Random Thoughts About the “True Blood” Season 5 Premiere

1. How many times is poor Sookie gonna have to mop up blood from Gram’s kitchen floor? That sure is some durable linoleum.

2. How is it that no matter what is going on in town, people still pile into Merlotte’s for a grease-dripping burger and fries? And how does that place manage to stay open when most of the employees don’t even show up for work because they’re too busy dealing with supernatural crap in graveyards?

3. Sookie and Lafayette think it’s a good idea for Pam to turn the shotgun-jacked Tara into a vampire? On what planet? You know Tara is not going to take kindly to this suggestion.

4. I’m thinking that Eric has watched “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” too many times and has gotten confused about proper relationships with siblings.

5. If you encountered Jason standing all naked like that at his front door, of course you’re going to glamour him to get in the house.

6. The concept of a mega-church pastor finally giving in and acting on his previously-hidden desires to share the gospel, so to speak, with a same-sex former member of his holy flock. That never happens, right?

7. The bit with Pam commenting on being forced to wear a butterfly-and-kitty-enhanced sweatshirt from Wal-Mart? Priceless.

8. Hoyt just needs to suck it up and get over the Jessica and Jason thing. It’s Bon Temps. Just relax and wait a few episodes and eventually the script people will have you do something twisted that gives you some degree of validation.

9. Jessica needs to stop participating in meaningless sub-plots where she invites all of her college friends over even though we’ve never met any of them and she’s never been to college. Honey, you’re the default Vampire Queen of Louisiana. Act like it.

10. Speaking of people we’ve never met, who are all these new members in Marcus’ wolf-pack? They sure weren’t around when he was having all those relationship issues with Crazy Debbie and impossibly-buff Alcide. But now that Marcus is dead, they’re all pissy and stalker-ish. (Side note: Let it be known that I have no desire to be in any type of organization where you feel compelled to eat your former leader when he dies. Not really my style.)

11. Anybody else notice that Sam purposely almost exposed his bacon while lying to the wolf-pack about having killed Marcus? This is what you get with American TV, the teasing without the delivery. In Europe, they would have spent a whole five minutes on the free-bird Sam Snake while beret-wearing poets chanted in the background and Catherine Deneuve drove by in a hearse.

12. Luna’s perky daughter Emma, with all that she’s already seen in her young life? That’s a hefty therapy bill waiting to happen.

13. Were they trying to set some type of nudity record with this episode? Hell, even Sheriff Andy made his own contribution to the two-moon junction effort. Not complaining, just wondering how the producers sold that angle during the initial script read-thru.

14. Now-dead Marcus had a mother who actually cared for him and his sorry excuse of a person? Yet she obviously didn’t care for proper grooming or reasonable couture. This might explain why Marcus was such an asshat.

15. Loving the somewhat-implied fact that Lafayette’s boyfriend Jesus is not actually gone. Everyone needs a little Jesus in their life, right? (And if he does show back up, I hope he got the memo about this season’s regulation about running around without clothing whenever possible.)

16. The Authority is not to be trusted. We sort of always knew this was the case, especially with that Nan chick always looking so severe and being overly bitchy.  And with an Old Testament name like that for the shadowy organization, we shouldn’t have been surprised. (But I sure would like to get my hands on some of those nifty silver-mesh capture nets. They would come in handy during my next staff meeting at work.)

17. What is up with that marine-buddy dude of Terry’s? I may have missed something somewhere, but things are a little bit off with that mess. And Arlene doesn’t seem to quite trust him, and I gotta go with Arlene’s instincts even if she has a fondness for the over-use of foundation makeup and ending a scene by making her eyeballs bulge in frustration.

18. Does anybody have access to the Internet in this town? I’m thinking that might solve a lot of problems.

19. Whoopsie. Looks like Eric’s sister-slash-whatever-the-hell-she-is (preferred sex partner in metal storage bins?) didn’t quite have things covered, with The Authority rushing in and killing off all those bit actors who were hoping for a contract renewal this season. Never trust a quasi-sibling that we never heard about during the first four seasons.

20. And Tara pops out of the ground looking all crazy-eyed. Did you expect anything less?

10 More Random Character Updates From “True Blood”

1. Eric just needs to make up his mind.

For three seasons we completely understood Eric. Didn’t necessarily care for his actions, but you could always depend on him to do something astonishingly brutal at just the right moment. Now he’s running around making whoopee with Sookie during inclement weather, not bothering to even stand up for himself when he would normally just kill his transgressor, and refusing to wear hair gel. And now he’s Antonia Granola’s bitch. Really?

2. We’re over the Andy Bellefleur thing.

So he’s addicted to V. Good for him. Now, can we move on from the scenes where he’s either jonesing for a fix or, having gotten one, proceeds to use his sudden burst of strength to irritate the local citizenry with his Napoleonic lust for an actual purpose in life? No wonder Katherine Helmond hasn’t been back on the show. Would you want to be the momma of that mess?

3. How has Merlotte’s managed to stay open?

Sam’s never around anymore, off screwing around with his subplot about Luna, her overly-willful offspring, and her Ex-Baby Daddy that clearly hasn’t been to a salon for several seasons. And Tommy, paragon of virtue, has been left in some type of in-charge capacity at the restaurant. Yet people continue to pile through the door in a quest for deep-fried Louisiana artery-cloggers like nothing untoward is happening. Is this how Republicans get elected?

4. Nan sucks.

Let’s see. We already have one vaguely drag-queen woman who runs around with severe makeup, has a foul mouth, and generally dislikes everybody who isn’t her or Eric. Her name is Pam, and she’s better at the bitchiness, hands down. And Nan refuses to divulge anything about her tenuous connection to The Authority, an organization that we stopped caring about because they never tell us what’s up with that. Nan needs to get a new gig to make her more interesting, preferably one with less evasiveness and mascara.

5. The Lafayette/Mavis thing.

Are we serious with this? Don’t you think it was a little bit easy to have Laff be possessed by a woman with issues? Stereotyping, much? Granted, with the way things played out, ending with Lafayette clutching le bebe and then Mavis soaring into Heaven or wherever it is that spirits go when their contract has run out in a TV series, I was unavoidably moved. But still, Mavis didn’t take that damn devil doll with her, and that really bothers me.

6. Luna.

Honey, haven’t we seen enough of your nipples?

7. The Sookie/Eric/Bill group-sex dream.

Okay, first, Sookie can wear mammoth-heeled stilettos with her trashy red lingerie (because doing such is so comfortable and natural), but Eric still has to bend over about three feet just to kiss her. Just how the hell freakishly tall is he anyway? (And when Bill stands next to Eric, I can’t help but think of a yellow brick road.)

Second, Sookie needs to eat more, because she looked like one of the finalists on “Survivor: Bon Temps Island”. And lastly, despite the attempt to make Sookie’s wishes in this dream be all about female-dominance, the male homo-erotica of Bill and Eric squirming on the couch sent me in a totally different direction.

8. Debbie done did Dallas.

Okay, she didn’t do Dallas, not that they’ve shown us, anyway, it was just fun to type that out. But she did do a lot of mean-ass stuff back in the relatively recent day, including trying to kill off the star of a TV show, and that doesn’t sit well with some people. I’m just not buying the complete reversal where she went from Cooter-lovin’ killer to someone who just wants to be held (even if it’s Alcide doing the holding). I’m expecting the Stepford-wiring to short-circuit at any moment and she’ll flip out again. Oh wait, did she just take some V? Uh oh…

9. Arlene and Terry

This is what you get if the Scooby Doo gang really did take all those rumored drugs. And never stopped. (And Arlene, sweetie, could you maybe not let that voice of yours get into the upper ranges so much? Love ya, but damn, girl.)

10. Hoyt and the Misguided Efforts

Two things. One, let’s not watch the nature channel so much, there’s enough wildlife right outside your jacked-up door. And two, no it’s not okay to have best friend Jason drop off The Monster’s box of CD’s and panties over to Jessica’s. Best friends are supposed to help you talk trash about your Ex, not perform custodial services and (unbeknownst to you, thus far) hook up with said Ex in the back of a pickup. And Ex’s aren’t supposed to jump so quickly on the best friends, especially in such an unglamorous, farm-vehicle-based manner.

Then again, maybe Sookie is on to something with that 3-way marriage business. Let’s wait until she gets done screaming and running over at that hotel where people are pretending to be nice, and then we’ll ask her more about it, mmmkay?

Searching For Signal: “True Blood” - Season 4, Episode 4

We start out right after Eric has made a snack out of Sookie’s fairy godmother. He smacks his lips, then falls flat on his face. Sookie is alarmed at first, then Eric raises his head, eyes all woozy, mouth all grinning. Apparently home boy is drunk on fairy liqueur. Sookie is not impressed. “You drank the whole fairy! You’re going to your room.!”

No, Eric declares, he is not. He’s schnockered and wants to get rowdy, as any decent person should want after knocking back some Tinkerbell tequila. First he tries to sample some Sookie, but instantly stops when she hollers at him. Then he decides that he wants to run free and wild like the gazelles before they get shot on The Nature Channel. Sookie ixnays that. “It’ll be dawn soon!” Eric doesn’t care, doing the vampire dash and zipping off into the forest.

Leaving another mess for Sookie to agonize over while not wearing a bra. Poor thing. Guess she won’t be taking one of her beloved showers any time soon.

Roll opening credits. Abusive police, snakes, and tiny children receiving Klan training.

Scene with Bill and Pam. Bill: I’m looking for Eric. Pam: No clue. Bill: It would be treason if you knew and didn’t tell, since I’m the sheriff and all. Pam: I wouldn’t take the chance. But since we’re chatting, I think you purposely sent Eric to that coven just so his mind would get jacked. Bill: None of your business, since I’m the sheriff and all. Pam: “You like the feel of that crown, don’t you?”

Jason wakes up on that nasty cot, and discovers one of the older Panther Women astraddle his manly bits, workin’ hard for the money. Jason is not pleased. “Get off of me!” Woman is devastated by the unexpected dismount, shedding tears, then hollers out “Next!”, indicating we apparently have a line of unwashed hillbillies queued up at the door.

Said door flies open, and Ugly Old Luther leans in to yell “Breed, Ghost Daddy, breed!” (a vision I never want to see again, ever) before sending in the next ticket holder, Little Becky, who looks to be maybe 12-years old. (Um, better not be going there, producer people.) Becky is defiant at first, whipping out a knife and promising “I’ll cut off your thing if you put up a fight!”. But Jason realizes this is her first time at the rodeo, and she’s only doing what she’s been told to do.

He’s very sweet. “This ain’t the way it should be.” Then he comforts her with visions of nice boys who buy presents before things get tawdry and messy. Then he gets real. “Cut me loose. I’m scared I’ll die here.” Becky: “So am I.” Then she uses the knife to slash the ropes that surely smell like week-old Jason by now.

Jason rushes out the door, wallops Nasty Luther (yay!), and heads for the hills.

Cut to Nan (she of the murky position with the Vampire League of America), still wearing that severe hairstyle and chewing out Bill for sending Eric to the coven. He whines that they are potentially powerful witches who can control the dead. Nan is not impressed. “They don’t make necromancers the way they used to!” She orders him to clean this mess up because she can’t go to The Authority. (Just who are they again?) She and her hair utter one final warning. “No dead humans!”

On this show? Has she been watching the episodes?

Next we have Marnie, tossing in her sleep and dreaming about a witch-burning back in the day. She’s in the scene, listening to two religiously-dressed men getting far to excited about the proper sequence of burning the body parts of a witch. Dream Marnie tries to stop the barbeque, hollering and such, but the program has already been printed and there ain’t no stoppin’ it now. Probably some type of union issue. Flames crackle.

We see that the witch on the menu is the same ghostly person who was wearing nite-nite clothes and sitting in a nearby chair while Marnie tried to slice-and-dice her wrist with a little too much exuberance in the last episode. Marnie, bad hairstyle blowing in the wind, communicates with the Rotisserie Woman in some guttural foreign language, exchanging words that are probably not recipes.

Alcide arrives at Sookie’s house, apparently responding to her phone call that she needed help finding Eric. This means that Alcide needs to do that nifty thing where he turns into a wolf, but it also means that he has to do the irritating thing they do on this show where people start to drop their pants in the midst of shifting but before we get to see the crotch goods. In this particular instance, Alcide torments the viewing audience by fiddling with his unzipped jeans for a very long time before he finally races off, wolf-form, the scent of Eric in his nostrils courtesy of Eric’s blanket that Sookie shoved in his face while Alcide played with his zipper.

Maxine shows up at Merlotte’s and stomps toward Sam, all in a huff and demanding to know what he has done with “her boy”. Sam plays ignorant at first, babbling about Hoyt (Maxine’s real son) when she’s really talking about Tommy (Maxine’s surrogate son after Hoyt discovered a certain thing called free will). Sam finally tells Maxine that Tommy’s a big boy and he’ll be fine. Maxine: You better not be messin’ with me, because “I’m a lioness!”

That’s not the word I would use, Maxine.

Cut to the Panther People camp grounds, where Felton walks inbredly up to Little Becky, all hot for her now that she’s done grated the cheese with Jason. When she tries to avoid his advances, he gets a good look at her and somehow is able to discern that she ain’t bumped nothin’. He starts a shoutin’ and he and Crystal rush into Jason’s former suite and find Nasty Luther tied up in Jason’s place. Time for Plan B. Dirty folk start turning into Panthers left and right.

Next we have Marnie, with Jesus, Lafayette and Tara trying to convince her that she needs to reverse the spell she put on Eric. Marnie: It wasn’t me, it was her, I just don’t know who she is. Laff: Get her on the Goddess Line. Otherwise, we all gonna be very unhappy and dead. Marnie tries contacting her little spiritual friend, but nothing happens. Tara remains unsatisfied with her decision to leave New Orleans and come back to this dump.

Now we have Alcide (wolf form) and Sookie (perky-ponytail form) wandering through the woods, with Sookie babbling away about nothing. Just to shut her up, Alcide manages to find Eric, who is currently swimming naked in a convenient pond. And Eric is doing so in full daylight. Oh? Alcide transitions back, which causes Eric to instinctively go on alert (werewolf!), and they begin to bicker and snarl, both of them naked and dripping wet, with Sookie enjoying the view.

Sadly, the sun finally starts to burn Eric, so Sookie and Alcide have to cover him up in the blanket that Sookie has been dragging along, and the three of them head back to Sookie’s house, because nothing bad ever happens there.

Cue Jason running through the woods, with panther cries filling the air. He takes off his shirt and throws it far in one direction, grabs a stick, rubs dirt all over himself to disguise the smell, and then heads in the opposite direction of the shirt-throwing. Which means that Jason has somehow grown smarter in the last few days. Interesting. Making a note in my journal that perhaps stupid people should be tied to cots more often.

Tommy comes wandering up to some crappy trailer in the middle of nowhere, hollering for his momma, Melinda (who is also Sam’s mom). She comes running up lugging pails of water, because indoor-plumbing is apparently not one of the offerings at this fine establishment. It seems that Melinda tracked Tommy down and called him, so’s he’d stop by and sit a spell.

And she’s got great news! She done ditched Joe Lee, her trashy beau that walked around in underwear at inappropriate times and made Melinda participate in dogfights. Hurray! Tommy has terrific news himself. He can read! Oh, and Sam shot me in the leg. He never cared about me.

Speaking of, Sam arrives at Luna’s house. He’s being spontaneous and all with the dropping by, just like she’s been encouraging him to do. Except she’s acting all jittery, looking about and such and proclaiming that “now’s not a good time”. Cue a little urchin to run to the door. “Mommy!” Can your friend come in and play Barbies with us? Please? Because I’m a demonstrative child and demand satisfaction. Luna reluctantly invites Sam in, glancing up and down the street as she does so.

Something is a bit wrong about this development. We’ll see.

Another scene with Jason running and panthers crying. We learn nothing new.

Eric and Sookie are in his cubby at Sookie’s house. She’s telling him he needs to get to bed, if he stays awake he’ll bleed all over the place and she’s not in the mood to clean the mess up. (What is that all about, the bleeding if a vamp stays awake? Did I miss a memo?) Eric wants her to stay with him. Sookie declines. The lighting down here just doesn’t accent my golden locks in the manner I see fit.

She climbs back upstairs, where Alcide has been listening to the entire conversation, because when you have a secret life as a wolf, you need to be aware of what people are talking about. He tells Sookie that it’s nuts that Eric is here, totally dangerous. Sookie counters with the fact that Eric is hooked up again with Nasty Debbie, the skank who has poor people skills and tried to kill Sookie. Game even.

Eric hears all of this in his cubby, his ears cocked in the boyishly-charming manner he has had since Marnie and the Minions did the redecorating with his mind. (To be honest, a bit of me really misses the former Eric. Something about that Nordic dominance thing, sayin’.)

Above ground, Sookie and Alcide hug it out, bordering on the line of sudden French-kissing but not quite getting there. Sookie: “Friends?” Alcide: “Keep in touch.” (He SO wants her.)

Cut to Jason in a tree, carving that stick into a stake. One of the Panther People pads up, and Jason leaps on it, jamming the stake in an I-mean-business way. The panther transitions to a dying Felton (the crowd roars), then another panther moseys up and becomes a breast-swinging Crystal. She kicks the corpse of Felton and utters “I’m the Big Momma Kitty now!” We can be together!

Oh my.

But Jason is having none of their former relationship. “We ain’t nothin’ but a disaster!” I hope to never see you again. Crystal is not perturbed, convinced he will be wantin’ some panther lovin’ soon. “I’ll be waitin!” Next full moon!

Next up is Bill and Portia, with Bill about to meet Portia’s grandmamma, Caroline. (What’s up with that? I thought their relationship was purely physical. People just lie in this town all the time.) But then I’m no longer troubled when we see that Grandmama Caroline is being played by Katherine Helmond. All is forgiven, love her.

As Caroline takes a seat, Sheriff Andy comes tromping down the stairs and tries to head out for the night. (He lives with his grandmother? Explains a lot.) Grandmama Bellefleur is not putting up with that, ordering Andy to sit and visit. Then she proceeds to berate him, in a manner that indicates the berating is a family tradition when it comes to Andy. Surprisingly, Bill defends Andy, with Andy being an officer of the law and all. What’s his angle?

Back over to Luna’s house, where Little Emma is being rambunctious but finally forced to go brush her teeth. Luna and Sam chat about raising “shifter kids”, and we learn that Emma’s daddy was a werewolf. Luna has to be careful because Baby Daddy watches her all the time, he’s extremely jealous. Sam assures her that he ain’t skerred. But we all know that within two episodes something unsatisfactory is going to develop and people will have to run from things very fast.

Cut to the Moon Goddess Emporium, which now looks amazingly like The Magic Shop in the “Buffy” series, with Marnie flipping through ancient texts, finding nothing helpful, and Laff, Tara and Jesus standing around and being unimpressed. Jesus convinces Marnie that she just needs to try harder with the mind-meld thing. Marnie scrunches her face and utters incantations. Lo and behold, a book falls off a shelf, splaying open right at a spell to erase the erasing of memory. See? Listen to Jesus.

Alcide arrives home, and he is greeted by Debbie, and they sit on the couch and make nice. Things get a bit awkward when she sniffs his shirt and is able to tell that he “shifted” today (you can ascertain this by sniffing?), and he has to spill that he helped Sookie find a vampire. But Debbie is fine with that. “I’m not mad. You’re a good man. I ain’t worried about no Sookie.”

Something tells me she actually is. In an I’ll-kill-me-a-bitch sort of way.

Back over to Grandmama Caroline Bellefleur’s house, where she is babbling to Bill about the genealogy of her family. Apparently this is something she does far too often, because Andy gets fed up and leaves, which is fine, don’t care. Then Caroline has a senior moment and forgets a branch in the family tree, so she says to Portia “Get the family bible. And a little whiskey.”

Love her.

Bill offers to read the faded penmanship in the bible, which Caroline happily agrees to since she can’t see it anyway and there’s an alcoholic beverage to be consumed. Bill proceeds with the family linkage, and is startled to discover that one of those links is a certain “Elizabeth Harris”. Both Caroline and Bill react to this news as if they’ve just received unexpected enemas. Caroline: “You cannot do this.” Bill: “Forgive me. I didn’t know.” Then Caroline races upstairs to bed, her whiskey shockingly unfinished.

Bill tries to scurry forth out of the house (“I must go. We cannot see each other.”), but Portia is not so complacent about the matter. “I will not let this go.” Bill pauses dramatically, then pronounces “You are my great-great-great-granddaughter!”

So? This is Bon Temps. Ain’t nobody up in this grill that ain’t done nothin’ a wee bit twisted. Just settle down.

Zip over to Terry holding that little Damien Baby that Arlene shot out, despite attempts to stop such by drinking nasty concoctions in a chalk circle. Terry is talking about what a lovely family the baby has, pointing out the family members snoozing on the living room couch. Then Terry stupidly sets the baby down in his play area, all alone, and goes off to figure out why the dryer is buzzing. (Um, maybe the clothes are dry?)

When Terry returns, he discovers that apparently the demon child has snatched up a crayon and scribbled “Baby Not Yours!” on the wall. Well, then. That’s a bit unsettling. Of course, Arlene chooses this exact moment to terminate her slumber session on the couch, review the proffered graffiti, and begin screaming.

Sookie and Eric, once again in his cubby. Sookie: “You’re too quiet,” (What’s wrong with quiet? Quiet is good.) Eric: “I’m just being me.” Discussion ensues wherein Sookie points out that Eric is not acting like, well, the other Eric. Eric: “You want the Eric that doesn’t feel. Kiss me.” Sookie actually looks like she’s about to do so, when Eric mucks it up with a sudden vampiric realization. “There’s someone at your door.” Sookie, because by now she knows to always have a plan if the doorbell should ring, tells Eric to stay put.

It’s Bill.

Sookie: Whaddya want? Bill: Eric. Sookie: He gone. I thought you’d come through for me and took care of it. Bill: The one place he owns we didn’t search was here. Sookie: Well, my house is all clean and all, don’t need dirty people touching things. Bill: Sookie, I gotta do this. Sookie: When have I ever lied to you?

Um, right about now, that’s when.

Bill shoves the door open, with Sookie and her form-fitting top being shoved to the side, then Bill pauses. “You’re right.” You’ve never lied to me. Then he leaves.

Fool.

Jason, still running from the panthers even though you’d think Crystal Meth would have pulled back on the hunting down of her one true medicated love, stumbles along the side of a road, wretches up something in a graphic fashion, and then collapses on the ground with his head sticking out into the pavement of the roadway. (Dude, really?) A beat-up truck comes tooling along, because they always do in Louisiana, and it just happens to be Jessica and Hoyt, driving home from their latest misunderstanding of one another.

They screech to a halt, hop out of the pickup, realize they know the person lying in the road (which shouldn’t be surprising, since it’s Bon Temps, with its population of 25) and proceed to aid Jason in his dilemma. Which means that Jessica rips open a wrist and proffers her dripping arm to Ghost Daddy.

Tommy and mom Melinda again, with Tommy boasting about how he can read actual words now. Melinda is overjoyed. “I’m fixin’ to bust I’m so proud.” (Really? Did you even try to put that child in school? Hello?) Tommy then moves on to how wretched of a human being Joe Lee was, forcing his wife to be in dogfights and such, even when she was way too old for canine shenanigans. Hell, in dog years, she must be older than Noah.

Lo and behold, but not really surprisingly, here comes Joe Lee hisself, stomping up and throwing a wicked chain around Tommy. You mine now, bitch. (Melinda: “Honey, we missed you!” This is so Jerry Springer material.) Joe Lee: You will learn obedience. This is your last free breath. Then Joe Lee and his unchanged underwear drag Tommy off somewhere.

Sort of thinking that Tommy getting shot by Sam was the least of his problems.

Final scene with Marnie, Laff, Jesus, Tara and Pam standing around in a field at night. (They couldn’t meet at Starbucks?) Pam is being super bitchy, despite Tara holding a gun on her, which is not surprising. Laff tries to get Pam to understand that she needs to hold off on the attitude. Pam refuses to understand anything, other than she wants these people to fix the issue with Eric pronto.

Marnie starts in with some more of the creepy mumbling and summoning of the spirits. Pam gives this about two seconds and then goes postal. “This is BS!” And then she spits out that Marnie is retarded. (Oh, girl, you shouldn’t do that, I don’t care what TV show you star in.) But the remark apparently jump starts Marnie, who vogues into that foreign-speaking whatever that knows all the nifty spells. Marnie directs her flow of unintelligible invective at Pam.

Pam’s face begins to rot. Stupidly, Pam starts fingering at the abscesses on her face, and is soon pulling away layers of skin, an action that probably excites people who revel in such things, but does nothing for me except force me to rethink eating at a Chinese buffet.

Marnie to Pam: “Corrupt, unsanctified corpse that walks!”

(I am SO stealing that for my next conference call at work.)

Pam, half her face gone, realizes that it’s time for another course of action. She vampire-zips off into the woods.

Marnie (or whoever she is channeling) breaks into peals of laughter. Then she collapses to the ground, show over. Jesus rushes to tend to her, while Laff and Tara stand there despondently, reflecting back on simpler, by-gone days, when all they had to worry about was Tara’s mom’s raging alcoholism and whether or not Laff could find enough accessories for his latest outfit.


Roll end credits.

Searching For Signal: #171 - “True Blood” - Season 3, Episode 12

We start out in the parking lot of Fangtasia, with Eric and Russell sizzling away on the pavement, looking a bit under the weather. While they wait for someone to reach down with a giant spatula and flip them over, they bicker over the importance of Russell slaughtering Eric’s entire family. Suddenly, Godric appears to Eric, bathed in white light and spouting some Hallmark crap about “Forgiveness is love.” This makes Eric contort his face and scream really loud.

Cut to Sookie running through the forest in a billowy dress. A giant, gaudy chandelier descends from the sky and hovers over her, making her all glowy and stuff. She blinks her eyes, and she’s back in Fangtasia, with Bill shoving his face in hers. She leaps off the table or whatever and slaps him, because he interrupted a really pretty dream. “You betrayed me!”

Bill: “I only pretended to betray you, again, so I could save your life, again.”

He has a point, so Sookie changes the subject: “Where’s Eric?”

Pam, face streaked with blood tears and still gazing at the parking lot monitors: “Outside. Burning.”

Well, Sookie is not impressed with that, because it would be one less person who secretly wants her. She starts to rush out the door, Bill tries to stop her, angry words are exchanged, and Sookie dashes out anyway. She uses one of her Sookie powers to break the silver bond between Eric and Russell, hurls Russell against a fence, then drags Eric back into the family-friendly atmosphere of Fangtasia.

Roll opening credits. Did you know that people in Louisiana like to wear dirty ball caps? A lot.

Inside Fangtasia, Pam announces that Eric is very weak and “can’t drop fang”, which I’ve decided is a very fun expression and plan to use in the future. Sookie makes Bill bite her, so she can then feed her magical fairy juice to Eric. Bill and Sookie glare at each other while Eric slurps.

Zip over to Sam’s place, where he and Tara are all aglow after a night of squat tag, and he’s making breakfast for her. When she discovers that the menu includes hoecakes made with bacon grease, this causes the conversation to steer towards why Sam barks in his sleep. He fesses up to being a shape-shifter. She’s not every hungry anymore, faced once again with supernatural people making her life difficult.

Back to Fangtasia. Eric’s all better now that he’s gnoshed on Sookie. And he wants Sookie to run back out to the parking lot and rescue Russell. This is met with displeasure from Bill, Pam and Sookie. Fine. He’ll go himself. Sookie sighs. (Men are just so stupid.) Then she grabs a silver chain, heads back out, and wraps the chain around his neck to drag him back inside. She’s pretty strong for a waitress, lugging half-dead dead people around and all.

Back to Tara and Sam. Tara: “I cannot deal with non-humans right now. I wish I could just re-boot. Be a new person. And forget all this crap I’ve learned in the last few weeks.” Sam: You should be able to do that. You’d be surprised how easy it is.” Tara: It never catches up? Sam: Well, there’s that. You gotta keep moving.

Fangtasia again. Russell is silver-chained to the stripper pole. The vamps have got to go to ground, so Eric tells Sookie to stay and watch over Russell. She’s not really excited about the task, but reluctantly agrees, mainly so she won’t have to look at Bill’s hateful face. As the vamps leave, Eric calls somebody and tells him he’s going to need their help tonight. Hmmm.

Cut to the Bon Temps Sheriff’s station, where Andy is dealing with some DEA honcho who is all hopped up about raiding the place where Crystal’s creepy family is selling V. Jason wanders up, sniffing to find out when the raid might be. Andy drags Jason to his office to school him and make him shut up, but simple Andy spills that they raid will take place today. Jason bolts.

Tara is trotting out the door of Sam’s place, moseying toward the Merlotte’s parking lot, when she suddenly has flashbacks to the hundred or so people she’s seen killed there. This makes her really sad and pensive.

Hoyt shows up at his jobsite, only to find his momma, Summer the Biscuit Maker, and his high-school guidance counselor. They gonna do an intervention, just like on Dr. Phil! Well, it doesn’t go as they planned, mainly because Momma is just too twisted for words. Hoyt ends it with “I love Jessica. If you don’t like it, you can’t be a part of my life.”

Awww. And they say true love never dies. Literally.

Over to Sam’s again. He walks out of his place to find Lafayette hanging around outside Merlotte’s. Laff came in early to make some oyster stew, but forgot his key. Sam lets him in, but not before Laff has one of his visions about Sam, bloody hands and evil threats, that stuff. Okay, we need to find out what’s going on with Laff.

Back to Fangtasia. First, Russell tries to barter with Sookie so she will release him. She plays along for a bit, getting him to offer up 5 million dollars, his plantation, and a promise to kill both Eric and Bill. (Wow. She really is mad at them.) Then she decides not to let him go, so Russell tries to scare her by snarling that every vampire on the planet will be after her for her Sookie juice. And they will suck her dry.

Sookie doesn’t think such threats are very polite, so she sprays him in the face with some of the funky silver mist. Rather than just shut up, Russell continues to threaten. Well, two can play at the bullying game. Sookie snatches up the crystal urn with Talbot’s remains. “Why are you carrying this around?’ Turns out that Russell is actually planning to bring him back to life. Really? How so? Apparently Russell plans to use Sookie’s blood for this miraculous feat of engineering.

Or maybe not. Sookie takes the urn behind the bar, dumps the Talbo goo in the sink, and then flips on the garbage disposal. Russell freaks while blades whirl and Sookie laughs maniacally. Oh my. We be gettin’ vicious up in here.

Jason and Crystal roll up to the drug-shack compound. While very dirty and half-naked kinfolk mill about, Crystal Daddy comes out hollerin for Jason and Crystal to leave. They try to explain that the Feds is comin’. Crystal Daddy finally believes them, and starts ordering his relatives to hide stuff. Suddenly, there’s a gun shot and Felton appears. He’s not keen on gettin’ rid of the V, money to be made and all that. When Crystal Daddy argues, Felton just shoots him in the head. (These are some really nice people. I wonder if I can book a tour?)

Cut to Sam showing up at Terry and Arlene’s. Terry’s sitting on the porch steps, bawling. (Who knows, it’s Terry.) Sam apologizes for the things he said when he was drunk, and Terry cries more. Turns out these are tears of joy. Arlene’s good, the baby’s good, and now he’s got a nice apology to go with it. Ergo, the floodgates are open.

I really don’t understand these people.

Sam has no idea what to say to messed-up Terry, so he goes over to the house Tommy was renting. The place is trashed and Tommy is gone. Uh oh.

Back to the police station, where the DEA agents are rolling out for the big raid. The honcho won’t let Andy come along, instead sending him to the store to get him a pack of cigarettes. Poor Andy.

Once again to the drug factory. Felton has whipped himself into a frenzy, threatening to kill everybody while kinfolk stand around in their underwear and show us their bad teeth. Jason tries to calm him down, saying that’s just the V talking. Felton doesn’t care. He likes violence. (Big surprise.) Then Felton orders “his woman” Crystal to get in the truck so they can drive off and hurt some more people. Crystal agrees to do so, afraid if she doesn’t that Felton will kill Jason.

Before she leaves, Crystal tells Jason that somebody has got to take care of these poor, dirty people. Jason: “Tell me how to.” Crystal: “Just help them. Any way you can.” Then she says her teary goodbye. Jason: “I will find you.” Once the trunk thunders away down the dusty road, Jason turns to the dirty clan and introduces himself.

Tara arrives at her momma’s home, only find Momma playing slap and tickle with her preacher. Harsh words are exchanged, and Tara realizes this is no longer home. She wishes her Momma luck and drives away. Momma just stands there with her fake wig and looks confused.

Cut to Merlotte’s. Sam marches into his office and finds the safe gone. (Courtesy of that model citizen, the now-missing Tommy.) Sam shoves a gun in his pants and stomps out. Meanwhile, Lafayette is just trying to cook food for people, but he keeps seeing those demon images, causing him to flip his burgers wrong and spill grits. He gets on the horn with Jesus. “I’m seeing things. BAD things!” Jesus: “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Fangtasia again. We see a truck drive into the parking lot. Inside, Russell thinks its “my wolves, come to rescue me.” Well, no. It’s Alcide. Sookie spies him, has a small orgasm, and races up to him. “You’ve come to rescue me!” Well, no. Alcide: “Eric called me. Wants me to do somethin’. Said he’d settle all my dad’s debts.” Sookie frowns. “Oh.”

But before they get around to doing anything constructive, Alcide has a beer while Sookie hovers. Alcide: “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I’d hate it if we never saw each other again.” Sookie beams, because her stable of admirers is apparently intact. But she tells him “don’t be such a good guy right now.”

Eric, Bill and Pam come marching in from… who knows. Eric unchains Russell and starts to drag him out to Alcide’s truck. Bill wants Sookie to stay here, “Pam will protect you.” Sookie wants none of that, she’s going home. And she rescinds the invitation to her house from all the vampires in the room, including Bill. As she flits out the door, Bill and Alcide glare at each other. (Which prompts Eric to say funniest line in the episode, and it’s entirely unprintable.)

Sheriff’s office again, with Andy staring at a vial of V in total fascination. His contemplation is interrupted by the DEA honcho barging in, dragging Jason along. The whole drug bust was a bust. Everybody gone, Jason tipped them off. The honcho storms out, calling everybody backwoods hicks. Once he’s gone, Andy tears into Jason for screwing things up. Jason stops him. “This is bigger than us. Sometimes the right thing to do is the wrong thing.”

I don’t know where they are headed with the Jason character lately, but me likey.

Merlotte’s. Jesus arrives, and he and Laff have a confab in the hallway. Laff: What is going on? Jesus: You opened up something inside you. You’re more sensitive now. Laff: I don’t WANT to be sensitive. Jesus: I’m a brujo. A witch. Laff: A witch? You’re a witch, who’s a nurse, who’s a dude. Jesus nods. Laff: Well, I guess I lucked out, then, huh?

Cut to Tara in a bathroom at Sookie‘s, reaching for scissors. They play it up like she might be about to engage in some bodily harm, but instead she cuts off most of her hair, resulting in a really cute new ‘do. Sookie arrives home, and they chat over a meal. They bond again, sisters once more. Then Tara suddenly announces that she’s “gonna run over to Merlotte’s. Gotta talk to Lafayette.” They hug and Tara leaves.

Something’s going on here, not sure what.

Cut to a construction site. We see Alcide about to drive off in his truck, talking to Eric. “We’re done now, right? You leave my daddy and my family alone.” Off he goes. The camera pans to Russell, thrown into a deep pit, with wet concrete being poured around him. This is apparently Eric’s new plan to keep Russell from finding any redemption after the True Death. Russell won’t really be dead, but will be wrapped in silver and encased in concrete. He won’t get out for a long time. A hundred years for him to go mad with grief.

You think Eric has a little bit of a grudge?

Russell: “I will kill you both.”

Eric gets another vision from Godric, who is very disappointed that Eric couldn’t just let it go. Eric explains that “this is what you made me”. Eric hits a button that sends in more concrete, covering Russell. Godric vanishes, sad.

As Russell’s cries die out, Bill offers his hand to Eric, appearing interested in a truce. When Eric accepts his hand, Bill slaps some silver on it, immobilizing Eric. Bill then knocks Eric into another pit, and starts pouring in concrete. (I know, right?) While Eric disappears beneath the grayish goo, Bill whips out the phone he stole from Eric before shoving him in the pit. “Reuben” answers. Bill: “This is Northman. I want you to find my progeny Pam and kill her. Now.”

Cut to Hoyt and Jessica arriving at a house. He leads her, blindfolded, through the front door, then lets her see where they are. He’s put a security deposit down on their first home. Hoyt: “I want to marry you.” Jess: “We can’t.” Hoyt: “What’s to keep me from becoming a minister and marrying ourselves?”

It’s totally sweet. But as the camera pans away, we see what looks like a creepy voodoo doll lying in one of the other rooms. Great. Nobody can ever be happy in this show for any length of time.

Now we’re in some gun shop, and Momma Hoyt is checking out rifles, her face all pinched and Republican.

Sookie’s house, and a knock on the door. It’s Bill. “We must talk.” Sookie: “Come in.” (So I guess she’s already over her vampire ban.) They chat, with Bill fessing that Russell is gone (Sookie: “Yay!”), and so is Eric. Sookie: Wait. What? Why? Bill: He tasted you. Even if we go our separate ways, I must protect you. I intend to bring the True Death to all who have tasted you and know what you are. Even if it means not being a part of your life. This I swear to you.

Well, then.

The front door flies open, and there’s Eric on the porch. Oh?

Eric: “You did tell her that you were sent by the Queen of Louisiana, to procure her for what she might be?”

Sookie: “What?”

Bill: I didn’t know in the beginning why she wanted you. As I grew to know you, I purposely kept you from her.

Eric: What about you letting two psychos beat her, so you could feed her your blood the night you met? Think she’ll forgive you for that?

Sookie: Is it true?

Bill: Yes.

Eric: He tried to silence me tonight so you would never know. He doesn’t want to protect you. He only wants to protect himself.

Sookie, livid, to Bill: Get out of my house!

Bill is forced through the air but hangs onto the door frame: It was YOU I loved, not what you are.

Sookie: Don’t come near me. Don’t call me.

Bill: I love you.

Sookie: You don’t even get to use that word! I rescind my invitation.

Bill is forced down the porch steps and into the yard, flopping around in the dirt while Eric picks bits of concrete out of his hair.

Eric, to Sookie: I’m sorry to see you suffer like this, but I thought you had the right to know. Then he smirks, because he just got a notch up on the tracking spreadsheet of Sookie’s suitors.

Merlotte’s. Tara drives into the parking lot, gazes wistfully at the building, and then drives away.

She’s gone.

We see Tommy walking along a road. A jeep comes thundering along, and Tommy runs. It’s Sam, and he jumps out of the jeep and chases Tommy through the woods. There’s a confrontation, Sam demands his money back, pointing his gun at Tommy. Tommy doesn’t believe him and turns to go. Sam shoots. I’m guessing he was serious about wanting that money back.

Sookie’s house. She’s crying. Then she suddenly runs out the door. Maybe she forgot to pay the water bill.

Bill’s house. The Queen shows, all haughty. “Bring me the girl. I’ve waited so long to feel sunlight.” Bill: She’s not here. I brought you here under false pretenses. But I do have another surprise for you. Only one of us will leave this house.

They bare fangs and fly at each other.

Quick scene with Eric and Pam at Fangtasia. She’s fine, apparently surviving whatever Reuben tried to to, and getting home in time to watch “Wheel of Fortune”.

Back to Sookie, running through a graveyard. She finds Gran’s headstone. “I followed my heart, but it led me down a dead-end road. I’ve never felt so alone.”

Mystical music plays, and a woman appears. “Sookie, you’re not alone. Come with us.” The woman holds out her hand.

Sookie takes it. Pretty lights sparkle around then, and they vanish.

Roll end credits.

Searching For Signal: #163 - “True Blood” - Season 3, Episode 11

We start out with something a little different, where they do an “In Memoriam” thing, where we get to see shots of all the people who have died on this show, while pretty, wistful music plays in the background. It’s kind of fun, but I was startled at how many times I went “Who the hell was that? Did I miss an episode?”

Anyway, we get to the real action, with Bill storming into Fangtasia, all huffy because he just got the intergalactic “I’m in trouble again” mind message from Sookie. Pam’s there, all irritated about something, as usual, and she tries lying to Bill. “They’re not here.” Sorry, Trixie, but Bill can smell her in the basement, a lovely aroma of sunshine, baked cookies, and the inability to mind her own business.

So Pam tries another angle. “Maybe she’s afraid of you” and that’s why she’s here. Bill does not want to play, snarling threats at Pam, which basically should be a standard day for her and her negative attitude. Pam snaps back: “I’m not the enemy. There’s a bigger picture.” This leads to a physical tussle, which Bill should easily win, being older and all, but Pammy cheats by whipping out a clever bottle of silver mist and spraying him in the face. He drops to his knees, totally caught off guard by the evil air freshener.

Roll opening credits.

Cut to Sookie, quivering and wild-eyed in the basement, and we see that foreign girl, no idea what her name is but she’s the one that didn’t get squat in Eric’s will, traipsing down the stairs with some bolt-cutters or something. She’s still mad about the inheritance exclusion and is going to set Sookie free just to piss off Eric. She gets to cuttin’ and snippin’.

Upstairs, Pam and Bill are rolling all over the place, with her going all hog-wild with squirting her compact death spray. Furniture gets broken, and somebody’s drink gets knocked over so they are NOT going to be happy when they get back from the bathroom.

Here come the duo from downstairs, with foreign girl whirling a heavy silver chain like it’s a rodeo. She manages to subdue Pam with such, while Sookie hovers around the blinded Bill and chatters endlessly, one of her specialties. During all this, Pam reveals that Sookie was going to be a gift from Eric to Russell, but that might not quite happen since Pam is now strapped to a stripper pole while Bill and The Gift race out the door.

Cut to Lafayette and Jesus, still basking in the afterglow of their acid trip with the V. Jesus thinks the whole thing was a real hoot, and wants to do it again. Laff is not so enthusiastic: “The blood can lie.” Jesus: “Did it feel like a lie? Let’s do it again! I wanna see my people!” Laff tries to talk him out of it. Not a good idea, hooker.

Suddenly, Jesus turns into this snarling gargoyle demon thing and lunges at Laff. Then it’s over, and it’s just Jesus again, smiling seductively. “What?” Laff blinks his heavily-painted eyes, not sure if that was real or a weird flashback. He decides to sleep on the meaning of it all. Alone. He sends Jesus packing. Holla at ya later.

Now we have Jason and Crystal, with her explaining that she’s a “were-panther”. That’s nice. Jason: “You could have given me a heads up.” Crystal gets really defensive really fast, so I guess were-panthers can be manic-depressive. Crystal: “Stop blaming me for things that aren’t my fault!” Jason, apparently not remembering the rest of his lines, runs out the door to look for Sookie instead of learning more about his hairy girlfriend.

Jessica and Hoyt are making out, on what looks like one of Bill’s ancient couches (I bet there’s some serious coinage up in there). Hoyt: “I can’t do nothin’ without you.” Jess: “I missed you so much!” Hoyt: “You saved me!” Jess, not fully understanding romantic wordplay: “I killed a trucker!”

Hoyt: Oh… um… you couldn’t really help it, right? An accident? Jess: Nope. Did it on purpose, I was still learning the trade. But you have to understand this is what I really am. I have to have human blood. I’m not gonna stop. Hoyt spends about three seconds on his response, then: “Drink me.” Girl is ON it, pronto.

Cut to the Jackson Art Museum. Russell is staring at some painting, missing his lost love Talbot while clutching the Waterford urn that contains Talbot’s gooey remains. Eric shows: “You loved him more than anyone.” That’s why he had to die. Russell: “Don’t be obscure.” Eric: Fine, then. A thousand years ago. Vikings. Dead parents. Blah, blah, blah. All because you wanted a crown for your stupid collection.

Russell smiles. “I’m SO excited to kill you.”

Eric: No, we’re even. Let me help you now. Russell: “You can’t possibly comprehend what I’m after.” Then he moves in to snap Eric’s neck or something. Eric: “I can offer you day-walking.” Russell pauses, skeptical. But if it’s really true: “No one could stand against me.” Eric: “If I’m wrong, you can kill me tomorrow.”

Then Eric’s phone rings. (Ring tone: “Aint’ We Got Fun!”) It’s Pam. Thought you might want to know that your parting gift for Russell has parted herself.

Bill and Sookie in the car. He wants to know why she went to Eric. She blows it off, which leads to Bill bringing up trust issues, and Sookie countering the trust issues with not being sure she can believe either one of them. Bill, wanting to save the relationship: Let’s try again. Want to? (Very sweet. But really, let’s cross off “staying alive” on our checklist first, shall we?)

Quick shot of Tara at Eggs’ grave, crying.

Merlotte’s, with Holly and Arlene chatting about the non-abortion abortion that Arlene is seeking. Holly: There’s not a 100% guarantee that it will work. Arlene: I just wanna get it over with.

Suddenly, Sam comes staggering into the bar, totally wasted. He’s all about the drunken hollering and rudeness. Terry tries to calm him down, but Sam responds by calling Terry a “shell-shocked” really bad word. That sets Arlene off, and she tears into Sam. (With Holly in the background, helpfully adding “And you’re polluting our vibes!”) Sam continues with the attitude and the meanness, causing Holly and Arlene to rip off their aprons and storm from the bar. (But not before Holly cryptically tells Arlene “Grab the salt. I forgot mine.”)

Cut to Jason in his truck, leaving a voice message for the non-answering Sookie. Oh look, he just happens to be parked outside the high-school football stadium. Let’s go see what’s up and relive our glory days when we were a star athlete and we didn’t have to be responsible for our lives.

Turns out some of the football team is having a late practice, including that cocky quarterback boy that we can’t stand. He’s throwing the football really hard, knocking people over. One of the passes even sails off into the night sky, never to be seen again. Oh? Jason nods knowingly.

Now we’re at Hoyt’s momma’s house, and there’s a knock on the door. It’s Summer, crying about Hoyt not wanting her baking skills. “I even offered him my virginity!” Mom: “I appreciate that. Even if you broke God’s law.” Summer: “I showed him my best underwear!” Momma, realizing that this is one of the most profound sacrifices a girl can make, hugs Summer. “We are NOT finished.”

Back to Merlotte’s, where Sam is now serving the tables because he’s made everybody mad. Tara strolls in and walks over to Sheriff Andy. “Mind if I sit?” she asks politely, but her expression is making it clear that if she gets any hint of disagreement she will cut. She just sits there and glares at him while he rattles about inane things. Then she finally interrupts him.

Tara: “I know about Eggs.” Then she launches, anger and invective filling the air. “You’re a dirty, dirty cop.”

Andy: “What are you gonna do?”

Tara: “What can I do?”

Andy: “I never wanted to be a hero.” Then he tells the truth about Eggs going crazy with the knife and being in tight with Mary Ann and other tidbits of nastiness that Eggs did. Tara is stunned, her fire suddenly out.

Sam marches up to Tommy: Get out there and “take some orders”. Tommy has no intention of doing so, not his fault if Sam chased everybody off. This turns into a huge fight, with Sam finally firing Tommy and telling him to get out of the rental house. Tommy: “Where am I supposed to go?” Sam: “Don’t care.”

Then Sam marches out into Merlotte’s proper, and orders all the patrons to leave. Tara completely ignores him, sitting at the bar and taking shots from what looks like a five-gallon barrel of tequila.

Bill and Sookie, still zooming down the road in her crappy car, imagining what life would be like if they could do anything they wanted. She wants to be a real estate agent. (Which I guess would make sense. There’s a lot of turnover in this town, what with folks dying all the time.) Bill wants to teach third grade. (Where the hell did THAT come from?)

Speaking of, Russell and Eric suddenly appear in the middle of the road, with Russell slamming his fist on the front hood of the crappy vehicle and causing it to almost flip over, which is kind of neat. Oh boy, change in plans.

Holly and Arlene are in the middle of some field, with Holly pouring a big salt circle and chanting. She’s also waving around a very impressive dagger, so let’s hope it’s for ceremonial purposes and not, you know, killing. While she’s flitting about, Holly compares momma stories with Arlene, and it seems neither one of them had very good relationships.

Holly suddenly blurts out: “You need a decoction!” Arlene and the audience stare at Holly in puzzlement, because that sounds really painful. Turns out it’s just a fancy name for the bubbling brew that Holly as been preparing in between rounds of flinging table condiments. Oh, and we just need one final ingredient. A drop of Arlene’s blood, as a sacrifice. This is SO not like going to Planned Parenthood.

And Holly has some final words as Arlene prepares to drink. “By the way, if a spirit is meant to be born, you can’t stop it.” Great.

Back to the football stadium, where the cocky quarterback is still pushing his team too hard until they get fed up and leave. Jason walks up to him. “You’re on V.” Cocky: Maybe. Jason: “That makes you a liar and a cheater. I’m taking you down.” Cocky: No you’re not. My parents are paying for the V and the principal takes V and has sex. Not worried.

Jason stomps off into the night, disillusioned. I’m wondering where I can get my hands on a brochure for this school.

Cut to Laff’s place, where he suddenly wakes up to find that all the cute little voodoo dolls in the den have turned evil and are having a party.

Over to Fangtasia, where the Sookie-mobile rolls up and the gang piles out. Eric whispers to Bill: “Hit me!” Just do it. Bill does, and they get into a nice hair-pulling rumble. Russell ignores the rough-housing and drags Sookie inside. Once the door closes, Eric says to Bill: “I have a plan.”

Tara and Sam, alone at Merlotte’s. Tara: “What crawled up your butt tonight?” Sam: Hey, you get to show your feelings all the time. Tara schools him on the proper way to retain employees. Sam: “We got nobody.” Tara: “You got me.” This leads to flirting, quickly followed by tonguing, and the next thing you know we got hot and sweaty sex back at Sam’s place.

Quick shot of Tommy breaking into the safe in Sam’s office at Merlotte’s.

Next we have Arlene fishing in some swamp, and we know she don’t mess with dirty stuff so it’s got to be a dream. She hears her momma calling but doesn’t really feel compelled to go see what she’s hollerin’ about. Suddenly, Terry is waking her up back in her own bed. She starts to get out of bed, and then sees that there’s blood everywhere.

Terry starts to call 9-1-1, but she stops him. “I’m okay. But I think we’re losin’ the baby.” When he starts to break down, she soothes him. “We’ll cry later. Can you get me that big box of pads out of the bathroom?”

Jason gets home, and finds Crystal. Jason: “I don’t wanna break up. No one in this town is who they’re supposed to be.” Crystal: That’s swell. Now, can we go stop the drug bust at the meth lab before all my inbred kin get kilt?”

Back to Fangtasia, with Russell ogling the nubile Sookie. “Fairies? Am I a fool?” Eric: “She may be the last of her kind.” Sookie: You ain’t gonna drink from me. I ain’t nobody’s supernatural sunscreen. Bill stops her in mid-screech: “Just do it. He may let you live.”

Sookie’s eyes burn with confusion and raging at hatred towards Bill right at that moment. (Girl really needs to make up her mind about Bill, just sayin’.)

Russell has one condition for Eric about this arrangement: “You go first.” Eric: “Love to.”

Arlene and Terry at the hospital, with her consoling him even though she’s the one being forced to wear a backless gown. The doctor comes in with some interesting news. “The baby’s still on board. He’s one strong little critter.’ Terry turns handsprings. Arelene gulps.

Fangtasia. Sunrise.

Pam and Eric are off to one side. Pam: “Don’t do it. What if it doesn’t work?” Eric: “It will.”

They walk over and join the rest of the happy crowd. Bill’s chained up, Sookie’s chained up and still glaring at Bill, Russell’s thinking of who he can hurt next. He and Eric approach Sookie.

Bill: “Don’t drain her.” Otherwise, no more midnight fairy snacking, ever.

Russell gets impatient, grabs one of Sookie’s arms, and feeds. Eric quickly joins him.

Then Eric walks out the front door and into the sun. He does not burst into flames.

Russell and Pam watch on a security monitor, awed, while Sookie is sprawled on the table behind them, half-dead and not looking very pretty. Bill: “Unchain me! I have to feed Sookie!” They completely ignore him, gazing at the non-flaming Eric, eyes dancing with delight and potential daylight killing sprees.

Eric motions on the monitor for Russell to come out. Then he turns away from security camera, muttering “don’t let them see me”. We realize that his skin is starting to smoke. Uh oh.

Russell babbles some nonsense about manifest destiny, then he walks out the front door as well, almost in rapture at the touch of the sun.

Back inside, Pam is still watching the monitor, blood-tears dripping. Bill screams in the background, still insisting that he be allowed to feed Sookie. Pam couldn’t care less about anyone’s nutritional needs right at the moment.

Back outside, Eric suddenly turns to face Russell. Just as Russell realizes that Eric’s face is burning off, Eric snatches Russell’s arm and handcuffs Russell to his own body.

“Be brave. We’ll die together.”

Roll end credits.

Searching For Signal: #159 - “True Blood” - Season 3, Episode 10

We start off with Bill finally letting Sookie know “what she is”. Sookie’s eyes are all aglow with excitement until Bill does the big reveal, then she’s greatly disappointed. “I’m a fairy? How lame!” Bill tries to soften the blow. Well, you also go by lots of other interesting names, none of which I catch. Oh, and she’s not really a full-blooded fairy, being the result of a fairy forcing itself on one of Sookie’s ancestors back in the day. Because fairies apparently like to do that.

Sookie: “So my people are rapists?” Great.

Bill has more news. He’s been to the Sookie Dreamworld Garden and talked to the very excitable Claudine. Seems she and her billowy sisters have been protecting Sookie all this time. And, cautions Bill, we have to be very careful, because most people believe the fairies were wiped out of existence by vampires.

Sookie sighs. Really, people. A fairy?

Roll opening credits.

Jason is having some issues dealing with the aftermath of shooting Franklin, while Tara stands nearby and trembles. Jason has flashbacks to killing Eggs as well as that one weird guy down in the basement back in the day. Then Tara starts barking orders. “I need you to dig!” Jason interprets this to mean dropping on all fours and half-heartedly pawing at the ground like he has a bone to bury. Tara: “Take these clothes and find a place to burn them.” Jason scampers off. Tara then spits on what’s left of the Franklin pie and runs to join Jason in his truck.. They roar away like there’s a sale at Macy’s.

Lafayette, still hauling around beat-up Crystal Daddy, pulls up to his house instead of a hospital. This irritates Jesus. What are you doing? Laff: “It’s twenty miles or more. He’s not going to make it. Help me get him inside.”

Sam’s at his house, pouring Jack Daniels on the hand wounds he got from walloping Crystal Daddy. (What, you own a bar but you can’t afford some hydrogen peroxide?) The smooth, charcoal-mellowed liquid apparently causes Sam to hear voices, and then have a flashback.

2003. A slick-haired Sam (And we don’t want to do that look again. Are you listening stylist people? Not working for me) and some tramp are all happy about some jewels that Sam has apparently stolen while doing his doggie drag. They decide to have sex as a celebration, and he shoves her up against a wall as foreplay.

Then some guy comes in and puts a gun to Sam’s head. I’ll be takin’ them there jewels. It’s a setup, and previously horny girlfriend was in on it, and she now races to gather the booty. As a parting gift, they guy wallops Sam with the gun. As she scurries out the door, the girl pauses to look wistfully at Sam on the floor, so we know that she really did enjoy her time with Lassie, and will probably miss him. Then we flash back to the present, and Sam starts throwing things around.

Sookie and Bill again, and she has more questions. Sookie: Why do people think we were wiped out? Bill: There’s a legend that fairy blood is most delicious. Sookie: Why did excitable Claudine believe you? And wait a minute. Are your feelings for me based on my deliciousness? Bill: At first, maybe. But we grew. And I love you. You brought light back into my life.

Good save, Bill.

Eric and Pam are at Fantasia with some lawyer. It seems that Eric is updating his will to basically leave everything to Pam. This causes Pam to stop around in her designer heels and ask: “WHY?” Eric: “Do the math.” You think Russell is going to let me live?

The lawyer doesn’t care, especially since there’s a “Leave It To Beaver” marathon and he’d really like to get home. We just need two witnesses, and the other one can’t be the person getting the money. So Eric hollers, and some trollop comes marching out. I don’t recall ever seeing her before, but apparently she and Eric have some kind of something going on. She is none too happy about signing papers where she doesn’t get any of the goodies. Eric calls her a whore, which causes Pam to call him a bastard. Love is in the air.

Back to Laff’s house, where he gives some vampire blood to Crystal Daddy, which causes the mean redneck to instantly heal. Crystal is beside herself with joy and resurrection, but Daddy does not know how to show appreciation and thanksgiving. He gets mad that he’s got some vamp blood up in him, and to show his displeasure he slaps Crystal and then stomps away, presumably to NOT attend an anger management class. Crystal, backwoods fool that she is, runs after him.

Lafayetta: “That’s a whole new dimension of trash right there.”

Crystal follows Angry Daddy somewhere into the woods, with Daddy bellowing nastiness and intolerance. Crystal tries to plead some sense into him, until Daddy finally whirls on her. “You CAN’T mix with those people.” You need to get your butt back to Felton and commence with the breeding. Crystal: Can’t do it. Daddy: Then you’re dead to me. He marches off to see if there are any innocent furry animals that he can torture.

Sookie’s house. She’s sawing logs on the couch while Bill is watching that Nan spokes-bitch on TV, defending the vampire race and explaining that Russell is just a tiny little exception. (But really, who’s going to believe anything she says with that severe haircut of hers?) There’s a knock on the door.

It’s Eric. “I know what Sookie is.” Turns out this is some type of code phrase for “hey, let’s go take a walk in the woods”, which they do. Eric: Since you’ve been doing the Sookie Snackin’, you can walk in the sun. Did Sophie Ann tell you that? Is it true? Bill: Meh. Just a few minutes. You still burn. Eric: Well, Sophie’s going to be disappointed. Oh, by the way, I killed Talbot. Bill: Why are you here? Eric: To protect Sookie. And you need to tell her the truth.

Conveniently, Sookie walks up just then, because she can’t stand it when people walk in the woods without her approval. “What truth?” Then she glares at Eric. “And I can’t trust YOU” about anything.

Sookie, dear. If you want to learn things, perhaps you shouldn’t be so bitter with your communication skills. Play nice. Then if you need to, you can kill people later.

Eric: “Do what you want. I won’t be around much longer. I wish you the best.”

Merlotte’s, where that Fellowship of the Sun guy is on TV, pretending to be Christian but really just trashing vampires. Arlene is watching him, agreeing, and getting a little lippy with her anti-vamp commentary. Jessica finally snaps, fangs are bared, and she firmly explains to Arlene that she needs to be a little more tolerant. And that she has a bad dye job.

This confrontation makes Tommy horny, which I guess shouldn’t be surprising. He tags along after Jessica, inquiring about Hoyt’s status. “Why you here with me instead of with him?” Jessica: “He’s too good for me.” Tommy “I’m not.”

Cut to Hoyt and Summer the Biscuit Maker in his truck. She’s noticed that things are a bit distant between them (um, he can’t stand you, is that what you mean?) and she’s decided to fill that void with sex. She starts to wriggle out of her clothes while Hoyt considers taking his own life.

Jason drags Tara to his house, and they find Sookie and Bill there. Sook: “Can we stay?” Little bit of an issue, people hunting us down, blah, blah. Tara, all bitchy: Bill ain’t nuthin but trouble!” Bill: “Fine, I’ll go to ground nearby.” He marches away. When Sook tries to tell Tara what for, Tara stops her. “I want all vampires dead!” Then Tara launches into a long tirade with details about what Franklin did to her while “the man you love didn’t lift a finger.”

Then they hug it out, because nothing brings people closer together than comparing vampire experiences. Meanwhile, Bill is talking to Jason out back. Bill: “You got a gun? The werewolves are fast.” Jason: “I’ll take care of her.” Which is nice and all, but it’s Jason. Something is going to go terribly wrong, soon. And he’s going to have sex. Those are the two constants with young Mr. Stackhouse.

Back to Lafayette’s house, where Laff finds Jesus sniffing a vial of vampire blood. Jesus: “This is magic. You ever do it? I wanna do it with you.” Laff: Hold up. That stuff is whack. Different things happen at different times. Jesus: “You’re safe with me.” Then they talk briefly about being shamans. (When did THAT happen?) Then Jesus feeds them both a drop. Oh boy.

Merlotte’s again, TV is still on, and a reporter is letting us know that they raided Russell’s plantation but didn’t find a damn thing. Sam comes in, and the staff is a little jumpy about this development, because the last time the boss was in the house he tore up that Crystal Daddy man with a bit more savagery than anyone expected.

New waitress Holly (aka newly-hired therapist for the entire town) approaches Bill with a baggie. “This is black kohash” (or something like that) “and it will help you control your testosterone. I’m a wiccan.” Sam glares at her for a second, then basically tells her to go to hell and mind her own business, proving that he just might need that kohash after all.

As Sam stomps away, Tommy throws this out: “I was proud of you last night. “ Sam throws back: “You’re an idiot.”

Terry is out back, smoking, when Arlene comes traipsing out the back door with a sack of trash. She bursts into tears, he tries to comfort her, and she finally fesses: “This baby ain’t yours! It’s Renee’s. It’s evil and I want to get rid of it.” Terry: “No! I will raise that child as my own. We will surround that baby with love.” Which is really sweet and all, but dude. Are you not paying attention to everything else going on around you? Might want to really consider this spawn of Satan thing.

Jason and Sookie, with him upset and trying to talk about killing Franklin. Sookie tries to counsel him, which causes Jason to blurt: “I killed Eggs! Andy said it was him before I could think.” Sookie takes a step back, and she gets that flash in her eye which means she’s about to make an ultimatum. “Tara’s gotta know! People always find out.” Jason sighs.

Next we have Jesus and Lafayette, trippin’ on da V, yo. They go through a doorway and find themselves in a giant temple, where a woman with a green ring is making tortillas. Jesus knows her, something about she saved many people from evil. Then we’re in a courtyard, with another woman breaking a raw egg over someone’s belly. And we have an underground tunnel thing where there are skulls and goats and a creepy man who seems very displeased as he chants and curses. Very surreal and weird.

Bottom line, Lafayette’s great-grandmother (or some such) was some kind of priestess, and Jesus’ grandfather practiced the black arts and had big plans for Jesus, but his momma took him on the run. At least I think that’s what we learned. I really don’t know. But I do know that I won’t be taking any V. No sir. I don’t want to KNOW what my ancestors might have done. Although I suspect one of them must have had sex with a fairy.

Sookie wakes up and Eric is there. Sook: “I know this is a dream. I’m getting tired of dreaming about you.” Eric, as they kiss passionately, “I know you like it. Oh, and don’t trust Bill.” Sookie wakes for real.

Jason is starting at her. “You okay?” Yeah, she’s fine. So Jason takes a breakfast tray into Tara’s room. He starts to talk to her about the Eggs thing, but can’t just yet. Tara, thinking this is about Franklin: “It’s okay. You saved my life.” Jason tries again, but he’s not making any sense. It’s Jason. Tara: “You’re a good person. I can count on you.” They hug. Then they kiss. Then they really kiss, tongues and all that. Uh oh.

Tara breaks it off and starts to run away. Jason grabs her arm. “I shot Eggs!” Tara flees into the night. Well, at least to another part of the house. Jason tries to follow, then realizes that Sookie is gone. But she thoughtfully left a note, so we know that at least the first part of her journey was voluntary.

Bill’s house, with Jessica wandering about. Suddenly there’s lots of hollerin’, and she spies a cross burning on the lawn and graffiti painted on the house. Seems some folks aren’t too happy with vampires right now. Bill shows up, and Jessica wants to track down the people who did this, but Bill stops her.

Sam’s sitting somewhere, drinking in the dark, and he has another flashback. (Have you not connected the dots here, Sam? Don’t drink. The flashbacks won’t happen.) Anyway, in this one, we’re at a campground with the couple that rudely took the jewels that Sam took from somebody else. Sam approaches in his doggy attire, then transitions back and nakedly grabs the man’s gun and aims it at him. “Give me the money.”

The girl scurries to get the booty out of a truck, but she’s taking forever. The guy gets bored and starts taunting Sam about being a Transformer. Sam doesn’t take kindly to that, and wallops the hell out of the guy. The girl runs around the corner of the truck and shoots at Sam. Sam turns and shoots the girl. She dies and he gets all angsty. Flash back to the present, with Sam sitting there and looking like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” just before he discovered that you can redecorate using a common household axe.

Fangtasia, with Sookie and Eric sitting in his office. Sook: “Why are you saying that you’re not going to be around much longer?” Eric: “Don’t pretend that you care. But I do want to kiss you.” Sook: “Sounds like goodbye.” Eric: “It is.”

And we go right into some heavy kissing. I guess Sookie doesn’t mind spontaneous slap and tickle if she knows that her partner is about to be annihilated and there won’t be any embarrassing “morning after” awkwardness. But she breaks the spit-swapping for another question. “Tell me why I shouldn’t trust Bill.”

And that damn Pam chooses this moment to bang through the door. We have a situation. Out here. Eric follows Pam’s sashaying couture to the other room. Sookie stays and compares the various flavors or vampire tongue she’s had lately.

Pam: “Just give Sookie to Russell.” Eric: “No! Stay out of this.” Pam: “I can’t believe you’re choosing a human over yourself. If you’re not going to give her, then figure out how to use her.”

Cut to some street corner, where an obvious male hustler has just pulled out a cigarette. Russell approaches and holds out a light. “You have someplace we can go?”

Quick scene at Merlotte’s. Arlene to Holly: Wanna tell me about those other ways of not being pregnant? Holly nods.

Cut to Jessica looking sad. Hoyt walks in. Hoyt: “I love you and I want to marry you.” Jessica: “That’s silly.” Hoyt: There’s no reason not to. Jessica: I’ve done bad things. Hoyt: If you don’t love me, that’s one thing. Tell me you don’t. Jessica doesn’t tell him anything. So Hoyt stomps out and down the steps, where Tommy tries to tease Hoyt about the situation. Hoyt knocks Tommy to the ground with one punch. (Yay!)

Well, Tommy’s not too keen on that. He transitions to his pit bull persona, and then attacks Hoyt. It’s bad, blood spurting. Jessica runs up, and easily tosses Tommy three counties over. She kneels over the possibly fatally-injured Hoyt. “I love you, too. Now drink my blood.” Tommy watches from the bitter shadows.

Jason comes home, and Bill is there. Bill: WHERE is Sookie? Can you not do ANYTHING right? Jason: I tried! But Sookie does what she wants to do. Bill gets carried away, overly angry and derogatory. Jason commands him out of the house (“Sookie told me how.”) and Bill is forced outside, unable to return. Jason hears a noise, heads to his bedroom, and finds a blank panther. The big kitty turns into Crystal. Well, then. We knew it was coming, we just didn’t know how it was going to come.

Next we have Russell and the male hooker, post-coital. Russell is talking to the guy as if he was Talbot, so we know this isn’t going to end right. The hooker tries to leave, but Russell pulls him back, angering the boy toy. (“I told you it’s an extra 500 to bite me!”) Russell continues with his ode to Talbot and their life, and his words just get weirder. Then, holy cow, Russell whips out a stake and ends the hustler’s career, blood galore. Russell snuggles up to the body and continues talking. “So glad we had our chance to say goodbye.“

Hoo boy, that’s some messed-up action there.

Quick shot of Bill walking around outside a house, probably Sookie’s, might be his, it’s too dark.

Final scene at Fangtasia, where Eric suddenly grabs Sookie and drags her screaming to the basement. (We see Bill sensing her discomfort.) Eric chains Sookie up to that same metal pole thing where Laff, Pam and the Magister have spent some quality time.

Close-up of Sookie hollering Eric’s name. She MAD.

Roll end credits.

Searching For Signal: #155 - “True Blood” - Season 3, Episode 9

We hit the ground running, with Eric thundering into Fangtasia and interrupting Pam as she peruses shoes on sluttyfootwear.com, bellowing “We need sanctuary!” Reacting quickly, because such rude yelling can only mean trouble is coming, Pam suggests hanging out at Sookie’s house. “We’ve both been invited in.” Eric vetoes this decision without any explanation, but I’m guessing that Sookie’s dewy freshness might distract him from matters at hand.

Then one of the pole dancer girls, Ginger or something, comes waltzing up. “The V-Feds is here!” Next thing you know, a really angry woman is leading a gang of storm troopers as they muck about the place. When Eric tries to politely explain that he has never done anything wrong in his entire life, the angry S.W.A.T. team woman decides he’s boring and hollers “Officers, silver him!”

At first, I’m not quite sure what this means, expecting something to do with a horse. Then one of the officers helpfully provides a demonstration by stomping up to Eric and putting a chunk of silver against his neck in an odd, Vulcan-death-grip kind of way. While Eric starts to slump, that trampy Ginger starts screaming her lungs out, so I’m assuming that Eric won’t be going out for ice cream.

Roll opening credits. Black gold, Texas tea.

Russ drops out of the sky back at his plantation, and then races to the library (or whatever that room is with the fireplace) and finds the Talbot goo. He wallers around in the mess, pining for his lost love and wailing. Then he spies the empty stand in the cabinet where the Viking helmet used to be. Oh?

Cut to Sookie in the shower at her house, cleaning off the Debbie debris and the Bill passion smears. Bill joins her under the water, and we have a nice montage of pretty music and glistening breasts. He heals her neck wounds with his own blood. (That is so sweet, right?) Then we have a shot of blood going down the drain in a touching tribute to Alfred Hitchcock and “Psycho”.

Once scrubbed and tingly, the two go downstairs where Sookie stumbles over a dead, naked werewolf man. Bill looks apologetic. My bad, didn’t put away my toys. Sookie sighs and tells him where to find a tarp. When he returns with such, she decides to do a bit of whining as they make a werewolf enchilada. “Normal couples do NOT do this. Just once I’d like to NOT find a dead body in my house.”

Bill: “You have to trust me!” He pauses. “You do, don’t you?”

Sookie: Well, there’s that secret file thing you’ve been keeping on me. Russell told me.

Bill: Oh, well, yeah, I have been taking a few notes. But it’s only to figure out why Eric wants you, figure out what you are.

Sookie, ignoring the fact that Eric might want her just because she’s hawt: “Do you know what I am?”

Bill: Nope, but I’m going to find out. Then they go back to scrubbing blood off the linoleum.

Over to Laff’s house, where Jesus is wearing a kimono. Laff decides to let Jesus stay the night, something he normally doesn’t do after having bumped uglies for the evening. This somehow leads to Jesus showing off his jaguar tattoo, which he finally says was his high school mascot, then Laff promptly caresses the jaguar with his tongue. And I’m thinking, what now? Are we about to be introduced to jaguar people? Because we already don’t have enough different kinds of creatures to keep track of?

Jason wanders home to find Crystal’s “ex-finace” (Felton?) in his front room as he terrorizes her. Jason whips out his trusty shotgun to get things in order. Heated words are exchanged and it appears that Crystal has told Felton that Jason kidnapped her. (What?) Then she hollers “he raped me, too!” Felton quickly attacks a stunned Jason and they tussle. Suddenly, Crystal grabs something and knocks Felton out.

Okay, this girl needs to quit playing both sides. This isn’t the Big Brother house.

Jason: “Could you not make me a rapist?”

Crystal: “He can escape handcuffs. Bring me some rope.” While Jason scampers off, Crystal searches Felton’s body and finds what looks like a baggie of V.

Back to Fangtasia, where Eric and the angry commando woman (I think her name is Nan) are discussing that the “basement is clean”, but Nan is still very suspicious about both the V supply and Russell, the missing Magister. She snaps her fingers and little underlings set up fancy webcams. Eric must now make a taped statement for “The Authority”. Oh boy.

Sams place, where Tara is sitting all quivery-like and sad, while Sam tries to comfort her. Maybe she should get some professional help? Tara: “I’m not going to a shrink!” Same gets a call from Terry. Seems Tommy is raising quite a racket over in his rented apartment. Sam splits, and Tara gets out a laptop, probably so she can finish placing Pam’s shoe order.

Fangtasia again, where Eric is explaining to mean Nan and The Authority the history of werewolves that feed on vampire blood, and how Russell is a really shady character that doesn’t want to exist with humans. Nan: “These are treasonous allegations!” (Just like your severe hairdo?) Why didn’t you tell somebody?

Eric: Uh, because The Authority has only been around for 200 years. Russell and I have known each other for a 1,000. (Check with your union steward, that gives me seniority.) And, oh yeah, my family was massacred. “I did not report because I want him to die at my own hands.”

Well, then. Nan: “The Authority will consider your case.” But I think it’s crap. She snaps her fingers again and the underlings begin loading up her Louis Vuitton interrogation gear. Eric: “But Russell is a threat, to all of us.” Nan: “Doesn’t matter. You’re on lockdown.”

Sam gets to Tommy’s (really his) apartment, and finds naked Tommy whooping it up with an equally naked tramp that he just met. Sam tries to get them to hold it down, but Tommy is all rude and cocky. It’s perfectly fine with me if anybody wants to kill off the Tommy character. Really don’t care for him.

Cut to Crystal and Jason tying the still-unconscious Felton to some tree in a field. Then Jason calls the sheriff’s office, uses an Elroy Jetson voice to report they found a surprise out here, and then they drive off. Jason, Jason, Jason. That Crystal girl got you doin’ bad stuff, sho nuff.

Quick scene the next morning, as Lafayette and Jesus get Momma all prettied up to take her back to the nuthouse. When Mom sees that Laff isn’t wearing any makeup for a change, and that Jesus might have something to do with this decision, she decides that gays might not be so bad after all. See, it’s the small things that change the world. Like mascara.

Jason and Crystal show up at the sheriff’s office (why, I don’t know) where they find “Rosie” bawling her head off. Andy explains she’s all sad because “we got a man down”. Seems they sent an officer out to investigate the call about a man tied to a tree, and there was an ambush. Crystal and Jason glance at each other. Whoopsie. Then Crystal happens to also glance at Kenya, who happens to be leading a prisoner out of the jail, who happens to be the guy that’s Crystal’s cousin. And he happens to see her, talking to the police. Whoopsie, part two. (That girl is trouble, I’m telling you.)

A bit later, Jason is in Andy’s office, trying to convince Andy that the meth lab is now dealing in V, and that we need to bust em up again. Andy hems and haws, which is his specialty, except when he’s seeing giant pigs in the woods, then agrees that if Jason can make a connection, we’ll go back to the lab and shut er down. Jason runs like the wind to tell his dangerous and illiterate girlfriend, while Andy opens a desk drawer and stares at a baggy of V.

Tara shows up for some type of group counseling. Lo and behold, she runs into Holly, that new waitress from Merlotte’s. Holly starts the session, explaining that she’s a rape survivor, and that it took a long time, but things are getting better and I “still believe people are worth trusting.” Pretty deep.

Sookie’s house, where she’s sitting on the couch and looking at a scrapbook. (Girl, put that thing down. You still have mud and stuff on the walls of the house from that crazy Mary Anne woman and her rowdy friends.) Hadley calls: Why are you still there? Anyway, I’m at the Aquarium in Monroe, there’s someone I want you to meet. Click.

Two seconds later, Sookie is running in the door of said aquarium, so she must have found a really good taxi. Hadley’s just full of chatter: Let’s see. I got involved with Sophie Anne, the vampire queen of Upper Bologna. I told her things. She told other people these things. And now lots of people are trying to kill you. It’s all my fault! Oh, and I kidnapped my own child from his daycare. Can you tell me if he’s psychic like you? And there’s a sale at the Piggly Wiggly, ten limes for a dollar.

Sookie wanders over to Hunter, the AWOL daycare statistic, and right away they can communicate with each other using only their minds. For some reason, this causes Hadley to freak. She grabs Hunter and runs out the door, yelling “the less you know, the better!” Sookie just stands there, flummoxed, while pretty fish swim in the background.

Then we’re at Merlotte’s, where Arlene is really angry about Tommy stealing her tips. Tommy is his usual worthless self, lying. Sam intervenes, telling Tommy: “I’m taking that money out of your salary.”

Second request to have the Tommy character killed off. Anybody?

Cut to Arlene sobbing in Sam’s office, because life has been too much lately, what with naked people playing rock music next door and tips getting stolen and carrying a serial killer’s baby. Enter new waitress Holly, who apparently has been hired to counsel everybody in town. She soothes Arlene, while Arlene admits to slight qualms about bringing an evil child into the world. When Arlene balks at Holly’s hint that she should just “go to a clinic”, Holly smiles mysteriously and says: “There are other ways to resolve this.”

I’m thinking these “other ways” are probably not normal ways. Just sayin.

Next we have Bill in a basement, where he is woken up by water dripping through the floorboards above him. He opens the floor door and finds himself in Sookie’s Dream Garden. That was neat. Everything is pretty and nice. Then the tranquility is interrupted by that Claudine Dream Woman, running up and hollering at Bill: “You killed her!”

That was just rude, so Bill chases her down and tries to bite, but she shoots magic energy out of her hand to throw him off. Hey, just like Sookie can do! Claudine, adjusting her diaphanous gown, warns Bill to leave Sookie alone. “We have protected her!” Bill just stands there. What ARE you?

Fangtasia, with Eric, looking really tired, and Pam, looking quite refreshed as she climbs out of her Vampire 3000 Sleep Chamber. Pam wants to know what she can do to help. Eric will not allow her to take any responsibility. Pam: We’ve been together a 100 years! (Really? Hmmm.) Why didn’t you tell me about Russell, and your family, and your odd infatuation with hair gel? We can’t just end this. Eric: Everything ends. Perhaps it’s your time to be a maker. Then they stare glumly at each other while a cold wind blows, and a discreet credit rolls across the screen: “The scene was directed by Ingmar Bergman. Fin.”

Back to Merlotte’s, where Jessica is all happy and skipping, then Hoyt walks in with that Biscuit Maker girl. Jess is upset, barely able to suppress her emotions as she seats them and then stomps off. Biscuit Maker (aka Summer): “I’m so glad you chose life. Vampires are dead!”

Can’t stand her.

Crystal and Jason, somewhere. Crystal: “Tito thinks I’m a snitch!” (Her cousin.) Jason: Whatev. “Hey, we are gonna bust Hotshot!” (The meth lab thing.) Crystal, her face wrinkling: “What’s gonna happen? Those are my kin! You can’t send those kids into the system.” This is entirely too much information for Jason to digest, so he just sits there. Why doesn’t everybody get as excited about drug busts as he does? Dang it.

Lafayette and Jesus flirt over a veggie burger.

Then Laff and Tara make girl talk. Tara, about Jesus: “Is this a thing?” Just might be, hooker. She’s happy for him, but still sad, like she probably will be the rest of the series.

Biscuit Summer excuses herself to go reapply some fakeness in the Ladies’ Room, so Jessica zips up to apologize to Hoyt, and they chat. Jess: “Does she at least make you happy?” Hoyt: “I hate her.” Dolls, and show tunes, and she will NOT stop talking. Jess: Then why? Hoyt: “Beats sittin’ around thinking about you.” Which makes Jessica cry blood tears, which is always a little unnerving, and makes me think of Marilyn Manson concerts.

Fangtasia parking lot, with the V-Fed people driving up, while Russell watches from a nearby roof. He has the Talbot goo with him, in a crystal urn. He mumbles to it for a bit, swearing revenge in an overly dramatic fashion, which is stupid, because there’s no one there to see him. Then he flies into the air.

Meanwhile, down below, Nan marches into Fangtasia, reporting the ruling to Eric. “The Authority disavows any knowledge that any of this took place.” You will take care of this Russell thing on your own. This is completely off the books, and your problem. “Bring me his fangs, or I will have yours.” Then she stomps off to go kill innocent woodland creatures.

Merlotte’s again, where Crystal’s redneck daddy barges in. Sam tries to make him leave. When Daddy proves obstinate, Sam goes berserk and starts walloping the hell out of Daddy, his ferociousness stunning everybody in the room. (Well, except for Tommy, who smirks. Of course he would. Hey Sam, while you’re at it, give Tommy a serving of today’s special as well.)

Cut to Hoyt and Laff loading mangled Daddy into a car, preparing to whisk him to a hospital. Crazy, lying Crystal comes running out and wants to go with. Jason tries to stop her. She is determined. “He’s my daddy!” Despite the drinking and the beatings and the probable incest. She hops in and Laff tears out.

Tara, watching all this mess from off to the side of the parking, is wearing another one of her sad faces. Suddenly, Franklin grabs her from behind (ten points to those of you who bet he wasn’t really dead) and drags her up against a convenient shed. He has some questions for her. “Why would you try to kill the one you love?”

Tara, spitting: “I DON’T love you!”

Franklin, craziness bubbling: “You didn’t even mourn me.”

Tara: “You don’t love anything. You can’t. You’re a psychopath!”

Franklin: Really? Well, then I might have to kill you.

Tara: “Then kill me!” And she proceeds to totally read him, chewing him up and spitting him out. (Um, figuratively, that is. I forget this show’s audience sometimes, thought I’d better clarify.) It’s quite fun, really. And Tara ends with: “The second I’m gone, I’ll be free of YOU!”

Enter Jason with his shotgun.

Franklin, smirking: “I’m a vamp. I’ll heal.”

Oh, really? Jason fires anyway, and Franklin explodes into the messy goop meaning he done gone for good. Seems Jason had a wooden bullet in that there gun. How nice.

Sookie’s house, with Bill showing up, apparently past his curfew, because Sookie is all worked up about it. “Where have you been?” I’ve been so worried that I almost couldn’t finish watching “The Big Bang Theory”. Anyway, I went to see Hadley and she knows things about me and I have at least two outfits that you haven’t seen me wear.

Bill: “I think I know why they want you. I know what you ARE.”

And of course we cut away, because teasers keep the ratings up, right?

Cut to Nan in a car, heading to the airport because she needs to go be mean to people in Oregon or something. She’s snacking on a human, even though she swears to everybody else that she only swills True Blood. Anyway, her attention to the inner thigh of a young lovely is diverted when the news program she has on in the background is interrupted by something unusual.

Namely, Russell storming onto the news set and gutting the anchor with his bare hands. Then he screams at the tech people to keep things running. “My name is Russell Edgington.” And then he goes on a long-winded, elaborate rant, waving about the section of spine he just ripped from the hapless anchor, who is suddenly getting the best ratings he will ever have, he just won’t be able to enjoy them. (And what is it with the older vampires using so many words? Does it come from having all that time on their hands?)

Anyway, Russell wraps it up with this: “In the end, we are nothing like you. We drink the true blood. The AVL is trying to hide from you. Mine is the true face of vampires. Why would we seek equal rights? We are NOT equal. We will eat you. After we eat your children.

And now, time for the weather. Tiffany?”

Roll end credits.

Searching For Signal: #150 - “True Blood” - Season 3, Episode 8

So we start off with Sookie still in the hospital bed, screaming her head off because Bill is approaching her. Alcide pulls him away, and various people about the room provide commentary on this action, both pro and con. Jason, leaning in to the no-longer-comatose Sookie: “Are you brain dead?”

So many ways I could go with that, Jason. So many.

Sookie, apparently miraculously recovering from her initial fright: “I want to speak to Bill alone.”

Tara offers colorful commentary on why this displeases her.

Lafayette, apparently the only sane person in the room, having read the books and all, shoos everybody out, leaving our two former lovers alone.

Bill: “I never meant to hurt you. I couldn’t stop myself.”

Sookie: “I don’t even know how to start forgiving you. Our relationship has been one long, bloody fight. It’s never gonna happen.”

Bill gets all mushy. He only desires a life for Sookie full of white picket fences, thousands of children, and clean linoleum, but “I cannot give it to you. I love you, Sookie Stackhouse.” The here come his blood tears as he pops the IV out of his arm and saunters away to see if the cafeteria is still open.

Sookie starts bawling, meaning she has used both of her best skills in this scene, screaming and crying, so she probably got paid extra.

Roll opening credits. Road kill and bald people.

Now we’re at Russell’s plantation house, in a foyer busy with people, while in the background we can hear the newly sham-married Queen Sophie of Whatever hollering at underlings about the condition of her personal chambers. Zoom in on Talbot and Russell, with Talbot absolutely livid about his husband marrying somebody else, especially a loud female. As we see Eric eavesdropping around the corner, Russell tries to soothe Talbot. They share a tender moment.

But the makeup sex is quickly put on hold when Russell utters “Oh, by the way, things might get a little complicated around here.” What with me having killed the Magister and all. My bad. But they won’t be able to trace it to me. Talbot cares very little about who traces what, but he’s not impressed with the potential for more spilled blood on his lace finery. He storms up the stairs to attend to the belligerent Sophie.

Eric takes this opportunity to step forward and address Russell: “There’s a were-bitch in your study.”

I often find myself saying this exact thing. Small world.

Russell strolls into said study, and discovers nasty, druggy Debbie who is displeased with the day’s activities. “They killed my Cooter!”

So many ways I could go with that, Debbie. So many.

She wants revenge and she wants it now. And she likes to use that graphic “C” word a lot. Russell and Eric then launch into a discussion concerning the merits of keeping a certain Miss Stackhouse alive. Debbie, sensing that she has lost the floor, wanders off in search of blood-based entertainment.

Russell: “Sookie could be my secret weapon.” Eric is not so sure that she can be trusted. Russell: “Well, can I trust YOU?” After all, you turned on your queen. (Oh, lighten up, Russ. Everybody turns on the queens sooner or later. This is what makes them bitter, although it does provide good material for their drag shows.)

Eric, wanting to ensure that he stays in Russell’s good graces until he can carry off his nefarious plot, offers fake platitudes. “I have been searching for you for 1,000 years… you are a true leader… Godric, my maker, was weak in the end.” Then Eric drops to the floor and kisses Russell’s ring. Russell smiles, because a man on his knees before him IS finer than being in Carolina in the morning.

Cut to Arlene and Terry in bed, with Terry crooning a song to the baby in her belly. Very sweet. Until Terry turns into Renee, Arlene’s Ex that killed people a few season ago. As Renee says creepy things, we get the impression that HE is the daddy of the baby that we know is not Terry’s. Then Arlene screams and wakes up. Damn those enchiladas before bed!

Switch to Bill’s house, where Jessica is hugging the just-returned Bill. But their reunion is cut short. Bill: “You must leave. I release you.” Jess: “What the hell does that mean?” I’m new, remember? Don’t know the rules yet. Then she stands firm. “I ain’t going anywhere. I drained somebody!” And I only did that because you haven’t been having class like you’re supposed to, butthead.

Bill: “I can’t protect you!” Jess: “I don’t wanna be alone anymore.” Then here come HER blood tears, meaning there was a big makeup budget for this episode. She cries a lot, quite believably, so Anna Paquin better watch her back if she wants to keep having the big emotional scenes in this series.

Then we’re at Sookie’s house, with her and Alcide sitting on the couch and chit-chatting like people aren’t dead across two states. She tells him she’s fine, he can go. Alcide: “I ain’t leaving you alone right now.” Deputy Acting Chief Andy walks in with Jason. Jason: “You need to press charges” against Bill. Sookie, taken aback: “It’s in his NATURE,” what he did. “Besides, it’s over between me and Bill.” He won’t come a courtin’ no more.

Then Sookie mind-reads Jason and Andy, and realizes there’s something going on between the two, and they’re worried that she’ll find out. Sookie: “I’ll find out WHAT?” More heated words are exchanged without any real explanations, and then Jason storms off into the night. No word if Andy ever leaves, especially if there was fresh pie in the kitchen.

Tara and Lafayette, somewhere, maybe his house. Laff: “You ever gonna tell me” what happened? Tara: “Some day.” Laff: “You got a death wish?” Tara: Until this Franklin thing went south, “I never realized how much I wanted to live.” Then Laff massages Tara’s feet, which means they tight again.

Over to Sam’s house, where Sam is sniffing the air because he’s got skillz. His nose leads him to the front door, where there’s a dog who transitions into Trashy Momma. He pulls her inside, and we learn that this is the big “departure scene” where she and Nasty Daddy are headed for the hills and leaving Tommy behind. Momma to Sam: “Take care of my boy.”

Almost touching. Then Momma asks Sam for money, because she IS trash after all, and when he shoves a wad of bills at her, she has the nerve to whine that it’s not enough. “That ain’t gonna get us far.” Sam is done. “Get out!” And she does. Whereupon Tommy bursts into tears. He’s gonna miss his abusive parents that made him turn into a dog and fight in sleazy betting venues. So sad.

Tara’s in a nice, non-gaudy bathroom, so it can’t be Laff’s place, taking a shower and all. She gets her some suds going and then decides to fondle her hoopty. Suddenly, Franklin rears up and plants one on her. Tara wakes up screaming, which seems to be a recurring theme in this episode.

Laff walks up to his house (at least I think it is), and before he can get in the door, his Momma suddenly appears and throws what looks like a statue of Buddha at him. She all crazy, natch, and has apparently escaped from the Cajun Clinic for Not-Right People where she had been staying and Laff met Jesus. She’s hollering something about having to protect Laff from… I don’t know, bad manufacturing runs of mascara.

Now we have Sookie sprawled out on some blanket in her yard, catching a few rays and crying. (Maybe she doesn’t know where her sunglasses are.) Tara sprawls beside her, and they converse. Sook: “This is nice. My whole life is at night now.” Tara: “You goin’ back to him?!?” Sook: Naw. “But what we had was real.” Tara: “Bill is cold and crazy!” Then Tara leaps to her feet and stomps away.

And runs into Alcide. When she spies the way Alcide gazes up at Sookie, Tara encourages him to go forth and conquer. To make the conquest even more appealing, Sookie does a half sit-up and pushes her breasts forward in anticipation.

We see Jason digging into a trunk and dragging out his weaponry and ammo from his stint at the Fellowship of the Sun days, with military music playing on the soundtrack in case in wasn’t clear that Jason is going postally obsessive about his situation. Somebody bangs on the front door. It’s Crystal. She’s dripping wet, somebody socked her in the eye, and she needs Jason’s truck. “I swam so there’d be no scent.” (What the hell?) Jason: You ain’t gettin’ my truck til you tell me what happened.

Over to Merlotte’s, where Tara has another Franklin flashback, causing her to drop a bottle of conveniently blood-colored liquor that splashes on her pretty shoes. We see Arlene interviewing a new potential waitress, who appears undeterred by the fact that lots of Merlotte’s servers end up dead. She needs the money. And if she dies, well, who cares about the bills at that point?

Jason and Crystal, with her explaining that her fiance Phil DID hit her, not because of Jason’s visit, but because she told him she ain’t gonna marry him. Jason’s eyes light up at this revelation. Jason: “Why do you make me feel this way? Like I’m home.” Awww. Then she gets rude-like and bellows that she needs to go home. Jason counterattacks with one of his deadly kisses, and she’s his for the plucking, despite a last-minute warning from her sweaty lips about her people. “You don’t know them.”

Back to Laff’s house, where Jesus has just showed up. Jesus, apologetic about Laff’s mom jumping the fence and running for glory: “It won’t happen again.” Laff invites him in, then there’s a bit of a quibble when Jesus correctly guesses that Laff didn’t call the police about Momma because Laff didn’t want the police sniffing out his illegal goody stash. Bitterness rears its head.

Well, we know these two are really meant to be together, so Crazy Momma (Regine, by the way) races out of the kitchen brandishing a large knife in an odd manner that indicates perhaps she has never actually prepared a meal. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, I gotta protect Lafayette!” From whatever it is. Jesus assures her: “I’m not gonna let anything happen to him.”

Cut to Russell’s house, where we see Sookie’s cousin Hadley as she departs from Queen Sophie’s room after presumably providing some type of service. Eric suddenly grabs her and breathily informs Hadley that she must deliver an exact message to Sookie. Or she might have to, you know, die and stuff.

Back to Sookie and Alcide on the front porch of her house, catching a nice breeze before they pickle something. He gets a call. Apparently Slutty Debbie is up to no good, having burned down a beauty parlor or something. Alcide: “I gotta go, but come with.” Sookie: I’m not runnin’ anymore. Alcide: “I ain’t leaving you alone. (You already said that, Alcide. You really need to chat with the writers.) Sookie: Don’t worry. “Bill will come” if I need him.

Then they stand on the porch steps and gaze at one another in subtle lust. She hugs him, which only inspires more lingering of eyes in breasty-like places and some heavy breathing. I’m thinking Sookie needs to fan herself and suck down a cool mint julep or two.

Over to Merlotte’s, where Sam tells Tommy to keep an eye on Tara. Tommy apparently misunderstands this directive, and decides to attack Hoyt when he comes in. “Jessica is too good for you!” Hoyt is understandably perplexed, but as Tommy continues to threaten (“I’m a Merlotte and I don’t want you in here!”) Hoyt rises to the challenge and counters back, thinking he can easily take the comparatively diminutive Tommy, not realizing that Tommy knows his way around a pit bull dog bowl.

Sam marches out and drags Tommy off to his office. “You don’t have to fight all the time! Get some goals in your life!” Tommy is unrepentant. “You don’t know me at all!” Well, I don’t know you either, butt munch, but drop the attitude. This isn’t “Dynasty”.

Shots of Jessica and Bill at his house, as he trains her in the art of moving really fast. They take a break. Jessica: “Why aren’t you with Sookie?” Bill: “It’s over.” Jessica: “But you love her!” Bill: “Which is why I have to let her go.” Jessica: “I love Hoyt, but he deserves better.” Then they go back to running up walls and throwing each other through chimneys.

Cut to Sookie sitting somewhere in her house, perusing her “Bill loves Sookie” scrapbook with pictures and high-school scribbling. (Um, just WHEN did she have time to make this volume?) Then she has flashbacks to Bill, rudely treating her like an hors d’oeuvres in the back of the fleeing van. She slams the book shut and tosses it aside, much to the chagrin of some prop person who probably spent three weeks putting the damn thing together.

Sookie hears odd noises outside the house, so she instantly grabs her trusty shotgun, because you get used to doing such in a town where so many people eat each other. Turns out it’s just cousin Hadley, dropping by for an example of why you really need to keep in touch with your relatives, or at least read the series of books that your family has inspired. “Is Gran here?”

They proceed to the dining room and catch up a bit (“Did you hear that Uncle Blowforth’s cow Daisy had a two headed calf? Looks just like Aunt Petulia before she started taking those meds.”), then Hadley gets to the real reason for her visit. “I have a message for you, from Eric. Russell is coming for you. And oh, don’t trust Bill.”

Sookie, also guilty of lackluster tab-keeping on relatives: “How are YOU involved in all of this?”

Hadley: “Gotta go!”

Sookie: “If Russell wants to find me, he’s going to find me.”

Then Hadley dashes off into the night, with Sookie trying to read her thoughts but only getting enough to know that Hadley told Eric SOMETHING very important, but it’s not clear what. Sookie shuts the door and then goes to work on a nice Sudoku puzzle whilst staring at the ugly wallpaper that Gran insisted on keeping for 130 years.

Zip over to Russell’s manor, where he and Talbot are fighting once again, something about neglect and boredom. Talbot decides to rip open the pretty display cabinets and start smashing priceless artifacts, because he’s all about being the center of attention, destructive or not. Eric stops Talbot just before he hurls the sacred Viking helmet against an exquisite fabric-covered wall. Eric to Talbot: “I’ll keep you company.”

Oh?

Crystal and Jason, lying about post-coital and languidly stroking each other’s sweat-drenched skin. Crystal: “What am I gonna do now?” (Um, check for STD’s, because Jason bangs multiple gongs like nobody’s business.) Jason: “We’re together now.” Crystal: “I almost believe you.” Then her stomach growls, because THAT’S sexy. “I’ll go get us something to eat.” She hops in the shower, while he grabs a gun and heads out the door. Apparently getting a Breakfast Muffin at the Jack in the Box in this town requires firepower.

Merlotte’s again, with Tommy gazing in lust at some blondie sitting in a booth. Nearby, Sam sniffs the air and smells trouble. In walk two rednecks, who just happen to be Crystal’s daddy and her ex-beau Phil. They know she’s here. “Her truck is outside.” Sam doesn’t care. “You ain’t welcome here.” They beg to differ, with Phil spitting on the floor. Tommy runs up and tries to brawl, but Sam knocks him to the side with minimal effort. Finally, the asshats leave. Tommy to Sam: “You smell that?”

Well, no, I don’t have a handy scratch-and-sniff card, but I’m assuming you aren’t getting a whiff of the latest green tea and citrus candle from Pier 1.

Lafayette and Jesus, at Laff’s house. Jesus has just talked to the mental hospital, and arranged for Regine to stay the night. That done, Jesus says to Laff: “Your momma said you were powerful. It’s true, you know.” Laff: Naw. Jesus: “Dealing drugs is very dangerous for someone like you.” (By someone like Laff, do you mean someone who wants to stay out of jail? Exactly what do you know, Jesus? And yes, I asked that knowing full well that the responses could be many and varied.)

Laff: “Trying to stop dealing is hard.” This inspires Jesus to kiss Laff. Aww, part 2.

Talbot and Eric are playing chess. When Eric wins, Talbot, because he’s such a good sport, sweeps the pieces to the floor. “I’m bored. Take off your clothes.” Eric: A little privacy? Talbot to the milling servants: “Everybody out.” Then Eric begins to undress, and DVR’s across the nation are immediately put on slo-mo. Eric: “It’s been a long time.” Talbot: “Since you’ve been with a man?” Eric: “No. Since I’ve been with a vampire.”

Well, then.

Jason, toting a shotgun, marches into the environs of what I think is that meth lab where he first spied Crystal before they played slap and tickle by the moonlit lake. Whilst continuously hollering “Anybody here?”, he tromps through the decadent surroundings as we hear flies buzzing and see smears of blood on the dusty floors. Eventually Jason encounters a naked man feasting on something that is probably not on a vegetarian menu. Jason runs.

Only to come across Crystal’s daddy driving up in a pickup, because that’s all that anybody drives around here, except for Sookie with that ugly yellow car she used to have. Jason to Daddy, waving the shotgun about menacingly: “You’re gonna leave Crystal alone or the whole police department will come after you! Do ya feel me?” Then Jason drives off in a whirl of incestuous and backwoods dust. Daddy grins in a manner that indicates he’s not impressed with former football captains seeking trespass with his offsping. “I feel ya, boy.”

Sookie is standing at one of the many windows in her house, just wanting to bathe in some moonlight rays, when she hears howling approaching her dwelling. Werewolves have come a calling. Then we see Angry AND Slutty Debbie kicking in the front door as two wolves accompany her destructive tendencies. Debbie races inside, eyes flashing with vengeance and considerable madness.

Interestingly enough, Bill darts out of the darkness and takes on one of the wolves. Then Jessica, smiling brightly, takes on the other. Robust fight scenes ensue. We see Debbie rushing up the stairs and ungraciously pounding on Sookie’s bedroom door. She kicks it in, and encounters Sookie with her beloved shotgun. Despite Debbie’s unappreciative and dark mutterings, Sookie tries to help Debbie understand that people still love her. She can find redemption despite multiple couplings with underworld beings.

Debbie, simple and easily confused addict that she is, decides to ignore the Hallmark moment and jump upon Sookie. We have a full-on slapfest as they tussle about the room, destroying exquisite furniture that would make a bundle on the “Antiques Road Show”.

Meanwhile, Jessica chases her errant wolf out the front door, and is immediately captured by Russell, who has apparently caught the vampire red-eye flight from Mississippi. Bill wanders out onto the porch to survey this latest development. Russell to Bill: “I’ll trade this redhead for your blonde.” Bill: “No.” To show his dissatisfaction with this response, Russell bites into Jessica’s neck. She screams appropriately. Bill to Russell: “Are you a coward, or are you just lazy?”

I quite enjoyed that line. Kudos to somebody on the writing team.

Enraged, Russell tackles Bill and then stomps on his face with a silver spur. So much for southern charm.

Back to Sookie and Debbie upstairs, where we have a major knock-down, hair-pulling rumpus going on. This goes on for quite some time, and I’m fully expecting a WWF referee to jump into the ring and stop the goings on for legal reasons. Just as Debbie seems to be triumphing by repeatedly slamming Sookie’s head to the floor, industrious Sookie grabs a nearby pair of scissors and lacerates misguided Debbie and her drug-addled body. As Debbie moans in displeasure, Sookie locates her trusty shotgun.

Another shot of more-powerful Russell kicking the pudding out of Bill.

We zip back to Russell’s plantation, where Eric and Talbot are completely naked, rolling about in front of a fire. Eric maneuvers Talbot into a position where he can breach enemy lines, so to speak, and Talbot swoons in ecstasy. Eric calmly grabs an intricately-carved wooden stake, and utters vengeful words as he takes both Talbot’s love flower and life from behind. Sprays of blood fill the air, and the linen in the room will never be the same.

Over in Louisiana, Russell hears Talbot’s screams and immediately flies into the air.

Upstairs, Sookie finally chases that horrid Debbie off. We see Debs turn into a misleadingly snow-white wolf who darts into the night.

Bill tramps up to Sookie’s room, and they rush into each other’s arms, each of them proclaiming “I’m sorry!” at least 46 times. (We get it, people.) Then they embrace each other in the passionate delirium of a love that will never end. The music, among other things, swells.

We see Hoyt driving his truck around the bend of a country road, then the camera pans to Jessica just off to the side of said road, making an impromptu meal out of the werewolf she has managed to capture after Russell tossed her to the side and focused on using his footwear against Bill.

Final shot is of Sookie and Bill, REALLY going at it in a startlingly rutting manner, with appendages bouncing and sweat flying. I guess all is forgiven when you successfully fight off werewolf attacks and survive distracted Vampire Kings called away on urgent business.

Roll end credits.