Jason Stackhouse is reminiscent of two Jessicas. The newly made, out of control, ‘daughter’ of Vampire Bill and yes.. Jessica Rabbit.  Jason isn’t bad, he’s just drawn written that way.

The 28 year old, buff, handsome older brother of Sookie Stackhouse became the man of the house at the tender age of 10 when both his parents died in a flood.   The fact that he wasn’t old enough to baby sit his baby sister, necessitating his parents taking them to their Gran’s house and thus being on the bridge when the flood went through, has haunted him all his life.  Maybe the knowledge that life can be so fleeting left it’s shoe-print on his behind, but he’s sure a ‘go for it’ kinda guy.  Women, drugs, drinking … if it might feel good, Jason will try it.  Twice.  If there are four sane choices on what to do in any situation, and one crazy dumb-arsed embarrassing thing to do.. well Jason is consistent.

You can’t quite manage to hate him though.  Sure he’s the biggest horn-dog in Bon Temps but he loves and respects his Gran.  Yeah he’s constantly stepping in poop and never comes up smelling like a rose but he doesn’t let it get him down for long.  True, he’s ‘dumb as a box of hair’ as his on-again off-again girlfriend Dawn tells him.  And even when he finally figures out that Tara has real respect for him (because he protected  her from her drunken, abusive mother at the age of 12) he can’t control himself for two hours without getting it on in an alley with slutty Randy Sue.  It’s just impossible to tell which side of that thin line between courage and stupidity Jason’s going to be on at any moment.  Is going to a vamp bar looking for V courageous or just stupid?  Despite my gut screaming out ‘stupid!’, it works out for him and he gets a girl too.

And just when you think you could hate Jason, when you’re sick of seeing him butt nekid drifting in some hippy dippy hallucinogenic haze, when you wince when you see him opening his mouth, when you’re tired of his drug addled, testosterone driven, womanizing ways.. when he’s just done the most offensive, stupid thing yet by kidnapping the gentlest vampire ever written… you can’t, because of Eddie.  Because Jason finally opens up and tells Eddie of his self-hatred and anguish.  Because Jason behaves compassionately towards Eddie even while yelling at him to shut up, getting over his disgust of all things vampire and begins to truely care for Eddie.  Because when Jason Stackhouse finally mans up and demands that Eddie be released his world ripped assunder again by his murderous psychopathic true love, Amy who is in turn murdered while they are together in bed doing the perpetual ‘one last hit of V’.  Arrested for Amy’s murder, likely to be hunted by vengeful vampires, rebuffed by Tara and Sookie, still mourning his recently murdered Gran who was the last adult figure in his life.  Really, at some point you just gotta feel this guy’s pain.

At the end of season two, True Blood left us with a lot of cliff hangers but Jason’s cliff hanger was the most terrifying since we wondered “Who shot JR?”.  Was he kidnapped by Werewolves?  Murdered by a giant pig?  Turned into a zombie?  Tortured by vampires?  Did he grow hair on his tongue?  Attempt suicide?  Nope, none of the above.  At the end of season two, Jason Stackhouse has an idea, and you just know that’s not going to go well.