So the secret of Eric's obsession with Godric is revealed, and it's a not-entirely-surprising doozy: Godric's his maker. It's a classic love story, really: Eric was in the middle of his own Viking funeral when a feral Peter Pan tweener Celt decided to take time out of watching his Hannah Montana videos long enough to turn Eric into a vampire/boyfriend, proving that fanfic ate itself well before the internet was even invented.
Back home in Bon Temps, Daphne is in fact a shapeshifter. She ends the night of Sookie's house orgy by turning into a deer in front of Sam, and later they bond over that whole thing. When Tara wakes up after her first night with Eggs, Maryann's downstairs making breakfast because BTW she's living at Sookie's now, along with Karl and Eggs. Tara says no to this little plan, but Maryann shows up that night and works her hurly-burly from Merlotte's parking lot, causing everybody inside to go berserker amounts of pissy. This -- combined with the truly awesome creepiness of her dressing up like Gran -- puts Tara over the edge as far as burning her Merlotte's bridges and throwing her lot in with her bizarre new family.
Hoyt reads comics to Jessica over the phone, driving his mom batty with jealousy. Sookie's meetup with Bellhop Barry doesn't go too well: he's terrified that living in Dallas, as he does, the local vamps won't be so excited about his powers as the Louisianans are. She goes Sookie All Over His Ass, predictably, but for once he's not buying what her crazy self is selling.
Eric, on the other hand, totally agrees to Sookie's newest plan, to infiltrate the Fellowship Of The Sun pretending to be a vampire-hating Christian, and then... I guess not totally die? We'll see. Bill's pretty upset about that, but of course he can't say "no" to Eric, and by episode's end it's clear he won't be up for much more argument: his maker, Lorena, shows up at Hotel Carmilla at the end of the episode. Also looking to make trouble: at least one of Godric's two lieutenants, a cowpoke by the name of Stan. Less fighty, apparently, is the other one, Isabel (played by Smits's awesome wife on Dexter), who displays a distinct interest in Sookie's interracial relationship.
On the other side of this particularly lovely and seemingly inevitably war, then, Jason's stay at the Light of Day Institute goes from paramilitary to full-on terrorist as he continues to vault up the structure. He's doing great! How great? Well, a handjob from Sarah Newlin finally breaks the tie on what we're seeing is a sort of strained, weird marriage; meanwhile, all Steve wants to do is play with guns. And flamethrowers, and ninja stars, and archery sets, and whatever else little boys are actually made of. Now that Sarah won Jason in their little rock-paper-scissors, I guess that's all he's got. Or else he's in on that too, and they really are the creepiest people who ever lived.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see who vlogger Sean Crespo thinks Bill will hook up with in No Prior Knowledge! And check back soon for the full recap!
Sam's managed to chase mysterious adorable Daphne all the way into the woods without running into Jamiroquai or Maryann doing culty shit, but as usual Sam doesn't know how great he has it. You think hair like that just happens? Please. Sam's amazing hair is the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people since the consummation of the Newlins' marriage. She drops her panties and her boots, disproving our theory last week that she was capable of wearing clothing, all the while talking mad game about how Sam's terribly lonely, which duh, and then just vanishes. Sam comes around a tree and sees a delightful, delicate, wonderful little deer looking back at him with great big eyelashes, and before you can say twitterpated, it turns into Daphne. So of course Sam immediately starts screaming bloody murder, and credits.
While Sam sputters, Daphne gives him a knowing grin and a dose (I typed "does" first!) of shifter pride, and tells him how she's known they were both the same since she watched those two identical dogs running through the forest and one of them was Sam. She tells him for the third or eighth time that he's not alone anymore, and the kissing and hugging, and then Arlene and Terry -- eyes back to normal eye color -- come giggling through the forest. They all give each other the "all we do is fuck our coworkers" smile, unaware that they are acting under the auspices of some kind of magic orgy spell, and Daphne peaces. Terry picks up Arlene in his arms like a caveman -- "Come on, special lady!" -- and tells Sam they'll see him at work, and Sam stares around some more and wonders if Daphne just used her powers to turn into embarrassment for all concerned.
Meanwhile, Sookie has if you remember also discovered a kindred spirit in Bellhop Barry, who wants zero percent of her mess, and corners him in the hallway, where he psychically cowers and hopes she's not some horrible creature bent on killing him. She is all kinds of Sookie Stackhouse on him immediately, crawling right up his psychic jock about how they have to be best friends and have psychic conversations about psychic shit, but before he can tell her to back off, she snarks at a Carmilla familiar zombying down the hallway between them with an ice bucket full of his own blood or whatever, having finished his fangbanging shift for the night.
Barry's like, "Don't smart off to the guests!" and Sookie's like, "He's clearly the fuck out of it, if you can't tell from the total lack of blood in his body, use your mind powers." All that is in there is like a Malcolm MacLaren remix. Sookie realizes that Barry does not know all about being telepathic yet, which she sees as one more opportunity to climb inside his clothes with him and commence best-friending the shit out of him, and Barry will have none. He explains that vampires are horrible and scary, and will suck your blood right out of you, like that's their whole thing, especially if they know you are magical your own self and can do things like hear thoughts and be unglamoured: "Listen, I don't know what little fried corn-on-the-cob town you're from, or what candy-ass vampires you're with, but this is Dallas, baby!"
Sookie informs him that A) watch it, B) don't call her baby, C) don't presume to think that Louisiana vampires are any less fucked up or scary than Dallas ones, D) she's been almost killed eleven times and her whole life since this show started has been a nonstop thrill ride of pain and disillusionment and people dying all over the place, so E) be cool. Barry will not be cool. Barry will be Audi Five Million. Sookie grunts to herself and feels like his whole identity and fear of being murdered is like totally a burn on her, and takes it personally, while Barry scuttles the fuck.
In the room, Bill is dressing down Jessica for eating off the menu, and tells her that sucking human fangbanger blood is maybe even worse than watching PPV porno, and Sookie comes in and Jessica's all excited like, "Sookie! There's dirty movies!" Sookie does an amazing fake-astounded face and goes, "I know, yuck!" Bill orders Jessica to her room and to drink some TruBlood, and she tells him she is on the fast train to having an eating disorder, stomping off with a seriously adorable and very accented, "PRIVATE! KEEP OUT!"
Well, without Jessica to boss around and act generally in a patriarchal fashion, whatever will Bill Compton do? Oh, lecture Sookie for a million years about where was she and did she know that danger exists. Sookie plays dumb, which is of course a stretch, and says she was looking for a candy machine. Of mind powers. Then, to shut him up, she strips off his shirt and talks about how she's safe because she's "HIS" and all that mess, and eventually just literally grabs his cock in her hand and asks if they're going to need to discuss this shit further. Not even the one million responsibilities and errands of Bill Compton are strong enough to withstand Sookie's Stackhouse's limitless horniness. Just once I would like him to be like, "Suckie, what are you doing? Are you trying to take mah mind off mah own inability to reconcile my antebellum pre-feminist paternalistic tendencies with your own sovereign right to be a woman and make yore own decisions?" And she would be like, "Bill Compton, you cum drugs, what is confusing about this? Shut your trap, I don't need fangs flopping in my face for this part."
Jessica calls Hoyt, who is wearing matching pajama top and bottom in a winning blue check pattern, where they got that much fabric I honestly have no idea, but just when you think that the image of Hoyt Fortenberry in matching PJs alone is like the cutest thing ever, he puts down the comic book he is reading aloud to himself and answers the phone like so: "You're talking to the Man!" Yes, yes you are. The more infantilized and slightly tardy Hoyt becomes... I won't finish that sentence, but I will keep worrying about this, quietly and to myself. It's a good thing he's twelve feet tall or I'd feel like a real creep. Momma Maxine comes in yelling and shit and he locks her out of the room, and then they both fall sideways on their respective beds and basically their conversation is like, "Shmoo boo-buddy-boo?" "Schmoo, lalaloo."
It goes on for awhile, and it is totally adorable in that Pleasantville way you used to think was all dating was about, and then he reads his comic book to her, because he is perfection in human form: "Okay, so it's called Space Tomb. And this time they're on the planet Historion, and Sea Leopard's just pitchin' a fit..." Move over, Saracen, we have ourselves a winner.
Jason's asleep just down the hall from his parent/cult-leader/future fuckbuddies the Newlins when a big scary rough dude named Gabe comes in and throws him on the floor, blasting an arena horn and tossing LODI sweats at him. Cut immediately to the terrorist bootcamp arm of the Light Of Day Institute Home For Wayward Idiots, where the guy Gabe is yelling and yelling and the napalm in the morning and the failure to communicate and things of this nature, and Sarah's there in her cute tog-waisted butter-yellow sweats as though they should have expected this, which frankly they should have because they are in a cult. Gabe makes Jason do some pushups for Jesus, and Luke laughs so then he does pushups also for Jesus, so then Jason has to do his pushups one-armed, because even in the early AM he knows that Luke must be destroyed... With fitness.
Tara wakes up in Sookie's bed with Eggs, and I guess because of who usually sleeps here, rolls over and checks his heartbeat, or lays on his sick chest and thinks about sweat or whatever, and then picks up that hideous effing picture of the horrible monster about to devour the little girls, also known as Tara and Sookie with the beastly goblin of Adele, and her eyebrows twitch with yearning and love and possibly fear because of how fucked up Gran looks, and -- as though he can feel her heart moving away toward Sookie again -- Eggs wakes up and goes, "Hey, come back."
Tara assures Eggs that she is right there, and tells him about how amazing Adele was and how she was practically Tara's real mom, and somewhere I guess Eggs files this information away for later, along with how this house is the only place she's ever felt safe. Then they make out to celebrate that this is the first birthday Tara's ever had that didn't end up, one assumes, with Lettie Mae shoving her head through plate glass or throwing her off a bridge or whatever her mom used to do for fun before Jesus and/or witchcraft in the forest with part-time drugstore diabetics.
The Hotel Carmilla exterior looks only slightly faker than Grandmother Goblin, and then Sookie's nipples wake up and immediately run out the door, leaving Bill in bed at dawn for the first time ever. Downstairs, there's Barry, who practically runs away as she once again attempts to climb down his esophagus. He points out that having a cognitive disability both regular-sucks and now super-sucks because the only people he can hang out with are vampires which, let's face it, are kind of fucked up in some ways.
She's all, "Pish, I totally got a job with my psychic powers that is going great! Why, I almost got abducted this time already, and last time I did a job with them, a little girl was murdered after I was almost murdered. But she's fine now, she's right upstairs, and she is totally adorable when she's not choking her family members with belts. You gotta meet her! Being psychic is the best!" Before Barry can point out that Sookie's life is tragic like any way you look at it, this fangbanger chick comes in thinking really loud ("Ow Brazilian wax feels like that bitch ripped out my female organs get a vamp to pay for laser somebody bite me") and Sookie screams at Barry's brain to shut it out, like she has learned to do. Or more to the point, to father him like Bill did with Jessica last night.
He tells her to chill, and then tells the banger that they're not hiring, but in order to get away from the intense and smothering friendship of Sookie Stackhouse, offers to help her fill out an application anyway. Absolutely certain this isn't the last time she will see and bother the shit out of poor Barry, Sookie steals some continental breakfast bananas and heads petulantly upstairs to plan her ambush on his sorry ass. Upstairs, she climbs into bed with Bill, who is a vampire and thus, Tempurpedic motion-transfer physics aside, totally notices the person climbing in bed with him. She is all excited about Barry, and then I don't know, the one million torments of Bill Compton.
Suckie can't be doing this or that, because what if this or that, and Fuck Eric in the A factors in there somewhere, because it always does, but also it is so hard being a man these days because you have teenager daughters sucking people's blood and psychic girlfriends roaming around being psychic, and now Eric is telling him what to do, which is supposed to be his bossy-ass job, and it's just very hard.
"Eric is strangely intense about all this," Bill worries: "It's not like him." WHAT? Because Eric is usually so affable and chill and not strangely intense about, like, everything?
Sookie tells him to shut up about Eric and how she's a grown-ass woman who has the deal with Eric, and refrains politely from pointing out that Bill is the parsley on this particular meal and invited himself along, because she's a nice girl-slash-woman, and then they stare into each other's eyes and grasp at each other's hands for about a year, because that's how they roll, because they're hilarious. I assume, although we do not see it, that at some point Bill starts whining again, and I'm guessing she fucks him at that point, because come on.
Arlene, on top of being the usual bitch to Daphne that she has decided to be, is rubbing it in watching her do all her prep work from last night, since she was all apron-whipping excited to go to the orgy, and Terry comes in being all hands-offy with Arlene because... Who knows why Terry does the things he does, but I'd imagine Arlene in the AM is a sobering experience regardless of what you've been through. Daphne asks him to help make the iced tea, and Arlene yells at him not to -- all the while pulling this "I'm just thinking about your future as a server" bullcorn -- and eventually he just wigs out and runs away talking to himself, and Arlene, even though she was the instigator, is like, "You BROKE TERRY!" and runs off to bother him some more. Sam appears to flirt with Daphne, and the couples meander around the point for awhile before the door opens and it's Lafayette. And of course, because they love him and it's been a month, the whole room sort of exhales at once.
Sam takes Lafayette back to his office to discuss his sudden disappearance, but the undertone from word one is that it's going to be one of those Sookie/Sam conversations where he storms around for three minutes and rants for a bit and then gives you a hug. Which is what happens, essentially, with Sam's whole rant turning into a "because I love you and I was worried" sort of vibe, but Lafayette is still totally PTSD and can't even meet his eyes, just humbly asks for his job back. Which scares, pardon me, the shit out of Sam, because that is not Lafayette behavior. But Lafayette's not talking.
These people. Almost any TV show, at some point you realize the whole problem is person A not talking to person B and solving the mystery/interpersonal conflict, and that's where TV shows come from. But man, if this whole show just sat down it would be so easy:
"I saw/fucked/became a bizarre creature, that's why I was acting so weird before."
"OMG me too! That's totally why I was acting weird!"
"It was all for nothing. How funny! Once again, communication has saved the day."
Gabe and Sarah are driving a swank golf cart, chasing the future terrorists down a country road, and Gabe's screaming at them these scenarios about how they are out of ammo and five hungry vampires are chasing them. One chubbo drops on his face and Jason, of course, tries to get him up, but no go. Luke, also of course, taunts the guy for awhile about what a loser he is before running to catch up with the group, and Jason -- under the watchful eyes of Sarah and Gabe -- tries to get the guy up and on his feet again, but to no avail. Imaginary vampires, no joy. Jason yells at Luke to pace himself, and Luke awesomely goes, "This is my pace! Whoo!" Man, Luke is going to die something terrible. I mean, a vampire is going to kill the shit out of that guy. But it's nice to have him here while we do, even if I'm personally more concerned about the lack of Dirk in this episode.
Tara comes downstairs into Gran's kitchen and guess who is there humming and cooking up the usual cornucopia of outrageously giant and numerous fruits and vegetables. Tara's like, "The fuck?" and Maryann subtly explains that she and Karl and Eggs are going to be living there now, with Tara and Sookie. Tara tells her back that train up, but Maryann reminds her of how she totally said last week about how "you'd do it for me" and now it's coming true, and also that they've been having fun all living together. Creepy-crawling, Sookie-scratching, pig-punching, dirt-eating cake-fucking giant-spliffing family fun.
Apparently that gorgeous house made out of gingerbread and Greek mosaics actually belonged to a "client" of Maryann's, who has returned from Peru. I think said client is "your magical imagination," but we shall see. Tara stands her ground even when Maryann turns her pouting engines up to eleven and eventually runs out barefooted into the garden to weep and have sadness.
Eggs is, characteristically, playing the guitar in the kitchen, and when Tara says about Maryann inviting herself and her culty friends to come live there, he gets all excited. It goes downhill from there and Tara starts calling them "Bedouins," with a disgust in her tone that makes me think she thinks that's another word for "gypsies." Eggs says they are neither, they are a family, and the reality is that Tara is part of that family and that they love her and want to take care of her, even if it means killing all her friends and throwing away birthday presents and squatting in her house and having orgies. Tara says that they are lunatics and he's like, "You're just saying that because your history is so fucked up that you have no idea what family is." Which is close enough to telling her that this is all her fault, which she believes anyway, so she's about halfway to letting them stay from that shit alone.
Bootcamp Gabe is super mean to Luke, who is too gigantic to get over this fence, which they are training to do ... In case Jesus ever needs something on the other side of a fence? I mean, what the fuck is wrong with these people? I make dumb as shit decisions on a constant basis, but I think I would still notice myself becoming a terrorist. Jason loves the mile and a half up Luke's ass that Gabe likes to occupy, and there is much screaming, but then when the screaming starts to be about another one of these motivational scenarios Gabe likes so much -- Luke's family being slaughtered by vampires and buckets of blood on just the other side of the fence -- Jason starts to get freaked out, because of how nearly everybody he ever loved, or even liked, in his whole life was murdered in the last month, to the point where toward the end he was meeting people and falling in love with them like mere minutes before their murders. Sometimes in front of him, sometimes in bed while he was sleeping.
So Luke's rolling around in the dirt crying because of the shame, and the Jesus, and the imaginary slaughters, and Gabe starts with this whole thing in Jason's face about how it's "up to him" and show us what a real leader would do, and then Jason does the totally Jason thing that Jason will always do, because Jason is awesome, which is to climb to the top of the fence like a spider monkey, grab Luke, toss him over it, and then hop down praising Jesus. Man, now even Gabe sort of wants to fuck him. Gabe and Sarah hold hands and talk about how dreamy he is, and Luke can't decide whether to be sad or scared or jealous or what.
Godric's house is gorgeous, but very California. In it are his two lieutenants, the gorgeous Isabel and the gorgeous Stan, who have various cartoony accents. Stan is upset because Eric hired a human, Isabel is upset that Stan's been on the prowl and out of pocket, Bill is pissed because he is Bill, Eric is pissed because OMG Godric. Sookie is pissed... Essentially because everybody else is pissed.
Stan is wearing all-black and is basically like a cowboy, which is only okay because he is naturally hot but on the surface is very much that "modern douche" fauxhawk cowboy fashion thing. He is certain that Godric was abducted by the Fellowship of the Sun, but Isabel thinks that's ridiculous because they are hillbillies. Stan is all about killing the FOTS, but Isabel points out that if an anti-vampire cult where massacred, somebody might think the vampires did it. She is wearing all-white and looks like the wife of a drug kingpin. Sookie wants everybody to remember she exists, so she tells them a bunch of times how totally psychic she is. She should have t-shirts printed with her HUGE SECRET on them.
Stan says that's dumb because they should just kill them, which is like Stan's entire theme song. Isabel says that Godric is too awesome for Stan to use as an object lesson in whatever dick-measuring thing Stan's up to. Isabel doesn't have much of a point except that Stan is wrong. Which is valid. Eventually Eric throws a hissy fit and tells them that they are both assholes, and what about his woobie Godric, and they tell him to chill out and stop being such a whiner about it. Sookie gets attitude about being referred to as Eric's "puppet," and Bill says they need a better plan.
Stan: "I have a plan!"
Isabel: "It's not a plan, it's a movie."
Stan: "It's not a movie, it's a war."
So yeah, that pretty much covers how this is going to go down, I think. Eric is overwhelmed and shit with his heart and the love and the sadness and the fear and yearning, so he walks away to be with his feelings.
Sarah and Steve are having some kind of fight that mirrors the vampires, again, and this one is about how Steve feels like she's undermining him somehow, but she has a point that he and Gabe are keeping secrets from her about something. Specifically, something that doesn't care for, and which she thinks is "going too darn far." It's interesting because their cult/terrorist aims are all mixed up with their relationship stress which is all mixed up with their family business stress. It's like what if the Gosselins were likeable.
Jason comes around the corner looking like the concept of wifebeaters was invented for this precise day, and they both light up. Sarah turns on the bright lights about how Jason was "such a warrior" and Steve's giant fake smile could light up the universe, and then he takes Jason off into the house and barks at Sarah to back off, so she gets mad and hangs around in a foyer and decides -- if you pause it you can see the exact moment she decides this -- to fuck the hell out of Jason Stackhouse. Meanwhile Steve's like, "I'm going to show you something that very few people have seen." My penis!
Steve hoots about how he can "almost understand" why "some people" believe in divorce. Jason doesn't get it, he's like, "But you got Sarah!" And Steve's like, "I'm just kidding!" Um, okay. Then he throws open this door, revealing a motherfucking armamentarium, and they both go little-boy apeshit about the flame throwers, and the throwing stars, and the bazookas large and small, machetes up top, the whole thing, and Jason's trying desperately to keep up with Steve's thought processes, and it's like a little boy watching his dad work on a car and pretending to know how cars work. So Steve talks about how arrows are like wooden stakes that travel at 324 feet per second of the Lord's awesome velocity and they're ordering a guillotine for week and it gets powerfully musky in that little room and their boners are like, "Amen."
Maryann and Karl drive up outside Merlotte's and she does magical troublemaking, which sounds like Bill glamouring somebody a little bit. Inside, Arlene is being rude to some seriously unfortunate patrons, who are then rude to each other while she's at the bar being rude to Tara, to whom Sam is also being rude. Then Daphne and Arlene start bitching at each other, and Lafayette comes in to yell at Tara, and Terry joins in, and it's like this bacchanalia of petulance, and finally Tara suffers a breakdown and just stares into space and thinks about quitting, and out in the parking lot Maryann's like, "...And we're good."
Jason is taking a bath in a huge tub in a huge bathroom under a huge statue of three people fucking each other, in a classy statue way, and he hears somebody come in and tells them to go away, but it's Sarah, who locks the door and then comes and sits down by the tub, scaring the pee out of him, and then she offers to wash him -- you know, like friends do -- and talks about how Mary Magdalene used to dry Jesus's feet with her hair, which the way she describes it does seem awfully neighborly, but not as neighborly as a handjob, which Sarah produces immediately after a five-second loofah rubdown of his right arm and nipple, with the following explanation: "I think that after all your trials, heartache and pain... God wants you to have a reward. Let me reward you, Jason!" Mostly it's just sad.
Stan's still ranting about exterminating the human race, and Isabel points out the federal government will bomb them back to the Middle Ages, which Stan professes to miss, which causes Isabel to suggest he go back to Romania and live in a cave, and calls him a "ranchero poser," so at least somebody's playing attention. So far I like her. Of course, it's been mere moments since Eric's last temper tantrum, so he smashes a vase and yells at them about how Godric is so awesome, and Godric's dad can beat up your dad, and Godric has a convertible that he will one day let Eric drive, and Godric says he's gonna take Eric fishing one of these days, and whatever.
Sookie finally stands up and screams, "Somebody tried to kidnap me from the airport!" because all eyes on Sookie, and they discuss how that means there's a traitor in the Dallas vamp scene, because Godric's people were the only ones who knew they were coming. Stan and Isabel finger each other for that one, and Sookie yells at them more and tells everybody to calm down, because her new retardo plan is to join the cult and be psychic on them until... They figure it out and decide to murder her ass. Stan and Bill think this is dumb, Isabel thinks it's smart, and Eric... Just seems to really enjoy endangering Sookie.
As Stan puts on his pouty little pristine cowboy hat and bounces, Isabel prods Sookie about her interracial relationship and Bill whisper-yells at Eric about how Sookie was just clawed by a mysterious bull-man and now she is in Dallas, which is worse, so why is Eric so "strangely intense" about Godric? Because Viking flashback! Deal with that!
So these two bloody Vikings are helping Eric, who is more covered in blood than they are. They finally drop him on the ground, but they are having trouble accepting that he's going to die, because even in life he was this badass superhero. So then one of them comes up with this brilliant plan of doing a full Viking funeral, with meat and gold and beer. "And ladies?" asks one of them, and Eric's like, "Wherever I am, there will always be women." Big funny, everybody laugh, they build a funeral pyre and stick him on it with his sword and his shield and his hair needing conditioner in the Viking days of old.
Later on, they realize they are in the middle of a forest which is kind of on fire, and they don't know any ladies or any other Vikings, and it's the year 1009 so they can't even text some 5s to come get them out of this sausage party situation they've created, so then it just becomes standing around and waiting for Eric to die, which is not that festive. Or that interesting. Suddenly there is a sound, and then both of their Viking necks get slashed to fuck, and on top of the funeral pyre is Eric and on top of Eric is this, like, Peter Pan kid with dreads and tribal (but not that kind) tattoos and blood dripping down his chin.
Eric is like, "Are you Death?" and the kid nods, and he is very beautiful, and very intrigued by Eric in a concrete way. "But you're just a little boy!" Not exactly true. Eric bitches weakly at him for killing his Viking buddies, and it makes the kid laugh, and he gets kind of starry-eyed like, "I have been watching you do Viking Wars for like weeks, you are awesome at fighting!" Eric says that, if he were not dying, he would totally fight the kid, and the kid laughs, baring his fangs: "I know! It's beautiful!" So Eric asks why they're just dicking around here, and Godric gets super nervous and first-datey out of nowhere and almost hyperventilates.
"Could you be a companion of death? Could you walk with me through the world? Through the dark? I'll teach you all I know. I'll be your father, your brother, your child." He's basically begging, which is an awesome parallel to how Bill was turned, which was just kind of mean and rapey, and this is more like, "I like you, do you like me? Check one." Eric's fading fast, but not fast enough that his Ericness is going anywhere: "What's in it for me?" Godric says that it's what he loves most, life, and Eric sort of gurgles that word and starts to die, so Godric pops fang and jumps on him, and that's the story of how Eric joined VAMBLA. Back in the real world, of course, there's no time for Viking flashbacks, so Eric sums up that Godric was his maker, and Bill is taken aback, because Eric is so weird about that stuff he won't even say his mother's maiden name out loud in case the hackers are listening.
I love when Sam wears brown. That's all I really have to say about this scene, in which he and Daphne clean up the bar after whatever rage orgies went down, and eventually they start making out, and talk about oh it's amazing when I turn into an animal, because it's like sparks all over my skin and in my genitals, and then it's animal Christmas, and they climb onto the pool table with a thrice-deadly pun fight that I won't dignify, and just when you think they're totally going to turn into a dog and a deer and you'll see something truly amazing, it's just regular fucking. Although since it's Daphne and Sam, her scars are totally livid and gross looking, and his hair is still like, "What."
Back to the hotel, where Sookie gets ready for Bothering Bellboy Barry Part III, but the girl at the front desk tells her Barry quit earlier. Which makes Sookie incredibly sad, if you look closely, because again: she's been looking for Barry her whole life, and not only did he diss her, but she threw his game significantly enough that the one place where he could even eke out an approximation of real life was no longer a safe place for him. Which is sad, but still sadder for lonely Sookie, because like, fuck me for even trying. You know?
Tara comes home after the worst day EVER, and Maryann is at her kitchen table doing a record number of fucked-up things at once, reading Heartsick, which continues the heart theme in this season and particularly this episode, but is about a serial killer who poses as a therapist to manipulate and eventually subsume the weak, and wearing Gran's dress, with a lace dickie and the whole thing, and Adele's song starts playing, and she gets all tender and shit, like, "Even though you're kicking me out and I'm the only person who will ever truly love you, that is so totally cool that I cooked all your favorite foods and stocked the fridge because I love you so, so much, in this house, wearing this dress, lurking around."
Tara tells her not to go, and Maryann is truly touched, and tells her she is good to Tara because she needs it so much, and because it makes her bloom like a flower, and Tara tries to believe that and bloom like a flower despite everybody in her Merlotte's family turning on her simultaneously, and goes upstairs and climbs in bed with Eggs, who despite having been thrown out of the house six hours ago has decided to lounge about reading a novel shirtless in some leather pants on the off chance that Maryann would beguile Tara into letting them stay. It's always fun when terrible shit happens to Sookie because you can see her asking for it from a mile away, but man, Tara. Get a fucking clue already.
Even though Sookie's going to join a paramilitary cult in the morning as a double agent in the war between vampires and humans, Bill still manages to make it about himself and his many many torments. Tonight's round is about how shitty "they" (meaning Stan essentially, although Fuck Eric is probably a factor in there again) were being -- "Despicable, vicious, petty, vile creatures" -- but once again, that's all in Bill's mind: They were trying to put their family back together. Just like everybody else.
Sookie hands Bill more of that racist shit about how he's the good one, and so well-spoken, and a credit to the undead, and totally not like them, and he loves that shit and eats it with a spoon like always, and he begs her to come back to Bon Temps with him like right now. I wonder how far Hoyt's gotten through that comic book in the last twenty-four hours. Sookie tells him to stow it because she has a deal with Eric, and assures him that she will be in and out of the terrorist cell "easy-peasy" and then once again tries to fuck him into submission. But because it's Bill, he's like, "Don't feel like we have to fuck just because we always do, because that's how paternalistic I'm feeling right now," and she assures him she's not fucking him as like, a favor, and he goes, "Then what do you want, Sookie? Say it."
Ugh. Listening to Bill try to talk dirty is like watching a gangbang at a Star Trek convention. So they're fucking, and then meanwhile in slow-motion Lorena comes around the corner in the hotel hallway, and listens to their very verbal sex that Jessica can officially totally hear, which is so gross, and her fangs pop out, and I guess Lorena's back, looking really lovely and wearing an awesome dress. Anything that makes her look less like the plainest sister in a Chekov production with Tripplehorn and Marcia Gay Harden works for me. But since reinventing her as Sarah Palin would be too much on the nose, no matter how hilarious it would be, I just hope her accent has at least fucking mellowed. The idea of entire scenes of Bill and Lorena torturing English confederately at each other makes me want to greet the sun, if y'all know what Ah'm sayin'.
week: Why's Lorena in Dallas? Sookie joins a cult! Tara hosts more orgies probably! Lorena's all over Bill! Sarah wants a divorce! Plus Pam!