FOR AIRDATE JUNE 28TH 2009: When Sookie is attacked by a mysterious creature, Bill must enlist Eric’s help to save her. At the Light of Day retreat, Jason has second thoughts about the sect’s anti-vampire agenda, but Sarah and Steve counter his doubts with flattery and promises. After snapping at Tara and new employee Daphne, Sam decides to cut and run. A bored Jessica heads over to Merlotte’s, where a smitten Hoyt falls under her spell. At another Maryann hosted party, Tara finds her attraction to Eggs interrupted by a swirling, aphrodisiac fog.
Tara and Eggs S2E3 Scratches
Tara and Eggs S2E3 Scratches
Marianne S2E3 Scratches
Sookie and Bill at Fangtasia S2E3
Jason and Sarah S2E3 Scratches
Though these caps are delightful they really don’t tell us anything. I’d still watch if they showed say maybe, Lafayette! In other “news,” Tara and Eggs make a cute couple, don’t you think? I have no idea what’s to become of them but I can’t help but wonder just how much Eggs is keeping from Tara and how much about Maryann he’s got figured out or even is a part of.
I wasn’t a big fan of Tara last year but she’s in a place now (as her character) where the bluster is gone and I think we see more of the real Tara and she’s pretty likable and funny.
OTOH, I really do not like the whole Jason/Newlin thing. We know Jason is a lovable loser. We know the Newlins are using him. And the stereotypes that are being hammered home with the Church of Lightness (or whatever)–I could just do without them as I want to get back to the good parts of the show!
Thanks to HBO for the caps!
BE SURE to CLICK the thumbnails below for full size!
This is a very amusing sequence in which after Sookie’s misfortune she receives treatment for the deep, long tears on her back inflicted by the “bull-horned thing,” puingtt Eric into a vampiric-near-frenzy. The look on his face as he observes Dr. Ludwig at work on Sookie is one of animal hunger and it is ferociously funny!
Stephen Moyer (Bill) and Anna Paquin (Sookie) in Santa Monica, California in February, 2010
These comments from Stephen Moyer, who plays Bill Compton on True Blood are interesting as in all the press I’ve read and video interviews I’ve watched of him, I’ve not ever heard him talk about the fact that he dyes his hair darker for his role as the Bon Temps vampire (those it’s quite a bit lighter when True Blood is not in production).
I suppose it is rather annoying too, that he cannot sunbathe as his leading lady both on and off-screen Anna Paquin, plays Sookie Stackhouse, a character known for her great love of the sun and sunbathing. I think someone needs to sit them both down and enlighten them on the risks of sunbathing and skin cancer and then suggest a really good tanning spray!
Stephen Moyer has revealed how he’s banned from tanning himself – so he can stay pale for True Blood.
The Essex-born actor, who plays vampire Bill Compton in the series, was delighted to move to Los Angeles for the part, only to be told by TV bosses that he can’t make the most of the hot weather.
“I couldn’t wait to live by the beach and enjoy the weather, then they dye my hair and make me stay out of the sun – I was banned from sunbathing!” he told The Sun.
Stephen – who’s engaged to True Blood co-star Anna Paquin – admitted fans often beg him to bite them.
“I don’t think my fans are more aggressive than Robert Pattinson’s. You don’t get much more aggressive than a virginal 14-year-old,” he went on.
“But they grab you and think it’s OK to touch you – girls, ladies and men. They want to be bitter and want you to break their skin.”
Deborah Ann Woll at the Oscars on the Red Carpet Photo: Chris Pizzello
Deborah Ann Woll walked the red carpet at the Academy Awards Sunday evening and she was absolutely stunning. Deborah’s Nicloe Miller lilac gown was unquestionably glam, with ruched bodice, bejeweled waist, and thigh-high slit. She completed the look with metallic accessories – glitzy handheld clutch, silver heels, and art deco-inspired drop earnings. What is equally impressive is that by watching the raw video you can hear the photographers telling her to look here and there and move this way and that and she did it all with a smile on her face, confidently and graciously like she’s done it dozens of times. So impressive! (I capped some shots from the video to show her gown in full and close ups of her accessories–posted after the video)
Thanks so much Shadaliza for this great, behind the scenes video!
Detail of Deborah Ann Woll's 2010 Oscar dress
Detail of Deborah Ann Woll's 2010 Oscar accessories
Detail of Deborah Ann Woll's Nicole Miller Oscar dress (2010)
This shot is not meant to be gratuitous rather it shows that 1. she has curves and 2. knows how to accentuate them and still be covered.
Deborah Ann Woll on the Oscar red carpet
Deborah Ann Woll at the Oscars on the Red Carpet Photo: Chris Pizzello
Detail of Deborah Ann Woll’s 2010 Oscar dress
Detail of Deborah Ann Woll’s 2010 Oscar accessories
Detail of Deborah Ann Woll’s Nicloe Miller Oscar dress (2010)
Bracelet(s) detail
Beating back the juggernaut of Avatar and rising to the top of a field of ten Best Picture nominees, the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker pulled out six Oscar wins at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow, who became the first woman ever to earn that award. In the acting categories, Sandra Bullock beat out Meryl Streep to win the Best Actress Award for her turn as a fierce Southern mom in The Blind Side; Jeff Bridges earned the Best Actor Award for playing a past-his-prime country singer in Crazy Heart; Mo’Nique won the Best Supporting Actress for playing an abusive mother in Precious; and Christoph Waltz won the Best Supporting Actor Award for his portrayal of a coldblooded yet charming Nazi in Inglourious Basterds. Read on for our full list of the winners:
Oscars 2010: The winners
BEST PICTURE
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
WINNER: The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air
BEST DIRECTOR
WINNER: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
BEST ACTRESS
WINNER: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
BEST ACTOR
WINNER: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Best Foreign Language Film
WINNER: El Secreto do Sus Ojos (Argentina)
Un Prophete (France)
The White Ribbon (Germany)
Ajami (Israel)
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)
Best Editing
Avatar
District 9
WINNER: The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Best Documentary
Burma VJ
WINNER: The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home
Best Visual Effects
WINNER: Avatar
District 9
Star Trek
Best Score
Avatar
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
WINNER: Up
Best Cinematography
WINNER: Avatar
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon
Best Sound Mixing
Avatar
WINNER: The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Best Sound Editing
Avatar
WINNER: The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up
Best Costume Design
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
WINNER: The Young Victoria
Best Art Direction
WINNER: Avatar
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penélope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
WINNER: Mo’Nique, Precious
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci & Tony Roche, In the Loop
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9
WINNER: Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
Best Makeup
Il Divo
WINNER: Star Trek
The Young Victoria
Best Live-Action Short
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
WINNER: The New Tenants
Best Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
WINNER: Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin
Best Animated Short
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
WINNER: Logorama
A Matter of Loaf and Death
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
WINNER: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson & Tom McCarthy, Up
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Best Song
“Almost There,” The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans,” The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname,” Paris 36, Reinhardt Wagner & Frank Thomas
“Take It All,” Nine, Maury Yeston
WINNER: “The Weary Kind,” Crazy Heart, T-Bone Burnett & Ryan Bingham
Best Animated Film
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
WINNER: Up
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
WINNER: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Hmm. Should I continue on my quest to be right about what happens next on True Blood? I said I would not go out on a limb again…but it’s fun to guess so here’s my halfway-educated guess about what happens next to Lafayette:
1. It’s been spoiled that Lafayette drinks a lot of Eric’s blood and in the TVGuide piece (below) Nelsan compares that to Sookie and her relationship with Eric. I’m sort of confusing the show and the Sookie Stackhouse books and it doesn’t help that I’m in the middle of the most recent one (“Dead And Gone”) so it may be that right now Eric’s power over Sookie was because of his promise to “not kill humans” in exchange for her being “employed” by Eric to use her telepathic powers whenever he wishes. SPOILER: It’s quite possible that Sookie will be drinking lots of Eric’s blood, too.
2. So then, Lafayette is severely injured and Eric saves him with a “blood transfusion” which makes Lafayette indebted to Eric.
3. It’s been stated that “someone” gets shot in Episode 2, “Keep This Party Going.” I don’t know how it would come to this but does Sookie shoot Lafayette?
Sunday’s True Blood premiere answered at least one burning question: Is Lafayette alive? Answer: Yes! Nobody is more surprised by this turn of events than Nelsan Ellis, the actor who plays Lafayette.
As a fan of the Sookie Stackhouse novel series, on which Alan Ball based the vampire drama for HBO, Ellis knew that Lafayette, Merlotte’s wisecracking cook — and part-time pornographer/drug dealer — is totally dunzo after Book 1. When he arrived on set for the finale episode’s table read, he prepared himself for the end. “I thought, this was fun, time to look for the next gig,” he says. But then… what’s this? That painted toenail in the car didn’t belong to Lafayette after all! “‘You know we’re not going to kill you, right?’” Ellis remembers Ball telling him. “And I was like, ‘Noooo…’” Ball told the actor that he decided to keep Lafayette in the cast after shooting a scene between Ellis and Rutina Wesley, who plays Lafayette’s cousin, Tara, in the pilot episode. Ellis and Wesley have combustive chemistry for sure, which Ellis attributes to their long friendship. (They attended Juilliard together in the early ’00s.)
So now that Lafayette has been spared, what’s next for the flamboyant entrepreneur? When we last saw him, he was chained up in a dungeon watching a fellow prisoner get disemboweled by a very cranky Eric, his vampire captor. Ellis reveals that, this season, Lafayette’s fate will be inextricably tied with that of the vampires, but that their relationship won’t always be quite as adversarial. “[Lafayette] stays with the vampires basically throughout the season,” he says. “I guess how deep down the rabbit hole he goes with Eric is the biggest teaser I can give.”
“Eric makes people beholden to him,” says Ellis. “He did it to Sookie, and now he does force Lafayette to work for him to repay him for something he’s done for him.” Oh jeez, Lafayette isn’t going to become a vampire, is he? Not any time soon, says Ellis. “I have a sneaking suspicion that, in the future, the vampires are going to learn to respect him and not mess with him,” he says. “He’s going to find a way to elevate his position with them. Lafayette is a survivor, so he’s not going to stay in this scared state too long.”
Below: more scenes from True Blood S2XE2 – “Keep This Party Going”
‘Keep This Party Going”
Sookie is forced to babysit Jessica, as well as the romantic inconveniences the teen vampire’s presence creates. At the Light of Day leadership conference, Jason makes an impression on its ambitious leaders, Steve and Sarah Newlin. Maryann casts her spell on Merlotte’s patrons.
“He looks much happier here–but can he go outside on a sunny day?”]
Previously:
I’m declaring shenanigans on Ausiello and every other critic that has seen one-third of Season 2 of True Blood already and are blabbing about it. I write about spoilers and I don’t even want to know what’s gonna happen episodes down the line.
True Blood Season 2 Episode 1 Recap
However, in their quest to get eyeballs on their websites Ausiello and I’m sure a bunch of other’s, paid and not, who are are practically wetting their pants, have proved totally untrustworthy by leaking info three weeks before it occurs on True Blood, a 12-week show on HBO.
I can’t imagine that Alan Ball wants that much of his story out of the bag so early in the season.
I’m hoping it’s more HBO’s publicity department. You know, the ones who’ve been accused of driving one of the last nails in the coffin of the Los Angeles Times by wrapping Stephen Moyer around last Friday’s edition?
“How will the experience of being locked in a dungeon and almost dying change Lafayette this season? ELLIS: It certainly humbles him. It shows him there are some situations he just can’t get himself out of no matter how slick he is. He’s going to have to suffer the consequences of what he’s done. And I think he reflects back on his behaviour and maybe for a second thinks about changing. What was your reaction (to finding out LaFayette survives?) ELLIS: Thank you! I have a job for next season! That was my reaction. Did (showrunner Alan Ball) explain to you why he let Lafayette survive? ELLIS: Not really. He just said he decided after the bar scene in [the pilot], but he didn’t tell me until the 12th episode. He didn’t really go into any detail as to why he decided to keep me — not to me anyway.
In an upcoming episode [SPOILER ALERT], Lafayette ingests a lot of Eric’s blood. The homoeroticism in that moment was off the charts. Was that something you were conscious of while shooting it? ELLIS: I wasn’t. I know Alexander said that from his standpoint he thinks Eric is a little drawn to Lafayette. My intentions were that I was completely terrified of Eric and what he can do to me. As far as I know, I hated his guts. It’s funny what the camera picks up… Alan has been making jokes about me and Eric and what’s to come in the third season. I definitely think I’ll be one of his henchmen, but as far down the rabbit hole as that goes, I don’t know.
So we can assume that Lafayette does, in fact, survive to see a third season? ELLIS: I think I’m back for the third season.
Do you think it’s possible for Lafayette to settle down and have a normal relationship with a guy? ELLIS: I don’t know that his normal is the general norm for everybody. I don’t think he’ll ever be normal to everybody’s standards. I do hope though that the dude can find someone that he loves and that loves him back. Everybody should be capable of that — even Lafayette. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Medina)”
