True Blood Season 5: Recap #59 VIDEO:
True Blood Season 5: Inside the Episode #59 VIDEO:
Go inside the episode with Creative/Executive, Alan Ball and Writer, Angela Robinson.
The Inside the Episode video interviews with Ball and Robinson are quite revealing about the thinking behind flipping Bill from a solid, moral, conflicted, flawed vampire to a one-note, evil power freak.
Ball says that 'in fiction' we prefer to root for the bad guy. Ball is wrong. We prefer to root for a well-written character that makes sense to us on an interesting and non-convoluted level. Bill is such a one-dimensional bad guy and unlike his former nemesis, Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare), he doesn't even seem to be enjoying himself along the way. Hence, we the audience aren't having fun, either.
'Wimpy Bill', as some viewers perceived him in previous seasons, at least had some complexity to his character. Egomaniac Bill is just what we see: a massive, demented ego running amok. It's not fun, the actor portraying him does not seem like he's having fun, and the sooner they bury this part of the storyline, the more likely there is a chance that the show can reach some kind of satisfactory conclusion.
It is really disappointing that no one in the True Blood writer's room recognized that this simply was not working. Maybe much like the Authority vamps, they all drank the same Kool-aid. And to be clear, Bill isn't getting lots of 'buzz' because we are so energized by the flipping of his moral center, rather we are appalled at how badly this notion was implemented.
AFTER THE JUMP: True Blood Season 5: Season Finale Preview VIDEO:
True Blood Season 5: Season Finale Preview VIDEO:
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