Not as smoothly or beautifully written as last week's, but in terms of twists and pivots -- we're at the 4/5 point in the series where everything changes every season, and you can really feel it here -- this season is shaping up to be seriously, wonderfully promising. Still not sure what the overarching thing is, yet, but what's happening so far is gold.
Pam saves Tara from her cliffhanger UV suicide, of course, and finds Bill and Eric waiting for them when she gets back to Fangtasia! But the reunion goes sour when Eric (by process of elimination) assumes Pam dug up Russell for some reason. Of course she didn't, but in the end -- and it's the most moving thing you've seen on this show since Godric met the sun -- he Releases Pam as her Maker, since he's not expecting to live much longer. Bill has his own sweet goodbye with Jessica, and Pam asserts this really beautiful new responsibility and affection for Tara, and it's just great all around.
Tara convinces Bill that Sookie is the worst, and the whole town quickly follows suit now that Tara's new vampy style is common knowledge. So now pretty much her whole life is back to what it was like before Bill, and she's back to being the village idiot. And then Lafayette randomly gets so pissed and mean that he demon-face curses her car to kill her. In case you were wondering if Demon-Face Lafayette also has magic powers, the answer is yes.
Alcide tells the Pelts that Debbie was killed by Marcus Bozeman, which is awesome, but Sookie's already run to Jason and tried to get herself arrested. In the end, Jessica glamours Andy out of pursuing the case further, but in a really awkwardly worded way where it seems like there will be further consequences. Back home, a very drunk and shellshocked Sookie narrowly avoids killing herself in her car before finding herself astraddle a lovesick Alcide Herveaux. Of course, Bill and Eric watch all of this go down and Bill decides to use her as Russell-bait, and it's kind of delicious.
Andy's corrupt buddy takes him and Jason to a strip club/cabaret full of fae -- including both Cousin Hadley and Andy's fairy one-night stand from last year -- and Jason learns about the faerie refugees, as well as the possibility that ... vampires killed his parents? Okay, sure.
The search for Private Ellers continues, with a long flashback about the My Lai situation we've been assuming -- complete with, cringefully, the whole battalion singing "Born On The Fourth Of July" -- and the boys finally find him, and his bunker, but he doesn't really do much this week except be super hot and super crazy. Roman and Salome spend the whole episode boring the Authority while trying to figure out what to do with dumb old Nora, and eventually also stake the little boy vampire for sneakiness-related reasons. Sam's old shifter pals show up at Merlotte's, but later turn up dead, so I guess Sam will have a storyline one day.
week: Luna gets involved in the dead shifter stuff, Hoyt tries to fangbang his ex's new little sister, Bill and Eric get a deadline and flush out a nest, and Sookie holds a meeting of every person in the entire world that is in love with her and it's like sixty thousand people, all in her kitchen, all just being so darn in love with her. But not Bill, because he has had it. He thought he was in love with her once, but that's pure nihilism to him now.
PREVIOUSLY
Roman sent the Boys after Russell Edgington to protect the mainstream movement, but they're probably dead either way. Jason celebrated his newfound chastity by hitting up a faerie strip club. The Pelts and Sookie gave Alcide two different kinds of stress about his dead crackhead girlfriend. Sookie and Lafayette are enduring the slings and arrows because they turned Tara into a vampire, because suddenly everybody likes Tara. Terry hit the road with a boring-ass military dude, and Sam hooked up with other boring-ass shifters. But then Tara tried to cook herself!
CURL UP & FRY
Pam immediately zooms to the salon and tries to get Tara's stupid ass out of the tanning bed. What we see, and Tara doesn't, is the split-second sadness and horror on Pam's face: The Maker thing is real, and it's happening, and in this second their relationship totally changes. It's the kind of change where Pam still acts the same, and Tara still acts the same, and they are still rude to each other, but underneath that it's magical.
Tara: "Being turned into a vampire has only intensified my main trait of bitching!"
Pam: "Okay, well, as your Maker I command you to stop trying to fry yourself."
Tara: "I am so constantly oppressed!"
MERLOTTE'S
Sookie: "This is not how things usually go! If I told Bill or Eric that I shot their crackhead girlfriend in the face, they would buy me things!"
Alcide: "I just need a minute to process this, before I go back to being totally nice and buying you things."
Lafayette: "Hooker! Bitch! Goddammit, bitch hooker!"
Sookie: "Okay, but this whole episode is about me dealing with the fact of being a murderer. On a basic human level. So the first thing is that I had to tell him what I did."
Lafayette: "No, the first goddamn thing is you have to stand here while I yell at you and act really mean."
Sookie: "I can see how that's part of the arc, although it's really not set up very well from a character standpoint."
(Lafayette is super mean for a while.)
Lafayette: "In summation, you are the Angel of Death and everybody around you is in constant misery and peril."
Sookie: "You don't understand cause and effect if you think that's my fault. When I act retarded, it's to put my own self in danger. Everybody else just seems to jump on the bandwagon of their own volition."
Lafayette: "Notwithstanding, I am feeling very mean toward you today."
Lafayette: "Notwithstanding, I am feeling very mean toward you today."
AUTHORITY
The Boys: "Okay so the people who knew about Russell in the concrete are few, due to our addiction to Sookie's blood. There's the two of us, Alcide and Pam. We know neither of us dug him out, because we were too busy being adorable with each other all last season. And Alcide's the one that called us to tell us about him getting out. So... No wait, that doesn't add up either."
Nora: "I am totally a terrorist! You got me!"
Authority: "Yeah, but who else is?"
Nora: "Just me, as far as people on this show!"
Authority: "We should probably kill her really publicly then. Really lower ourselves to their level."
JASON
Jason: "I can't talk right now, Sook, I'm experimenting with celibacy."
Sookie: "Okay, that can wait. I killed a crackhead that was in my house with a gun and killed my best friend and then we turned her into a vampire."
Jason: "That doesn't sound like you broke any laws or anyth..."
Sookie: "-- Chain me up! Take me away! Handcuff my wrists!"
Jason: "Yeah, but I'm just saying it seems like you were defending your..."
Sookie: "This is pure nepotism and I won't have it! Take me to your paddy wagon!"
Jessica: "I think she's saying she feels guilty and doesn't know how to assuage it, so she's acting insane because she feels like she needs to be punished."
Sookie: "When you put it that way, Princess Jessica, my storyline makes a little more sense this year. Now take me away!"
Jessica: "...Hold up, Tara's a vampire now? That sounds like a trainwreck."
FANGTASIA!
Pam: "Okay, you can hang out in daycare until the end of my shift but then we are going to have a long talk about what's expected of a young la... Where are all the people?"
Eric: "I closed the bar. Also, I am home."
Pam: "Ten more points to House Fairysnatch."
Eric: "Why do you have Tara with you? She's just awful."
Pam: "Oh, uh. She's my daughter now. So."
Bill: "Tara, why don't you escort me into the office while they work things out."
Bill: "So, how come you're all fucked up and burnt? Did you try to kill yourself a bunch? Ah used to do that shit all the time. Ah was a real drag."
Tara: "She used Maker privilege on me. It was paternalistic and weird because she's white and I'm black, but that happens to me in some form every year, so whatever."
Bill: "Ah'm a Confederate soldier. When you start that reverse-racism crap Ah just... Wait, is Sookie okay?"
Tara: "That took about one second longer than I fucking thought it would. Yeah, she's fine. Also, fuck Sookie."
Bill: "For some reason, when you say it Ah can actually hear you. Even though people have been saying exactly that to me for five seasons."
Pam: "Stop hitting me! Jesus!"
Eric: "Then tell me where Russell is!"
Pam: "That is so fucking offensive. Why would I dig up Russell Edgington? I'm obsessed with your approval, I would literally die for you. You're saying that you trust Bill Fucking Compton and a werewolf more than me? That's really rude. Also, stop hitting me."
Eric: "I am not convinced!"
Pam: "You know what, then release me. This parent/marriage/whatever is worth nothing if you're going to pull this shit, so just say it. As your Maker, I release you."
Eric: "It wasn't Pam. She wouldn't just pull that out like that."
Bill: "Tara confirms it. I was sneakily trying to find out if she or Pam knew about the King..."
Eric: "Bullshit, you were asking her about Sookie. Come on."
Bill: "Well, yes. But Ah also asked about this other matter."
Bill: "What about Nora? Did you tell her about it, because you love her so much?"
Eric: "Nora that didn't exist until five seconds ago? No, uh, I didn't."
Bill: "Well, Ah didn't tell Jessica. Neither of us really told anybody, because of the Sookie factor."
Eric: "I'm tired. Can we just go to bed?"
Bill: "You betcha, little guy."
AUTHORITY
Authority: "Their iStakes say they're just hanging around in Fangtasia! and being bros."
Authority: "Yeah, maybe they are in league with him, or else he's been dead and this was all a charade."
Authority: "Or they're trying to double down on the martyrdom by saying he's risen from the dead, just to rile the Sanguinistas further."
Authority, verbatim: "We've got uprisings on four of the seven continents. Even a rumor of Russell's escape would be enough to defeat Vampire Rights bills in most countries."
Nora: "I swear fealty to the Blood and to the progenitor. The First, the Last, the Eternal. Father and Mother, Lord and Lilith, protect me as I protect you, from now until the hour of the True Death...."
Authority: "On the one hand, her fundamentalism is laughable and crazy. On the other hand, the Guardian is still pretty orthodox. And then the rest of us span the dial from total atheists to secretly more zealous than Roman himself."
Authority: "It's all very fascinating, but still it seems like you're asking a lot of the audience to track this, when the discourse in this country is also so rabid and concretized that any mention of religion is equal to any other mention of religion. You don't go to the HBO that brings us Bill Maher expecting to have a serious/non-smug theological discussion."
Authority: "Yeah, that would be like demanding they digitally alter George Bush's decapitated head or some shit. Only an idiot would do that."
Authority: "Please quit with the false equivalencies. Liberal atheists may be annoying, but they're not morons."
Authority: "I'm just saying, what if it was Obama's head up there? What kind of a shit-fit would..."
Authority: "It wouldn't. We don't act like that."
BTPDHQ
Andy: "Holly, I would love to show you my surprising ass in person..."
Corruption Guy: "Remember when you got my son out of his ticket?"
Andy: "Yeah, it's one of the many weird things that has happened to me this season."
Judge, verbatim: "I wish I could bring him to you for all his problems, but you ain't a gynecologist."
I don't even really know what that means, but it rocks. I think he's calling his son a fag? Or a woman? Whatever it is, how cute.
Judge: "There's a faerie strip club I know about..."
Jason: "Remember when Lafayette made me do stripteases on the internet for drugs? That was a long damned time ago."
Judge: "[More crass language!]"
MERLOTTE'S
Arlene, verbatim: "Hey Sam, Barack and Hillary over there are asking for you."
Sam: "Oh, you mean my shifter friends, one of whom is a blonde woman and the other of whom is black? You are just the fucking worst."
Shifters: "Hey, we're really boring! We don't have personalities!"
Sam: "Cool, ever since Luna dumped me I've been feeling a real void for that."
Shifters: "Come be boring with us and drink wine and be horses! Boring ones!"
Sam: "Okay, meet me back behind my house later tonight, where people constantly get murdered."
Shifters: "Will do."
Bon Temps: "We psychically judge you, Sookie Stackhouse, for turning Tara into a vampire. If only you had let her die."
Sookie: "Abjuring my vampire boyfriends has had the consequence of turning back the clock to when I was the village idiot. Remember? How I was so attracted to Bill because of the mental silence, and it gave me the confidence to become a real person over the last four seasons? This is a legitimate idea. My storyline this season would benefit from some subtlety, but it's all pretty good ideas."
Lafayette is outside just chilling when suddenly he sprouts Demon Face and curses her car to murder her later. He says "Santa Muerte," which is dumb and hopefully won't come back up.
PELTS MOTEL
Alcide: "So, I know you really cared about your daughter despite not having seen her the whole time she was a crackhead in Mississippi or when she came to Shreveport and went back to being a crackhead."
Pelts: "Yes. Like most Baby Boomers, we are concerned almost entirely with ourselves."
Alcide: "Okay, well, then you'll probably appreciate getting let off the hook by me telling you that she is dead as shit."
Pelts: "Did you kill her? Do we have to wolf out now?"
Alcide: "No, just enjoy your cocktails. It was Marcus Bozeman, her boyfriend and our Packmaster, who promised to give her wolf babies while they did drugs together. He is dead now. Also his mom ate him."
Pelts: "Okay, thanks for letting us know!"
Alcide: "Are you guys going to be okay?"
Mrs. Pelt: "Yeah, actually we were just in town to buy an RV. We're gonna see Yellowstone!"
Mr. Pelt: "I've earned this, by God."
SOOKIE
Nearly is killed by her haunted car, but then escapes at the last minute and leaves the wreckage behind so she can get cruuuuunnnnnnk. Now, you know I really enjoy Miss Sookie Stackhouse and often try to see things from her point of view, but I think from this point forward in the episode, Sookie becomes somebody we can all identify with.
ELLER
You know how we assumed the Terry storyline this year was something along the lines of "Iraqi My Lai"? Yeah, so that happened. Guys pissing on a mosque while singing -- no lie -- "Born On The Fourth Of July," accidental shooting, snowballing coverup, village burned down, screaming children, whatever. Whatever you're imagining, down to the shaky-cam way it's filmed, all of it.
BTPDHQ
Andy: "Well, since the Pelts don't care about their dead daughter anymore, that means we need to increase our vigilance. I am going to search all of Bon Temps to find out more."
Jason: "That seems like something a person would do in order to move the plot forward."
Jessica: "No, it's because of what I'm about to do. Andy, look into my eyes, look deep into my eyes. I am going to say some things in a very awkward way that may be a problem later."
Andy: "No prob. Awkwardly hammering home plotpoints without regard to motivation or character is typical of this gamechanging episode."
Jessica, verbatim: "The Pelt case. As far as you're concerned it's closed. For some reason it just don't interest you anymore, okay? And give me that file. Thank you. In fact, it is so far in your rearview you don't even remember the name Debbie Pelt. Not the abandoned car, or the grieving parents. It's all gone."
The actors do their best with this -- the smooth no-look way Jessica hands the file over to Jason is particularly beautiful -- but that's just first-draft writing. Sorry. Anyway, it also plays into Jessica's theme this episode where she cannot deal with her parents getting divorced, which is so super great because one of the failures last season was nearly abandoning Jessica and Sookie's relationship, so it's nice to see her actually caring about Bill, Sookie, their relationship, the family and everything else. Especially now that Tara's in her orbit, it's important to see where her connections all lie.
FANGTASIA!
Well, this part was heartwrenching. I'm not even sure how to talk about it. Pam is downstairs in the sex dungeon when Eric comes down and pats the steps and she comes and sits to him, and that's how you know it's going to be very bad, whatever happens .
Pam: "I thought you had friends in the Authority..."
Eric: "A friend, and she can't help me anymore. Either Russell will have our heads, or the Authority will. There is no other option."
(Obviously this a lie, in the same way as Sookie's legal problems: No way are Eric and Bill going to die at any point in this season.)
Pam: "Denial! Denial!"
Eric: "No, listen. The end of the world is upon us. And I know you were just being snotty earlier but I think you were onto something. Not because I don't trust you, or because I don't care. It's because you are my only progeny. My one legacy. I need you to live when I'm gone."
Pam: "That's horrible, but I see what you're saying. Okay, go for it."
Eric: "Pamela. I renounce the ties of our blood, and my dominion over you as my progeny. As your Maker, I release you. You are my child, as I was a child of Godric. You were born into greatness. And you're a maker now. Our blood will thrive."
They hug and cry and it's really upsetting. Nicest breakup of all time, and one of the saddest. Of course, this is all within the construct of the show -- it has emotional weight but no metaphorical weight -- and you're still stuck with the fact that Tara Thornton is now the scion of the greatest bloodline on the entire show, but still. She deserves to be royalty. And well done, all around.
ANDY & JASON
Get in a party bus with some fae hos, pop some champagne, and get down to business. It's funny that the entire vampire/fairy conflict is literally about competing strip clubs, isn't it? I think there's something there. I was happy in past seasons with the way the fae were situated geographically -- in the graveyard that was the boundary between Bill, death, and Sookie, life -- but if we're doing strip clubs now, well, that just makes sense too. The thing you can't ever really touch, the mesmerizing thing.
CASTLE COMPTON
Jessica helps Bill looking for bugs in their house, and he's very cagey about what is going on and what he can tell her. They have a different, more postmodern relationship than Eric and Pam, so their "goodbye" is different in that exact same way.
Jessica: "Bill? You're still King, aren't you? I heard a rumor from the New Nan Flanagan."
Bill: "We are certainly not going to discuss that, but yes. For now. On another note, why is there a shitty roach over here?"
Jessica: "College kids. Do not bring the best pot. Sorry, I threw a party."
Bill: "time, smoke the good stuff. I'm not like a regular dad, I'm a cool dad!"
Jessica: "You know how, in this episode, all it takes is one person to say some obvious thing and it completely reroutes you emotionally? Well, now I am going to do that. It's time to worry about Sookie."
Bill: "Fuck Sookie. Plus, you already glamoured Andy, you naughty girl. Which, just like Tara said, everybody does stuff for Sookie all the time."
Jessica: "Yeah, I realize that this show increasingly tries to satisfy dorks on the internet and it's funny to be mean about Sookie and her luck, but I'm actually talking in terms of emotions right now. She is fucking losing it, Bill. Not like how she's always screaming and stomping around, like, she is falling apart. She is in a bad way. And your relationship is still of prime importance, whether or not you're feeling petulant right now."
Bill: "Ah see the wisdom of what you are saying. And therefore, I will completely reroute myself for the second time in ten minutes."
AUTHORITY
Nora: "Go ahead, execute me. I dare you."
Salome: "I love you, though. I don't want it to go down like this."
Nora: "I am 100 percent crazy."
Salome: "You're being martyred for the sins of others, like any zealot. Just tell me who's behind this latest rally of the Sanguinists, please."
Nora: "I am the lizard king!"
Salome: "Sure you are, honey. But you're not a terrorist leader, you're a soldier. At best."
Nora: "How rude!"
Salome: "Okay, so you're idiotic enough to die for your cause. But what about the iStake app?"
Nora: "Kill the Boys. See if I care."
Salome: "Are you sure? I'm pretty sure one of them is important to you..."
Nora: "Okay, fine. Don't kill them. I swear upon the Blood of Lilith that I will help you, for their safety."
Everybody cries. I guess this is another daughter situation, like Bill/Jess and Eric/Pam and Pam/Tara, basically? I wish we knew Nora better. Obviously Salome is in this for the long haul, but they've made a point of her relationship with Nora at least once in every episode, so we're seeing part of an iceberg we'll never really know about. Sad.
FAERIE STRIP CLUB
Judge: "I am blind to the mythic power of this strip club, just like when people used to use V like it was meth!"
Jason: "I have funny feelings about this strip club. I am not used to vibrating on this frequency."
Andy: "I see that faerie chick I banged and promised to protect at any price. I guess she's not pregnant?"
Men: "But mostly boobies! And Channing Tatum guys that look like Droogs."
SOOKIE
Is drunk as hell and pulling a Weird Al to prove it, vide:
If you like piña coladas
And getting caught in the rain
If you're not into vampires
If they've shot half your brain
If you like making love at midnight
And not in a cemetery...
Lafayette: "Are you still alive, hooker?"
Sookie: "Just barely, little lady!"
Lafayette: "Did you get into any cursed car accidents?"
Sookie: "That's so weird that you said that. But yeah. And it was kind of awesome!"
Lafayette: "We need to talk about some shit."
Sookie: "Can it wait? I'm melting the fuck down right now."
(Knock-knock.)
Alcide: "No big deal, just looking amazing."
Sookie: "Lafayette, I'ma let you go."
Lafayette: "-- But I think I might have cursed your entire..."
Sookie: "Uh, Alcide is at my door, so..."
Lafayette: "Gotcha."
Alcide: "I talked to the Pelts. They're pretty awful."
Sookie: "Cool, so I'm going to jail. Good thing I'm drunk."
Alcide: "No, I told them a brilliant lie about how she was killed by a person who has since been eaten."
Sookie: "What a mysterious thing to do for me! Not unlike how everybody is constantly doing that kind of thing for me. Hey, sorry about your girlfriend. Want a drink?"
Alcide: "You're being really drunk and flirty."
Sookie: "Yeah, I am like the least subtle person. I don't have a lot of practice acting normal around people, so this is what you get. Is that a yes?"
Alcide: "Yep."
ELLER
Has a secret basement area where he keeps his one million pictures of a scary creature with scary eyeballs and everything on fire. Also he has a gun.
MERLOTTE
Sam: "Hey, hope you guys opened the wine and didn't get murdered in that area behind my house where everyb... Aw, shit."
Shifters: "Turns out we can be even more boring."
Now this, this I can get behind. I mean, I liked those actors and it's not fair to be mean about them just because the show likes moving them around as chesspieces, but this is interesting. Because now you've got the Mystery Person that helped Russell, and that's a whole conspiracy probably, and then over here you've got random shifters getting murdered, which is either to fuck with Sam or because of some other thing we don't know about...
I couldn't really believe in Sam's breakup with Luna at the time because she's so pretty and he just lost Tommy so he's all weird about Emma, etc. But this is a whole other direction. Plus, I need more Martha Bozeman in my life. So maybe this is weres? There's a kind of symmetry there -- vampires/faeries and weres/shifters, all having their fights -- but I don't know. Needs more input. For being so elliptical and not-yet-meaningful, and getting only as much screentime as the Terry stuff has before this week, this was one of the most exciting story shifts in the whole episode. What can it mean?
FANGTASIA!
Pam: "Tara, it's way past sundown. No daughter of mine is gonna sleep all night."
Tara: "You look wretched. And who is this girl?"
Pam: "Breakfast."
Tara: "No way. I saw a crucifix hanging from some girl's rearview mirror and it caused me to radically reevaluate my shit."
Pam: "Three days old and she has an eating disorder. Why me?"
Tara: "I have been a vampire for three days only! Give a girl a minute."
Tara: "You seem nice, and all.
Breakfast: "It's okay, I get it."
Pam: "As your..."
Tara: "Please, please, please don't do that. It's really unfair."
Pam: "No, unfair is you wasting my whole morning trying to get you to eat when we both know how this story ends. It's not my fault I suddenly love you, okay? This hurts me way worse than it hurts you."
Tara: "I might barf."
Pam: "Or else you'll bitch until we all barf? Trust me, I've met you. I know the score. Now, as your Maker, I command you to feed."
She does. Pam caresses her hair, like a newborn. It's incredibly sweet. She talks her through it -- don't drink too much, too fast; "take her to the precipice of death and hold her there"; the whole thing -- and in the end, she lets us in on a little truth about Pam, which we already knew about Tara, which we've always known about Tara. The vampire version of Antonia's seduction, and Maryann's before her. The safety of power. The idea that strength in the present can erase your weakness in the past:
Pam: "This is who you are now. The top of the chain. No human can hurt you any longer. They're yours to savor."
Pam's wanted a daughter for a long time, but I don't think she knows how desperate Tara's always been for a mother. In this, I see God.
AUTHORITY
Roman: "Among my hilariously complete collection of vampire artifacts, I also have a piece of the bough from which Judas hung himself. Carved into a stake. See where I'm going with this?"
Authority: "More meaningless, concretized debates about myth?"
Roman: "Look. We lost Chancellor Nora to them. And to paraphrase Plath, if we can lose one Chancellor, why not two?"
The little boy, Chancellor Drew, has apparently been keeping recordings of his human-killings, which is pretty bad morally but also very bad for a member of a group that doesn't say dorky things like, as he does in the video, "Die, human! You are food to us!"
Drew: "I'm tacky! Deal with it!"
Roman: "No, see, I got this from an encrypted email that you sent to Sanguinists in at least three countries with the coded message, In sympathy and solidarity."
Drew: "I was infiltrating?"
Roman: "No, girl. But now you are splattered all over the place."
Drew: "I was the most obvious joke in this whole bag of tricks! Of course I am the first to dieeeeee!"
Roman stands around covered in little-boy blood, and thinks about which one of the ones that's left is youngest, because apparently Sanguinism is a young man's game. Everybody else stares and has personal thoughts about all of this, presumably spanning the dial once again. There was less info on this than there was last week, as far as where everybody stands, but I have to give props for the efficient way we've gotten the brushstrokes: Candyman is the most orthodox like Roman, Salome and Barb are political animals, Crazyface Torturer Guy is the obnoxious atheist, etc.
STACKHOUSE
Sookie: "Tara was such a misanthrope she made up this drink as a joke. Triple sec, amaretto, Bailey's."
(My Friend Erik: "Remember when we saw Young Adult and started drinking that one drink she always drinks, even though it was so gross and we called them Young Adults? I'll have a Young Adult, please. Well, now we're drinking this.")
Sookie: "She called it Orange Marzipan. And the people in this town are such alcoholic sugar addicts that it became quite popular..."
Alcide: "Like this bod would even recognize sugar at this point in time. But no."
Sookie: "Do it."
Alcide: "Okay. This is really gross."
Sookie: "I said do it!"
Alcide: "I'm doing it. Of course. Hey, you don't seem like you're very used to being drunk. It's making you incredibly cool and fun, which is like the opposite of how you usually are."
Sookie: "Drunk me is the best me, which should tell you how under control I always have to be. I'm like the Scott Summers of Bon Temps."
Alcide: "That's why everybody calls you retarded all the time, huh?"
Sookie: "That is part of why."
Sookie: "I feel good for the first time in who knows. I think the whole world hates me! But they can just go bite me."
Alcide: "Don't say it..."
Sookie: "Those who haven't already. Boom!"
Sookie: "So listen, just because I have to poke this bruise one more time, why are you here being a sexy man-mountain I can climb all over, when I shot your girlfriend in the face?"
Alcide: "I'm sort of at a loss."
Sookie: "Drink your drink!"
Alcide: "No, it's bad and gross."
Sookie: "But I made it for you!"
Alcide: "I don't care."
Sookie: "You will do anything for me."
Alcide: "Even drink this nasty drink? No."
Sookie: "Yeah, you will. You're in love with me."
Too real. Even my friend Erik was like, "This just got too real." But of course Alcide denies, and of course she climbs him, and of course it is wonderful. I mean, it's screamingly awkward because it's Sookie, but that's still so amazing. You can't go backwards, like, once she got the confidence of Bill's Silence, and Eric's Amnesia, it's not like she could just go back to being quiet Sookie Stackhouse who is afraid of dating because men are gross on their insides. It's just not that simple. So now for the first time she's seeing the boundaries of the world. Like Jessica has, over the years, or like Tara's starting to: How much of those boundaries, you learn, were secretly put in place by nobody but you.
DIRECTLY OUTSIDE
Eric: "I mean, I guess we should have called first."
Bill: "Jessica said she was having a rough time."
Eric: "More like rough trade. Anyway, since Sookie's busy can we go back to looking for Russell?"
Bill: "Ah cannot believe you are not on board with this. This is like 90 percent of what Ah used to do, just hang out in this yard watching her go about her business."
Eric: "You keep forgetting that I got my personality back. In fact, do I even remember the whole time I was with her? I mean, we fell in love around that same time and we're still bros, so..."
Bill: "Ah suppose it will be explained at a later date, Sherriff Northman. Now, what do you think about using our former girlfriend as bait?"
Eric: "Whoa, when did you turn into me? That was crazy hot."
FAERIE STRIP CLUB
Jason: "Yes. This is a very sensual lapdance. I am very into it."
Fae Stripper: "No, you're thinking of a vampire..."
Jason: "And now I'm thinking of my sister. Are you psychic? Is this some kind of horrible Sookie-themed cabaret?"
Cousin Hadley: "Sort of!"
Jason: "Hadley, I'm so glad you didn't... Disappear after the Queen died, I guess? I can't really remember. Aquarium. Hey, does Sookie know you're here?"
Hadley: "Wait, she's alive? Shit. We gotta find her and get her here immediately. Why did you come to the refugee camp without her?"
Jason: "Refu... I just wanted a lap dance."
Hadley: "Uh, no. Vampires eat faeries. Quick. Eat 'em up. We gotta get your sister out of that world and into this strip club where she'll be safe."
Jason: "Last time she dealt with you guys, I became awesome and Bill became King, so uh, no thanks. No need for more fantastic things to happen."
Hadley: "No, vampires. Like how they killed your parents?"
Jason: "Aw damn. My parents drowned in a car accident and they were killed by vampires? What a hard day that must have been."
Mean Fae: "Hadley, stop dropping retcons on that halfwit and run all around the place."
The faeries run all around the place.
Jason: "Wait, but Hadley! Foreshadowing and whatnot!"
Droogs: "Jason, it's time for you and Andy to go."
Jason: "Or we could have a big fight! And what about my lapdance!"
The Droogs drop Jason and Andy on their butts and then flash-bang them with faerie powers. Maybe they will forget, or maybe they will pull a Maryanne and mess their jeans. We will have to wait for week's episode to find out.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Bunheads, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood 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, and novelette "The Commonplace Book" will appear on Tor.com in October 2012.