HBO’s Sunday night shit show

The cast of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom
 

True Blood’s cast of supernatural characters had a day of reckoning yesterday — Sookie discovers she may lose her fairy status if she continues squandering her light beam; Jason comes to terms with the fact his parents were killed by vampires and not in a car crash as he had previously been told; Tara realizes her Bible-thumping mom will never love her unconditionally and Eric and Bill embrace their inner Sanguinistas, if only for a fleeting moment.

First, Tara — I like her character more as a cool, collected vampire than as the sniveling, bug-eyed emotional train wreck of yore. She enters last night’s episode wrapped around a stripper pole at Fangtasia, much to the approval of a crimp-headed Pam. Their special moment is ruined, though, when her moms walks into the bar in her Sunday best and tells Tara she’s dead to her now that she’s a vampire. Later, Pam tries to soothe sad Tara in her signature deadpan, “So your mom’s a real bitch,” prompting Tara to surprise-hug her, much to her chagrin.

Considering the developments going on elsewhere on True Blood, it’s really the most believable storyline going on.

Meanwhile, a spurned Hoyt steeped in hurt and hatred joins forces with the masked vigilantes trying to rid Bon Temps of its supernatural population. “I feel more love and acceptance in this hate group,” Hoyt tells them, than anywhere else. He says he hates Jessica, to which they reply in unison, “Then we’re here to hate her with you.”

Sookie’s discovery that her fairy powers are limited leads her to contemplate a life of normalcy; later, we find her standing alone outside in a field near her house, zapping nothing in particular with her light-beam hands in an attempt to empty her magic tank.

Meanwhile, it’s revealed Salome, wife of the now-deceased Roman, was the one who dug up Russell. Now free to drink who they wanna drink, the former mainstreamers in the Authority are coaxed into joining the Sanguinista movement. “Never. You Bible-banging cunts,” Eric says of the offer, while sidekick Bill proclaims mainstreaming to be the only way to preserve their species.

Best line of the night: “I’m not gonna hurt you, I just want to make an entrance is all” says a good-natured Russell Edgington to Nora, before the vampire crew — including Eric and Bill — drinks the blood of Lilith and subsequently engage in a drug-induced romp through town and ending with a feeding frenzy in which they drink the contents of a nightclub. They all witness (or is it hallucinate?) Lilith rise from a pool of blood and nod approvingly at the carnage, goading them on. But then the ghost of Godric, Eric’s maker, suddenly appears and tells him he’s being a bad boy for hanging with the Sanguinistas, and he has an instantaneous change of heart.

Plotline to watch: Plagued by the inner demon of his slain lover Jesus, Lafayette tries to sort out his own supernatural powers.

Taking bets: Every season culminates in two groups of supes duking it out. Sanguinistas vs. mainstreamers seems like a safe bet, but with a minimum of at least five different storylines going on in a given episode this season, my money’s on an all-out shit show.

The Newsroom
Confession time: I have no idea why I’m still watching The Newsroom. It truly is like watching a train wreck — no matter how gruesome, no matter how absolutely horrible it gets, I can’t look away.

Maybe it’s a sick sense of enjoyment in watching something crash and burn.

Since the show began, creator and writer Aaron Sorkin has been picking off the most poignant news events of the past few years, one at a time. Last night’s episode focused on two major events — the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and the office upheaval caused by Valentine’s Day. Sigh.

Neal, the newsroom’s token ethnic guy (played by Dev Patel), hooks Will and the gang up with his BFF in Cairo, a reporter who can maneuver the crowds in Egypt better than a white American can. Within the span of the hour, the Cairo connection gets recruited by News Night, does his first live report, is taken hostage by the military for ransom and finally, gets released when Will personally pays off the kidnappers; the episode closes with him reuniting via Skype with Neal. Typical Sorkin strawman, that is.

Meanwhile, MacKenzie enlists Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn) to teach her a thing or two about world economics — not enough to make her actually get it, but just enough so that she doesn’t sound like a complete tool on a panel about economics reporting on TV. Instead of asking Sloan to sit on the panel in her place, MacKenzie sits, dumbfounded and unable to focus on anything other than Will, as Sloan rattles on about why changes to investment banking laws have totally fucked the American economy. Important stuff really, but MacKenzie just can’t get it together.

“I can’t stop hurting Will,” she gushes while crying into a glass of wine as Sloan alternates between trying to comfort her and trying not to stab her.

But despite her blubbering, the News Night staff remains convinced MacKenzie’s the best damned executive producer to ever walk the newsroom. It’s a stretch for a woman who can’t figure out how to send emails, let alone to act professionally around her ex-boyfriend (or her current one, either — a politician she’s had as a guest on the show a seemingly obscene number of times — because, you know, she’s only got ethics when she’s not distracted by a man).

And while I’m on the topic, you know what else I hate? The show’s intro. The Forrest Gump suite-style music and the bits of nostalgia for the days of newsrooms past isn’t really a show intro — it’s the soundtrack to Sorkin’s inevitable waltz down the aisle as he collects his future Emmys. That such glib storylines should be rewarded with a second season (albeit without any of the first season’s writers, except Sorkin’s ex, fittingly) is really a tragedy in the alternative programming HBO is known for. ■