A few interesting things were revealed in last night’s episode of HBO’s True Blood.
First, if you follow the series you were left with a question in the previous episode – what is Sookie Stackhouse? If you read the books, you know where that had gone. Alan Ball has introduced the Fairies – or “The Old Ones” as Vampire Bill put it. I know that a lot of Pagans honor the Fey, or beings similar, so I am eager to see where they take this story line in the series. Honestly, I found this concept the weakest in Charlaine Harris’s books and wasn’t looking forward to the television series’ treatment of Fairy-kind.
There was another revelation in yesterday’s episode, however, and this one felt a little more like true life. A couple of weeks ago, Sam Merlotte hired a new waitress at his bar, Holly Cleary. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about her. Last night, after an episode of violence, she offered herbs that curbed rage to Sam. He was inquisitive and so she announced, very unceremoniously, “That’s what I do. I’m a Wiccan.” He looked at her for a moment and then said, “There are two things I don’t allow in my bar. Dancing and Religion.” What I love most about it is that Holly doesn’t seem stereotypical; yet. I know there is plenty of time for that, but they didn’t costume her as a Goth or a Hippie and I think that might be a real breakthrough in the portrayal of Wiccans on Television. The message being, “We’re just like everyone else.” Recently, Alan Ball revealed that Season 4 would revolve around witches, though if you have read the book you know that Harris made a distinction between bad witches and Wiccans. I am curious how this will be handled moving forward. You’ll have to wait for summer of 2011 for Confessions of a Pagan Geek to cover the next season. You can read some discussion on the topic over at The Wild Hunt.
To make things more exciting to our community, there was a third religious reveal in last night’s episode. Lafayette, a character for whom the sky’s the limit, and his new love interest Jesus used psychotropic drugs to take themselves on a shamanic journey that revealed to each of them the magic that lives in their bloodlines. I think this could make the rest of Lafayette’s existence on True Blood very interesting indeed.
I don’t want to spoil too much, here, but I hope if you haven’t been watching maybe you’ll check out True Blood.