After Lorena bites Bellhop Barry and gets too close to Sookie's secret, Bill finally knocks her cold and heads to the Fellowship, where Eric and Sookie -- with Jason, who is fine because Sarah only shot him with a paintball gun because she has gone crazy -- are in the middle of a clusterfuck. You've got the Fellowship congregation, the Soldiers of the Sun summoned during Eric and Sookie's escape. Everybody stands around yelling their various agendas and acting like idiots, Eric gets chained to the altar at one point, and then on top of all this, Stan shows up with an army of tacky Dallas vampires.
The ensuing massacre is aborted by Godric's command, not that Steve's swayed by his awesomeness, and then there's a big party at Godric's house to celebrate his return to the fold (and Jason's return to sanity, not to mention his total badassery). Godric stays sad and cagey about his feeding habits, why he ended up at the Fellowship, and what his plans are for vampire-human reconciliation. Eric spends most of the episode doing handstands for his attention regardless.
Due to the drama, Bill sends Jessica and Hoyt home to Bon Temps -- not really the best place for tender youngsters, but he doesn't know that -- and they find out that Jessica's hymen is with us forever. She's grossed out, but he is of course just as sweet as pie about it.
Hey, speaking of pie, Maryann makes one with Daphne's heart after stashing her body in the Merlotte's walk-in freezer. So now Sam's in jail -- no thanks to Andy, who tries to get him to corroborate the dollhouse-giant pig-claw monster-bull lady-devil orgy story -- and Tara and Eggs, after eating Daphne Pot Pie, are pushing past acceptable limits. Which in this case means beating the shit out of each other, fucking, and doing both at the same time.
Isabel brings Hugo to Godric for justice, but Godric lets him go, and then Lorena shows up to start some shit with Sookie -- who obliges like it's Springer -- but eventually Godric tells her to get lost too. He tries to explain that the last 2000 years haven't made vampires better people any more than they have humans, but nobody's really listening. After a flirty, manipulative aside with Eric, Jason tries to apologize to Bill for the last few months of racism, and ends up freaking him out even worse with a giant sweet Stackhouse bearhug. Then Luke shows up and goes suicide bomber on everybody.
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Sookie's buttoning her dress, staring up at Gabe in Godric's arms. He yells, "Godric, it's me!" But before he can elaborate, Godric snaps his neck, and drops the body. He meets Sookie's eyes and tells her she shouldn't have come, but before she can answer they hear screaming up above. Godric smiles and closes his eyes; she thinks it's Bill, but he knows better. "I'm here, my child. Down here," he says, happily. Eric comes zooming in, straight from the Hotel Carmilla, and there are many magical sounds. Eric kneels without looking at his face, and says his name softly.
Sookie's fascinated; she's never seen this before. Certainly Jessica and Bill don't act this way with each other. Nobody acts this way. "You were a fool for sending humans after me," Godric says gently, and Eric apologizes without looking up: "I had no other choice. These savages..." Godric's aware of their plan. He knew all along. He's sad, but not forthcoming. He's too tired and Eric's not tired enough. Eric's tired, but not enough to understand.
He points at Hugo, and Sookie explains about the trap. He can barely hear her. "How long has it been since you've fed?" Eric asks, and Godric is once again tender without answering: "I require very little blood anymore." The alarms start, up above, and Godric tells Eric to take Sookie -- he won't brook any protest -- and to do so without spilling any blood. Eric follows his orders, and they leave him there, looking at the darkness.
Gabe had to die, because of what he was about to take: he shamed Godric, and their association, by attacking Sookie. But one thing vampires understand more than any of us is that our worth isn't dependent on our greatest sin any more than our highest glory, or our deepest kindness: our worth isn't dependent on anything we've done, but only what we do, once the sun sets and rises again. Sam was so terrified of what he was that he never even had a friend; Tara was so afraid of getting her mother's sin on her that she killed a little girl. And Jason, well. Jason's been through that one, around and through it and over it and under it so many times he can be forgiven for getting lost. Who you are isn't made up of what you've done or who you've been, but what you do, and who you're willing to become. Only gods are above change. Maybe that's all they are.
Jason opens his eyes on the ground and touches the blood on his chest gingerly: it's paint, but he hasn't registered that yet: "Holy shit, God saved me. I'm saved!" Sarah stares at his amazing dumbness, crazed and grossed out: "Oh, for heaven's sake, grow a brain cell!" It's the "for heaven's sake" that really sells it. Jason sits up, notes that she's a crazy bitch, and then she explains exactly how and why: "I let you into my house, into my bed and into my heart. All I stood for, all I believed in, I violated to be with you!"
Now, normally that would be hyperbole talking, or at least slut-spiral guilt. But in this case, she's being absolutely honest. He doesn't know that the sex is still inside the Venn diagram of him being a vampire agent. As far as she knows, he played her for a whore. The fact that neither of them ever twig to what the other is actually saying is tragic more than anything, because it turns them both into assholes. Stackhouse goes back to being a dick with a retard attached, useful for one thing only, and Sarah goes back to what she knows: that the vampires will use anything -- your body, your sister -- to strike at you where you're both vulnerable. They're both wrong, but they can't know that.
"I gave you everything! For a lie! You're worse than Judas!" Jason's like, "What did he do to you?" which is so amazingly stupid she literally Cathies, "Ack! Fuck you!" and shoots him in the nuts. Well, she's been holding back on the Jason-is-stupid thing for a long time, and we know how hard it is to make conversation. He apologizes again and again, asking what she wants from him -- since he still thinks this is about the sex and not the Sookie part -- and begs her not to shoot him again. She gives no indication of interest in complying.
"You came to prey on me, to ruin the sacred vow I made to my husband, then like a coward, you ran!" He protests, but then remembers that part's true, which given the fact that it's the first accusation today that he's understood, let alone felt culpable for, is a nice touch. "Okay, I ran, but it wasn't from you. It was from your husband and his crazy weapon collection." Much is made of the misunderstanding, where all his sweet confusion is just knife after knife in her sudden self-hatred, with a lot of "No, I didn't tell Steve, he told me" farcicality, and finally she cuts through the bullshit: "There are wolves in our henhouse. We must defend our flock. We have your sister."
And that's when Jason gets awesome and scary and doesn't stop for a good long while. His voice, his posture, everything: Don't fuck with his sister. Not only because he's a good southern boy, but because as far as he can tell everything -- I mean everything, from Maudette to Dawn to Gran to the V to Amy and Eddie to Gran, to Drew -- came out of his fear of Bill Compton, touching his sister. So to bring his sister into this -- the thing he was running toward, to expiate his half-understood sins -- means there is nothing free of vampires. And before tonight, that would have increased his ire toward them, but now he knows what side he is on: Sookie's side.
"Sookie's in the church?" Yes, Sarah says, she came in yesterday spouting the same lies as him. He doesn't hear this part, still, but he knows the end result: "You listen to me," he says, quiet and angry: "She's got nothing to do with this." These Stackhouses! I love it when they say the same stuff as each other ("lock-in/lockdown"), it's like the Stackhouse filibuster all over again. "You Stackhouses! You're nothing but a bunch of heartless, two-faced vampire fuckers."
It feels strange in her mouth, that word; it feels worse in his ears: not giving into that weirdness is what kept him from being Rene Lenier. ("Has he ever thought about fucking vampires?" a friend asked. "No, just dreamed about it. And only guys, at that.") He takes the gun and Sarah, disappointingly but understandably given her like entire life, melts into a puddle of stereotypical femininity at his aggression. "Don't you ever talk about my sister like that," he says, fake gun in hand, climbing into the badass golfcart. "And if I find out any of you so much as touched her, I'm gonna come back here, and it won't be with no fucking paintgun!" Jason takes off -- was he seriously out there from sunup to sundown? -- and leaves proud, brilliant Sarah Newlin rolling around in the dirt and squealing softly to herself, still wearing that gold suit she's been wearing since like June.
"Brothers and sisters," Steve's voice floods the complex, "We are on lockdown. Women with children, please take them to our classroom buildings. Men -- and able-bodied women -- security personnel will provide you with stakes and silver just outside the chapel." Eric and Sookie stand in the very Mormon doorway of the staircase down to the basement, watching the human flood. "Our Soldiers of the Sun are on their way to protect our church, but safely evacuate the building now. Brothers and sisters, the hour is upon us!" You can feel it in him, the same way you can whenever Stan talks about it: the time, the hour upon us.
"I could have you out in seconds," Eric says, unsure, and Sookie reminds him that there are children in that group. "Those humans wouldn't think twice about hurting us," he says, because kids don't matter in war. Sookie asks why he didn't bring Bill with him, and I think Eric answers honestly, as in completely honestly: "His attachment to you is irrational. It clouds his judgment. He would kill every child in this church to save you." And Sookie asks the real question, without knowing it: "Why aren't you?" Eric grins, on top again now that Godric is showing some semblance of life: "I'm following Godric's orders and getting you out, that's all." The rest is better if you imagine it, because I can't do justice to either of them.
Sookie: "He's your maker, isn't he?"
Eric: "Don't use words you don't understand."
Sookie: "You have a lot of love for him."
Eric: "...Don't use words I don't understand."
Eric watches the guys locking that front door, and leans down to Sookie, so still and quiet and amazing: "Trust me." It's hot. And then in a different way, so is the sudden stooped, dorky smile and posture and accent he puts on, wandering toward the guys with a creepy culty air and telling them he can hold the anteroom. "You're big and all, but there's a vampire on the loose," one of them reminds him, and he fairly shudders with fake surprise. One asks where his stakes are, and he laughs and says, "Dang, I forgot."
What I am telling you is that Eric Northman says, "Dang."
A guy sneaks around behind Eric while he glamours a younger dumb hottie to hand over his stake, and the guy of course gives in, and the other guy reaches out and Sookie screams, "STAKE!" and then it's all sort of a blur: what was like five guys becomes three becomes a crippled mess and the youngest one of all, with a stake held to his neck. "Eric!" Sookie yells, coming closer: "You don't have to kill him." Eric drops the kid and she drags him to the door, where the congregation still throngs. The kid -- who has slid down the wall and is sort of wigging -- reminds them that the arrows are made of wood, and they'll never make it through.
They head through the awesome windowed sanctuary, but Steve's been standing there since the alarms went off, and explains that of the many exits, the one they'll be using is the one that takes you straight to hell. Luke and the LODI boys come in, from every door, covered in every manner of wood and silver and steel, wrapped in chains. I mean to say that the Fellowship wear their chains everywhere they go, to stay safe. Sookie tries to talk sense, and Steve yells amazingly, "The war has begun, you evil whore of Satan! You vampires cast the first stone by killing my family." He's so stuck on that! "The lines have been drawn! You're either with us or against us. We are prepared for Armageddon!"
God, I hate the apocalypse. Ever notice how the only people who ever want to talk to you about Revelation or Armageddon are either trash or coked up? It's always dudes who think they might be gay, or grad students, or crazy church people, or two of those three. They're so tired, or scared, they can't wait for it to end. For me, I can't imagine anything comforting about all this -- all this! -- ending. The apocalypse is suicidal ideation, and an inability to bear the weight of an infinite and unrecognizable future, but mostly it's just lame.
If the apocalypse comes, that means -- for just a small representative sample -- no more Diet Coke, no more vodka or cigarettes, no more Peter Cary Peterson, no more anything that makes our universe worthwhile. No more Jake Lodwick, for chrissake. No more Bear McCreary. I'd never finish Tender Morsels, which is like all I'm planning on doing tomorrow. No more making my day's schedule in Excel and then watching it slowly fall to shit. What's Lady Gaga's penis wearing this week? I don't know, we all died.
Things total are always going to be awesome, even if you're very tired indeed: Infinity is always bigger than whatever bullshit is bumming you out right this second. In the last five seconds alone you got: 1) a room with really excellent light and beautiful architecture, 2) Alexander Skarsgård's entire body ditto, and 3) Steve Newlin's hair, also ditto. That's like ten things, if you count Eric's separate muscle groups.
Stroppy Stackhouse informs Steve that his prisoner -- a sheriff, mind you, not that she or Steve actually understands what that means -- is free, and "bound to send for help." Steve doesn't even spare her a glance ("I'm not concerned with Godric!"), just turns to the crowd and indicates Eric: any vampire at all will do for the grand celebration, and they got one right here. Sookie stares at Eric, Eric stares at a bunch of crazy white people, and bows his head while Steve looks on, smiling wildly.
And then Eric -- Eric Northman, mind you, in case I didn't make that clear -- offers himself. Head down. "Brothers and sisters, there will be a holy bonfire at dawn," Steve laughs nastily. And I know I always bring Aslan into everything, so I'll spare you, but please.
Meanwhile Lorena's holding poor old Bellboy Barry against the door, chuckling grossly to herself about their sudden room service. "No. Uh, no. I don't do any..." Like they're going to be all, "Oh, I assumed you were a hooker. Our bad!" I was going to say working at Carmilla was way worse than say working in LA, but this is basically -- from what I've cobbled together from sensible sources like Dennis Cooper and Bret Ellis, not to mention my somewhat limited experience of pornographic cinema films -- what being a regular bellboy is like.
So I understand why Barry would assume Lorena's confused about his job title not being ho. She just loves that he's scared, because his heart is pounding which is probably tastier -- and I assume adrenaline in the blood makes it taste scarier also -- and Bill suddenly senses that Sookie is having some kind of issue. On top of the getting raped issue from five minutes ago, or the getting abducted issue from twenty minutes ago, or any of the other constant issues Sookie keeps running into.
"That bothersome human," Lorena muses to herself/Barry's face. "Just like an alarm clock you can't switch off. Blah, blah, blah, blah, and ten minutes later, blah." If Barry weren't mortally terrified you know he'd be like, girl I know. She touches his neck, he's scared, Bill gives his classically petulant/aggrieved tone to a gorgeous "I am not hungry" Everything he says is like this treasure trove of glove-smacking offense-taking. Although nothing will ever beat IT WAS PURE NIHILISM, which I've been screaming now for two weeks. "Julie & Julia? I thought you wanted to see The Orphan because you heard the ending was 'effed'," he says, long-suffering, and I say, "Ah did! BUT IT WAS PURE NIHILISM."
Lorena, pale and hungry, talks her usual game about how the real Bill is a lot more fun than normal Bill, and Barry begs for mercy, and she pops fang and commences eating. But she immediately pulls back, noticing something different about Barry. Something in the blood. "What are you," she grins, but before he can answer his fairy godmother in the form of Bill Compton picks up an entire flatscreen and bashes fuck out of Lorena, grabbing him and leaving Lorena in a puddle of her own spreading blood. Ah, old lovers. You can't eat a telepathic bellboy with 'em, you can't not live without 'em.
door, Jessica and Hoyt are finally fucking, and it's awesome. There's a moment of discomfort, but Jessica hurries him past that, telling him to shut up and keep going, and before you know it they are doing a great job. So of course Bill Compton zooms into the room yelling, and Jessica pulls the sheets up to her face, beyond mortified, and poor naked Hoyt is like, "I don't know what you heard, but those were screams of pleasure," as though that's less embarrassing, because he still thinks we're in daughter world, and has no idea that Bill could give less of a fuck about Jessica right now because Sookie is in danger for the fifteenth time in the last hour. "If you truly care for her," Bill says, which -- as Jessica groans with inhuman embarrassment -- is as close to his blessing as he's going to give, "You will take her to your car this very moment and drive her back to Bon Temps before the sun comes up." Because shit is going so well there: "Lovers," says Lafayette. "Oh shit, hooker..." Tara's surprised, sitting in Merlotte's after hours, because normally in these two-bit Tarot readings, isn't the Lovers good?
(And for free I will tell you: No. Because Eros, Ares and Eris all share a couple of consonants, and are siblings, the Lovers are bad news. The Trojan War was basically a big party between the three of them, fucking things up for everybody, and the line of blood went for decades before that particular chessboard settled down. Eris asked a simple question: "Who do you love more?" And the answer was so complicated that before you know it, dads are killing their daughters, sons are killing their moms, everybody gets plague like a hundred times, Andy Bellefleur getting shanked in the bath and poor Brad Pitt has the worst day ever. The Lovers means choosing. Its composition mirrors that of The Devil: a God, a force, stands above the field of war with a man and a woman in her hands, daring you to choose. Daring you to love. And whatever, whoever you choose, somebody dies. Everybody dies, and we all become something we never even knew, before love. There is nothing the slightest bit comforting about love: Love rips you apart and puts you back together. Better, if you do it right and with eyes open, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like hell.)
"In this position, it calls for a sacrifice in matters of the heart. You're going to have to make a choice." Lafayette drinks and Tara nods: "But it might turn out well, right?" Nope. Not in the cards. "You want to see your future?" Lafayette asks, and turns the card. But before we can see it, before he can complete the spread, Eggs runs in looking all kinds of a mess. "Tara, help me!"
The card is Justice. Scary, but honest: to overmaster the things that control us means controlling ourselves, and learning and loving the things that control us. It's so easy for Maryann to say we should just let it go, say fuck it and do what we like. She's God, she doesn't give a fuck. It's that easy for her. And it's important, I think, to remember that there's nobody watching. Nobody's taking score. But if you start thinking that's significant, you start looking for the line to cross, and the one after that. Once you realize every cage is inside another cage, and think that the point is breaking out, you can go out into the dark places. Once you realize nobody's in charge, it's easy to forget you always already were.
That's the Devil card: thinking that the darkness you're running toward is any more honest than the light. They are both dishonest, and honest -- and scary -- to the same degree. I keep saying that Maryann is a good thing in theory, because she's the Lovers card, constrained by human thought to the Devil. That's half the story, that it's okay: to lust, to fear, to feel rage and to dance, to fuck, to eat, as if nobody's watching. But it's only half the story. Ask Jason, whose Maryann was Amy, who taught him he was essentially okay, and to do what he willed, just like Maryann with Tara this year, until it went too far. Justice is the reminder, from sources beyond you, that you're being an idiot once you go too far that way: that there are limits. The human body, the human soul, the human mind: they have limits -- and a natural calling toward wholeness -- that gods will never comprehend.
All three of them are scared: Eggs, because he's lost time, and Tara because Eggs is scared, and Lafayette because he knows bad juju when he sees it and the cards have just redoubled his convictions. He all but laid down the Justice card for Jason, before he went missing. He takes off, to "clean a grill or something," and Eggs sits down where he just was, shaking. Tears stand in her eyes -- he's family, his concerns are hers, that's the thing Maryann has taught her through him -- and she's terrified. "What time is it?" he asks. He gets angry, he's so scared, and she tells him finally it's 12:10, because apparently Merlotte's closes at midnight? Eggs explains that he just lost like two hours, and he's scared to death. He woke up by the lake, freezing. She gathers him into her arms, and Lafayette stares, listening, as she fairly carries Eggs out of the restaurant, toward home.
Jason drives up to the front of the church wearing his camp vest, covered with guns and things. One of the guys stops him, and he explains that he's LODI: "Came strapped." The guy balks until he points to his ring of honesty, and then they're all smiles. "Dude, honesty!" he says, and daps him, and takes him into the church.
I love the ring of honesty, obviously. Everybody should get one. But the thing about self-administrated honesty is that you can't honestly believe everybody's being as honest as you. Which doesn't actually matter, which is something cults -- the Fellowship and Bon Temps equally -- will never understand. Honesty, like compassion, is a duty to ourselves only. Do it seriously, without regard to your fellows, and it's a sacrament. Do it wrong, or worry about anybody else, and it's profane. I love that show Moment Of Truth, with the lie detectors, because when it works it's like watching somebody go through ten years of therapy in ten minutes: the worst thing you ever thought, or did, you can admit and still live. But you can't ask that of anybody else, for the same reason Matthew says to pray in a closet and the same reason Godric's been hanging out in the Fellowship church for who knows how long: be honest enough, and it stops being about you altogether.
Inside the foyer the guy's like, "we got the vamper surrounded, he's got some effing fangbanger chick with him," and Jason bristles, and the guy notices he's carrying a paintball gun, and Jason literally goes, "Uh oh!" before bomping the guy on the head and dragging him into the shadows.
Poor old Sam Merlotte is sleeping in his car these days, with a gun in his lap. It's very sad. He was so lonely, before Bon Temps, and now he's lonelier than he's ever been. Just like Maryann wants. His phone rings and he starts awake, but there's nobody on the line from the bar but a breathy smile. Because it's Sam, he immediately heads to Merlotte's and walks in -- not dressed like a mouse or a cockroach or anything -- and into the place. The freezer door is hanging open; you already know Daphne's body is in there, but the show takes its time enjoying the suspense. Her heart has been carved out.
Sam shivers and whines for a bit, then heads out into the restaurant and grabs a bunch of garbage bags. He gets about halfway through bagging up the corpse, nearly crying, before the thousand good lessons she taught him reassert themselves, and he remembers that she was right: he's not alone, he's never been alone. He can draw a line between the darkness and these people, with whom he's chosen to make his life. Even if the town's gone nuts, he can still trust what little authority is left in Bon Temps. He never would have figured this out, if it weren't for Daphne, and it's the most important moment in the story so far, for him: Daphne laughed at their ways, but she taught him to love them, by teaching him he wasn't alone anymore. He has a choice, and she gave him that. He doesn't have to rely on fear and childish cover-ups anymore: all he has to do is call the sheriff's office, and tell them what's happened. He dials, and before he can speak -- like a miracle -- they've already arrived.
Maryann sautés onions, celery and carrots, adds some wine or something that brings it to a flame. She picks up Daphne's heart and massages it, blood dripping. She's wearing Gran's dress and that mole that's always so prominent when she's wearing Gran's dress and dickie. She cuts the heart into chunks, spongy and terrible, singing to herself, blood everywhere, fresh spices from the garden. They go into the veggies on the stovetop, her hands covered in blood. They sizzle.
Eric sizzles, bound in silver, groaning on the altar. "You see? Just as our Lord our savior was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, a few ounces of silver can betray a child of Satan to the world!" Sookie screams, exasperated, that this doesn't even make sense, and asks how any of them can listen to him. She's always been strange, she's always lived in the strangest world: how can she possibly understand how afraid they are? How afraid they've been, for two years, watching the world stop making sense around them. Death and life, inverted. Murder and sex twisted into beauty, in a world that already terrified them.
Any other week I maybe wouldn't feel so compassionate, toward the Fellowship, but I just spent the last 36 hours watching people driven mad, murderously mad, by their own racist, crazy stuff, whipped into a frenzy by powers that don't care about them, and know they're past caring if they even understand what's behind the fear. Health care is the new gay marriage. In some ways it's stupider -- mostly it's less stupid, because nothing is stupider than fighting about gay marriage -- but all of it acts on nothing approaching facts or common sense. The birthers, the deathers, they scream the most appalling imaginary things, and none of them can tell you why they're so angry: just that something precious is being taken away from them. And something is. I'm not denying that. Something precious is being taken away from these people, whether or not I agree with it. And that's sad; it makes me sad to think of what that must be like. It's super fucked up, but mostly it's scary and sad.
And part of me says, "You've finally opted out of the conversation altogether, and would prefer to sit in the corner and shit yourself, so we're going to ignore you while we fix the mess you made." And somebody said, "This is what the Democrats want: for birthers and deathers to shit themselves and act appalling, so that independents will flee left." And that was almost culpable, in fact: that the left would use that rhetoric knowing it would whip the useful idiots of the right into a hateful terrified frenzy. But then I remembered that we're adults, and no amount of rhetoric or editing can make somebody bring a gun to an appearance of the president. So now, I don't know. I've always touted the fact of a single America -- that Jason Stackhouse is your brother, that Luke and Steve and Sarah are your blood -- to justify my compassion, my conservative tendencies, to say that what we all have in common is so much greater than what we might not have in common. But this week has been hard, and I'm sorry.
The reason I was so excited about this show last summer was that it was literally about getting a front row seat in a culture in the midst of great, impossible, terrible and wonderful change. The Great Revelation created the Fellowship of the Sun; the roots of the Fellowship created the Great Revelation. But making that statement in the months before the election, knowing I was about to get a hot black president, was a much more self-satisfied statement than it is now. It's also about being front-row for somebody else's apocalypse. Bon Temps is scary. Dallas is scary. The whole world these people knew self-destructed two years ago, and they have only begun to go crazy about that. The vampires owed them better. We owe them better.
The Justice card says everything flips over, but that doesn't mean we can't be kind to the ones caught in the middle. The difficulty of that -- the harder it is to love them, while they express their trauma in the language they know -- has the same diameter as our own capability for compassion. It's not hate the Fellowship is expressing: It's fear. It's the bleeding childhood screams of the Bon Temps zombies, when Sam ran from the sacrifice: the stark raving existential pain of learning that the world has broken. Somebody said once that the whole memory of Eden, the Fall and everything after, comes to us not genetically but from the first time you cried out for your mother, and she wasn't there. It's a rip in the world, a deformity of nature. Nobody ever chose to be a villain.
"I offer myself, in exchange for Godric's freedom," says Eric, bound on the altar in silver chains, while the LODI flunkies hold Sookie back, "And the girl's as well." Steve nods, and calls him noble. "But she's just as culpable as you are. She's a traitor to her race." He turns to the crowd; any opportunity to preach the Word. "The human race. She hardly deserves mercy!" Steve leans down, fully warmed up. "Maybe we should tie her to you so you can meet the Sun together. Bet this marshmallow would roast up nicely..."
There are screams, and booming. And dorky Bill, running in a second too late as always. Steve holds a gun to Sookie's head. "One more step, vampire, and the girl dies." Bill promises her death will signal the death of everyone there, and I believe him. "Honestly, what do they see in you?" Steve says offhandedly (and awesomely!) before ordering silver chains for Bill as well. They have them, ready to hand; they carry their chains with them everywhere they go.
"Newlin!" rings out Jason's voice from somewhere in the transepts, and a green paintball squidges angrily onto Steve's hand. "Let her go, fuckwad!" He nails Steve again in the forehead, tossing him back. Bill tosses the LODIs aside and grabs her, but she immediately runs to the altar to save Eric, pulling at the chains and the smoking flesh that tears away with them. Eric is immediately at Steve's throat, popping fang as his wounds close. He throws Steve down, onto the steps below the apse, deaf to their cries. "Kill him! Kill the motherfucker!" shouts Jason as the LODIs grab and snatch at him. His heart, even after all this, is still capable of breaking. Steve promised to be the father he never had; something more yet. His maker.
"Go ahead. Murder us. Murder us before God. We are willing to die." A hundred super-zooming vampire sounds echo through the sanctuary, and Stan enters with an army of vampires, tacky-looking and hungry. I swear I thought this would all have happened in the finale. This whole thing is like watching ten episodes on fast forward. "You have pushed us too far," Stan calls to him. "You expect us to sit on our thumbs while you round up your men to come lynch us? We'll kill you first." There's a silence; it echoes: "Same way we did your father." Bill is sad and Sookie is grossed out; they both suspected. "Murderer!" Steve calls out, still on his back, and Stan gives his sudden army the signal. They take hold of the Fellowship, fangs bared. Sookie calls out, "Bill! Eric! Stop them!" but Bill just wants to bounce. Then a voice rings out.
Godric stands on balcony before the organ pipes, looking small and looking large. Everything stops. "Enough! You came for me, I assume. Underling?" Stan looks up from one man's throat. "Yeah, Sheriff," he grunts. "These people have not harmed me. You see? We can coexist. Mr. Newlin?" He's still on the steps. "I do not wish to create bloodshed where none is called for." Stan nearly bursts into tears at this point. "Help me set an example. If we leave you in peace, will you do the same?" Steve rises to his knees, green splashed across his forehead: "I will not negotiate with subhumans. Kill me. Do it. Jesus will protect me."
Godric shrugs. "I'm actually older than your Jesus. I wish I could have known him, but I missed it." He zooms down to Steve, holding him by the scruff, like a kitten: "Good people," his voice rings out, "Who of you is willing to die for this man's madness?" The Fellowship stare at him. "That's what I thought. Stand down, everyone." Stan sadly lets the people go, and the situation deflates. They mill around, leaving the sanctuary, and Sookie buries her head in Bill's shoulder, as he murmurs comforting nothings into her ear. Steve begs them, on his knees, not to leave. Not to leave this task to him alone, after all this time. "I daresay my faith in humankind is stronger than yours," Godric smiles. Luke stares at him, before leaving, and Godric calls his army to him, to leave. Stan puts up a fight, but Godric simply repeats his request -- "Come" -- and he snarls quietly to himself, and goes, with a funny nod from Jason as they pass in the aisle.
Eric immediately approaches Sookie to make sure she's okay, and Bill snarls at him to leave with Godric. Jason runs to his sister, wrapping her in his arms, begging for her forgiveness. She asks what the eff he was even thinking joining a vampire-hating cult, and he's like, "I know, right?" He points at Steve, explaining that "that son of a bitch sucked out my brain" and planted either "all these little babies" or "his own babies" in there.
Steve finally stands up straight, with a whole speech about who is going to heaven and who's going to hell, and Jason -- with the attitude of the truly disappointed and bitter -- squares his shoulders and looks directly into his eyes: "I reckon I've already been to heaven. It was inside your wife." He is proud, and happy, to have the burden lifted. Steve's shocked, and he punches him, throwing the honesty ring in his face with a lot of trashtalking. They leave -- Jason, Sookie, Bill, this strange little family -- and Steve holds tight to Jason's ring, all alone.
Sam sits at the bar with Kenya and Bud, trying to figure out how they showed up at the same time he did. It's obviously a setup, but Bud won't tell him who the anonymous caller was, and Kenya points out that he was known to be dating Daphne. They jump on him when he admits they broke up, but he's not about to tell them the details there because it would make him look Andy amounts of crazy, so they start drawing the picture for him. It's pretty convincing: second lady in two weeks to turn up on his property with her heart carved out, for starters. Bud mentions how his waitresses tend to end up dead, and Sam whines that they already caught that killer. "Come on! Bud, Kenya, listen to yourselves. You know me..." he says, but Bud points out that Sam has no history and no paper trail, due to having come into town in the form of an adorable dog with a giant bag of cash.
Just when you are wondering how Sam's going to wriggle out of that one for the fiftieth time, Andy Bellefleur shows up to make sure he doesn't. He tries to defend Sam, having held onto his police radio and knowing that they were investigating him, but just makes everything sound ten times worse. And funnier! "Sam's not the one you want. He's a victim. I saw him nearly get killed last night." By who? "The bull!" (Bud explains about how Andy is crazy and keeps talking about bulls.) "With claws! A bull! In a dress, with claws!" Bud's like, "...And we're done," but Kenya -- after I'm sure years of Andy being his former dickhead self -- is more than willing to take him down just in case.
"And your vic, that vic you got in there? She was part of the whole group of crazy people that was trying to get him. I tried to fight them off, but..." He holds up his giantly casted arm. "War wound! I'm corroborating here, Sam. Tell them. Help me!" Sam points out that if Sam were telling him this story, Andy would probably punch his face in, and whatever you think Andy looks like when he makes that sad face, it's like twice that sad, because he knows how crazy and unhelpful he's being, but he still can't help himself.
Tara holds Eggs on the couch, hurriedly explaining that both she and Arlene have blacked out recently, so maybe there's a gas leak or something. Eggs brings up the screaming testimony of Andy Bellefleur, about how they are all secretly devil worshippers, but she laughs that off because in the whole town he's the only one you know is nuts. "Tara, I got this sick feeling I did something real bad," Eggs says, terrified, and just like that Maryann appears.
"Hope I'm not interrupting!" They try to chill out, and offer a vague (but not vague enough) thing about how they're trying to piece the last couple days back together. Maryann nods sympathetically, and offers the theory that they need to chill out and lay off the partying for awhile. She puts forward this plan, nodding sharply, and then shrieks, clapping, "Hey! Snack's ready!" They sit at the table and she brings out a wildly delicious looking tart, which smells delightful it would seem, and sets it down on the table: a hunter's soufflé. Eggs wonders about that, but doesn't point out that it's nothing like a soufflé.
Maryann sits down to watch as Tara cuts into the tart, and blood pools around her knife marks. She serves a piece on Gran's best crystal, and he serves her a bite with his fork. "Goddamn!" she exclaims, with pleasure. "What is in there? Is that the rabbit you caught?" Well yes, among other things. Like Daphne! They gorge themselves, under her watchful eye, moving quickly beyond words until they're simply moaning and smiling, grateful, pointing at the delicious bloody meal while Maryann watches, laughing with them.
Party at Godric's nest! A random thanks him for returning, and then Stan is in the receiving line, which is formal and kind of stressful, and then Jason, who apologizes for the Fellowship once again. Godric swallows several times, as Jason speaks, and his eyes travel along the length of him; when he turns to go Godric speaks up: "You helped save many lives today, Mr. Stackhouse. Please know you have friends in this area whenever you visit." Jason jokes that he will never fucking come back to Dallas, essentially, and though he means it in a friendly way Godric just watches him standing there, taking no offense.
In the middle of Godric's house is a fireplace, around which everything revolves. In one hallway, Jason runs into Eric, who's been waiting in the shadows. "Hail the conquering hero," Eric says, very still, not showing his jealousy enough for Jason to see it. "Aw, no. I'm no hero." Eric says that yes, in Area IX he most certainly is. "But in my Area we know you well: as a buyer and user of vampire blood. And that's a very grave offense."
Jason's embarrassed, honestly explaining he's off the stuff. Eric calls it even, and Jason's relieved to take off, but Eric looks him in the eye: "But you won't be doing it again." Jason nods, says yeah, and then along with Eric corrects himself: "...No. Got it." Eric calls him a good boy, and tells him to run along, and Jason's terrified, running along, and when he's gone Eric smiles widely to himself. Things that are important to Sookie, he finds curious. He owns Lafayette outright now, blood and body; what to do with the brother?
Sookie thanks a Dallas vampire for her white coat -- which is totally adorable, and one of the only acceptable pieces of clothing she's ever worn -- and then turns to Bill, asking him why he's avoiding her. He tries to put her off a couple times, but she points out that after two days in the basement, and the attack, it's a valid question. "Every time I've needed you, you've always come running, even in broad daylight. What kept you?"
Moyer plays this exactly right, because what this is about is Lorena, which is the ex-wife conversation in this context, and she's an ex-wife Sookie doesn't even know about. So instead of playing it all deep and weird like a vampire thing, it's just totally awkward and not wanting to get into how he spent two nights with his ex listening to Sookie scream, not least because that means Lorena is stronger than him, which even if you know about makers still diminishes him as the Bill Compton they both love, which is the whole antebellum vision of chivalry and strength that he's been clinging to for hundreds of years and to which, as this is the man she loves, Sookie must also cling. He's not a sexist, he's just a dead thing, animated, with very few clues as to how to be. No matter how much darkness -- or how much a little darkness would improve his essential dorkiness -- they both need him to be William Compton, and born as clean as Sookie was the day they met.
"Uh, I was held..." Sookie takes about two hops on the pond to get to Eric, and the second she says his name he muppets up out of nowhere ("mmmmmm?") and starts flirting outrageously. Sookie bitches fearlessly at him for letting her walk into a trap, and shut up because she knows damn well that rescuing Godric was more important than her life. "The bond between a vampire and his maker is stronger than you can imagine. Perhaps one day you'll find out." Or, you know, tonight. He says it like she's going to end up pregnant with a sparkly demon baby, leaping over tall trees in a single bound, but he's talking about Lorena. Bill snarls equally at both valences, and Eric grins from both to both: Godric's home, bitches! Fuck it!
Hoyt feels funny about making out in Bill's house, after last time, but Jessica assures him several times that they're fine -- and it's two hours to dawn -- before dropping her panties and shoving him vamp-strong onto the couch. She's turned on by the chance they'll be caught, she's turned on by him snapping the buttons of his shirt open as she reassures him, she's turned on by the act of dropping those panties with the skirt still on, she's turned on by the feeling of stripping off her shirt, and straddling him. He moans as she kisses his neck. "I've never wanted anything so bad in my life," she groans, elated. He nods, beautiful: he knows. They begin to make love; he smiles when her fangs pop out.
A moment later and she's crying out in pain. She's confused -- wasn't that a one-time deal? -- but by the time he's noticing the blood on his dick she's figured it out. Hard-won territory. Her sister's name is Eden. Her father gave the door a voice that said, "Fault," every time anybody entered or left. Her sister has a problem with hair. And the belt, when you were nasty. Around the neck, when it was too much. This whole life, wall coming down between your mind, your perfect soul, and your imperfect body.
And then the monsters came, and killed her: broke through that thin membrane and took her blood. And she woke in the arms of a monster, and they told her she was above all that, now: an angel, beyond death, whose body is meant only for pleasure. And all that pain and fear and shame was ridiculous, because it was exactly what it was: a lie, a dream, a trick. More about him than it ever was about her. She could do anything, wear anything, say words you'd never think of saying. Kill, or love. Anything. Nobody was watching.
Even Bill, passing his own shame and self-hatred down the lines of blood, couldn't stop her, not once she found love. Not once love took her apart, and put her back together better. She'd realized something, that perfect moment just a few hours ago, with soup-scented candles and rose petals on the bed, Hoyt's beautiful strong body telling her she was: Perfect, perfect, perfect. All the beautiful work they did, and all the signs their bodies made, spelling out one truth she'd never known: She was made for love. Not for hate, never for fear. Always, already pure, with no room for shame at all.
"No!" she screams now. She doesn't shove him away, with her body's new strength; she retreats into it, while he stares on. What if he was right? What if your body is the enemy after all? She knows it just grew back -- vampire physiology, everything heals, she knows this -- but that's not what she's screaming now. There's a part of her asking, What if he was right? Hoyt tries desperately to fix it, anything -- "It's gonna be beautiful," he says sweetly, unsure: "Every time will be like our first time" -- and she nearly spits. "It'll hurt like hell. I'm a fucking deformity of nature. I'm gonna be a virgin forever." Just like daddy always wanted.
Jessica buries her head in the doorframe, and he watches her silently, afraid, knowing that whatever he says is the most important thing he will ever say. How can he tell her that she's perfect, when everything conspires against it? The stretch of her neck, her white shoulders like wings, bending to the curve, like a song, every muscle under the skin, made for love. Beautiful, perfect, just like this? How can he remind her what they just taught each other tonight, that their bodies were made for love, when every nerve is screaming out? How can he welcome her back to that strange, lovely territory they discovered together, claimed together, when it's turned so perfectly hostile again? How can you look at someone's Eden, grown thick with thorns, and say anything at all? How can you bear witness to somebody else's apocalypse, and not fall alongside them?
Bill grabs Eric's arm in a hallway, which they both acknowledge is unpleasant, and Bill tells Eric for approximately the millionth time that Eric must cease all contact with Sookie, immediately. Eric laughs at him. "Calling in my maker because you couldn't win Sookie for yourself? It's feeble and desperate, even for you." Eric grins, sexy and scary and overjoyed: "Are you picking a fight?" Bill swears that she'll never be his. "And there is nothing you can do. In this, you are powerless. Accept it." He then pulls out a red flag and waves it in front of Eric's face, while making chicken noises, and slaps him across the face with a satin glove, just in case Eric was thinking of leaving it alone. Oh, Billy.
Jason's actually trying on Stan's black cowboy hat when Isabel comes in, bloody tears drying on her face, and tosses Hugo onto the floor before Godric. "He's your human, is he not?" She nearly breaks into tears, admitting her failure; when he asks if she loves him, she does start crying. Bill and Sookie stare at each other, across the crowd. Hugo kneels as she weeps. "It appears you love him still," Godric smiles, grossing out Stan, and she cringes in embarrassment, apologizing for the thought. And Godric lets him go, much to Stan's dismay. He sends Eric away with Hugo, even as Stan wigs out, but underscores his verdict.
Around the corner, Sookie's all over Bill's ass. Naturally, he thinks she's asking about Hugo, but that doesn't have anything to do with Sookie, specifically her relationship with Bill, so like she cares. "...Eric. Why are you talking to him if he kidnapped you?" He starts to explain that it wasn't Eric, and just when you're interested to see just how slithery he's going to get about the Lorena issue, Jason appears and drags Bill away, out into Godric's garden, with Sookie looking astounded that anybody would dare interrupt yet another interminable conversation about the logistics of their relationship.
Bud brings Sam to a jail cell, pointing out that if somebody/thing is after him, jail's probably the best place. cell over, Jane Bodehouse is looking fucked as usual. "I'd come down and give you a hug, but I lost my pants!" she giggles, with the assorted hos in there with her. Kenya notes that shit is crazy, and presumes that it's a full moon. "Pretty sure it's not," says Sam, who is probably the town authority on that. Mike Spencer's in another cell, and it doesn't take much prying to learn that he's there for sodomy, specifically for fucking a pine tree. Sam, who has seen a lot in his lifetime, is no less amazed than you or I would be by this information. "What'd you do that for?" he asks, jaw hanging open, and Mike's answer is the usual. He blacked out, but has the sort of scratches on his pecker that one might associate with pine tree-fucking. Bud wants nothing to do with any of this, and tells everybody to shut up and locks Sam in.
On Godric's backyard lawn Jason asks Bill's forgiveness, with such intensity that Bill's bewildered. "Uh, you love my sister, and, uh, there ain't no reason why you shouldn't be able to." Bill nods, wondering if this is honestly what they're talking about. "All this time, I let my own stupid ignorance stand in the way." Bill plasters on that terrifying, sweet creepy smile he laid on so thick with Adele when she was alive, and thanks Jason for saving them all. "After all I did to fuck everything up, that's the least I can do. I'm... I'm just sorry it took me so long to wake up to it."
Bill gives him a condescending nod -- "Well, you did. Just in time" -- but you know Jason Stackhouse's heart, it's like this, and his chest, while finely proportioned, is still only about this big, so in order to equalize the pressure he hurls himself onto Bill, who looks like he's going to pass out, and hugs the shit out of him the way only a Stackhouse invading your personal space can do. It's maybe the sweetest thing that ever happened not involving Hoyt or Jessica; definitely the most awkward, categorically. He finally steps back, and Bill gets his breath. "Well, was that... Okay for you?" Bill's so weirded out that he's just like, Yeah? It was fine? I think people should hug Bill Compton more often, because A) Lord does he need it, and B) even though a Jason hug is like ten times the power of a normal hug, it still shouldn't blow your mind that much.
Isabel thinks about approaching Godric, and doesn't. It's interesting, but goes by in a flash, and then there's Eric nodding the woman with him aside and kneeling immediately at Godric's side, so that their heads are equal. He's told Hugo to keep driving until he hits Mexico, maybe glamoured I can't tell because Eric is so way smooth, and then he starts right back in on the yenta trip about whether Godric's eaten. "I've arranged for an AB- human for you. Extremely rare?" Tired old Godric thanks him, but says again that he's not hungry.
"You have to feed eventually," Eric says indulgently. That whole "be my father and my son and my lover" thing a thousand years ago was not a joke, dude. He keeps code-switching like a bitch and turning into somebody new, and Godric just bends around it. Eric starts getting sad, when Godric won't respond or smile or even look at him, so he goes for it: "Why wouldn't you leave when I first came for you?" Godric shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. "They didn't treat me badly. You'd be shocked at how ordinary most of them are." Eric's incensed, as caught in the rhetoric as they are: "They do nothing but fan the flames of hatred for us!"
Godric is... Unendingly sad: "Let's be honest. We are frightening. After thousands of years, we haven't evolved. We've only grown more brutal, more predatory." Eric actually thinks about that. "I don't see the danger in treating humans as equals. The Fellowship of the Sun arose because we never did so." Eric swallows, asking if that's why he didn't fight. "I could have killed every last one of them within minutes," Godric assures him. "And what would that have proven?"
Power, and strength, are about not using them. Having them. Stewardship, not ownership. Godric knows that better than any of us; perhaps he's lost sight of the essential truth that we don't judge and we don't shrive, that our worth isn't determined by our worst sin any more than our greatest kindness. He's seen more than most; he's seen more than anybody we know. He's seen two thousand years of vampire culture get scarier and uglier and more selfish; he's seen two thousand years of human culture do the same thing. The parallel is there, but it comes down to this: strength is not about using it. That turns to abuse, to horrors we can't name. It rots.
But then, if you've spent those years feeling powerless, that's not to say there's not a certain delirium in taking the machine out for a ride every now and then. Tara and Eggs sit in the aftermath of their meal, blood everywhere on the table, still laughing. Eggs stands up in the middle of the conversation, feeling strong. He stretches his muscles and Tara purrs appreciatively; he feels so much like a superhero that he tears his shirt in half. "I feel invincible, you know? Like nobody could even hurt me."
Tara smiles. "I hate you." Maryann listens, in the kitchen. "I fucking hate your guts." He nods, feeling it. "You fucking bitch, I fucking hate you too." He picks her up by the throat, shaking her softly, and kisses her mouth. She smiles, and slaps him across the face, while Maryann laughs in the other room, watching. He begs for more; she kicks him in the groin eventually, and he sends her sprawling with a fist. Their eyes go black. He hits her so hard she falls into a chair, and she shoves him down onto the ground finally, growling and horny, and with black eyes they groan and fuck, and Maryann finishes off the wine, grinning affectionately.
Everybody's got a line. This is mine: Bodies are fragile. Yours might have been last week -- hell, it might not be till week -- but everybody's childhood is a horror story of one kind or another, and Lettie Mae is mine. The apocalypse unfolding is this: you can draw a line from that first neverending dinner at Merlotte's, to the smashcake party, to the yard orgy, to this: one line after the other, getting crossed. First comes the dancing, then comes the fucking, and before you know it you're six degrees from anywhere Kevin Bacon would ever wanna be seen. Then seven, then eight, and on into the dark places. That's where she lives. That's where she's just visiting from.
Somebody in boots gets out of a car and walks slowly toward Godric's nest. That can't be good. But even still, it would be better than Lorena showing up, which is precisely what happens. Her dress is amazing, red as red, but her hair is gathered on her head in that loaf I don't like. She interrupts Sookie's conversation and then refuses to introduce herself, saying only that she "practically made" their mutual friend "what he is today." Bill runs up, angry and scared, and she throws her weight around for awhile about how Sookie is a little kid and stupid and whatever, and finally cuts loose about how they spent the last two nights together in Sookie's hotel room. Sookie's eyes basically cross at this information. Then Lorena gives an awesome little speech: "Did you know your boyfriend hit me over the head with a 52-inch plasma television earlier tonight? Everyone says they're so thin and light, but let me tell you, when wielded properly, it's quite a weapon."
Sookie is startled by this information, and Bill tries to get her to leave, but she points out that if Bill pulled the same shit with Sookie she'd probably die: "There's no excuse for domestic violence..." she grins, linking back both to the last scene and to their history together. Bill finally explains that she was holding him prisoner, but Lorena plays this off. She gets all flirty, reaching out for his arm and talking about how "old lovers" can sometimes get heated, and Sookie finally grabs her arm, telling her to lay off. Stan is, of course, overjoyed, but Jason's worried that Sookie is biting off more than she can chew here, so to speak. Lorena acts condescending, and tells her she can't win, and Sookie realizes that means she just did.
"Bill chose me. And yet you still won't give up. Don't you have any shame?" That's hardcore and awesome enough that Bill actually shrieks in fear, and Lorena tells her to get lost, coming around to him and talking about how they still love each other. "YOU'VE GONE MAD!" he screams, and Sookie gets all up in her grill. "Maybe you do love him. Who am I to guess? But he doesn't love you. He never has. And that, we both know." Only the classiness of Dallas vampires prohibits a round of applause or OOOOOHs or "No she didn't!" Lorena pops fang, Stan gets all excited, and then after a bit of shit-talking, Sookie screams, "Go find someone else, you fucking bitch! You've lost this one!" Which is awesome on many levels, not the least of which being the fact that she doesn't even know that's exactly what Bill said a second ago to Eric, so Lorena picks her up with like one hand and puts her on the kitchen island and prepares to eat her entire face.
There is a sudden pressure, bearing down on the room. Earpopping. It's maybe the coolest sound effect ever, because it's entirely too simple to consider in the moment -- in fact, they could be using it all the time and we just never noticed -- but so evocative. The only thing I can compare it to is the hornet-whine in the background of the bridge in that song "Possum Kingdom," which goes for like fifty bars before suddenly swooping down and becoming the riff of the song, that you didn't even notice until it was too late. That's Godric, holding Lorena by the throat; holding them all in the palm of his hand, pressing down on them out of the sky. I mean to say -- and my speakers are good but not that good -- I literally felt like the ceiling was much closer to my head than normal, and didn't know why. It is oppressive. "Retract your fangs. Now." She does. Bill grabs Sookie as Godric forces Lorena back and into a chair. "I neither know nor care who you are. But in this Area -- and certainly in this nest -- I am the authority. Do you understand?" She shivers, and submits, and the pressure lifts. So awesome!
"This human has proven herself to be a courageous and loyal friend to our kind," he says carefully, gesturing at Sookie. "And yet you treat her like a child does a dragonfly, pulling off wings for sport." There are tears in her eyes; he's too honest. "No wonder they hate us." Lorena whines, frustrated, that she was provoked; she wasn't, but I can see it feeling that way. "And you provoked me," he says, leaning into her face. "You disrupted the peace in my own home. I could snap you like a twig." Lorena considers how maybe he will. Maybe she wants it. Maybe she's that tired, or ashamed.
"Yet I haven't. And why is that?" She gets it, nodding: "It's your choice." They are everywhere, he's saying. Our path is littered with them. But we keep doing the same stupid shit we were doing when we were alive. Tara's mother used to hit her, he's saying. It's your choice. Always your choice. You're the one writing the story. That's not comforting, it's terrifying.
(All signs are vital: "In this position, it calls for a sacrifice in matters of the heart. You're going to have to make a choice. You want to see your future?")
But that's somebody else's apocalypse. This is hers: "You're an old vampire, I can tell. You've had hundreds of years to better yourself, yet you haven't. You are still a savage, and I fear for all of us, humans and vampires, if this behavior persists." The Justice card says if you don't make a choice, it'll be made for you. "You," Godric says quietly, and Bill stands at attention. "You seem to know her?" He's ashamed, mostly for her; Godric tells him to get her out of the Area by dawn, and she nods, embarrassed.
"I don't know how it got this way," Lorena says in the parking lot, the bloody tears running down hot now. "I can't help it that I still love you. You know I do. But now it's become nothing but a constant humiliation." Bill is cheated out so you know it's meaningful: "The pain that you suffer you've inflicted upon yourself." She carries her chains with her; she's the one writing the story. "When will we see each other again?" she asks, in her most careless voice, and he tells her never. She stands up straight, smiling, trying to be proud: "We're immortal. Our paths are bound to cross eventually." You want to see your future?
Inside, Jason's flirting with a cute Asian vampire chick when those boots come clomping into the room; it's Luke, wearing a bulky trenchcoat, walking stiffly. He strong-arms Jason away from his body, snarling; still after all this, he loves him. He pushes him away: this isn't Jason's apocalypse.
"Excuse me, everyone," he says, and the whole room goes quiet. The quietest room Sookie's ever been in goes dead. Jason stands in the hallway by the fireplace, a few yards away. Godric and Isabel come out of the reception room, looking worried, on the other side of the kitchen. Bill's outside. Sookie and Eric stand on the other side of the crowd, staring in horror. "If I could have your attention. My name is Luke McDonald." Stan stands up, coming closer. "I'm a member of the Fellowship of the Sun. And I have a message for you all from Reverend Steve Newlin." And he opens that coat, and he's come strapped: stakes of wood, chains and stakes of silver, criss-crossing his body over the bomb. Which he detonates, shining brightly as the sun.