So great! So crazy and chaotic! So funny and spooky! Let's see: Russell's reverse-execution of Guardian Roman opens up a power vacuum in the Authority which he -- along with Salome, who's obviously been a mole the entire time -- gratefully fills. After a quick speech about how Russell's okay now and Salome is a Fanguinista, there's a ceremony to down Lilith's Blood, after which the Authority and the Boys go into some kind of ecstasy trance and roam New Orleans eating entire karaoke bars...
At which point Lilith seemingly appears, reincarnated in the form of a naked bloody lady who makes weird noises, and drives them all even more insane. In fact, only cool-as-a-cucumber Eric (with a little help from Godric's ghost) seems capable of pulling himself together at all. But Bill? Leans into it with an adorable élan, even climbing onto Eric's back at one point for a little piggyback ride down the street. (Probably the best in an episode full of great moments.)
When Lettie Mae shows up to officially disown Tara, who is now a vampire stripper, she's thrown -- until a tearjerking show of support from Pam of all people helps her get herself back on track. Less stable, on the other hand, is Hoyt Fortenberry, who ends up joining the Obama guys after they rally up on hearing about Sam killing that gross Stake House guy.
Sam worries about Luna and Emma and being lynched, as per usual, but impresses Kenya (!) with his doggie shifter senses and eventually tackles one of them before he can hurt Luna. Andy visits Bud Dearborn for some friendly advice, and is rudely rebuffed, while his girlfriend Holly helps Arlene put herself together.
After learning a bit more about the limits of her powers, and spending some time taking care of Luna just like Jason's been doting on her, Sookie takes most of the episode trying to decide if she should just use up all her faerie powers at once, for good, and eventually decides to try it. It's a little sad and a lot desperate, but that's our Sookie.
Terry, still MIA, eventually tries to kill himself after the ifrit shows up and merely taunts him, but then his storyline puts him to sleep so he's fine, and apparently headed back to Bon Temps for some proactive anti-ifrit research.
On the werewolf side of things, Martha finally catches JD recruiting for Russell's vampire-blood cult when he tries to feed Emma some V, and all but abjures him, while Alcide and that lady who's his Second (Rikki? Ugh, of course it is) get plenty sexy and try to figure out a way to take over the Pack.
Lafayette hits Mexico to find out what's going on with Jesus beyond the grave, and is kidnapped for a little ritual to put his brujo powers in Don Bartolo's gestating demon-baby, complete with lips sewn shut and hilarious eye-rolling, but at the last second the baby's hostess decides to stab Jesus's grandpa like a hundred million times. Not sure what she plans for Lafayette, but at least she cuts his lips back open.
Jason runs to Jessica for support during his parent-related freakout, but is repulsed by her vampire nature and they fight, and long story short, she attacks and feeds on him, so she shoots her in the head. She doesn't take it very well. It's actually kind of shocking, but only in the way that the entire episode was basically about the main characters fully going dark -- Bill giggling and eating people in a religious ecstasy, and all -- so when her only response is, basically, "Get out of my house, that was really rude just now when you shot me in the head," it counts as a win.
All in all, a delirious half-season episode and major twists in a lot of what's become the status quo, as well as some neat experimental scenes scattered throughout. And while I suppose if you told me the episode would contain a vampire tripping out on extra-vampirey V, I would have said that sounded great... But seeing them all do it at the same time? So very excellent.
week: A séance, presumably to ask the Iraqi lady to chill out, and everybody returns to Bon Temps. Except probably the New Authority -- now a hybrid of prisoners like the Boys and Nora, and leftovers like Steve Newlin -- under the control of Lilith, and Eric poised to piss on their good time.
PREVIOUSLY
Bill and Eric found Russell Edgington for the Authority, so the whole thing was kind of a scam, but then it turned out Salome was behind the whole thing, making it a double scam. Basically nobody in the Authority actually believed in the authority of the Authority except the Guardian, who is now jelly. Alcide and a girl named Rikki are challenging the latest version of Russell's Nazi Werewolf Cult, while Sam managed to kill a major player in the anti-shifter sniper group that now has custody of poor old dumb Hoyt. Lala's on the hunt to save Jesus from his grandfather, and Terry is still doing the dramatic equivalent of opening a Dairy Queen franchise in Odessa, TX. Meanwhile, Sookie just found out the fae have been keeping secrets about her parents' death, and commenced freaking out. "Freaking out, you say?" Yes, Sookie Stackhouse is freaking out. Weird, huh?
AUTHORITY
In a very cool scene that keeps switching from strobes to night-vision to random acts of violence, we see the fallout from Russell's counter-execution of old Roman, who finally made good on his casting by wearing a cute shirt. When all is said and done, Russell's been silvered again, Nora's still culting out in her cell, and Eric is hanging from a pillar for some reason that Bill finds worrisome, but Russell thinks is hilarious.
Bill: "Eric, what are you doing up there?"
Eric: "Just hanging out."
Russell: "Good one! Just hanging out, I like that."
FAERIELAND!
Somehow the fae have subdued Sookie, and are now ... sigh ... "testing her luminescence."
Jason: "All right, listen. I ain't been to med school, or fairy school, or nothing. So if you can put it in terms a laid man can understand, I'd appreciate it."
You might, Stackhouse, but the rest of us are just mortified by this show sometimes.
Faery: "I'm going to send my light through her, and if the fae in her is strong, my light will pass through her body unhindered."
Jason: "Her head lit up real good, I thought."
Sookie: "Blerghy blee bloo bloo?"
Jason: "It's okay, Sook. They've just been testing your luminescence."
God bless you, Jason Stackhouse. What a wonderful fucking man he is. He spends more time on his spirit than anybody else, and he's already so much closer to fine...
Claude: "You're depleting, Sookie."
Sookie, verbatim: "Fuck you I'm 'depleting.'"
Love that girl. So we discuss how Sookie's psychic powers are always coming in and out whenever it's convenient for the plot, which is apparently now itself part of the plot, and they talk about how Sookie is magical, but only half-magical, and so maybe if she doesn't conserve her depleting luminescence, she'll stop being a magical type of faerie and just become a regular person like Jason?
For a show that prides itself on having everything be nature -- like the snake-fangs of the vampires or whatever -- we sure do get a pass on genetics, don't we? (Where in the world are the million werekittens of Jason Stackhouse? And can I have one? Just to like raise? It's not Jimbo, but I think it could be.)
Faerie: "Also there are other powers you have that you don't know about."
Sookie: "I prefer to be in as much danger as possible at all times, so I'll thank you to keep mum about that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must say goodbye to my cousin Hadley."
STAKE HOUSE
Kevin: "My shit is all fucked up and retarded and gay, as usual. Now, let's talk about this dead racist."
Mike Spencer: "Sorry I wasn't able to come over here immediately, but I was having sexual intercourse with a woman."
Kevin: "Nobody cares, Mike Spencer!"
Mike Spencer: "Did you already zip him into a bodybag? Damn. I was excited about seeing a crossbow bolt in somebody's chest. If only I were the town coroner and will be seeing that exact thing in like one second."
Kenya (!): "Sam Merlotte, why are you sniffing?"
Sam: "I am doing detective work! Look in this box. It smells like there are racist Obama masks in there."
Kenya: "Wouldya look at that."
Sam starts doing that puppy-wallow thing he did waaay back at the beginning of the show when Rene killed that one lady from Merlotte's, to get the scent of the people on him, and Kenya just stares and stares.
Sam, as embarrassing as ever: "Picking up five men, maybe six. I'm smelling ... bad diets ... and hate ... and envy."
Kenya, verbatim: "There something I need to know about you, Mr. Merlotte?"
Sam, hilariously terse: "No!"
First of all, Kenya! Second of all, that "envy" part really sticks out.
My favorite thing about last season was how everybody kept trying to die or turn into something else -- Tara, Tommy, everybody really -- because they couldn't handle who they were. And I was thinking about it today, how that would be a really lazy trope for a show about soups, this Sookie thing of "I don't want to be a thing anymore," except how we've seen Six Feet Under and we know that is Ball's deal: The twinned desires to be authentically ourselves, and at the same time authentically not ourselves. Eros & Thanatos. Everything that tears you apart. Everything that makes you proud, and makes you crawl. All of it, you.
And so when Sookie gets into her "maybe I don't want to be special" thing in this episode, I was curious. But now you're saying "envy," and that gives a whole new spin on it, because a lot of this season so far has been about wanting what the other side has. And if the shifter-killers are secretly jealous of shifters, of their fluid ability to change -- and Sookie's conversation about this is mostly externalized through conversation with Sam, a shifter -- then that puts a hugely different spin on the whole deal. Killing vampires out of envy, that's nothing new. But looking at the compulsion to both hate and to become shifters, that's a radically different motivation for a lynch mob to have, because then you're getting into homophobia and sexism, rather than racism. I mean, I usually resist queer politics on this show because it can blind you to other things that are going on, but in this case I think we should watch for it.
HOYT
Hoyt: "I wish y'all hadn't seen me like that. In a dark alley with a vampire sucking on my neck. I feel like I lost every ounce of pride I ever had, and I don't know when that happened."
White Trash: "[Trashy conservative buzzwords.]"
African-American Trash: "And now they're trying to convince us that we oughta feel like shit about ourselves, because we ain't all special like they are."
See? There it is again.
Trash: "It's like it's some sort of crime now, being a regular human. And what about Christmas? When's White History Month? It's a takeover, I tellya. Why, pretty soon we might not have anybody to oppress at all!"
Hoyt: "I can't stand by and let that happen. I know I've lost a lot of blood and half of my characterization at this point only makes sense if you remember I dumped Jessica for glamouring me specifically, but please. Induct me. I feel more love, more acceptance in this hate group than I ever felt at church, or basketball, or anywhere."
Unrealistic: "That's what people don't get! Hate groups is about more than hate. If we started calling them 'love groups' nobody would join."
I get the twist here, but I feel like we already did it back when this group (literally, the same people) were the Fellowship of the Sun. And more subtly, at that. Maybe that's the point, too, though: That ignorant conservatives at least try to make sense when rich people are playing them like puppets, but left to their own devices and Chik-Fil-A franchises, it all goes to hell.
Trash: "What was her name? That vamper you was telling us about."
Hoyt, without real pause: "Jessica Hamby. I don't know how I'm ever gonna forgive myself for letting her into my heart..."
Trash: "I'd bet good money that toothy-ass bitch hypnotized you into fucking her..."
Hoyt: "Close enough."
Trash: "Right now, do you hate Jessica Hamby?"
Hoyt: "Sure."
Hoyt? You need a nap. During this conversation, a "Dragon" calls to tell them about Junior at the Stake House getting crossbow'd, by a shifter no less, and they mobilize in their particularly gross way. Who's Dragon? The popular money's on Coroner Mike, but I'm sure it'll be interesting whoever it is. What I'd really like to see is this group of worthless trash take on the worthless people in Panthertown, but Sam Merlotte the One-Man Shifter Army will also do just fine.
AUTHORITY
Bill: "Clearly we have been had, Eric! We delivered Roman's killer right to him!"
Eric: "Yeah, I'm guessing Nora."
Bill: "Ah have suggested this multiple times!"
Eric: "I know, but it sounded dumb until I saw her acting ridiculous during the execution and talking about prophecies and shit."
Bill: "If only a person in this storyline was actin' super obvious the whole time about silvering Russell Edgington, and then it was proven that she had not!"
Eric: "Yeah, like a person known historically for using seduction to accomplish coups and seduced both of us. Somebody like that, maybe."
Mental rolodexes go flip-flip-flippin'... Nothing.
Boys: "Molly!"
Molly: "Yeah, guys?"
Boys: "Are you a Sanguinist and did you conspire with Russell Edgington and do you disbelieve in mainstreaming?"
Molly: "Um, no? I'm just Molly, weirdos."
BIG AUTH MTG
Chancellor Candyman: "Hey guys, welcome to our big meeting where everything changes because we're halfway through the season. You remember Russell Edgington?"
Russell: "Haha, your fangs totally popped out when I walked in. Gay."
Salome: "Okay, so the new status quo is, Russell is part of the Authority and we're all on the same side. So be nice."
Russell: "I have had a change of heart. Also apparently whatever Salome did when she dug me up made her my new Maker. I guess that's how it works."
Boys: "This is so dumb. If you wanted to take Roman out, why not just kill him? Why this elaborate thing that could not possibly have happened if we hadn't secretly failed to kill Russell?"
Salome: "Prophecies or something. Like this one that said we couldn't kill Roman, but then apparently said we could, so we did, but we couldn't, so Russell. I cried!"
Boys: "You can't play the grieving widow and the leader of a coup at the same time."
Politically, she says, she wants to "share" power, not concentrate it, which makes very little sense right now except as a betrayal of mainstreaming, but which will in short order mean something very different than we think, or could even like imagine. Anyway, that's happening later on, whatever it is, so get ready! There are ways of looking at God that are more amazing than other ways.
Nora: "Don't you want to be part of our super special secret club?"
Eric, verbatim: "Never, you Bible-banging cunts!"
Nora: "I was a lot more interesting when I was crazy as fuck, at least I had a backbone. This sniveling shit is not a good color on me."
Bill: "Ah still believe that without peaceful coexistence between our species, neither species will survive. Mainstreaming is the only way."
Nora: "Just when you're feeling like the least cool kid in the room, Bill Compton. Every time."
PACKMASTER TRAINING
Alcide and Rikki his Second do their training montage, with sexy results. She's like, "What are you doing?" and he's like, "What was obviously going to happen with this storyline" and she's like, "Why don't you just do some V so you can beat JD who is on V" and he's like, "No, that would be the intelligent thing to do, and also I saw the love of my life spiral down into crazy meth territory doing it" and this whole conversation, they are dry-humping.
Martha: "Training hard, I see. Get it? Werewolf boner joke! Anyway, JD told me he wasn't on V and that you were a poopy-pants and since I believe everything he tells me, I believed that too. Swore on my son's grave."
Alcide: "Respectfully, Martha? Your son doesn't have a grave. Because y'all ate him."
Martha: "Okay, here's the backstory. My first husband was Packmaster, and when he died, JD didn't claim it, even though everybody would have wolf-voted for him. Instead he devoted himself to raising Marcus to be Packmaster, to [and I quote] teaching him what only a he-wolf can teach."
Rikki: "It's true, I'll give them that."
Alcide: "But you guys, Marcus was the worst!"
Martha: "Nevertheless, it's JD's 'turn' now. You people. Anyway, I gotta take Emma for a walk now."
ARLENE
Is watching her wedding videos, which is like a documentary within the show of Things Jacob Personally Doesn't Give A Shit About, but there are some cute/poignant moments in there: Andy being super sweet, Holly being cute, Jason missing Sookie (fairy vacation) and still being a horndog, Jessica and Hoyt being a vision of loveliness and affection, Lafayette being kinda awful and Jesus being wonderful which makes them both wonderful somehow, Sam yelling like a dork that can't read a room... All the things you'd assume. Holly comes in and comforts her, but they both kinda lose it when it cuts to a sneak shot of Terry kissing Arlene's Mikey belly.
Holly: "All is not lost, you ridiculous woman."
Arlene: "He's crazy, Holly. Gone. Deep end. Round the bend."
Holly: "No, he has PTSD. Get real."
Arlene: "He came back last night, Holly, and he looked like shit, and he told me there's a spirit made of smoke chasing him around the country. Hunting him down. I don't care if that's PTSD or a full break, I am not having that."
Holly: "Um, or else we're on True Blood, you idiot, and that's actually what's going on? Just like every other day of our entire lives?"
SOOKIE
Jason: "Wake up, Sook. I don't know how to make lunch, so I made you breakfast instead."
Sookie: "You are the best."
Jason: "I try. So um, I'm going to say this in absolutely the worst way, but trust me it's not a bad thing. Assumption number one is that we both have always felt like it was my fault that our parents died, and you've always been really cool about that."
Sookie: "I don't really think like that, but yeah. We were really young, and the whole thing was really unfair."
Jason: "Well, now that we know it's kind of your fault, because of the faerie blood in the backseat, I don't want you to think that it's your fault. I want you to know that I don't."
Sookie: "First of all, good mind-reading. And second of all, thanks? For this, you may eat my bacon."
Jason: "That's really all I wanted."
ANDY
Goes to Sheriff Dearborn's house -- another suspect for Dragon -- for some Surrogate Daddy nonsense about how he feels like he's in the weeds with the shifter-killers, but Bud isn't hearing this, because he's too busy cheating on his wife in the hot tub with quote, an "experimental male enhancement ointment" he's anxious to try out. Anyway, Bud tells him to go fuck himself and call time, and that he's not going to be giving Andy any advice about killings of any kind, and don't come back. Nice seeing you, Bud!
MEXICO
Yes, there are still live racist chickens running around Don Bartolo's house just like last time. The interior, I don't remember from last time, but my friend Erik was like, "Does David Lynch live here?" There's a TV tuned to static and some off-kilter light bulbs and the whole thing just looks like a Nine Inch Nails video from childhood, and there's the hand chair with Jesus's sewed-up face on it, and finally DB appears and grabs Lafayette and he's like, "Jesusito spit on this family when he gave away our gift to you. Tonight, I spit back. Tonight, I will take back what belongs to me!" Lafayette's dialogue in this episode is nothing special, but he acts the fuck out of every scene, starting now: He spits right in Don Bartolo's face.
"I spit first, you sick fucking fuck."
Good. Any God worth loving would like you more, that's how you know. Fucking spit. Aslan isn't a tame lion. Right in the eye, if necessary. He's so close.
HOSPITAL
Sam: "Luna, stay in bed! Just like I told you the last hundred episodes!"
Sookie: "Hey y'all. I brought Luna a bunch of awesome things, like a Sonic burger and some trashy magazines, because we're apparently friends."
Luna: "Thanks, Sookie! And nice to meet you!"
Sookie: "Hey Sam, what if you could deplete your luminescence permanently?"
Sam: "Any other day I would say no, but I have to admit it would be a relief this week. Due to people constantly shooting at me and people like me."
Sookie: "So you're saying I should deplete my luminescence?"
Sam: "In a way yes, but also no, because I am now a hugely anti-human racist just like Hoyt randomly just flipped into being an anti-shifter racist, and thus would have to discriminate against you. Conserve your luminescence, unless of course you have a three-thousand year old vampire leading an army to suck your blood and that of your entire race. Then, I would say, it's a toss-up."
FANGTASIA!
So Tara's on the pole. I'm of two minds about this.
On the one hand, this is a plum role for a talented and lovely black actress, in theory. On the other hand, it really tends not to be, in practice. On another hand, I've always thought that Fangtasia!'s whole physical setup (Faerieland! too, come to think of it) gives a lot of credence to the dynamic of stripping as worship. (cv. Salome above.)
They're not the main attraction, first of all, and they're on those pedestals, and the whole point is that vampires are more wonderful than we are. There's no thought of touching or exploiting the physical, because they are vampires and can murder you, they can protect themselves, so it really is just about being looked at, desired, worshipped. There's no real downside, because you can't really objectify a vampire against their will. She's not being forced into anything. So on the fourth hand, it's like, What Tara needs is some pride in herself. In herself as a vampire, but also -- if you think about it -- in herself as a body, as a woman with a body. Who is safe. She's like the well-adjusted sex worker that we all wish was real; she's the stripper unicorn, by virtue of circumstance. How's that work out? Let's take a look.
Lettie Mae: "Tara, it's me, baby. Your mother?"
Tara Mae: "I know who you are."
Lettie Mae: "How could you do this to me?"
Tara Mae: "An ill-formed question in multiple respects."
Lettie Mae: "This has nothing to do with respect. I have molded myself into a preacher's wife, and you are a skin I left behind. Just a possum I drowned."
Tara Mae: "This was never a story about you."
Tara, fanged up: "You'll be seeing me again."
Lettie Mae: "I ain't afraid of you, child. I got Jesus at my back."
Tara: "Neato."
Lettie Mae: "I'm gonna go."
Tara: "Then go."
AUTHORITY
Salome: "The Book tells us that to stake a Guardian is to turn your back on Lilith herself. But what to do when that Guardian has already turned his back on her? I believe Lilith forgives Russell Edgington for what he's done."
Russell: "I'm down with that. Also, sorry for all that blaspheming before."
Cult That Was the Authority Until a Second Ago: "Love Lilith praise her praise her praise her praise her praise Lilith..."
Salome: "Roman always talked about how humans created us, or we evolved from them, but now apparently we all agree that's not true. He also thought this creepy blood reliquary was a fake-out, or symbolic or whatever, but also that's not true. The Authority itself was created to protect it."
Apparently the Book tells us Lilith met the sun by the hand of Man, and that night her progeny collected her remains in a clay jar, and that's what we're looking at... Which puts a new spin on the whole Brimful Of Talbot plot from Season Three, doesn't it? I always wondered if we'd get back to that idea, that you can somehow magically reconstitute a person from a candy jar. Russell thought it had to do with Sookie's blood, but I guess the truth was even dumber than that.
Dissent: "Drink it? This is a really gross idea that..."
Sploosh: "Anybody else want to bitch and moan?"
Baby Eater Guy: "No, I'm good. Hey, thanks for letting me be part of the Authority even though I just happened to randomly be in the building."
Steve Newlin: "Why not? I'm like a tree in the wind. I am just so happy to be included!"
Bill: "Short of running out of here, Ah suppose we're fixin' to do this?"
Eric: "Uh, we're vampires. This is vampire blood. Just V, like any other V. I doubt it'll even..."
Cut to the vampires high as fuck.
SORTED
They roam the streets of New Orleans, laughing and touching each other, rolling like whoa, everybody magic and PLURed out and it's like, Remember how wonderful Lafayette was when he was explaining to Jason how V worked? You get the essence of that particular vintage, and see through their frame of reference. I guess in this case God trips balls. It made me miss the '90s for sure. It is very beautiful and very sweet and very scary. Bill's never been so happy. Eric's never been less cold. It's like a usual V scene in frequency and wavelength, but going in a whole different direction from usual.
Steve: "I'm jealous of your disguise."
Russell: "That doesn't mean anything because you're out of your fucking face. Wait, are you talking about costumes? How's anybody supposed to know if we're wearing Bourbon Street attire when we dress like freaks on a normal day?"
Steve: "Since we're the only two gay people that have ever existed, a lot of straight people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about thought it would be 'cute' if we got together. What say you, Mississippi?"
Russell: "Second you kill a newscaster on live TV, we'll talk."
Nigel: "Where's she even taking us?"
Salome: "Not I. Lilith is ... taking us. Only she knows."
Barb: "Hope she figures it out soon, because I'm hungry!"
They are mean to a taxi driver for honking at them! They are scary and overbearing and hot! I hope they never come down! Just walk around being spaced-out sexy dicks forever and obnoxious ever. Thanks, Lilith. You invented Burning Man.
FANGTASIA!
Tara's crying at her desk when Pam enters the office. Embarrassed and shy, and not sure what seeing a person crying will cause Pam to do, she tries to shuffle away, but Pam's not having it.
Tara: "I'll move..."
Pam: "No, sit. It's okay. Sit."
She heard every word. She's wanted a daughter for a long time.
Pam: "You looked good up there. You were right, you're a better dancer than you are a bartender."
Which solves that one, too.
Pam: "Soooo. Your mom's a real bitch."
Tara: "Yeah, but what do you do? She's my mom."
Pam: "Not anymore."
Tara: "I fucking hate her, and I'm still crying for her. Can you believe this shit?"
Pam, touching her: "Hey. Hey. A hundred years from now you won't even remember her. I promise you."
Wolves: "We say yes! Because we are the worst."
JD: "Emma honey, would you like some drugs?"
Emma: "No thanks. I'm a little girl, you see."
JD: "Don't you want to join a Nazi Death Cult with your granddaddy?"
Emma: "Compelling argument. Hand it over."
Martha: "Emma, do not take those drugs! You guys, you are really being gross today!"
Wolves: "Today?"
Martha: "JD, I'm disappointed in you a little bit. Now, I'm not going to abjure you or take any real steps to stop this, but I am going to hit the bricks with Emma as fast as my classy little werewolf feet can go."
JD: "I guess that makes sense."
HOYT/SAM
Gets into a truck with the rest of the Obamas, off to do whatever stupid thing, while one of them -- name of Joe Bob -- heads off to murder Luna. Sam is in the hospital, being annoying and trying to stay past visiting hours like usual, but before the nurse can get the hose out he sniffs Joe Bob impersonating an orderly, and takes him out in the hallway.
KARAOKE
On Bourbon Street there is a karaoke bar which has been rented out to a wedding party, and I believe it's the bride singing "You Light Up My Life" when Russell appears, takes over -- drama! -- and ruins her moment. I wish, in her confusion, she'd spent a couple more bars singing along with him, but it's pretty funny either way. Eventually he's recognized by the mother or father of the groom, and that's when it turns into a total massacre.
Bride: "Mommy!"
Russell: "No, sweetie. You should worry about you."
The Lilithority just goes nuts on their asses. Yes, including the Boys. Mainstream this! stop, everywhere! It's not quite "Time for the weather -- Tiffany?" but it's close. King Russell can kind of do no wrong, even when -- as it's starting to seem -- he doesn't really have a huge reason to be here.
TERRY
Patrick: "Yep. Still in this storyline."
Terry: "Man, Jacob was really right about the act structure."
Ifrit: "Hey guys! I'm going to kill you!"
Guys: "Thank God. We've been waiting in this field forever!"
Ifrit: "Just kidding! I am here to intimidate and scare you even more, than laugh and go away again! I play with my food!"
Terry: "Welp. Guess I'm going to shoot myself in the head."
Patrick: "No, don't do that."
Terry, after much drama: "Okay I won't."
Exeunt. Presumably back to Bon Temps.
CASTLE COMPTON/SOOKIE'S HOUSE
Jessica is chowing down on a dude when the guards let a clearly drunk Jason inside. She cleans up and heads downstairs, where he tells her about his parents. She's concerned because they are friends, and asks him to tell her drunkenly all about it.
Meanwhile, also freaking out about this on the other side of the graveyard, Sookie has a quick flashback of every conversation she's ever had in the history of the show.
Jason: "I mean, we can't even define our relationship, and now..."
Jessica: "Um, all vampires are not the same. I hate to feel like I'm repeating myself, but..."
Jason: "I am just very wounded and childlike right now."
Jessica: "Then I have to kiss you. I hope I remembered to brush my..."
Jason: "Whoa, am I tasting another man's blood?"
Jessica: "Aw, fuck."
Jason: "Is he here right now? I better yell at him for undefined reasons that don't fit our situation, because our situation is unique."
Jessica: "I wish that you would demonstrate a little class in my house, but if you must..."
Jason: "Yo, dude. Sheriff's Department. What's your name, son? 'Cause she sure as shit don't know!"
Jessica, not really to her credit, reminds Jason that he's not learned the name of every cow he ever ate, and Jason -- who clearly is not as adept at code-switching in this fashion, hence his weirdly jealous freakout -- is offended because it sounds like she's saying he fucks cows, and they start fighting, and then they are physically fighting.
And so it is that the first time she feeds on him -- right? -- is now, when she attacks him just for pissing her off. And he responds by shooting her in the head, and so with her own blood and skull splattered on the wall behind her, Jessica throws him out of the castle. Seemingly for good.
As fucked up as it is to see happen, it's even more fucked up in practice, because here's Jessica's last 24 or 48 hours: Made a new friend, Tara who recently became awesome, got into a physical fight, lost her. Saw what Hoyt has turned into, managed to almost get into a physical fight with him, and now he's kidnapped which she doesn't even know about, and probably on his way to her house to kill her, which she certainly doesn't know about. And now Jason, her only real friend she's got, she kissed him and fought him and bit him, and now he's shot her in the head. It's just so fucking sad. Desperately. Especially since none of it is really her fault. I mean, stop coming at people, Jessica, but even so.
Jason stumbles out into the world, and notices the lightshow from across the graveyard where Sookie -- excited about being powerless and possibly no longer being the village idiot -- is depleting her luminescence like whoa. He starts running, assuming some other dreadful thing is happening like always, but no. Just dumb Sookie doing something dumb.
KARAOKE
And over on Bourbon Street, they have done some massive damage. Suddenly, a drop of blood falls from heaven onto the stage, which is now an otherworldly pool of blood, and up from the floor rises Lilith, naked and covered in blood, and she walks around looking at them and making little dragon noises, breathing a blood mist -- and remember, these people are high as shit on drugs made out of God, so grain of salt -- and delighting in how crazed everybody is. And that's kind of amazing, but then Godric shows up to fucking ruin everything and keep Eric from falling under the spell -- in fact, she seemingly disappears (or was never there in the first place). Telling him to save his sister, before she embarrasses the entire family.
Note, please, that no such angel ghost is visiting Bill Compton today.
WEEK
The vampire war starts, hopefully. We get to the bottom of whether Lilith is even here or not, because if she is and Eric just can't see her, that would be a pickle indeed. Hoyt probably shows up at Jessica's and gets his pretty face mashed some more. Tara and Pam do whatever they're gonna do. Terry comes home for a séance to get this ifrit off his back, courtesy of Lafayette... And Sookie, I'm guessing, fails to deplete her luminescence after all.
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.