A Rookie In Sex Narnia

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 08-14-2011 · S04E08

The deal on the Devil Doll and Mikey is partially basically explained, after another run-in between Lafayette and that singing lady Mavis: She was having an old-timey affair with a married white guy, and he killed their baby while she was off getting him that doll to play with, so she's sort of a Llorona ghost figure that's fixated on the new baby in town (wild guess is that it has something to do with Arlene's botched witch abortion last year). She possesses Lafayette and steals Mikey right out from under Arlene and Terry's noses, stealing Andy's gun while in the Bellefleur home.

Jason pushes Jessica back into Bill's foyer, and she immediately attacks. Only by the grace of the witches taking a kombucha break do they survive, and after a passionate and immediately retracted kiss, he dutifully silvers her again and heads home. Before dawn, she's had a pretty scary dream about murdering Hoyt and running off with Jason, but the reality -- Hoyt rescinds her invite when her worried gestures toward separation cause a rerun of their fight he can't remember -- is almost uglier. She heads over to Jason's, where he is feeling awful about the kiss, and he ends up rescinding her invite to his place as well. Poor Jessica, guess you have to go live with daddy for a while.

While the town reels from the one dead vampire that resulted from Antonia's big spell -- that neighbor lady of Maxine's -- the less great stuff about New Eric finally comes to the fore: He's still amoral, pretty wild and not entirely sane. This is fine when he's fucking Sookie in all manner of positions and blood-sucking situations and weather (with even more hysterically moronic blood-intoxicated love talk than we got with her and Bill in Season One) but no so much once Sookie swears him and herself, newly blood-bonded, to the King's service for the oncoming Witch War.

Which has begun! After he spins the neighbor-vamp lady's death into a suicide story about anti-vampire bullying that comes perilously close to Tyler Clementi territory, Bill and Antonia arrange a parley -- in the cemetery, of course -- which lasts for about five seconds before Antonia starts another spell and Eric attacks, causing all the witches and vampires and SWAT guys to chase each other around in the mist. In the confusion, and after successfully shooting some faerie rays at a random witch attacker, Sookie gets shot in the gut. Bill's too busy saving Tara from Pam to get to her, and probably assumes that Eric would get there faster anyway, but Eric's too busy getting put under some weird puppy spell by Antonia, so it's up to Alcide to carry her bleeding-out near-corpse home.

Which is to be expected, except for how Alcide spent last night at the pack meeting assuring Debbie that he'd follow the Packmaster's instructions to stay away from Sookie's vampire bullshit and that he's not in love with her, etc. So now Debbie's going to go insane again because he lied to her face. Also at the pack meeting, Alcide comes to a respectful understanding with Marcus, and we see a much cooler side of him...

Which immediately vanishes when Marcus confronts Sam at Luna's house and they get into some were/shifter boy nonsense, because as expected the Shreveport Packmaster is also Luna's ex-husband. In other Merlotte/Mickens news, Tommy skinwalks Maxine to sell her property rights, which are not only paltry after all but devalued by the sunk mortgage of the suicidal vampire neighbor. So now he's barfing up crawfish, in drag, in the woods, for not much money at all. Which is just so Tommy.

In the end, it's a clusterfuck of red lasers, witchy fog, people running around getting killed, wild Eric kneeling spellbound for Antonia, and Tara rethinking her position while Sookie bleeds to death in a werewolf's arms; Lafayette's stealing babies, Debbie's losing her marbles again, and all Bill's attempts to stop the war from starting have gone utterly to shit. Four episodes left.

week: Presumably Sookie Stackhouse, the main character of the show, dies from getting shot.

CASTLE COMPTON

Jessica, like a hundred times: "The sun! The sun! A mass of incandescent gas!"
Jason, running to save her: "Jessica!"

He tackles her back inside the castle, but then they remember that she is a vampire and can easily kill him, so they just tussle around in a pile of their blood for awhile. Jessica's face is all burnt and crusty at first, but she sucks enough of his blood to get a little better, but that also means -- we know, but they don't -- that they're totally blood-bonded now.

Meanwhile, the witches chill. Marnie has been floating awesomely while the spell is going on, but eventually she lands back on the floor of MoonGoddess Emporium and hopes that all the vampires are dead. Er. Sadly for her, it didn't work except on that one lady.

Jessica kisses Jason for saving her life, and he's all under the influence of her V and vice versa, so he kisses back, but then they get the electric shock of total guilt and pretend it didn't happen. Bill has been screaming for Jessica this whole time, first because he wanted to be upstairs with her and then, after the spell, because he assumes she is dead and burnt up. She's still feeling a little hung over from getting set on fire, so Jason carries her all around the place like the princess that she is.

Bill: "Jessica, pay no mind to that human security detail you murdered on your way outside. It was not your doing that he perished, but that of the witch Antonia Gavilán de Logroño. His family will be well-compensated for his demise, being the sort of people that would let the head of their household work for Vampire Blackwater in the first place."
Jessica: "He had a daughter! I knew her!"
Bill: "When she grows up, if she still feels raw about it, you'll be waiting."

The three of them discuss how they don't want Jessica to die some more, so Jason chains her back up and it's even worse than last time.

Bill: "Better for a little pain now than to be able to escape again if the necromancer resumes her sorcery."
Jason: "Think good things. Hot summer days, barbecuin'... Uh, no. Um... Good things a vampire would think of. The moon. Never gettin' cold. Tru-Blood?"
Bill: "Not to be ungrateful, but you need to get lost okay?"

Jessica and Bill both adore him for awhile, and it's a really well-acted scene on everybody's behalf, and then they discuss about how Jason is kind of a cop and Jessica just killed a dude, but then Jason also shot one of the other security guys -- in the shoulder -- so they guess they're even. Bill is, as usual, affectionate and a little exasperated by Jason's drama, and then the SWAT guys come in and draw guns on Jason for a second.

By Jacob Clifton

WEREWOLF MEETING

Marcus: "Yes, the Vampire/Witch War is very interesting, but we are not going to get involved. That is two kinds of crazy we do not want to be involved in."
Some Puppy: "I will beat up all kinds of vampires and witches!"
Marcus: "I just told you that we're not going that."
Puppy: "I am challenging your authority! Teenage boys are like dogs sometimes!"
Marcus: "I might have to 'alpha' you some more, or make up some other dorky words."

LUNA

Sam: "Hey, sorry my brother raped you that time but thanks for helping me figure it out. I just want you to know that I alienated and deserted him for the eighteenth time. I think it'll work out pretty well, considering I was his only link to humanity."
Luna: "I don't care, your whole family is gross."
Sam: "You don't even know. Honestly, I am more pissed about the you part than the part where he murdered our parents, is how gross my family is."

There's a fairly neat moment when Sam tells her about the dogfights and Luna throws up in her mouth a little: A moment's compassion for what was done to Tommy.

Luna: "Okay, well, thank you for the opportunity to dump you again..."
Emma: "Sam! We are friends! Come play Barbies with me! It's my only personality trait!"
Sam: "Emma! I like kids and playing Barbies! I have no other friends!"
Luna: "Huh. I guess we're dating again."

Emma, verbatim: "My Barbie who's a pony likes you, but my Barbie who's a cat doesn't like you. She doesn't like anybody."
Luna: "Cat Barbie doesn't like me either. I hate that little bitch."
Sam: "Emma, do you think it's possible for us to make Cat Barbie like me?"
Emma: "You don't really get how this works, do you? We're shifters, the three of us -- I might also be a werewolf, it's not clear -- and the Pony and the Cat signify the two sides of our nature."
Sam: "I just want everybody to like me. Even Barbie dolls."

STACKHOUSE VAMP CUBBY

Eric: "I am not doing so well, because of all that silver you put all over me. I haven't had a bite to eat since your fairy godmother."
Sookie: "Let me go get you a Tru-Blood."
Eric: "No, that won't help either. I just want to lie here feeling shitty for awhile."
Sookie: "You want some of my blood?"
Eric, verbatim: "Please don't say this if you don't mean it."
Sookie: "It's reckless and foolhardy, plus the possibility that you will actually control your cravings and not suck the life out of me is key to all vampire romance novels. Of course I mean it."
Eric: "Okay. Hit me with some chains if you feel like you're about to die."

By Jacob Clifton

He drinks and it's neat, but not as neat as -- when he pulls out -- him biting a hole in his hand and offering it to her so she can have some of his blood. She's like, "I'm not hungry and I don't need magical healing powers right now," but he just says it will be super romantic and sexy, so even though she has no real reason to do it, girlfriend chows down.

FORTENBERRY I

Hoyt could feel Jessica dying, before, so he's been all cooped up in the house worrying about her and wondering where she is, which causes him to get super codependent on her the second she walks in. It is embarrassing and unmanly!

Jessica: "I think that I should move out and shouldn't have moved in with you in the first place. Polyamory is more my scene."
Hoyt: "Then I am going to radically shit my pants!"
Jessica: "I am trying to be awesome about this, and the fact is that I love you and you love me but you are a Muggle and I am a vampire princess and we are just headed different directions."
Hoyt: "But without you I will die!"
Jessica: "Then okay."

She kills him! She smashes his head on the counter and it explodes in blood and he is dead! Jessica!

Jason, idling the truck outside: "You look amazing with Hoyt's blood all over you! I want you to bite me and fuck me at the same time in my truck!"
Jessica: "That sounds delightful."
Jason, terrifyingly enough: "Yeah, come to daddy!"

JUST KIDDING

It was just a terrible dream! Bill sends some human sap "donor" down to feed Jessica, so she can fully heal, even though it's daytime and they all should be sleeping. I wonder if it's super exciting when you get to stay up all day, I know I love a good all-nighter, but then I don't shoot blood out of every hole when I do it. Jessica thinks the lady is just the dumbest thing.

BEULAH LAND

Cops: "[Casual racism toward vampires while they clean up the dead lady]."
Jason: "So we know this wasn't a suicide, right? There's more going ... Hey Andy, why are you staring at the puddle of goo and licking your lips like a cartoon cat?"
Andy: "Because I am a drug addict and I would happily lick up this dead lady."
Jason & Andy: Realize that Andy is powerless over his disease.
Andy: "It's the only time I ever feel like I'm not watching myself not living up to people's expectations, and hating those people for having expectations, and thinking about hitting them in the head with a bat."
Andy and his masculinity struggles: Are the one constant of this entire show.

Reporter: "Vampire Bill, did you know Beulah Carter was a vampire?"
Bill: "Because all of us vampires know each other?"
Reporter: "Yeah? I mean, that's a dumb parallel to draw in about eight ways? Anyway, do lots of vampires commit suicide?"
Bill: "Many vampires feel alone and confused, programmed to despise themselves by all the hateful and incendiary* anti-vampire rhetoric in the media."

The Reporter lady likes that, so Bill goes the full way and glamours her so he can use her segment to deliver a public relations campaign about vampire self-esteem. Jesus God, can you imagine what Glee must be like in the TB universe?

Kurt: "Rachel, do you think that new vampire boy is gay or bisexual? I sure hope not, that way I can super creep him out when I go for it anyway. Then we can talk about how homophobic it is for him to be creeped out just because I am a creeper."
Rachel: "I don't know, let's fuckin' sing a song about it."
Everybody: Takes a bunch of Ritalin and dances around and nothing makes any sense and then you cry.

ROOKIE BE TRIPPIN

Meanwhile, Eric and Sookie are having some kind of fairy-viking magic blood connection that is just the stupidest thing. Like first they're in the shower and you get ready for some yahoo palace action and then suddenly it's snowing, but it's sunny, and they are so much in love, and the shower turns into this like Sex Narnia with shit like:

1: "Your blood is amazing."
2: "So is yours! And it's snowing!"

and

1: "Why is there a bed here?"
2: "Can we make love in it?"

I mean, if you didn't know this was an Alan Ball script, that's how you know. He thinks this show is funnier than all the other writers and the actors and everybody else put together: Sookie and Eric are dorks, let me show you. This is going to be hilarious.

IT GETS BETTER

Bill: "Vampires commit suicide for all kinds of reasons, but mostly it's because y'all have been so mean to us ever since Russell Edgington pulled out that dude's heart on TV and declared war on humanity. You guys took that really poorly."
Glamoured Reporter: "We-took-that-really-poorly."
Bill: "Now, let's talk about Jesus."

MOONGODDESS

Like many of those from the world of that theatre we call The Theatre, Fiona Shaw is in the habit of saying fascinating things pretty much whenever she feels like it. So here:

By Jacob Clifton

IT GETS BETTER

MOONGODDESS

Like many of those from the world of that theatre we call The Theatre, Fiona Shaw is in the habit of saying fascinating things pretty much whenever she feels like it. So here:

Fiona Shaw: "Antonia's the most unlikely person to make non-vampires do something against their will, or hold hostages; she seeks only the willing. She only entered Marnie because Marnie begged her to. But Marnie has a deep desire to make her mark on the world, because she's been overlooked. When Antonia infused Marnie, it brought out Marnie's latent powers, and being empowered has had a huge effect on her ego. Her entire deportment changes, because how you carry yourself is all about how you feel about yourself."

Again this idea that it's not an either/or but the usual activist thing of how whittling yourself down to one cause or vengeance makes you a lot more powerful but also means ego-identification with some particular unconscious element that gets control or the upper hand, which will always make you less of a person overall. Like, maybe that sounds harsh, but think about the radical straight-edgers that'll curbstomp a guy for eating pastrami: Something got lost in the translation from Person to Purpose.

Any attempt to describe yourself with a list of words that is less than infinite is doomed to failure: When you think like a hammer everything looks like a nail, obviously, but you also lose all the parts of yourself that are not-hammer, which is the majority of your parts.

Antonia: "Man, I cannot believe the mileage Bill is getting out of this. But mostly I'm pissed that only one old lady vampire died. This is not how it went last time!"
Tara: "Wait, that spell we did was about marching vampires out into the sunlight? That seems questionable."
Antonia: "When your enemy's might so vastly outweighs your own that it's comparably infinite, honorable symmetrical warfare is no longer possible. You must grind your enemy out of existence because there's no other way to do it."
Tara: "I kind of see what you're saying."
Antonia: "[Lots of heart-tugging weasel words and neurolinguistic programming like she's trying to get Tara to vote Republican.]"
Tara: "I have come to the conclusion all by myself that we must destroy all vampires."

Tara: "MoonGoddess Emporium, Bootlicking Tara speaking."
Bill: "Ah, Tara. Might I speak with Antonia Gavilán de Logroño?"

Tara puts it on speaker so they can have a conference. As much as I wonder where this is going, I do think it's interesting that the parallels to Maryann seem so explicit, because it goes back to Lettie Mae and all that. Maryann mothered her, re-parented her in a very therapeutic way while trying to empower her selfishness, which was on target for a goddess of abandon and abundance. And then came Franklin, so the new mother has to be about harnessing her anger and working through the abuse not only of men and vampires, but all the way back to her childhood. There was so much going on in S2 that we didn't really get a memorable repudiation scene between Tara and Maryann, but I'm really hoping that when Tara tells Antonia to suck it, we get that catharsis.

Because of all the ways to find a balance with your anger, I like the witch way best, and if Tara were to end this season finally able to use that brilliant mind for its true purpose, I think that would be a valid and beautiful direction for the character, but still stay interesting. I love nothing quite so much as when a TV person starts the show crazy and then becomes sane, but come to find they still have problems -- Meredith Grey, River Tam, Kara Thrace -- because problems, of course, do not ever stop. Anyway, just something I've been thinking about.

Bill: "Dear Lady Antonia. Sorry you got raped and tortured and your face got burnt off, I can tell you're taking that really poorly."
Antonia: "Thanks for saying that, dude."
Bill: "I wish that you would chill, though."
Antonia: "Okay but this isn't actually about me, I was just hanging out being dead before your thug Eric came and dicked our girls around."
Bill: "Yeah, okay, that was also shitty."
Antonia: "I mean you guys literally bit Marnie. The most pathetic person who ever lived."
Bill: "I know, I know. God, I'm sorry okay? I don't know what else to say."
Antonia: "You better think fast, then."

Bill: "I can't really give you all the deets over the phone, but I'm a member of a fifth-column Monarchy, working against the Authority, who were behind the Great Revelation, which was intended to keep us from pulling shit like we did on you back in the day. Transparency."
Antonia: "I was thinking more like flagrant shameless lust but okay, go on."
Bill: "So even though nothing I've done as King supports this claim, I just want you to know that we care a lot and the Monarchy and AVL are actually on your side and agree that vampires are often a bunch of bullshit."
Antonia: "So what you're saying is that the very vampires who have been accumulating power over centuries are also the ones that aren't interested in exploiting their power?"
Bill: "I know how it sounds. You'd have to see my wounded eyes and self-loathing for yourself to really buy this bullshit I'm selling. Let's meet up."

Antonia: "Cool. I'm going to bring an entire army and not tell you."
Bill: "I'm going to do the same thing, awesome."
Antonia: "How about that cemetery by your house, at midnight?"
Bill: "I was thinking like a convention center or something, but okay."
Antonia: "Yeah, I'm kind of a drama queen."
Bill: "Yeah, I think we're going to get along just fine."

MAXINE

Andy: "Please stop taking pictures of your dead neighbor's goo while I'm thinking about eating it. This is an official crime scene, ma'am."
Maxine: "Don't you ma'am me, Andy Bellefleur. I taught you in vacation Bible school. Actin' like you don't even know who I am..."

Meanwhile, Tommy steals a bunch of makeup, turquoise jewelry, and a muumuu. Awesomely, he takes one pair of shoes and then totally puts it back for another pair, because if you're going to dress up like an old lady the last thing you want is some mean drag queen making fun of your choices.

SHREVEPACK

Alcide: "That was fun. I liked the part where Marcus was actually cool."
Debbie: "I met some really nice bitches tonight for sure. Get it? Bitches. Because we're like bikers."
Marcus: "Hey guys, thanks for coming out. I hope we'll be friends, at least until Debbie leaves you for me."
Alcide: "Water does seem to find its own level."

Shrevepuppies: Big snarly fight, because they are wolves and also bikers.
Alcide & Marcus: Alpha them hard. Bond and bromance a little; it's cool.

ROOKIE SEX NARNIA

1: "It feels good when snow melts on your skin, even when you're dead."
2: "This is crazy, yo."
Verbatim: "All is possible. You and me, possible. Loving you, possible. Loving you. Loving at all, actually. I/You never thought I/you could, after Bill. But here I/we am/are. All is possible. Blah blah blah. We are a mass of incandescent gas."

MERLOTTE'S

Arlene: "Yah yah yah! Skwee skwee blech blech!"
Terry: "Look, between this rear-view mirror I rigged up and that weird voodoo ghost, it's possible for me to work in this kitchen and also take care of our devil baby."
Voodoo Lady: "Hey, Lafayette!"
Lafayette, immediately bouncing: "Fuck this shit."

"Maxine" meets up with that oil rights prospector so he can get the check for her property and skip town -- having no family and having gotten burned by both Maxine and Sam in the last twenty-four hours -- but there are some chinks in the plan. Turns out that Maxine's property is like half an acre, and the suicide door makes buying Beulah's mortgage super cheap, so poor Tommy will only end up with like six grand. He's sad, because he was thinking more like twenty thousand, but even offering to let the guy fuck him doesn't seem to help much.

By Jacob Clifton

SHREVEPACK

Shrevepuppies: Big snarly fight, because they are wolves and also bikers.
Alcide & Marcus: Alpha them hard. Bond and bromance a little; it's cool.

ROOKIE SEX NARNIA

MERLOTTE'S

FORTENBERRY II

For real this time, Jessica comes home to Hoyt and breaks up with him again. He does not react the way he did in her dream, which is good for his noggin but bad for watching it if you love Jessica and Hoyt, which of course you do. They play out the fight she erased -- no shortcuts, ever -- and it just gets worse and worse and he's accusing her of all this shit, and she's backpeddling her terminology while sticking to the plan, and then Hoyt just goes bugshit and scary.

By Jacob Clifton

"After a year of you lettin' me think that we were happy? ...Goddamn it, you broke my fuckin' heart! This whole time I've been stickin' up for you, I've been gettin' beat up for you, and you know what? You don't deserve me. And I sure as hell don't deserve you. I deserve someone who's not gonna be a fuckin' virgin for all of eternity! I deserve someone I can have a normal life with. With kids, and daylight, and someone who's not gonna look at all the love that I have to offer and just say Sorry, not good enough. And someone who's not fuckin' dead!"

God, that's ugly. That's so realistic. Everything at once. Those fights where you just watch the fight having you; you can see him scaring himself and wishing he could take back every word as it leaves his mouth, and having to wind himself up worse just to stay on top of it. And then the whole time you've got Jessica trying to chill him out and explain the difference between what he's saying and the truth, but kind of acknowledging that it's not factually untrue in any way, and then it gets so bad! He rescinds her invitation and she goes flying out the door like he punched her, lands on the porch crying, and he goes, "My mom was right all along. Maybe God really does hate fangs. And you know? So do I. You fuckin' vampires! Fuck you!"

We knew it would be bad, we've known since their first wonderful date, but damn if that wasn't one of the saddest and most upsetting scenes of the whole series.

ROOKIE

Eric's Point: "I'm loyal to my King, and all, but let's get the fuck out of town. That way no matter which way it goes, I don't ever have to be Eric again."
Sookie's Point: "It's not that I'm still in love with Bill, but that's not the right thing to do."
Eric: "Conventional morality is lame."
Sookie: "Oh, now I see the problem with New Eric. You seem to be a vampire."
Eric: "I am a vampire for real. I don't give a shit about anybody but you, and then Bill a distant second."

Sookie: "Okay well, rather than pretending Real Eric doesn't exist, let's try and bring some of the good along with us into New Eric. You're a warrior, it's why Godric fell in love with you and it's the reason I love you. You can be a good person even as a warrior, and I don't think I understood that -- about people, about myself -- until I met you. Lose that, you lose me."
Eric: "Well, we can't have that. I want you forever."
Sookie: "No such thing."

OLD-TIMEY TIME

Voodoo ghost lady is named Mavis, and what she is doing is heading back home with a very familiar doll which she just bought for her baby, which she just gave birth to and left with her sister and her hot boyfriend so she could go shopping. Mavis gets things done. Upside is that her boyfriend is crazy hot and also has many accents. Downside is that he is married, and white, and just sent her sister home so he could kill their baby in private.

Back in olden times, things sort of degenerate from there; in right-now times, Lafayette dreams about the story and then wakes up to find Mavis in his house being ghostly, and then she climbs in through his mouth and abruptly he is Mavis. One of the best things about the shapeshifting theme this season is watching powerful actors do powerful acting, and I must admit that I was hoping we'd get to see Tomfayette somehow because Ellis is so amazing, but this is ten times better. Mavis takes Lafayette's body for a little walk, presumably to the Bellefleurs' to steal Devil Mike.

I mean, on the one hand it's an interesting way to deal with the Devil Doll/Devil Baby cliffhangers and storyline, and a fairly classic ghost story in its own right that feels right for the icky race and history stuff of the area, and then on the other hand you have to think about how there are now two mediums inhabited by two spirits with two valid grudges, and how Bertolo told Jesus and Lala that he was being prepared to fight the Big Bad of this season, and how the season is absolutely going to have to end on Samhain, and it's so thrilling and I'm still missing some pieces of how it's going to go down.

But I still don't quite have a handle on how the two ghosts play off each other. They're both selfish, in different ways, and they both have stuff going on that's incredibly personal, and I don't know how you blow up Mavis's issues to full-on politics the way you can Antonia's -- beyond the strict racial thing going on right now with Mavis's tragedy -- but I think the answer lies somewhere in there. Because the other parallel that's jumping out right now is that ghosts are one kind of undead and vampires are the other, this sort of Cartesian break where one is a mind that needs a body and the other is a mind that is only a body, and either way the witches are in the middle.

Or if you look at ghosts as being echoes, repeated drives that go over and over -- vengeance, grief, etc. -- until the mystery gets solved, then the season will end with Zelda Rubenstein and I don't think that's entirely how it will go, because ghosts are only part of the equation: Samhain is when the walls between the worlds get thin. Halloween, All Hallow's, Dia de Los Muertos, all of it's because of the Autumnal Equinox, which for the West comes straight from Faerie lore. Ghosts, faeries, ancestors, mediums and witches. And for a vampire show, that word equinox is important because of how day and night are the same length, so that's a thing too.

...And it's the eighth episode of twelve, which means we're about to enter Act III of the season, which means everything is about to flip over anyway. So, thinking about all that, I'd be willing to bet the faeries are going to show up on Sunday. It would certainly explain the vague, elliptical trailers for the episode, where Sookie -- spoiler! -- dies. (Also, explain to me the spammish benefit of overloading YouTube with a bunch of fake trailers that are all actually clips from Inland Empire and The Cell. I don't get that.)

The faeries are still on their way; they're just caught in the laws of relativity and the fact that time runs slower here. It took Claudine half the season to come get Sook, and she was in advance of the ones to follow, so they'll probably show up. Either at the end of the season, prepping us for year, or -- what I would like to see -- abruptly forcing the ghosts, witches and vampires to ally against a worse threat. Because out of all of us, only the Fae have every right to be here, and only the Fae come from the factory with literal madness already installed.

MY LIEGE

Sookie & Eric: "We are here to fight with you."
Bill: "What? I got so much shit going on right now you guys..."
Sookie: "No, like fight with you."
Bill: "Sookie, you are three feet tall. No way."
Eric: "She has a warrior's heart, Majesty. And sexual stamina also."
Bill: "Granted, and gross me out, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose this one anyway."
Eric: "You don't fight the wars you can win, you fight the wars you have to."
Bill: "Now I have learned the ways of manhood."

Eric: "So can we be in your War? I want to tear some shit up."
Bill: "Maybe I just don't want to risk Sookie's life like you do, because I am a better boyfriend and you are a worser one."
Sookie: "Maybe both of you should shut the fuck up and let me talk."
Bill & Eric: Actually do.

Sookie: "I have magic powers. Stomping, yes, and being adorable, but also microwave hands that blow shit out of the water, and also I can read minds."
Bill: "You also have the magic powers of being a human. I'm not being sexist when I say that anybody else involved in this shit could break you over their knee."
Sookie: "I am coming to terms with the negotiations of existing in a world where physical strength outweighs my suffrage. However, I must also reiterate that I am a blow-you-up powerhouse of microwave hands that may or may not work at any given time. Also, I am not going to give up on this, so you might as well fold. Or do I have to get really annoying? Because I will fucking do it."
Bill: "Ah concede your point."

By Jacob Clifton

MY LIEGE

CAROLINE BELLEFLEUR ESTATE

Mavis sneaks past Andy -- who's fallen asleep to a news report on Steve Newlin's disappearance, which by the way somebody on TV says out loud, "Nobody benefits more from Steve Newlin's disappearance than Steve Newlin himself," which is important I assume -- and steals his gun before heading into the room where Terry and Arlene are sleeping, snatching Mikey and the Devil Doll, and heading out into the night.

CEMETARY PARLEY

Bill: "...Lady Antonia?"
Antonia, typically/annoyingly: "I am no lady, I am peasant and proud of it."
Pam: "Get a load of Angela Davis over here."

Five seconds later they both admit to having brought like a million people as backup, including tons of witches carrying silver platters and crosses on the one side and SWAT guys with guns and the Pam-Eric-Bill-Sookie family on the other. It's fairly awesome how Antonia gestures and the witches all appear, like a Romulan cloaking device. (Or something less nerdy, because I'm going to lie and say that I don't know what that even means.)

Sookie: "Aw, man. Tara?"
Tara: "What part of this surprises you?"
Sookie: "I've only been witness to the awful things the witches are doing."
Tara: "I've only been witness to the awful things the vampires constantly do."
Sookie: "I guess we shouldn't attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Paranoia is stupid. War is stupid. Forgetting the humanity of your enemy is a shortcut to forgetting your own, and then it's just zombie-versus-zombie."
Tara: "It's like you don't know me at all."
(This was all through nonverbal communication that I determined this part. Actually they just stare at each other and Tara shrugs petulantly.)

Bill: "Okay, here are my terms. We won't bite or rape you anymore, and anybody who attacks people will -- as already stated -- get True Deathed."
Antonia: "Sounds good. So we're good here? I don't really know how peace negotiations work."
Bill: "It would be nice if you turned my girlfriend's boyfriend back into a cocksucker, and also fix Pam's face. And stop being necromancers all the time because that's cheating when you claim it's your religion to do that."
Antonia: "Um, both of those people tried to literally eat me."
Bill: "Yeah, I'm not saying they're dicks, I'm saying we go back to square one and you stop trying to genocide us."
Antonia: "Somewhere along the way you figured out that I was going to kill all the vampires on Earth? Damn. I thought it would take you longer. No dice."
(She starts doing a spell in her head.)
Sookie: "Bill! Spell in her head!"
Antonia: "DEMONESS! Being a ghost inhabiting a necromancer medium is one thing, but reading minds is beyond the pale."

By Jacob Clifton

Jason is doing all kinds of pushups -- although sadly, not those amazing vertical kind that make him seem like he got bitten by a radioactive pushup expert -- when Jessica knocks on the door. He invites her in, and she looks incredibly small and lost as she admits that she broke up with Hoyt. Jason loses his shit. Just loses his total shit. His arms are waving all around and he isn't really even yelling at her -- just his own guilt, as usual -- but it's still pretty much total hysterics coming from him. Jessica is shocked that once again her dream is not coming true, and she tries to talk him into it, explaining even about the blood bond and everything that already makes him uncomfortable, and then unbelievably enough he also rescinds her invite. She doesn't look quite so shoved this time, but it's still pretty sad to watch.

CAROLINE BELLEFLEUR ESTATE

CEMETARY PARLEY

Bill: "...Lady Antonia?"
Antonia, typically/annoyingly: "I am no lady, I am peasant and proud of it."
Pam: "Get a load of Angela Davis over here."

By Jacob Clifton

Eric, grinning like Godric on his most feral day, immediately jumps in and eats somebody. Everything goes to shit with a quickness. Antonia summons a great fog that covers the cemetery, witches are running around with silver, SWAT guys shooting gunsight lasers all over the place, the moon's still full, vampires eating witches, witches silvering vampires, total pandemonium.

Because it is ludicrous, though, it also looks like what I imagine LARPing is like. (Did you know how many LARP documentaries there are in the world? I have seen all of them. They are like crack to me. There are some that I have watched like five times. It may be my favorite genre of all things.) So everybody larps around the place having a big old excellent time, and then things get real personal.

Pam: "Hey Tara, I'm going to kill the shit out of you."
Tara: "Yeah, I figured."
Bill: "...Pam! As your King I forbid you!"
Pam: "That is so fucking lame! God damn it!"

Somewhere along the way, I think that Bill became my favorite character on this show. That is messed up, you guys. Hot messed!

Tara: "Wait, why did you just save me?"
Bill: "You honestly don't get it?"
Tara, begrudgingly: "...Yeah, no, I get it. Ugh, though."

By Jacob Clifton

Sookie: (Five seconds into being a badass, even shooting hand lasers on command for the first time, gets shot in the gut from friendly fire, and begins to bleed out. Even crazy Sookie thinks this is ironic. Like, what did I spend this whole season carefully negotiating a three-way tie between the strongest people in town -- a third-wave masterpiece that would make Nancy Botwin proud -- for, if I'm just going to end up rollin' around in the dirt and bleedin' from my abdomen? Maybe pretending I could involve myself in something called a Witch War was putting the cart before the horse a tiny bit.)

Bill: "Sookeh! Aw well, I'm too busy saving Tara. Eric will get it."

Eric: "Sukie! Ah well, I'll save her in a second after I eat Antonia. Or Bill will get it. Antonia, I am going to eat you so bad!"
Antonia: "Or, I will take over your mind with an instant spell and you will bow before me and I will pet you like a dog and who knows what it all means."

Sookie, dying: "Hey, where are all my boyfriends?"

Alcide: "Here I am! Let's get you home."
Debbie, wolfed out: "Well. That didn't take long. Like literally it took the time for him to drive over here. I will now go nuts. Finally! This whole washing-my-hair thing was really becoming a drag."

Sookie: Dies.

Week: Everybody has a funeral for Sookie and Alcide rips his shirt off because he is grieving so hard and he holds a baby or an infant fawn in his arms and cries, and that's like half the episode.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps True Blood, Gossip Girl, 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.