Oh my god.
You saw it, right? That shocking, steamy love scene that began Sunday night’s episode of True Blood? The love scene? The love scene to end all love scenes?
(Don’t read past here if you haven’t seen Sunday night’s episode of True Blood.)
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After being disappointed by the lack of Alexander Skarsgard’s swashbuckling Nordic vamp Eric in the HBO’s vampire series’ Season Seven premiere, the actor (and Eric) finally appeared in the first scene of Sunday night’s second episode. It was a love scene. It was a gay love scene. It was a gay love scene with Ryan Kwanten’s Jason Stackhouse.
This is a thing that happened, guys.
The whole thing was like the beginning of a cheesy ’80s gay porno, and god bless it for that. It was like a dream. (Well, as it turns out, it actually was a dream.)
It began with Jason stalking through a mansion looking for Eric, who was standing gazing all smoldering-like out a window, for no discernible reason. “You found me,” Eric said, sensing Jason behind him.
“You didn’t make it easy,” Jason replied.
Eric: “I know I didn’t. I needed space to think.” Jason: “How’s it workin’ out fer ya?”
After more innuendo-laden, sex-soaked back-and-forths, Eric poured a martini. Jason chugged it. He pushed Eric, provoking him. Then he began stripping off his leather jacket and undid Eric’s belt. A few vampire acrobatics in faux protest later, and the two were stripping off their shirts and wrestling in bed. Jason kissed Eric’s neck as Eric turned his head and began making out with Jason. Their bodies started quivering as they started kissing deeper, as hands started to travel south, and finally Eric’s lips did, too.
At home watching this play on your TV, our “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” refrain that soundtracked it all crescendoed as it looked like True Blood was about to actually go there. That’s when, abruptly, the scene cut to Jason being jarred out of a deep sleep in a church. The love scene was just a sex dream—explaining a bit why it was so over the top, like an R-rated telenovela.
We recently had a chance to chat with Kwanten about shooting the scene, and how True Blood fans were going to flip for it. At first he was demure and diplomatic about it, telling us, “My read on what the public likes and doesn’t like is pretty horrible, to be honest. I just kind of do my job. I check in like a good worker, and then I check out. The rest is up to our directors and our audiences to hopefully like what we do.”
When we tell him that not only will they like it, they will likely lose their minds in ecstasy for it, he lets out a big laugh and starts gleefully telling us what it was like to shoot the intimate scene with Skarsgard.
“It was not a normal situation for either of us,” he said. “But it was actually really fun. He’s one of the cast members that I never really got to work with, so we’d always talk after a table read, like, ‘What do you think we would do if we ever put in a scene together?’ And I think the showrunners finally got that opportunity in the form of what you’ve seen.”
Was it uncomfortable at all? “It was kind of a riot, to be honest,” he said. “When we were shooting it, there was a lot of laughing. And a lot of trust. Because of that history that we had with each other, it was actually easier than I thought it would be.”
Skarsgard had a similar experience shooting the scene: “It was tough because Ryan is incredibly funny. I couldn’t stop laughing.”
Maybe more than anything else it leaves in its legacy when its final episode airs this year, True Blood leaves behind a slew of jaw-dropping, envelope-pushing, and, in some cases, even twisted sex scenes. There was that time Sookie and Bill did it on a grave. Or when the entire town had a debaucherous orgy. There was that time Eric had sex with Nora, his vampire “sister,” and that time that Bill’s romp with his maker, Lorena, climaxed with Bill twisting her neck in a full circle.
But more than that, with equal-opportunity voyeurs complaining about Game of Thrones’ reluctance to show naked dudes as often as it does girls, True Blood has made its mark on pop culture by steadfastly providing audiences with the male eye candy it craved, particularly the kind that appeals to its gay audience. Certainly, True Blood is an exceptionally queer-friendly show, with numerous positive portrayals of gay characters. And there’s the idea that the running theme of the oppression of the vampires in the show is a not-so-thinly-veiled metaphor for the gay rights movement.
But it’s those raunchier moments that have been particularly groundbreaking. It’s not every massively popular series that would have one of its main (straight, male) characters, Eric, seduce a gay vampire, and then start, ahem, staking him from behind. Plus, there’s been the plethora of male nudity on the show, culminating with Skarsgard’s end-of-season full frontal last year.
Listen, not to put too much weight and importance on a gratuitous sex scene on a HBO show about vampires, but there is something very radical about the fact that True Blood would pen such a scene for Eric and Jason, that the actors (both straight) were willing to film it, and that fans of the show would even so desperately want it.
So thank you for reading. You can go back to rewinding your TiVos to replay that scene over and over again now.
