True Blood season 4 episode 7: Cold Grey Light of Dawn review
It's time for a fiery walk in the sunshine, in this week’s True Blood. Here's Emma's review...
This review contains spoilers.
4.7 Cold Grey Light Of Dawn
These are the weeks True Blood fans live for. Without wishing to come over all Joey Lawrence: woah.
At the beginning of Cold Grey Light of Dawn, it looked as if this week was going to be all about the relationships: Sookie and Diet Eric, Tara and her now ex girlie, Laf and Jesus, even Andy and the homeless, wiccan waitress. Bill’s doom and gloom talk seemed a tad dramatic to begin with – being incredibly old vamps, you’d think there was some sort of contingency plan for occurrences of necromancy – but then, they don’t make you king for nothing. If they can help it. True to his prediction, and almost out of nowhere, the Antonia/Marnie hybrid did exactly what she promised to do.
On the King’s orders, all the important vamps (but just the important ones) were ordered to chain themselves to their beds, or in Pam’s case, a rather fetching pink coffin, to keep as many of them ‘alive’ as possible. Painful yes, but highly necessary. The Antonia/Marnie hybrid has suddenly become very powerful, and increased her circle of followers from one lonely woman, to a massive handful of slightly less lonely women, and one dude, thanks to the newly recruited Tara.
When Antonia starts levitating, you know the girl means business. And how. Despite Bill’s careful preparations, baby vamp Jess, so grateful for her new undead life, succumbs to the spell and was last seen seconds away from a fiery death. Will the ever so slightly obsessed Jason Stackhouse save her? You bet.
What’s so surprising about this turn of events isn’t Jess’ decision to take a flaming stroll in the afternoon sunshine, but the speed at which this has happened. Antonia has been back on Earth for precisely six minutes, and has managed to cause havoc unchallenged, despite the fact that the vamps knew of her escape fairly quickly. Admittedly, living to feed another day isn’t a terrible idea, but that doesn’t really solve the problem of the next day, or the day after that. Hiding is clearly something vamps do well, but it’s hardly proactive. And definitely won’t help Pam’s face.
And it’s not just Antonia’s speed that’s surprising. We are, after all, only half way through the season, and the Big Bad is already on the rampage. Obviously, Laf needs time to perfect his conduit to the dead routine, but we don’t want any drawn out Maryann-type shenanigans between now and the end of the season.
Not that there isn’t plenty to other interesting stuff going on to fill the episodes with, chief among them Arlene’s baby’s very own ghost nanny. Thanks to Laf’s new found powers (which are surely tied into his new hair; each time it gets longer, he sees someone new) we now know it’s not Bon Temps’ only non-supernatural serial killer, otherwise known as Renee, haunting the creepy baby. At least, not directly.
And then of course, there’s those Mickens’ boys and their shape shifting/accidental girlfriend bedding troubles, which once again sees Tommy homeless and friendless. What’s saddest about this, is Tommy’s complete and total lack of understanding of what happened to him, and why, and that the only two people that could explain it, hate him. This won’t go well for any of them.
In an episode characterised by sad revelations and shocking spells, perhaps the saddest of all is Andy Bellefleur walking out on his first date in decades, because of the V. Addicts never behave in logical ways, but taking back the flowers was just mean. Also, hilarious. That man is never going to get laid.
One of the great things about this season so far has been its unrelenting pace. The storylines are moving along at a fantastic clip, even when it seems like they aren’t. All of the major storylines developed further in Cold Grey Light of Dawn, but in subtle ways, leaving the Antonia/Marnie hybrid levitation-focused total command of some of the most powerful vamps in Bon Temps room to breathe, and achieve maximum impact.
As long running series go, True Blood has matured into one of the most confident, complex and well-made shows America is currently producing. It’s beautifully written and the cast, without exception, has so far been phenomenal.
Without doubt, this is True Blood’s best season so far, for myriad reasons. Whatever the second half of the season holds, it definitely won’t be boring. But it may well have a few less vamps…
Read our review of episode 6, I Wish I Was The Moon, here.
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