Jason Stackhouse is my favorite True Blood character, but, really, picking your favorite character from that show is like picking your favorite Sports Illustrated swimsuit model -- you can't possibly lose.
If brains were dollars, Jason would have Andrew Jackson at his disposal and not much else. But it's not necessarily fair to call him dumb. He just makes poor decisions. He's too trusting, too unassuming in some cases. He doesn't always think things through the way he needs to. During the Season 5 premiere, Steve Newlin showed up with a brand spankin' new pair of fangs, and while Jason initially had the sense to not look him in the eye to avoid being glamoured, a quick sob story melted away Jason's armor and he was soon at Newlin's mercy. He's too nice.
In fact, he came through with two of the kindest rejections of sexual advances anyone has ever administered in a single episode. The first was dealt out to Newlin, who didn't take too kindly to not having an open invitation to Jason's junk, but the second, absorbed by Cammy, a frisky co-ed at a party Jessica was throwing, went noticeably better. She did not try and gouge her teeth into his neck when he very politely explained to her why he wasn't going to have sex with her in her sorority house in front of all of her roommates.
And in that decision we saw true signs of maturity in Jason. Really, he's been maturing steadily since the commencement of Seasons 3 and 4, with his involvement with crazy Crystal's werepanther pack being the most evident example. He now seems beyond the flings with random girls, he's found himself steady and reliable work as Andy's deputy, and his actions in general seem more adult-like.
No longer, when discussing the ease with which he can get women to sleep with him, does he utter lines like: "Hey, I work out like a motherfucker, and I watch a lot of porn, to learn stuff."
Maybe years and years of dealing with vampires and other supernatural beings brings about a real sense of maturity in a person, particularly when your sister is always directly involved for one reason or another.
That scene in the car, though, was one of my all-time favorite Jason moments. I honestly think at this point we'd be tired of him if he was still in the same immature, post-glory days jock role. Seeing a more adult Jason who has feelings and is making mature decisions is refreshing at this point in the series.
He refused the advance of Cammy because he's hung up on Jessica, clearly, but he also feels a sincere sense of guilt at having slept with Jessica shortly after she broke up with Hoyt. Was it an asshole move sleeping with her? Probably. But it wasn't a fully conscious decision, seeing as we know what drinking a vampire's blood can do to a person and their sexual attraction towards said vampire. I wouldn't call Jason an asshole, but that's the label he currently has for himself.
In the scene in the car, though, he completely distances himself from the person he used to be. The old Jason would have jumped on Cammy in a second, but his feelings for Jessica seem to have helped him realize that the repeated one-night stands don't have any real value to them. Couple that with his guilt at having hurt his best friend and it's no wonder Jason's decisions are starting to be handled by his brain and his conscience and not his dick. Maybe being rejected by Jessica made him realize how so many of his past flings must have felt when he never called. If he's truly guilty of being an asshole, it's born out of that, and not by his decision to sleep with Jessica.
But through it all, he's still Jason, and the writers gave him a handful of great Jason-like lines in the car scene, such as: "You've got a stomach on you that...Well, it might even be flatter than mine," and his final line of the episode: "Um, do me a favor and put on that sweatshirt, 'cause you are in some kind of shape and I don't need to see that shit."
We're still given plenty of what we've come to love about Jason, but he's growing up on us, and I'm excited to see how that continues throughout Season 5.
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