True Blood (TV Series) Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (2009) User Reviews

Confronting Maryann and setting things up for the third season

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 30 November 2010]

As we come to the concluding episode of the season it is time for the showdown between Maryann and those planning to stop her from raising the god Dionysus. Jason and Andy have armed themselves and plan to kill her, Bill and Sam have another plan which the viewer isn't told about until it is put in to operation… and I won't spoil it here. Once Maryann is defeated the townsfolk are freed from her possession but have no idea what they have done; some of them have a few wacky theories though! Most of them are happy not knowing, Eggs however is determined to find out what he has done, something he will surely regret when he learns the awful truth.

This was a decent conclusion to the season although Maryann was defeated rather early in the episode; I kept wondering if she was going to return but she didn't. The way she was defeated wasn't a total surprise but it was effective. The remainder of the episode was not without excitement though, including one real shock when a character was killed! I look forward to seeing the next season although it is a pity that the excellent Michelle Forbes won't be featuring again. The ending was certainly a 'To be continued…' moment so I hope it isn't too long before the next season airs here.

The Food of the Gods

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 2 November 2009]

Lafayette is possessed and subdues Sookie and forces her to change her clothes to be the maid of honor of Maryann that is wearing the grandmother's wedding dress. Maryann is not capable to control Sookie and tells her that she is beyond human and Sam is her wedding gift. Hoyt is having troubles with his mother. Bill threatens Eric for selling of vampire blood V but he does not know that the Queen is behind the scheme. Jason and Andy arrive in the Stackhouse's property and see an orgy in the lawn but they are possessed by Maryann. Bill tells Sam that he needs him to be the receipt in Maryann's wedding and exchange him for Sookie. Maryann summons her bull horn god Dionysus to marry her. Eggs stabs Sam and he telepathically orders Sookie to destroy everything. Maryann chases Sookie and sees a bull that she believes is her god; but it is actually Sam that takes her heart and destroys the evil maenad. The locals return to normal with gossips and conspiracy theories and the truth is hidden. Hoyt tells his mother how offensive she was with Jessica and telling lies to him along his life. Eggs has gaps in his memory and blood on his hands and wants to know the truth. Sookie helps him and he finds that he had killed people. Sam visits his stepmother expecting to meet his biological parents. Hoyt comes to visit Jessica while she is attacking a truck driver. Bill goes with Sookie to a French restaurant to propose her. Jason kills Eggs to protect Andy and the detective takes the blame for the shot to protect Jason.

The conclusion of the second season is only reasonable and quite disappointing, and I expected much more from Alan Ball. The powerful Queen is silly and annoying. The conspiracy theories raised by the locals to explain their craziness are funny. The consequences of the attack of Jessica to a truck driver and Sam seeking out his parents will certainly be explored in the next season. I believe Eric might be behind the abduction of Bill. In general, the use of silver to attack the vampires, instead of crucifixes and holy water and garlic, is weird and a rupture with the fear of the traditional vampire; maybe a reflex of non-catholic writers that change traditional symbols of the legend. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

S2.E12 - Nice Episode to End the Season [8.6/10]

[panagiotis1993 · 9/10 · 6 November 2023]

(S2. E12) My Live Reaction / Review for True Blood Season 2 Episode 12 ''Beyond Here Lies Nothin'''. Episode 11 was good and I gave it a rating of 9/10. Let's see if this one is better or worse. It seems like it's time for Maryann's big ritual. Sookie is lucky that Maryann's powers don't work on her. It would be awesome if the god that Maryann talks about actually shows up. The Queen is so annoying, I wish she would die. Andy and Jason are dumb and even dumber together. Sam kills Maryann? I didn't see that coming. Its sad for Andy that people still think he is just crazy when he tells them the truth. Eggs now knows that he killed all these people, I feel bad for him. Jason killed Eggs? He is so dumb! I feel sad for Tara though. Sookie seems confused. Doesnt she want to be Bill's wife? Someone attacked Bill? Could this be Eric? Overall a great episode, my rating is 8.6/10.

Season 2: Ridiculously gaudy stuff that works fantastically by creating (and keeping the viewer in) a world where it all makes sense (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 1 June 2010]

When I finished season 1 of True Blood I had little but good things to say about it but yet for some reason it took me a while to get round to watching season 2 (so long in fact that the third season will soon be starting in America). I'm not sure why it never rose to the top of the pile but once I started it I immediately was into it and all too soon it was all gone, with one episode a night seeing the whole season watched in less than two weeks. Unlike season 1 I did not have any hesitation over what to expect and as a result I was right there from the start (albeit the internet had to help me a little bit by refreshing my memory over some of the detail of the conclusion to last season).

As with the previous season, the second has just as much going on. Bill and Sooki's relationship is as complicated as ever; Jason has found himself joining an anti-vampire church and before he can say "amen" is clocked as leadership material and sent away to a training camp; a missing vampire in Dallas sees Eric requiring Sooki's unique skill-set; Bill's teenage "protégé" turning out to be the handful he feared she would be; Tara's new friend Marie-Anne gradually turning out to be too good to be true as we suspected; Lafayette being held by Eric for crimes against vampires – and it goes on. It is no surprise that there is hardly a dull moment in it and, even if some of the cliff-hangers are a little disingenuous at times, their "conclusion" is followed by yet more stuff that is engaging.

Of course the show is taking a big risk in some regards because if you took someone who had never seen the show and sat them down in the middle of this season for one episode I suspect their conclusion would probably be "nonsense" – or at best, "amusing nonsense" because it is rather daft. They would be right because here we have a show that has threads of romance, sex, vampires in the real world, shape-shifters, cult membership, suicide bombing, vampire politics, a whole town turned destructively crazy by a mythical creature and the sweet blooming love between two young, slightly awkward people. It does all these with a mix of comedy, horror, emotional drama, sex, violence and gore. To put it bluntly there is a huge scope for bits of this season (or large chunks of this season) to simply not work for one reason or another. The comedy could hurt the drama, the sex could detract from the relationship part, while the sheer scale and nature of the characters could be such that the viewer is kept at arm's length in terms of getting into it. But yet it works.

It does this by yet again making the show a believable world where all of the stuff it is doing in terms of tone, plot and characters just makes sense – so once on the inside as it were, the viewer can easily accept everything that is happening because it rings true. To a foreigner the Deep South setting, with its dense greenery, humidity, accents is perfect for the material and it certainly helps in the same way that a urban setting would not. The direction (and overall production) gets the mood just right and you can feel the humidity and heat in the air even as you watch it. The cast also "get it". Paquin maybe grates a little as she constantly gets into trouble, but she is good at the many facets of the material she has to deal with. Moyer continues to be good and has more to work with here than in the previous season (a lesser man would have said "get his teeth into"). Kwanten is great value in his threads and he gets his comedic value just right, producing great laughs without detracting from the plot or his part in it. Wesley is good but as with season 1 I thought she overdid her face in terms of playing out her feelings there although it is effective when used sparingly. Trammel's performance is good while Ellis continues to impress even if he has less unabashed flamboyance than in season 1. Forbes is strong throughout, while Skarsgård, Sanderson and many others are equally good – "getting it" across the cast.

If I did have reservations it would be about the final episode, the second half of which is a little bit of an anti-climax once the Marie-Anne situation is sorted out, and the way that some things are done seemingly for no other reason than tidiness (Egg's fate doesn't really ring true to me and seems to have been done to remove the character and not much else. Otherwise though I enjoyed all 12 hours of this season. It is gaudy and daft but yet also dramatic and engaging; it is filled with blood and gore that does have some horror to it, but yet manages to be funny and engaging. It walks a fine line and makes it look effortless – I hope season 3 can maintain this perfect balancing act.

Beyond Here Lies Nothing. Man...you can say THAT again!

[skay_baltimore · 5/10 · 24 August 2010]

Sometimes...when writers of a TV series start down silly paths, there's only one way things can possibly end -- badly. This season finale is one such example. Throughout season 1, freedom of choice was a key element of True Blood's suspense and drama. By contrast, throughout season 2 Maryann's ability to superimpose her will on an entire town dropped the level of suspense, drama, and credibility down to pure silliness -- culminating in this lackluster season finale.

Additionally, throughout season 2 the characters of Bill and Sookie became more and more annoying. Bill's butchered English and puritanical diatribes, coupled with Sookie's goofiness and capitalistic aspirations to work for Eric using her special abilities just ran the show right off the road. Between the two of them they didn't seem to know whether they were Ozzie and Harriet, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, or Morticia and Gomez Addams.

Jason's role as well went from dumb to dumber. Lafayette lost a lot of his edge, often cowering down in the corner as a result of having been chained to a wheel underneath Fangtasia. Godric was an interesting, although not particularly compelling addition. "The Queen" was/is a silly "filler" character. Tara and Eggs (what a dumb name) were annoying as well, and frankly -- I wasn't all that sad to see Humpty Dumpty lying broken on the ground during season 2's sub-par finish. When Andy Bellefleur is one of the most together characters in the show...you KNOW something is off. Way off.

That's what happens when characters lose their sympathetic appeal (i.e. Tara, and others). And that happened in abundance over the course of the entire season. The series really dropped a level or more during season 2. Characters came and went with no particular rhyme or reason, and many of them were overly stereotypical, like Steve and Sarah, and the main story arc of Maryann was only moderately intriguing.

"Beyond Here Lies Nothing" is like "Dynasty meets Animal House meets Forrest Gump." By the time it came to Bill's engagement proposal to Sookie, I felt so DIS-engaged from their relationship I honestly could not have cared less. Without a doubt, this was the worst episode so far, especially considering it was a season finale.