The Mask & Mirror

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 07-31-2011 · S04E06

It's Jason's first full moon, so when Sookie finally tracks him down he's handcuffed himself to the bed. Hours later, Alcide finally informs her that you can't even get turned into a were -- it's strictly genetic -- but by that time Jason's off getting a flirty and wise pep talk from Jessica, and Sookie's more concerned with Eric's whereabouts anyway...

Because her first kiss with him was interrupted a couple of seconds into the underwear level by old King Bill, who arrests Eric for being Eric and then dicks around with the idea of killing him. He even goes so far as to get permission from Nan and the AVL, but the 100% adorableness of Eric's last-minute Nermalling proves too powerful even for Bill's dorky agenda, and he lets Eric go. Then Eric and Sookie fuck in the forest for about ten years while Bill listens to Neko Case and acts ridiculous.

Also set free thanks to Eric's total adorableness is Pam, who makes a beeline for Tara's throat, since Lafayette's in Mexico and Marnie's still locked up in Billtanamo Bay. Tara's having a good night, considering Naomi drove all the way to Bon Temps to break up with Toni, have weird sex, and then hook back up, with Tara this time. Hope she lives through this latest Pam attack, but then, I guess you don't really date Tara for longevity.

Turns out gross Luis (gross Olivier from Six Feet Under) was not the coolest vampire priest to ever murder an innocent person or several: He also raped Antonia the Witch Lady because that's how terrorism and authoritarianism regimes work, making it personal. Marnie does her stupid suicide shit some more, and this time Antonia comes to live there for good, proving Fiona Shaw deserves her reputation times a billion. And her first victim? Luis, on watch when it goes down. And not a second too soon.

Luckily, Arlene and Terry get the family -- including Terry's armadillo -- out of their burning house before it explodes, only to find Mikey and the Devil Doll waiting for them on the lawn. Mikey is friends with some kind of gorgeous voodoo lady creeper, which is interesting; also interesting is Andy Bellefleur, his V-fueled romantic overtures to Witch Holly, and the fact that Sam finally tells him to fucking fuck off and stop being so awful all the time. That would be nice. Also, Holly and Andy are totally cute together.

In Shreveport, Debbie gives Alcide a fairly awesome and effective pitch for checking out this new Pack, while in Mexico, the boys take part in a ritual that involves Jesus surviving a rattlesnake bite and Lafayette -- whose magic power is apparently being a medium -- channeling random members of Jesus's extensive brujo family and I guess curing him from the snakebite or something. It's creepy and dirty and gross, but still not as scary as when Jesus literally says out loud that he'd go darkside to save Lafayette.

Sam's dealing with landlord stuff all day because of the fire, so he asks Tommy to open the bar on his behalf, despite still being in double-parricidal shock. The Skinwalker thing finally kicks in, and Sam Trammell does a mind-blowingly kick-ass Tommy impression for the rest of the episode: Tommy fires Sookie (for being Sookie), rapes and humiliates Luna (with only slight hesitation), and then barfs and turns back into Tommy and/or dies.

It seems to be sharply dividing into those who are trying to integrate their selves and those who are trying to turn into somebody else, which, if you've seen this show you know what side you're supposed to be on, but you also know that any amount of -- or even feint towards -- mental health is just asking for it in the ass, so at this midpoint it's interesting to watch everybody switch and do opposite things.

week: Somebody shoots Bill, somebody gets silvered in the Fangtasia! coffins, presumably Eric and Sookie do it on all of her household surfaces, Tommy continues to be a super sad fucking individual, the wolfpack acts trashy but Alcide is still above it, at least twelve people get raped just like every other episode this season, and Jessica realizes she might like Jason in that way.

ON THE OCCASION OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHITFIT

Eric: "My superpower is being adorable."
Sookie: "My superpower is my clothes disappear with a quickness."
Second Base: Occurs.
Bill: "My superpower is I ruin everything!"
Them boys have a big old fight that manages to preserve every piece of furniture in the whole place.
Sookie: "Eric. Hey, Eric? Eric! That dork is the King of Louisiana."
Eric: Flips over for a belly rub.
SWAT goons swarm the Stackhouse house and they steal Eric.

Sookie: "Stop stealing my boyfriend!"
Bill: "But Ah must accomplish my business. Mah vampire business."
Sookie: "This is positively all about me!"
(For once she is correct.)
Bill: "Ah assure you that mah actions do not reflect mah feelings about your love life."
(He proves this is the case by immediately calling her a ho.)

It is discussed that Eric is not a danger to anybody, except maybe kittens he might pet too hard. Bill maintains a vague, Palin-esque, saying-without-saying, stating without explaining hunch that Eric got a bunch of witch on him and thus presents some kind of danger.

Sookie: "If you ever loved me, don't do this."
Bill: "Um, you ripped up that card and shit on it when you lied right to mah face."

Sookie: "You're not making sense!"
Bill: "Ah have to believe what Ah am saying, and so Ah shall! He is faking it to make you His! Or alternately, he is under the control of witches!"
Sookie: "Wait, so is he faking it, or is he tainted by witchcraft beyond his control?"
Bill: "Both! Neither!"
Sookie: "I have trapped you in a web of logic. This is a first."
Bill: "SWAT team, don't let Sookie come back in here. She taxes mah brain."
Sookie: "At least I still have a job, and the woods aren't going anywhere or filling up with monsters, so of the three places I always am I'm still sitting pretty. For now!"

SHERIFF OF (CELLBLOCK) FIVE

Eric: "I need a hug. Wait, what's that terrible smell?"
Pam: "It is my fucking face."

Eric: "Too bad we're both in jail and probably going to get staked."
Pam: "Wait, what? No, this is the part where we fuck up King Bill."
Eric: "But he is my liege!"
Pam, verbatim: "Let me tell you a little something about King Bill. He's a self-loathing, power-hungry, pompous little dork. And you hate his guts. Snap the fuck out of it! You have no loyalty to Bill Compton. You are a Viking Vampire God, and you bow to no one."
Eric: "Treasonous talk like this makes me nervous. Also swears."

By Jacob Clifton

Pam: "I am going to fix you somehow. It was fun being vampire assholes with you."
Eric: "I do not think so highly of Old Eric. I think maybe it's better to be adorable."
Pam: "Fuck absolutely everything."

If you found out that you used to be a monster, would it be more important to be real or would you just commit yourself to being good from now on? Hint: The latter will result in your death. Every time.

UPSTAIRS

Vampires love Skype more than anything else in the world.
Nan Flanagan: "I was just eating nubile thighs in this perfectly tailored Ann Coulter cocktail suit. Better be important."
Bill: "Ah have kidnapped Sheriff Northman and that witch. They are chilling in mah high-tech dungeon."
Nan Flanagan: "Please don't kill anybody. What is his deal?"
Bill: "He punched your mom in the face, filled up your TiVo with Jersey Shore and Color Splash reruns and keeps posting planking pictures on his Tumblr. Whatever the worst thing is you can think of, he is doing it!"
Nan: "Very subtle, weirdo. I'll see if I can get permission for you to True Death him."
Bill: "Mah crown is so heavy! Especially when it allows me to be a shitty ex-boyfriend!"

ARLENE'S HOUSE OF CREEPSTERS

The house burns down around them, but they all escape, and Terry spends the rest of the episode unhappily holding his horrible armadillo. I don't know if you've ever gotten close to an armadillo, but they are the fucking worst. They smell like a zombie's leprosy asshole. Arlene tries to run in and save the devil baby, but it turns out -- once the house explodes into the sky -- that Mikey's been having a midnight picnic with his devil doll on the lawn the whole time. Also, he is friends with a voodoo lady that maybe only he can see.

AFTER SUNRISE

Sam: "Okay, I'm going to carefully not say out loud that renting this house to you two freaks was a bad idea. I'm going to say that I'm glad you're okay."
Arlene: "To put your mind at ease, I'm going to run around with my hands in the air talking about how my serial-killing ex-fiancé that killed your close friend is probably the culprit."
Terry: "Meanwhile, I will be acting like myself. One pupil permanently blown, holding an armadillo as far away from my body as possible because it smells like a zombie's leprosy asshole and generally twitching up a storm."

Andy: "Sam! I have arrived to climb up your colon just like every episode!"
Sam: "I have finally had enough of this shit. I am not your new Jason Stackhouse. Get off the drugs, get off my jock, and go suck a bag of choads."
Andy: "Authority things!"
Sam: "I will Doberman your face off."

Holly: "Andy, could you stop bothering that poor man who's just lost two investment properties and come help me move this chair? Apparently all the waitresses of Merlotte's live on this one block that Sam owns. Soon he'll establish a commissary and his own currency and we'll only have to leave for necromancy meetings and failed abortions."
Andy: Lifts an entire La-Z-Boy over his head with 'roid strength.
Holly: "Cool. Hamburgers on the house time you come by the place where I work."
Andy: "You mean like a date?"
Holly: "...Sure, why not. Single moms aren't usually very choosy on TV."

Sam: "Hey, Tommy. I hope you got some sleep without dreaming about our mom's dead face that you killed."
Tommy: "Do you need some help with your whole situation burning down because Arlene is incompetent slash has devil babies?"
Sam: "No, could you just open the bar instead? In the last 24 hours I got amnesia about how totally untrustworthy you are. Or possibly I would like to burn down all my shit at once and move to Boca Raton."

Everybody, at least once a scene: "Just casually, did you know tonight's a full moon?"

Tommy has a total 'sode in the mirror, because on TV you always stare hatefully at yourself in the mirror like a post-blowjob Heather Chandler and then abruptly begins slapping himself around. Because it is Tommy, this part is heartbreaking. Eventually he puts his beautiful self through so much slappage that he abruptly Skinwalks himself into Sam, who then spends the whole episode doing an amazing fucking job of being Tommy. Like, it's eerie.

But in terms of the overall theme of the episode, and the season -- supernatural shit as metaphor for attempting to completely X yourself and be something else -- it's also really kind of beautiful, and very sad. He hated himself into a whole new face.

MEXICO

Is gross.

CHEZ LAFAYETTE

Naomi: "Hello, I came to yell at Tara Thornton?"
Tara: "Hey, I was just hanging out here with a gun in my hand."
Naomi: "That's interesting, but not so much that I'm going to ask about it."
Tara: "It's because I got raped like eighty times and duct-taped to a toilet in a wedding dress and accidentally joined a cult from eating people's organs and get gnawed on by vampires at least once every sixteen hours and recently took part in some magic spells that pissed off a bunch of vampires and once I obliterated a dude's entire head with the end result that he got better and I got chased through a plantation in a nightie and it was racist."
Naomi: "What may be for others a red flag is, for lesbians, an invitation to chat and really get in there and process our feelings."
Tara: "By all means, come inside so we can yak about my many traumas."

By Jacob Clifton

Is gross.

CHEZ LAFAYETTE

LACUNA MATATA

Tara: "...Aaaaanyway, it all goes back to my horrific mother and how the whole town always figured I would end up like her -- unpleasant, lonely, prone to drinking -- because of how I was unpleasant and lonely and prone to drinking."
Naomi: "That hardly seems fair."
Tara: "Yeah, right? So I turned into Toni the Lesbian from Atlanta, met you, fit you into my life like a puzzle piece, and I've been living in unhealthy denial ever since."
Naomi: "I feel like I should be offended."
Tara: "Nevertheless, thank you for letting me share."

Naomi knocks her on the ground; Tara feels like she deserves it but it's not terribly offensive because A) They are cagefighters, B) This is clearly leading to more sex and C) She basically deserves it.

Shifters gotta shift, witches gotta witch. Vampires vamp, werewolves change and run and kill stuff. Everybody's got a way to mediate between their Tara and their Toni: Between the scarred and filthy self we carry around all day long, and the higher Self we could reach if we just wished hard enough. Everybody has that, except us.

MERLOTTE'S

Sookie: "Jason, the fact that I am calling your voicemail should indicate how dire my shit just got. After Alcide, you're my fourth choice for solving my problems for me. Please do call back."

Sammy: "Sookie Stackhouse, I can tell from the sparkle in your eyes that you're about to ask for time off, probably to deal with the incredible amount of shit you've got going on at all times. As my first act in my brother's body, you are fired."
Sookie: "Wait, being held accountable for my performance and/or behavior? That is such a foreign concept to me that I will literally overlook it for the rest of the episode."

By Jacob Clifton

Sammy: "Dear Audience, your concerns have been noted. Pandering and winking at you like this is something that, having reached the fourth season, all shows get comfortable doing. Soon, each episode will contain the following. One (1) reference to the ridiculous amount of creatures, storylines and characters. One (1) reference to what a fucking dork Bill is and has always been. And finally, one (1) reference to Sookie's total entitlement. season you can look forward to us making fun of each of Sam's past storylines, the prodigious amounts of rape this season, and possibly bringing back Michelle Forbes for just a split-second purely to make you shit your pants. You are welcome."
Sookie: "Great. Now that that's out of the way, can I have my job back?"

Music: [Something about being a "brand new man," because subtlety.]
Sammy: "Hey, y'all! I'm sexy Sam! I am your boss! I say boss things! I hit on ladies!"

Sammy spots Maxine, and heads over to be sweet to her because he misses her and her absolute loneliness and desperation that calls out so clearly to his own and the ways their lives fit together perfectly for one second, and she responds by giving him the dozens about what a stupid fucking creep Tommy is. First it makes him sad because he needs a replacement mommy more than ever, and then it makes him sad because she's never sounded quite so much like Joe Lee Mickens, but on a purely plot-related level it really just takes us the obligatory stage of the way to Tommy trading his self-slapping self-hatred for the pride of being somebody good that you are not.

But hmm, because now you've got Sam in financial trouble possibly, and Maxine grinding the last of Tommy's gratitude out of him, so I wonder if the whole thing will come back around. My assumption was that Tommy would use his powers to get the scam accomplished by himself, but it's a lot more interesting if Sam's the only conflicted one and they end up doing it together. God knows Maxine's the worst either way.

I'M ONLY PUMAN

Sookie: "I got off work today, so I thought I'd come bother you about how my one boyfriend stole my other boyfriend."
Jason: "Sook, get out of my house. I am going through things."
Sookie: "Why are you handcuffed to the bed? Kink just means you're bad at sex."
Jason: "It's because I might turn into a panther."
Sookie: "Well, sure."

Greasy: "Sorry I 'alpha'd' you so hard last week, but I was busy making up absurd supernatural lingo that nobody would ever actually use."

Alcide: "I run with no pack and answer to no howl. I am a lone wolf. I wolf alone."
Greasy: "We'll revisit at a later date. I assume you're going to beat your wife now, because we are bikers."
Alcide: "I thank you. Do take some room-temp cold cuts when you go."

Alcide: "God damn it, Debbie."
Debbie: "Alcide, I am not a lone wolf! I do not wolf alone! Mississippi is a shithole, but now that I live in Shreveport I have a different perspective on shitholes. My only friends are you and Sookie, and she hates my ass, so all my friends are you, and you wolf alone."
Alcide: "I'm sorry that werewolves are so disgusting that we can't hang out with them."
Debbie: "You dramatically underestimate how disgusting I am. In fact, my whole descent into addiction and Nazi worship could, if you were awful, seem predicated on the fact that you let me fall in codependent, crazy-making love with you in the first place."
(We pour out a little for my Cooter.)
Alcide: "Valid. I will run with the pack tonight under that full moon everybody keeps tossing casually into conversation, and then you will see how gross they are. You will make choices and they will be healthy choices. Then you can meet some AA people or something. They're always super fun."

What does Alcide's Toni look like? I think it looks like this, but I think it includes -- as to include -- Debbie, in her new and lovely hostess form. Which means when she goes down, she's taking the tablecloth with her.

MARNIE IN THE U.S.A.

Marnie: "Well, it's been five seconds. I'd probably better do something stupid."
She does. Even though it's just now turning to nighttime, and frankly, she could have done this hours ago while the entire vampire situation was asleep.
Marnie: "Now that I'm bleeding all over the place, I better smear some blood on my face and then roll around in my blood and have a freakout."

Dear Antonia, It's Me, Marnie. Please possess me like usual. Love, Gross Marnie.

Turns out the evil vampire priests are even more evil than you thought, and Olivier was more than a little implicated, by raping Antonia for about ten minutes that we have to watch (and then presumably leaving the country ten minutes later). So not only did Olivier start this whole mess -- admittedly, at the behest of his Maker -- he's the only one that survived and is one of the LA Sheriffs that's currently manning Billtanamo Bay? Hmm, I wonder what could possibly happen at this time.

By Jacob Clifton

MARNIE IN THE U.S.A.

Dear Antonia, It's Me, Marnie. Please possess me like usual. Love, Gross Marnie.

Marnie: "This reminds me of that time Antonia made all the vampire priests and nuns get out of bed and walk out into the sun and burn to death. I bet she had a good reason."
Suddenly Antonia: "I totally did! Just let me crawl into your face through your mouth and scribble over your shitty personality like a kid with a Sharpie, and we'll see what happens. There's still half the season left before Halloween comes, so we're going to have a lot of time to start shit and be totally awesome."
Marnie: "That's exactly the kind of terrible idea I most love to gnnghnnn."

Then she becomes awesome.

MEXICO

Jesus: "Okay, first we have to hang out in this field and wait for an animal to walk up to us and volunteer for a sacrifice. Then I guess something else will happen."
Lala: "Wait, what?"
Jesus: "Look. I am willing to turn into the thing that I hate if it means protecting you."
Lala: "That statement does not give me the pause that it should, knowing what I know of this show."
Jesus: "Okay, here we go. Like this rattlesnake, see? Cascabel means rattlesnake. Cascabel."
Lafayette: "I always feel condescended to when you pull that Dora The Explorer shit."
Jesus: "I'd better put this cascabel en mi bolsa. La bolsa means bag, or purse. Mi bolsa."

By Jacob Clifton

FULL MOON

Sookie and Jason hang out near the woods in case he turns into a panther.

Sookie: "It's so crazy how this show has so many characters and storylines and supernatural creatures. I'd better remark on that each week. It makes me sassy and likeable. The books often use me as the grounded intelligent one, but we can't do that too much here because I'm also in charge of the show being a romance satire."

Oh, and this was awesome: "Until what happened with Eric, I thought witches were just in fairy tales. Or at that goth store at the mall, buying pentagram stretch-pants."

Jason: "I'm just afraid of turning into a panther and killing you!"
Sookie: "Based on my extensive personal experience, I can state for the record that you will retain your basic personality and intelligence while in panther form, and thus I am in no danger, and neither is anybody else. I'm not going to state that, since there would be no scene at that point, but I could."

Jason: "I just don't want to be a freak."
Sookie: "I'd better take umbrage about that oblique reference to my disability. That makes me sassy and likeable too."
Jason: "Sookie, don't. And it don't."
Sookie, awesomely: "You're right. That would be an asshole thing to do. Let's get back to you."

Jason: "Are you some kind of magical creature that stops being self-centered during the full moon? Is that a faerie thing?"
Sookie: "No, but I bet your bizarre skill with sex and shooting and being crazy hot is a faerie thing."
Jason: "That makes me feel included. Go fetch me a snack, woman."
Sookie: "I'm happy to!"

Jason promptly disappears while she's getting his snacks together, so she goes wandering out into the woods.

Sookie: "Jason! I better find you before I get distracted and wander into some other storyline! I'm warning you, that is very likely!"

FLANNERY O'CONNOR

Used to do this thing where the ostensible protagonist of a story would be appalled by, say, the racism of another character, while simultaneously doing something as bad or worse. Like you'd have the sniveling white guy horrified when his mother gives a little black kid a nickel, but really this is because his privilege makes him racist squared, and he thinks he's above it. Part of her point, obviously, is to implicate you in this telescoping superiority. Then you question whether you're really 100% right too, because it's also true in life: Our self-righteousness exposes our areas of blindness more than our outright misbehavior, and this is because God loves irony so fucking much that He should just marry it.

But if you cock your eyebrow at Jessica for being a vampire, the second she walks up -- having been promoted to server off-camera by good ol' Sammy, who needed waitresses but also likes Jess -- and give her some snotty racist attitude about it, all of that goes down the drain. And yeah, you got beef with vampires. But you have no beef with Jessica. So I'd lose that NPR grin, if I were you. Nobody is entirely without privilege. And then not to mention you've also got the... Oh, Jessica just ran out the door without taking their order, faster than a human blur.

Tara, kind of valid: "Told you. We ain't even been here five minutes. Fuckin' vampires."

UNDER THE FULL LUNA

Luna: "Sam! You know how in every scene I'm in, we either discuss my readiness to 'let you in' on a one-to-ten scale, or I flash my tits?"
Sammy: "...Who are you?"
Luna: "Well, I'm ready to let you in."
Sammy: "Hang on, I'm not actually..."
Luna: "...And these are my tits."
Sammy: "Huh."
Luna: "It's because you're a wonderful, brave, strong man."
Sammy: "I forgot for a second. I forgot that I was brave and strong and good, for a second. Then I forgot something else."

You ever say a word so many times it stops meaning anything? Often that is okay, just a funny little brain trick. But when it's a word like rape, well, maybe it's best to pick your battles.

In this case, though: You should only be having sex with the people you think you're having sex with. (If there's anything creepier than that part in Revenge Of The Nerds, I can't imagine it.) It's about sex and not power; it's a crime of consent, but not of assault. It's a Jessica, not an Olivier.

On the other hand, that's all presuming Luna is really Luna and not some dude or something, in which case everybody is raping everybody else, which is kind of how this show works anyway.

DON'T GO INTO THE WOODS AT NIGHT BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM AT NIGHT

Jason: "I'm a police officer! And a werepanther! Back off!"

It is Jessica! She is so excited to be there because she could sense his fear because he drank her blood and they are connected.

Jessica's Take: "Isn't that awesome? I am like a superhero!"
Jason's Take: "It would be more awesome if I weren't constantly getting pushed around and tied up and raped and turned into supernatural stuff. There's a hazy parallel being drawn here between your penetrative sexuality v. the ongoing 'Mine' conversations that my sister has to keep having, but it falls apart because frankly -- between your gay marriage and my omnisexual fetishizing of both parental figures and victims of oppression, not to mention my recent gang-rape -- we've got enough intriguing gender-bender stuff on our plates already."

By Jacob Clifton

You ever say a word so many times it stops meaning anything? Often that is okay, just a funny little brain trick. But when it's a word like rape, well, maybe it's best to pick your battles.

On the other hand, that's all presuming Luna is really Luna and not some dude or something, in which case everybody is raping everybody else, which is kind of how this show works anyway.

DON'T GO INTO THE WOODS AT NIGHT BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM AT NIGHT

Jason: "I'm a police officer! And a werepanther! Back off!"

It is Jessica! She is so excited to be there because she could sense his fear because he drank her blood and they are connected.

My take is that Jessica probably doesn't know the whole story with blood and sex and those various bonds and whatever, so it's also an accidental reversal of Bill's original fake-out on Sookie that started this whole mess. Like father, like daughter -- twice now -- and she doesn't even know it yet. Isn't that so sad? Jessica : Innocence :: Godric : Peace.

Jessica: "Are you sure you don't need saving from something?"
Jason: "Sorry."
Jessica: "Nuts. Okay, but still. As a superhero, I'm going to ask you to get your cute self on back inside. It's a full moon and there are fifty thousand kinds of creatures on this show."
Jason: "There is no safe place for me. I panther alone."
Jessica: "Back to this werepanther deal, are you sure that's a thing? I don't mean to be patronizing, but you're kinda..."'
Jason: "I know, it's okay. Yeah, I'm fairly certain that werepanthers are real. First, though, I am going to have a panic attack."
Jessica: "Look deep into my boobs and take deep breaths and chill deeply out."
Jason: "Is this because I'm turning into a panther?"
Jessica: "I used to talk my mom down."
Jason: "Your mom is a werepanther?"
Jessica: "...Yes, you halfwit, a werepanther that was constantly having panic attacks due to being a willing mute accomplice to my father's horrific abuse of his kids."

LOUISIANA'S HOTTEST HOTSPOT IS "THIS ONE PART OF THE WOODS WHERE EVERYBODY CONSTANTLY IS"

Sookie: "Jason! I am moments away from wandering out of your storyline!"
Alcide & Debbie: "Hey, Sook. That's so crazy that you walked all the way to Shreveport which is the only way we would run into you."
Sookie: "No, probably there aren't enough werewolves in Louisiana to require that many wolfpacks. I bet the whole Shreveport area is one big pack and you only run together once a month. That would also explain Greasy being Luna's babydaddy. In other news, I am on a roll. Hey, listen. Do you know anything about werepanthers?"

Debbie: "I am offended!"
Alcide: "I am level-headed."
Debbie & Alcide: "We are the most interesting people who ever lived."

Turns Out: Stupid fucking Hotshot didn't even know you couldn't bite a person into being a werepanther. On the other hand, halfbreeds are still weres, which means all Jason's babies could still be anthropanthromorphic, a word I made up.

Alcide: "Sookie, do you need me to act like your big brother and solve all your problems like usual?"
Sookie: "You've already helped me more than you know. Go, shift, kill stuff. Do whatever werewolves do. I got this!"

That last said with the kind of hilarous, adorable, wild-eyed zeal she usually employs for sucking bullets out of people.

MERLOTTE TRAILER OF SLUT-SHAMING

Luna: "That was crazy! It was almost like I was getting raped by a teenager in his older brother's body."
Sammy: "Um..."
Luna: "Anyway. Probably just that full moon nobody's mentioned in six seconds. Let's turn into animals and fly around and be whimsical until you want to barf."
Sammy: "References to shapeshifting remind me of killing my parents. Your whimsy and romance remind me that Sam is more worthwhile than I am! I will never be happy! Ya whore!"
Luna: "Whoa. You just shapeshifted into a dick."
Sammy: "I am on a rampage! And I have cramps some more! Get the fuck out of my trailer so I can barf up my guts and maybe die for some reason!"
Luna: "If you were a Skinwalker, maybe I could help. Oh well. Go fuck yourself, Sam Merlotte."

But you know? If they weren't brothers...

Anyhow. Pukes up guts, maybe dies. Skinwalking is tough on you for some reason; harder still when you've convinced yourself that you are everything disgusting, and your brother is everything beautiful. Tommy has got so much going on right now.

By Jacob Clifton

That last said with the kind of hilarous, adorable, wild-eyed zeal she usually employs for sucking bullets out of people.

MERLOTTE TRAILER OF SLUT-SHAMING

But you know? If they weren't brothers...

JESS & JASON

Jason: "Guess I'm not a werepanther. Hotshot keeps finding new ways to suck."
(Just give me some Timbo and I won't complain ever again, Hotshot. Come on!)
Jessica: "Wait, now you want to be one?"
Jason: "No, but I'm still searching for meaning in my brutal violation and stuff. Do you wish you weren't a vampire?"
Jessica: "No. If this show has a theme, it's that real always sucks more than fake, but you always have to pick it. I have superpowers, like any minority, and everything sucks, like it does for every minority. That question barely even makes sense to me because I'm so awesome."
Alternately: "It's kinda hard to explain, but my old world was about that big. And now? It's endless."

By Jacob Clifton

Jason: "It sucked having to stick up for Sookie all the time -- because of how she has that brain disorder? -- but I was also kind of jealous because she was special. Or how I once fetishized vampires to the point that I took V and my dick swolt up."
Jessica: "There are fifty ways you are special. You were a QB, you're hot as hell, you fuck everybody, and you're incredibly wise and don't even know it. And again, listen up this time, it doesn't matter who or what you are because by embracing it you become wonderful."
Jason: "So my magic power really is fucking. Well, you solved that problem rather quickly. Too bad it's not my main issue."
(Sexy silence.)
Jessica & Jason: "...Anyway, this has been fun but we love Hoyt and it's going to suck when we hook up so let's just keep secrets from him because we care about him so much and compound our totally compromised relationships okay? Okay!"

Jason, adorable: "Night, Jess!"
Jessica, upon reflection: "...Ah, fuck."

KING DORK MEETS THE HOODIED FANG

Eric: "Your Majesty. Sorry you have to kill me because of witchnesia and kissing Your human. My bad."
Bill: "Sookie is not Mine. That is not what this is regarding."
Eric: "Eh, you're still in love with her."
Bill: "Ah will now change the subject to your execution."
Eric: "Listen. My daughter just told me I'm a barbarian thug and never respected your authority. I know I have no options, and also I trust you implicitly as King. I'm sure killing me is the right move."
Bill: "That is ponderous."
Eric: "Finding out you're an asshole of supernatural proportions is also ponderous, Majesty."

Bill: "Ah am almost more grossed out by your honorable and only slightly obsequious acquiescence than the treasonous but flirtatious comportment of your incarnation."
Eric: "...English is not my first language, my liege."
Bill: "Ahem. Are you sure you don't want to bitch about the True Death?"
Eric: "No, I'm cool."
Bill: "Because Nan and Sookie are right, I just realized Ah am being a dorky butthole about this situation."
Eric: "Oh, hey there, Tiger, don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure you're doing a great job. That's a very pretty stake, for example. Let me point to the location of my heart."

Bill: "Hmm. To put it another way, what can Ah do to make you reconsider?"
Eric: "Nothing, but could you do me a favor?"
Bill: "Not kill you? Why, Ah would be happy to..."
Eric: "No, silly. Just tell Sookie that I've been in love with her technically my whole life -- even though the only way I ever express it is by talking about how pretty she is -- and that I hope you two crazy cats get back together, because she deserves to be happy. And I think you're pretty great."

He make the rattlesnake bite Jesus, gets one of his witchy ghost sons to invade Lafayette's body, and calls it a day.

Apparently Lala -- maybe like his mom? -- is a natural medium, that's why his powers are so important and also why he keeps being the one thing that completes the circuit, and also by channeling this Tio of Jesus's, he somehow gets enough power to spontaneously cure Jesus of his recent snakebite. (Or maybe it was a magic snakebite?)

Something, it's not really clear, but that's the vibe I got from watching bonus materials this week. And I like the idea of Lafayette getting shoved into being a healer or whatever by the danger of his loved ones, because he always talks such a good "fuck this" game but invariably it's his love for everybody else that fucks him over. That turns him into something new.

SPEAKING OF

Sam: "Tommy! Why are you dead! I thought we were going to turn into animals! But no! Instead you puked all over my house! This is why we can't have nice things! Skinwalkers puking and ghost voodoo fires and the black ichor of immortal goddesses all over my shit! At least I have a hot girlfriend with permanently erect pepperoni nipples, though. At least that hasn't been taken away from me."

AND ALSO

Tara: "Remember how Toni smoked and we used to have that same fight about it all the time like any moderately annoying couple? I'm going to smoke a cigarette now. But not because I'm Toni the Smoker, because I'm Tara the Cheating Non-Smoker. Turns out addiction doesn't really care about identity theft."
Naomi, verbatim and fairly wonderful: "Kinda like saying goodbye to her. I think I might like Tara better. We just met, but it seems like she's been through a hell of a lot and she's doin' the best she can. She's also really beautiful. And smart. And good in bed. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better."

True. Tara has been through a hell of a lot, and generally is doing the best she can. More people should remember that in this town, and not just be thrown off by how she's so miserable and acts so shitty all the time.

Naomi: "Let's go back to before and just call each other our real names."
Tara: "Okay, I forgot to mention how everybody but you is still here and getting menaced and stuff, and I feel bad about ignoring that for the last year. Maybe I shouldn't leave right away. I mean, it's not like 'cagefighting' is a real job or we get benefits or..."
Pam: "DID SOMEBODY MENTION MY FUCKING FACE ROTTING OFF?"
Tara: "...Okay, actually though New Orleans does have its advantages."

Pam: "MARNIE'S LOCKED UP AND THE BOYS ARE OFF IN MEXICO SO IT'S JUST ME AND YOU AND THEN YOU DYING"
Naomi: "Wait, is this one of those friends you were talking about?"
Pam: "HEY ARE YOU THE GIRLFRIEND WHAT IS YOUR NAME"
Tara: "Naomi, get in the car and drive all the way to the ocean and then jump in the ocean and start swimming."

Pam: "OH HI NAOMI WELL I GUESS TARA FORGOT TO TELL YOU THAT SEX WITH HER IS INSTANTLY FATAL IN ALL CASES EXCEPT SAM"
Naomi: "I changed my mind! I want to go back to dating Toni. I did not have all the information before."

THE MARNIE CHANNEL

Is so boring this time of night. She just stands there like the girl from The Ring and then right when you're going to turn the channel she turns around and stares at you all scary and she smiles and you remember: You were warned. The theatre world's preeminent Medea and you locked her ass up with only the memories of how you raped her that time? Dumb.

Marntonia: "Hey Olivier! All alone up there, eh? Come on down for a little chat. Oh, and if you could somehow believe that this is your idea, that would be great."
Olivier: "Bitch, I'm coming down there. Totally my idea."
Antonia: "Father Luis! Why, I haven't seen you since... What was it, the Kentucky Derby? Mick and Jerry's party at Studio 54? No, it's right on the... You know, if my head weren't attached, I swear I'd... Oh yeah. That time you raped me and burned me at the stake."
Olivier: "Has it really been 400 years? God, time flies."
Antonia: "Anyway, thanks for coming down, I just wanted to have a quick chat. You know, about this and that. About whatever, you know, what it's like being Sheriff, where's the best bottle service, how the easiest and laziest way to justify really fucked-up violence is when it's perpetrated on a Nazi or rapist. Girl talk!"

Olivier: "You killed my Maker. I was going to take you right out even before I was suddenly a rapist for this episode. Thanks for totally telling me you possessed this lady so we can kill her, even in the post-Russell Edgington world we all live in, on this full moon."
Antonia: "Or possibly I can do witch stuff at you and take over your body and make you fall on your knees and do terrible things to you and eventually escape?"
Olivier: "...That's fine too."
Marnie & Antonia: "Ya little fuck."

By Jacob Clifton

THE MARNIE CHANNEL

WOODS QUESTION: ARE THEY REALLY BIG? OR REALLY TINY?

Or is this actually a Midsummer Night's Dream thing? Because honestly every single person at some point in this episode either ended up in this one square acre, or is currently in jail at Bill's house. Characters from entire other TV shows are in these woods right now. These woods are so hot you probably won't be able to even get a table in these woods pretty soon. I thought I saw Lindsay Lohan in these woods once, but it turned out to be just this homeless guy. I saw Lauren Conrad in these woods once. Oh yeah? I heard she's really nice. Yeah, she was really nice.

By Jacob Clifton

Sookie: "Jason! I am about to get bored of you in five! Four! Did I mention you can't even get bitten into anthropanthromorphicism on the show? Three! Two!"
Eric: "OMG Sookie. Your ex-boyfriend gives the best zerberts."

They do it. They are reasonably attractive and very healthy people, so I guess it's attractive in a SoloFlex ad kind of way? But I don't know. Something about it is missing. I have this issue with nature where I don't like it touching me, so...

Oh, maybe it's as a reversal of Bill and Sookie getting all rough in the grave dirt, like, in this abundant life by the river, going slow and sweet, instead of frantically fucking like they were both going to die. Like, this season is as much about the moment after Sookie realizes that Bill was a Lie as it is falling for the new Lie that is Eric. Difference being that neither of them are actually Lies, but only Sookie would be able to tell that for sure, and she's the one running this show, so right now this Lie is true. You know what I mean?

I like that, do you like that? Anyway, they do it. And I think maybe Bill can feel it in his vampire heart, or maybe not, but either way he knows what's happening, so he drinks blood like wine and stands on his porch and stares out across the graveyard that used to be the only thing between them, when she was His. He can't become anything this time because there's nothing left for him to become. He's never looked so tall.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps True Blood and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion.