclusion to fans who have been there for the ride. We got a tease of that kind of stuff this week, but nothing you wouldn't get in an episode of any other plot- and effects-heavy series like Lost or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is too bad since the characters in this universe are so rich and filled with promise.

A band of rogue H-vamps crashes the vampire-human mixer at Bellefleur's, with shocking results. As Sookie (Anna Paquin) seeks refuge from accusations that she's somehow to blame for the chaos in Bon Temps, the "one vampire for every human" plan moves forward. In the face of a vigilante insurrection led by redneck Vince (Brett Rickaby), Bill (Stephen Moyer) receives aid from an unexpected source.

Written by Angela Robinson; directed by Stephen Moyer.