In the aftermath of Luke's suicide bombing -- which killed Stan and some randoms -- we learn that Eric threw himself in front of Sookie before the blast. Aww. Then, he tricks her into sucking some shrapnel out of his wounds, creating a blood bond that causes Bill to act even more like Bill than usual, but for good reason. One brain-blisteringly hot dream sequence about Eric later, Sookie stays up with Jason talking about how much they love each other, and other fun stuff like: their thousand dead family members, the fact that Jason is not actually functionally retarded, and the fact that having the town weirdo as your sister can be difficult.
Back in Bon Temps, everything is going to hell. Hoyt decides to man up and make his mom be nice to Jessica. That goes terribly. Eggs and Tara try to pull it together after their little bout of ultraviolence, which not only goes terribly but lasts about three seconds. Maryann gives a fairly effective speech about how and why she became a maenad, drinks herself crazy, storms through town on a Dark Willow tear, lets the orgy zombies out of jail, and presides over a four-way cage match between Tara, Eggs, Lafayette and Lettie Mae. All while looking fabulous.
Tara's family eventually kidnaps her -- screaming like an insane person, black eyes, the whole deal -- but Maryann doesn't worry. At this point, I don't guess it matters where you are in Bon Temps, you're still in Maryann's clutches. Unless you're Sam, in which case you transform into a housefly, spy on everybody for awhile, and show up naked at Andy Bellefleur's motel.
Nan Flanagan -- who seems to be the vampire Darth Vader in that her job is unclear but related to her awesomeness -- comes to Dallas fresh from one more fight-by-satellite with the rapidly encrazening Newlins to tell everybody how totally stupid they are. Eric's fine with the trash talk, because he thinks everybody's totally stupid too, until she talks shit to Godric, and then he goes apeshit. Godric, of course, calms everybody down, then... Signs over his sheriffhood to poor old Isabel, says goodbye to a truly devastated Eric, and spends his last moments before meeting the dawn with Sookie, on the roof of the Hotel Carmilla. Which apparently fixes everything somehow. week: Dallas people return to Bon Temps; are appalled.
A second ago Luke shoved Jason out of the way and then yelled at everybody in Godric's house, so Sookie stood up all worried and outside, Lorena was crying, and Bill explained to her that it didn't matter if their immortal paths crossed again, because she was dead to him. Lorena said, "I wish you hadn't said that," in a regretful way that made it seem like a promise or a threat, and zoomed off down the street. Then everybody blew up and Bill zoomed inside, where there were just dead people, bloody people, and guts on the walls.
Eric's in the middle of the smoke and sparks, lying on top of Sookie, and when Bill takes her hand and she simpers in a daze, Eric points out that he totally jumped in front of her like a pimp, and she's fine. He groans and tells Bill to go get the other LODIs, so Bill zooms back into the street and pulls one of them out of a truck while the other one drives away screaming like a lunatic. Bill throws the kid down in the street and he's like, "We didn't actually think he would blow himself up," but Bill doesn't really care about that because Sookie is... Just fine... So he bites the kid.
Godric and Isabel come out into the horrors, and she goes around pulling bits of shrapnel and silver from their bodies and checking the vitals on the blowed-up humans. Godric stands in the middle of the carnage feeling totally bad. Over on the side, Sookie finally pushes Eric off herself, because he is gigantic and she is tiny. She spots Jason, dazed, through the fireplace, and he gives her the thumbs up. Everybody's really dirty and gross. She looks down at Eric, who looks like hell, and she goes, "Uh oh!" He groans about how he had to save her, and he's like, "But I had to save you!" She tells him to stop effing around and heal himself, and he says he can't because of the silver. She offers to go get Godric to fix him, and he tells her there's no time: She has to suck it out. "Eric, I can't!" she says reasonably. "It's too gross. And it's you."
Eric very dramatically falls back and does the whole dying/unable to finish a sentence thing you do when you're totally faking, and then pretends to pass out, and she goes, "Son of a mother," and sucks on his neck for awhile. His eyes sort of cross, but not because he's dying. She pulls her head up finally and spits the chunk of metal onto the floor, hilarious and manic and covered in blood, and he tells her there's another one. She protests for a second, then pulls down his racerback and sucks on his chest for awhile, and he looks down at her and watches for awhile, and then smiles in the most delightful way.
Outside, Bill is also sucking, but then pulls back and tells the kid to get out of there, with blood all over his face: "You tell the cowards who lead you, the cowards who send children to do their killing, that a vampire showed mercy where they had none!" The kids runs off and Bill feels terribly hungry. Inside, Jason stomps out a burning ember, and then notices Luke's hand in the middle of a puddle of blood, wearing his ring of honesty. Heh.
Isabel reports to Godric that Stan is dead, and two vampires we don't know, and two humans. Everybody else is just fucked up; one of the vampires in the back of the room mutters that it wasn't really a very good bomb. As though it didn't serve it's purpose, which had nothing to do with anybody in that room and everything to do with Luke and his God. With rising to a higher state of consciousness, for one beautiful moment, and shine like the sun. Like any other fundamentalist denied sex, who sublimates that energy into rage and then on up to God. Everybody thinks they're crazy? They are ecstatic. A few bumps and bruises is a small price to pay for immortal bliss. In this, they see God.
Bill rushes back inside, where Sookie's dining on Eric's right nipple, hunched over like a revenant. She looks up, manic and hilarious, covered in blood, talking a mile a minute like she's on ecstasy: "I sucked silver out of Eric's chest! And saved his life! Even though I really didn't want to!" Eric lies back easily, grinning up at Bill, in flagrante and loving it: "She was superb." Bill shakes his head, disappointed and frustrated, knowing Sookie's going to feel worse than he does about it: "Eric was in no danger. He..." Sookie's stunned. "A tiny falsehood," Eric agrees, looking up at her with a wriggle.
While pieces of vampire crawl down the wall like those sticky hands and spiders you get from the quarter machine, Bill is just beyond saddened. "He was already healing. The bullets would have pushed themselves out." She stares up at him, so innocent and so totally covered in blood. "This way, he's forced you to drink his blood." She starts screaming as Bill explains that -- just as with Lafayette, remember -- they're now connected and Eric will be able to sense her emotions. She yells at Eric, calling him a "big lying a-hole," and Eric grins. "Bill, you're right, I believe I can sense her emotions." She smacks his chest and runs into Bill's arms like a squirrel up a tree. "I'll never do anything for you again. Monster!" He makes fun of them, and stands up while Bill tries to comfort her. "I think I'm gonna cry," he says. Not yet, but you're going to.
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Isabel calls the survivors to attention, and Jason yells, "Hey! Y'all listen up!" (I'm going to say this is 30% what he would do anyway, 40% a holdover from the LODI, 20% a need to feel control after what just happened, 5% to prove himself to everybody that although he was a member of Luke's cult until about an hour ago, he has his shit together. The other 5% has to do with the fact that Godric looks like David Archuleta.) Godric tells everybody in the nest to get their asses to the Hotel Carmilla, which has made housing and protection available for them. Sookie stresses out about the Eric blood all over that awesome white coat they gave her, and Bill is pouty, so Eric just stands there being awesome until they go away, and then it's just Godric, all alone in the middle of destruction, smoking all around him. He breathes it in, before he walks away.
Sookie comes out into their hotel room, freshly scoured and showered, perturbed and shivery and sort of totally into it. "I could kick myself! I'm so stupid! I wasn't thinking." Bill points out that Eric did take bullets for her, which was swell of him, and also means they're both alive (or "alive") and can continue to be totally in love all the time. "I know better than to believe one word out of that man's mouth!" Sookie says, really getting into the disgust/titillation thing in that V.C. Andrews way only Southern girls can, kicking her legs up in the air and grinning through her horror: "I sucked his chest! What is wrong with me?!" Bill, taking her at her word -- and unable to properly enjoy anything in the entire universe, especially irony, because if Bill even knew irony existed he would explode in a hail of ones and zeroes -- is like, "Well, Suckie, Eric is better than us."
He sits closer to her on the bed: "Plus, this is all about me. And you're a great person, so he knew that and used it against me. So this is kind of all your fault, but it's okay because you're retarded, which is darling."
Suckie continues to revel in her sexy horror. "But his blood! I tried to spit it all out! But some of it must have gone shooting down my throat! And all over my face! And between my breasts!"
"It only takes a drop or two," Bill says, nodding soberly.
The ironically worst part, she notes with actual disgust, is how Eric will now always know A) where she is and B) how she feels. Um, first of all that's your power, so don't be a hypocrite. And second of all, you've never sucked on my chest and I know both of those things. A) Bill's house, masturbating on the front porch or lying in cold rat-shitty dirt to a dead person, or on that couch where every single thing goes down. Or at Fangtasia! yelling at thousand-year-old killers until they want to slap you. Or at Merlotte's, shitting on Sam. That's all you ever do. Those are the only places you go. And B) Appalled.
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Bill says it's not the worst part, because the worst worst part is that she's going to want to fuck Eric. Um, that's not the blood. That's the Eric. And second of all, there's a thing in his voice where he didn't really want to tell her that, because she'll start thinking about how she sucked Bill's blood the night they fell in love, and then did crazy sex stuff like the aforementioned masturbating on his front porch, and maybe she will put two and two together. This is an outside possibility, and not something we've ever seen her do before, which explains why he's only a little concerned, but it does kind of cast the tiniest doubt on their queerbutt love affair, which I highly support. As though to echo this last thought, their love theme starts playing in a cheeky minor key, and they agree that they wish Eric were dead. Or would have some sex with them.
Speaking of that couch, Hoyt rubs Jessica's back and they talk about her hymen. She's thinking of all the stuff we thought last week -- Dr. Elfindorffer could give her an operation or something, this can't be the first time somebody got Claudiad, the whole thing -- and Hoyt's like, "Intercourse isn't the only way to have sex..." (Which supports my theory that this is all an elaborate scheme he cooked up with Ashton Kutcher to get her to do anal.) And she points out that fucking is great, and she'd like to do more of it. He laughs and gets all sweet about it, and she very carefully puts him into boyfriend position: "You should break up with me," which is the "Do I look fat in this" of all time.
"That thing that grows back, it's just a thing. I ain't perfect either. I'm a guy that people laugh at. Even my friends!" Yeah, that's just like my painful and ironic deformity. "But you never have," he says, bringing it back around, "So I don't ever want to hear you talk about breaking up." You met her like two days ago, Romeo. You haven't heard her talk about much of anything yet. He gets all intense and scared of what he's about to say, and then decides it's time for her to meet Maxine. He knows it's going to be totally harsh because his mom is kind of horrific, but Jessica says the sweetest thing: "Hoyt, nobody ever wants me to meet anybody!"
Jessica cuddles all over Hoyt like a puppy, and he reminds her that Maxine is racist and obnoxious: "She hates vampires, and she's gonna ask you all kind of personal questions, or she may not talk to you at all. Which: Then you'd be lucky." Jessica doesn't care. They talk all kind of southern teenager gothic love nonsense for awhile -- "I'm proud that you're my girl" is a representative example -- and then she yawns because the sun is coming up. He walks her to "that damned cubby hole," and offers to get in there with her, but she's embarrassed by it. Because it is a gross hole in the ground. She giggles and he says he'll build them "a tricked-out doublewide," which would give me personally a bit of pause, but not Jessica. She kisses him goodnight and he sits outside, singing to her in the blue light, pounding his thigh in horny frustration.
Jessica cuddles all over Hoyt like a puppy, and he reminds her that Maxine is racist and obnoxious: "She hates vampires, and she's gonna ask you all kind of personal questions, or she may not talk to you at all. Which: Then you'd be lucky." Jessica doesn't care. They talk all kind of southern teenager gothic love nonsense for awhile -- "I'm proud that you're my girl" is a representative example -- and then she yawns because the sun is coming up. He walks her to "that damned cubby hole," and offers to get in there with her, but she's embarrassed by it. Because it is a gross hole in the ground. She giggles and he says he'll build them "a tricked-out doublewide," which would give me personally a bit of pause, but not Jessica. She kisses him goodnight and he sits outside, singing to her in the blue light, pounding his thigh in horny frustration.
Tara and Eggs are in no mood when Maryann comes in with a giant basket full of veggies, humming to herself and laughing. "Oh my goodness, how much did you drink this time?" Tara's moving pretty slow; they are covered in bruises and can't remember anything."You must've dropped a little acid, it was floating around." Her voice has arms akimbo: "Hippies!" Eggs gets pissy, and Tara says they're embarrassed by the blackout. "I will never understand that," Maryann says, offended. "Why be embarrassed about pleasure, and laughter? Why be ashamed of letting go?"
Tara says she's ashamed because she's never been this out of control, and Maryann makes a cute gagging sound: "Ack, ugh! Control! Control is just a cage this stupid culture uses to lock up who we really are. We need to be out of control, we crave it." They realize she's trying to teach them more of her crazy teachings, and Tara says that at some point you need some kind of control, or else it's chaos. "Sounds good to me!" It does. Eggs allows as how he does like a little chaos, and she laughs sweetly, flipping again like a Kandinsky; she puts her arms on his shoulders motheringly, but she's talking to Tara: "Of course you do. Everybody does. They just can't admit it."
And knowing where this was heading, I realized I've been working from a particular collection of mental things that maybe I haven't been completely transparent about, because I make assumptions. Thing number one is, Donna Tartt was 19 when she transferred to Bennington and met Bret Ellis, and she published The Secret History in 1992, when I was 14. I knew the story of how she'd ignited this mad bidding war and all that stuff, and since that was my plan, I knew that I had to read this book, so I walked across the highway to a B. Dalton and bought it. It was like the first book I ever waited for.
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I read it maybe ten times that year. It is awesome. It's about a class of five well-dressed Classics majors who are like whatever is on the other side of steampunk and they talk in Greek all the time and act like Leopold and Loeb and are generally disaffected and amazing. They do a rite to Dionysus, and it works, and the whole book is about the before and after and the ramifications of that. Snakes climb up the trees, there are columns of fire. I was young enough that I was still like a sponge, you know when you're a teenager you read things and get obsessed with things, and you... Like, I haven't listened to Nevermind since probably 1994, but I still know the words to the whole thing. I can still remember entire paragraphs of that book, and I've read it so many times at this point it takes about an hour to get through. And she sent me off into classics and linguistics and TS Eliot and basically everything I still like.
But the thing that stuck with me was the fact that their religious fervor, to rediscover these wonders, was born of a simple desire: immortality. Not like vampires, whose immortality is fraught, but more like Werewolf Boyfriend: if you stretch time out until it doesn't matter, if you lose all concept of time altogether, then that moment could last a split-second and it would be eternity. They just wanted to lose themselves. Just for a second. Because they knew that this was the experience of God:
Ekstasis comes from the word for displacement, ek (out) + histanai (to stand): To rise up. To come out of stasis. From the word for stand we get "stet," like to leave things the way they are, and "status quo," and basically everything that defines us. To step out of that, for even one second, is also to touch all of it at once: That's God. There is not a better definition for divinity. Every religion that ever existed is about this attempt to get out of our shitty mud and touch something eternal.
The only differences lie in the characteristics of the God in question. If you're a Wiccan that means Earth, Gaia: The smells and tastes and wonder of Her body and yours. If you're Zen, or St. Therese, that means doing whatever you were going to do anyway, but wholly. If it's Dionysus, that means getting there on a rocky road and pushing right past the limits of sanity. If you're Christian, that means one of several different things. If you've ever read The Wind In The Willows, you know that experiences of God -- even or especially of Dionysus -- come with the price of forgetting. Not forgetting means you've gone crazy, so you have to stay here with us.
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Paglia -- who took over my mind around the same time and stubbornly refuses to leave -- defined for our culture the difference in terms we could understand: Dionysian and Apollonian. Art, she says, is an attempt by the Apollonian to define and describe the Dionysian. Perversity in art, then, is simply a self-knowing action of Apollonian artifice to reveal its own roots in the Dionysian. For me the best example for this is Emily Dickinson, who seems about as vanilla as can be, until you actually look at the words and images in her poems:
...I got so I could walk across
That Angle in the floor,
Where he turned so, and I turned -- how --
And all our Sinew tore --
I got so I could stir the Box --
In which his letters grew
Without that forcing, in my breath --
As Staples -- driven through --
That's just ... wicked gross. If you imagine for a moment writing those words with your own hand, it becomes an experience completely unlike that of reading an Emily Dickinson poem. She's like the Lovecraft of love. She touches God in the dark places.
Point being, when Maryann says the words "culture" or "civilization" she means "Apollo," His creed and His magic, His music and art, His worship, which to her are translations, mimesis, of the infinite to which Dionysus promises direct contact. That's why she keeps calling it "fake," because to her that's bullshit. I don't agree, because I like art and I love Apollo, but the whole point of art is to be an artifice of something ineffable, which is to say artificial, and that's a whole other thing you have to make peace with.
To say it another way: Dionysus says "Eat and drink and fuck," Apollo says, "...And hit that motherfucking gym when you're done, or nobody will fuck you." The healthy body is nothing but artifice: our culture puts us at desks for forty hours a week and then demands that our bodies present the exact opposite image, of having run through the forest throwing spears and dodging mastodons and rocking the Olympics. What are the words we use for those bodies we want? "Sculpted," "chiseled." Art.
And please don't think I'm speaking for that sad politicized fat-acceptance victim card: I love art. It's not a bad thing, because health is not a bad thing; it's just not the whole thing. Feminism is more than a list of grievances, and the beauty myth is just that: The Dionysian body is Jane Bodehouse and Mike Spencer, nymph and satyr, sated having supped, full bellies and pendulous breasts. Think about Fat Lee Adama, when he forgot to be Apollo. And then think about our vampire friends, the most Apollonian of all creatures on God's earth: lines and curves in perfect proportion. Both are crucial, because without either, the other becomes moot.
Point being, when Maryann says the words "culture" or "civilization" she means "Apollo," His creed and His magic, His music and art, His worship, which to her are translations, mimesis, of the infinite to which Dionysus promises direct contact. That's why she keeps calling it "fake," because to her that's bullshit. I don't agree, because I like art and I love Apollo, but the whole point of art is to be an artifice of something ineffable, which is to say artificial, and that's a whole other thing you have to make peace with.
To say it another way: Dionysus says "Eat and drink and fuck," Apollo says, "...And hit that motherfucking gym when you're done, or nobody will fuck you." The healthy body is nothing but artifice: our culture puts us at desks for forty hours a week and then demands that our bodies present the exact opposite image, of having run through the forest throwing spears and dodging mastodons and rocking the Olympics. What are the words we use for those bodies we want? "Sculpted," "chiseled." Art.
And please don't think I'm speaking for that sad politicized fat-acceptance victim card: I love art. It's not a bad thing, because health is not a bad thing; it's just not the whole thing. Feminism is more than a list of grievances, and the beauty myth is just that: The Dionysian body is Jane Bodehouse and Mike Spencer, nymph and satyr, sated having supped, full bellies and pendulous breasts. Think about Fat Lee Adama, when he forgot to be Apollo. And then think about our vampire friends, the most Apollonian of all creatures on God's earth: lines and curves in perfect proportion. Both are crucial, because without either, the other becomes moot.
In a healthy culture, we could have both sides of the Kandinsky; there wouldn't be any repressed thing squirting out into the consciousness, trying to contain women's bodies or legislate love or put industry before the health of your countrymen. We would have a choice about these things, instead of taking one side of worship and saying it's okay, and stuffing the other side away in the dark. And I'm not talking about pagans here, because I don't care one way or the other: I'm talking about snake handlers, and suicide bombers, and those TV megachurches where the people laugh and roll around on the ground. That's the kind of shit that happens when you ignore half the world.
That's all Maryann's ever said to them. And because she's His oldest priestess, she gets to have her say. Because honestly, watching her tear up about this has a lot more meaning for me personally than watching somebody do the exact same shit when talking about Jesus Christ -- we'll get to him a little later -- which is American as apple pie, and we don't blink at it. Texas is a chessboard, vampires vs. the Fellowship, but those are just two kinds of Apollo. The rest is all her. God knows I love Jason Stackhouse, but the Bon Temps half of this story will always win with me, because it's real. It's in everything we do. If it's boring, that's why. If it all seems like the same thing over and over, it's because we're so used to ignoring it we miss the journey.
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Instead of rocketing between black and white a hundred times a day, or trying for both at once all the time, vibrating across state lines like Maryann, we turn everything grey: Cram it into a couple hours of hassle on a Sunday, or ignore it altogether to make gods of our eating habits, or our kinks, or our lovers, and then wonder why our hearts and minds are getting sicker. If Miss Jeanette were here, she'd recommend Tell My Horse by Zora Neale Hurston, also from that same period, which pretty much changed my entire view on religion, emotion, passion, relationships, the unconscious, and our humanity. But she's not, so I have to.
But also, Maryann's heart has been touched, for the first time. We've seen her frustrated when people won't join the party, and we've seen her feelings get hurt, as a woman, but we've never seen her honestly moved like this. When she weeps, she weeps for Tara, who denies God yet again. Which goes beyond charismatic and into evangelical, which I don't appreciate, because that's where evil comes from, but at least it's something:
"No, Tara. They were ecstatic. All that fake civilization bullshit just fell away so they could dissolve into the infinite. So they could lose themselves, and unite with their God." Her voice is beautiful, yearning. They stare at each other as she goes to the fridge, and Eggs mouths, What the fuck was that? and Tara doesn't know. The Kandinsky flips, and Maryann's pissed again: "Look at you. A few bumps and bruises? That's a small price to pay for bliss." She dips back into the fridge, flipping into a smile and a hum: "Bloody Mary, anyone?"
Sam watches a fly buzzing around his cell while Mike Spencer and Jane Bodehouse beg Sheriff Bud Dearborn to let them out: "All I did was lose my pants, there's no law against that!" she says; "I only got your word for it I was mating with a pine tree," he complains. They scream; Sam joins them "You got no evidence, Bud! You got no right to keep me locked up!" He's caged. He knows she's coming.
Sookie wakes up and takes her pajamas across the hall to somebody's room who turns out to be Jason, wearing a Carmilla bathrobe. They can't sleep. (Good, you guys! It's daytime.) Later, he explains to her how the Newlins got to him: By making him think he was worth something. From Sookie's perspective, this is ridiculous, because he was the star of their family in Bon Temps, and she was "the throwaway." He says it's not true, then realizes that it is: "Well, they liked my athletics and my good looks, my sex abilities." But their trip to Dallas has taught him that none of the things they thought mattered actually mattered. Very small town/big city. They both ended up hustlers, even. "They didn't like me for me. And Steve and Sarah... Well, they acted like they did, before they tried to kill me." Which doesn't denigrate it any more than the things Amy taught him, or what Maryann's teaching Tara, but he's allowed to be upset.
But also, Maryann's heart has been touched, for the first time. We've seen her frustrated when people won't join the party, and we've seen her feelings get hurt, as a woman, but we've never seen her honestly moved like this. When she weeps, she weeps for Tara, who denies God yet again. Which goes beyond charismatic and into evangelical, which I don't appreciate, because that's where evil comes from, but at least it's something:
"No, Tara. They were ecstatic. All that fake civilization bullshit just fell away so they could dissolve into the infinite. So they could lose themselves, and unite with their God." Her voice is beautiful, yearning. They stare at each other as she goes to the fridge, and Eggs mouths, What the fuck was that? and Tara doesn't know. The Kandinsky flips, and Maryann's pissed again: "Look at you. A few bumps and bruises? That's a small price to pay for bliss." She dips back into the fridge, flipping into a smile and a hum: "Bloody Mary, anyone?"
Sam watches a fly buzzing around his cell while Mike Spencer and Jane Bodehouse beg Sheriff Bud Dearborn to let them out: "All I did was lose my pants, there's no law against that!" she says; "I only got your word for it I was mating with a pine tree," he complains. They scream; Sam joins them "You got no evidence, Bud! You got no right to keep me locked up!" He's caged. He knows she's coming.
Sookie wakes up and takes her pajamas across the hall to somebody's room who turns out to be Jason, wearing a Carmilla bathrobe. They can't sleep. (Good, you guys! It's daytime.) Later, he explains to her how the Newlins got to him: By making him think he was worth something. From Sookie's perspective, this is ridiculous, because he was the star of their family in Bon Temps, and she was "the throwaway." He says it's not true, then realizes that it is: "Well, they liked my athletics and my good looks, my sex abilities." But their trip to Dallas has taught him that none of the things they thought mattered actually mattered. Very small town/big city. They both ended up hustlers, even. "They didn't like me for me. And Steve and Sarah... Well, they acted like they did, before they tried to kill me." Which doesn't denigrate it any more than the things Amy taught him, or what Maryann's teaching Tara, but he's allowed to be upset.
"They stopped my mind from going around and around thinking about... Well, other stuff." He goes away for a second, and Sookie's finally like, "But 'Soldiers of the Sun'? My Lord. Didn't you for one second think what Gran would say? Guns and suicide bombers..." Things rapidly get stupid and this scene kind of nosedives into the toilet at this point. It's very stylized, but it's like it's shooting for opera and ends up at soap, so we'll buzz it. He doesn't want to talk about Gran because he "doesn't want to feel anything," but Sookie knows they have to keep eating the pie until it just tastes delicious. I mean, this is a conversation you have. This is a conversation I've had. And in the ridiculously wonderful pace of this show, it's a conversation they need to have right now. But for us, her old ass died a year ago and it's just sort of boring. Blonde leading the blonde.
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Because it's all she's got, thanks also to St. Paul, Sarah lamely says in turn, "I hate your hair," sitting back all self-satisfied. "There's a witch, and a sumbitch," says Jason. "Fuck you, Newlins." Sookie smiles at him, sure now that he's back, and they are sweet together some more. It just makes me sad, because Sarah could be the best cult leader ever, if she weren't a woman, or she weren't a willing part of a culture that defines male power using women as currency. You know, like if there were some culture or religion of consequence that didn't do that, she could really rock out. But since the first time we met her, she's been the Woman Behind the Man, and no matter how much it galls her that's all she knows how to be, so it twists her even further. And that is fucked up.
Arlene serves a couple of women, who take out their cameras and beg to see the freezer where they found Daphne's body. "It was the walk-in refrigerator and you are one sick buzzard. Go find some roadkill, because you ain't eating here." Arlene takes away their food and gets bothered by some man looking for silverware, but bitches her way past him to the ringing phone. It's her daughter. "Merlotte's, hurry up. Lisa, lunch is your job, you got a microwave, that's all you need. Oh, come on, Coby'll eat cat food if you put mayo on it. Mama's gotta work." Heh.
Lafayette appears, pouring out a shot as she admits to being shit scared most of the time now: "Daphne, oh my God." Lafayette hands her the double shot and she downs it: "She was clumsy, stupid and mean, but I wouldn't wish that kind of death on a possum." Which is a funny line, and plays well with the unerring characterization of the Arlene/Daphne thing -- "I rubbed this lantern to get a new waitress after Amy died, and look what bullshit came out" -- but also: If Miss Jeanette were here, she'd remind us that it's precisely what she got: a possum's death. She whines about Miss Jeanette too, and Lafayette is grim. He's been paying more attention than anybody, he fucking knows. "I'll look out for you if you look out for me," he promises, allying himself with the Sam/Andy/Jason war crew once and for all, and when she asks when it's going to stop, he doesn't answer: Terry's calling the order.
Arlene goes to pick up the order, and Terry avoids her eyes weirdly, and finally she starts crying. "Terry, please quit being so much more peculiar than you usually are! Please talk to me. If what we did was so terrible..." (Dialogue that is good on paper is good on paper, but doesn't mean it's going to be easier for the actor to sell. Not when the show doesn't usually go there. There are plenty of shows with a broad enough tone that you can get away with stylistics like that, but this crap is all through the script and really makes line deliveries difficult. We already knew Macon's own Carrie Preston was one of the most gifted actors on the show, but that line proves it. This episode is condescending, in that particularly Coen Brothers way that I can't fucking stand, and the burden rests mostly on the hick characters like Arlene and the Stackhouses, and the Newlins who clearly need to be even more cartoonish. Good thing it fucking excels at vampires, because damn does it excel with the vampires.)
"Arlene, don't cry. I didn't mean to be peculiar at you." (See what I mean? That's like Night Court.) "I just don't know what we did." Arlene realizes that he blacked out the sex too, and he's sort of excited by the prospect, and then they negotiate through whether or not forgetting that they fucked is insulting, and finally she's just so relieved she starts crying again. It's weird, but honestly -- with the mascara and everything -- this is the prettiest she's ever looked. I'm always amazed how bravely they make Carrie Preston, who is basically gorgeous, look like such a fucking freakshow, which makes the loveliness of her smile here twice as beautiful, because it shines through the mostly bullshit that is her. They almost kiss, sweetly, but some insane lady offscreen keeps yelling for her corn, and it's quite droll, and she takes off, and they are in love again, and it's great.
Tara comes in laughing off her tardiness and telling Eggs to order lunch on her, but Lafayette spots her bruises from behind the bar and comes running up. "Lafayette!" yells Eggs, very friendly -- and a wonderful grace note on their interactions so far -- but Lafayette has no time for friendly Eggs: he's too busy grabbing her face and freaking out about the Cycle of Violence. She says she doesn't know what happened, but it wasn't Eggs, but Lafayette's not having it, and Eggs is really offended of course, and Lafayette offers to beat Eggs's face in for him, and Eggs reminds him to take off his false eyelashes first -- which is awesome -- and then accidentally bashes Tara in the face on the way to punching Lafayette -- which is ironic -- and all the fat trashy white country folk in the place turn in their seats to watch the black people hit each other -- which is fucking gross, but also describes about 80% of all daytime TV, the majority of Real Housewives Of Atlanta, VH-1's entire fake-dating franchise, and practically America's Top Model at this point -- and yell about domestic violence, and one of them is a tranny still yelling about the Cycle of Violence, and how Eggs is "poison," and will never change, and will probably kill her, and finally they leave together, and the white people cheer, and Lafayette points out that they are being gross rednecks, and feels something strange in this too. They were hungrier for it than usual. They are cheering him.
But what makes it especially gross and ironic is that nobody knows, not even Lafayette, that the bruises totally did come from Tara working out her domestic and emotional abuse with Eggs: Maryann doesn't put anything in you. She just pulls it out. None of us are so lacking in darkness that she'd have to create it. And the more you have, the more she loves you. It's why she's always loved Tara most of all. (But then, wait 'til she meets Lafayette.)
Arlene goes to pick up the order, and Terry avoids her eyes weirdly, and finally she starts crying. "Terry, please quit being so much more peculiar than you usually are! Please talk to me. If what we did was so terrible..." (Dialogue that is good on paper is good on paper, but doesn't mean it's going to be easier for the actor to sell. Not when the show doesn't usually go there. There are plenty of shows with a broad enough tone that you can get away with stylistics like that, but this crap is all through the script and really makes line deliveries difficult. We already knew Macon's own Carrie Preston was one of the most gifted actors on the show, but that line proves it. This episode is condescending, in that particularly Coen Brothers way that I can't fucking stand, and the burden rests mostly on the hick characters like Arlene and the Stackhouses, and the Newlins who clearly need to be even more cartoonish. Good thing it fucking excels at vampires, because damn does it excel with the vampires.)
"Arlene, don't cry. I didn't mean to be peculiar at you." (See what I mean? That's like Night Court.) "I just don't know what we did." Arlene realizes that he blacked out the sex too, and he's sort of excited by the prospect, and then they negotiate through whether or not forgetting that they fucked is insulting, and finally she's just so relieved she starts crying again. It's weird, but honestly -- with the mascara and everything -- this is the prettiest she's ever looked. I'm always amazed how bravely they make Carrie Preston, who is basically gorgeous, look like such a fucking freakshow, which makes the loveliness of her smile here twice as beautiful, because it shines through the mostly bullshit that is her. They almost kiss, sweetly, but some insane lady offscreen keeps yelling for her corn, and it's quite droll, and she takes off, and they are in love again, and it's great.
Tara comes in laughing off her tardiness and telling Eggs to order lunch on her, but Lafayette spots her bruises from behind the bar and comes running up. "Lafayette!" yells Eggs, very friendly -- and a wonderful grace note on their interactions so far -- but Lafayette has no time for friendly Eggs: he's too busy grabbing her face and freaking out about the Cycle of Violence. She says she doesn't know what happened, but it wasn't Eggs, but Lafayette's not having it, and Eggs is really offended of course, and Lafayette offers to beat Eggs's face in for him, and Eggs reminds him to take off his false eyelashes first -- which is awesome -- and then accidentally bashes Tara in the face on the way to punching Lafayette -- which is ironic -- and all the fat trashy white country folk in the place turn in their seats to watch the black people hit each other -- which is fucking gross, but also describes about 80% of all daytime TV, the majority of Real Housewives Of Atlanta, VH-1's entire fake-dating franchise, and practically America's Top Model at this point -- and yell about domestic violence, and one of them is a tranny still yelling about the Cycle of Violence, and how Eggs is "poison," and will never change, and will probably kill her, and finally they leave together, and the white people cheer, and Lafayette points out that they are being gross rednecks, and feels something strange in this too. They were hungrier for it than usual. They are cheering him.
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He's right, so she tries to think. I mean, tries desperately to think. To justify, because now she sees her too. "Well, it's not my fault, it's the way I was raised up." I will rise up. "Jessica may be a vampire," Hoyt says, "But she's the one for me. You don't have any say over it." She says he's breaking her heart, and he stands up, sickened. (Um, welcome to the gun show, BTW.) "You know, I've let you run me around because I didn't want to hurt your feelings? But those days are over. Now I want you to meet her, but if you can't be nice, then I will leave this house and never come back. And don't think I won't." She cries, fakely, but her words are genuine. We will revisit them. "Hoyt, please, you're my one son." Father, son, brother. Don't leave. Don't rise. "I'm not yours, Mama, I'm mine." She screams that he's her baby boy, terrified of him leaving, terrified of being alone. "I'm not a baby, I'm a grown-ass man!" he yells, and does not neglect to grab his sandwich on the way out.
Sookie lies in bed with Bill, the words twining around her as she tries to sleep. She rolls over, away from him, and a finger traces down her shoulder. She turns, smiling, and it's Eric. "Finish your sentence," he says -- that one's an echo of Steve and Sarah, very telling, very well done, very nice -- and she laughs at him. "You were telling me why you'd be a terrible vampire, and I was disagreeing."
This isn't Eric, obviously. Even Sookie's attempts at chick lit are sort of depressingly off-kilter. But what he's saying... It's rough to date a vampire. Logistically, but also: if you're going to bear the weight and carry the name of "fangbanger," isn't it sort of a gyp when your vampire boyfriend is the worst vampire of all time? And Lorena, tonight: he's got secrets, does Bill Compton. Things he doesn't tell you, things he's afraid to tell you. Two hundred years of history you've only run your hands down. There's a conspiracy allied against her -- Eric, Lorena -- and Bill is a part of it. What if there were a vampire boyfriend, a better Bill, who would let her in?
A month ago, she'd never known a man with secrets. That was the problem with men. She loved him for his secrets, because they made her feel powerful, dangerous, brave. And now she's questioning that bravery, because she's never once ever had to ask herself this question. She's never had anything to lose. And then you have Eric, who's really just in this dream a better version of Bill, putting on his face through the blood, offering her the chance to stand with the great ones. To know everything. Like she used to.
Hoyt sits down, because that's the puzzle piece missing that will sew it all up together, same as with Eric. It's the Apollonian piece that puts things together: "I have no idea, because the only time you ever mention him is when you're trying to make me do something I don't want to do. So while we're at it, let's talk about that." I love it because Jason has dealt with his father's death in the opposite way, which is to actually deal with it, because he had a strong mother figure and not Maxine. She puts down the sandwich, begging for her "sweet child" back. If he'd had a brother, his name would have been Adam. Hoyt's not a virgin anymore; he's broken his mother's heart. That thing that grows back is just a thing. "What are you doing with vampires anyway? They are wrong, wrong, wrong. They are devils."
"Why do you have so much hate in you?" She's offended: She thinks of herself as a kind and charitable person. She just made him a sandwich. She's really hurt: "I don't. That's a flat lie. Who do you think you're talking to?" Um, his momma. "Who hates Methodists." I got my reasons. "And Catholics." Just priests. And nuns. Having taken her through her religious hypocrisy, he moves on: "African-Americans?" That's true, but she knows enough to know it's a shame: Hush, that's a secret! "People who don't take care of their gardens, and people who park their trucks up on their lawn, and ladies who wear red shoes." Into the sublimely irrelevant, where our greatest rage and hates usually reside. It looks cheap! "Families with lots of kids. And checkered curtains. And cats and dogs, and bait," he says, moving into emasculation: all the ways she tried to check his masculinity, to cast aspersions on him. To draw him away from the Dionysian. "Every girl that I ever liked. And the more that I like them, the more that you hate them."I simply object to a girlfriend who will kill you and eat you. I think that's reasonable..." It's not unreasonable, but she's scrambling. He wraps it all up with a bow: "You don't even know her. Full of hate. I see you now."
He's right, so she tries to think. I mean, tries desperately to think. To justify, because now she sees her too. "Well, it's not my fault, it's the way I was raised up." I will rise up. "Jessica may be a vampire," Hoyt says, "But she's the one for me. You don't have any say over it." She says he's breaking her heart, and he stands up, sickened. (Um, welcome to the gun show, BTW.) "You know, I've let you run me around because I didn't want to hurt your feelings? But those days are over. Now I want you to meet her, but if you can't be nice, then I will leave this house and never come back. And don't think I won't." She cries, fakely, but her words are genuine. We will revisit them. "Hoyt, please, you're my one son." Father, son, brother. Don't leave. Don't rise. "I'm not yours, Mama, I'm mine." She screams that he's her baby boy, terrified of him leaving, terrified of being alone. "I'm not a baby, I'm a grown-ass man!" he yells, and does not neglect to grab his sandwich on the way out.
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Lorena leans close to the camera. "You don't want Bill. He means nothing to you." She protests, as Eric climbs on top. "This is the beginning." They kiss madly, as Lorena laughs. She is the voice of her fear, and her mistrust, and all the things Bill's fear and shame won't let her see. You could say -- in this episode full of orphans, from Hoyt to Jessica to the Stackhouses to Eric, in the end -- that she made Bill what he is today. Eric and Sookie make love.
Sookie wakes up, terrified for a moment, and turns to Bill. Outside, the sunshine. She takes his dead hand and looks at his dead face and squints her eyes tight, willing it down. Somewhere Maryann smiles and doesn't know why.
Maryann smiles, walking into the police station; the three people chained up in the lobby call out to her like worshippers, asking to party with her again. "We had a good time, didn't we?" she grins, pointing at them cutely. She heads inside to look for Bud, who is having a whole time of it, as the people go mad in their cells. As she comes closer. His voice echoes, and she calls out to him down the hall; the madmen call for her, excited as children, and Sam shivers. There is a fly walking on the grate in his cell.
Bud lets Maryann behind the gate, and offers her coffee when they sit. She notes his exhaustion, the absolute limit of his authority, and he admits that everybody in Bon Temps has gone completely fucking crazy. In fact, Kenya's out in the wagon collecting more. "A major crime wave!" she gasps, sitting down with her coffee, and he admits it's just misdemeanors, but really crazy shit he's never seen before, "in over forty years." She pishes that, and tells him to let some of them go. "I'm about ready to," he says, while she grins, "But they're all riled up, might still do some damage." She cocks her head. "Let me help, I'll talk them down. It's my best thing!" she laughs. I love that. The Lynda Barry cadence of that is beautiful.
"I'd be grateful. Can't hardly keep my eyes open." She awws, and he asks what she's after, and she puts on her Let's Be Serious face, like they're friends with an unpleasant business. "I heard Sam Merlotte is here, I couldn't believe it. A fine upstanding businessman? I have a lot of respect for him and I'd like to help him out." Bud doesn't want to let him go, being a suspect in a homicide, so she changes tactics immediately, bending her intention around his obstruction like water; she is horrified. He offers to show her where Sam's locked up, and she comes around to put her hands on his shoulders. "I know the way. Sit. Have a little rest." After about a second of vibing, he's gone black. She feels it in her fingers, and curls around to look: "Whoa! You went fast!" Heh. "Stay," she says, and grabs his keys.
"Greedy!" he sing-songs, and "I love it!" in the same exact intonation. (It's my favorite of the many wonders he performs in this dream, that familiar boyfriend thing, the prosaic prosody of love, tender dactyl and filthy amphibrach: "greedy I love it...") She admits that she is, and he kisses her hand, biting his own thumb lovingly: "You have the right temperament for a vampire." It's her fantasy, it means approval, that she can play on his level -- the thing that Steve denies Sarah and Bill denies her and Jessica -- but she plays it for lusty laughs: "What, I'm high-maintenance, bloodthirsty and old as dirt?"
Bloodthirsty, yes. "I am not!" They laugh. It cascaded down her chin, it tasted like heaven. She knew she was greedy, and hid it away. Bill wouldn't approve. But Eric...
"Everybody thinks you're a darling, don't they?" he asks. It is an invitation to more. To be more. To take hold of that power Sarah Newlin denies. "I am a darling," she says, playing the coquette, and he coaxes it out of her, casting it heroically: "But you're ruthless when it comes to people you love. You'll do anything for them." She laughs, he strokes her back, down to her hip. "Your brother, your friends. Me..." She meets his kiss.
Somebody says, "Bill," and she looks up and out for him. He's a part of this too, he's in her heart. Lorena leans into the light, sitting like Justice, like the High Priestess: "What do you care? You've already abandoned him." She dreamily disagrees; she is luxuriously torn. She has a choice. Her body gives her a choice. "I love Bill," she says, kissing Eric. He is tawny, without blemish; he is coiled.
"I used to think you had no sense of humor," Eric says; with Bill, she hasn't had the chance. "I used to think you were made of cold hard stone, and empty inside," Sookie says, forcing it back into simple storybook romance; fighting through the cold. Fighting her way back to a place where this passion has a place. Looking for Dionysus in the cold rational arms of Apollo. "You're a big faker," she says, casting him as her Edward instead of her Jacob. "You're deep. You feel. There's love in you." I'm told that the majority of Twilight fanfic is about Jasper, and this is why: "Only for Sookie," Eric says, kissing her. I always said the equivalent to the car-brassiere sexy curves of a sports car is the big fucking monster of an SUV: This is my tank, and I am Tank Girl, and this gorilla loves only me. His muscles bunch and stretch. His power thrums beneath her hands.
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Lorena leans close to the camera. "You don't want Bill. He means nothing to you." She protests, as Eric climbs on top. "This is the beginning." They kiss madly, as Lorena laughs. She is the voice of her fear, and her mistrust, and all the things Bill's fear and shame won't let her see. You could say -- in this episode full of orphans, from Hoyt to Jessica to the Stackhouses to Eric, in the end -- that she made Bill what he is today. Eric and Sookie make love.
Sookie wakes up, terrified for a moment, and turns to Bill. Outside, the sunshine. She takes his dead hand and looks at his dead face and squints her eyes tight, willing it down. Somewhere Maryann smiles and doesn't know why.
Maryann smiles, walking into the police station; the three people chained up in the lobby call out to her like worshippers, asking to party with her again. "We had a good time, didn't we?" she grins, pointing at them cutely. She heads inside to look for Bud, who is having a whole time of it, as the people go mad in their cells. As she comes closer. His voice echoes, and she calls out to him down the hall; the madmen call for her, excited as children, and Sam shivers. There is a fly walking on the grate in his cell.
Bud lets Maryann behind the gate, and offers her coffee when they sit. She notes his exhaustion, the absolute limit of his authority, and he admits that everybody in Bon Temps has gone completely fucking crazy. In fact, Kenya's out in the wagon collecting more. "A major crime wave!" she gasps, sitting down with her coffee, and he admits it's just misdemeanors, but really crazy shit he's never seen before, "in over forty years." She pishes that, and tells him to let some of them go. "I'm about ready to," he says, while she grins, "But they're all riled up, might still do some damage." She cocks her head. "Let me help, I'll talk them down. It's my best thing!" she laughs. I love that. The Lynda Barry cadence of that is beautiful.
"I'd be grateful. Can't hardly keep my eyes open." She awws, and he asks what she's after, and she puts on her Let's Be Serious face, like they're friends with an unpleasant business. "I heard Sam Merlotte is here, I couldn't believe it. A fine upstanding businessman? I have a lot of respect for him and I'd like to help him out." Bud doesn't want to let him go, being a suspect in a homicide, so she changes tactics immediately, bending her intention around his obstruction like water; she is horrified. He offers to show her where Sam's locked up, and she comes around to put her hands on his shoulders. "I know the way. Sit. Have a little rest." After about a second of vibing, he's gone black. She feels it in her fingers, and curls around to look: "Whoa! You went fast!" Heh. "Stay," she says, and grabs his keys.
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"I am clean and sober, as you well know. I'll never take nothing from you. Except my girl." Lafayette and Lettie Mae get ready to take Tara away, and Eggs gets in the way, while Lettie calls out to her daughter and Maryann giggles. "You ain't a boyfriend, you're a domestically violent, sick mother." Eggs laughs, but Lafayette's not fucking around. "I'm begging you," Lettie says. "Don't let them do you this way. We'll keep you safe." Tara's eyes go black.
"Well, it would be the first fucking time." She heads for her mother, and both Lettie and Lafayette notice the black eyes, freaking out. Tara shoves her mother against the wall, striking at her again and again: "Throw a Bible at me now. Pull my hair, scratch my face, break my head with a bottle. Hit me back!" Nothing can hurt me, he said. I hate you so fucking much, she said. I never saw a difference between the Dallas story and the Maryann story, but now there's just no difference at all: Lettie Mae refuses. With her back against the wall, claws and fists raining down on her, she weeps, in shame. "I won't hit you back. Go ahead and kill me, I'll never strike you again." Tara begs her to fight back; she stands there in the maelstrom and she takes it. She wouldn't wish this on a possum; she knows it's the least of the price she must pay. Go ahead and kill me, I'll never strike you again: In this, I see God.
Lafayette picks Tara up bodily, hoisting her over a shoulder and throwing her in the car. She screams like a demon, like a beast. Like a little black-eyed girl. Eggs follows them, hurting, onto the porch, and Maryann comforts him as the fly watches, buzzing on Adele's porch: "She'll come back. And she'll bring them with her. Come on."
"Do you have any fucking idea of the PR mess you've made? And who fucking has to clean that shit up? Me. Not you, me. I should drain every one of you bastards." Isabel stares at Nan Flanagan, in the flesh, moved by this. "Stan went after the church on his own, none of us knew anything about it." Nan laughs. "Really? Because everyone who met Stan in the last 300 years knew he had a kink about slaughtering humans. But you -- his nest mates, his Sheriff -- had no clue." But like how were they supposed to know he meant it? "Not my problem. Yours."
Eric bristles: "Don't talk to him that way"; she smiles in that unnerving way: "Don't talk to me that way." Sookie stares at them all. She knows Godric was there on purpose. She still hasn't figured out why, but she's close. "How did they manage to abduct you?" Godric's shrug is eloquent; his answer less so. "They would have taken one of us sooner or later. I offered myself." And when she asks him why, all he can ask is why not. "They wanted you to meet the sun, and you were willing?" Sookie, afraid he's going to figure it out, stares at Eric, worried. "What do you think?" Godric asks. "I think you're out of your mind," Nan says honestly.
Which would be a homerun, because that could mean that Maxine could offer her the protection of family and own them both and be the progressive hero -- "she doesn't have any people, I know she's one of Them but the poor thing, etc." -- but Jessica thinks that her love for Hoyt actually means something in this scenario, that it's about something other than Maxine, so she goes too far again: "Except your wonderful son." Which is just like saying, "I'm going to steal your son and start a new family with us at the center, and you will die alone and unloved," so Maxine pays her dime for the first part -- "I'm sorry for you, that wasn't fair" -- before cashing in with the second: "But Hoyt has a bright future ahead of him. And by bright, I mean in the sun." Jessica feels the lash of racism.
"If you think I'm gonna let him wander around all hours of the night for the rest of his life with an orphan vampire, you got another thing coming." Having successfully repelled the one good serve Jessica's given, she goes for the jugular, turns the one victim thing against her -- which is the razor's edge of Bon Temps, to be pathetic but not too pathetic; like how you can be charitable but you don't want poor people stealing your stuff -- and Jessica pops understandable fang. "I believe that's up to Hoyt," she says forcefully, and Hoyt realizes this whole thing just went to hell.
Maxine promises to fight for what's best for "her boy," and Jessica swears the same. "I can give him everything a human could," she says, and she's almost right, but Maxine picks out just one ugly thing and applies it like a razor: children. Babies. None of those. Hoyt makes a sad sound, and the blood wells up in Jessica's eyes as her fangs retract (maybe the best visual effects in this entire series to date, I rewound to watch that more times than I did Eric's naked ass) and she jumps up and peaces.
"Well, now you did it. You happy?" Hoyt takes off with Jessica, who is completely undone at this point, and when Maxine asks when he's coming home he throws down some cash and tells her: never. Alone, she overlooks her sweet tea for the rest of Hoyt's beer, and when she asks Arlene for another she gets the wink of racist solidarity.
The fly watches, unnoticed, as Maryann and Tara and Eggs play cards that seems to mostly involve taking shots. They quibble over the rules, and Maryann laughs, "We play by my rules. That means no rules!" Tara throws the cards in the air, and she approves. There's a knock at the door, and Lafayette comes in with Lettie Mae. Maryann is immediately attracted to Lafayette, who's the closest thing in town to Sookie that isn't actually the same, like Barry, and both Tara and Eggs grimly go, "That's Lafayette." Tara's immediately hostile, but Maryann invites them to pull up a chair and play strip poker. Tara and Eggs holler about that, and Maryann asks, "Ms. Thornton, what's your drink?" Which is fucked up. "Vodka," says Tara. "Whiskey. Hairspray. Antifreeze..."
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As though any of this has to do with anything. Sookie doesn't know about politics. The image has nothing to do with the reality. The only time I met Bush Sr. and Barbara was at the opening of a Planned Parenthood in West, TX. I don't know how you do politics in Louisiana, but fucking grow up. The meaning is not the message. None of this is about their best interests, it's about the vampires' political interests and nothing else. Sarah Palin's retarded baby deserves health care no matter how much she doesn't want him to have it.
"For getting kidnapped? For attracting a suicide bomber? For piss-poor judgment? I think not." How great if she'd been like, "Yeah thanks, Archuleta." Eric gets all pissy and Isabel grabs him. Godric tells him to chill, and that it doesn't matter, and everybody sits down again. These are jumpy motherfuckers. She asks Godric to outline the bombing for her, once again, which has nothing to do with job and everything to do with hers. "I sacrificed everything for that child without a thought for myself. He doesn't notice."
That's Maxine, in that she's the one that's talking, but it's really just Godric some more. "He doesn't care. He isn't grateful. He's running wild now, he's headed straight for hell." Before Maxine can make her son's latency even more about her, which it already is, Maryann comes in, shrouded in wind, covered in leaves. They never neglect to connect her power to nature. It's such an amazing image. Maxine is cowed, as Maryann stands in the middle of Merlotte's. "The God Who Comes* demands his sacrifice. Where is Sam Merlotte?" Arlene's eyes are black, as she reports that he's been gone all day, yet again. "A while back he was planning to leave!" Terry tattles, on an unrelated note. Maryanns' voice gets stupid/scary: "Bring him to meeeeee." Everybody's eyes shade black.
*(Think about it.)
Andy's drinking whisky in his motel room watching some inane show about battling ostriches when there's a knock at the door. It's Sam Merlotte, naked. God, I love motels.
"What a fucking fiasco. You're lucky I don't send you all to the Magister. Godric, come to my suite and fill out the forms." Godric tells her he will, just as soon as he has his say. "I'm sorry," he says, to everyone. I apologize for all the harm I've caused, for all our lost ones, human and vampire. I will make amends, I swear it." Sookie stares, knowing what he means: to give it weight, to give it some kind of meaning. Eric finally figures it out. Nan's blissfully unaware, patting his arm -- "Take it easy, it's just a few signatures" -- and leaves with her people. Eric comes to him like a lover, begging him to reconsider. "Look in my heart," he says calmly, and swears there's nothing left to say. "There is," Eric cries out, and Godric agrees: they can talk on the roof.
Lafayette picks Tara up bodily, hoisting her over a shoulder and throwing her in the car. She screams like a demon, like a beast. Like a little black-eyed girl. Eggs follows them, hurting, onto the porch, and Maryann comforts him as the fly watches, buzzing on Adele's porch: "She'll come back. And she'll bring them with her. Come on."
"Do you have any fucking idea of the PR mess you've made? And who fucking has to clean that shit up? Me. Not you, me. I should drain every one of you bastards." Isabel stares at Nan Flanagan, in the flesh, moved by this. "Stan went after the church on his own, none of us knew anything about it." Nan laughs. "Really? Because everyone who met Stan in the last 300 years knew he had a kink about slaughtering humans. But you -- his nest mates, his Sheriff -- had no clue." But like how were they supposed to know he meant it? "Not my problem. Yours."
Eric bristles: "Don't talk to him that way"; she smiles in that unnerving way: "Don't talk to me that way." Sookie stares at them all. She knows Godric was there on purpose. She still hasn't figured out why, but she's close. "How did they manage to abduct you?" Godric's shrug is eloquent; his answer less so. "They would have taken one of us sooner or later. I offered myself." And when she asks him why, all he can ask is why not. "They wanted you to meet the sun, and you were willing?" Sookie, afraid he's going to figure it out, stares at Eric, worried. "What do you think?" Godric asks. "I think you're out of your mind," Nan says honestly.
I came to this storyline with some expectations that made this part hard to follow the first few times I watched it. Suffice to say that we've omitted -- though not denied -- some things from Godric's biography and predilections that put a much different spin on this conversation, not to mention his pretty much perfect relationship with Sookie. Or, well, a vampire who's been around since before Christianity has probably done any amount of horrific shit, and we can impute how far down that goes based on the amount of redemption Godric's in the mood for, which it turns out is infinite. Infinite amounts of guilt. But even without that stuff, it plays through: He was going to meet the sun either way. He is done. It is time. He can't be immortal anymore. All he wants to do is find a way to give that some redemptive meaning.
The Fellowship was just a way to play the Aslan card: If I let you kill me will you be able to admit that I won? I won't strike you again, go ahead and kill me. A deeper magic would split the altar and Steve Newlin -- caught in the symbolism -- would see vampires for what they are, which is people. It's dumb, even Sookie knows it's dumb, but it's no dumber than Luke pressing the button, and much more powerful and meaningful a statement. And instead, it ended up costing yet more lives, and incurring more bullshit with the Newlins, and making the vampires look worse than they already did. And you got Nan at your throat, whose whole job is rehabilitating the image you bet your life on, and fucked up yet again.
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He's the oldest vampire in the New World. The most beautiful. The most powerful. The thing that they are capable of. And he is going to say goodbye. Somebody has to be there, somebody has to write it on her heart. To keep him alive, like Gran and Momma and Daddy Stackhouse. Like Eddie, and Amy, and all the rest of what we've lost. Somebody has to be there: Somebody who loves him. Somebody has to be there because Eric can't be.
"It doesn't make sense, but... You understand?" He does. That's like every conversation they've ever had. It's beautiful. Their song plays, twisted right again, and Bill stands alone.
"Two thousand years is enough," Godric's say, but Eric won't accept it. "It's insanity," he shouts, and Godric shakes his head: "Our existence is insanity. We don't belong here," he says, looking into Eric's eyes. Immortality, divinity passes. "But we are here," screams Eric. "It's not right!"
"We're not right," Godric says quietly. Eric gets mad, saying that Godric taught him there was no such thing as right and wrong: Just survival, and death. Two thousand years ago that was only slightly more true than it is today. "I told a lie, as it turns out." Eric swallows, gulping at his anger. "I will keep you alive by force." Godric shakes his head. "Even if you could, why would you be so cruel?"
Eric's gift for rhetoric is Hoyt's equal; he code-shifts to Swedish. "Godric, don't do it." That little bit of intimacy, that little reminder. "There are centuries of faith and love between us," Godric says, begging him to leave off. He falls to his knees, weeping like a child. The tears flow hot. "Please," he cries. "Please." On his knees, begging. Eric Northman, on his knees, begging in syllables.
"Father, brother, son: Let me go."
The blood drips as he tries. He does try, to go cold. It doesn't work. He swallows. "I won't let you die alone," he says, making a pact with himself, and Godric smiles. "Yes, you will." It bends him in half.
Godric touches him; Godric raises him up: "As your Maker, I command you." With Godric's hand upon his neck, blessing him, Eric says goodbye. He finally stands up, and walks away. Sookie catches his hand at the stairwell: "I'll stay with him. As long as it takes." It wells up in his throat, and he can say nothing. So he doesn't.
"It won't take long," Godric says. "Not at my age." She nods, and tells him she's got it figured out: the Fellowship part wasn't so smart. Of the whole plan, he shouldn't have trusted them. The meaning of acts is beyond them now. He nods. "I thought it might... Fix everything, somehow. But I don't think like a vampire anymore." He thinks of something better. He sees the world, stretched out in the sunlight, and his place in it. Finally.
That's Maxine, in that she's the one that's talking, but it's really just Godric some more. "He doesn't care. He isn't grateful. He's running wild now, he's headed straight for hell." Before Maxine can make her son's latency even more about her, which it already is, Maryann comes in, shrouded in wind, covered in leaves. They never neglect to connect her power to nature. It's such an amazing image. Maxine is cowed, as Maryann stands in the middle of Merlotte's. "The God Who Comes* demands his sacrifice. Where is Sam Merlotte?" Arlene's eyes are black, as she reports that he's been gone all day, yet again. "A while back he was planning to leave!" Terry tattles, on an unrelated note. Maryanns' voice gets stupid/scary: "Bring him to meeeeee." Everybody's eyes shade black.
*(Think about it.)
Andy's drinking whisky in his motel room watching some inane show about battling ostriches when there's a knock at the door. It's Sam Merlotte, naked. God, I love motels.
"What a fucking fiasco. You're lucky I don't send you all to the Magister. Godric, come to my suite and fill out the forms." Godric tells her he will, just as soon as he has his say. "I'm sorry," he says, to everyone. I apologize for all the harm I've caused, for all our lost ones, human and vampire. I will make amends, I swear it." Sookie stares, knowing what he means: to give it weight, to give it some kind of meaning. Eric finally figures it out. Nan's blissfully unaware, patting his arm -- "Take it easy, it's just a few signatures" -- and leaves with her people. Eric comes to him like a lover, begging him to reconsider. "Look in my heart," he says calmly, and swears there's nothing left to say. "There is," Eric cries out, and Godric agrees: they can talk on the roof.
Eric stands alone for a moment, before Bill Compton -- whose inability to read a fucking room is demonstrably endemic, even before he met Lorena -- decides it's time to throw some kind of fucking fit. It's very inappropriate. Eric begs him to let it slide for like five seconds, but no. Bill punches him in the face, which just proves how powerless he feels. The blood flows down. "Have I made my point?" Will you ever? Eric points out that it's already done -- "I'm part of her now" -- and Bill's overdramatic ass feels both helpless and stupid. He stands aside when Eric asks him to, and then Bill and Sookie are left alone in their room, which I guess is the Summit Suite.
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Bill slams the door behind Eric and works his wrist, unaccustomed to hitting, and she joins him in the bedroom. "I'm going to find Godric," she says, haltingly, and he's flummoxed. "None of this has anything to do with us. Godric is not your concern." Which is the thing Bill's never going to understand, even though it's the thing he loves best about her. It's her best thing.
"If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be standing here. He's in pain, he's suffering. I've got to do something. You of all people should understand how he feels. What if it were you, Bill? What if in 1800 years, you were Godric?" He tries to imagine that. He can't, so he agrees, but wants to come with. She swings her ponytail and turns him down. This isn't about him. This is about her negotiation with that world, and her relationship with this boy, that she's tried to explain to him over and over, when he wasn't listening. "It'll be dawn in a little while." He shudders, helpless, and extends himself so far as to saying he could stand to be just a little burnt up. It's desperate and demeans them both. "I will not let you take that chance. With Godric there, you don't have to worry about me."
Bill looks at her, amazed, trying to take her in all at once: "You are so tender-hearted. You feel obligated, I can see that. But Sookie, in all honesty, what can you do for him?" This is it. This is what she can do for him. She knows this. So does Bill. Somebody has to be there. Somebody has to witness it.
The human population of Dallas is 2.4 million. They're going to wake up sometime in the hour, and go to work, and read about the latest vampire bullshit in the news. Some of them will be turned on. Some of them will be grossed out. Some of them will be both, and won't even know it. A little brighter spot on the horizon, a flash on top of the vampire hotel that crouches in their dreams, nobody's going to notice that. But something beautiful is about to end. Something beautiful, and terrible, and older than Christ. By tonight, the spin machines will have started up again. What did it mean, what did he say, where do we go?
He's the oldest vampire in the New World. The most beautiful. The most powerful. The thing that they are capable of. And he is going to say goodbye. Somebody has to be there, somebody has to write it on her heart. To keep him alive, like Gran and Momma and Daddy Stackhouse. Like Eddie, and Amy, and all the rest of what we've lost. Somebody has to be there: Somebody who loves him. Somebody has to be there because Eric can't be.
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"It doesn't make sense, but... You understand?" He does. That's like every conversation they've ever had. It's beautiful. Their song plays, twisted right again, and Bill stands alone.
"Two thousand years is enough," Godric's say, but Eric won't accept it. "It's insanity," he shouts, and Godric shakes his head: "Our existence is insanity. We don't belong here," he says, looking into Eric's eyes. Immortality, divinity passes. "But we are here," screams Eric. "It's not right!"
"We're not right," Godric says quietly. Eric gets mad, saying that Godric taught him there was no such thing as right and wrong: Just survival, and death. Two thousand years ago that was only slightly more true than it is today. "I told a lie, as it turns out." Eric swallows, gulping at his anger. "I will keep you alive by force." Godric shakes his head. "Even if you could, why would you be so cruel?"
Eric's gift for rhetoric is Hoyt's equal; he code-shifts to Swedish. "Godric, don't do it." That little bit of intimacy, that little reminder. "There are centuries of faith and love between us," Godric says, begging him to leave off. He falls to his knees, weeping like a child. The tears flow hot. "Please," he cries. "Please." On his knees, begging. Eric Northman, on his knees, begging in syllables.
"Father, brother, son: Let me go."
The blood drips as he tries. He does try, to go cold. It doesn't work. He swallows. "I won't let you die alone," he says, making a pact with himself, and Godric smiles. "Yes, you will." It bends him in half.
Godric touches him; Godric raises him up: "As your Maker, I command you." With Godric's hand upon his neck, blessing him, Eric says goodbye. He finally stands up, and walks away. Sookie catches his hand at the stairwell: "I'll stay with him. As long as it takes." It wells up in his throat, and he can say nothing. So he doesn't.
"It won't take long," Godric says. "Not at my age." She nods, and tells him she's got it figured out: the Fellowship part wasn't so smart. Of the whole plan, he shouldn't have trusted them. The meaning of acts is beyond them now. He nods. "I thought it might... Fix everything, somehow. But I don't think like a vampire anymore." He thinks of something better. He sees the world, stretched out in the sunlight, and his place in it. Finally.
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And when he asks if she believes in God, she will say yes, without reservation. And when he asks how he'll be punished, she'll tell him patiently that's not what God is for. "God doesn't punish, God forgives." He'll know he doesn't deserve it, but he will grant himself the final grace: to hope. As we all do. As we must.
"You'll care for him?" She'll shrug, hilariously: "You know how he is..." And he'll shoulder the blame for Eric, too, but she'll be only half-joking, and will tell him not to worry about it. "Eric's pretty much... Himself..."
Sookie and Godric will notice it at the same moment: The smoke, rising from his skin. He will look to the sun again.
Sookie will get scared, drop that brave face, hold back her tears: "Are you very afraid?" And he'll smile, so beautiful. "No, I'm full of joy." But what about the pain? He'll shake his head, sweetly. Shaggy, like a lion. "I want to burn," he'll say, and she'll know what he means, but her throat wells up. She will begin to weep. "Well, I'm afraid for you."
"A human with me at the end? And human tears. Two thousand years, and I can still be surprised. In this, I see God."
The dawn will arrive. Just behind it there will be a door. Just beyond that door will be something better. Her heart will burn. He'll wave her away, out of the circle, and will remove his shirt. The flames will be blue, as she says goodbye. He will greet the dawn. He will be raised up, he will rise up, he is rising.
All the children will gather at his knee and tell him it's okay now. He is home. Luke will be there, having prepared the way. He is risen, he is forgiven too. And all the men, and all the women. Victims and monsters. His art, they'll say, he enacted on his own soul: He is risen. Their love will be just like this. Sookie's eyes, looking back at him: Grieving for him is a kindness, but understanding, a miracle. A few bumps and bruises is a small price to pay for bliss.
And when he asks them how he can be forgiven, they will explain patiently, a hundred times, a thousand times, as many times as it takes, that no one was ever judged by his worst sin. That God forgives; forgave before you thought to ask. And at the end of the infinite instant, he will finally understand, and he will unite with God, as it unfolds all around him. Why be ashamed of letting go?
The dawn arrives. Just behind it is a door. Just beyond that door is something better.
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