grade episode Define "Screw"

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 2010-06-27 · S03E03

Huh. That was... off. Not sure exactly how, or why, but there was a strong sense of -- Weirdness? Broadness? Malcolm-Diane-Liamness? -- throughout the entire episode that I've noticed with this director before. Different strokes, I guess, but anyway: Tara and Franklin have super strange Tantric sex and he doesn't bite her because she wants it, which is always one of the grosser things about vampires. Once he starts trying to get to know her, she bounces, but that's fine because he's got a lot going on.

Not only is Franklin investigating Sookie, but also was the one that stole the dead body from Jessica last time. Once Hoyt discovers it in a culvert -- minus head and hands -- Franklin shows up at Bill's with the extra parts, and gets Jessica to tell him all about Tara and Sookie's relationship with Bill. By the end, he's glamoured Tara into letting him into Sookie's house, because it's been a whole three episodes since somebody mind-controlled Tara and Chris Claremont was getting bored.

When Sookie shot at the wolf in her house -- that gross one that's been tailing her for Mississippi the last two weeks -- Eric jumped in front of the bullet, so she shoots the wolf in the leg so they can shake him down for info. Once Eric sees the Werwolf rune on his neck, he eats him for lunch, and all Sookie can get is the name "Jackson," which can be a person but can also be a place. Eric is noncommittal and sort of weird about everything these days; it's sort of annoying. (Oh, and Pam is also sleeping with that gross Estonian stripper.)

After giving Eggs a proper funeral and reconciling with Tara, who moves back in, Sookie sets off for Jackson with a werewolf named Alcide, who is seven feet of sexy that owes Eric a favor. (He's sort of the Riley Finn to Bill's Angel and Eric's Spike, but don't let that stop you from loving him.) At a famous Jackson were bar -- called, regrettably, "Lou Pine's" -- Sookie is cool for about five seconds before grabbing one of the FUCrew guys that kidnapped Bill and yanking him back into what is apparently the raping room, so then Alcide has to save her. This scene should have made a lot more sense, or at least been intriguing to watch, but instead it just raced by on a cheap set and made everybody involved look retarded. I don't know how they're going to get around having just publicly alienated all the weres in Mississippi, but whatevs.

In Bon Temps news, Jason is excited about becoming a cop until the road crew finds Jessica's spare corpse lying around, and Bud Dearborn quits because everything is so gross these days. Eric gives Lafayette a car for some reason. Oh, and Arlene's baby isn't Terry's, but she lets him think it is because it makes him so happy. Just wait 'til it comes out talking in Rene's bizarre Cajun accent and then we can watch him go ballistic.

And Bill? Lots going on there, none of that cool. Once he realizes that they're tracking Sookie to force his hand, he agrees to renounce Queen Sophie-Anne and pledge himself to King Russell, who is delighted and still really super-gay. But first he has a bunch of dreams, which vampires don't have, about his old wife when he was alive, Cousin Lindsey, and how that was sad or something. He cried a whole lot but it just seemed like mostly he went back to her, freaked her out, made a mess of himself as usual, and then glamoured her to forget it. Somehow all of this causes him to hatefuck the recent burn victim Lorena with her head twisted all the way around. It's totally dumb looking and lame, but have you met Bill Compton.

All in all, the weakest episode by far. We still don't know what's up with Franklin besides he's creepy, Jessica and most of the Shreveport vamps are weirdly pointless, Sookie is making a hash of the entire idea of getting Bill back, Russell's plans are either super-complicated or ridiculously simple, Bill is clearly going crazy, and Tara is -- once again -- completely without personal sovereignty. Most upsetting of all? A whole episode with no Cooter!

Weird: Bullet time, as Sookie's shot fired at the end of last episode comes matrixing toward the werewolf in her house. Eric jumps in front of it, because he is super fast, but mostly: Why the bullet time? This whole episode is like this. So Eric fights with the werewolf for a good long while, as Sookie labors to figure out why he has once again taken a bullet, but of course he wants to get info from this guy, and is working from a vastly different set of assumptions, i.e., I am a vampire and thus I don't need to shoot every werewolf that hides in my house and jumps at my throat.

Well, in this case he is wrong, and once the grody naked were gets a little of Eric's blood it's not really something he can afford to play around with, so he kills him wicked hard. Sookie stares, and this is the last of his thought-bubble: Think you can mad dog me you fucking fanger? You got nothing on Jackson... He tells Eric he's not talking, since he'll be killed either way -- which aligns with the Werwolf Nazi brand on his neck, which you know means Eric's not gonna waste a second more -- and so then there's a very slippery moment of bloody sex death and then he looks up at Sookie, whose composure is elsewhere, and grins. "Oh. I got your rug all wet!"

Eric Northman, you classy motherfucker. In two seasons I have never once felt that accusations of being provocative for its own sake really applied to this show. But this episode, I don't know. I just don't see the point of some of this, and a lot of it just seems really poorly done. I know there have been episodes I disliked, but it's hard to remember now what they were. Anyway, over in the Mississippi compound Russell's apologizing to Lorena for how she got set on fire just a second ago. She tries to be cool about it, which is quite a feat when your skin is mostly charred and melted, but her cute outfit goes a long way. She takes off for a quick bloodsucking healing session, while Talbot fags out about the upholstery or whatever imaginary fags do when vampires catch fire near their knickknacks. I give about a half of a percent of a damn about Talbot, but if he turns into an actual person at any point I will totally reevaluate. Don't you worry.

Left alone with Bill, Russell tells him to stop setting people on fire, and basically points out that he just cause Louisiana to lose classiness compared to Mississippi, which is embarrassing for everybody. Also, he reminds him, it's rude to have fangs out in front of the King. Turns out it was Lorena who suggested Bill for the Sherriff job, and she's officially part of Russell's court now, so they're going to be working together.

By Jacob Clifton

Bill rudely suggests that maybe this whole kidnapping is thus Lorena's idea, making Russell her bitch, and is quickly corrected: "Given your privileged standing with Queen Sophie Anne, I'd rather have you for my own." As stated previously. Man, very little causes Bill to lose his cool, but he is just sloppy all over the place when it comes to Lorena. I mean, I get it: His whole life is about hating being a vampire, and all she ever wanted was for him to be happy being a vampire, so she's not only to blame but also this constant moral irritant, which is awful, on top of which she murdered him and, from his perspective, basically his family as well. So the only option, being under her spell for so many years, was pure nihilism, as Bill would say.

And since she released him, all those years ago, there's nothing to her presence beyond just that much resentment and hate and mostly shame that characterizes Bill's feelings on vampirism -- which is why Jessica exists, even though she's made a compelling independent character of herself -- but she's also there to radicalize and bring up the actual vampire truth about Bill, which is that -- believe it or not -- he is a vampire, which means he has the capacity for brutality that they all do.

So in terms of getting right with himself and not living such a sad wan half-life, he needs to make peace. Not with Lorena necessarily, but the Idea of Lorena, such that he's put every bad thought and every scary action of his various lives into a box labeled "Bitch Ex-Wife" and stowed it on a high shelf where Sookie can't reach it and thus it does not exist. But because the Idea of Lorena is fraught with grey areas and conceptualizing himself as something other than a True Southern Gentleman (Who Only By Coincidence Happens To Be Respirationally Challenged But In All Other Aspects Etc.), which he can't do, because he's a black and white motherfucker, not to mention one of the most skilled repressers in the entire universe. If they had an Olympics for emotional dysfunction he would get the Bronze at least.

So you're back where you started, because any aggression toward Lorena is Lorena winning. Light her on fire? Good, you're showing your true colors. But he can't just do his "agree to disagree" thing, because she's the one who got him kidnapped and subject to Russell's whims, which means a place that already sucked -- being not only Sookie-free but basically gay jail -- sucks twice as much. That castle's now like Lorena's arms around him, holding him down, suffocating him; it's like her voice in his mind, for decades, making him do such terrible things.

By Jacob Clifton

This sort of a trap is very much a bummer, and can take you to some pretty bizarre places that you mightn't expect, because this sort of a trap is very much about becoming your entire universe. I realize it's only been about twenty minutes, but in terms of personal agency and the like... For a guy who can go ahead and sleep in the ground like a worm whenever he needs to, it takes a lot to develop claustrophobia.

Russell notes Lorena's lack of sophistication, even at her age, and tells Bill about how one of Lorena's bright ideas was to make Bill watch while she killed Sookie. Which, yes, that would work, because his humanity is tenuous and contingent, but more importantly -- and obviously there's a reason I'm going to keep ringing this particular bell, having to do with the monster at the end of this episode -- because any retaliation would prove Lorena right. It's a very Catch-22, quantum physics kind of a problem to have. It's also a sort of Maryann Forrester problem to have, if you think about it: If your loss of control means somebody else is in control, then they can do whatever they want to you and either way, they win. (Of course, in real life, any loss of control puts somebody else in control, but it's not magic. Even if it feels like it at the time.)

I've never felt a huge amount of sympathy for old Bill, because he makes his own drama so very vigorously so very much of the time, but in this case my heart just bleeds for him. Bill's in a cage and it's making him crazy, and it only took about five minutes, because Bill is already fucking crazy. He's just really good at hiding it.

Russell changes the subject to whether or not Buffy and Angel can truly be together, because eventually she'll get old and die and he'll stay young and beautiful forever -- you know, like David Boreanaz did -- and so why not turn Sookie, like how Russell turned Talbot centuries ago. He sort of moans about how vampire gay marriage is like the realest kind of marriage. I'm inclined to agree, because I can't imagine spending ten minutes with Talbot without murdering him, much less centuries. Bill says it's impossible, because of his own personal Edward Cullen problems about being a vampire, and Russell says that the alternative is to subject her to the vicissitudes of mortality and to the mercy of "forces." In case Bill didn't get the implication -- and it's Bill we're talking about -- Russell gets wicked scary for a second: The "forces" are, or include, Russell himself.

Bill points out that, as blackmail goes, it's pretty much overkill. "Take this job or I'll eat your girlfriend alive" isn't something you hear a whole lot. Well, Hollywood. But Russell says it's a totally valid choice, given degree of subjective reality Sookie Stackhouse really represents. It's like saying, "Do this massively important thing for me, or I'm gonna step on your toe so very hard."

The toe, in this case, being Sookie. Which is ironic, because what Russell doesn't know, but is almost sure to find out, is that Sookie is the actual prize. He's got a few pieces of the puzzle, but because of Lorena's obsession with Bill, he thinks Bill's the point. But Bill is not, will never be, the point, because Bill is exactly what he seems to be. So once Russell figures out why Bill was actually in Bon Temps, the whole thing's gonna tip sideways and it's going to be, "If you don't come work for me" -- or whatever -- "I'm going to kill your vampire boyfriend," or whatever.

"Is it your human's welfare you value, or your own desire? You are a fraction of my age," Russell says. "One day you'll see you can't have both." I love how Bill's in kindergarten and everybody knows it. Since we spend so much time with Sookie -- who thinks he is a million years old and knows how magnets work and whatever -- it's easy to forget the fact that, for most of the thirty-thousand characters on this show, he's basically what he appears to us to be: An adorable sad puppy of a boy, whose OCD and spectrum disorder cause him to live a very particular and sort of lonely kind of life.

Eric, on the other hand, is fun, like "Sookie! Field trip to the graveyard!" fun. He explains about how when you're hiding a body, sometimes it's fun to toss it into a fresh grave, so that nobody questions it. Even Sookie must admit that this is a smart idea, but she's more concerned about bitching at him for killing the werewolf that was about to kill him while she stood there doing nothing whatsoever. And don't think she didn't notice that the Werwolf thing sent him into turbo, don't you even think it. Eric tries to explain that yes, it's kind of personal, but also did you know werewolves are a big deal. Which, given what we've seen and what we'll see tonight, I'm still not convinced. There's only one kind of bitch on this show that you can't kill with a snapped neck. As we shall see.

But anyway, sell the drama some more, Eric. "You have no concept of how dangerous werewolves are. They're virtually silent. They have no fear of death. And when they've had a bit of our blood, their strength can be a challenge. Even for me." She thanks him for saving her life, because she has a sense of fair play sometimes, and he sort of jokes with her about sucking the bullet out of him like last time, and then they head back home.

By Jacob Clifton

"Do you know anyone named Jackson? It's the only thing I could make out. Maybe that's the person he's working for." Which is clearly true, and I think Eric knows that, but he plays dumb for some other reason: "Jackson is where he lives. He had a Mississippi accent, can't you people tell the difference?" In the context of the werewolf's thought-sentence, that cannot possibly be true, right Sookie? Right, Sook...? Oh, for Christ's sake.

"Oh my God he's from Jackson? Do you think that's where Bill is? Eric, we have to go! Like yesterday!"

Eric says some very true, very stupid things -- "The problems of the world consist of more than finding your missing boyfriend" and "You shouldn't go by yourself" -- that you should never say to Sookie Stackhouse. Either she will literally not hear them, or she will do the opposite thing. ("So what you're saying is, I need to drive to Jackson right now and find Bill, or else the world will end, and it's everybody's responsibility on this planet to help me do that. Am I correct? Is that what you are saying?")

Eric fails to trip her up with the first seventeen logical things he says, but by the time they reach her porch, he's gotten her: If you're looking to rescue a vampire, you should do so by cover of night. "Fine. I'll leave tomorrow. But I have to go! Bill would do it for me!" Yeah, Eric thinks: That's why you two are so fucking obnoxious. She asks if he can come save her, if she gets into Mississippi trouble, and he says that probably he cannot zoom that fast. You know Sookie is like, "Well. We'll see about that."

There is something going on in the area of groins. I don't understand it. The groins in question belong to Tara Thornton and Franklin Mott, who got all horned up last night beating some hicks and then repaired to a motel, where something groin-related started happening. He doesn't seem to be moving around a whole lot, and the fangs are out, and her eyes are rolling back in her head... I think it's some kind of vampire tantra that we could have just imputed based on the last two seasons, but because we are gross, we thought it was because they came V. Anyway, I don't know what you guys do in bed. Maybe this is normal. It looks like particularly difficult Pilates.

Yeah, speaking of not okay, Tommy Mickens is sitting on the couch with Joe Lee, who is wearing nothing but some obscene tighty-"whities," and Joe Lee's arm is crooked weirdly up so that it's resting on Tommy's upright knee, which is, okay, maybe a little possessive or weird, but not so bad, but then Sam comes into the living room without knocking, at which point Joe Lee scoots horizontally away from Tommy faster than the eye can see, just herky-jerky jumpy and troubling, and after some cursory nervous hellos during which he fiddles with his gross old penis pretty much nonstop, he babbles and runs to get his wife, leaving their sons to have a little meeting about the recent attempted murder.

When I try to look into my crystal ball and see what the deal is with the Mickenses, the long-term true darkness of them, I can't really see much beyond bad, bad things. My brain just stops. But he's covered in scars, and seems to be a sociopath, and lies to Sam about how he didn't really think Sam would die when he tried to kill him. And before there's more to that, the parents come back looking just awful as usual, and Melinda is pathetic as usual, trying to seem so much better and stronger and brighter than they really are, like beautiful Sam with all his wonderful qualities wakes her up to the fact that they are white trash alcoholics with a very deep-seated problem going on in their home. I hate the fucking Mickenses. I am not strong enough to delve into their mysteries.

Anyway, Momma cries, and Sam tries to get Tommy to be cool with her, but that's not really his place, and then they all say goodbye and he gets himself the fuck back to Bon Temps. The white trash of Bon Temps grows thick in the hills and they are highly cult-susceptible, but at least they don't lounge about in their underwear like Arkansas hillbillies. Usually the only people in Bon Temps that run around in their underwear are hot. Totally different scene. I mean, there was that week of orgies, but that was like one time.

Jason Stackhouse, you sure are wearing a bunch of clothes today. And a certain optimism, if I read you correctly. Ah, yes. Having tackled a single drug dealer, while raiding Cal's compound in Hotshot, you have now had your purpose revealed to you by the universe. "Police work just ain't about tackling people. There's marksmanship, paramilitary training. I got all that now. And let's face it, would you feel safe with me patrolling the streets, or Andy Bellefleur?" Um, that depends on many other factors. But honestly, the point of that line is less to spark a debate about their comparative merits or non-merits and more about introducing the idea that Jason is about to fall out of love with Andy as a father-figure, and start fucking with him as a father-figure, so that he can eventually best him as a father-figure, and thereby become a man. Jason's track record with this particular thing, though, I just hope they both live through it.

Tara wonders why they had such weird sex just then, and he explains that she "lost [her]self to the void," which is a standard-issue vampire thing that vampires can do. Well, maybe that explains why Yvetta didn't punch Eric in the neck for drilling her like that last week. I can't help but imagine Bill being really uptight/jealous of this gift and constantly trying to figure out how you do the "void" thing but being too nervous and/or racist against vampires to actually ask anybody, so he's just like in this continual struggle to figure it out and in the meantime has developed a wide array of Sensitive Man Lovemaking Techniques where they just keep at you and keep at you and stare at your face whenever they do anything so they can analyze your responses and thinking it's a conversation you can actually have without wanting to barf where they try to impress upon you that all that matters is your pleasure and they love pleasing you sexually and whatever until you just want to pop them in the cock like one time so they'll quit it.

Tara assures Franklin that she never does this -- one-night stands, cheap motels, vampires -- for the most part, and then wonders why he has a cheap motel at all. "Don't y'all sleep in the ground?" Yeah, but also that's not how civilized people behave, and it's nice to have a place to take young ladies to and make their eyes roll around all crazy. She asks if it's just some kind of bloodlust deal because of those rednecks, and he wonders if she's even prepared to have that conversation. "Where does all that come from?" Tara says that he definitely does not want to poke that particular area of her, and he starts in on her about her personal life and how he knows nothing about her really, not even her name, and before you know it she is out the door.

Pam's going down on Yvetta in the Fangtasia! offices when Jessica calls her up to ask about what you are supposed to do when you accidentally kill a person and hide their body in your floorboards. Pam is just like so bored with this whole thing. "Did you call the hypothetical hardware store and buy a theoretical chainsaw?" Yes, Jessica says, but then when she got back the corpse had vanished. "So the problem you have is that there is no dead body in your house?" Pam shrugs and gets off the phone and goes back to eating out Yvetta, misusing an idiom -- "Lie back, sweetheart, and think of Estonia" -- in a way that renders it unparseable.

Sookie and Sam meet back up at Merlotte's for the workday, morning, relating their adventures to each other in a sort of anti-explicatory shorthand that works really well for the scene, consisting mostly of ellipses and sound effects. Sam has heard about the shooting of Eggs, in the parking lot, and points out that at least there aren't a bunch of other bars in Bon Temps. She's asked him for some time off to go to Jackson and rescue her man, which Sam thinks is just as stupid as everybody else does, but at least he knows Sookie well enough not to bother. Paternalism is cute only when it reduces down to apathy like this. "Well, you seem to think you have a right to your opinions, so I'll cosign that." Her only request is that Sam keep an eye on Jessica, since both her dad and stepmom will be duking it out with the V-addict werewolves of Mississippi, and they joke around about Sam giving her a job at Merlotte's. Arlene's racist apoplexy alone would make that worthwhile. Hopefully this will happen.

Hoyt tries to drill Jason on the written test for becoming a policeman, but he's skipped twenty-two questions before Hoyt finally tries to change the subject to his weirdly incomplete breakup with Jessica. Jason finally deigns to weigh in. "All right, listen. I've heard every breakup excuse, from You're a son of a bitch, Stackhouse to You're a fucking asshole, Jason. And you know what? They're all saying the same thing: They can't handle the heat you're packing." Also, that you are a fucking asshole son of a bitch. They are also saying that same thing.

"So Jessica is having trouble handling my 'heat'?" Hoyt asks, delightfully confused. Jason says that Hoyt needs to move on, always be closing on somebody hotter like Jason does, but Hoyt can't quite picture anybody better than Jessica. There is nobody better than Jessica, is why. Jason sort of vaguely changes the subject back to himself, about how there's two kinds people: "People who got no dreams, people who got dreams and don't do nothing about it, and people who go out and fulfill their dreams." Jason is the third kind of those two. Additionally, he notes, probably Andy Bellefleur doesn't know anything on the written test either, and then says the most Jason thing ever: "There's gotta be an easier way. Look, I'm ready now. You know? I know between good and evil. I'm like a ninja-level marksman. I got all the training I need." Additionally, the practice test is worthless, because those questions won't be on the test. Mind blown by Jason's stern and practiced rejection of all reality, Hoyt is mum as Jason walks out the door and into the thing.

Arlene worries at the OB about the baby, and Terry, and whatever, hilariously: "Maybe this is the good Lord telling me that this man's a keeper. Right? I mean, don't you think? You know, children being a blessing and all?" There is the usual obstetrics weirdness, and then the doctor reveals a curious fact: She's like nine weeks in. But the orgies were just a few days ago! This is Rene's issue from the first season! Arlene is carrying a serial killer baby!

Over at Merlotte's there's a moment of stress between Terry and Tara before she answers the phone, bitchily. It's good old Mike Spencer, down at the Bon Temps graveyard, calling to invite her to Eggs Talley's funeral. When she gets there, it's just Mike: Nobody else. No loved ones, because Mike couldn't find any. Just him. So then who threw the funeral? He looks over to the side, and Sookie comes wandering out into the sun. Tara's heart skips a little. "I did. I understand if you don't want me here, but I thought at the very least Eggs deserved a real funeral." She takes Sookie into her arms, admitting that the funeral doesn't really help her feel better, but nobody understands that better than Sookie.

By Jacob Clifton

"At least you got somewhere to come see him now. Might not seem like much, but I like having a place to go when I wanna see Gran. Every time I visit her, it hurts a little bit less." Sookie asks her to move back in, now that they've scrubbed all of Maryann's mess out, and points out that she'll have the house to herself since she's going on a Bill hunt. Tara admits that Lafayette is driving her crazy -- I wouldn't mind him, but his house would certainly drive me nuts -- and agrees, and Mike starts the service.

Vampires don't dream, because when the sun is up they are dead, so I'm not sure how this works exactly, but since it's more of a flashback and less of a dream... No, it still doesn't make any sense. Anyway, remember how Lorena let Bill go back and look at his wife and kids that time, and then made him leave them forever? It didn't really take. So I guess he went back a bit later, because of the pox and all, and his young wife Caroline -- Cousin Lindsay! -- invited him into the house, overjoyed to see him, but sad about the news: Thomas, the boy, was dead.

"I sent Sarah away to Tennessee. Thomas, he was too young. I tried to protect him." Bill tried to comfort her, and she wept that they wouldn't come for him, laid out in a tiny coffin in the parlor, because they were too afraid. "I resolved to bury him myself tomorrow," she said, strong and beautiful, and Bill knelt at his son's side, to say goodbye. He wept tears of blood and when she touched him, he was as cold as the earth. She caught a glimpse of his tears, and was terrified. "Are you afflicted?" she asked. It was as good a word as any.

"My human life was taken from me," he admitted, but he tried to spin it: That meant he couldn't catch the pox, being dead and all. Caroline was not feeling the upside on this one, and get very scared, because ghosts and demons and devils used to be a real thing. "You've taken my husband," she cried. "I will not let you take my son!" Girlfriend grabbed a gun and started shooting. No wonder he loved her so much! She ran to the door and Lorena grabbed her, just outside, by the scruff of the neck. While they discussed the finer points of life and death and humanity, Caroline's marbles were rolling around on the floor in a major way.

Bud gets about three-quarters of the way through the report about the headless, handless man in the drainage pipe, but once Andy and Kenya start talking about how the body was drained and his tissues show "signs of tearing rather than cutting," and how that indicates to Andy that "our unsub just tore his head clean off," he is motherfucking done. He just up and quits, literally walking away, in the middle of the day.

"I've had it with this shit! Every time we clear one murder, two more spring up. It's like crabgrass. Forty-three years and what have I got to show for it? Gaps in my brain and polyps in my ass. I don't need this horseshit!" Poor dude. Man, what was it, like, three months ago tops he was Andy Griffith in this slow-moving southern town? And now he's been in an orgy cult and all manner of things. In a show like this, it's a bad idea to be the only actual representative of conventional authority. Frankly I'm proud he stuck around this long.

Alcide sits in Sookie's kitchen, while she flits around getting ready and promising to explain later why it looks like somebody shot a vampire and ate part of a werewolf in her home. They have a little moment that is sort of inconsequential in this episode but will become, I'm sure, a very big deal later, where they discuss her telepathy and how they can actually converse without talking, although she says it's weird to do that when they're alone. They discuss how just because she's sucked Eric's blood she's not His, and so he's not going to be looking after her if she has anything to say about it, but she'll accept a werewolf bodyguard because werewolves are a factor in this investigation she believes she's doing based on no information at all.

For his part, Alcide explains that his father -- unnamed for now -- is a construction magnate in another parish, who has a debt for some reason that Eric helped out with. He's an especially good choice for this as well because he knows this particular pack, and how insular they can be. Well, she doesn't want to pal around with anybody associated with them, but he's like, they are not his friends. "My ex is banging their leader," which is Cooter, which can you blame her?, but the pack in question is a thorn in his side. "Weres have lived in Jackson for almost 200 years without a single human knowing it. Now these sons of bitches come to town, there's a crime streak a mile wide. Not to say the rest of us are above violence, but you shut the barn door behind you."

By Jacob Clifton

Over at Merlotte's, because Sam can't catch a fucking break -- although it's funny, because you're like, "Tara has it rough" until Jessica's onscreen and then you're like, "Well, Jessica has it rough" and by the end of every episode you're like, "These people" -- his horrible family shows up in their nicest Ed Hardy outfits and they're not even really trying to hide the fact that they want some of his money and generally to pester him and make themselves better by sucking the betterness out of him. He offers to sit them down with a free lunch, and they act like Charlie Bucket -- especially poor mom, of course, who is the most tragic piece of crap I've ever seen in my entire life -- and Tommy is a dick some more and Joe Lee is pathetic -- "Always dreamed of having my own chicken shack, I would call it Mickens' Chicken & Chitlins!" -- and I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.

Russell is true to his word, calling the dogs off Sookie without ever knowing she's on her way to his house with a werewolf of her own and a heapin' batch of crazy the likes of which he's never seen, in all his thousands of years. Lorena is pissed, because she wanted to wear Sookie's face as a hat, but Russell doesn't give a good goddamn what Lorena wants. Essentially because, I think, he finds her tacky.

Which, if you're going to do a gay couple on TV, that's so much more realistic than Talbot swanning around in a kimono: "Yeah, I know I said you could torture that waitress to death, but that was before you started all this drama and bullshit in my house. Like I haven't got enough aggravation keeping sixty half-naked men fed, and Talbot's up my ass about every little thing, what, I need you scheming and getting set on fire and ruining the hall tapestries and thinking up more ways to act weird? No ma'am."

Jason tries, with a few false starts, to strike up a loving friendly conversation with Tara, at Merlotte's. Finally he just rushes her: "It's good to see you're okay. I mean, you seem okay. Are you okay?" Taken a little aback -- little does she know that yesterday he was waxing delightfully about how he and Sookie and Bill are going to be the best family ever; little does she know that two nights ago he shot her lover in the head -- she's grateful for the kindness. As usual, as ever.

"You know, I lost a lot of people I love too," he says, awkwardly. "Loved a lot. And if you ever wanna talk or whatever... Because you and Sookie are like sisters, and Sookie is my sister, so we're like family. Even though we ain't been that close lately." She thanks him for his friendship, and he promises to do better. This lasts about five seconds and then he says something that makes her say he shouldn't blame himself for Eggs's death, which causes him to go into a mental tailspin that pours weirdly out of his mouth and propels him away from her, across the bar. But sooo many points for trying, Jason Stackhouse. I love you the most.

Lafayette is none too happy to see Eric outside his trailer, in a cute little convertible. I don't know where Lafayette gets this ability to not be cross-eyed in love with Eric, I guess he's been through enough shit that vampires are real for him in a way that they're really not for us (or Sookie) but it's exciting to watch him totally fight not only the blood-bond with Eric, but also the fact that Eric is his boss, and the fact that Eric seems to think he is fucking delightful. Well, there was that whole basement torture/crapping in bucket scenario. That got pretty grim, I won't deny it. But come on! It's Eric!

By Jacob Clifton

Talbot hisses and preens at the various werewolves and acts generally as annoying as possible, until Russell sends him off to fetch Cooter a Zima. Man, that is definition of wealth right there. Get me some Zima! Oh, yes. We have some in the cellar. They talk about how they still haven't managed to snag Sookie, due to her jumping every werewolf they send her way, and for some reason Russell doesn't know who this "Eric Northman" is. I don't get that at all. But there's a clue here, if he can see it: Eric also has "a perverse interest in that waitress," just like Sophie-Anne's other operatives in Louisiana.

Bill appears, having digested the message of his flashback and realized that they are going to keep coming at Sookie no matter what, and he's too caged up to fix it. So his choices are to be alone in the cage, miserable and lonely and sickened by himself, or bring Sookie into that situation, or killed, and stay miserable and lonely and sickened by himself. But since he's already doing those things in Louisiana, because they are his only hobbies besides Wii Golf, fuck it: "My service to Queen Sophie Anne has brought only suffering to me and the humans that I have lived amongst. I recognize that now. For their safety and also for mine... I hereby renounce my fealty to the kingdom of Louisiana and I humbly pledge my loyalty to Your Majesty."

By Jacob Clifton

"Hello, sweetheart. Hop in!" Lafayette, terrified, immediately starts telling him he's trying his damnedest to sell the V -- seriously, whatever happened to Pussylover? -- but Eric tells him to chill, because the car is a gift and he's only there to deliver it. Satan in a Sunday hat, is what Lafayette is thinking. Eric apologizes for Pam's distinctly lacking sense of managerial noblesse oblige, pointing out the immense pressure she's currently under, and makes fun of Lafayette's "strange plywood hut," and Lafayette is searching the gift horse for other misplaced mouths he can look inside, but Eric's just loving this:

"You have great value, Lafayette. You're discreet, efficient, and you have a network of loyal customers with enormous disposable income. You could become quite wealthy if you wanted to." Lafayette is not interested in money, so much, these days. Eric doesn't get it, because he thought this was the way to Lafayette's soul, the way he always said it was. I wish I knew where this was going, because the Eric/Lafayette thing is intensely fucked up on like every level and I think this story could be major, like at the end of the season we'll be like, "WTF! It started with a car!" You know what I mean?

Hollis, the giant bouncer, recognizes Alcide from "the old pack," and Alcide sort of quietly apologizes for disappearing, pointing out his dislike of the new crew. He tells Sookie she's dressed kinda like "dinner" and Alcide promises to watch out for her, but then immediately when they go into the club, he's like, "Oh right, we have to split up because you can't be seen with me because of my open antipathy toward like every single person in this establishment." So I mean, explain that to me. How is Alcide helping her infiltrate the were community if he's got beef with some of the were community? He takes a place with his "guys," to watch out for her, and she... Oh, Sookie. You magnificent bastard. Like, this is her idea of how you do this.

"Hey, boys! Oh my God, I am so stupid. I left my wallet in the car, but I am parched. Any of you guys mind buying a girl a Cosmo?" They stare at her like they're wondering if this is an Other Sister-type situation, but of course she's used to that so she just keeps going. "I've been to much tougher places than this. Any of you heard of a place in Louisiana called Fangtasia?" They ask her if she's a fangbanger, kind of fascinated by her bizarre display, and she's like, "There's nothing meaner or stronger than a vampire. What's not to like?" You know what bikers like? When you call them a fag.

It's called Lou Pine's! I just can't get over this. And this is from a book where one of the characters has a store called "Tara's Togs" (For real!) and another one owns a company called "Extreme(ly) Elegant Events." (And they say it all the time.) Isn't that so extremely elegant?

Anyway. One of the weres likes Sookie's baiting -- and breasts, mostly breasts -- it so much that he offers A) the information that he beat a vamp so bad the other night that she would probably want to offer him fellatio in admiration and B) would she be interested in going somewhere private so she can get totally raped and murdered? Um, you know Sookie, right?

"Me first, or you?" Well, considering what I was picturing, that's downright romantic. But now that Sookie's got what she imagines to be a lead, her craziness is full-on back. "You know a vampire? Can you take me to him?" He's all, "Like a three-way?" Which, again, is much more sporting that I would have thought, coming from an admirer like this. However, sadly, it is at this point that communication sort of breaks down.

All freaked out on the V, and just mystified as to what bullshit Sookie is up to, there is a massive instance of violence that brings Alcide running, just a bit later than one of the many vampire boyfriends probably would show up. They fight and fight and fight and the biker werewolves sort of vaguely give a shit and then I guess it's resolved or something, and they leave. The whole thing is just super oddly directed and shot and weird and slow-motion and unconvincing, and the set is awful... Maybe these scenes were filmed later, or earlier, or something? Because they are wretched. At this point in an episode, I should not be thinking about this stuff. Hell, it takes a lot for me to ever think about this stuff. But Lou Pine's is for the birds.

Also: What just happened? Sookie can fuck everything up for everybody real quick, I get that, but even for her that was just... Sloppy. I mean, what was she gleaning? Was that about using her mind powers and not really caring about the other part, where somebody steps in and saves her? Because she got zero info. In fact, as they're leaving Hollis tells Alcide that his ex Debbie is going to marry Coot, the lucky bitch, and this information is more useful than anything Sookie got out of pointlessly causing a huge fucking disturbance among the one group of people that could actually help her with this investigation about which she still has no information whatsoever.

Franklin shows up at Sookie and Tara's house calling Tara by name, and he tells her about how Jessica was just a font of information about Tara, Sookie, Bill, the whole thing. Then -- another thing that rings untrue with this episode -- he glamours her into letting him in the house, after just one short joke about how she let Maryann into Gran's house and look how that turned out. But... What is the point of the Invite & Rescind rule if they can do that? "Can I come in?" No. "Are you sure?" Well, okay. I mean, Tara -- for being the strongest character -- is susceptible to mind control, and maybe this is just because forty-eight hours ago she was the devil's bridesmaid and it's still a little wobbly in there, but whatever it is, I don't like it. Find a better way.

Lorena follows Bill's beautiful tux into his bedroom/cell, wearing an amazing dress and slow-clap calling bullshit on his whole "bravura performance" about pledging loyalty to his new King. "Your only loyalty is to your own sentiment. It's your great failing. A century ago, it was to your human wife. Now it's that ridiculous waitress. You'll say anything to save her." Bill tells her that no, it was actually Lorena who cleared that one up for him, in a dream he recently had even though vampires don't sleep or dream. And how much he hates her for it. She pushes him around the room, with her aura, like angry dogs do. Every word she says, he is more and more disgusted with himself; she can feel him coming closer.

With his hand around her throat and tears of anger in his eyes, he shakes his head: "You are right. Is that what you wish to hear? You proved it to me once and now I've learned it again. You have won. You've deprived me of my freedom... And my home... My humanity. But I will never, ever love you." She takes his face in her hands, kissing him delightedly, and he throws her suddenly onto the bed, screaming never while his body cries for more. "Make love to me," she hisses, but she means the opposite.

By Jacob Clifton

And every angry push and shove just proves her right. The more he tries to hurt her, the more she wins. Hurting is the thing he's been avoiding: The thing that makes him hers. But he's in a cage, and there's no way out, and hurting is the only option. Before he knows it, he's on top of her, slamming into her, and she's smiling up at him with blood on her lips, and he twists her head around on her neck until she is facing away from him, neck twisted disgustingly, blood dripping from her lips, but still he knows she's smiling. She has won, even paralyzed she can have his soul. The last bit, she's claimed it for herself.

"Oh, William," she sighs, delightedly. "I so love you." And Bill begins to howl.

Discuss this episode in our forums, then see why vloggers Val and Beth discuss vampire pregnancy in TV is the Answer!

Check out this interview with Joe Manganiello, a.k.a. Alcide on True Blood.

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