Lafayette is privy to some of the more adorable things about Eric (vanity, beauty regimen, relationship with Pam) and inspires a more than passing attraction in His Snowbound Highness. L makes it through a hilarious run-in with that horrible Fangtasian familiar Ginger, while Eric's too busy gaying it up with Bill at Forever 21 to notice, but his luck runs out eventually, and he is now a cliffhanger vampire buffet for Eric, Pam and Chow.
Sookie and Bill's obsessively trimmed chest hair discuss some postcoital things, then do it some more. day, she puts on the shortest shorts ever devised, and then I guess we missed the scene where she sustained brain injury because by the end she's trying to curry favor by taking Jessica to stalk her dysfunctional pre-death family, which is a dipshitty move even for Sookie Stackhouse. Jessica of course goes on a rampage, and ends up making her whole family a cliffhanger problem for Bill.
Jason makes and quickly alienates a new bromance on the bus to Jesus Camp, meets a cute little religious Hannah Montana -- who sings an amazing song you can get on iTunes -- and deepens his relationship with the Newlins. It's starting to be less about which cultmember poor Stackhouse is going to fuck, and more about which ones he's not. (Bonus: PTSD breakdownage during a sex-charged skit performance with Sarah earns him the nickname "Muslim Buffy With A Dick.")
Tara and Eggs's insanely sick body have a conversation about... No idea. I have no idea what they talked about. His iffy history probably. It doesn't actually matter. Put a shirt on time, God. Then Sookie comes up to ask if Tara will move into the house with her, now that she's moving into Gran's room. I would keep my mitts off Tara for the time being, Sookie. Her family's hearts seem to be in rare supply of late. In other news, Maryann shows up to bug Sam and be totally fucking awesome some more. She orders everything on the menu, gives Daphne a fabulous pep talk, and starts a sexy dance party that not only gives us some rocking Andy Bellefleur moves, but is clearly halfway to some kind of religious frenzy. Here's to all the orgies yet to come!
Happy Father's Day! Or at least it was when we watched this episode. Less happy for Royce, who is currently serving as a snack to the Sheriff of Area Five, who is wearing flip-flops and foils in his hair while he eats the shit out of our formerly hot trashy friend. Lafayette -- while I'm sure relieved that Royce has stopped with the endlessly unrolling confessional we in the medical industry call "shitbrain" -- it's a little less easy to be remote from the situation when the gouts of deep-black arterial blood, and then body parts, come flying at your face. NARM! NARM!
Eric groans and acts post-coital for awhile and sort of pornishly lets the drops of Jupiter formerly known as Royce dribble down his chin, and Lafayette gollums himself back behind that pillar, because Eric does everything so intensely you have no way of knowing whether he's going to roll over and snore or else he's just coiling. "If you have any silver on you," Eric wheezes, "Now would be the time to reveal it." Lafayette swears he's not that stupid, but you and me and Eric, and Lafayette, know that's not really true either. He stopped being able to lay claim to his superiority once the bucket entered his life.
Eric breathes and acts sexy in a sort of unmoving reptilian way for awhile, and then wipes his mouth, and even Eric is a little impressed by the amount of total blood covering him from head to toe. "Is there blood in my hair," he says, not asking in tone, and Lafayette's like, "...Whut?" So he says it louder, in what is still a taciturn and sardonic tone on our mortal scale, but is for Eric like a hair-pulling desperate dementia: "Is there blood in my hair." Lafayette says he can't really tell, so Eric zooms to a crouching position right in front of him, grinning secretively. "How about now?" Lafayette must admit that, yes, there is just a bit, a little bit, a certain amount of blood. In his hair.
"Well, this is bad," Eric reflects. "Pam is gonna kill me." When Lafayette asks who the eff that is, Eric's delighted, looking him right in the eye, seductive: "Why, do you want to meet her?" Not in the slightest. The thing that scares the thing that scares me? No thank you. Even if it's about hairstyle. "Well, you're going to." Eric unlocks his collar and raises him up, shirtless in cargo pants, and Lafayette can barely walk, grabbing at the poles of the wheel as they go, Eric's hand on his neck like a friend after a very long, very dark night, up into Fangtasia! to find out what Lafayette knows. "I wouldn't try anything rash if I were you," Eric says, kicking Royce's leg, metal hip included, out of the way: "I'm still hungry."
And from Eric, who should be completely clean in the middle of his grooming session, to Bill and Sookie, who despite the gallons of fluids pouring out of every orifice last week are now lying in beautifully ironed sheets in his big old bed, with nary a drop in evidence and his chest shaved to within a millimeter of its life. Which is fine, because I have finally figured out that Bill and Sookie are best loved in the way that you love Buffy and Angel (and Giles) in that awesome Xander episode where they're running around having a love that never fucking ends and constantly saying goodbye and breaking up and making up and oh the humanity and oh the undeadity and heading into the good fight the final apocalypse the passion at the end of it all and being ever so romantic with mood lighting and disappearing come and blood and chest hair, the kind of love you can flounce around in a barefoot graveyard nightgown for-slash-get grave-dirt fucked on your back for, which is to say that Bill and Sookie are best enjoyed because of and not in spite of the fact that they are plainly, and epically, ridiculous.
I'm sorry to have come to this particular party so very late, but you know, sometimes I think I have an earnestness problem. And it occurs to me that while the show has always treated Bill and Sookie this way -- as these demented poster-children for constant tears and fucking* -- it only got consistently out of control as of this season. So Sookie's like "That was makeup sex! Check!" and he's like, "However do you mean? Was there a faaht?" and instead of saying, "Yeah, you ... Compounded my rape by raping it? In addition to a little girl, whom you murdered? Now lives in your house? Ringin' any bells?" which is what I would say, she's like, "I enjoyed Thought You Were Dead Sex at the end of last season... Or in that graveyard... Or all those other times I thought you were dead, which are all of them, because you are dead."
*(Also nipples and hair removal.) However, "Thought You Were Dead" Sex also means a sad moment in a life which is nothing so much as an array of sad moments, and therefore "feeling like I'd lost you" is too heavy a price to pay for Thought You Were Dead Sex. So I guess they should fight more often, but about what? Before Sookie can think of something, she thinks of something: "Holy mmrfle!" Because they have a daughter now, with magic vampire ears, who absolutely could hear them having that deeply upsetting fireball-snowball-sanchez-trombone sex they were having last week, but for some reason I guess she can't, because as Bill points out, she would be screaming meemies up in that joint if she heard them. Sookie's just slightly titillated by the idea, but even more relieved that it didn't happen. So let's... Fight about Jessica.
"You know, you might want to try going a little easier on her." He rolls his eyes and she's like, "teenage girldom is rough," and he gets all "forsooth but she is vampyre" like he does, and... I don't know. I really like this scene, mostly because I really like when they're alone and Sookie's total mental breakdown backs off for a sec, which is the point of their relationship if you think about it, but also because -- just like with Keith and David -- this parenthood stuff, this Families We Choose synthesis thing, rings so very true. The single dad and the other-race quasi-fiancée quasi-stepmom, it's just so real.
Like here's what Sookie has to do: make friends with Jessica, make an ally of Jessica -- because it's in both of them to get territorial no matter how fucking annoying Bill is -- and provide the female guidance that poor Bill can't even visualize, not get eaten in a more-than-metaphorical sense, not pull age rank, not pull humanity rank, not pull sex rank, not be the weird stepmom, not demand intimacies she doesn't yet deserve, not be standoffish or annoyed by Jessica's place in her life, love her but not too much, help Bill but not too much, feel sorry for her but not too much, encourage her but not too much. And the worst of all: never ever think or look about all the things she and Jessica have in common, because that is icky, and not to overcompensate by pulling those ranks.
And the best of all: not step out of line for one second w/r/t to her contradictory roles here, because Jessica is a danger to herself and others, including Sookie. You think as the stepmother you are just called upon to love her, and to make a little place for her in your life, and to stay the fuck out of it. It's not enough. Because a child isn't a decision, they're a situation, a relationship: the child stays alive and it keeps changing and demanding new things and compromises from you, like any other real relationship. And like any other relationship, you can either grow by it or wither. And you can kill them with a look, or by sticking them in a box and expecting them to stay there, which is what this episode is really about.
Sookie's stepmom stuff and Tara's ongoing mommy issues are just two of the six character stories here: the rest is about dads. Which is a sore spot for almost everybody, because being let down by the person who's archetypically required specifically not to let you down is something that everybody fears and most people have to face. But the most powerful thing a dad can do to you, the thing that fucks up your life forevermore until you can drop the weight, is pin you to the wall like a concept or a butterfly and leave you there, telling you not to change or leave, forever. Amanda Jane, when she says Jesus asked her out today, she's talking about this. She is talking to and about the kind of man who installs a front door alarm that beeps every time it's opened, the kind of man who names his daughter "Eden" and makes her feel uglier with every birthday.
The thing that our culture is trying to navigate right now, I would say, is the idea that sexual trauma doesn't necessarily imply sexual assault. To give us that No Touch No Foul thing -- which makes me feel like Andrea Dworkin to contemplate, because it's so obviously handed to us by the perpetrators, and I hate feeling like her -- is like saying anorexics are created by starving your kids, or bulimics by forcing them to purge. Carrie White -- her ass is all over this episode -- wasn't abused by her mom, but Piper sure as fuck did a number on her.
I am so tired of watching people go looking for a single obvious narrative reason for things, in any fiction, because we've been trained I guess to do this, but it's like, "Oh! Sookie does X because of Bartlett" or "Oh, Jessica is like a Mormon runaway!" Which is to say we want to rub off the complex edges, which is the opposite of how people actually work. And because we privilege victimhood over any other possible virtue, we tell each other it's not possible to be deeply fucked up about sex just because nobody interfered with us in these particular ways; we're not allowed to have sexual fears and creepy little surprise parties and/or trapdoors because we haven't earned it through our victimhood. Or even creepier: we're allowed to have these fetishes and inabilities to get off, it's just kink, it's just how people are, it's not an unhealthy obstruction to our sexuality because after all, it didn't come to us through "abuse."
So this is the particular map I've trying to follow in this episode, which is to say that to get stuck in the 1:1 assault reading with Jessica -- and look at her face when he reaches for her hands on his belt, if you want to look into the face of terror -- I think is to miss the point, which is the same point it always is, which is that telling somebody or believing that salvation is reachable is a good way to make sure they never do, because it means you stop hunting: Amanda Jane's "honesty" is Jason's "purpose" is Eden's "problem" is Eggs's "luck" and Maryann's "passion" and Tara's "worth" and Sookie's idealization of the perfect life with Bill, which she keeps having to update and level and adjust and compromise. And the only thing grosser than letting yourself get caught in that bullshit is sticking somebody else in it before they know enough to get out.
So whatever, Jessica is vampyre and thus Sookie's only slightly not allowed to have an opinion about Bill's daughter, which is awesome to see through this fantastical lens, because she's all, "So are you? And yet parts of your former self are still in there, right? I wouldn't be with you if they weren't." Her eyes glamour him, and he must tell the truth. "Yes," he says, sadly. Would that it were otherwise.
(They could so easily be David and Keith talking about their sons; maybe that will make this particular through-line -- and Sookie's total retardedness in a little bit -- easier to follow: I manage to understand you just fine, right? Because we're in loooove? Am I unable to wholly love and understand you because of your black experience? Are you drawing that line? Because it's your prerogative, I just... Am I allowed to be offended by that? Because from this side the added bonus is that it looks uncannily as if you just drew a line. And there's me on one side, and you -- plus our kids -- on the other. And I think maybe that implication was a mistake on your part? But I'm, again, unsure if I can even say so, because doesn't that also imply, although not in parallel because white privilege, but doesn't that also imply that there are unknowable things about me? Because I'm pretty sure there aren't, and I'm pretty sure they're just... Kids. If I had to guess. So isn't this just you being kind of jealous and territorial and most important, obstinately not wanting to think about another viewpoint? Specifically the viewpoint of the person you love, into whose lap you just dropped SIX METRIC TONS OF BULLSHIT, about which I am kinda being a champ?)
"But I've had to work extremely hard at finding my way back to my humanity, fragile as it may be," he says, staring and memories and edicts. "When a vampire's as new as Jessica is, she has no humanity. She's in the grips of an overwhelming number of transformations. There will be times when she cannot control even a single impulse." Sookie laughs and delivers a passable performance of an unreadable and dorky bit of dialogue: "How is that any different from being a teenage girl? No humanity: Check. In the grips of overwhelming transformations: Check. Cannot control impulses: Check. All right, uh, how is that different?"
The rule is that when you're being balls-out (because this conversation is essential to the Sookie/Jessica Menstruation Talk coming up) and the subtext is climbing up the face of the text like a spider until it's all you can see, you can't also turn to the audience and say: "On behalf of Oscar Winner Alan Ball and the talented cast and crew of True Blood, we are going balls-out at this time. FYI." It's gotta be one or the other. You can't be meta about being meta, because if you do it too many times it'll go all Foucault's Pendulum on you and then there really will be vampires, and who needs that.
"All raaht, so whut do you suggest Ah do? Just spole the girl? Give in to her every whuim and dizarr? After awl, that ee-is what every teenage girl wonts, isn't it?" Um, yes, but that wasn't what she was saying and you know the rule in my house, reductio ad absurdum means in a direct relation reduction in fellatio, because that's not how adults talk to each other, and she's like, "A) Bill Compton, lose the tone, and B) Bill Compton, maybe you should consider the point I'm making, since your bullshit isn't working out so hot." (Considering it's still the night Jessica showed up, we'll give them a pass for nudging us gently to this new status quo.) He agrees, and then they're like, "Remember how we were only fighting so we could fuck some more?" They're so, like, in sync that way. It's beautiful.
Pam takes Eric to task about his hair, because the stuff was already in it which means the blood is like dye now. "This is a disaster. We'll have to go much shorter than I planned." He's back in his smock, in the chair, with Lafayette watching, terrified. The concept of Lafayette being so freaked out that he can't even spare a moment for the hilarity of all this is really dreary, isn't it? Of all people. Eric is contrite, and demands that Lafayette back him up: "But he took silver to me! You were there, you saw it. Defend me!" Lafayette just wants to know why he's there; what they want so he can give it to them. Survivor first.
"I've seen your website. It's quite, um, low rent. But your clients miss you, Lafayette. They're wondering if you're ever coming back," says Eric. This is like etiquette for him. Lafayette asks honestly if he is, which is forthrightness Eric will always respect, but he just looks down at him while Pam continues to fuss. "Look, I'm here because of the V, right? How about I give you the names of everybody I ever sold to?" Pam almost sniggers ("All this time I thought prostitutes were good at keeping secrets") and he gives her a great little speech. "Oh, don't get it twisted, Honeycomb. I'm a survivor first, a capitalist second, and a whole bunch of other shit after that. But a hooker, dead last." Pam nods, like, okay then. "So if I got even a Jew At An Al Qaeda Pep Rally shot at getting my black ass up out this motherfucker, I'm taking it. Now, what you want to know?"
Pam looks at Eric, who brings up Eddie's disappearance. Lafayette swears he doesn't know, and is a little sad for him -- "Last time I saw him he was doing real good," he says ruefully -- but the assumption is that he was kidnapped. And by whom? Lafayette swears he doesn't know, but as they press him with their eyes, he says it could have been Jason Stackhouse. Pam gets excited, because she loves Sookie more than Eric does even, and talks to him in Swedish. "Sookie's brother. Could be fun?" Eric admits it could be, but that it would be stupid, because Sookie is "too important to us." I don't know what that means, still, yet, but Pam does, and agrees.
"Sadly," Eric says, addressing him again, "This information is of no use to me. Not now, anyway." Lafayette feels shitty for having given it up. "I understand dealers of vampire blood sometimes trade product with one another across state lines," Eric says. (This phrase recurs throughout the script this week, maybe on purpose maybe not, but the idea of crossing boundaries is always so huge with vampires, and there's the whole thing with Mr. Hamby's door alarm, and Jessica crossing from girl to woman. And there's Jason standing on the line between hate and salvation, unsure if he's a saint or a traitor, beloved or hated; and then plus you got Maryann literally crossing the lines between states, vibrating men into animals and dancing upright citizens into who knows what and generally dancing back and forth across the line that separates us from God, so maybe not so coincidental.)
Eric asks if Lafayette has any buyers in Dallas, and there's only one, nameless: "I have an e-mail address. Pussylover9@gmail.com." (Possible shemale.com; either way, Pam's amused. She laughs at Chow and even spares Lafayette a smile before going back to combing out the blood.) "A friend of mine in the Dallas area, his name is Godric, has gone missing. Now, while the circumstances of his disappearance are unclear, it stands to reason his blood would be very valuable, as he's over twice my age and ten times the vampire I will ever be." Pam chides him for his attempt at humility, and Eric spikily informs her that it's not humility, it's just true. "Your associate, this... Pussylover. Has he or she mentioned any new product coming on the market?"
Lafayette swears no, and swears that Eric knows he'd be honest if he did. Eric nods, clipped, and tells Chow to take him back downstairs, and there's a rather undignified splayed-out Sylvester the Cat attempt on Lafayette's part to stay put, but to no avail. His grip on speakers and lightswitches is no rival for Chow's vampire strength. "You gave me nothing," Eric hisses; Lafayette continues begging to differ long after they've forgotten all about him.
On the bus to Jesus Camp, Jason tries adorably to sing along to their weird anthems and chants ("We all come together as one/ Bound by the glory of the sun / Our mission here has just begun/ We won't stop until our work is done") which, as in any good cult, are the secret glue that keeps everybody together and feeling good. They cheer and high five each other, and Jason grins like the sun because he loves singing, but they leave him hanging. Enter Luke McDonald, a giant of a young man, who hits his palm and slides in to him. "No relation to the restaurant," McDonald introduces himself, and Jason laughs. "Okay, any relation to the farm?" Luke doesn't get it, which is unrealistic but not as unrealistic, in Jason's experience, as meeting somebody dumber than him. Needless to say, Luke then attempts to bond over football.
Jason looks down at his body for a second before remembering that he was a football player long ago. QB1, actually; Luke was a tight end, scholarship to A&M and the whole thing -- which we remember was like the Holy Grail for poor Jason long ago -- but blew out his knee. What followed was no doubt a muddled but very sincere thousand days of sorrow and deep introspection before Luke was finally celibate enough and Bibled enough and generally persistent enough to get into the Leadership Conference.
Meanwhile, of course, Jason started this journey of a thousand steps two days ago, to which Luke reacts with a weak sort of insult, and Jason tries to explain in his inimitable way: "Well, I didn't know about it till then. See, I was having breakfast with Steve and Sarah, and they asked me if I wanted to come..." And thus ends the brief bromance between Jason and Luke, not that Luke is conscious of it yet and not that Jason ever will be. He offers to bunk with Jason, the better to get or learn his luck or mojo, and Jason's moved and ecstatic, so much so that he says the word "shit" and is reminded gently not to swear. Then to chill Jason out, Luke starts everybody singing a super-scary racist song: "If you have doubt/ Just sing this verse/ They live forever/ But we were here first!"
Tara comes out of the house in a robe, in that timeless morningy time it always is at Maryann's, and Eggs is doing some topless gardening, as one does. Tara would seem to be taking this whole Empire of the Senses thing to a new extreme, talking about how he smells "nasty and nice, all at the same time" and how she'd like to bathe in his sweat. Go too far with this, and mark my words: At some point you stop overcoming the neurotic potty-trained division of self and environment and go straight infantile. Shitting your pants, eating dirt, the whole thing. Remember Jason in the garbage last year? That's where you're headed with this whole "embrace nature" bathing-in-sweat thing. Abandon is good, but it's only half the story.
Tara explains upfront that she's going to be interrogating him about himself, because she's starting to like him, and has a history of "putting the cart so far out in front that the horse can't see it," especially if that horse is Jason Stackhouse who can't even spell the word "cart," and he's like, but you already like me. True. "People usually take years unloading their baggage, so I'm just trying to figure out: what's the rush?" The rush is, of course, that Tara realizes on some level that she's stuck in a gingerbread dreamworld of magic and doesn't know where wishes stop and real shit starts, and going by Eggs's intense and vibrant abdominal-pectoral landscape, it's entirely possible that he is entirely imaginary, so give up some biography already.
Of course, his reticence worries her, and it becomes a demand, so he nods, he gets it. Firstly, he was homeless, as in underpass, when Maryann found him. He is still broke, of course, which doesn't bother Tara because she doesn't care about money, so she focuses on his face and waits for him to continue. Well, he was in prison. What for? Drugs. "Possession or dealing?" she asks, which is a good question at this point in a conversation, and he's like, "all of the above." Her lips purse themselves. "Okay. Colorful," she says, and disappointment begins to bloom in both their eyes.
To his credit, he continues without prompting. "And I also served some time for armed robbery. And assault. But I got out early on the assault charge for good behavior, so..." There's an ironic twist; she bites her lip. "That's a plus..." she says, and he finally shrugs, too hurt by her expectations and his failures to remain: "Yeah, you wanted to know." It's sad to know that he would have accepted anything about her, anything at all, and that he knew somewhere he couldn't expect the same from her, but more so, it's almost unbearably sad watching the lights go out in her.
Sookie sits with her coffee all alone in the morning because all her friends are dead, and sees some bereaved parents of a kidnapped girl on TV. Guess whose? Her jaw drops open when they finally show the picture of Jessica, doing her best to appear happy once upon a time. "She's our first-born," Mom says. (I like Mom because she was fascinatingly off-kilter on Book Of Daniel, which of course I loved.) "And she's a goodhearted, smart girl ... We just want to see our baby again." And Sookie stares, and swallows, and thinks about loss. About the line between parent and child, past and present, and what it feels like when that line is cut. She's never had a daughter, but she's lost a mother: Adele.
She heads into Gran's room and feels her presence for a moment; she picks up a (weirdly Photoshopped) picture of herself with Adele, Tara on the other side. A family of women. The only thing that made everything okay. Wholeness, as the old spiritual music brings Gran into the room with us. Sookie closes her eyes, touches the picture, and makes two decisions in that second, faster than she knows: One, that she will provide the safe harbor to Jessica that nobody else, not even Bill, can or knows how to provide: She's never been a mother, but she knows how to mourn; and Two, that Tara is far, far too far away.
Jason stands with a circle of a hundred or so people, on the outside where the tall men go, to his new friend Luke, watching Sarah Newlin welcome them to the Conference. She is lovely. She's blonde and icy, but with such a tenderness in her eyes and such width to her smile that you can believe in her, young as she is. A lush young beauty, Amanda Jane, approaches Jason, flirting, as she hands him his "honesty ring," which Sarah explains is a symbol of the promise to be "completely honest and open while here on this campus." Which is deft in the way that Maryann is deft: you can't have a cult if people think they have something to hide. You can't own someone completely unless you can see all of them, shadow and light, all their parts, and tell them it's okay. And if that sounds worryingly similar to love, well, there's a reason it works.
Although this honesty is interesting, because it's not really honesty: it's the illusion of honesty wearing the clothing of honesty. Take a hollowed-out man like Jason, who destroys everything he touches and loses everyone he loves, and say, "Whatever you say in this circle is all that you are," and that you love it, he'll find himself in a womb kind of feeling. But then tell him, "And this is what you are," he'll have no recourse: he's wearing honesty on his fingers. He has lost the capacity for secrets, and left no place in himself to hide, to hide the truth from your honesty. And so the hollow place is filled.
As Luke and Jason Wonder Twin their rings together, Sarah reminds them additionally that honesty is made of hate: pure, real silver. A metal that means something in this world that it doesn't mean in ours; a word that means kryptonite. "So protect it with all your heart. And maybe one day, your ring will protect you!" A guy who doesn't matter yet, but will someday soon, jumps into the circle, overcome with excitement: "Die, fangers!" They laugh, she laughs. Indulgent. She keeps talking, about how they've been lonely and they don't know people here yet, but they will make fast friends. Jason smiles: "And this is nothing to worry about." The idea is shockingly like grace. They are united, all one, Pluto becomes a planet again, just as Orry promised: "You all have one thing in common. Because for every one of you, today is the day His holy light begins to shine on you." Her husband laughs, and adores her, and as a chorus of Amen strikes up, they kiss.
Daphne's marrying the mustard. Not matrimonially, but... You know what I mean. She screws it up. Sam encourages her, and then spits ever more hatefully at Tara that she's late, as she comes in. She scuttles away, and in her place there's Maryann, radiant and wickedly friendly: "How about me? Am I on time?" Always.
He paces her, like a hound, as she looks around the place. "I was in and out of here so fast last night I barely got a look at the place. It's, um... It's so, um..." She laughs at its emptiness. "Vibrant." Still playing him as the rube, holding her class above his head. He grunts, and says there's a big rodeo in town today, so it's emptier than normal. Maryann grabs a menu for herself, of course, and settles in, cheerful and chatty, throwing exclamation points like sparks, italics like spells. "Tara says the food here is wonderful, so let's see what I'm in the mood for..." Daphne squeals with delight for her first table and tells him to wish her luck, but Sam physically protects her and says he's got it, almost shoving her behind him: "You just focus on one thing at a time." He knows Maryann enough to know that this is key.
Maryann ignores Sam as he approaches, until he's leaned over into her face, hands on the table, staring over the menu at her impassive smile, barking like a dog. "Stop fucking with me," he demands unwisely. The temperature drops, or else it raises. "A tableside visit from the owner himself! I must be important!" He orders her to leave, and her reply is ritual, hiding punctuation he can't see yet, a demand for respect as old as time: "You're not really going to refuse me service, are you?"
"I mean, after I forgave you a hundred thousand dollar loan, the least you could do is let me buy myself some lunch..." Somehow still thinking this is about pride, and not the oldest magics men and beasts can know, he nods angrily, backing off with the hackles, and asks what he can get her, then. "I think I will go with the stuffed snapper, with the crawfish topping... The blackened ribeye, the red beans and rice, the... Ooh, the fried catfish, and, uh... Oh, dear." She lightly, gently, lovingly fucks with him, standing with his arms crossed, so afraid it turns to anger: "Now, would it be possible to get the smothered pork chops for lunch? Even though it's here, on the dinner entrées?" He nods, pained, and she goes on: "Now, how are your..."
I love the editing in this episode, so much. Like on the bus, when they cut away from the horrible "we were here first" thing to the abnormally peaceful quiet of Maryann's garden. Every scene rips you away from the last; it's startling, but mostly it's hilarious every time. Now we're watching Jason be awesome at flag football. The scene goes on and on, not that I'm complaining, but the main topics of the scene are: Jason is awesome. Luke is not loving that, to the point of getting violent in the name of the game. Jason takes off his shirt, causing both Newlins to turn inside out with just completely naked desire. Jason ends the game on the upraised hands of the entire Leadership Conference, arms spread out, a hero, completely at peace.
When Sookie arrives at Merlotte's, Tara reminds her how pathetic it is to come in on your day off -- "like going back to school and visiting your teachers" -- but Sookie assures her she's not there for teachers, she's there for Tara. Same diff. The latest bites in her neck are visible, vivid, vibrant against her skin. No scarves now, not anymore. She doesn't wear them proudly and she doesn't wear them in shame: she wears them because they are a part of her. She tells Tara to take a break, and reminds her that Sam is always pissed so they don't have to worry about Sam getting pissed for taking a break. After last week, Sam pissed wouldn't exactly be a bad thing anyway. In the kitchen, Terry Bellefleur starts to freak out under the pressure of reading Daphne's handwriting. When Sam sees the scratches, he starts to scream her name.
Then, another long gross scene in which the re-chained up Lafayette remembers a fact about himself, which is that he is a survivor, and a fact about Royce, which is that his ass was once magnetic. He turns the wheel to get himself closer to Royce's discarded corpse, eventually pulling the disembodied leg toward himself with his own legs. He bites through bloody plastic and gristle to free a large metal pin, which he twists into the chain holding him there, and rather quickly -- and heroically, considering how much barfing he manages to not do throughout this process -- has himself free. He stands up with a metal collar, with a foot or so of chain dangling from it -- giving the overall effect a disconcerting LeVar Burton flavor -- and limps toward the door again.
"So basically, you're like a stepmother to a vampire?" Sookie shrinks back from this assessment, but can't dispute it, and they laugh together. When it's time to talk about Tara, she shivers. "You know I've been living over at Maryann's for the last couple weeks?" Sookie nods, obviously unimpressed with this concept and probably picking up some of Sam's attitude about Maryann, but Tara doesn't really notice. "Well, in a lot of ways, I don't ever want to leave. I mean, everything is taken care of for me there. My bed gets made, my laundry gets done, there's breakfast on the patio served to you by a chef..." (Gingerbread House! Magic Gingerbread House!) and Sookie laughs. "Can I move in?"
Tara's like, for real! "But it scares me too. And maybe that's just because I'm not used to taking and not giving, but something inside me says, This is weird, Tara. Don't trust it. What do you think? Does all this sound too good to be true to you?" Sookie, nervous at the non-Sookie turn this conversation has taken, brings it back to herself, specifically the conflict of interest it represents, considering her errand. She takes Tara's hand, like a proposal, and becomes jokingly serious: "Tara Thornton? Would you like to move in with me?" (Consider here the possibility that part of this is about evening the score: You've got a new roommate, tied to you through unknowable bonds of blood and responsibility? I call.)
Tara laughs, unsure, and Sookie tells her it would be awesome. After all, they always got along in the days of Lettie Mae, she stayed over more than she didn't, and they never really fought. Tara admits that she was in fact jealous of Sookie's hair -- that in other words she had a "problem with hair," with beauty, with Sookie's long blonde idealized locks -- and dreamed of cutting it while Sookie slept. (Jealousy was never really Tara's demon, though. You need to have something before you can want something more.) "I've been trying to get my act together to move into Gran's room for the past couple weeks, and your moving in might be the kick in the butt I need to do it." Tara doesn't know what to say, but just then they're surprised -- saved by the bell? -- by a terrific smashing outside the stockroom: Daphne, dropping a whole tray of full plates. Sam, the more frustrated he is the more adorable he gets -- "Oh, Daphne! That's right on my feet, how am I supposed to ignore that?" -- but I mean, terrible day. God making fun of you at table four, award-winner PTSD victim cooking things and slowly melting down, bartender and best waitress having secrets in the stockroom, and now the new girl's actually throwing food at you. How are you supposed to ignore all that? Focus on one thing at a time.
Maryann stops Sookie at the door in her flighty upper-class mode, making a sound like wooba! "Is this the infamous Sookie? You're very special, you know. I mean, to have been through everything you have in your life -- not to mention the last few weeks -- and to emerge through all of it walking, let alone smiling, it's... Well, it's simply astonishing." As Sookie narrows her eyes, trying to listen, to focus, Maryann pulls Tara into it ("I see what you mean about her, Tara") with her Universal Mother tone. Putting herself in Adele's place, at the center of that photograph: me and Tara, we know you're special. Can't you admit you're special too? But all Sookie can hear in there as Maryann smiles tighter and tighter is the unending cascading undulating coruscating unending chant of ritual, and one name invoked over and over, again and again: Bacchus, Bacchus, Bacchus.
"She has an old soul, doesn't she?" Maryann continues, and Sookie -- as usual -- couldn't be less interested in what's going on outside her head. "I'm usually good at placing people's accents, but yours, I can't get a handle on. Where are you from?" Maryann grins, turns it into a joke, names the richest place they know, resting her bounty on their heads like a goddesses' hand, like a pair of warm breasts: "Cape Cod. Best potato chips in the world!" They all laugh, for some reason, and Sookie scoots away, with an archly territorial request for Maryann's benefit, to think about the offer. "Oh," Maryann says, hiding her hurt: "She asked you to move in with her?" Tara laughs, embarrassed. "That was awfully nice!" she says expansively, and Tara shrinks before her. Maryann smiles, and doesn't speak, as Tara assures her she hasn't really considered it one way or the other yet: she doesn't know "what she's doing," in the grand sense. And even still, Maryann does not like that one bit.
Lafayette makes his way to the front door of Fangtasia! and, finding it locked, bashes himself against it. Nasty Ginger comes creeeeeeping out from a hideyhole behind the bar, looking crazed as usual: "Who the fuck are you?" He babbles -- it's daytime, thank you Jesus -- and goes, "You're human, right?" And if she weren't so fucking horrible and wasted and broken and used up -- as forum poster [b]Prettyeyes[/b] memorably said, "Rode hard and put away drowned" -- her answer would still be true but it wouldn't be as funny: "Kinda."
Not that this is a promise of safety, of course: she's on the side of the demons. He shifts into webcam mode, running his hands up and down himself as though absentmindedly, knowing what to give a girl like this, shifting into Young Black Buck in cadence and vocal tone and grammar, not out of shock but out of his survivor's wisdom: "Look at you. Not only is you sexy, but you can read minds too? That's getting me all riled up in my nether regions..." She puts short work to that, telling him to cut out the flirting: "They told me to pay special attention to the faggot drag queen in the basement." He shifts again, crossing state lines into threatening, strong, violent, angry: "Oh, skank ass bitch, you're going to let me up out of here," he says, stepping closer, and she trains a gun on him: if she does that, she'll die. And he knows it. For a moment they are twins, caught in the same web from opposite directions. She's very funny, but not really. They did this. This is what they made. This is what they helped her make of herself.
"You ain't gonna shoot me, not with them shaky-ass hands. You ain't got the stomach for it," he says, drastically underestimating the truly bugshit nature of Ginger, and she nails him in the leg. He goes down screaming bitch and she stares at the gun, quickly getting herself into the usual Ginger Frenzy. "Holy FUCKER! I'm sorry!" She stares down at him, gibbering and shaking and gingering out all over the place. "AH! OH! I hate guns! EEEEE!" She drops the guns and keeps screaming, at this point in a gerundial fashion, completely unlocked and unchained from any subject of her screaming, screaming because things have gotten to the point where screaming is all there is. He cuts through the fog, shocked out of all his shapes and sounding like Lafayette again: "Hey! Hey! I'm the one who got shot, will you quit screaming and go get me a doctor before I bleed the fuck out?" She gives a token agreement to this plan, but you know she keeps screaming her unholy ass off. "These are all dirty!" she shouts, brandishing bar towels, and because he is awesome, he still manages to roll his eyes as he demands the fucking towel.
Amanda Jane, dressed in that Bratz doll Hot Topic version of kinderwhore, undulates for the Leadership crowd, who agreeably dance throughout, until they seem stuck on the end of their own desire, wanting her and wanting her to be denied, virgin and whore, with guilt on top for the existence of sex. Abstinence as its own porn, exerting more control over these warped young men than any amount of force could have done. Here are the lyrics. I don't really think they need much comment beyond their recapitulation:
There was a time when you taught your baby girl how to ride
But then on a dime, I rebelled and wouldn't show you [a word here. Time? The time?]/ No, no, no
I thought I was cool, I would not come back straight on home after school
I broke all the rules, I laughed at you and called you a fool/ No, no, no...
Sarah and Steve laugh and chat in the corner, watching them dance, whip themselves into something so in flight from desire that it becomes desire, and the scary lyrics start in earnest.
Because Jesus, he loves me
So now I love me too
I'm saving myself for you
I'm saving
Jesus, he loves me
So now I love me too
And I'm saving myself for you
It's a boner forest out there. She and the similarly underaged/overprecocious keyboardist do a little rap.
I told you Daddy
I'd be okay
Somebody asked me out today
He said he'd have me home by nine to pray
Amanda Jane folds her hands in prayer, leveling a gaze of frank desire over the tips, fairly licking them, upright before her lips; Amanda Jane has no idea what she's doing, what she's saying. She's expressing His holy light. Honesty.
I'm still your little girl
With braids
This last over a smirk like a whore's. "Jesus, everybody! Honesty!" One horny youth screams out, "Honesty, babe!" Another shouts, "Honesty!" It is my belief that Maryann's house can appear anywhere, at any time, because it is everywhere if you know where to look. No divisions, as they say, between ourselves and divinity. And chastity, well, abstinence can become its own sort of abandon; we surrender ourselves, don't we? To each other, to ourselves, to V, to pleasure, to compassion, to humility, to the Lord. This is only surrender. In certain moments, any house could be Maryann's house.
"Let's hear it again for our very own Amanda Jane! You did very good, honey," Steve Newlin says sweetly, paternally, not a trace of desire in him, patting her lovingly on the back. She is doing God's work and by facilitating this, by making trendy this honesty and this surrender, this prayer, he is doing God's work too. "Honesty!" They calm down, in his presence, and Steve smiles down on them all. "That was 'Jesus Asked Me Out Today,' and it's on her new album. Which drops Tuesday, is that right?"
She nods, a Jonas sister in a Simpson body, and says the words she's been taught to say. "Yes! Oh, look for it at Walmart, Target, Costco... And of course the single's already available for downloadin' on iTunes. So check it out!" They chuckle; they will. "I love you Amanda!" one young man screams, as she leaves. Steve waits for quiet. "You hate to have to follow that," he says in a wacky voice, and bids them take their seats. "We're gonna wind things down with a little game, which, while fun, should also be instructive. Because as each of you heads out into the world, at some point you will be faced with real life encounters with vampire sympathizers." They all boo, and Jason squirms.
That phrase could mean a lot. Maybe your sister's a fangbanger, and you still love her. Maybe you dreamed once, electric dreams, of fucking vampires and being fucked. Maybe you loved a vampire once, a little bit, and wept when he died, and felt so guilty you confessed to crimes you never committed. Maybe that's what that means. Is kindness sympathy? Is compassion treachery? Do we cross from light to dark when we learn to love the other? Can he come back from that?
"And we want to make sure that you're ready. So, Sarah honey, can you come on up here, please?" They cheer; Steve's "beautiful bride" will be the sympathizer, and -- as though offhand, as though they didn't see the powderkeg of loneliness and confusion the second Orry offered him to them on a pure silver platter -- let's just say Jason Stackhouse for the good guy. He's shocked. He's never played that role. Steve's smile is infinitely loving, and Sarah's expectation is so delightsome, and once he stands the cheers are so loud and so specifically his, belong so much to him as he belongs, finally, to them, well: how can he say no?
Sookie lets herself into Bill's, with her key, and calls out into the house. She can hear the television. Jessica stomps into the foyer like a true teenager, mouth agape, having a conniption about something, only too willing to start the story in the middle without even a hello: "I just saw my parents on TV!" Sookie knows, she did too. She expresses her sympathy and Jessica shudders: "I finally get why they never wanted me to watch it in the first place. It's horrible!" Sookie, not wanting to parent or get into this at all, asks where Bill is, and Jessica gives us the moment of the episode, a pitch-perfect and hilarious rendition of Bill's stern face: "I have no idea! All he told me was, 'Jessica, Ah have errands to run. Errands which do not require yore presence.'" Sookie does a good job of keeping a straight face, still concerned about Jessica's state of mind, while obviously delighting in it. "'So remain here, and do yore best to stay out of trouble whilst Ah'm gone.' And I hate it here. I hate it so much!" She stomps into the parlor and throws herself down on that red velvet couch.
Sookie sits with her, and Jessica begins to babble this latest upset into the cushions, overwhelmed. "I'm... I think I miss them?" Her awful parents. "And my little sister. I was always totally horrible to her. I was just such a brat, and..." She wipes the tears from her face, and of course they are rich, dark red blood. She freaks out like Carrie White -- and I mean to say exactly like Carrie -- assuming yet more terrors are coming toward her: "Hey! What's wrong with me?" Sookie, who knows a thing or two about unwelcome change and the body's mysteries, speaks softly. She was nine when her mother died, so it would have been Adele. How did Gran explain it? Find the words.
"Sweetie, vampires don't cry regular tears. So when you cry, you're gonna cry blood from now on." Jessica shudders -- We what? My body WHAT?" -- but her question is salient indeed: "Well, why do you know that and I don't? I mean, don't you think I should know this about myself?" "Bill should probably have told you," Sookie says, but of course in this particular frame, in this moment of the metaphor, he'd rather have died. He would have fled, and left it to Sookie anyway. Jessica holds out her bloody hands, blood smeared all over her face, eyes bugging out with offense at the entire situation: "Jeez, ya think?"
Jessica flops around with that sound she makes, the angry upset squeak, and Sookie hands her a tissue before returning to the reason for the tears, and not the tears themselves, because Sookie has learned something very profound in the last month, something that it took me a long time to figure out: we miss people uncategorically, if we're going to, when they're not around. You move away from your grandparents, or a childhood friend, and you miss them. It aches. And maybe you see them again, maybe you don't, but the pain is the same. And the only difference with death is that there's never going to be another visit. The pain is still the same, but it extends its parabola out into infinity. Never goes away, but it gets easier. They're somewhere else, just like they were when you both lived in separate places.
And so Sookie tries to apply this, correctly, to Jessica's situation: she is dead, like Gran is dead, but who lives and who dies -- in this world where death is just crossing state lines -- is not as important as the line that divides them. Dead Like Me, at least the superior first season, was about this: we mourn the dead, and in worlds like these, the dead mourn us. It's not the state you're in, but the line between you. "When people love each other, and then suddenly one of them isn't there anymore, it's the distance that hurts. And the distance is the same no matter who's doing the leaving." Jessica slowly admits the possibility that Sookie can actually understand -- the only thing teenagers want, proof that they're not the only person who ever felt something, the promise it will get better added to the authenticity that you're not just handing them fake sympathy -- and before you know it, she's made the jump to asking for help. "What do you do when you feel so far away you can't stand it?"
Well, earlier today, and last week, Sookie went into her room, just to sit. It helped, it helps. "I don't know why, but just being someplace where she's been, it makes me feel better. At least a little bit." Jessica smiles, and leaps further. "You think maybe you could drive me to my parents' so that I could..." Sookie recoils, because shit.
"No, please! I would just sit in the car, I swear. All I'm asking is to sit across the street, and catch a glimpse of them through the window. Just so I can say goodbye." Sookie apologizes carefully, suddenly aware of the strength of her, and tries to point her in any other direction: "I'm sorry, it's just not my place. But if you explained it to Bill the same way you just explained it to me, I'm sure he'd take you..." Honesty: "Are you really sure about that? Because I'm not so sure he would." She's right, and they both know it.
And Sookie looks at this poor girl with blood smudged on her face, and remembers the ache of Adele, and the promise she made earlier, to provide the home for this girl that no other person on earth is capable or interested in giving her. To reach across the line and affirm the family of orphans. And, of course, to leverage this dangerous new element; to be a friend to Jessica in a way Bill can't, and nip in the bud the idea of Jessica and Bill somehow teaming up on her. Bill's the vampire father; she must be the human mother. She can teach this girl how to live in both worlds, the way Sookie must, and if she does it right Jessica will love her forever. They'll be on equal footing, the three of them. And she'll be safe, and she-and-Bill will be safe, and their family will work. This is the chance. "Okay."
Jessica does a little dance. "But we're just driving by and that's it. And we should swing by my place first and get you a change of clothes, because I am not taking you out in public dressed like that." She stands gawkily, looking at Sookie like she's an adult, which she barely is, but suddenly seeing her as so much older. Learning to love her. "Well, thank you, Sookie," she says, awkwardly adult and gracious, trying to be good. "Thank you so, so, much." Sookie tells her not to mention it, and then turns hilariously at the door: "To Bill. Ever." Jessica nods, sweet and conspiring. Somewhere between best babysitter and best big sister; sometimes that's all a stepmother can ask for. It won't last.
Bill is lost in Forever 21. Which is funny because that place is funny -- last time I walked by one they were playing "As The World Falls Down" from Labyrinth super loud in there, and I wanted to buy something just in appreciation, but like that store carries my size -- but also because the name itself, and the philosophy behind it, is: entirely vampiric. In a way that approaches Amanda Jane as a limit.
A scary MILF approaches him, looking like the sum total of all single mother barflies, and gets toothy with him. "I do feel a little... At sea," he admits, his usual cordial and charming self, and her bangles clashing: "I can help you pick something out, if you'd like. You're looking for your daughter?" Yes. He tries it on, the shape in his mouth, the way we walk in the daytime world: "My daughter. Jessica." She calls it a pretty name and shows him a super-short denim skirt, impressively bedazzled. He pronounces it "very nice," but is thrown by the distinct lack of laces or crinoline. He needs to get his ass to the Blair Waldorf store, those are the only things he's going to like.
"We are conservative, aren't we?" she laughs, which is funny because the thing was totally slutty anyway, but he demurs: "Just old-fashioned." She laughs uproariously and of course Bill has no idea what's going on. Her eyes travel his body: "You don't look old enough to be old-fashioned, not by a long shot." His eyes glitter briefly with that particularly Bill humor: "You'd be surprised." She says he's funny and touches his arm: he's also cold. Her reaction is beautiful, I can't really describe it in words but it's like she turns transparent: "Whuuh. Well...? You're not..." he gauges her look, wondering if she's going to blow a racist whistle on him: "I am vampire. [DRINK!] Yes."
She looks around furtively and you immediately know things are going to get so trashy and weird that he's not going to know what to do. And when Bill Compton doesn't know what to do, he really does not know what to do. (This is a man who sat across a booth from Denise and Mac Rattray openly touching his cock for like an hour and somehow never noticed they were total V addicts. He's not worldly, he's old-worldly. Thinking about the myriad vulnerabilities of Bill Compton gives me the heebies for some reason.) Her breath is coming fast enough to give you a headache. "Tell you what. Why don't you come with me to the dressing room and I could model this for you?" He tries to put her off, but she won't be: he is a fetish object. It's going to take more than a polite refusal, because eventually she is going to start screaming, out of pique if nothing else, and then he'll have to glamour a cop and it'll be this whole thing. We need a superhero...
Eric Northman! Why, hello, with your new haircut and your cute little track suit and the Viking horn around your neck. "Good evening, old sport," he says behind Bill, who almost does a handstand. "Eric?" Never quite so happy to see him. "It's the new me," Eric says, grinning and sexy suddenly: "You like?" Bill nods, more than just relieved: "I do, very much." It's not gay exactly, but try explaining their whole deal to F21 lady, when they don't even have words for it yet. Bill's not even really conscious of the thing that happens around Eric; not even Lafayette can handle the ambiguity Eric's packing, and he was born for it. She laughs, embarrassed, and waves them away with a bunch of hoo! and heh! Bill's totally confused, of course, and Eric eats it right up, of course. And then it gets serious, because Eric needs to talk.
With Buddy Jesus behind him, and Old Glory, Jason tries his hand at playacting. "Listen, lady, if you're gonna give them all the rights that normal people have, then how am I supposed to protect my sweet little girl from any vampire who wants to just fly on in and marry her?" (Got there pretty quick, didn't you? Maybe Rene's not as far behind us as we thought.) Sarah's like, "You have a daughter?" and he plays outrageously to the crowd, who loves it: "Well, I was a pretty bad boy -- up until the Light Of Day Leadership Conference! -- so yeah, it's entirely possible that I could." She nods, waits a beat, and returns the serve: "Huh. Well, I don't give a hoot about your daughter. In fact, nothing you say about vampire rights is gonna change my mind. Because..." she turns around and puts in upside-down vampire teeth, mumbling around them hilariously: I am a vampire!
Anybody else would laugh and struggle to stay in character, at this gorgeous sight, but all of this is too close to reality for old Jason, considering how broken and post-traumatic he is. Something safe that turned out deadly. Sarah, Steven, the Conference, the stage: they all fade away. He screams, terrified to be so close to it -- to still want it, so badly, this beautiful, sexy, unattainable woman, now complete with the fangs -- and wigs impressively. He grabs the flag, screaming, smashes it over one knee, and rushes her. She drops onto her back on the stage, caught off-guard by this sudden new twist, and in the audience Luke leaps to his feet, grateful Jason's finally cracked.
Sarah's scared to death, hips moving like the ocean; Steve's eyes travel Jason's body in slow-motion, the stake in his hands, the muscles under his shirt: as though he is Jason and Jason's the vampire, for a moment, everything he wants and everything he wants to be. As though he could be Jason or fuck Jason or somehow both at once, blurring across state lines. Jason, standing over his wife with a wooden stake, screaming wordlessly. He is Amy and he is Eddie, for a moment, endlessly murdering and being murdered. Steve's the first to applaud.
The crowd goes wild: that's how you do it. That's where we're heading. Can't say it yet, can't see it yet, but that's where Steve's leading them. It's the reason Jason is the favorite, and precisely opposes the obvious reasons Luke knows they shouldn't love him. Inside the FOL is another Fellowship, an Army of the Light. And this is its first lieutenant, wrought on a spindle like Maryann's: desire and hatred and passion and love, fear and disgust, twisted together like the spectrum of visible light. Steve ejaculates while Jason falls back, through time: Amy drives the stake into Eddie's heart, and he is gone, and Jason's falling back like Sarah now, onto his back, face twisted in fear and sadness and betrayal. But on her face, none of these: it's a mirror of her husband's, in this moment. Where Jason's face is a mask of grief and loss, she sees only passion. "I'm so sorry," Jason says, tears rising in his throat, and she assures him she's okay. Honeycomb, he wasn't talking to you.
Terry loads the counter with meal after meal, plate after plate; he can no longer guarantee they're cooked through, there are so many. Arlene comes to the counter and checks him out: he's "sweating like a ice-water pitcher." He manages to look her in the eye: "I'm feeling the pressure, Arlene. I don't like feeling the pressure." They both know, what he means. She tells him to take a break and he says he can't, so she takes off her apron and heads back, shouting for Daphne. He burns himself and throws something down, yelping. "Give me your tongs," she says, and when he protests there's something hilarious in her voice, imperious, mothering: "Give me your toooooongs. Take a break." She sends Daphne out with the platters for table four, which of course Daphne can't identify (Remember how easily Amy learned it? She understood abandon.) but one withering, exasperated look from Arlene sends her out onto the floor anyway. They agree she's not working out, Terry and Arlene, and he notes that it's all going to table four: "What the hell's going on at table four?" he whispers, but we already know.
Daphne stands in the whirl of a Merlotte's gone quietly exciting; there's a bit more movement, a bit more noise, than usual. She stares at them, wondering which table the food is for, and Maryann calls her over, smiling cruelly. "Miss! Miss? I think you're looking for me." We all are, sometimes. "I'd have stood there all night if you hadn't noticed me!" She asks Maryann, ironically, how she could tell Daphne's new, and Maryann gives her the full treatment: "Because you care about doing a good job. Now you just keep on caring, and one day you'll be the best at what you do. That's my advice." Wonderful. Pitch perfect. Daphne falls in love with her a bit and leaves; Maryann grins privately, deliciously, and bites into an onion ring, wriggling in her chair with the music.
Sam notes the sheer amount of beer at Andy's table, and counsels moderation, but eventually Andy admits that whatever usual level of pathetic he's laboring under, the actuality is bad enough that his nine years of sobriety are worth giving up. Sam sits down, warily and distractedly concerned, the way people always are with Andy: "Lots of people in this town don't need to see you this way." Sam's such a good boy. Andy spent the entire last season up his ass for no reason, but now that it's down to it he's telling Andy what a symbol of goodness and justice he is. How people deserve to see that.
"The people in this town don't see me. Not for what I really am." Sam tells him another option would be to suck it up and respect himself first by not being such a HUGE BABY, but I'm so sure Andy's hearing that. "Bud took me off a case, Sam. I don't know about you, but in my book that's a capital D-motion." Sam gets it, and changes his tune, apologizing; Andy promises he'll pull it together tomorrow, get back on the right path, but tonight he needs to lose it. Tonight, of all nights, with Maryann on table four, how could he not? Sam gets it, and nods, looking around at the rising chaos, anxious to give something back for Andy's honesty. "One of the things I set out to do here when I opened up here was have a place where you could come, get a drink, nobody would bother you to dance."
Andy agrees vociferously, and tenders up another story. It's kinda funny, I guess, but mostly interesting because it obviously means something huge to Andy but not to Sam, or us. "I hate to dance. This one time I was in a club in Shreveport, and I actually had a woman tell me I looked like a epileptic on meth." Sam is sad for him, and a bit touched by the way this story is related. Also weirded out. "Never again, Sam. Never again." He takes a pull off his beer and Sam heads back, into the dancing, taking away Andy's empties. I love much about this show, you might have noticed, but I really do love the way everybody remembers to love Andy. He's just the worst, and they give as good as they get, but when it's time to take care of Andy Bellefleur, no matter how bad he'll make you pay for it later, they all do it. He's used so well, because he never gets tamed no matter how many times it plays out. He's the Rygel, the Cordelia/Spike/Anya: That element without which we'd all be better off, and which therefore must be protected at all costs.
Michelle Forbes joined Sciorra and Russo on the ranks of my "It's Not Even Worth Questioning My Sexuality About This" list a long time ago, so this scene came as no surprise, but dang. She was a dancer, she comes to us from dancing, which should no longer be surprising at this point: Maryann stands up, all spooky, and begins to dance in earnest. First alone, then with a young guy; her arms go up, over her head, like a goddess. She wraps herself around him like a vine. A couple is hit with waves of it, and she dances toward them, drinking up their passion and their adoration. This tribute. She takes the man in her arms, and passes the wave to a couple of ho barflies in the corner, and spins into the center again. The men take hold of the women. A cowboy kisses his girl. She dances, uninhibited, alone. She is the only real thing here. It whirls around her. This tribute.
"The Sheriff of Area Nine, in Texas, has gone missing. Have you heard about that?" Bill squints at him in the harsh F21 light. "I hadn't, but I... I know the vampire of whom you speak. His name is Godric, correct?" Indeed. Eric goes internal, for a moment, and speaks more quietly when he returns. "Now, it goes without saying he needs to be found. Which is where Sookie comes in..." Bill protests, but Eric reminds him that it's a formality: he's asking Bill to take his human to Dallas -- "across state lines," again -- but not because Bill has a say. Even if he weren't Eric, he still has a deal with Sookie that has nothing to do with Bill. She works for him. Of course, last time she worked for him, we got Jessica, so Bill's understandably irked over and above, but he stands his ground, staring up (up, up, up) at Eric's face like an obstinate hound. "Is No your final answer?" Bill growls in the affirmative, and Eric leaves him stewing and afraid: "Poorly played, Bill." He knows that.
Sookie parks at Jessica's behest, and they look across the street. "My Daddy won't be home yet. But my Mama and sister should be there." Two different statements, with two very different meanings, but Sookie doesn't know that yet. She watches, yearning, and behind her Sookie begins to cry. I think this is just straight-up bad writing, to get us from this place to the place, but it does make Sookie seem even dumber than usual: she uses this moment as a pretext to start crying and apologizing for causing Jessica to get turned into a vampire. Which she barely did, it's not like she asked Longshadow to eat her face. But on the other hand: when you've survived so many people, when your mourning becomes so constant, maybe survivor guilt is just part of the wallpaper. Maybe it's because Jessica's the only dead person she can apologize to... Ooops, doesn't matter. There goes Jessica!
Zooming to the door, banging on it, screaming for her mother and her sister. When the door opens, a voice says quietly, "Fault: Front door." Can you imagine growing up in that? Before vampires, the Hambys lingered at the threshold, every coming and going measured, heartbeat racing, afraid to leave, afraid to let anybody in. Keeping the home and hearth as pure and untouched as he could.
Mom grabs her in a hug, and she says hello to Eden behind her. "Where were you?" she asks, and Mom assures her it doesn't matter: "Just call your father." Jessica doesn't like this, and falters for a moment before introducing her to Sookie. "My ... Friend." Sookie's eyes are, of course, bugging the fuck out because she just screwed the pooch and knows it, and the whole time she's like, DO NOT CRY, even as the mom is wigging out; she stares at the mom and tries to figure out a way out of this mess, trying to distract them before the mom... "Honey, your arm's like ice. Come on in and I'll make you some tea." And it's done. Jessica looks over at Sookie with a wild look, joyful almost and afraid, crossing a threshold, a state line, into the house: they're bad girls, on a wild night. Breaking the first rule. Begging her to be the big sister just a minute more.
That sweet old racist drunk that Tara yelled at that time, Jane, notices Eggs coming in through the front door, and takes notice. Tara, who just today basically dumped him before they even got started, is not overjoyed. Possession, selling, armed robbery, assault, overpass. He's trouble. "Eggs, I'm working," she says, and he apologizes and asks her to hear him out. Jane stares at him, hungry and forward: "I'll hear you out!" Tara's appalled. "Jane Bodenhouse! You are a crazy-ass drunk, but normally you wait for some loser to hit on you. What the hell has gotten into you?" Jane's wearing a ridiculous side-pony and looks twice as nuts as usual. She admits she doesn't actually know, and wanders away. Welcome to Jacob on two shots of tequila, side-pony included, depending on the last time I saw Pam.
"Okay," Tara barks at him. "What?" Out on the floor, Maryann blesses Jane Bodenhouse. One hand lightly on her head, and Jane twirls underneath it, squeaking with joy. Confidence and sensuality. Behind Eggs, two men dance with a woman between them. Their bodies want to touch, touch everywhere.
"All right, listen," he says. "My dad left us when I was a little kid. So I don't remember shit about him, except this. He used to always say, 'You can't get what you want in life, so in order to get it, you're prepared not to want it.'" She laughs: that's her experience too. The opposite of all Maryann can teach us. "Well, I say fuck that. I wanna be with you, Tara, and I refuse to pretend I don't." She's touched, good opening, and the waves of abandon hitting her at once. We move from state to state.
Maryann whirls out of the dancing and grabs hold of Andy, blessing him. Momentary purpose, worship of the moment. "Detective Bellefleur, you come dance with me!" She's adorable, sexy, drinking him in. He stumbles with his words, after two many beers, but becoming sharper; he says he doesn't dance and she laughs. "With me you do!" We all do. She drags him into it, grinning and wild. It's his last night drinking, after all. Abandon, then moderation.
Jason's flossing, in pajama pants, when Luke surprises him. "Think you walk on water, don't you?" Jason's been through this, the jealous, and his stance is cool: "Pretty sure that was Moses?" Luke's disgusted by this complete lack of anything, and Jason shrugs when he explains it. "And what the hell was the deal with you snapping the American flag in half? Like you're some Muslim Buffy with a dick! That's all kinds of messed up." It's also totally awesome. Jason rolls his eyes and fakely apologizes that everybody else liked it so much more than Luke did, but Luke's not buying. Jason's smile falls: "Your being here is a joke, Stackhouse. They may not see it now, but they will. Day one might have went to you? Day two belongs to the Lukinator." He points at Jason's sad face, and then his own, and disappears.
Jason's tickled, and a little irked, as he turns back to the mirror. He was flossing that morning, that beautiful morning in the bathroom when Amy smiled at him and told him they could be a family, travel the world: Jason, Amy and Eddie. Like a pet, she said. And killed him. Voices claw up as he looks: "Die, Fanger!" and protestations that he is the tool of Satan, that he's a traitor. Eddie barely conscious as he brought the TruBlood to his lips, begging him to drink. To live. He shakes his head, eyes shut tight, vowing not to cry.
Sam wheels a keg out into the storeroom, struck by the intensity of the bar outside: the dancing, the laughter and shouting, the driving beat. Outside, they're serving themselves from the taps, dancing harder and faster. Jane, blessed, holds her arms up, like a goddess. What's gotten into her is everything. Everybody smiling, drinking in abundance, in their abandon. Andy Bellefleur dances, and when he dances he does indeed resemble an epileptic on meth; what makes him beautiful is that he doesn't care, anymore. Maryann dances about, crouching and beckoning; across the floor, smiling at her, Tara rides him. The women ride the men, against tables and stools. Jane's arms rise toward the ceiling, her body like a knife. Jane is gone, blessed with abandon; her eyes are black as night.
Maryann comes meekly, laughing, into Sam's office. He growls. "What the fuck is going on out there?" She shrugs. "I'm talking about the dancing and the gyrating and the people nearly having sex on the pool table?" She offers the theory that people returned from the rodeo in a good mood, and he pushes it too far. "Damn it, Maryann, this is my bar. These are my people. This is my town!" Too loud, and not the right words. This is tribute. They're not his. She stalks toward him, vibrating; changing state. He begins to whimper, as the air grows thick and quiet, throbbing. He begs her to stop. "Don't do that. I've seen you do that before..." Maryann's eyes close, rolling up to heaven, and Sam Merlotte begins to weep, begging her to stop. She pulls him in with her, and the world changes. He falls.
Maryann Forrester crouches and looks into his dog's eyes, smiling nastily. Offended and laughing. "Abracadabra, Sam. What I just did to you, I can do anytime, anywhere." To anyone, to them out there: to bless them, to bring the animals out, to live eternally. His eyes are scared, and so sad; he can't move. "So unless you want your customers to know your little secret, you better think twice before you threaten me ever again. Do we understand each other?" Never, and always.
"I don't normally cuss," Sookie whispers in the Hamby's living room, "But you have completely fucked me." Jessica apologizes, seeming honestly appalled: "I know. And I'm sorry, but I swear it was like it wasn't even me doing it." Her tone gets arch, a little teenager bit: "It must be those new vampire impulse control issues." Sookie stares her down: "Fuck your impulse control issues," she hisses, as Eden enters with sandwiches. Sookie thanks her kindly, and mom's voice echoes from the kitchen, demanding stasis and purity: "You already had dinner. Don't touch those sandwiches." Eden doesn't even react, just tells Sookie she's pretty. Sookie's delighted, and tells Eden she's very pretty herself. She is, but the resigned sigh tells a longer, older story: "No, I'm not. Got a problem with hair." Fault: Front door.
Jessica runs to her father, and holds onto him so tightly, for a moment. Mom hugs herself, happy to have the world back. Regardless of the quality of the world, we all want this. Almost regretfully, he pulls back and begins to shake her, voice rising and rising as Sookie stands. "How could you do this? Do you have any idea what you put your mother through? Why, Jessica? You tell me why?" She protests weakly, calls him Daddy, even as Sookie shouts "Mr. Hamby!" in a warning voice. But once he threatens her, Jessica's back goes straight and she nearly smiles: "Go ahead, Daddy. Get your belt," she suggests, shoving him back. And then the fangs: "But this time I'll be ready for you."
Fangtasia!'s banging outside Eric's office, where gunshot Lafayette rolls around on the couch in pain, with the collar still around his neck. Chow laments the blood he's losing and already lost, hates to let it go to waste, waiting for Eric. Pam crooks an eyebrow: "Yeah, maybe one day you'll be Sheriff and you can make the rules." They agree this is doubtful, and smile, distracted by the blood in the air. When Eric enters, Pam does this amazing move, composing herself against a keg or something as though she were just hanging out, not salivating over all that blood. It's adorable and fucking scary, which: welcome to Pam.
"Sorry to keep you waiting for so long," Eric says, grabbing some paperwork and looking over it easily. "How's the leg?" The leg is shitty, but thanks for asking. "After all your proclamations about what a model prisoner you were going to be, you had to try to escape," Eric says exhaustedly. Lafayette points out the odds of him getting killed anyway, and Eric's like, "Well now we'll never know." He asks Lafayette if he'd like to die from the gunshot, or from getting eaten right now, and Lafayette chooses Plan C. Eric's intrigued for a second, doesn't hide it: "There's a Plan C?" Make him a vampire, obviously.
Eric tamps down on his emotion and begs Lafayette's pardon, but he's clearly been thinking about this. Probably long before the dungeon, even. "And you can put me to work in the bar. I'm a good dancer, you seen it on my site." Eric doesn't agree exactly, but he does move closer, and Lafayette lays on the sexy voice: "Shit, I get up there and move earth and heaven, gogo style..." Eric's tickled and playful, reminding Lafayette of the gaping hole in his leg -- "You're damaged goods!" he says, with pretend innocence -- but Lafayette knows more than he thinks: Not if you turn me. I'll be good as ever." Eric's surprised, again enough to show it.
"Look, I'm already a person of poor moral character. So I'll hit the ground running. And I damn near glamour people already. Give me what y'all got and it's on me, cracker." As much as I love the idea, I still have to admit that Lafayette is building a damn fine case here, logically. These are all true things. On the other hand, selling V is about as gross as anything considering it's not really a "drug" in the classic sense where you can at least pretend you're not linked to horrible shit and people dying all the time. V, the person actually dies. Even Amy admitted that part of it. And though Eddie was a special case, you're still involved. A wise poster on the forums compared V addiction and sales to kiddie porn: you're directly involved no matter what. If you did it, you've done it.
Pam's intrigued too, because she appreciates variety in all its forms, and looks to Eric. "Not only will I be a badass vampire, but I'll be your badass vampire." Whatever level of sexy and intrigued Eric was repping before now, it doubles. "Interesting," he says. Because it only took Lafayette this long to become Bill's opposite: the most vampire human of all. Lafayette's surprised, thinking it's a reprieve, but then it's not. Then it's chowtime. Eric gives the word and takes his arm, Pam the chest, and Chow on the leg. And Lafayette begins to howl.
"How could you let some bloodsucker bite you like that?" Jessica's dad asks, comparing his daughter for a second to Lafayette, and Sookie reacts to the epithet but Jessica reacts to something much deeper, much more insistent and vital and angry: "I didn't let anybody do anything to me. But oh, am I glad he did! Because now I get to homeschool you, in what it's like to be scared." Fault this.
Sookie's fast; Jessica's faster. She zooms at her father, holding him, and shoves Sookie away and down, gently almost: "Jesus Christ, Sookie. Would you shut the fuck up?" Eden worries at Sookie while Mom begs Jessica to chill: "This isn't you!" Jessica could laugh. "You don't know the first thing about me. You're too dumb to know anything." Sookie's offended on mom's behalf, like a good girl, but Jessica's serious. "Oh, what? She is dumb. She's dumber than a sack full of hammers, and he's as mean as a snake. And that's the way it's always gonna be around here." She looks down at Eden, crying, afraid. Doesn't really matter whose fault it is, this time: it's ending. "Right here, right now. And I am doing it with your belt." She goes for it, and he grabs at her hands; she's offended, disgusted: the belt stays on? After all this time? Eden's scared and he comforts her, before Jessica hurls him across the room, crucified, her hands at his wrists. She breathes, then loops the belt around his neck. (Why? No reason vampires could explain. This is all for her. This is her liberation, the shape it takes. Cheer her on.) "Don't worry," she whispers. "This will only hurt for a minute." He went there first.
Jessica goes for his neck just as their front door crashes open -- "Fault" -- and Bill stands there, unable to enter, called there by Sookie's fall and Jessica's uproar. Jessica resists, but as her maker Bill commands her, and she stops moving. He summons Eden to the door, against Daddy's protest, and glamours her: "Now, you listen to me. I'm here to protect you. You and your mother and your father. I am your friend. So you just invite me in and I can make everything stop." He's so sexy, with the rattler going. "You can?" she asks, justifiably suspicious of grownups, and he smiles beautifully at her. "Yes." She doesn't pause. "Won't you please come in, sir?"
He zooms to Sookie, pushing her toward the door as she babbles her apologies: "SHUT UP." It's angry and mean, and stops her in her tracks. She stands outside the door, and he bends to clean up her mess, snarling into black.