We are fast approaching the middle of this season of True Blood, which means it’s time for a dynamic change. So far this season we’ve had Sookie hiding Eric in her house, Tara/Lafayette/Jesus trying to fix their mess but making it messier, and Jason’s, well, for now let’s just call it his adventures in Hot Shot. Of course there are plenty of other sub-plots this season, but I’m going to call these three the main plots. Well in this episode all three of these plots took fairly dramatic turns, and it looks like we’re getting to the point where shit is about to hit the fan. Not quite there yet in this episode, but as I’m sure you can guess thanks to the wonderful cliffhanger, shit shall be hitting the fan next Sunday night. The last few seasons of True Blood have followed this formula, where the first half of the season the ground work is laid, and then we get to the tipping point to the second half of the season, also known as the ‘we-are-no-longer-fucking-around-here’ episodes. This was still an amazing episode, even if to some extent served as a setup for the remaining episodes.
I’m going to start in the past first, and talk a little about the new revelations on vampire history and how they relate to things that we’ve seen before. Now the Spanish Inquisition of witches how been something mentioned on TB before, if I remember correctly the Magister mentioned that he had been part of them. Now we find out that the Authority, aka the Vampire government/rulers, had embedded themselves throughout history in the most powerful organization of the times. So in the15th century that would be the Catholic Church, and in the 21st century naturally that would be Google and Fox News. Any bets on which of the News anchors are secretly vamps? They all seem to be so lifeless and cold. Back in the 1400’s, it seems that the Spanish priest vampires were feeding/killing accused witches, because presumably no one would suspect since they were sentenced to death anyways. The witch who is possessing Marnie, Antonia according to IMDb, witnesses this and naturally has a grudge against vampires. Oh and she also happens to be a powerful necromancer. Remember when we first saw her, burning on the stake and chanting a spell? Well we didn’t see anything happening as a result of that chanting, but apparently that was not the case. The spell caused all vampires within a 20 mile radius to wake up and walk into the sun. We know this because one of the other Sheriffs in Louisiana was one of the vampire priests who fed off the witches, but who happened to be away from the area that day. So this is the puzzle that we’ve managed to piece out, with the exception of Eric who told Bill in the second episode that he was there during the inquisition. Obviously he and Godric made it through, but their roles are uncertain at this point in time.
Marnie is starting to develop her own grudge against vampires, a stance which was no doubt strengthened by the end of this episode. But before she ends up in Bill’s basement/dungeon/high security prison, she meets Sookie. Now for someone who manages to net as much trouble as possible, Sookie has managed to stay relatively danger free since her return from the Faerie Harvest Festival. Well no longer content to babysit Eric, Sookie put on her investigator hat and headed over to Moon Goddess Emporium, to let Marnie know she exists and has telepathic powers. Well not exactly of course, but that’s the end result assuming Marnie can put two and two together. So my bet is, like last season with Russell, Sookie will soon become the target along with the vampires. Faeries are pretty rare after all, can’t let all that good powerful blood go to waste. In the meantime Marnie ends up in a nice cell beneath Bill’s house, where she finds out that occasionally being possessed can be a good thing. Bill can’t glamour any information of her, and in the meantime she waits. I won’t bet on her being down there for more than an episode or two, but what I can guarantee is that her escape is going to be fucking amazing. Alan Ball has already warned us that there will be major character causalities this season, and not just one, and I doubt a Marnie possessed by Antonia will be leaving that cell without killing as many vampires as possible.
I’m sad to report that the Sassy Witch Trio has come to a temporary end. Jesus seems to believe that he and Lafayette need extra power to combat all the vampires that they have now pissed off, so they head on down to Mexico to meet up with Jesus’ crazy grandfather. By the way, that was the fastest car trip to Mexico I’ve ever seen. Wonder what they told the Border Patrol at the crossing, ‘Yeah, uh, hooker, we just need to go and visit my boyfriend’s crazy ass goat killing grandpa, so we can not get eaten fucked and killed by some vampires. Here’s our passports.’ In the meantime, Tara/Toni is in some hot water with her girlfriend back in New Orleans who discovers her real name. Oh and she sees Eric at Sookie’s house and as usual freaks the fuck out. Sure, she doesn’t understand what’s going on, but she needs to listen to and trust Sookie. Regardless, they need to find a way to get Tara back with Jesus/Lafayette, I’m missing the trio already.
I’m going to just quickly touch on the Jessica/Jason/Hoyt plotline, since it’s really only started in this episode. The Jason V-dream was amazing of course, and Jason’s reaction to finding out that it’s just a dream was typical Jason. When Hoyt popped in it reminded me very much of the Sookie/Eric/Lorena dreams from season 2, creepy and foreshadowing. Also Hoyt’s conversation with Jason in the dream was priceless. Jason appears to be bouncing back fairly quickly from the trauma of Hot Shot, I’ll chock that up to the vampire blood. On that note, please don’t think that I’m taking the Hot Shot storyline lightly, last week the comment section turned fairly heated over this. Remember this is an intentionally controversial TV show; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was explicitly written in the writers contracts that they had to push the boundaries in disturbing ways as much as possible. Now that Jason is past this we get to see the repercussions, not just the possibility of quite a few kids but also what the upcoming full moon will do to him in the next episode.
Speaking of disturbing, Tommy manages to overpower his parents and kills them both. During this entire fight I kept wondering why no one was shifting, Tommy could have gotten out of the chains and Melinda could have helped Joe Lee after Tommy managed to escape. I guess the CGI budget ran out for this episode. Afterwards Tommy goes to Sam for help, who appears to be as cool and calm as can be about disposing the bodies of his mother and father. Granted, they were pieces of shit, but still. Of course Andy Bellefleur decides to meddle and pulls over their car. So far that’s been his job this season, drink V and harass Sam. Hopefully the shock that the gator gave him will change things, because he’s been fairly useless as a character this season. Now that Tommy’s killed off a member of his own family who is a shifter, hopeful his character won’t be useless this season. Luna claims that she can shift into her mother who died giving birth to her, so now we get to wait and see if Tommy can shift into his mom and possibly shift into other people.
Now in the books Eric stays hidden at Sookie’s for pretty much the whole of book four, but this of course would make for a rather stagnant plot. That’s not to say that I’m not going to miss Eric sitting around and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but we needed to shake things up a bit on the show. Well we see the start of that in this episode, along with the conclusion to the will-they-won’t-they tension between Sookie and Eric. Like it was a surprise to anyone. What wasn’t a surprise was the continuation of the am-I-good-or-am-I-evil identity crises that Eric continues to go through. Despite having no memories, Godric returns in a dream and convinces him that he should feed on Sookie because he is inherently evil. Sookie wakes up and as usual convinces him that he is good. This appears to be another special faerie power of hers, the ability to return vampires back to their human and not so evil roots. She did it to Bill, and now Eric, although as we’ve seen this is pretty temporary as Bill is now back to being a complete dick, but that could be thanks to the invisible crown on his head. Now as Sookie works her magic to convince Eric that he really is good, no thanks to Tara’s freakout, she ends up convincing herself that she might be able to love him. Well at least this Eric. Gran through Marnie warns her not to because it’s temporary, but apparently Sookie only listens to Gran when it’s advice about evil witches. I’m not going to gush excessively about how cute and romantic the Eric/Sookie moments were this episode; I’d say the books have a mainly female/gay male audience, but the audience for the TV show is fairly widespread and I don’t want to alienate any readers who don’t want to read me squeal on and on. So I’ll keep it short instead, yes they kiss, and yes according to the preview for next week’s episode it looks like it’s heading other places that don’t involve clothing. At least it starts to, but won’t get very far thanks to Pam who in an upset and face-melting-off-rage accidentally lets slip that Eric is hiding at Sookie’s. Our Holy-Shit-WTF cliffhanger is Bill rushing off to unknowingly interrupt the two budding love birds. Like I said, shit is about to hit the fan, and that will NOT be a fun scene. I can’t wait!
Random Thoughts:
- Where the hell was everyone else in that trailer park as Tommy was beating the life out of his parents?
- On a quick note; the exorcism scenes were hilarious. Arlene and Terry are generally comedy gold, but then add a singing exorcism and smoking out demons from corners of rooms? Heaven. Which may soon turn into hell, if the book of matches we saw that caught fire turns into a full blaze.
- It was nice to see the other Sherriff’s; it’s easy to forget that there are more vamps in Louisiana than the usual gang.
- When Sookie first listens in to Marnie’s thoughts the crowd of voices was a nice touch.
- How did they manage to find the cutest goat every for Jesus to slaughter? I was literally shouting ‘No!’ through that entire scene.
- Who else thought that when Andy opened the van doors Tommy was going to burst out with the shovel to further screw things up? The gator though, brilliant.
- Getting a little annoyed with Eric constantly citing how beautiful Sookie is every time he mentions why he likes her or wouldn’t hurt her. I get it, it’s the faerie blood talking, but still she has a good personality too!
- I’m going to miss Portia and how she always talks like she’s in court. Although the Bill glamour sendoff was pretty funny.
- Sookie, stop telling the villains your real name! It’s not exactly common.
- Not sure if I believe the marshmallows and gators thing, I’ve lived in Florida my whole life and have never heard this. Anyone?
- How convenient that Jesus’ grandpa speaks English.
- Also forgot to mention our brief time with Alcide, who is apparently not signed up to the local were pack and the leader is not happy. Oh and the leader is Luna’s crazy boyfriend.
- The music got to be a bit much as Sookie and Eric were finally kissing, it was very corny and distracting.
Favorite Quotes:
- “Is he dead?” “He’s just resting.”
- “Hooker you pissed off another goddamn vampire and then took a nap.”
- “This dog ate my homework shit don’t really fly with vampires, because they smell that shit and then eat you like pot pie.”
- “Hear that Renee? God’s coming for you!”
- “I had a bad dream.”
- “It’s all in the wrist.”
- “As long as you promise to keep your hands and your fangs to yourself.”
- “Oh. Good. The world needs more beekeepers.”
- “Convene your Sherriff’s so we can kill this uppity Wiccan cunt. Your majesty.”
- “Maybe some extra lipstick?”
- “The sage smokes out the evil! Gotta get it up in the corners. That’s where the evil hides.”
- “We are being watched over, protected.” “You’re not.”
- “Your associate took a chunk outta my neck.” “Yes, he does that.”
- “Hey could we not talk about Hoyt right now?”
