Panther No Panth, I'm Going Thwimming

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 07-17-2011 · S04E04

Giddy on Claudine, Eric leads Sookie -- and the commandeered Alcide's weresmelling powers -- quite the merry chase through Bon Temps's wilderlands, finally bursting into vampire flame in a pond. Once he's sobered up off the fairy blood he realizes that's probably the last time he's going to get to go swimming in the daytime, and gets really somber and cute about it, but not even the glint of Former Eric in his eyes when he asks for a cheering-up kiss can quite fool Sookie into his arms. week, maybe.

In the meantime, Sookie and Alcide play nice and have their usual friendly nonsexual hugs and long gazes and whatever, because Sookie is 100% the most unrealistic person -- on this entire show about werewolves and shapeshifters and witches and Lafayette -- and therefore finds both Eric and Alcide absolutely resistible. Particularly when she's spent most of the day with them running around being naked all over the place. (Our friend Michelle had never seen the show before and she was like, "I keep wondering why they're always dropping their pants all the time on this show, but then I realized: It's because they have to keep turning into animals!")

Bill (before the bummer realization that he's the redoubtable Portia Bellefleur's great-great-great-great grandfather and thus should not be sleeping with her) takes meetings with: Pam, who lies to him about Eric's whereabouts; Nan Flanagan who rags on him about his anarchist tendencies and the heaviness of the crown and so forth; and finally Sookie, who lies right to his face about Eric's location. This last is a pretty sad moment, actually, and Paquin acts the hell out of it.

Lafayette, Jesus and Tara join Marnie for a Scooby meeting at the witch store to see if they can figure anything else about the mysterious ghost witch lady. Marnie's been having crazy dreams that connect her to the historical necromancers the vampires keep worrying about, but she's a come-and-go sort of vengeful spirit. Eventually they locate the correct reversal spell, but while they're attempting it an uncharacteristically impatient Pam pisses off Marnie/the ghost and gets her beautiful face all magically jacked up.

Luna has a daughter, whom Sam charms, but the whole Skinwalker thing makes you so nervous about that, like, who is anybody really, and then of course her babydaddy is a werewolf and possibly a stalker, which who the hell knows makes the daughter, Emma. Like a werewolf that can turn into other werewolves? Oh also, Debbie smells Sookie-hugging on Alcide, I think, making the whole unlikely fairy-blood story seem like pretty good evidence that Debbie needs to kill Sookie some more. She doesn't say that, but it seems like what you would be thinking. That Debbie, she's a wildcard.

In other shifter news, Tommy goes back to the Mickens's for some dumb reason and they immediately chain him up to put him back in the ring so they can have more money for their pork and beans or whatever they eat. Tommy does not shift into a salamander or parakeet at this point, for some reason, but here's hoping he just turns into a Giant Them-Killing Monster at the beginning of the episode and thence a Skinwalker, somehow causing Sam to become interesting.

Arlene and her stupid baby [do stupid Arlene things].

Jason, after impregnating all of the animals, eventually uses his smarts to escape and distract Felton long enough to kill him in panther form. (TIMBO IS SAFE. REPEAT, TIMBO IS SAFE AT THIS TIME.) Crystal does her usual crazy panther cult bullshit and he runs off back home, but she's pretty sure he belongs to Hotshot now, and will be back by full moon. Passing out on the side of the road, he's rescued by Hoyt and Jessica's magical blood, so I guess now he'll be having powerful romantic fantasies about Jessica, just like the rest of us.

week: Godric.

Eric's still crouching there in a pile of faerie when we return, having dispatched Claudine in a heap of light and weird goblin death faces. Sookie, aware of how faerie operate and their magical glowing fruit and grenades, tries to get him inside, but it quickly becomes apparent that Eric is drunk off his ass on faerie blood. He cronks on his face, thinks about eating Sookie for a sec, and then starts running around in that zooming way, pinching her ass, and giggling -- giggling -- until finally he's just gone. Does he care that the sun is coming up? He does not. Will it matter? Not at first.

Bill gives Pam a ton of shit about Eric's disappearance, and she lies about it nonstop, and eventually just tells him straight up that she has no reason to trust him: As near as she can figure, he would have won the Eric/Witch fight no matter what happened. I thought she was right about that, at first, because Bill does enjoy killing Eric sometimes, but no: If he's as worried about the witches as he says, then probably she's just being nuts. Which is apparently just how Pam is, now that Eric's gone. Probably anybody would be this nuts if they went from having 100% Eric to having no Eric at all. Sounds like it sucks.

And of course, being paranoid, she can't get Bill's help in reversing the spell, the actual problem, so it kind of makes sense that she's just acting insane all the time these days. She tosses him some shade about how much he enjoys his Kingly power on the way out, but I don't know. King seems like the only thing Bill's ever been good at. Plus, having ready live blood has made him much more attractive.

Over in Hotshot, things are getting even more complicated. Horny Patty from Hung is taking her turn with Jason, and when it's done she starts crying. He asks her why, given that he's the one getting raped, and she explains that in Hotshot, how it works is your brother/husband fucks you like a cat: "[He] bites the back of my neck and he holds me down till it's over. You're the best I ever had." Then, just in case the zoological, sexual and power issues here weren't already way too complicated for a lot of us to follow, apparently, she calls out "!"

Of course the one is the little girl one that hangs out with Timbo, which scares Jason into screaming, and the old Luther guy starts yelling at him about "Ghost Daddy" this and "Breed!" that, and long story short the little kid threatens to cut off his dick unless he cooperates. Jason tries to explain how it actually should work, when you lose your virginity -- "Your first time, it should be special. With a boy you really like who brings you presents and candy" -- and flashes her some sweet smiles and the general Stackhouse Filibuster. I don't know, he's good with these idiots. Eventually she frees him, and he goes running off into the night.

(I don't even really want to talk about it because it's a stupid made-up conversation, but if you really don't comprehend the difference between being raped by a man and being raped by a woman, you have oversimplified things for yourself. Was Hotshot bad? Yes, it was a terrible and sad violation, what that town did to Jason. It is also a terrible and sad violation what Hotshot culturally justifies doing to its own women, not that the preceding two occasions seem to have made that point. It is also ludicrous -- in that it has never actually happened that an entire town of shapeshifters has done this to a person -- as opposed to the sexual assault being committed every two minutes in this country by actual, non-panther men. Either way, drawing a false equivalency between the two acts just to satisfy your own need for recreational outrage -- which, all the heightened "Alan Ball DIAF" rhetoric is a dead giveaway -- is naïve at best, and a contextual gerrymandering that trivializes real-world rape at worst. What Jessica did to Hoyt was frankly a closer parallel, which is why the show will be juxtaposing them.)

Nan Flanagan shows up at Bill's to yell at him for sending Eric Northman to fight Wiccans in our post-Russell Edgington world, and Bill once again tries to sell the idea that necromancers are the serious threat that we know they'll turn out to be. Nan seriously underestimates the threat, because she is a vampire exceptionalist, and he reminds her that it was cool of him to even let her know about how the Eric thing went south. They talk about his latest execution, she reiterates the rule about no humans getting harmed, and they are snotty with each other. Come on, dude! Nan Flanagan is the coolest thing about you!

Crazy Marnie time-travels to the Spanish trouble, where they're burning that witch ghost lady at the stake, and the lady teaches her a new spell or something while she's burning. There's a whole rule about the order of body parts you should burn a witch in, which I'm sure will come into play later, but mostly I guess this is just about Marnie and the witch lady meeting officially.

Because Bill and Eric are busy -- being King and being adorable respectively -- Sookie calls up Bachelor #3, so he drives in from Shreveport so he can wolf out and help her track down poor Eric. Alcide sniffs his clothes and goes running off into the woods. I guess Alcide knows Sookie's part fairy? Or now he does, at least, because he's clear on how Eric can run around naked in the middle of the day. It's entirely possible she also explained cold fusion during this part, but naked Alcide is a lot to deal with.

By Jacob Clifton

Due to Sam telling Tommy he was a worthless grifter, Tommy has thrown a shit fit and run off back to Mickensville. This occasions a visit from Maxine Fortenberry, who comes screaming into Merlotte's about where "her boy" is and what a bad brother Sam is. Sam points out the irony in her disowning Hoyt while questioning Sam's loyalty to her pretend kid, but she's not having it: "I am a lioness! And if you even laid a finger on him, I will punch your ticket but good, you hear me?" Considering that Tommy's last mention of Maxine involved royally screwing her out of thousands of dollars, Sam's meek acceptance of all this screaming is actually a kindness to them both, but you know Maxine.

Felton chuckles creepily at his daughter-niece about how "sex is kinda gross but it feels good" and asks her for the details, but her deception is immediately discovered: Jason is missing, and Luther's been conked and tied up. Crystal points out that he's already distributed his semen to most of the town anyway, so it doesn't matter if he's gone, but Felton is more excited by the idea of chasing him down, and panthers up to go find him. This is the point also at which the episode becomes almost entirely about people taking off their pants and turning into animals. It happens on this show, of course, but in this episode it's 90% of what happens: Pants dropping.

Lafayette, Jesus and Tara show up at Marnie's to see about getting her to remove the spell, per Pam's threats last week, but Marnie is still wavering on the line of being vague versus being a normal person, and can't quite get it through to them that she wasn't the one who magicked him. Because they're asking the wrong questions and she's saying the vaguest possible stuff, nobody really gets what she's saying, so they have the same conversation about the witch lady that they keep having. Tara brings up how she got raped a million times, Lafayette brings up how he got tortured a bunch, and they all do some research Scooby style.

Tommy reunites with his gross mother and it's all very sad and trashy, and they cry, and hug a lot. She says she broke up with Joe Lee, which is obviously a lie, and in turn he tells her about his battle for literacy. She's very proud of him, whatever else is going on, and they bond over how boring and shitty Sam is. I guess Tommy's plan might be to get his gypsy mom to kick in money for his Maxine scam? They don't really talk about it. They're too excited about eating pork and beans and licking paint chips or whatever.

Creepily, Sam shows up at Luna's house unannounced, and they have a discussion about how it's okay for her to appear in his place of business but not for him to come over without calling. Number one, they are still very much in love. Number two, she has a very cute daughter named Emma. Because Sam has no friends, he is very excited to make friends with Emma, and it's all very dorky and sinister and red-flaggy, but somehow Luna overlooks her instincts and invites the strange man inside to play Barbies with her daughter. Maybe Luna is Skinwalking in the form of a bad parent today.

While Jason continues to run away from panthers and eventually ends up in a tree with a pointed stick -- thanks, Jesus Boot Camp skills! -- Sookie tries to get Eric to lie down and get some rest before the Bleeds kick in. He acts all offended like she even needs to explain what the Bleeds are, and then begs her to stay with him because he's drunk and lonely and still pretty scared about having no memories.

Alcide and Sookie retire to the porch where apparently you can hear everything people say, down in the cubby, and Alcide tries to talk her out of hosting Eric Northman. Once again Sookie compares having Bachelor #2 in her house to Alcide putting up with crazy old Debbie Pelt -- "She's an addict and an attempted murderer and she lives in your house and I'm not judging you!" -- and they talk themselves out of the fight and into a great big old hug. A hug from Alcide must feel like being a lizard on the hottest boulder, digesting your food in complete comfort.

Jason kills Felton, finally, and then Crystal appears and that nutty song starts playing like whenever she's around. Because her context is radically different from his, or ours, she doesn't understand why Jason is not having any of her mess, and just repeats that whole thing about how they can be together now and they are Ghost Mama and Ghost Daddy and now she is the queen of the panther people. From her perspective, things are going well, and I guess culturally she is also the mom of all the babies that may have resulted since the last episode? So that's nice for her. Jason, on the other hand, sees her more as the orchestrator of his systematic gang rape, as well as the biter and clawer of his torso, and has thus lost significant interest in their relationship. Nevertheless, she might be onto something with this:

"Bon Temps ain't your home no more. You're gonna be Panther Man and Ghost Daddy to our clan. Hotshot's the only place that'll take you in. I'll be waitin' for ya, Jason! Full moon!"

Portia Bellefleur takes Bill to meet her grandmama Caroline Bellefleur (Katherine Helmond!), and it's adorable. Andy goes tearing through the house, because he is a drug addict, and Caroline strongly dissuades him from drinking a Red Bull -- "It's vulgar" -- before the four of them sit down for tea. Andy cluelessly talks about a less-than-classy moment at work, and Bill steps in on his behalf once Caroline takes offense.

Bill's old Southern manner and his way with old ladies comes to the fore, and Caroline immediately takes a shine to him, which increases Portia and Andy's enjoyment of the whole situation. Which is, of course, scary, because automatically if that many people in one room are happy on this show, something terrible is about to happen. Any other show, it would be them suddenly realizing that their entire family is descended from racists, but not here.

Sam continues his seduction-by-child scheme at Luna's, and they talk about whatever, how shifter kids and werewolf kids are always so fucked up, and Luna admits that her ex is a werewolf and a stalker-type, which is why she's so dicey about people coming over and boys surprising her at home. I can see this story being interesting, because doggy old Sam really does just want a family and somebody to protect, so you can see how this Just Add Water family would really do it for him.

Everybody hangs around in the magic shop, Buffy-style, looking for magic books that might help. While Marnie holds her hands over the books one by one to feel for energies, everybody else actually does worthwhile things like reading the tables of contents, because they understand how books work. Marnie finally gets bored and yells for her witch lady friend to consult the occult Dewey Decimal system, and then wouldn't you know it: A book comes flying off the shelf onto the floor containing just the spell they need: Mnemosyne, Styx vs. Lethe, the whole deal.

Debbie smells Sookie on Alcide because of their buddy hug, and is way too subtle for comfort finding out what that's about. Since she probably doesn't know about the faerie blood, the story does sound very unconvincing: Turns out Eric was running around in the sunlight today? You don't say. And you dropped everything to go sniff him down? Uh huh. And then handed out the hugs? Sounds kosher for sure: "We are living a life of rigorous honesty here," she says, which is TV-speak for My high-minded AA values are about to send me over the brink and into Crazytown if you disappoint me in any way.

Because she's an old lady, the first thing Caroline Bellefleur wants to do is talk about genealogy. Double-fisting with the family Bible in one hand and a whiskey in the other, Bill and Caroline delightedly say a bunch of names at each other while Portia looks on. Suddenly, Bill and Caroline both figure out something terrible, and Caroline's like, "Well, it was nice knowing you," and Bill agrees with her, and the whole meeting ends. They're sad about it and they still like each other, but there's no Bill-and-Portia in their future. Bill breaks up with Portia, and then since she's still not getting it, explains that she's his great-great-great-great granddaughter, and so probably they are both going to hell for doing it. And he didn't even bite her last week! He was doing so well!

Terry and Baby Mikey look at Arlene and the kids sleeping, and have a cute little conversation about how happy their family is going to be, and how Arlene is so pretty, and Terry's going to be the best daddy and teach Mikey how to hunt and be a man, and then goes out to push the laundry. When he comes back, Arlene is screaming because cute little Mikey's got a red marker in his hands, and it says on the wall, in a toddler's penmanship, BABY NOT YOURS. I still don't know what to think about all this, or who's doing this or what, but I do know that Arlene is automatically overreacting no matter what, because she is the worst.

Sookie asks Eric why he's being so glum and quiet, and explains how the "real" Eric (which hurts our Eric's feelings, of course) is generally jovial. Poor old Eric explains that he'll never swim in the sun or see her in the daylight or any of that stuff that vampires cry about when they are new. She tries to talk up the vampire lifestyle, but there's nothing really to be done. They are hard facts. She wishes she could cheer him up, and after getting offended that she is patronizing him, he gets a bit of the old glimmer: "If you kiss me, I promise to be happy." Which is charming, but before she can navigate that one, Bill shows up.

It's very sad, because Bill wants to search her house -- having checked all of Eric's other properties under the assumption that he's gone to ground -- and this is the last one. Sookie acts like it's this huge violation, which it would be if she weren't lying, and he comes very close to just shoving her aside, but then she pulls the "I have never lied to you" card, which even she knows is just sad and terrible since she's lying about lying. And then he agrees, and then after a moment of indecision he leaves without further ado! Oh, Sookie. Slippery slope.

By Jacob Clifton

Speaking of, Hoyt and Jessica find Jason Stackhouse bleeding on the side of the road, nearly unconscious, and Jessica opens a vein without a second thought. And the last thing he sees before passing out? Her beautiful face, looking like an angel. Like Jessica wasn't already compromised enough, now she's gonna have the burden of Jason Stackhouse's sexy dreams plus however he ends up working out his trauma.

Tommy tells his Mama about how kick-ass literacy can be, and notes that Melinda's got some new scars. This latest time, she says, she barely made it out alive: She's getting too old, and it was only Joe Lee wandering in with a lead pipe that saved her life. Tommy starts gearing up to talk about how horrible it is that Joe Lee exploits his shifter kin for cash, but then of course Joe Lee appears out of nowhere and throws a big chain around his neck and starts talking about how now Tommy is going to provide the family revenue. Instead of turning into a hummingbird or something, Tommy focuses on choking.

Out in the woods, Marnie's got it all set up with magic stuff and candles and the whole nine. Pam is there, with the major attitude that has become her whole deal, and threats are threatened, and then right when Marnie heads into the spell, Pam abruptly decides that this is bullshit and gets up in Marnie's face. Marnie's witch ghost responds by putting a spell on Pam that causes her face to rot off, and it's super gross. So Pam leaves, and the witch team just stare at each other and think about how once again Marnie has fucked them absolutely for no real reason.

week: Tommy gets out of his latest bind somehow, the werewolf politics thing starts up again, Marnie mumbles and acts annoying while Lafayette and Jesus and Tara stand around doing nothing for the fifth episode in a row, Sookie and Eric are sexually tense, King Bill does murky questionable stuff, and presumably the sex dreams kick in for poor Jason.