TV - True Blood

I've emerged from a hellish three weeks culminating in the bar exam, to make a post about True Blood. There are a lot of cool things going on in the show, but for right now I just want to talk about Jason Stackhouse.

I absolutely love what is going on with his character right now. His sincerity about wanting to believe and wanting to learn about God and the Fellowhip of the Sun is so interesting and believable. Jason is exactly the kind of person who would respond to kind of evangelical Christianity. He was coming out of a tragic and scarring incident and the people in the church gave him hope and direction (even though we as viewers know that it's not a good direction). I love that he's not at all certain of his ability to live within the strictures of Christianity, but that he's kind of desperate to try.




But, it all came to a head (no pun intended) with a bathtub hand job from the preacher's wife, Sarah. When she walked into the bathroom, I thought to myself, "Oh no! They are going to ruin this amazing storyline, because she's going to come in here and he's going to go back to his old self and have sex with her." Instead, she couches her desire for him in religion, which is totally perfect. He has no background in religion, or really even in morals of any kind, whereas she is the wife of a preacher and has been involved in the church for most of her life. Based on everything he has learned with the Fellowship, he thinks that anything happening between them is wrong, but she uses her position as religious teacher to try to convince him that it is okay. In the best moment of the entire season, to me anyway, she starts to reach into the tub to touch him and he says, "No." She pauses and says, "You don't mean that." With an utterly anguished look on his face, he responds, "No, but I ought to."

The following episode, after seeing what a horrible man the preacher is and how his marriage to Sarah is deteriorating, Sarah and Jason do have sex (or at least I assume so, since they started ripping each other's clothes off). But again, she couches it all in religion. She tells Jason that God wants this; that she knows she is supposed to be the woman behind a great man and that her husband isn't that man. Jason is. She says that God told her this is right, and in response, with genuine innocence and incredulity, he says, "You talk to God?"

Maybe it's because of my own experience with religion, but I completely sympathize with how hard he is trying to truly believe. It's like he knows deep down that there's something not 100% right, but he sees the good there, too. Plus, everyone tells him what a great person he is, which is something that has probably never happened in his entire life up until now.

Anyway, like I said, there are a lot of cool things going on, but this is definitely my favorite. I can't wait to see the fall out from sleeping with Sarah. I'm wondering if she'll be able to continue convincing him that this is all completely consistent with Christianity, or if he will start to see through her. And if he does start to see through her, what will he give up: Sarah or the church?