Anger Is An Energy

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 08-29-2010 · S03E11

Jason starts out having a sort of issue with Crystal's werepanther nature, but once he confronts Kitch Maynard about his V use and learns the whole town of Bon Temps is either on the make or on drugs, he decides adding "cat people" to the list of things about Crystal that is not a huge jump to make. She's not budging on the whole "raid Hotshot" issue, but we knew Jason was going to end up kissing some kind of Hotshot drug ring ass by the end of things. (Also, Felton is her HALF-BROTHER, gross, and that spacker that was eating the deer she describes as her "double cousin.") I just wish Kitch Maynard had his own show, Kitch Maynard Don't Give A $#&%, where he scoffs arrogantly. At everything from conventional wisdom, to popular consumer products, to your pets. And then we do pushups.

Sam is still on a bender, attacking Terry and Arlene in front of everybody and generally making a full-on ass of himself in front of the whole town. Arlene and Holly run off to have a little bit of a Wiccan abortion ceremony, which Arlene at first thinks is successful but then learns was not. Terry's ecstatic that their devil baby is sticking around, but of course Arlene did not suddenly become less of a superstitious twit, so she's still wigging out. And if you were wondering about Holly's face, it's still like that.

Tara mourns for Eggs some more, and then scares the piss out of Andy Bellefleur, who cries and comes clean about the whole Eggs deal in a really remarkably sweet way. Meanwhile, Sam kicks Tommy out of his house, job and life, engendering a new enmity and more Mickens-style robbery, and then realizes he is officially the worst person in Bon Temps besides Tara, so they hook up again based on being unpleasant and unpopular.

In other Bon Temps news, Hoyt offers himself up to Jessica as a fulltime blood donor, which is oddly sexy and sweet rather than revolting. This is the story of Hoyt and Jessica, but for some reason it's like no problem at all. Summer runs to Maxine, whom apparently is a major factor in that failed relationship, in super creepy ways I'm still not sure we fully understand. Oh, and Lafayette is going nuts: First he has a V aftershock in which Jesus looks all demonic, and then he gets taunted by all the dolls and images and voodoo stuff that covers his entire house. Which is still worse than contemplating a night without Jesus. Drugs do not pay!

While Yvette is helping Sookie escape Eric's dungeon and helping Bill beat up Pam, Eric is off to fund Russell and offer him Sookie's faery blood. Because Russell is a full-on hooker-killing maniac at this point, he goes for it. Bill and Sookie get about halfway back to Bon Temps -- talking merrily about what their queerbutt lives would be like with none of the many, many problems they constantly create for themselves -- before Eric and Russell kidnap 'em and head on back to Fangtasia! where, unbeknownst to Sookie, Eric sells Bill on his big plan.

And the big plan? Eric and Russell chow down on Sookie, putting her under once again, and then head out into the bright Louisiana sunlight. It works just long enough for Eric to handcuff himself to Russell with silver, and settle in to die in the parking lot, with Sookie whiting out inside, and most importantly Pam watching her maker die on the closed-circuit TV's inside the bar. Sad! But hopefully this is one of those plans that Sookie Stackhouse fully ruins without even trying.

Oh no! Sookie's been locked up in a dungeon for five seconds while Eric works on saving the world for everybody! Time for random people to start running around all crazy trying to save her. Bill comes zooming over from his house to get yelled at by Pam, Yvetta runs downstairs to unlock her shackles and get her upstairs, it's the usual Sookie Party. All Sookie wants to do is chat about how much Eric sucks, and Yvetta is all over that task, sending her upstairs with a big length of silver chain and extreme prejudice. I can't believe that's all there was to Yvetta, just this weird stripper lady like she always seemed.

Upstairs, Pam is giving Bill the business. Firstly, she says that Sookie is not even there, but Bill knows that's a lie. Secondly she says Sookie came over on her own, which is true because of Eric's weirdly coded suicide messages, and that maybe she didn't ask Bill along because she's scared of him. Which isn't exactly true, but she should be. "I don't think she wants you anymore," Pam muses, but little does she know that Sookie's on her way upstairs right now with a big old grudge against Fangtasia! management.

Pam tells Bill he's just a vampire baby compared to her, and that he is an "infatuated tween" who has no idea what's really at stake. Bill replies that he is just like Sookie in that there is no bigger picture, just him and Sookie being all obsessed on each other, and whines at such a constant rate and pitch that finally Pam just starts macing him with colloidal silver so he'll shut up. It is so awesome! But then Sookie and Yvetta come up from downstairs and ruin everything, securing Pam with the chain and a bunch of bloody fighting so that Sookie can coo over Bill's fucked up face and talk even more about how Pam and Eric are big jerks.

"You were supposed to be a gift for Edgington," Pam explains. "Now we're all gonna die, because of one freaky little human." Sookie, awesomely, is like, "GREAT." They leave Pam with Yvette's angry gold-digging self and some jokes about Estonian emigrants that don't even really make sense, but hey, it's Yvetta, the Little Stripper That Still Doesn't Matter. At least Hustler Tony got an awesome death scene, but poor Yvetta is all just broken English and boobies hanging out.

Over at Lafayette's house, Jesus is tripping out on his V experience. Lala tries to explain that V is unpredictable and sometimes very magical, other times not so much, but like anybody who just discovered psychedelics Jesus is convinced that drugs are magical and whatever. "Without fasting, without praying, without any other ritual! We time-traveled into ourselves! There were fucking answers there!" Lala tries to chill him out, but they both know it was a very special trip they went on. Jesus starts acting like a total addict -- "I feel like everything that I need to learn is just one drop away!" -- but it's hard to argue with that sort of thing when the addiction is to experiencing the divine. Jesus: Freak.

Lafayette just tries to be cautionary and helpful about the first rule of this entire show: Whatever you think is the answer stops being the answer the second you find it, and starts to rot. Jesus is still sort of brittle and vibrating, and Lafayette is still in the post-peak aftershock period where you see things that are true even if they're not real, and for a second Jesus's face is super scary like a demon made of rocks. Lafayette freaks the fuck out about that, but on the off-chance that Jesus really isn't a rock-face green demon, he tries to be polite. As he's shoving Jesus out the door and promising they are still good, relationship-wise. You gotta hedge your bets when you're dating the Hottest Guy On Television; nobody's perfect. Sometimes the demon face is just something you have to sit with, like a nice glass of chardonnay, until you figure out what the hell is going on.

"It's like a werewolf, only a panther?" Heh. Crystal is exasperated in that way you only really get with Jason, or any Stackhouse really, because you know he's been going over and over that question for the last hour. She reminds him that she was honest about she had secrets, but of course Jason thought it was something more like shoplifting, not turning into a panther. "I thought you'd be a man," Crystal says about this, which just shows a stunning lack of insight on her part, because questioning Jason's masculinity is the big red button of this show that you don't ever want to push. Align that with his momentary doubts about dating Cat People and he'll have no choice but to love werepanthers so much he'll try and become one. That'll prove you wrong.

Plus, of course, it links up to the Hotshot thing and the cop thing and the Eggs thing and all the other shit that keeps happening to Jason, so he just sort of spins his wheels for a second. "I am a man! I was ready to sign up for a meth dealer's daughter!" She points out how insensitive that is to say, and asks him to stop blaming her for shit she can't help. "Crystal, my brains feel like scrambled eggs. [EGGS] I got my ass chewed by a vampire, my sister's missing..." Crystal's like, "If you wanna compare bad days, how about Felton is my half-brother." Jason is so weirded out and has so many things on his list of things that he just sort of wanders out of the house to feel crazy in a larger area.

Much like Sookie long ago, Hoyt is convinced that -- while yes, he did drink vampire blood from a vampire -- it's not the blood or the blood-bond that's got him feeling so super-special. It's because he's back with Jessica. Suddenly he is fascinated by vampirism itself, in addition to feeling alive and like he's got muscles where he's never had muscles, and talks a blue streak about romance and that. Jessica is more interested in explaining to him that the Bill Compton Plan For Vampire Boringness is not taking, and Hoyt needs to understand that. She is the first vampire born in the age of vampires, and is not interested in stressing out about her vampire nature. It comes at too high a cost. So if she's going to be unashamed of herself, and also have Hoyt, he needs to know the whole truth. He needs to see her rock-face demon self.

Starry-eyed Hoyt is, of course, not worried about any of this. So you killed a trucker? That's awesome! You're a nice girl, I'm sure it was just a weird day. So you hate TruBlood and you want to drink people blood from now on? Good thing I'm wearing this hoodie, because we just entered a whole new world of letting you suck my blood whenever you feel like it. Which is music to Jessica's ears, because part of giving in to feeding is giving into the sexuality of it, so even their little virginity problem with her unstoppable hymen is no longer really a problem. She can literally have her Hoyt and eat him too, and that's the solution she wasn't brave enough to look in the face until he offered it. Which is why it's so freaking hot when they go for it.

Eric finds Russell standing in an art gallery looking at some boring landscape painting that Talbot loved once, dead security guard lying on the floor, and they discuss how come Eric even killed Talbot in the first place. Eric's sort of coy about the reasons there, and Russell -- still holding onto the jar of Talbot leftovers and looking stinky-homeless to boot -- reminds Eric that he is this amazingly old and powerful vampire who can kill Eric so easily it's practically just a thought. A wave of the hand. So Eric brings up the whole Viking massacre, finally, and Russell hilariously laughs in his face. "To lose the one man I ever loved because you miss your mommy and daddy? Well, that is a kick in the pants."

Eric goes on this extended Inigo Montoya thing and Russell is like, "No, sorry, bored now, come over here so I can kill you." Eric finally does, and they talk about how Russell's got some weird Crazy Old Man plan that we don't even really know about yet, and Eric can't figure it out, and Russell's like, "I'm a Crazy Old Man, it's a long story." Right before he eats Eric's face off, though,

Eric offers him something amazing: The sun.

Their whole lives are at night, so I guess I can see why that would be amazing. Russell laughs about how people have been talking about that fairytale since he was a vampire baby billions of years ago, and this is just another example of Eric being pathetic, but the other side of this Young/Old battle they're talking about -- compare here Jessica and Bill's philosophical contretemps -- is that the fact of Eric's youth and general hipness means that it's entirely possible he's not lying. And if he has a way to walk around in the sunlight, then Russell -- who stays up to all hours getting the Bleeds as it is, because see above re: Crazy Old Man -- could just walk the earth pulling people's spines out and staking hookers whenever he felt like it. Which would probably contribute to whatever his plan actually is, just like how Oprah and Martha Stewart only sleep like four hours a night.

Plus, Eric offers him the right to kill him if he's wrong or lying. Which Russell was going to do anyway, but let's just see what happens. They're getting all vibey with each other and for a second you can feel Talbot's ghost getting jealous from beyond the very grave, but then right when it's super-tense, Pam calls Eric -- hilarious wacky ringtone and all -- to tell him that Bill and Sookie are gone and that Yvetta has cleaned out their safe. So now Eric's got another errand to run before he can come home. Meanwhile Ginger is pulling the nasty chain out of Pam's skin and it's really gross, but nothing a good old-fashioned chow-down on Ginger's moron blood won't fix.

Bill is a little bit curious about why Sookie went to visit Eric, but she doesn't want to explain that he tugged her heartstrings with his suicidal ideations. Bill tries to talk about how untrustworthy Eric is, and Sookie's like, "Have you met my friend Bill Compton?" Valid point. They discuss how she has mysterious "feelings" about Eric that are maybe not entirely covered by having drunk his blood that time -- Remember how great that was, when she was all manic with the blood all over her face? That was like the best Sookie thing of all time -- and maybe that watching Eric lose his shit over Godric has something to do with her liking him. Or not liking him, but maybe loving him. Plus then she was his proxy in the actual death of Godric, which sort of makes it go both ways.

While Bill and Sookie discuss whether people can ever really change -- yes they can, but not jerks like you guys -- Tara's crying at Eggs's grave and Arlene is deciding that it's not really an abortion if you just try to induce a miscarriage. Which I feel like this episode finally makes sense of that storyline, I mean, that's a real thing. It's like a TV truism that abortion doesn't exist but all unwanted pregnancies end in convenient miscarriages, and she's only doing this anyway because she loves her family she's already got. You can see her wrestling with this and questioning it the whole time, and it makes her oddly sympathetic, because that's a hair you're splitting that barely exists.

Holly and Arlene plan to do the spell after work, and then Sam comes in acting ten kinds of mean and crazy. It's really ugly and it goes on for a really long time and it's just Man Down in every single way. He chases customers off, but it only gets serious once Terry Bellefleur tries to help him out. As usual, Terry is a tearjerking wonder of a man, and the sweet way he tries to take care of Sam and the awful things Sam says to Terry are a waking nightmare. Terry allows as how he's going to feel bad for calling him a "shell-shocked motherfucker" in the morning, and he almost hits the guy.

Well, eventually Arlene had to get the moral upper hand. It's just the law of averages. And she has every right to yell at Sam for attacking sweet Terry. "How could you be so hateful and mean? He breaks his back for you. He looks up to you. He loves you!" Holly says some witchy stuff about good vibes and then takes Arlene out of there, because they are done for the night. Sam calls them both "bitches" -- really? -- and wobbles around being horrible some more, and they take off with his big can of Morton's so they can do the spell far away from him and his total mess. I knew killing jewel thieves could be emotionally damaging but dude, you need to calm down. Mickens is as Mickens does.

Jason is just way out of it tonight, he is having a fucked up time of it. He can't even take care of his own sister, much less find her, and nobody is what they appear to be. You think you're being a cool guy by marrying an inbred drug-dealing hick, and they turn out to be a Cat Person on top of it. So it is that he finds himself calling Sookie's voicemail for the thousandth time over by the football fields. And guess who's practicing? Everybody's favorite hometown hero, Kitch Maynard. And if Jason can't solve a problem, he can at least start some new ones. Turns out beautiful Kitch Maynard is very clearly an abuser of V, which makes him magically strong and good at football -- and totally disinterested in watching his awful/amazing girlfriend try on outfits -- which is like sliding an ounce or two of masculinity under Jason's door that he didn't even order.

Summer, who was dumped by Hoyt offscreen last week, shows up at Maxine Fortenberry's house for a scene that is super weird and confusing. It would seem that, while Summer definitely does love her Bear -- and even offered him her v-card to prove it -- she is also somehow working him on Maxine's behalf. All that Mini-Maxine shit she was doing when they first started going out was not only funny, but it turns out it was also eerie. Maxine thanks Summer for slutting out on her behalf, and she complains about the wondrous beauty of Jessica in a hilarious way: "It's my fault. I'm not tall like her. I can't even reach stuff on my own closet shelf without a grabber. And I'm not pretty like her." Maxine assures Summer that she is "cute as pigs" and that Jessica isn't even alive, and then I don't know. It seems like they have even more plans to fuck things up for Hoyt, but I'm confused as to how this started or how either of them are not right now being shaken apart by total willies.

Having cried herself out over Eggs's grave, it is a terrifyingly calm Tara Thornton who comes into Merlotte's looking for Andy Bellefleur, laughing to herself while a violently drunk Sam tries to be his own waitress and then joining Andy at his table. What follows is a master class in awkward as she sits down and stares at swallowing, gulping, shrinking Andy until he tries to eat his own face. He starts, no lie, about ten friendly sentences, each of which drift off into an even more awkward abyss. He looks like he's about to start crying. I cannot imagine the loop-de-loops his poor ulcerated tummy -- "I used to drink hot sauce straight out of the bottle," he grins uncertainly, "That was a good time?" -- must be doing. I mean, Tara is scary as shit when she's having a good day.

Finally Andy just literally tries to flee, so Tara finally opens up that mouth of hers. Imagine this speech being said as though Clint Eastwood has taken over Tara's body. "I know about Eggs. You must think you're pretty slick. Yeah, you're the shit. Got your picture in the paper and a big promotion. Andy Bellefleur, American hero. It's all working out so good, right? But I see what you are. Liars, murderers. Jason killed him, and you covered it up. You're a dirty, dirty cop."

Andy feels worse and worse, because she's right about everything, and she admits finally that she knows damn well nothing is going to come of it. "What can I do? Nobody cares about Eggs except me. And I'll miss him for the rest of my life. But the three of us will always know he didn't deserve to die." And Andy starts crying right then, and tells the truth so beautifully and unstoppably, so authentically, so unlike anybody on this show at any time, that you can see it melting her. It's what she actually needed to hear, to know that he sees exactly how she feels. It's gorgeous.

"Well, I don't feel like a hero. I never wanted nothing like this to happen. It was all Maryann, he was innocent. God help me. If I could do it again, if I could go back and just get ahold of Jason's gun, if Eggs would listen and put the knife down, but he... He was bound and determined to die. I couldn't stop him. Jason didn't know. I'm sorry. Tara, I'm so sorry."

Terry won't talk to Sam through the kitchen window, and Tommy's not interested in being a waitress for the night. He throws a little fit in the back hallway, and points out the total Mickensness of Sam tonight: "Look at yourself. Drunk and yelling. You're nothing but Joe Lee in a Sam suit!" Which is true, but the last thing you wanna hear when you're in one of these. So of course Sam tells him other true stuff, like how Tommy is a whiny-ass bitch and ungrateful and a punk and a ruiner. Also, though, he is fired and thrown out of his house and totally cut loose. Consider yourself emancipated, little man. Cesar Milan is in the hizz.

Tommy changes his tune so fast, which normally bothers me -- I hate Willow Rosenberg more than anybody ever on television, precisely because she never stops pulling this shit -- and tries to rewind to when he was not a punk-ass bitch. "Wait, I lost my temper, it's nothing, I'm sorry, I ain't mad anymore, you're my brother, you're the only one I know around here, where am I supposed to go?" And I mean, I guess the only reason I didn't ping total hate on that is because Sam is being so very unreasonable all on his own. He then throws out the entirety of his clientele, sending them scattering into the night like a stomped anthill, and the only person left is Tara, who could give a shit about Sam's silly anger and mussed-up hair. He is a tourist, she lives there.

"I tell you what," Sookie says. "That dungeon this time did me in." I love that Sookie has a breaking point, first of all, because she has the attention span of a gnat and most likely will forget the dungeon ever happened ten minutes from now, but most of all I love that her personal breaking point is neck shackles in a dungeon. Like, if you can weather the storm up to that point, you have my respect, but on the other hand if in your lifetime you find yourself shackled by the neck to anything with a pee-bucket to you, you should at least consider the choices that brought you there. There's a bigger picture here. Which is I guess what Sookie is saying, but it's still funny. She never really noticed how fucked up things were continually getting, usually because of her own retarded actions, but now she has been done in. You know? This insult is simply beyond the pale. She is pulverized by this latest thing.

Hey Bill, what's the most appalling thing you could say in response? "Well, if you'd stayed put as I asked you to..." DING! We have a winna. Sookie's like, "Right, right, I generally do contribute to the horrors ceaselessly visited upon me, but I'm telling you: I have had my A-Ha Moment." Since Bill knows as well as we do that this is a lie, he lets it go and they start into an absolutely unbearable conversation about how great it would be if she wasn't the town retard and he wasn't a vampire and they were just normal. It's so unbelievably obnoxious that you immediately know two things: This is the show punishing them for us, for being such gaywads all the time, and also something terrible is about to happen. The longer it goes on and the louder the cellos get, the more you expect a dumptruck to t-bone Sookie's car. It's suspenseful.

And what would life be like if they were substantially different? Just as lame as you think. Would Sookie go to college? No, she'd be a member of the booming real estate workforce, super rich and I guess taking part in some economy that exists only in her head. And Bill? Oh, he'd like to be a third grade teacher, and go fishing with Jason. They'd grow vegetables and be married and have Tara over for dinner, and sometimes we double date with Arlene and Terry. And Eric Northman wouldn't even exist, and everything would be peaceful. It's just such a brainless clusterfuck of boring horrible beigeness that you know the universe is opening its hand out flat to swat them from the sky, and it's gorgeous. They have never been so lovable nor have they been so infuriating. It is the perfect Bill and Sookie Infatuated Tweens moment of all time. Including, of course, the moment Eric and Russell appear out of nowhere and stop the car with their bare hands.

Holly casts a very involved circle around herself and Arlene, and she invokes the Goddess. Arlene tries to be cool about all this. "My mama passed away a couple years ago. She didn't approve of me, but we were... We were real close," Holly says, and this is insightful of her, that probably she herself went Wiccan because she needed to connect to divine motherhood because her own mother was so awful. Is Arlene totally healthy? Yes, hilariously so: "I got the body of a tired teenager." Holly hibachis up a "decoction" of various oils and things and tells her to follow the directions crazy hard, because this is a big deal they are doing, and Arlene promises she will.

"Some people like to pray before. You know, help 'em get focused." Arlene isn't so sure that God's really on board for this particular non-abortion abortion, and even now you can see her working through what is admittedly a hell of a lot in the way of processing to even be here. And she can't talk to her dead mother's spirit, obviously. "Then talk to the Great Mother. She's God too." Arlene's taken by that, by that idea of God as a woman, and for a second you could feel very sorry for her. The idea of always being on the outside, looking in, never once feeling any kind of connection to the world and other people and the divinity all around her.

"I never thought of God as a woman. But if you're with me tonight, maybe you are. And mama, if you can hear me, would you listen? Really just listen for once? You gotta know this is the right thing to do. It's... It's the only way to be sure that Rene will never pass his sickness on to the world. Then... Coby and Lisa and Terry will be safe, and I won't have to live my whole life in fear. And the baby won't have to be a crazed killer. I don't believe in abortion. I'm doing what needs to be done."

Holly cuts into her finger -- "Sacrifice. Nothing's free" -- and reminds Arlene that if it doesn't take, it doesn't take. "If the spirit is meant to be born, it'll be born and there's nothing we can do about it. It's in the hands of the Goddess now." She gives her the tea, and Arlene stares down: "Sip it or shoot it?" Shoot it. She does. Blessed be.

Kitch Maynard is still abusing his teammates to the point of them running away when Jason appears, desperate to get some kind of validation from this kid, who calls him "Grandpa Stackhouse." Jason informs him that being on V is not only illegal, but also cheating. "On top of which, you're already a cocky bullshit motherfucker." Yeah, um, that's why he's hot. Jason offers to take him down, tell the coach and parents and principal, and Kitch laughs in his old obsolete face. "My coach is the one who gave me the V. My parents are paying for it. My principal, he uses it for his sex life. They won't care what you say, and you can't prove it. There are no tests that can trace it."

But this is Jason, he

knows there is an intangible to manhood and he knows he's seen pieces of it and Eddie gave him a little bit and Andy gave him a little bit and even Bill is helping him with it, and that there is an internal thing that tells what is right and wrong and it's this thing that makes you a man. He's so close to getting there and he doesn't even know it. But Kitch just laughs at him and the more Jason tries to get leverage or traction on this idea that people matter and choices matter and athleticism and virtue matter, the more Kitch laughs. He'll get a scholarship to LSU, blast every record Jason ever set, and nobody will care if it's the truth. Nobody at all.

It's a crisis every character has hit on this show, at some point or another: That nothing we do matters, which means the only that matters is what we do. But if there's nobody watching and nobody left to judge you, and everybody else is cheating, then the only rule you can possibly follow is the one you feel inside yourself. And if your gut is telling you to love Crystal no matter what she turns into, then the only way to be a man is to listen.

Everything in Lafayette's house is alive tonight. It's not going away. "Come with us. We need you!" Little dolls like Wonderfalls, speaking in little voices, dancing around and beckoning him toward the world of magic: There's Great-Great Winnie, and her mother Mae; there's trickster monkeys and even a robot. There's a terrifying witch-doctor with dark plans for his grandson. They're all calling Lafayette's name. Maybe he just lives here now. Maybe it was the mythical Last Trip and now he's just burnt out, or finally holy, or whatever you want to call it. He's always been a shaman. Maybe now's just the time for him to balance both sides at once, just like everybody else. And anyway, as V side-effects go, even this Scariest Thing Ever Of This Show is still less traumatizing than what happened to Jason's dick that one time. I still feel sad about that.

Eric does not drive Sookie's car in a mindful way, but he gets it done. They pull up, the four of them, outside Fangtasia!, and everything is spray-painted and graffittoed with hate speech, thanks to Russell's little stunt the other night. Russell's spouting Crazy Old Man talk -- "Everything as far as your deficient human eye can see will be mine" -- and Sookie's spouting Crazy Old Sookie talk -- "Pride goeth before a fall!" -- and nobody notices Eric telling Bill to start a big fight with him so they can get a second to discuss Eric's actual plan. As much as I want to know what he's up to, because I think it's fairly clear how this will play out, I still get nervous when they talk about putting Eric's face in danger. Meanwhile the old crank loon is like, "Graffiti is the desperate cry of your dying reign! Your so-called society is disintegrating! Soon there will be anarchy and then there will be me!"

Um, we've totally heard this plan before. It is the craziest plan it's possible to have. How disappointing, Russell. How very disappointing. Although points for the kitchen-sink bonkersness of "Graffiti is the desperate cry of your dying reign!" Like you could just look around yourself and go to town. "Billboards are a decadence that will be your undoing! Crepe-sole Cole Haans are a sign of the coming apocalypse! Um, cell phones give you puny human cancer! Fixed-rate mortgages! Geico ads with the talking money! Snow's 1993 single 'Informer'! All these and more will be your undoing!"

Tara wonders, validly, why Sam is being a total monster tonight, and he isn't really into talking about it. But then what are you going to say? "Turns out being white trash is genetic and I killed these people this one time and I'm sort of spiraling out of control for no real reason." But Sam's like, "How come Tara Thornton gets to be a crazy asshole to everybody and nobody cares?" Tara points out that people do care, and that she is known as the biggest bitch in the entire parish and nobody likes her except her cousin and the town freak and the occasional serial killer, so like don't follow her example.

Sam's not sure he ever really had any friends either, but Tara doesn't let him off that easily: "You had Terry, before you jumped all over him. You had Arlene before you called her a bitch... You had Tommy, before you ripped him a new asshole." Sam disagrees with all of this, which just leaves Tara. Who has proved once again that they deserve each other, by sticking around long enough to find the eye of the storm. They talk about how they are variously perceived -- Sam as a nice guy on whom it is fun to shit, Tara as a threat to your person and belongings -- and then pretty soon they just kind of giggle in a wildly sexy way about what assholes they both are, and then -- while poor little Tommy cleans out Sam's vault once again -- run off to have some nihilism sex, which is not the worst kind of sex. Unless you are having it with Bill Compton, of course, in which case trust me: You are going to hear about it later.

Very beautiful Arlene dreams about fishing, her mom calling her home, and wakes up to Terry screaming her name again and again. She thinks at first that the kids are sick or something, but of course it's the insane amount of blood shooting out of her uterus onto every surface in the house that's got Terry in an uproar. She's incredibly sweet to him while he panics, and then collapses in grief, telling him it'll be okay. She's going to be okay, she can tell, but it's likely that there is no more baby. "We'll cry later, okay? Okay?" I never thought I would turn around on Arlene, especially this quickly, but I just like her more and more every week.

Jason comes home with his gun, assuming Crystal's left, and he can't keep the relieved and loving smile off his face, even when he's worrying aloud about still having lost Sookie. She tells him not to mess with her, when he says he wants to stay with her, and his smile is beatific. "I'm not playing. I mean it. No one in this town is what they're supposed to be. So you turn into a panther, what the hell. That ain't so bad. Besides, I love you." She grins: Jason Stackhouse loves a Hotshot girl.

Jason tries to get her to agree she's not one of those anymore, but she isn't done with them quite yet. Crystal asks him to help her stop the oncoming raid, putting Waco images in his head -- "Felton and Daddy are crazy... They'll light that whole place on fire and everybody in it" -- and reminding him about the innocent kids. She admits that the naked freak that was eating a deer and hissing that one time is her "double cousin" Buford, and that he's not right, but not really representative of the town as a whole. It's persuasive, but not as persuasive as the idea of Crystal going up against the DEA all by herself. I cannot wait until the episode, that all sounds insane and like really exploitative. Maybe they can have Janet Reno there boxing a kangaroo or wrestling gators, like she did when she was young.

Russell is not buying the Faerie thing about Sookie, and her crossed arms tacitly agree. He points out that he is like a bajillion years old and that surely he would have come across a fairy before now, but Eric's like, well, she's a hybrid and maybe the very last one of all time. So it turns out that Hadley's whole plan really did make sense: If Hunter has the same thing going on that Sookie does (and that Jason and Hadley, for example, basically don't) then her kid really is in huge trouble. I'm glad that makes sense. Sookie tells them both they are insane, and wants Bill to back her up since he drinks her blood constantly and never told her about the approximate sunlight effect he got that one time.

Instead, Bill concedes that it worked, although more than it really did and in a way where it seems like he's been doing it all along. Sookie, of course, goes nuts and starts screaming at everybody. Once again, Bill's in the position of lying to her and lying about the lying and saying, "You going through this horrible thing while I watch and pretend not to care is probably a good idea." Russell, of course, doesn't trust Bill at all, but Sookie is too made to analyze what's going on as he tries to talk her into doing it. Sookie tells everybody -- Bill, Eric, Russell, even Pam -- to go fuck themselves, at top volume, and Russell agrees to test her out, on the condition that Eric join him. Eric was expecting this, and grins. Pam looks off, distracted, with a sharp pain in her eyes that says she expected it too.

then everything switches back again, and the doctor tells them the baby's fine, one "strong little critter," and then Arlene has to watch Terry dance around with joy, pumping his fists and weeping with relief. And all that math she did in her head, to keep from feeling guilty, and all the ways she's trying to save the people that she loves, were for nothing. That's just awful.

While Russell giddily interrogates Sookie -- "Now, what other fairy secrets are you keeping, Miss Stackhouse? Do you have wings?" -- Pam begins to panic. In a hushed aside she begs Eric not to go through with this plan, eyes welling up with tears that she blames on the Bleeds, and finally he takes her face in his hands: "You know I love you more when you're cold and heartless." There's something so sweet and daughterly, for a moment, in her eyes. She nods and tries to be trusting, and not since Godric has it seemed that real or that intense, this bond. It's truly a moment. He kisses her forehead and they rejoin the party, together. I still just love how they're the only line that gets it right. Aren't you grateful Pam's there to be Jessica's godmother?

Chained up, Bill reminds the boys that if they drain her to death they're screwed, no more fairy blood, and Russell chuckles. "Onward to adventure!" Sookie offers once again the suggestion that Bill go royally fuck himself, and Eric stares down at Sookie worrying about drinking her, so finally Russell just grabs her and starts sucking. And he's got her face turned such that Bill's the only thing she can see, and he has to pretend not to care, and it's really yucky, because she's screaming.

Eric steps out into the sunlight, amazing and terrified and shaking, nearly tearing up with joy. Russell and Pam watch him on the CCTV while Bill begs them to let him feed Sookie. Nobody's listening. Russell's weeping with gratitude. Pam can't turn away from the screens because she's too scared for Eric, tears running down her face. Eric is smoking, but prays they won't see it on the cameras. "My hands are shaking. I feel like a little child. Thousands of years of night," he says to Pam. "You can't know."

Pam's maker likes her best when she is cold and heartless. She tries so hard to be cold and heartless today. She smiles at Russell, sweetly, encouragingly, lovingly. Russell finally joins him outside and she stares at them, on camera. She can't even hear Bill, the panic in his voice rising. She can't hear anything; nobody can see her, crying. Trying to be brave. If Eric could have seen, if he could have been there, he would have been. He would have been so brave. Godric had to order him inside, as his maker. Pam can't even see anything, just Eric on the screen and the terror in her ears, and then there's Russell, overjoyed, out on the pavement, and then there's Eric, handcuffing himself to the King of Mississippi with silver chains, forcing him down on knees beside him. To save the world. "Be brave," Pam's maker says outside, and waits to meet the dawn.

By Jacob Clifton

But this is Jason, he knows there is an intangible to manhood and he knows he's seen pieces of it and Eddie gave him a little bit and Andy gave him a little bit and even Bill is helping him with it, and that there is an internal thing that tells what is right and wrong and it's this thing that makes you a man. He's so close to getting there and he doesn't even know it. But Kitch just laughs at him and the more Jason tries to get leverage or traction on this idea that people matter and choices matter and athleticism and virtue matter, the more Kitch laughs. He'll get a scholarship to LSU, blast every record Jason ever set, and nobody will care if it's the truth. Nobody at all.

By Jacob Clifton

In the hospital now, Arlene begs Terry to stop worrying and just go with the flow. It's very sad, and they are both very sweet, and Terry's fast-forwarding through the stages of grief all about how he shouldn't have let her work or do anything for herself and that this is all obscurely his fault and it's just heartbreaking. And no less because now we're having to watch Arlene watch Terry go through something she did on purpose, once again, which makes her very strong in a very specific and very sad way. And then everything switches back again, and the doctor tells them the baby's fine, one "strong little critter," and then Arlene has to watch Terry dance around with joy, pumping his fists and weeping with relief. And all that math she did in her head, to keep from feeling guilty, and all the ways she's trying to save the people that she loves, were for nothing. That's just awful.

By Jacob Clifton

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