Trust Me On The Sunscreen

Recapped by Jacob Clifton · Aired 09-11-2011 · S04E12

Marnie, in Lafayette's body, ties Jesus up and makes him give her his demon-face powers, then stabs him to death (1) and heads on over to Bill's house wearing a great big muumuu. She chains Bill and Eric to a pyre and sets them on fire. They still look pretty good, though. Tara and Holly and Sookie form a new coven and raise all the dead ghosts of Bon Temps so that they can talk to Marnie about her stupid goddamn feelings some more. Gran tells Sookie to stop being everybody's girlfriend all the time, and then they take Marnie to witch heaven. Gran is still pretty much weird, if you were wondering.

Sookie takes Bill and Eric back to her place, and they drink a great deal of her blood. Woozy, she breaks up with both of them to focus on her career of being a waitress. Alcide drops by her work and says that they should just settle for each other instead of hoping for true love in a world without pity. He words it, of course, in such a way that it seems like a challenge so she turns him down. (I think that this show is about a woman losing her entire fucking mind and that the first hint is that she turned down Alcide. "Why did we think this wasn't about Sookie's deteriorating mental health," we will say, and then eventually remember that she turned down Alcide.) Anyway, she dumps him too, so now her boyfriend total is zero. This has consequences.

Pissed off about being abjured by Alcide, and also from being an erratic drug addict, Debbie drops by Sookie's house with an enormous shotgun -- dressed like something one of her old gutter slut outfits coughed up -- and blows Tara's head off (2). Then Sookie shoots Debbie in the face (3). It is amazing. On the downside, nobody comes to help Sookie with Tara's brain leaking out the back of her head, because Sookie now has no boyfriends.

Sam and Luna are still the most fascinating people alive. Sam is attacked by a werewolf for murdering Marcus last week, but probably he will turn into a rhinoceros about that.

An old Marine buddy of Terry's shows up in town and the ghost of Rene is like, "Even though I am the ghost of a serial killer, Terry's still got me worried." Andy's fairy girlfriend doesn't come back around, even when Holly permits him to hug her. I was sure Holly was going to get murdered by Fairy Girlfriend when that happened, but maybe I'm just desensitized to murder because of everybody getting murdered.

Lafayette, having lost both his cousin and his hot boyfriend to brutal murder -- and possibly with the added complication of having contracted demon face -- will most likely lose his cheerful demeanor for a while. Maybe he will turn into a lesbian for no reason. Really, though, the numbers are in and I think he should be more concerned about getting shot in the head like every other black person on an Alan Ball TV show.

Nan Flanagan comes over to Castle Compton to see if Bill & Eric want to join her uprising against the AVL and Authority, but then they murder her (4) for having figured out about Sookie being a fairy. Oh, also the AVL or Authority has put a bounty on both their heads also, but that's way less important than Sookie's secret getting out, because they are addicted to her magical fairy blood and magical fairy vagina.

Pam loses her shit about Eric being in love with Sookie, but nobody murders her. Pam remains unmurdered.

Hoyt beats the everloving shit out of Jason, which was pretty amazing, and then Jessica comes over to his house looking like sexy Little Red Riding Hood, and they have sex for about one million years. Then she heads out into the night to drink people's blood and read The Ethical Slut one more time. Then Steve Newlin shows up! Still has the hair! Still is totally wonderful! Still wants to fuck Jason! And did I mention he is now a vampire!

And somebody has dug up old Russell Edgington!

Previously, Bill shot Marnie to death so then she appeared as a ghost and has possessed Lafayette. Meanwhile, Alcide broke up with Debbie in a very dramatic way and killed her boyfriend, so now she has gone around the bend. Jason and Jessica have maybe decided to date. Everybody thinks everything is okay now, because they don't have very long memories about how terrible things are constantly happening in this town.

REYNOLDS-VELASQUEZ

Jesus: "I guess you were right and we should not have joined that coven. Shit swiftly went down the shitter when we did that. But on the other hand, I made you breakfast."
Marnie: "I don't want to speak out loud because you might recognize my voice, but I also don't want you to know that I'm mad at you yet, so I will just kind of smile in a sweetly malevolent way."
Jesus: "Eat this breakfast, I'm serious. And starting to reconsider even using my magic. We can talk about this later, give me a kiss."
(You can always tell from kissing. That is a TV rule.)
Jesus: "Lafayette, is that you in your body?"
Marnie: "No, it is Marnie!"
(She stabs him with a fork. Take that, breakfast!)

STACKHOUSE-THORNTON

Sookie: "So many people have died in this kitchen that now I see dead people everywhere. Maybe it is just Halloween."
Tara: "Good morning, Sookie! Sorry about joining that cult."
Sookie: "That's okay. Do you believe in Halloween? Or Heaven? Because I keep seeing my Gran's dead body over there in the corner. It's distressing."
Tara: "I don't believe in Heaven but I do believe that your Gran is the president of Heaven."
Sookie: "I wish she were here to tell us what to do about boyfriends and things. It's been a relatively short time, subjectively, since I lost her."
Tara: "I think she would tell us to use sunscreen and that advice is a form of nostalgia. Also, she would support my anti-vampire bias."
Sookie: "I would like to grow old in this house and not die in this episode. I would like that for both of us."
Tara: "I wish that you hadn't said that."

TOMMY FUNERAL

Maxine: "Hi, Sam. I guess since we both were surrogate parents to Tommy that makes us a family by the transitive property. Did you know he used to wear my clothes?"
Sam: "I think what's important to remember is that we loved him or something."
Maxine: "Call me Momma."
Sam: "Absolutely not."

By Jacob Clifton

Luna: "Hey, I couldn't wait to come to this funeral of the guy that raped me."
Sam: "As the guy who engineered your daughter's father's death, I am happy to see you."

PUBLIC WORKS

Jason, in the pickup's mirror: "Jason Stackhouse, you are a good person. Yes you are!"
Hoyt: "Hey, Jason! Thanks for coming to visit me at work, now that I am the only person on this entire work crew because of people becoming panthers and mediums and Cajuns."
Jason: "Bubba, I have to tell you a secret."
Hoyt: "We have no secrets. Our bromance precludes it."
Jason: "Well, I fucked Jessica."
Hoyt: "How could you do this?"
Jason: "Missionary, then doggie, then her on top."
Hoyt: "Even for Jason Stackhouse that reply is unlikely. I guess I have to beat you up."

It is brutal.

Jason: "It's because I drank her blood! I tried to fight it!"
Hoyt: "Things don't just happen. You make choices. You make fucked-up, selfish, piece of shit choices!"

Such violence! It continues!

Hoyt: "And you will never have the special romance I had with her! Nor the special romance you and I had! Because you are not a good best friend! James Franco would never do this to me! You are missing something inside yourself!"

Jason: (Finally grasps Hoyt's artful use of metaphor.)

REYNOLDS-VELASQUEZ

Jesus: "Lafayette, if you are in there I think you should stop Marnie from tying me up and lighting all kinds of magic candles and incense."
Marnie: "Lafayette became a witch like yesterday. Trust me when I say he is not going to be overcoming me at this time."
Jesus: "Based on everything you ever do and say, and my intimate knowledge of you before this whole thing started, I'm willing to bet that you are a lonely person."
Marnie: "I am also now a dead person, which limits my ability to make friends. You can't always just hug it out with dead people, Mavis's pop psychology epiphany aside. Look at how erratic Antonia's characterization was this season. Can you imagine trying to reason with that?"
Jesus: "Antonia hated you! Because you are an asshole! I have sort of lost track of what I'm trying to do here!"

Lafayette: "Jesus, this bitch is strong and seriously homicidal!"
Marnie: "Whether or not you were needling me to buy Lafayette some time, I really don't like him calling me a bitch. And I can always cut out his eyeball and make him eat it. I think we should play things my way."
Jesus: "I think you may be right. What are you after?"
Marnie: "I want your demon face brujo magic."
Jesus: "I don't think that's how it works, realistically."
Marnie: "Reality and I do not, historically, have a very friendly relationship."

MERLOTTE'S

Arlene & Terry are dressed up like zombies, because they are totally plugged into the zeitgeist. Whatever was trendy five years ago, they are on it. They are both ridiculously cute at this time, as is Sookie:

Sookie: "Oh, it's Halloween today?"
Arlene & Terry: "Zombies are the new vampires! In terms of pop culture and not our society on this show, where vampires are real and thus wouldn't hold the place in pop culture that they do in the real world. Like that!"
Sookie: "I don't know about zombies, but your severed toe necklace is super cute."

Oddly, it is.

Sookie: "Arlene just told me that your brother died. I would have come to the funeral."
Sam: "I kind of just want to forget the whole thing happened. Why haven't you been at work?"
Sookie: "Because you fired me?"
Sam: "It's like the Gift of the Magi. What a comedy of errors. Anyway, you can have your job back. Lafayette called in sick with hooker bitch ghost disease, Arlene's fucking useless and Holly's got that face of hers, so we're in need of some extra hands. For work today I will wear a flattering Civil War cap that makes me look like a train conductor on a children's show, and you will wear these bunny ears."
Sookie: "Our relationship is pretty adorable when this show remembers it exists."

JESUS PROBLEMS

Marnie: "Since I've got you tied to that chair, I can subject you to an entire long lecture about how Halloween is the Witches' New Year. I will say Samhain wrong, like everybody else on this show throughout the episode, and also pretend that Wicca wasn't invented fifty years ago."
Jesus: "I will lose consciousness while you go on and on about this irrelevant subject."
Marnie: "There's possibly an interesting worldbuilding thing in this scene about how our cultural understanding of witches as hags in cloaks on brooms was actually engineered by the vampires for political reasons? Maybe. Maybe that's what I'm talking about."

Jesus: "Hey, I know it's late in the day but I'm willing to jump on the Vampires Suck train with you. Especially considering that once they find out you've possessed Lafayette, they will kill him."
Marnie: "That is why he is going to kill them first. Or at least two of them."
Jesus: "He has a name and feelings! Don't be a sociopath!"
Marnie: "After the last twelve episodes you're finally working that one out? Look, this is war. We make sacrifices. I sacrificed Antonia and the concept of having friends. Lafayette sacrificed his agency. And you will sacrifice your demon face."
Jesus: "You can't trade magic like fuckin' Pokémon cards! I would gladly give you this shit inside of me if I knew how, but I just don't!"
Marnie: "For the purposes of this part of the scene, both of those things are true."

By Jacob Clifton

Jesus: "I don't know if I've mentioned this a few thousand times, but what's inside of me is seriously dark. I will tell people to shut up. I stabbed a goat."
Marnie: "Yeah, I'm not concerned about that? Black magic is kind of my thing."
Jesus: "You've become everything you hate!"
Marnie: "If you don't stop saying that, I am going to cut off Lafayette's nipple."
Jesus: "Okay, you know how a second ago, the whole Pokémon thing and how it can't be done and I don't know how to do it?"
Marnie: "Yeah, that was a bit of an obstacle."
Jesus: "Well, for some reason that's no longer true, a minute after I said it. Let's do this."

Jesus does demon-face magic, and then Marnie stabs him to death and Lafayette's body has a demon face. So I guess it worked out.

MERLOTTE'S

Arlene's kids are dressed like various things; I thought Lisa was dressed as Arlene but in fact she's dressed like somebody from one of those MTV shows about the pregnant teenagers. Which is ludicrous, but this line was pretty great:

Arlene: "You better start behaving yourselves right now or you're gonna be trick-or-treatin' down at the trailer park again. Now do you want a bag of empty Coors cans and food stamps? Or do you want candy? It is your choice."

Sam and Luna bring Emma over to meet Coby and Lisa, and they're adorable and friendly as usual. Arlene asks Emma what she's going to be, and even though it's Halloween Emma doesn't know what she's talking about, so she explains about how her mom's a shapeshifter and her dad was a werewolf before he got murdered. Yesterday. Emma's either amazingly sanguine, or really stupid. Either way, Arlene completely ignores whatever she said and runs off all, "All righty then!"

Alcide: "Well, I broke up with Debbie in a magical werewolf way, and now she's on the loose with a giant shotgun and has always been jealous of you, so just FYI you might want to watch out for that."
Sookie: "When did this happen?"
Alcide: "It was like moments ago. But anyway, it really made me think about how you and I don't really have much of a stake in each other, beyond our constant hugging of each other, and I thought, Well, we both have terrible taste in people we actually end up with, so why not date each other because we're good on paper?"
Sookie: "That's so insulting I won't even respond to it, but I still feel nebulous affection toward you."

Alcide: "Mostly, I just want you to feel judged for your ongoing relationships with vampires, who are the only people on earth you can date because of your debilitating mental disorder."
Sookie: "I don't like feeling judged. Although I am also incredibly fickle, so who knows how this will play out. All I know is, this whole season's been about whether or not I can afford to be single or whether I need a supernatural boyfriend, and so cutting my losses is already a sign that I'm going to be endangered in the future. Anyway, always nice seeing you."
Alcide: "I have to go! They just found the remnants of somebody getting buried in concrete at one of my job sites after drinking your blood and having Godric's ghost accidentally talk Eric into burying them there, so I should see what's up with that."
Sookie: "I hope it's not the only other vampire on earth who knows that I'm a fairy! That was once a very important plotpoint that ruined my life on several occasions."

REYNOLDS-VELASQUEZ

Tara: "Lafayette? Jesus? Anybody home? Oh, just you, Jesus. Tied to a chair with an enormous knife sticking out of you, dead. You know what, probably Marnie's ghost has possessed Lafayette's body and then taken your demon face out of you and headed over to Bill's house to kill Eric and Bill. I bet -- based on the total lack of evidence and the fact that I don't know about any of these things or even that they're possible -- I bet that's what happened. I better go round up Sookie and Holly and drive all over Louisiana instead of using the telephone."

MERLOTTE'S

Sookie: "Holly, that fairy costume scared me so bad! Sometimes I see goblins. Actually, I've been hallucinating all day. Do you think it's because of Halloween? You'd better tell me everything that you know about Halloween. Make sure it takes a really long time and you mispronounce Samhain like everybody else on the show, and pretend like Wicca wasn't invented in the late '90s."
Holly: "In order to make sure that my lecture on Halloween is succinct, I will smoke pot first."

By Jacob Clifton

REYNOLDS-VELASQUEZ

MERLOTTE'S

Years pass.

Sookie: "Yeah, I just have this weird feeling like something terrible is happening, but not in a way where I want to investigate it further."

Tara: "You guys! I deduced this entire part of the episode in a laughable way! Get in the car!"

Even though the car is ten yards away, by the time they get in the car it is nighttime.

Sookie: "I used my telephone."
Tara: "That is brilliant."
Sookie: "It told me that Eric is not at Fangtasia! and then Bill didn't answer at all."
Holly: "Not only am I high, but I also just found about a pound of salt in my purse."
Tara: "Why do you carry an entire canister of salt in your purse? That's bad for your back."
Holly: "Just in case I need to do a spell involving tons of salt."
Tara: "So you do a lot of spells? I mean, I know we've discussed this at length in episodes, but the funny thing about this season is that no single episode seems even slightly aware of what happened in other episodes."
Holly: "I haven't ever done magic on this scale. Except for in other episodes of this season, where we had this same conversation and then I did magic on this scale."
Tara: "It's also annoying how you say Oh my Goddess and stuff like that. Anyway, Sookie, I was thinking that probably Bill and Eric are going to kill Lafayette if they find out he's been rented."
Sookie: "I'm sure whatever is going on is way worse than that."

The obnoxious, deranged speech -- and I do like a lot how the show treats ghosts this way; Mavis was the same thing, like this one desire or vengeance that just keeps saying its own name over and over -- takes so long that Holly manages to pour an entire circle of salt around the stake. Bill dorkily tries to distract Marnie from this happening with some random threats and quibbles, and as usual he does this with the most panto nervous staring at Holly imaginable. He's so predictable. Any time Bill sweet-talks you with the side-eye, guess what: You are about to get ambushed. Marnie doesn't know that, but we do.

Marnie sets the boys on fire and they start screaming and cooking, and the ladies think about how they can't kill Lafayette, but then from somewhere in her mind Holly is like, "You know what would be a really effective spell right now? If we used the power of Halloween to call forth some randoms from this cemetery near Bill's house who would then walk around not doing anything. I bet that would help." So that's the spell they do. Luckily, both Tara and Sookie know the words of this spell.

Antonia: "Marnie, goddammit. What are you doing now?"
Marnie: "Girl, am I glad to see you!"
Antonia: "I was crazy before when I was a ghost, but now that I'm just normal dead it's even easier to see through your bullshit. Also, vampires are part of nature. Wanting them gone is like saying you don't ever want anything to die, or that lions are meanies for eating gazelles, or keeping your daughter a virgin forever, or any time you privilege imaginary purity over the sophisticated complexity of reality. It's a thorny political issue, with these vampires, but you do spiritual damage to yourself every time you kill the little black-eyed girl, no matter what form she takes."

Marnie can't hear it, she's a ghost that can't stop saying its own name over and over. Gran shows up from the graveyard looking jacked and pulls Marnie right out of Lafayette, so he finally gets to take a little nap on the grass. All the random dead watch Marnie and Antonia continue to fight.

Antonia: "I was so crazy and so convinced I was right that I was in a feedback loop of rage. I mean, you weren't wrong that my ghost was crying out for vengeance. But after 400 years, the signal-to-noise gets so lossy that you're guaranteed to lose on something like that. And so now I see you hanging around, stabbing boyfriends and cutting off nipples, and I just... You are right that I love you. Come home with me."

By Jacob Clifton

Marnie: "No! I am throwing a danged fit!"
Antonia: "Look, I'm sorry you're a nerd. But you need to get over it. You are dead."
Marnie: "My past persecution and current obsession are linked! I've spent my life being dicked around by the dead, forced to act like I have a concussion."
Antonia: "How does any of that have to do with vampires?"
Marnie: "The opposite of powerless is powerful! It feels good!"
Antonia: "...Really?"

Marnie: (Primal nerd rage.)
Adele: "Get it, girl. Get it out. No room for that where we're going."
Marnie: "This fuckin' sucks!"
Adele: "Time is like a boardgame. You think your story and your pain matter. But the only good thing about death is how little your pain stops mattering when you can look down at the game and see how much your pain looks just like everybody else's. It doesn't make you special and it earns you nothing. Hurting other people doesn't make you hurt less. It just means you're stuck inside your story. Pain's just the last veil."

MERLOTTE'S

Arlene: Bitching to herself about taking out the garbage because all of the waitresses and cooks and hosts are off having Halloween adventures and saying Samhain wrong and pretending like Wicca wasn't invented last Tuesday.
Rene: "Hey, Arlene! I just dropped by to say hello and that I still love you and our baby even though I am a serial killer. Also, I am going to do this in my fake Cajun accent for some reason."
Arlene: "Even though I totally saw a ghost a couple of nights ago and I know that they are real, I am still losing my fucking mind."
Rene: "Okay, just watch out for Terry's history. He's bringing trouble of the worst kind. I've met the ghosts of his past. They ain't gonna rest forever. Run."

Terry: "Arlene, why are you back here screaming at the garbage?"
Arlene: "I'm not sure I should tell you. One, because my paranoia knows no bounds and I was just told you're going to be trouble season, but also because the same thing happened last season at this time, with our baby and that gross doll, and that ended up being a succession of red herrings. So maybe it's nothing. Maybe the ghosts of your past will just really be ghosts, or a haunted firetruck or something, and some other character can go to Mexico and get magic powers on the back of our dumb story."

STACKHOUSE

Jessica runs to Jason's house in the sexiest Little Red Riding Hood outfit, with sumptuous visuals borrowed from the ads for the Seyfried movie last year. It's lovely. Jason thinks she's trick or treaters so he yells, but then it's her looking crazy good. They have a moment of decision as to whether he's going to invite her in, but of course he does. She's sad to hear that he finally told Hoyt -- as evidenced by his black eye and whatever -- but maybe also proud, even though she's sad for Hoyt.

Jessica: "Did you hurt him?"
Jason: "Well, I didn't touch him, but..."

They have eleven hours of graphic sex on the couch.

Jessica: "I don't want to be your girlfriend. I think we should keep it casual. Committing to Hoyt right out of the box caused me to go a little poly and I'm interested in continuing to check that out."
Jason: "Kinda wish you would have told me that before I took an ass-kicking..."
Jessica: "Uh, I didn't ask you to do that."
Jason: "It was the right thing to do."
Jessica: "And since when is Jason Stackhouse concerned with doin' the right thing?"

You can almost see the dealbreaker materialize, because what an amazingly wrongheaded thing to say about Jason Stackhouse. All he ever does is worry about doing the right thing, and then do the wrong thing. Or do the wrong thing by doing the right thing. Or do the right thing in such a dumb way that it creates the wrong thing. Or actually do the right thing, and then get hit in the face with the thing. It hurts his feelings. It should.

Jason: "You ... Don't know me very well."

I honestly thought he was going to send her on her way, but she recovers nicely -- "Fair enough, but I don't know myself very well either and Hoyt's already been collateral damage to that ongoing process" -- and anyway that's not what this scene is about.

This scene is about when she was standing at the doorway, looking beautiful, and he decided to invite her in.

Jason: "You know what you are? You're dangerous."
Jessica: "Yes. I am."

FANGTASIA!

Pam has a rapid and complete meltdown in front of Ginger because she just woke up and she doesn't know where Eric is or what's been going on, but she's sure that he's with Sookie, and presumably she has no idea that Sookie just saved his life again, but anyway that's not what this scene's about either.

Pam: "Sookie. I'm so over 'Sookie,' and her precious fairy vagina, and her unbelievably stupid name. Fuck Sookie! I've been with Eric over a hundred years. I've watched him seduce supermodels, and princesses, and spit out their bones when he is finished. How can someone named 'Sookie' take him away from me?"

She finally collapses against the door of the Fangtasia! office, and Ginger ignores her protests and wraps her arms around Pam, and Pam sobs and finally holds onto her with everything she's got.

I don't know. It's a great scene, but I really feel like Pam took some left turns in characterization this year and I'm not sure about it. I mean, she was always the least human out of all of them, even less than Eric, and I guess there's a certain amount of propaganda in that -- she sells the vampire party line and her nonattachment to Eric and everything because she has to, just like Lorena had to -- but this season has made her so shallow that I'm not even sure that's the intention. I feel like there was a way to marry her alien coldness to the deeper humanity this show gives its chosen secondary cast, and I'm not sure "fat best friend with a secret crush who pretends he's not breaking her heart" was the wisest way to do it. Especially with all the sarcastic, strong women who still have yet to die in this episode.

By Jacob Clifton

Jason: "You ... Don't know me very well."

This scene is about when she was standing at the doorway, looking beautiful, and he decided to invite her in.

Jason: "You know what you are? You're dangerous."
Jessica: "Yes. I am."

FANGTASIA!

She finally collapses against the door of the Fangtasia! office, and Ginger ignores her protests and wraps her arms around Pam, and Pam sobs and finally holds onto her with everything she's got.

STACKHOUSE-THORNTON-REYNOLDS

His house being an abattoir, Tara's installed Lafayette in one of the guest rooms. He's pretty much a goner, emotionally. Stabbing the love of your life in the chest probably really takes it out of you. She's very kind, and very strong, and seeing him get lost like this just tears her up. She's always so good to them.

Jesus kisses him goodbye, and leaves him with this: "Dude? I'm dead, you're a medium."

I kind of love the idea that Lafayette will go back into the hole, like he did after Eric -- that maybe continuing his relationship with Jesus will be the bad thing he does year. This show, all Alan Ball shows, are about grieving, and I think the show would make a strong case for Lafayette living in the shadow of holding onto him, maybe until Jesus becomes something monstrous. But if Lafayette's story ends up being about the demon face, or being the only witch that's really left at this point, the untrained solitary powerhouse, that would be good too.

What I want, what I've wanted since Amy and Jeannette in the first season, is a continued witch presence. There's always been a sort of amazing symmetry in the way the supernaturals deal with the natural world: Vampires have teeth like snakes, skinwalkers vomit up their lives, werewolves build shadow societies. Even the faeries were here first, and they're close to the natural world and to the explosive forces of nature and light. Maryann fell in love with her for the sake of nature, and the vampires fall in love with her for light, and both of those things meet in the sun.

But the witches are the only group that's about humans mediating a relationship with any of that: Connecting with nature, making choices and employing tools, rather than making deals with more powerful entities. And I feel like the show never really pulled the trigger on Russell's druid stuff, just sort of left it on the table so he could do politics and go post-Talbot crazy, so it seems like a good thing to keep the witches around for year, if the faeries are going to be starting shit and Russell's coming back, because the way each of the groups has its connection to nature and to the secular world is one of the things that has always set this show apart.

MERLOTTE'S

Andy brings Holly Cleary -- still wearing her cute fairy outfit -- a huge bouquet of flowers and goes into full disclosure mode.

Andy: "Sorry about the last time, when I took your flowers."
Holly: "That's okay, you were nervous."
Andy: "No, I was a drug addict. V. thought I needed it to do the job, and to talk pretty ladies like you... So I didn't feel like a loser all the time. It worked for a while, then it didn't."
Holly, wearily: "Okay look, honey. You're really sweet and everything, but this is all just too much for me right now."
Andy: "It's no problem. Lot of baggage, I get it. I just wanted to say that I'm sober and I'm lonely. And I can be good to someone if they let me. 'Night."

Well done! She gives him permission for one hug, on tippy-toes. She has no idea that he's already sworn to the Light to protect another fairy, or what that will mean, or what it's done to him already. I think this story will be amazing, because the hug isn't what this scene is about: It's about last week, when Arlene told him the real world would always love him more than dreamland, forest-angel-ladies, drugs, and that Holly was the proof.

MEANWHILE

Sam says romantic things like, "Life is violent and cruel by nature, so when something good comes along you gotta stop and celebrate it," and Luna says fascinating things like, "I guess I'm on this show again season."

STACKHOUSE

Jessica offers to give Jason a blowjob time -- Hoyt was always nervous about the fangs -- and then takes off. They discuss at length about how Jason's not entirely happy with the no-strings relationship she's envisioning, because he's been through four seasons of this show and that Jason was pretty long ago at this point.

Jessica: "I'm leaving because fucking you made me hungry, and I don't want to drink your blood, because I'm not ready to be that intimate with you."
Jason: "So you're gonna glamour some total stranger and drink their blood?"
Jessica: "Yep. Happy Halloween."
Jason: "I get it. It's kinda like a hooker, with kissing."
Jessica: "Oh is it."
Jason: "Not that you're like a hooker."
Jessica: "Hell, maybe I'll dress up like one sometime."
Jason: "You're like no other woman I've ever been with. And I have been with a lot of women."
Jessica: "Oh God, that's... Actually really sweet."

She pops fang, giggles and takes off. He is cool with all of it. Jason Stackhouse, now working on four years of being the awesomest.

There's a knock at the door and he runs to it gladly, naked as a jaybird, but then you know who it is, instead of Jessica? Why, the good Reverend Steve Newlin, still looking adorable and not even bothering to stop staring at Jason's dick like a Tex Avery cartoon... and then what's this? Oh, fangs. Newlin's a vampire.

I mean, how timely. This was one of the two honest shockers of the episode -- I was very surprised but not entirely shocked by the Jesus thing -- but I did not expect to see him at all, even though they've mentioned him like a dozen times. And I guess turning the leader of the FoS is ironic in a way vampires would enjoy. I like that it allows him to embrace his sexuality, which was always an interesting note in the character. But somehow adding those things to the idea of a self-hating vampire at the head of an evangelical anti-vampire movement... I mean, he can't run for Congress because they meet often during the daytime, eliminating the most obvious cliché, but there are still several ways it could go, and most of them are pretty on the nose. I'm just happy to see him.

SPEAKING OF AWESOME OLD FRIENDS

Alcide's employee has been glamoured, so he doesn't really remember what happened, but the old crazy music of crazy old Russell Edgington starts playing the second he shows him the hole and the silver chains that were left behind. Yay!

What do you think that's about? How did he get out? What if Pam left him out? What if he is in league with Newlin? What will the post-Russell Edgington world do with Russell Edgington? How can the public possibly deal with that, especially with the radical shift in vampire politics that we're about to learn slash not really learn about?

CASTLE COMPTON

Nan shows up with some gay stormtroopers to tell Bill and Eric that, Marnie or not, things are dire. The Sheriff steps up as usual, but Nan sees through his Bill loyalty and explains that the "litany of bullshit" she's dealing with is much larger than their smalltown witch infestation, or even the "backwoods kingdom" of Louisiana period. Which makes the conversations surrounding the Tolerance Thing even weirder, because Bill's whole grudge was that she blew off the witches and he dealt with it -- valid -- except he dealt with it, and Nan dealt with the blowback from the Tolerance Thing... I don't know. It probably makes more sense than I think it does.

The facts are these: Nan has quit as spokesperson of the AVL and been fired from the Authority, for reasons, and Bill and Eric are both under bounty at this time. In fact, her last job was supposed to be killing them both, and then presumably dying herself. Instead, she's decided to mutiny against the American Vampire League and the Authority, and she's inviting Louisiana and Area Five along.

Nan: "There are factions inside the regime who have never been completely on board with the current agenda. Sheriff Northman knows what I'm talking about."

Interesting. They ask what's in it for them -- besides the obvious -- but it would still help if we know what the Authority does or who the AVL even is. Based on the punk flashback I thought... This always gives me trouble. Bill was in Bon Temps because of Sophie-Anne, but he was always working with Nan and the AVL. Mississippi was about that, and his eventual fight with Sophie-Anne was also about that. So I guess this is just Nan finally wanting to move on with her plan that she's had for fifty years? That's pretty interesting, considering how hard she's been working in the post-Russell Edgington scenario to further the AVL's agenda.

Anyway, it's a good offer and a good-faith offer, I think, despite the sassy relationship she and Bill have had since Sookie got back, but then it's Sookie once again that fucks everything up: Nan isn't above leveraging her to get Bill and Eric's loyalty... And in fact has known this whole time that Sookie's part-Fae. thing you know, everybody who overheard that, and Nan herself, are dead. Bill and Eric are pretty protective when it comes down to it.

STACKHOUSE

Sookie comes looking for Tara, but finds Debbie instead. Big old shotgun. Lookin' real crazy. And just before Debbie fires the gun, Tara jumps in front of Sookie and her brains go splattering everywhere, and then she is dead. Sookie rushes Debbie, gets the upper hand somehow, and then accidentally-on-purpose fires the gun into Debbie's face, turning her whole head into soup. It's fucked up. So then she's just sort of cradling Tara on the floor and screaming for help, which is what she does in every episode, and the only difference this time is that nobody's coming.

THE END

Or I mean, obviously somebody is coming, but it's an immensely powerful image to go out on: All alone, best friend dead in her arms, screaming for help even unto the black when the credits have started. You've got a medium-brujo-witch upstairs who's already brought one snakebit human back from death, two vampire ex-boyfriends a split-second away, faeries all around the place, and really it could go anywhere and do anything. But right now... Tonight she was alone, just where she wanted to be. And when it came down to it, she solved the problem.

It was ugly and it was scary and the cost was high, maybe too high, but I can't help thinking back to the very beginning of the season and how we've sort of watched her maneuver her way here: She came back pissed at Bill, ignored his change in station, allowed New Eric to get the better of her, realized she had feelings for them both, gave Alcide hell about Debbie but still kept him around and then wouldn't date him, and the whole time everybody -- Pam, who started the season as an outspoken enemy of monogamy -- kept telling her that she wasn't safe, that she was too delicious, that she needed to belong to somebody and to be owned and that loneliness is death.

I feel like we've talked every season about how that metaphor plays, but what intrigues me about it now is, okay, all other things being equal -- if Tara were out of the picture and Sookie had just killed Debbie on her own, let's start there -- then you are looking at a particular story, which is that when you choose to deviate from the norm, when you go it alone, or queer, or however you're going to do it, even just unmarried, that decision cuts both ways. Yes, you get to be free and true to yourself, but also, you have opted out of the game and can't expect validation from the game.

By Jacob Clifton

Nan: "There are factions inside the regime who have never been completely on board with the current agenda. Sheriff Northman knows what I'm talking about."

STACKHOUSE

THE END

By Jacob Clifton

As Jessica's learning, you can either be a sex warrior gender revolutionary or a socially validated Good Girl, but you can't have both. And you can't flip back and forth between Sexy Faery You and Nice Christian You, not forever. You have to become something that is both. It is a trade-off. A wonderful, powerful, scary-as-hell trade-off.

And I think for whatever reason, at this time in our culture, we've fallen into a lazy lull of somehow feeling owed something, in this way. That instead of acknowledging that living by our own lights and being true to ourselves might have a cost, we manage to either conform or do it half-assed and then whine about it later. "All I did was act like a slut and then you called me a slut" is not a well-formed sentence or valid complaint. "All I did was act like a slut, a word with zero meaning or power over me" is a well-formed sentence, and allows at least for the possibility that life is an unfair place for grownups and crybabies alike.

As I said, it gets twisted by the fact that Tara died in the middle of it, but if you follow just the thread of Mine, His, Hers, it's a pretty complicated idea. "Why can't you both be Mine" is a meaningless question, because "Mine" isn't just about feelings -- it's about facts, and death, and danger. But to rebel against this idea that "You have to be His or you won't be at all," that can't possibly be a bad thing either, right?

By Jacob Clifton

I think this is what it looks like, all this brain matter all over the kitchen. I think if you're willing to risk the danger of the real world, and be a complete person, the first thing that's gotta go is your fear of being the bad guy. Because it's not like Sookie killing a person in self-defense is really all that different from Sookie having one of her boyfriends take care of it for her, which is what you're really saying when you say Mine: Kill those that threaten me, so I don't have to get my hands dirty.

Our mistake lies in thinking that grace attends any more to purity than to experience. But that's just nostalgia too: Because now is difficult to deal with at any given time, the past was always easier and kinder and clearer and purer. And that is imaginary, and reactionary, and gross, and scary. Especially when you apply it to yourself, which shouldn't be a show for other people anyway. Because the truth is, nobody lives that way.

Nobody stays clean. We weren't designed for that. When your hands get dirty, all you have to do is wash them.

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 and Fringe Science.