Sookie pushes Warlow back around the room with her vampire
killing ball of light (will that even work on a light immune vampire fae
hybrid) while Warlow hurriedly backpeddles and tries to explain. Seems Sookie
isn’t snack food, she’s an arranged bride and he loves her! Uh-huh, of course
this is the man who killed her parents which, frankly, really sucks as a
wedding gift; I’m sure Ms. Manners disapproves of murdering the bride’s
parents, even if your in-laws are really really annoying.
At Chez Billith Jessica is distraught over slaughtering
the faerie kids who tasted so good – she turns for Bill to comfort – and then
starts kissing him and not in a father daughter way. It’s a testament to how
well these two have maintained their father daughter dynamic over the seasons
that I am well and truly ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwed by this. Turns out she’s high (I don’t
know what drugs Bill has been taking that makes him want to make out with his
parents because that’s not a usual symptom of being high) on faerie blood
Warlow’s defence to massacring the in-laws is that he
interrupted them trying to kill Sookie. Sookie smacks him with her sunlight
ball, not buying his excuse. It’s apparently a really painful sunlight ball –
and Billith feels it and has flashbacks of sunlight and burning. Warlow heals
his injury which doesn’t impress Sookie since she’s been bandaging his injuries
and just sees more lies (and wasted gauze! That’s not cheap Warlow). She rants
away at Warlow and Billith comes to join them. She starts to rant to him but he’s
there for Warlow.
Warlow threatens to kill Billith but Billith tells him he
already did (you didn’t make it stick, Warlow) and Billith commands Warlow, as
his maker, to come with him – and it works.
Ok I should have seen that coming but totally didn’t.
Leaving the older-than-god-more-powerful-than-anything
vampires to work out their issues, we join Andy who goes to Bill’s house, gun
ready, looking for his daughters – and finds their bodies. He starts to hunt
for Bill (hearing the hiding Jessica) but then hears one of his daughters choke
– she’s still alive. He carries her out of the house to get help. At the police
station he feeds her vampire blood from the evidence room to heal her
Next characters – Tara zooms up to Eric to tell him that
the vampire hunting police have Pam. (Meaning Tara has more sense than everyone
on this show and didn’t just charge in but went for help). So what are they
going to do? Apparently show their fangs and surrender to the same police…
uh-huh. Meanwhile Pam is being taken to the camp where vampires are being
experimented on in many weird, cruel and just plain strange ways.
And at Governor Truman’s, Sara Newlin tries to convince
the governor that Willa is dead and gone and decides to do this by suggesting
she and he have a baby. Uh-huh, Truman isn’t on board with the write one child
off and replace her with another one plan. Truman handles her suggestion with
considerably more restraint and class than I would “oh hey your daughter’s as
good as dead! Marry me and we can make another!” I would say Sara has awful
timing but I really don’t see when this argument would ever be ok. She has a
full blown tantrum because “when a woman comes to you in black lingerie, you
unwrap her”. That may possibly be the line of the night.
Back to the secret Billith lair where Warlow is trying to
deny the whole Billith, prophet of Lillith, thing and we have a flashback to 3,500
BC where people can’t decide between wearing ancient classical togas or Neanderthal
style furs. At night while collecting water, Warlow is approached by Lillith,
pulled in by his faerie smell. They have very brief sex, she tastes his blood and
she declares him the future saviour of vampire-kind – then bites him, shifting
to Bill
To the present and Warlow is apparently not happy being a
vampire, as Billith draws his blood.
Time for some random pointless side characters – Jason
arrives home to find Sara Newlin on his doorstep looking to save his soul.
Jason tries to polite about her rambling, but she wants the holyn experience of
sleeping with someone as hot as Jason. They then have a holy experience (though
I’m pretty sure they’re not lined up right)
At the Unfriendly Possum…. Oh gods, I don’t know if that
is the worst or best name for a bar ever. Great it’s the werewolves – most pointless
storyline of all. Alcide is trying to find Sam since he scented nearby and gets
told “this ain’t no f@g bar”. Because Jason and Sara making a few gay jokes weren’t
sufficient for this episode. And we’re joined by Aclide’s dad because he’s so
totally necessary to the story right now.
That’s it for the wolfies, back to Jason… hmmm… let’s linger a bit on that scene. Ok onwards – Jessica wakes him up banging on the door with all her angst and grief and guilt and bringing lots of complex questions about whether he loved her and why. They have a touching moment before Jessica goes off on a “I’m evil, serving the devil” moment – which is the worst possible time for Susan to wake up.
On the plus side, Susan resents being called Steve Newlin’s
ex-wife because she’s her own person – which is an awesome line. Of course, she’s
also 8 kinds of judgemental nastiness and after calling Jessica a Demon-Whore,
Jessica attacks and Sara rescinds her invitation. How does that work, it’s not
her house!? Outside Jessica runs straight into a group of the anti-vampire
police and Sara stomps out afterwards, claiming Jason defiled her.
In the camp, Eric takes part in a couple of experiments,
showing how sadistic the camp is (what is Eric’s plan again?) and quickly
establishes himself as top dog looking for Pam. Pam’s being interviewed by a
man with an incredibly soothing voice playing psychiatrist. Pam has extra
horror that she’s in therapy – will the evils of this place never end?! She is
there for them to study how vampire think; with living donors as rewards for
vampires who co-operate. An attractive
female donor. That motivates Pam to answer his questions especially on how
little she values human life, his specifically, she gets to eat as a reward for
her brutally honest answer
Back to Sookie who has gone to Merlotte’s (Lafayette line
of the night “what are you doing here, I know it’s not to work” Oh glad Sookie’s
complete lack of going to work is noticed). And why is she there? Because it’s
time for Lafayette to play agony aunt Sookie’s not sure if she can believe
Warlow or not (Lafayette doesn’t buy it) and how she needs to know the truth –
and Lafayette’s help.
Was that too long on the story – to Terry, a character I
care about only marginally more than Alcide. It seems Terry is feeling bad
about the whole killing his murderous friend to escape vengeance by Ifrit after
their unpunished murder of innocent Iraqis (I was Team Ifrit); he wants his
friend, Justin, to kill him because he can’t handle all the guilt. Rather
bemusingly, Justin agrees.
At the Bellefleur house, Holly comforts Andy over the
death of 3 of his daughters – the survivor tells him it was Jessica which Holly
finds surprising, thinking it could be an accident. Andy plans to charge in in
revenge but Holly brings in a lot of sense warning him it’s suicidal. She calls
of the search party and says she’ll tell people they went home to their mother
(ok I can understand not going off half-cocked for revenge but just covering it
up entirely seems odd? But then, how could they legally report them deaths of
Andy’s daughters?) It’s tragic and really well done – Andy pulls out a lot of
emotion.
We have a brief stop in with Sam and Nicole to basically
remind us they exist before joining Jessica and Tara in vampire prison; Jessica
still kind of zoinked from the faerie blood and believing in devil and
judgement while Tara tries to comfort her. Jessica is full on drowning in
guilt.
Pam is still in the therapist’s chair discussing vampires’
general lack of fellow feeling or willingness to form bonds, except with Makers
– and trying to hide her own feelings with regard her own Maker. And she comes
out with an awesome line – humans hold onto pain, promise to remember and love
each other forever because humans don’t live long enough for it to matter. When
a vampire says forever, they have to mean it – so they heal, deal and move on
as pain is a worthless emotion. So she’s totally over her Maker now (yeah right
– but her previous point was really good). Elsewhere in vampire prison, Tara
protects Jessica from a crowd of hungry vampires when she rejects her blood
ration – and what seems to be the oldest vampire in the women’s prison notices
them and backs everyone else down. And Willa gets VIP treatment with a private
room – but still gets guards that talk about her giving him sexual favours.
And Jason’s plan to get Jessica out? Seems to be to join the anti-vampire forces. Jason undercover, uh-huh.
Back to Sookie who has recruited Lafayette for a séance to
summon the ghosts of her parents, after a little drama, Sookie touches
Lafayette’s hand to read his mind to see what he sees. She sees Warlow telling
her parents that Sookie is fae, that he wants to make her a faerie princess, he
has a contract and, oh yes, vampires are real and he is one. Fast forward and
while he mum is focusing on the “yay my daughter can live forever!” part, her
dad is fixated on “evil unholy monster! Need to kill her now!” Sookie learns
the truth and isn’t best pleased – nor is daddy Stackhouse who possesses
Lafayette to protest how he does love her and slam around declaring he’s her
daddy – because of which he kidnaps her and puts her in the boot of his car. He
takes her to a body of water – and starts to drown her.
Back at Billith’s lab, Warlow is threatening to kill
Takehashi and has several millennia of pent up issues to lay at Lillith’s feet –
including the massacre of his village when he was changed (flashback time to
distant past in odd fur and half naked land when a 4 year old vampire/fae
Warlow returns home to a whole village of tasty tasty faeries. Nom nom snack
time and you can never stop at one. Child Niall hides and is spared). In the
present Warlow isn’t exactly invested in saving the vampire race, he’d actually
quite like the vampire race to die horribly. We see another flashback to where
Warlow went to where Lillith was sheltering from the sun in a cave and burned
through the roof with his sunbeam, exposing her to burny burny sunlight.
Back at the camp, Sara takes Truman to a room with Pam’s
psychologist and, for some bizarre reason, Steve Newlin (who never appears now
without someone referring to him as the “gay vampire”) to see Eric in a sealed
room where the governor vents his spleen and tells Eric he’s interned his
daughter – much to Eric’s surprise. Then
they give him a stake so he can fight… Pam, with her own stake.
In case the title of the episode wasn’t a giveaway, the
writers have looked at season 6 and realised there’s not nearly enough naked
people or humping for HBO – so have crammed it all in this episode.
That flashback seemed to be pretty awful as far as
flashbacks go. Where was it supposed to be? Europe since the fae are present?
The Levant and Mesopotamia where we would expect Lillith? Who were all these
pale, blond people? Why do we have people wandering around in untanned fur and
others running around shirtless with skirts and others in what looked like a
toga? It all seemed very… random. Should we just put all this down to “random
fae” since they appear to be a faerie tribe anyway?
True Blood has had far too few Asian characters to have
what little inclusion they have be a quasi-prostitute for Pam.
Sam must have past the baton “I’ve finished using
Lafayette, next person get in line!” It’s now Sookie’s turn. When was the last
time Sookie gave a damn about anything that happened in Lafayette’s life again?
At the same time Tara supports and protects the (admittedly not much) older and
more experienced Jessica in vamp prison.
Willa’s guard shows sexual abuse in the prison – and it’s
grossly unnecessary. Is it supposed to show how prisons are places full of
abuse? Because if so it fails because this prison is already designed to be
abusive in a way that our prisons are not, the parallels fail. And while guards
may want to sexually abuse the prisoners and may not have beliefs that stop
them wanting to have sex with vampires, the mere fact a baby vamp is a
gazillion times stronger and has fangs should be more than enough to discourage
having a vampire lick his balls. It’s just gratuitous.
An interesting point was raised about Sookie’s power –
all her life she has always known if someone was telling the truth or not,
until she met vampires, who then lied to her again and again. It begs to be
developed – can Sookie even read body language or facial expressions very well
when she has never had to? When both can lie and she can see the truth? In some
ways she’s the least able to deal with vampires because she has lost something
she relies on so much to tell whether the people she’s dealing with can be
trusted. If they developed it, it could go a long way to addressing Sookie’s
naivety.
What is Eric’s plan anyway? Or does he have any plans? He’s
lived for a thousand years – he’s never seen a parent reject their child who
doesn’t fit their ideal? Did he really think that would be sufficient? And his
plan to rescue Pam is to get captured and… what? Hope his 1,000 year old self
is powerful enough to get him out? What is Eric actually doing? Is this a
devious plan or is it the flailing of one who has been in control and in power
for centuries and is now completely lost?
