The folks at Art of the Title interviewed Angus Wall of Elastic, the creative group that designed the incredible cartographic orgasm that is the Game of Thrones title sequence – as well as several other HBO intros. Check out the interview here.

It’s been so long that the continual sour taste of True Blood has been washed out of my mouth. As the proprietor of a weekly True Blood re-cap, I’m going to watch this season regardless of whether or not it’s good. I have a fucking gig! However, I did find the trailer exciting. It’s got Alcide and Jessica looking all hot as fuck, some vampire fighting action time stuff, and it’s actually humors at moments.

Hit the jump to check it out.

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I’m still jazzly jizzing over Sunday’s premiere episode of ‘Game of Thrones.’ Jazzly jizzing? It’s like, playing a trumpet and orgasming or something. So I’m totally jazzingly jizzing harder at the news that HBO has picked the show up for a second season! After one episode! Nice.

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While this may not exactly be nerdy news or the usual OL steez, I’ve been drooling over this news since last night and had to post. Mildred Pierce, one of the greatest tales of greed and sex from the oeuvre of roman noir, is getting a much-deserved treatment by HBO and director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven). The 1941 novel, by crime scribe god James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice) was originally adapted by Warner Bros. in 1945. That version, starring Joan Crawford, had its balls cut off to appease the censors and features none of the book’s complex narcissism or an ounce of its darkness.

Winslet is playing Mildred, a housewife turned pastry chef desperately trying to maintain her family’s social status during the Great Depression. She’s also desperately trying to win the acceptance of her ungrateful daughter, Veda (Evan Rachel Wood). She’s a total biotch. When Mildred falls in with dashing playboy Monty (Guy Pierce), a twisted tangling of wills begins between Mildred and Veda. Cain’s major works were always about sex and the fast-buck. While Midred Pierce isn’t my favorite of his work, it’s unarguably his most ambitious and “epic.”

Depression era LA looks abso-lutely gorgeous and Winslet definitely has the chops to pull of Mildred’s grim naivete. This pleases me.

Ok. Back to your regularly scheduled nerdiness and sexual euphemisms.

Dear Eric Northman, if you die, I will be inconsolable. Somehow, I haven’t tired of your brooding nature, or your staccato bursts of malaise. Nor your continuous pining for Sookie Stackhouse, despite the fact that you’re far too good for her hillbilly ass. No seriously, if you are reduced to cinders and eulogies next episode, I am going to be one seriously sad dudebro.

And so the writers of True Blood have me hooked like it’s the good ole days. Yeah, you know, back in 2008. When I loved True Blood. I know I do a lot of hatin’ about True Blood, but it’s based out of pure emotional response and not some sort of agenda. So I can say I was pretty stoked with last night’s episode.

For the first time since the middle of season two, I was totally aggravated that the show was over. I have to wait two goddamn weeks to find out what happens to my beloved Eric? Fucking Labor Day! Do you know what I’ll be doing next Sunday? Probably sitting on my fat ass! Why can’t I do that while watchin’ the season finale? Son of a bitch.

But it’s a good aggravation, the sort of interest that stems from wanting to know what happens next. This is in contrast to almost this entire season, where my mind was a river of profanity and hate following an episode. I was a river of confusion, wondering what the fuck I loved about the show so much in the first place, and how it had run so far off course.

Last night reminded me.

Bill and Sookie In: Of Mice And Men
A good portion of the episode was dedicated to Bill and Sookie cruisin’ the swamp-ass roads of Louisiana, dreaming of what their life would be like if they could start over. Just to prove that I’m not just fickle, but also an overly emotional dude, I actually dug on those scenes. It was all Of Mice & Men & Vampires & Fairies, as they detailed the impossibilities they’d love to indulge in.

Plus, with those gap-teeth and that tendency to embark on the hopelessly stupid, Sookie can totally be the Bon Temps’ version of Lennie.

It was enjoyable though, to see the couple actually interacting for almost like three minutes without someone’s life at stake. Sure it goes to shit pretty quickly, but before Russell totally upends their dumb car, they actually come off like the rest of us couples; fucked up, trying to make it work, and hopelessly in love with the idea of their relationship.

Jason In: No Country For Old Stackhouse
Leave it to True Blood to drag in some commentary on the state of modern sports. Poor Jason Stackhouse strives to legitimize his career in the face of his spiritual successor as the High School Jock Top Shit. Motherfuckers.

Jason’s always been one of my favorite characters, because of his hopelessly retarded antics. But underneath all that bullshit, I’ve enjoyed the times when they’ve attempted to humanize him. Give him a few flourishes to go alone with his boneheaded statements and his nintety-three pack abs.

I feel for the dude. Stuck in a back road town, one of his only claims to fame seemingly about to be obliterated by a cheater, it’s got to be depressing as fuck for the guy. Even more so since I think Jason feels that there’s a good chance this kid will make it.

There’s probably some ethical dilemma here for more people, but I hope Jason blasts that kid’s stupid arm off with a shotgun and then dances in his blood.

Jason actually comes off like the rest of us humans; fearful of being outmoded in the face of newer, superior versions of ourselves. Quicker, faster, their potential not yet wasted, or withered, or perhaps worst of all, close to being actually actualized.

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Eric Northman has spent this season on a butt-fucking rampage of revenge. He has pouted, killed, pouted more, brooded, killed, and ultimately pouted some more. Going into last night’s episode, I was fucking stoked!, shit was about to go down.

But then? Then Eric just pouted a real lot, signed some court documents, and pouted some more.

Oh True Blood, if you were as good as your previews, we’d have such a great relationship. I’d buy you ice cream, and we’d swing on the swing set near the lake and talk about the time when you locked your keys in your car and you came over and we snuggled and watched Man Vs. Food until you fell asleep on my shoulder.

But seriously, last night, what the fuck?

We finally got the big reveal! Sookie is…Navi from Legend of Zelda? Or something like that? I actually think its sort of dope, despite the fact that it’s also sort of seven shades of lame. Sookie herself knew it, and the writers had her drop the self-aware “That’s fucking lame!”, which of course makes her existence as a Fairy Lady a bit more bearable.

Unfortunately, Sookie has to be the dumbest fucking fairy ever, running off as always when she’s explicitly told not to. Bill wakes up and he’s all like RAWR, RAWR, WHERE ART THOU, SOOKIE?! Then he gets up in Jason’s face like it’s his fault that his sister is the most aggravatingly impetuous bitch ever.

Seriously. Sookie is every annoying chick in a horror flick rolled up into a ball of hot buck-toothed misery. She deserves a pickaxe in her dumb chest. But she’d just catch it with the gap in her teeth and then use it to mow the lawn or some shit.

If you take a step back, the entire episode, much like the entire series of True Blood, was just Sookie running back and forth from Bill and Eric. Like, seriously. But that’s okay, because the rest of the denizens of Hick Trash, Louisiana can fill up the episode with sugar-pop bullshit.

First off, Tara’s got to fucking go. Like, seriously. Let me describe Tara to you in one sentence: Annoying ass chick who just bulges her eyes, quivers her bottom lip, and acts really pissed off.

There you go. Find me a scene where at least one of this qualities isn’t true.

She’s in the good though, because she may be soon fucking Jason. But Jason’s wrapped up with a Were-Panther, from Nearby Hick Trash, Louisiana. As an aside, Were-Panthers are probably the coolest thing in the show since good old vampires. So there’s that, for Crystal.

Meanwhile, when did True Blood become LOST? The whole flashing to Sam’s life of douchery wasn’t needed, and sort of just jumbled up the narrative. Do we really need to complicate Sam’s life? He’s already a shifter with yokel parents who fucked a Tree Goddess, and now he’s also a thief and a murderer.

I only got a place in my heart for one Sawyer, yo.

But Sam’s back-story wasn’t the only thing that was hacking the narrative structure to pieces. Lafayette and Jesus go on a ridiculous V-Trip on some Universal Islands of Adventure ride. The entire five minutes it ate up were entertaining, but I was left wondering why the fuck it was in the episode. Like, do we really need another storyline involving more characters on some epic bullshit? Isn’t this show already a disastrous potpourri of storylines?

I would have enjoyed it, if it wasn’t wedged into an episode that was doing absolutely nothing to the main narrative, other than having Fairy Gap Tooth run around and get rubbed down by the two guys she’s sweating.

That’s my main qualm with this fucking shit at this point. There’s so much bullshit going on, with so many characters, that the entire thing comes off as a tonally-uneven, fractured narrative of misery. There’s so many storylines going on, that the pacing is total fucking bumper cars, and everything is tethered together more by wishes than anything.

What is connecting the Eric Buttfucking Rampage storyline to the Jason Stackhouse Fucks Panthers storyline to the Sam is Sawyer From LOST storyline? I’m not really sure. But they hop and skip between the lot of them so quickly it’s some jerky, hodgepodge of suck. Sure they’re characters that existence within the same universe, but beyond that?

As far as the main storyline goes, the entire episode was high-fructose bullshit. Pure filler. By the time Russell finally appears on screen, almost the entire episode had been burned up with a bunch of different characters accomplishing almost nothing. Sam was sitting in the woods, Tara was probably just quivering somewhere and stammering, Sookie was in-between running to/from Eric/Bill.

And god dammit, I like Russell’s storyline. I also enjoy Eric’s butt-fucking fiascoatron. I love Hoyt and Jessica’s relationship more than both. But I’m given so little time with every character, it’s like I’m watching a bunch of vignettes tied together under the same umbrella.

There’s two episodes left. And as I always say, if the episode is as good as the preview, I’ll be happy. If it’s “The Lives of Hick Trash” again, I’ll be here next week. Lamenting and groaning and whining like I’m just another member of Bon Temps.

I know that I’ve skimped on doing a True Blood recap the last couple of weeks, and for that I apologize. Sort of, and somewhat. The truth being that the show inculcates in me something of a blind rage, and a recap would be me smashing angrily on a keyboard, nerd rage clouding my vision and mind.

But!, I have been consigned to do a recap, and I promise one. So here I am. We’re going to try and keep it positive today. That’s right, I won’t bring any complaints. It’s going to be a short recap.

Is it commonly accepted at this point that Hoyt and Jessica’s relationship is the best on the show? And furthermore, the most interesting one? I love the scenes between the two of them, and I find their relationship eminently relatable. Hoyt is suffering from Rebounditcus Con Douchecuntinus. It’s a common problem for man and woman alike.

Rebounding with a douchey person out of a sense of need to be with someone. Yeah man, I been there Hoyt. Stay strong. And you probably have too, faithful readers. When Hoyt is all, “Man, I fucking hate her”, it struck a cord.

I remember my last rebound chick. A psychosis that was only surpassed by the jungle in her loins. Flossin’ for weeks, yo. And stalked for months.

Stay strong, Hoyt.

I know I shouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do, but I’m totally in love with Northman’s crusade for revenge against Russell Nazi Guy. I mean, c’mon. It’s a Viking seeking out the man responsible for his father’s death. And yeah, of course I’m a bit smitten with smoldering Eric and the way he just sort of broods into the camera. I think between my girlfriend and myself there’s an unspoken appreciate for Eric that crosses (blurry) lines of sexual preference and gender.

The only thing is, what are they going to do with Northman once he consummates his Revenge Quest? He’ll totally level-up and gain +30 Serenity, but please lord don’t place him back in the Gap-Toothed Wonder / Brooding Confederate Vampire dynamic. They’re insuffertable enough, we don’t need to drag the entire cast into it.

And finally, the coup de grace, the final three minutes of the episode. I hadn’t been this enthralled with an episode of True Blood since perhaps the first episode of the entire series. Or, when Godric was on screen rockin’ out as Jesus Christ Vampire. Spittin’ about acceptance and life.

If I knew Russell Edgington was going to be this interesting by the end of his arch, I don’t think I would have hated him with the passion that I did. Dude stole the entire episode. Between rolling in the exploded bits of Previously Talbot, to cooing into a chalice of Talbot mush, he was a rollicking clusterfuck of insane absurdity.

That’s when this show is rollin’, when they eschew the brain-numbing awkward love-slop pandering for some sort of ridiculous moment drizzled in light social commentary.

And goddamn, did we get it last night.

There’s something about offering a social critique while holding the spinal cord of a fallen douche that appeals to me. I don’t know if it’s the social critique, or the spinal cord dripping in muck, or perhaps a synergy of the two circumstances that speaks to me. But if you combine the two of them in an absurd monologue, you’re going to crush it in my eyes.

So Russell did that. His monologue carefully towed the precipice between preachy and insightful, and any time I was about to groan, I remember he was doing it while his right hand was covered in some dude’s central nervous system.

I sat slack-jawed at the ridiculousness of the scene, and by the time he kicked it over to the meteorologist, I almost forgot that at the middle of the episode I was so bored I was checking my email on my phone.

Almost.

Alright, I’m just going to come out and say that I’ve pretty much given up on ever genuinely enjoying this show like I once did. Perhaps it was a delusion, some sort of apparition or glamouring that tricked me into thinking this show was dope. But at this point, it comes off like a mush of romance and homoerotic tension. And while I am typically a lover of both romance and homoerotic tension, I’m pretty sure that from now on True Blood will be spent counting the time until a real show comes on.

I’ve figured out that this current season can be broken down into three distinct entities.

1. Eric Northman Cock Teases Everyone
King Dandyfuck, or whatever his name is, killed Eric’s dad. Who was a King. And now in a manner to ingratiate himself into the King’s inner circle in an effort to ultimately kill him, he’s begun hitting on him. And King Dandyfuck’s husband. I dug this at first, since I imagined myself being hit on by Eric and I glowed a bit inside. Then it just sort of kept going, and I’m like, alright dude, do something.

But he isn’t content just cock-teasing King Dandyfuck and the king’s typically flamboyant husband. He also spends a good amount of time growling and making comments at Sookie, and then Sookie is like “Roar roar I’ll never forgive you, roar roar, gap-toothed annoyingness.” So Eric walks around a lot in tight-fitting shirts and running his finger up and down people’s stomachs. Every episode. Forever.

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Zap! And Laser Hands Sookie returned this week to smite all sorts of dumb ass werewolves and mynads and other people who be acting the fool! The mystery surrounding Sookie continues to grow, and I’m wondering just what the hell is up with Ms. Stackhouse. They’ve been hinting at her being special for a while now, and with the implication that Billy No Pulse was hunting her down far before he fell in love with her continuing to come to light, I’m intrigued.

Are you ready for the forthcoming bullshit that will spill from Bill’s lips, something like “Sookie, I was sent to procure you, but then however, you procured my heart!” Barf. Watch for it.

Meanwhile, Franklin is the best dude on the show. Being insane is awesome. Being an insane vampire is even better. How do I know he’s insane? He’s fallen in love with the most loathsome character on the entire show. Fuck Tara. God, what a waste of time she is on the screen. All she does is make that same stupid concerned face over and over again, which amounts to her pinching her mouth and vibrating as she gets teary-eyed. Yawn, yo! Yawn.

Tara’s like a bunch of other characters on the show: getting too much fucking screen time. There’s no center to the show this season. I mean, there’s a theoretical center which is Sookie, looking for Bill, but she’s not always on the screen, and when she is, she’s with Alcide, who is hunting that King Guy, who is with Bill, who is being chased by Eric who is…who is…Do you see my point?

Fug.

Jason Stackhouse, shirtless, in aviator sunglasses. Bullseye. I wish I could just watch Jason Stackhouse hang out all day with Andy. Jason Stackhouse, blathering bullshit near a pond in the middle of some awkwardly shot scene? What’s the opposite of bullseye?I know this show is just Hot Dudes and Chicks Punching and Fucking Supernatural Entities, but I mean, c’mon. Keep Jason as the comedic relief, or at least keep him away from romantic interludes in the middle of an episode.

Please?

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Yeah, I ain’t got any words. Just check it out.