Okay, so the cops naturally assume Jason killed Dawn, and take him in. Of course, it's only after he's handcuffed in the back of Andy's car that he realizes he has an entire vial of V in his pocket, so he panics, drinks the whole thing, and leaves the empty vial stuffed between the car cushions. Meanwhile, Bon Temps takes the second murder this week as a reason to throw a barbecue, which is so realistic it's sick. While in custody, Jason's dick goes crazy and he locks himself in the bathroom to have ten thousand life-threateningly intense orgasms. Eventually Tara arrives, terrorizes Bud and Andy with jurisprudence knowledge you could glean from any random episode of Law & Order, and lies that she was with Jason -- not Sam -- last night.
Hours later, Jason's managed to rub his hands blistered; his dick is now approaching the appearance of, we're told, an eggplant; and we've taken a grand step forward in the sexual dissociation that would seem to be Jason's entire life. (At one point he actually weeps and apologizes to it like Gollum, calling it "Darlin." This is what I'm saying.) Tara finds him in the cooler at Merlotte's applying steaks to himself and takes him to the ER, where horrible things happen that we don't need to talk about. Tara remembers the day she fell for Jason: they were both in their tweens, and he saved her from Momma in an adorable fashion. Oh, and I think I know who the killer is.
Realizing things in Bon Temps are reaching a fever pitch, w/r/t serial killings, witch hunts, and general neurosis and racism, Gran realizes it's only a matter of time before the pitchfork swings back around at Jason, and tells Sookie to use her psychic abilities to get him off the hook. Learning that both Maudette and Dawn frequented the vampire bar in Shreveport, she asks Bill to accompany her there, specifying that it is not a date. Bill spends (almost) the entire episode being completely and utterly adorable. At the wildly dorky but self-aware Fangtasia, which is identical to a cheesy gothy tourist bar in the French Quarter but with vampires in addition to the hordes of deeply lame sexually confused and ambiguous, Sookie makes the acquaintance of Eric and Pam. Pam is like Kylie + Botox - Feelings + Dominatrix Gear = Awesome, and Eric is ... well, he's like the Serena to Bill's Blair Waldorf: dreeeeeeamy, effortlessly magnetic, powerful, beloved, and hilariously fun-loving and, most importantly: in charge. A random police raid sends all four of them into the night, and then on the way back home Bill listens to shitty (and eponymous) Cambodian pop, then glamours the shit out of a good ole boy cop, freaking the shit out of Sookie all the way back to square one.
What else. Oh, the nine feet of cornfed sex that is Hoyt Fortenberry finally gets some dialogue, delivering it so sweetly that he earns a kiss from Sookie; we see a bit of Arlene's nastier side and her home life with the put-upon Rene; Tara is a badass the whole time as usual; and everybody involved in the crime scene is fucking creepier than a Wegman Weimaraner. The pitchfork of blame points at everybody, basically, but ends up pointing -- as insistently as Jason's giant cock -- at one Sam Merlotte, owner of gloves, possessor of total cuteness, yipper of sleep... And landlord/likely murderer of Dawn. In whose bed we end the episode with Sam, as he goes from sniffing the sheets like a lissome but unsettling perv ... to rolling around in them like a werecollie in shit.
To reiterate: White people? All kinds of fucked up.
Sookie's still screaming, the alarm in Dawn's apartment is still going off. She calls for help, but there's no help coming. She approaches, slowly, and looks down at Dawn. "Sweetie, what did you get yourself into?" The question of the day. They'll keep asking, and every time they ask they'll really be asking Sookie, "What are you getting yourself into?" Nobody louder than Sookie herself. She pulls the sheet over Dawn's throat, on the bite marks there. Marked, as in branded; marked, as in special. Like a freckle or a mole.
Jason enters behind her, dropping a vase full of flowers in shock. Sookie runs to her brother, into his arms, sobbing. "It's okay," he says, staring at Dawn's face; Sookie slaps him across the chest: "Like hell it is! Look at her. She is definitely not okay." Jason points out that abusing him isn't going to help either, and Miss Lefebvre, the creepy neighbor, answers Sookie's scream. She gasps, and walks across broken glass. Jason holds a bouquet of flowers: the lost language, to say that he's sorry for scaring her, for pointing the finger, for seeing his own darkness and his curiosity in her. For his jealousy.
Miss Lefebvre immediately asks what Jason did, how it happened, and Sookie shakes her head, saying he just got there, but Miss Lefebvre knows better. "I saw you last night. I heard you all fighting, then she took a shot at you, and you ran off. And now she's dead?" Sookie's stunned. Jason admits that they fought, but he came back to apologize for pushing her to it. Sookie's confused -- she takes a shot at you and you're the one apologizing? -- but the explanation is too confusing, too open, too honest. He can't speak a word. He came with flowers and a vial of V: she was angry, wasn't she, because he couldn't get it up? That was his apology: flowers and the only thing he's got.
Miss Lefebvre runs off to call the cops, and Jason throws the flowers, pissed. "Then call 'em! I had nothing to do with this." It follows him like a scent, it marks him. Sookie stares after him; he sits on Dawn's porch silently, staring at the world.
Bon Temps gathers outside Dawn's home, staring at the closed door, from a safe distance, fascinated and terrified. Hoyt Fortenberry can't understand how something so beautiful could die like that, in the night, with the world all around. Arlene offers the suggestion that perhaps it was Dawn's time to go, but Rene knows better. "Ahh, she was only 23 years old. Ain't no 23-year-old in the world whose time has come." Hoyt's mother Maxine comes running up with a fan and a golf visor, playing Southern Lady. Like a vampire's black coffin, like a fangbanger's collar. Hoyt tells her Dawn's dead, but that's not what she wanted to know. There's nothing sensational about what already happened, when something's happening right now.
"Who they got in there?" Arlene explains about how Sookie found the body, but they're saying Jason was the one that done her in. Hoyt knows better, but nobody knows who did: "Probably the same person that killed Maudette." Rene points out that Bon Temps is too small for girls to be dropping dead like this, and hopes aloud that they "fry the fuck." Arlene gasps and he apologizes to Maxine, who responds in the scariest possible way: "No need to apologize. We're all excited." Rene shrugs, because that's not really the word. "To be a fly on the wall in that apartment right now," Maxine breathes, shaking with joy.
A fly settles on Dawn's lips; Jason is slumped on the couch in the background as Sherriff Bud tries to walk Sookie through it: was the door open or closed? Open. He writes down that the killer, then, must have had the keys.
(Pisses me off, the way she calls me "Andy." Everyone calls Bud "Sheriff," why can't they call me "detective," goddamn it? When am I gonna get some respect around here?)
Mike the coroner covers the body, smiling down creepily. (Would you look at that? A fine pair of perfect, natural breasts. I'd have laid down money that they were fake. Well done, God... And then, not so well done, letting her die like you did.)
It's Jason who's thinking the loudest. (Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck am I gonna do? I already got out of this once, no way they're gonna let me walk again. And I'm too damned pretty to go to prison...)
Bud calls Sookie back to herself, and she shuts it down. What was the question? "Is that the exact position you found her in?" Sookie admits that she pulled the sheet up a bit, although she didn't touch the body, and a little of that Sookie fire comes back when Bud complains about that. "time I find a friend dead, I'll try to remember that."
Arlene stands outside the home of a dead woman, a broken dead woman, and complains about the summer heat. Maxine nods, fanning herself, grotesque. "I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof! That's from a play." Hoyt laughs quietly at his mother; Rene heads inside for a beer. Arlene tells him to bring also a bucket of ice, those "nice" plastic cups they got last week, and some doilies. Rene points out that the doily obsession is getting out of control: "Doilies are to protect the table. We outside." Arlene's voice gets hard as she suggests people might want to rest their cups on the car or something, and tells him to shut up and do it. "If all our conversations end with them saying 'Fine', why do they bother putting up a fight?" Maxine laughs. When you're powerless this is what power looks like.
Inside, Miss Lefebvre can't bring herself to say the words Jason used in his fight last night with Dawn. Andy Bellefleur writes it down (BITCH -> GUNSHOT) and lets her go; she kindly calls him "Andy" as she goes, and he winces angrily. When you feel powerless, sometimes you need to express your power in other ways. If people don't recognize you as a detective, if they don't give you the respect you deserve, you have the option of taking it out one someone smaller, or weaker, or younger. When you're a policeman, for example, that includes everybody.
Well, almost everybody. We'll get there. But for the most part the police, the senator, the detective, the sheriff: they're the kings of this world. Ignore that at your peril, because they're the ones with the guns. And if they feel like, say, putting some cuffs on Jason Stackhouse and smashing his head against their car, then throwing him in the back seat onto his face, and slamming the door shut on him on a hot summer day... He puts on his shades; he can't even hear you know, asking for air conditioning. It's petulant and it's petty, but it's also a reestablishment of the rules of the world as he understands them. All you had to do was call him "Detective," but there's no way anybody could know that. Andy Bellefleur is a quiet, angry mystery. And he has all the power.
Jason leans back, uttering profanities in his irritation, but they immediately turn back to fear: the vial of V in his pocket. "Oh, fuck." He pulls out the vial and stares at it, looks around for a moment, and downs the whole thing. Oh man. He makes a nasty face, and shoves the vial deep between the car seats as Andy gets in and tells him to shut up before he can even rev up his whining. Sam drives up in his truck as they're leaving; Maxine smears Hoyt with sunblock ("Your skin's whiter than Desitin!") and he threatens to move out. She doesn't seem worried. At this point it seems clear that Hoyt is either going to die or go even crazier than Jason.
"Came as soon as I heard," Sam says, sitting to Sookie on the porch. "I'm sorry you had to be the one to find her." Sookie allows as how somebody had to be the one. "I tell you, Sook, sometimes I don't even recognize this world we're living in. I mean, Goddamn it..." Sookie tells him to hush: "God didn't do this." He smiles and asks if he should shut down the bar, but she's not feeling it: why deny people a stiff drink on a day they need it? Besides, she says, she'd welcome the chance to work: "The last thing I need right now is time alone with my thoughts." Of course, he gives in, and she says she just has to stop home and tell Adele what happened. Not Dawn -- which everybody knows by now -- but Jason going back to jail for another dead girl. Another uniform arrives and asks Sam to let them into Dawn's storage unit. Apparently he's her landlord, and has a key.
Sam produces the key and kisses Sookie on the forehead; a boy's tentative voice asks her to let him by. It's Coroner Mike's new apprentice, Neil Jones from Kentucky. You never really see his face. He says hello, quietly, and Sookie watches Mike joke around as they load the body into their van. "Lift, kid. Come on, lift. You don't have to be too careful. Ain't gonna hurt her!" It's sad, but also scary; it's also very real. Death is one of those things big enough that you never really look at it. You talk around it; in its presence you feel ridiculous and numb and like a rubbernecker. But then at the same time the fear and horror express themselves in such strange ways: witch hunts to save the already dead. Seeing death in the face of a man just because he's dead. Looking for anybody to blame when death comes calling. The more inevitable something is, the more emotional we get.
Jason eats a little snack in the office with Bud and Andy, as Andy goes back over the story again. Jason says he's not going to change his story, and Andy half-heartedly tries to trick him into believing that his story's already changed. Jason gets a very stupid look on his face, because Jason is kind of stupid. "You're trying to trick me! It don't count if I get tricked. Does it?" Andy asks if it gets him off, killing girls and "sticking it" to them. Jason is not into that, exactly. "See, I think it does. I think it turns you on." Jason notes that actually it sounds like Andy's the one that's turned on by it, and Bud laughs. Andy shoots him a look and keeps going with this pointless interrogation.
"Tell me, is that how you do it? Kill 'em then fuck 'em? Or do you fuck 'em and then kill 'em? Or I know," he says, standing self-righteously, "You strangle 'em as you're fucking 'em!" Jason's erection chooses just this inopportune moment to answer the call. "Don't you, you sick fuck? How many other women you done this to besides Dawn and Maudette?" Jason covers his penis and makes a crazy face, begging to use the bathroom. He jumps up and runs, and eager to continue pushing at him, Andy tries to follow, but Bud Dearborn pulls him back. How long before you'd say something? Who watches the watchers? Who tells the kings of this world when they've gone too far?
Jason hobbles through the offices toward the bathroom, leans on the sink, stares down at his giant boner. The release of the pressure as he unzips his jeans is almost too much. Back in the office, Andy complains that Bud laughed at him; Bud says it's only funny because this is pointless. Jason stares down, and touches it, breathing hard. I mean to say that something dead has come to life again, blood pulsing through it, and it's hungry, and it doesn't care who it destroys to feed its hunger. Hot as a fever, hot as rain. It's hunger that sees no difference between pleasure and pain, not because they are connected but because they are both irrelevant: The thing Jason's always been afraid is coming true. In his pants.
"Bud, we got two dead girls and this dumbfuck admits to sleeping with both of 'em within hours before they were killed." But on the other hand, Bud points out, they also had vampire bites on them, and Jason's not a vampire. Not exactly. Jason comes for the first time and drops to the floor, screaming. He writhes, moaning, as Bud and Andy hotfoot it toward the bathroom door. Andy tries, and starts knocking and yelling; Jason tries desperately to clean himself off, moaning quietly to himself and trying to stall.
Tara parks right outside the police station, and comes looking for Jason immediately. "You charging him with anything? I assume he's been properly Mirandized?" Blank stares. "Tell me you informed him he has a right to have an attorney present." Andy giggles to himself that this is no longer a concern, now that she's arrived; Tara stares him down. "Is that funny because I'm a woman? Or because I'm a black woman?" Andy says it's funny for neither reason, but because she talks like a lawyer from television. "How do you know all this anyway?" asks Bud. "You been taking night classes?" Tara blows them off, and is awesome: "School is just for white people looking for other white people to read to them. I figured I'd save my money and read to myself."
Jason hobbles out and stares at Tara, who promises to get him out of there. Andy protests and tries to get strong, but Tara knows he's got nothing, and Bud agrees: without a charge they can't hold him. "He can't say where he was last night! At least he coulda done make some shit up!" Andy Bellefleur is gross. This isn't a game and it has nothing to do with your cock. Girls are dying and you're too full of random old-man sex jealousy creepiness and obsession to care. Jason whines that he was sleeping alone last night, which is true, and Andy screams, "You never sleep alone, Stackhouse, and you know it!" Um, that is all in your gross mind. Congratulations on being the only person on earth to think about Jason's cock more than Jason (and possibly Tara). Old straight white dudes are the worst! Your creepy old man dick is not important to anybody! It is not magical! It does not want to fight with anybody else's dick! You and your dick are obsolete! Concentrate on your own irrelevance and insecurity, and stay out of my pants!
God, nothing creeps me out more than that, when the whole virility envy/fear comes up in their wrinkly old eyes and they get those thin lips and start making judgments. Nothing. It's like looking at somebody with their skin inside-out so you can see their insides on the outside, crying for their stupid mama. Where does it come from, this magical thing with the dick where it's like a whole other person they simultaneously hate and fear and also it's all they can think about? And they expect you to ... play along with this weird dissociative behavior, and before you know it you're saying the stupidest things and trying to play along without laughing in their big dumb intensely-into-it faces. Where does that come from? It's like the cum on the face thing, it's so mysterious. I think Jason has something to teach us about all of this.
Tara, having seen this whole obsessive showdown a bajillion times because we all have, takes a quick left turn: "Guys, he was with me." Andy points out that Jason seems to have no recollection of said night of passion, and she explains that it was a secret. "People think just because we got vampires out in the open now, race isn't a issue no more. But you ever see the way folks look at mixed couples in this town? Race may not be the hot-button issue it once was, but it's still a button you can push on people." (And Dawn deserved what she got.) Tara tells them to get a Bible and she'll swear on it, then drags him out of there. "Jason and I were together last night, and it was a beautiful thing." Jason smiles and nods, still completely compromised by the problem in his pants. Bud lets them go, against Andy's wishes, and the last thing they see as he leaves the frame is him throwing a peace sign.
Sookie gets the usual speech from Gran about how Jason, while a terrible fool in many ways, would never murder multiple girls. However, what with the sudden uptick in murders, it's going to swing back around, and they'll come looking for him. So even though he didn't do it, Sookie needs to do whatever she can to clear his name. Not wanting to talk about her mark, Sookie asks how, and Adele sighs. "You use the gift God gave you. Listen in on people, keep your ears open. You're bound to hear something." Sookie begrudgingly remarks that it's nothing to do with her ears, and Gran gives her the big eye. "Whatever it is you use to listen, use it. He is your brother, Sookie." Sookie assents and Gran hugs her firmly, looking her in the eye to make sure she'll do it. "Good girl."
At Merlotte's, they're thinking up a storm. Mustache: (Whoever killed Dawn, I wonder if he had sex with her or not. Seems like a waste if he didn't. She sure was pretty. Never even looked at me...) She's listening, for once. All they think about is sex, sex, sex.
Old horny lady: (Can't get that letter in Cosmo out of my head. How much better could an orgasm with a vampire be? I wonder, is it that much better?)
Youthful redneck: (What the hell is this world coming to? Dead fucks, niggers and regular folk all livin' together. If God wanted it like this, he'd have made us look the same. It ain't good. Maybe these really are the end times...)
Old bitch: (Dunno what everybody's upset about, these whores had it coming. Hanging out in vampire bars... That ain't natural, and it ain't safe.)
An unhappy woman stares at Sookie: (You seem sad that girl is dead. I wonder if y'all were friends. And if you were, that means you're probably . Fucking fangbangers. Crazy, every last one of you. Just like those women who write love letters to serial killers...) Sookie can't handle it, the heat behind it, and takes off, leaving the woman asking aloud for her ranch dressing. Ugh. Ranch dressing is like a disease, or heterosexuality. I won't have it in the house, and I don't understand how people even thought of it.
Arlene orders two margaritas and bitches about how Dawn left them high and dry. Sookie is, of course, appalled, and points out that Dawn wasn't exactly working according to a plan when she got her ass murdered. "I know, but if she didn't spend her nights off at that vamp bar in Shreveport, she still would be." Sookie stares her down and tells her to be ashamed of herself. Arlene asks if there's not even a tiny part of Sookie that knows she was asking for it; Sookie steals her ranch dressing for the awful woman and takes off.
Tara rushes in, having taken Jason home, and her gigantic arm muscles bulge as she very deliberately ties her apron without looking at poor Sam. He says they should probably talk, about how they randomly had sex, but she tells him in no uncertain terms to forget it, and not because she's gaming him: "I'm gonna make it very, very easy. Nothing happened between us last night. And if anybody asks, you didn't see me at all, okay? I'm telling people I spent the night with Jason." Sam's shocked, and Tara tells him to keep quiet. Even Tara is kind of amazed by this latest weirdo thing she's done, but she won't take any guff from Sam about it: "There's more to Jason than meets than eye," she says, this close to hysteria. "Deep down he is a very good person!"
Jason does some very good masturbating and drinks a very good beer at home. Unsurprisingly, it's a threesome porno: two guys, one of them bald. Crazy-eyed. Jason groans and comes. There's nothing lovely about it, nothing fun: just compulsion. Sexual addiction is hilarious until you realize there's not really any sex in it. I don't think Jason's ever had sex in his life, not really. Just watched Jason fucking. His dick forgets ejaculating, and he almost cries, shouting desperately, "Go fucking down!" He wipes off, and starts up again. He's actually reached the end of the porno, a place no man has ever seen. His eyes roll back as the tape ends and the TV cuts to the news: "In Iraq today, ten US Marines were killed..." There's a huge blister on his thumb. There's no sex here, at the end of sex. "Ah, motherfucker..." He stares down at it, and begins to cry. "Oh, baby. My sweet, sweet baby."
One of the guys thinks fondly about how Dawn's ass used to hang out of her shorts. (Make you wanna slap it! Peaches and cream! A whole world of sex, all around: sex, sex, sex. There's not a lot of sex in it, once you take away all the parts of sex that we use to hurt other people.) His wife stares at Sookie and hopes her brother gets the chair.
Hoyt Fortenberry stares into his beer. (Crying shame is what it is. This place ain't gonna be the same without Dawn. She had the prettiest, nicest smile. Why was I so scared to talk to her? I'll never know what her voice sounded like. I bet it sounded like angels and parakeets. Mixed together.) Sookie stares at him, at the adorable nine feet of him, and says his name without thinking. He looks up shyly, and she thanks him with a kiss on the cheek. He's confused, but pleased. He deserves more of that.
Sookie sees her brother enter, and asks him straight out if he killed her. He's got a whole logic proof that is hilarious; it would be funnier if he weren't in such secret pain. "Jesus, Sook. Look: When Maudette died, I thought I might've done it. And it turned out I didn't. With Dawn, I don't even think I might've done it, so I know I didn't." If that makes sense, am I becoming dumb like Jason? She asks him to swear, and he starts getting offended. Sookie chills. "Sorry. Gran asked me to listen in on folks, see if I can't clear your name. And sometimes it's hard..." He knows they're about to have a talk, she's "revving up for a long one," and instead of listening to the burdens of the town retard psychic, he says they'll talk soon: he needs Lafayette.
"What the fuck, Lafayette?" The wizard chops easily, quietly, not liking his tone. "My problem is my dick. It's been hard since three o'clock! Something went wrong with that vamp blood you..." Lafayette cuts him dead. "-- Will you shut the fuck up? With your loud ass. And ain't nothing wrong with the shit I sold you." Jason is starting to wonder what it is, what magic has animated what was dead and brought it to such angry, hungry life. Lafayette gives him a sidelong grin; there is no desire in it. "How much you take?" Jason tells him, and Lafayette laughs, a rumbling angry laugh. "You a dizzy motherfucker. I said one drop, two max, and you took the whole thing?" Jason explains about panicking in the cop car, and asks for something to make it go away, but Sarah Palin's all the way in Alaska, making sure the Russians aren't up to anything.
"Ain't no antidote to V, boyfriend." He laughs, ignoring Jason as he takes one painful step at a time, resting his weight on the counters of the kitchen. "When my grandpa was alive, he had gout." Lafayette can tell he's revving up for a long one, and finally looks up at him. "...And he said just the weight of a sheet on his big toe was too much to bear. So help me God, that's exactly what this feels like." Lafayette counsels him to rub one out, thinks about getting the video camera, but Jason's rubbed out infinity. "Were you listening to me? I got gout! OF THE DICK!"
Tara turns and watches, as Bill enters Merlotte's. A hush falls over the crowd. Arlene darts an eye at busy Sookie and takes his table; he asks for O Negative and without even pausing she tells him all they have in is A Negative. Sookie hears his voice, and stares over. Arlene takes off with the order just as Bill's trying to ask her what's going on in the bar. Why all the people of Bon Temps need a good stiff drink tonight. At the bar, Tara tells her they have plenty of O and A Neg both, and Arlene makes it clear he can go fuck himself. "And don't microwave it neither. He can have it cold." Tara throws her hands up and says Arlene is bad, but really what Arlene is, is gross. The advantages we take, when we can, to be nasty. For the purposes of this transaction, waitress and customer, she's the king of this world. She can do whatever she wants. Won't bring Dawn back -- not that she cares -- and it won't make her feel better. Sookie, knowing she's just being a bitch, already knows that Bill prefers O Negative, and offers to take it out to him. "Good. He gives me the creeps," Arlene says. Which is pettiness that adds up to hate. It's not the raving lunatics that make a nation racist, it's the tiny little pieces of us all.
Sookie places the bottle on his table and takes his hand, leading him outside without even looking at his face. It's a cool moment. This is her world; she knows he's not sure of the rules. "You know my friend who works here? Dawn? Someone killed her last night." Bill's question, outside, is the wrong one: "How?" The rules are, if somebody's friend died, you say you're sorry. She explains this to him without a whole lot of attitude, and waits for him to say it. "You don't even have to mean it. Lord knows they don't most of the time." He is shy, he says he's sorry, and she thanks him. And then right back to the conversation: "Anyway, I'm the one who found her. Strangled. Cops think it was my brother." They discuss how, even in Bill's jaded "anyone is capable of anything" world, Jason Stackhouse is not capable of pulling off two murders, emotionally or intellectually. He can barely pull off breakfast.
"Apparently there's this vampire bar where Maudette and Dawn used to hang out at, in Shreveport." Bill's not loving this, but he acquiesces: "Fangtasia." Even Sookie understands how queer this is, but Bill explains that most vampires are very old, and thus think puns are funny. Which makes them seem less scary if you think about it that way, except they are more scary, because it's a lie. It's called Fangtasia because it's a stupid name, and stupid things are safe. If you convince yourself -- like Jason in bed, like Maudette getting tied up -- that you're just in a movie about your life, you're less worried about living through it.
Sookie's manner changes, as Bill is being easily fifty times more adorable than he has ever been. "Well, I was thinking if I went there I could do some sniffing around. You think maybe you could take me?" Bill's sexy and excited, and asks if they should go tonight. They agree to meet at her house so she can change and he can flirt with her grandmother. Sookie runs off to tell Sam, but quickly turns: "I'm asking you this as a friend, okay? This is not a date." He agrees, a bit too easily, and she reiterates the point. He agrees again, and she finally chuckles because he's being unbelievably cute for the first time ever. You don't have to read somebody's thoughts to know that they have a personality; apparently you just have to get through four episodes of a show about them. He watches her go, affectionate/creepy as ever. Inside, Sam's none too happy about the field trip, pointing out that "I'll be fine" is code for "I am about to have all of my blood drained and I'm walking into it willingly," as any horror movie fan knows.
Sookie points out that bloodthirst is not solely a fang trait: "People want to see my brother hang for a crime he didn't commit. Is that what you want?" She's horrified because after all she's been telling people he supports the VRA, and Sam says he's fine with vamps having bars, he just doesn't think people should go there. Sookie calls this "separate but equal," and he says to leave off the equal part: "We can give 'em more than we got. Just so long as everything's separate." He knows the line, between life and death. Everybody else keeps forgetting. Sookie tells him there's nothing she can do to stop her, he agrees because he's ever so much in love, and then suddenly he is alone, violently hot, and in possession of exactly one trashy waitress, of a usual three, on his busiest night of the year.
Later, after they've chatted with Adele and she's changed into an honestly ravishing dress that -- working on the "short skirts = tips" method she's perfected -- seems designed to show off as much hot artery action as possible. Also a large amount of boobs. She looks amazing. Finally she asks quiet Bill what he's thinking, and he reminds her that their whole literally undying love affair of creepiness and mutual culture clash is based on her loving the silence. "...You won't care for it," he adds, and finally admits she looks "like vampire bait." She laughs at him, but as usual he is All Business. "I promised your grandmother no harm would come to you at Fangtasia tonight. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to keep that promise with you dressed like this." Sookie's amazing here, blending her usual blunt sweetness with his continuing education: "So are you saying you think I look nice?" He's charmed, but for once ahead of the curve: "Doesn't matter what I think. This isn't a date, remember?" Smarty-pants Bill? Totally hot. Sookie's all OMG about it, even.
Tara bitches to herself, taking produce back into the freezer, and is startled by a strangled scream from Jason, telling her not to look at him. Look at what? Picture this: Jason Stackhouse on the floor of a meat locker, pants and undies down around his ankles, with a raw steak on his junk. At first I thought he was... It would be indelicate to say, although I guess that too would bring the swelling down. Tara's like, "The fuck?" and Jason's ashamed explanation is that he may have OD'd. Tara completely flips into her other personality and is like, "OMG what will we do, what was it, what did you put in your mouth" and he admits it was his first time with V... And in seconds has revealed his source: Lafayette. "My cousin is dealing vampire blood now? Goddamn idiot. Least that explains why I walked in on you dancing around in that Laura Bush mask yesterday. Because I gotta tell you, without a reason, that was some fucked up shit." He laughs and groans, but like, we knew the reason and it was still fucked up.
"All right, let me see it. How long have you had the erection?" Jason's flabbergasted that she's seen through his meat disguise, but she's like, um, "I read? You're not the first vain-ass, body-conscious ex-jock to overdo the V and wind up with an acute case of priapism... Now lift the ribeye, and let me see what we're dealing with." Tara jumps back a few feet but contains the squeal within. It's bad. "Sweetie, we gotta get you to a hospital now." He protests, out of fear and shame, but she tells him in no uncertain terms that it's a matter of life and dick. "Don't Fear The Reaper" plays us into the scene, as though to comfort Jason's little friend on its new adventure.
The song goes techno as Bill and Sookie join the line up to the door. There are gothtards, vampdorks, a hot pair of mixed-sex vamps a go-go. You know they're vamps because they dance so zoomy. It's like... That moment in college where you start wondering if everybody's maybe bisexual and what the world would look like if that were true, with a lot of black leather and makeup. It's sad like a goth club, and dorky like '80s Night, and scary like swingers are scary and desperate. What is it about bisexuality that it goes hand in hand with dog collars so often?
Bouncer Pam... Oh, Pam. I don't know how else to describe her beyond the whole Kylie + Botox thing, right now, but it's pretty intense. She's in a much crazier costume than anybody else, like a dominatrix with five cats at home. She snarkily congratulates Bill on his "mainstreaming" and gestures toward Sookie: "Who's the doll?" Sookie holds out her hand as Bill introduces them, but this earns a quick head-shake from Bill: This is his world; he knows she's not sure of the rules. No touching. Pam asks to see her ID, and Sookie remarks on how funny it is to be carded in a club for immortals. "I can no longer tell human ages. We must be careful, we serve no minors... In any capacity." Yikes. She hands it back and congratulates Sookie on being twenty-five -- "how sweet it is!" -- and all this under Bill's watchful eye. I think he likes her. Pretty sure I do too.
Bill escorts Sookie into the club; behind the zoomy dancers there's a sign on the wall ordering NO BITING ON PREMISES. There's a merch table selling Fangtasia t-shirts and crap. They should call it Fangtasia! with that thrilling hint of excitement at the end. Sookie pronounces it a Disneyland version of what she was imagining; that's exactly what it is. Fangbait. "Don't get too comfortable. It tends to get more authentic as the night wears on." And who's that trip-trapping away in five tons of makeup, a dog collar, and a look of absolute fear? Creepy little Neil Jones from Kentucky, the new Coroner's Apprentice. So many jokes, of both "Mickey Mouse/broomsticks" and "leave your job at work" varieties, but one look at his face as he scuttles off is really enough.
Forty thousand men and women everyday redefine happiness... The curtains flew then he appeared/ Saying don't be afraid/ Come on baby/ And she had no fear/ And she ran to him/ Then she started to fly/ They looked backward and said goodbye/ She had become like they are..."
To the bar, where that gorgeous Alex "Kingdom Come" Ross painting of Dubya as a vampire feeding on Lady Liberty hangs. I think we'd all like to put that in the background of our TV shows, but you'd be hard pressed to find a better one than this. A Native American Vampire American is working the bar, with his fangs out. (I bet he gets better tips that way, too.) He's got long straggly black hair, a kind of crazy eye, and a generalized menace: Long Shadow. Like most of the vamps on the show, he manages to strike a pose somehow charmingly disingenuous, ruinously silly, and totally frightening all the same time. It's a whole Max Schreck thing they've got going on. Bill checks out the go-go boy and asks Long Shadow if Sookie can ask him questions, and she shows him pictures of Maudette and Dawn. He recognizes them both. "Great, thank you. And do you also happen to remember who they hung around with?" Obviously, that's not something they notice. Obviously, that's not something she is going to be noticing either, if she's smart. She is. "Okay, then, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time."
Long Shadow reconsiders, holding up the picture of Dawn: "This one. She wanted to die." Sookie asks how he knows. I would too, she seemed like a together kind of chick. "Everyone who comes here does in their own way," he says atmospherically, and keeps going even after Bill's hard look: "That's who we are: Death." In case you didn't get the memo.
Bill pays, and they for a table; Sookie stares as they go. The crowd seems about half-and-half; there's a whole cadre of dog-collared weirdos staring up at the go-go boy like he's a god. No touching. They're hungry for something. It's hot as a fever, hot like rain. A balding man with a '70s nerdstache tries desperately to get his feet to move to the back of the bar. (Oh my God, he's so powerful. So beautiful. The closer I step, the more beautiful he gets... You can do this. Just walk up there and offer yourself to him...)
"A gin and tonic's pretty much a gin and tonic no matter where you drink it," Sookie tells Bill, putting on a brave face; he smiles and says he knows what she means. The balding man seems to be licking the shoes of a man on the throne in the back of the bar: shoulder length blonde hair, eyes lazy but watchful, like a housecat. That's Eric. He's awesome. He watches the go-go dancers while Sook watches him; Bill's ironic about her noticing him, and a little jealous: "Everyone does. That's Eric. He's the oldest thing in this bar." (Or is it something more? Does he make Bill feel like Andy Bellefleur, in addition to Blair Waldorf? But then, Bill's a model of self-control, he'd never abuse his privileges like Andy does. Right? As long as you call him what he wants to be called, and treat him like a king of this world.)
Nerdstache touches Eric's leg, and without even blinking Eric kicks his body high into the air; he breaks a table as he's going down, and the vampires all get hungry from the blood; even the go-go dancers get so super zoomy. The bar becomes uglier, and darker; a girl who's like the ghost of the girl Shirley Manson wanted to be fifteen years ago appears. "Hi, I'm Taryn," she says. Bill seems both ashamed and a little bit excited about blowing Sookie's mind with all this sudden bizarre vampire shit: "Still think you're in Disneyworld?" And across the floor, Taryn picks up baldy-nerd right off the floor. Five second rule!
The trauma care doctor takes Jason's vitals while Tara watches -- shining a light in the eyes of her male companion, I mean to say -- and asks Jason if he's done any drugs, which is to say, asks Jason what kind of drugs he's on. Jason sits there adorably kicking his feet with a huge boner ever-so-slightly grazing his chin and lies through his teeth. When the doctor gets to the V, he throws a hissy fit and makes a hilarious "augh" face at Tara, like, how gross is the doctor for even thinking of that? I don't think I've ever seen such a fine bad-at-lying person in all my years. I could watch him incompetently lie all day, it's hilarious. The doctor knows exactly what's going on, and finally just pulls the sheet up. He shines a light between Jason's legs -- the blood flows more freely down there -- and looks at it. "Oh, boy! Sure glad I'm not you. That looks kind of like an eggplant, what with that color and the way it's all swollen up at the end." Tara comes close to barfing.
"Ordinarily, we like to treat this in stages. First and least radical being an injection of anti-inflammatory drugs into the penis." Jason laughs that the least radical thing involves sticking a needle in his best feature, but the doctor clears up right away that Jason's past that point. "In my opinion, we need to aspirate." Jason stares at him, and he's like, "I need to drain the blood out of your penis." A baby starts crying, somewhere in the hospital, as Jason's eyes go wide. Maybe it's his dick, I don't know.
The doctor gets the needle ready and Tara takes off, but Jason grabs her. "Look, I will admit to sometimes having a sick curiosity about medical shit, but I ain't that fucking curious." He grabs her again, in tears, and begs her to stay with him. Tara says she'll never be the same after this, and he's like, "Tell me about it."
"I don't think we can afford the time it would take to sedate you. Besides, without knowing what other substances you've taken, I don't want to risk a drug interaction." Who watches the watchers? He's the king of this world, and without Jason telling him the truth he can't begin to tell him about the horrors of V. He's just another dumb stud, like Tara said. It's important to enjoy your job. Jason begins to moan with fear, and she starts coaching him in breathing through it. They aspirate through the aspiration, hilariously, and he counts down; the doctor, of course, sticks it in just before he gets to "one." Jason's scream echo across the entire country, to like where even dogs could hear it.
At this point in time, Sam's cleaning glasses and looking sadly at a picture pinned to the bar. Arlene feels silly asking him to walk her to her car, but he tells her not to. "Not with what's been going on." And pregnant Arlene, still thinking sex earns you misfortune, that it has a morality and agenda, that if you sleep with the wrong kind of people -- which is to say, the people that Arlene thinks you shouldn't have sex with -- you deserve what you get. So she feels silly for being afraid of the serial killer on the loose, because he won't attack her, because she never fucked a vampire and thus doesn't deserve it. "Can't be too safe, you know?" Sam knows. The music gets scary as he puts an extra pair of gloves in his pocket and turns off the lights over the bar. The picture: Dawn and Sam, grinning wildly.
I am ... so sure Sam killed those girls. I mean, it's a good story: fuck a vampire, Sam kills you/Sam's in love with Sookie/Sookie's dating a vampire. Except that A) Sam is totally adorable and needs to be on the show forever, B) Sam's sex stuff is completely different from this person's MO, but most importantly C) Dawn was not only his friend, but also his employee and tenant. He'd be cutting himself off from revenue both professionally and personally if he killed her. I know Merlotte's is doing well enough that he can afford to hire and fire crazy women at will, but you don't want to leave yourself short-handed. Plus, if he kills Sookie , it will just be him, Lafayette and Big John against his least reliable employees, Arlene and Tara, who are also the two biggest bitches in the entire parish. Self-preservation, Sam: a huge priority for most serial killers.
Boy: (How come no one fucked me? I got a dog collar too...) Yeah, but you look like Clay Aiken.
Bartender, I think, to a woman with an ill-designed personal support system: (How'd you like me to rip that tape off your tits?) Who would ever enjoy that? You say you want to know what I want, but I don't think you really mean it.
Frat Guy Alpha: (It ain't gay if a guy's a vampire, is it?) It's not necessarily gay anyway. Sometimes things happen. Don't worry overmuch about it.
Frat Guy Beta: (I'm gonna get in a fight if I don't fuck a vampire tonight...) How great would it be if that tranny gay panic "you're a dude!" nightmare happened, only it was "you're a human!" Because it wouldn't really be about silly primal sex fear, but about the opposite of that, like, "What a waste of time since you couldn't even kill me if you tried, you dick."
Bill asks if she's picking up anything: no, nothing beyond the constant stream of sex, sex, sex. (And you know, this is one of the few times that those overheard things actually were about sex, which is ironic because they're in a vampire bar, which is actually about the not-sex things those thoughts are usually about.) Bill's cute some more about how you don't have to be telepathic to notice that a roomful of people in black leather and their nipples showing are thinking about sex. Pam speaks to Eric, and they look over at our guys; Bill says a quiet "Uh oh." Sookie panics and informs him that vampires are under no circumstances "supposed to say uh-oh," and Bill says Eric's already scanned her twice, and he's about to summon them. "He can do that?" she says, but I'm confused about what that means. (He can scan her? Which is what exactly, and what did he hear, and is she immune to her mind being read and can vampires read your mind. Or, he can summon them? Which is two fingers in the air. And there they go.) Bill takes her hand and leads her across the floor like a princess and her prince, or a pas de deux.
"Bill Compton. It has been a while." Eric's well aware of Bill's "mainstreaming," and notes -- as his eyes slide down the length of Sookie -- that it seems to be going well. Bill makes to introduce them, but Eric already knows her name. "I never forget a pretty face," Pam smiles, and points to her head: "You're in my vault." Sookie's like, "Awesome. Nice to meet you." Eric shakes, a little bit, sometimes. Like something contained: "Well, aren't you sweet," and Sookie answers without thinking, to Bill's horror: "Not really." This is his world, she doesn't know the rules. He squeezes her hand. Pam and Eric talk in Viking for a second about how their zoo is getting bigger, and Eric turns to her again. And out comes the Muppet voice.
Alexander Skarsgård, you beautiful bastard, everything about you is so perfect at all times and then, randomly: Kermit the Frog. And you know, it's not random, it's actually very specific: It's whenever he's putting on a voice on top of his voice, so he's having to speak his 99.99% impeccable English, in a specific accent, and then do a third or fourth accent on top of that, it all falls apart and he talks like Kermit. Only a Swedish person could manage to combine "Big Gay Al" and "Kermit The Frog" into the same voice. So if you know that about him (and he really is just about the best actor, in addition to being physically perfect) then you know what's going on: he's acting. In this scene, I mean, Eric Northman is acting. He's being something he's not. And I think what he's doing is trying to make Sookie comfortable, or condescend to her in some way he thinks is noblesse oblige, which is in itself telling.
"If you have anything to ask, you should ask it of me," he says, shaking again. Sookie shows him the pictures, and he smiles. "Well, this one offered herself to me. But I found her too pathetic for my attentions." Sookie nods, like, I got it, you're the king of the world. "Now this one, however... I have tasted." Pam remembers them both. "On account of the vault?" For that one, Bill squeezes her hand twice as hard; Eric's not exactly impressed either. Pam's kind of over all that, though, and just keeps going: "Never had either of them, though. They weren't really my type..." I think Pam acting like she's going to get full-on lesbian in your face all the time is her way of busting your chops, that's what I think. Sookie thanks them, and Kermit gives a giant, terrifying, shaky grin. It's like he's gritting his teeth to keep from dancing.
"-- I'm not finished with you yet. Please... Sit." Bill nods, and Kermit tells him to sit down too. "Are you quite attached to your friend?" Bill and Sookie agree that she's "Mine," and for once Sookie doesn't rankle. I think I'd want Eric fully aware of that. I wonder how much of this conversation -- the voices, the shaking, the staring -- is a glamour never touching down. "What a pity," Eric says with a total fangbait look at her veins and stuff, "...For me." Sookie isn't unflattered, but as usual with vampires being all sexy at her, she's still about three bus stops behind. It's hard to get over the cold dead bodies that drink blood part. Unless, I guess, you're anybody else in the whole club.
"Hot as a fever/ Rattling bones/ I can just taste it... If it's not forever/ If it's just tonight/ It's still the greatest/ And you, your sex is on fire... Consumed with what's to transpire/ And you, your sex is on fire..."
Bill isn't loving sitting with them, but then that's fine because we're done with them. (My backup was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. I can't handle a raid on my own. These fucking vampires...) Sookie immediately says they have to get out of there, and ignores Bill's warning tone: "Eric, the cops are coming. There's gonna be a raid." Eric asks angrily if she's a narc, but she points to the guy; he protests that they're not doing anything wrong and she hears Nerdstache suddenly, in the lav ( Go ahead and do it. Open me up. I don't care. Make me feel something), about to get all kinds of eaten by Taryn. Pam asks how she knows all this crap, and Bill shakes his head selfishly at her.
I mean, it's not like they're going to eat her for being psychic, and she doesn't have to make her weaknesses pubic either, about the silence with the vampires. He is selfish because she can only use this to establish notoriety and relationships with other vampires, once they know she has skills, and then she stops being his little secret. I mean, we'll see, but I can't think of any other reason he'd be so insistent that she not demonstrate what makes her interesting to this interesting pair. As awful and queerbutt as Fangtasia! is, remember, it's still a room full of the only things in the universe Sookie knows about so far that make her feel less alone. If they weren't all about bad idea sex, plus the murder and bloodsucking, this would be a totally great hangout for her, both in the Mole On The Face way and in the Enjoy The Silence way too. Too bad vampires are creepy and gross and fuck everything up all the time.
Anyway, before Sookie can stammer and do that google-eyed innocent thing she does, the cops burst in, and Eric and Pam usher them offstage and away through a side door in superfastvampiremotion. "I enjoyed meeting you. You will come again," says Eric as Bill sweeps her into his arms in one great movement, and all four of them zoom around like they're on a peoplemover. I miss them both already.
Tara drives back from the hospital and watches Jason -- who's tuckered out, after all, he's had a big day -- and remembers the day she fell in love with him. She was just tiny, but she was Tara: she'd trashed her mother's liquor too late to do any good, and Momma Thornton was chasing her through the streets. She hammered at the Stackhouses' door, begging to come in, as Momma came closer, and when Jason answered the door it was to tell her Sookie wasn't home. He spotted Momma coming up toward the door and pushed Tara behind him, looking up at her. He was so small. He looked up at Momma and asked, quite serious, if there was a problem. "You bet your tiny white ass there's a problem. Little bitch hid my Captain Morgan!" Tara explained angrily that she didn't hide it, she threw it out, and Jason explained that while Gran was at the market he wasn't to let anyone in. Momma grabbed him, twisting his shirt in her hand like a claw, and he didn't blink. "Maybe I should call Sheriff Dearborne, so he can come out here and throw you in jail. Where I guarantee ain't no Captain Morgan gonna be waiting for you." Tara stood behind him, nodding, and Momma stepped back. "This ain't over," she said, as he was slamming the door in her face. Tara smiles down at him, feeling safe all over again.
Also driving, on another road, Bill listens to Dengue Fever's "Escape From Dragon House," seething at how easy it is, for Eric to make him feel powerless and young. Sookie asks him to turn it down, and asks what it is. "Cambodian. You don't like it?" Sookie turns it off, and asks him to pull over. "I need things to ... stop."
In a clearing off the road, Sookie just asks for a couple of minutes to chill out. We all take them, we should all take them more often, but for Sookie it's more important than that. He tells her to take her time, and she's sorry for getting him in trouble. "Don't apologize. We vampires are always in some kind of trouble." She looks at Bill finally; he continues to be amazing and intense. "I prefer to be in it with you." And when he leans in to kiss her, none of those Stay Away feelings seem to matter.
The night lights up, and there's the sound of siren. A cop knocks on the door, and Sookie quietly tells Bill to let her do the talking. This is her world, the daytime world, and she knows the rules. The cop flashes his lights around the inside of the car, and she explains they're coming home from a date. "Uh huh. We were raiding a bar not too far from here, y'all coming from there by any chance? It's called Fantasia. That ring any bells?" His voice gets meaner. He's the king of this world. "How about you, son? You seem awful quiet. Don't you talk?" Bill doesn't look up, resentful and offended. "I'm a man of few words." The cop is condescending; Sookie watches Bill and worries. The cop asks to shine his light on her neck, and Bill's fangs come out; she pulls her hair back.
"Why don't you ask her if you can shine it between her legs?" asks Bill, a Tara Thornton move if ever there were one. The cop's incensed; Sookie hisses Bill's name warningly, and covers her neck up quick. "Vampires sometimes like to feed from the femoral artery. The blood flows more freely down there, so one doesn't have to suck as hard." He turns his face into the light, game face on: "Or so I've been told." What is with Bill and Sookie's groin? ...Oh, right.
The cop aims his gun in Bill's face, and Bill looks deeply into his eyes. The sound of a rattle plays out across the landscape, and before you know it, it's done. "I like your gun," Bill says seductively. "It's a beautiful weapon." The cop thanks him, and hands it over at Bill's request. Sookie tells Bill to cut it out, but we're not in the daytime world anymore.
They were the kings of this world. For centuries. They took what they wanted. They were adored, in the shadows, and they ruled the night. It's not as simple as Tru Blood, it's not even as simple as sex: it's taking a full-grown man and calling him a child just to expect that your authority means anything. It's insult, on insult, and it ends now.
"It's heavier than I imagined," Bill says, drinking him in. "Is it loaded?" The cop looks at him, fascinated in the eldest sense. Sookie informs him quietly that he is freaking her out, but he can't look away. Neither of them can. Bill points the officer's gun at him. "Now, you listen to me, officer. I do not take kindly to you shining your light in the eyes of my female companion. And as I have more than a hundred years on you, I do not take kindly you to calling me son. So the time you pull somebody over on suspicion of being a vampire, you better pray to God that you're wrong. Because that vampire may not be as kind to you as I'm about to be. I'm not gonna kill you, but I am gonna keep your gun. Does that sound fair?" They were kings of this world, for so long. The cop agrees. "Yes what?" Yes, sir. Just call him what he wants to be called.
Bill pulls the gun off him and the spell breaks; the cop still can't move, terrified. Having seen what powerlessness really is, what it's like to have a gun in your face and no power at all. To realize your power was only ever part of the pretense, that the rule of law extends only to those who agree to follow it. The spell breaks. "Now, you have a nice night," says Bill, and starts the car. Sookie stares at him as they drive away. The cop stands in the clearing, alone with fear, unable to move. He pisses himself, and begins to cry.
A begloved Sam Merlotte lets himself into Dawn's house with his key, as is a man's prerogative. The screen slams shut behind him. He follows his nose to the bedroom, sniffing all the way. He smells the bedding piled at the foot of the bed and climbs onto it, impossibly lithe. His body stretches across to her pillow; he inhales the scent deeply, gratefully. Lovely broken Dawn, with the voice like angels and parakeets; funny Dawn with her gun, and those short-short-shorts. The smell of her death, the death she wanted, the death she went looking for: it's all around him.
"Can't you smell that smell?/ The smell of death surrounds you... Angel of darkness is upon you...Say you'll be alright come tomorrow, but/ Tomorrow might not be here for you.../ Got a monkey on your back/ Just one more fix, Lord, might do the trick/ One hell of a price for you to get your kicks..."
Sam twists himself into the sheets, writhing with it. It is a funeral.
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