True Blood 1x06: "Cold Ground"
First: Recap icons from phlourish-icons!
Second: I have got to give a million thanks and e-cookies to mcamason, who has saved both my fingers and my sanity by finding transcripts of the dialogue captioning. They don't describe the action (or even tell you who's speaking), so just reading the dialogue isn't really going to help if you didn't watch the show, but it's a lifesaver for me, because I can go copy-paste the exact lines I want to use and then check them against a single viewing of the show without having to spend three hours pausing and unpausing and transcribing it myself. Shit, Lafayette's Epic Moment of Awesome wouldn't have taken half an hour to write if I'd had these.
So! Previously on "True Blood": Somebody killed Gran, y'all. I mean, a lot of stuff happened (Bill was a huge hit at the DGD meeting and then we found out how he got vampired, Sam's date with Sookie blew up in his face, Lafayette was exceptionally awesome, a V-tripping Jason managed to fuck up yet again and maybe even put Tara permanently off her crush), but somebody killed Gran, y'all.
So Sookie is staring at Gran's body in its pool of blood (and seriously, it is really upsetting) (also: really, show? You have to make us watch the cat licking up the blood?), unable to process what's happened, when suddenly Bill grabs her. I TOLD YOU HE WOULD KNOW SHE WAS IN TROUBLE! Except that... Gran is real, real dead; my hopes of Bill saving her with happy magical vampire blood were for naught. But then while he's holding Sookie, they hear a noise and someone creepin' around that house is about to be in real bad trouble (FANGS!) with Bill and his Sookie-protecting bitchface except that... it's Sam? Wait, I thought trying to make Sam look like the killer was so two episodes ago? He says he came over to make sure Sookie got home in her cab okay after their date went bad... and then he looks down and sees blood smeared all over Sookie's legs. And then he sees Gran.
After the credits, Detective Andy and the Sheriff are on the scene. Andy's trying to pull himself together (Do your job. No wonder they don't respect you. Aw, Detective Andy!) and the Sheriff is examining the body: Cut her up real good. Must be thirty stabs. The throat is wide open... holy hell, we got ourselves a serial killer here. And then we have a weird exchange on the porch where Sam's trying to apologize to Sookie for the fight they'd just had on the date--keep in mind that she's hearing his thoughts:
SAM: "I never shoulda left you alone, I lost my temper, I shouldn't have--"
SOOKIE: "Sam, do you think you could apologize to me some other time?"
SAM: "Whatever you need, anything I can do, you know, I'm right here..." Hold you, make it better, I'm the one, I'm so sorry, sorrowful, soft skin...
Wait, what?
And then Sookie starts asking where Bill went (I suspect he really didn't want to be around that much blood, given what he told Andy and the Sheriff in the previous episode), so Sam stomps off to Sookie's room to get him, basically saying, "Sookie wants you, stay away from her." Um, what? "You know," says Bill, "Sookie doesn't take kindly to people making decisions for her." And Sam's all like YOU DON'T KNOW HER!! I KNOW HER!!!, and the first time I watched this, I blurted out, "GUYS, JUST PEE ON HER AND GET IT OVER WITH," and I swear to you, Bill then says, "Then you also know that this is neither the time nor the place for you to... mark your territory." AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sam is a werecollie and Bill totally knows it, y'all.
(Something else interesting: Bill notices that Sookie's window screen has a big gaping tear in it.)
Downstairs, Andy and the Sheriff are discussing who could have done it (Andy's still on Jason's case, but even the Sheriff doesn't think Jason could have killed his own grandmother), and the Sheriff suggests that either someone killed Gran because she pissed people off by bringing "the fanger" to the DGD meeting at church, or Bill did it himself. But Andy remembers the same thing I just pointed out: "But Vampire Bill said that--" HA! The Sheriff: "Vampire Bill? You're on a first-name basis with that bloodsucker now? These things are crafty--" Bill: O HAY GUYS, WHAT'S UP. Andy wants him out of there, but, as the Sheriff snarks, "I suspect Vampire Bill's been around a dead body or two before." They have a few more questions as well, and Bill explains that he speed-moed on over when he heard Sookie's car pull up (he didn't see that it was a cab, I guess): "After you left my home, I was waiting for her to return from her engagement." Aw! The Sheriff also establishes that Bill was able to hear this "from clean across the cemetery," which is reasonable enough given his heightened vampire senses, but I think that the important thing is what he didn't hear: he didn't hear any other vehicles (no, not even Jason's truck, Andy) but--and the show doesn't point this out--he didn't hear Gran scream, either. And the coroner just established not thirty seconds ago that Gran "put up a hell of a fight." And yet the only thing Bill heard was Sookie arrive home. I don't quite know what to make of it, but I've read enough Sherlock Holmes to know a Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time when I see one. Anyway, Bill doesn't think that it's at all a coincidence that all three victims were "gracious to his people"; he thinks someone is specifically targeting women who "associate" with vampires... and that Gran wasn't the intended victim.
Back out on the porch while Bill's being held up, Sam offers to call Jason for Sookie and break the bad news to him. Hey! I don't think we've seen Jason's ass in a while! Let's get back on that. Actually, we get a bare-ass twofer, because he's sprawled out in bed with Randi Sue the Divorcee Chick. I don't know if they actually showered after Tara dumped the garbage on them, and I'm kind of afraid to ask. So his phone starts buzzing (his ringtone is a snippet of some song urging you to "shake that ass"), and... Jason throws it through a slatted door. Oh God, this is not good.
Back on the porch, the coroner's wheeling Gran's body out, and the apprentice we met at Dawn's house ducks away from Sookie: Please, God, hope she didn't recognize me from that vampire bar, I look different, it was dark and she was fangbangin' too... That's right: he's the "skinny, punky goth" I mentioned in the Fangtasia recap.
So then Bill and Sam and the cops start arguing with Sookie over where's she's going to stay for the night: Sookie's determined to stay in her own house, but both the guys think she would be safer elsewhere (Sam offers the Sad Trailer). "I got both of you to protect me, haven't I?" she says (and if there is the faintest whiff of sarcasm in her voice, we will not blame her). Well, except that it's about a quarter till sun according to Bill's watch, and he's got to go, but he sexyvoices that he will return. And then he and Sam nearly get into a pissing contest again. But I guess Sam stays in the house--Sookie does make him go get the extra mop round back so that she can... start cleaning the kitchen floor. Oh God. And she does ("Gran took a lotta pride in her home. She wouldn't want anyone to see it like this"), with a rag and a tub of water, one small patch at a time.
Chez Stackhouse, the next morning. The Casserole Cam ushers us into a house crawling with townsfolk paying their "respects" and their bitchy, uncharitable thoughts: That Stackhouse girl hasn't come out of the kitchen... I heard she hasn't cried a single tear... You know she's been going around with that vampire... Hoyt's Mama is particularly bad: Heard they almost cut off her head. I don't see any blood. Shoulda gotten here sooner. Maybe I shoulda brought my red velvet cake instead. WOMAN! WHAT THE HELL! And here's Arlene and her idea of being helpful: "Now, if you need help with movin' or anything at all..." Sookie declares that she is staying put, because "I have far more good memories of this kitchen than bad ones." "Aw, what a good way to look at it!" coos Arlene. "You know, you really are smarter'n anyone gives you credit for." Sigh. And then Sookie FLIPS THE FUCK OUT because Hoyt's Mama is poking around her fridge: "MAXINE FORTENBERRY, YOU PUT THAT PIE DOWN RAHT NOW!"_You see, "THIS! IS GRAN'S! PIEEEE!" Which, of course, only makes it worse: Poor girl is crazy as a bedbug... We all know you killed your grandmother... After I spent all morning making this casserole... That she would even show her face to everybody... Yeah. It is time for a Tara Intervention: "Excuse us, I need Sookie upstairs--just give us a little girl time. LAFAYETTE!" Heeeee.
Sookie's room. Tara and Lafayette comfort her, telling her that she doesn't have to "dance for these circlin' buzzards," and that feeling numb right now is probably the best thing for her. To that end, Lafayette leaves a Valium on her nightstand, you know, just in case she decides she needs it. Oh, and Lafayette? "Yes, madame?" Sookie holds out Gran's Pie: "Would you mind... take this downstairs for me?" "I will guard it with my life," he says like a total sweetheart.
Over at whichever construction site wherever, Jason's shown up for work. You know, because he didn't answer his stupid phone and he has no idea that his grandmother is dead and that her house is full of mean-ass people with tuna cheese casseroles. "Ho-lee shit. Dis ain no good," groans Cajun Rene.
Sookie's room. Tara's asking if Sookie's going to invite Bill to the funeral, at which point Sookie points out that he can't go, because it's going to be during the day, obviously, and Bill's a vampire. Tara's not terribly disappointed: "You should hear the things people are saying." UM, TARA, SHE KIND OF DOES, THAT'S THE PROBLEM. Anyway, Tara is still not entirely on board with Bill hanging around: "I'd fuckin' lose it if anything happened to you, you know that, right?" But Sookie tells her, "Last night was so horrible... I don't know how I would've gotten through if it weren't for Bill."
And then suddenly Jason bursts into the room and, I swear to God, bitchslaps Sookie halfway across the room (a roar of "WHAT THE FUCK?" comes from Tara's general direction), shouting, "IT'S YOUR FAULT! GRAN IS DEAD 'CAUSE OF YOU! IT SHOULDA BEEN YOUUUUUU!" As promised, Tara immediately goes into mama-bear mode: "SON OF A BITCH, DON'T YOU LAY YOUR HANDS ON HER!" "SHE'S SCREWIN' A VAMPIRE, TARA! A FUCKIN' VAMPIRE!"_(Why does everyone assume that Sookie "I Am a Lady" Stackhouse is sleeping with Bill?) And then Tara has a mini-moment of Epic Awesome: "Yeah, and that vampire was here for her when you weren't!" O MY FUCKING SNAP. "You oughta be ashamed of yourself! Is that how your grandma raised you, to beat on your own sister? Look at you! I 'on't even reckonize you anymore! Get the hell outta here! GET OUT! GET OUT!"
Yeah... Sookie will be taking that Valium now.
Outside, Detective Andy tries to question Jason as to his whereabouts the night before, and Jason freaks out ("ARE YOU SAYIN' I KILLED MY GRANDMOTHER?") and basically flings Andy "like a rag doll" against his (Jason's) truck, and then speeds off, to the shock of all the rubbernecking casserole-makers. "You's a stupid bitch, Jason Stackhouse," mutters Lafayette, because not only does Jason look guilty as all hell, that little display of he-man superstrength was lost on no one, and, as you will recall, the last thing Lafayette wants is for anyone--dead or alive--to figure out that he's dealing V.
Back in the house, Tara decides that the party's over: "All right, everybody! Sookie needs her rest, it's time for y'all to go. You heard me, sideshow's over! GIT! Let's go, leeeeet's go! We appreciate y'all comin' out, we love y'all. Come on, let's go. Thank you. THAT MEANS YOU TOO, SAM." Sam tries to protest (IF HE LEAVES, THAT VAMPIRE WILL STEP UP TO HIS WOMAN AGAIN!), but Tara insists that Sookie needs some peace and quiet. ALONE: "You're a good friend. Now get the fuck outta here. Please."
(To Arlene and Hoyt's Mama: "DON'T MAKE ME THROW Y'ALL OUT MYSELF, 'CAUSE YOU KNOW I WILL." )
Once everyone's cleared out, Tara and Lafayette are back in the Stackhouse kitchen trying to clean up the casserole carnage ("What the fuck is it with white people and Jello?"), and Lafayette is all for just throwing the whole mess of condolence food away: "Sookie don't need no bad juju cookin'." Tara doesn't understand, but I do--we've heard those people's thoughts, we know what they think of Sookie. There's no way any of that food was cooked in a spirit of generosity; they made all those awful casseroles and congealed monstrosities because that's The Done Thing, and so they'd have a reason to congregate in Sookie's house and possibly get an eyeful to gossip about. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," explains Lafayette. "That shit true as gold. Put some love in yo' food and folk can taste it. Smell this--you can smell the fear and nastiness comin' off that cornbread." Except that he says it "kurnbread," which made me laugh. Tara stuffs a pinch of it into her mouth: "Taste just fine to me." Lafayette: "See, bitch, you gonna wish you ain't did that."
Sookie's room. She's still trying to sleep when suddenly, someone starts choking Sookie--and just for future reference, I would direct you to look at the hands, although this might pan out to be nothing, because--well, we'll get to that.
And now we find out where Bill sleeps during the day--in a crawlspace under the Compton house--because, just like I said, he can totally sense when Sookie's in trouble and he knows she's in it now. Except that the sun hasn't quite set yet--he actually checks his watch (well, I guess when such a thing is relevant to your continued existence, you very well might have the sunrise and set times from the weather forecast memorized) and it reminded me of this really awesome watch I had in grade school, maybe a Fossil? It had a little panel around the top half where you could see the sun and moon and stars go around according to what time of day it was--the sun would be on top at noon, for example. I like to think that Bill has a watch like this. So all he can do now is just lie down there under his house freaking out helplessly ("NNNNGH! FIVE MINUTES UNTIL MOON! NNNNNNNGH!" ).
So finally the sun's all the way down and Lafayette and Tara are trying to clean up after the whole town tromped through the house that morning with their nasty-ass bad juju food, and suddenly the Stackhouse front door slams open and Bill bolts through the hall and up the stairs in speed-mo. This itself is not necessarily that hilarious; I can think of a number of effects you could use to make this something other than supremely lame. Such as, for example, a vague blur, or just having the door fly open and not show Bill at all. This show, however, did not think of any of those ways. It's like they just had Stephen Moyer run up the stairs and then sped up the footage, because when you want to show your vampire hero racing to the side of his damsel in distress, you want it to look like something out of Benny Hill.
So I'm on the floor crying with laughter and Sookie's out cold on her bed and Bill is shaking the shit out of her: "SOOKIE! SOOKIE!! SOOKIE SOOKIE SOOKIE SOOKIE!!1!" (Tara: "WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOIN'?" You can always count on Tara for a solid WHAT THE FUCK?) Finally Sookie comes to--I had wondered if Sookie was just having a nightmare about the killer, but it turns out that Bill was the one having the nightmare (you know, down there under his house in the crawlspace), and Sookie's fine--just still really groggy from Lafayette's Valium. And Bill's kneeling by her bed, relieved, and for a moment I thought he was just going to camp out there and watch her sleep. And hey, you know, at least she would know that he was there, EDWARD. But no! He is far too much a gentleman to remain in a lady's boudoir while she lies abed insensible to his presence, EDWARD.
So Tara and Lafayette are standing at the Stackhouses' front window watching Bill standing in the yard, drinking his Tru Blood, watching Sookie's window. And then the werecollie runs up and sits down beside him. Bill's all like, S'up, werecollie. "Nothin' much. Workin' for The Man." And they both just hang out there in the yard and watch Sookie's window some more.
(Tara: "Do you think they're capable of lovin' a person?" Lafayette: "Who knows what they're capable of.")
Gran's funeral. Of course there's a lady from church singing a hymn and making everyone misty-eyed. And then the Stackhouse kids' Great-Uncle Bartlett shows up in his wheelchair and Sookie is Not Happy--apparently Jason invited him, and there was some kind of terrible falling out ("You haven't been part of this family in a long time"), but the show does not feel like filling us in on it right now. I hear we might find out in the next episode, though. Given how upset Sookie is and how not-getting-it Jason is, I'm going to guess that whatever happened, Sookie knows the truth but Jason doesn't, and it might have even involved Sookie (or possibly her parents). Who knows?
(On a shallow note: I love Tara's dress.)
So Sookie gets up to Say a Few Words about how Gran was everything to her, but all she can hear is the townsfolk thinking (Poor pathetic thing... She is as nuts as nuts can be...) about how it's her fault Gran died (Oh, please. If it weren't for you, she would be alive...) because Sookie hangs around with Those Vampires (I thought she was a good girl. I guess you never know... You sleep with your grandmother's killer...) and it should be Sookie's funeral (You should be in that grave. And you will...) and "SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!"_Yeah. Sookie just cussed out the entire town of Bon Temps. At her grandmother's funeral. DURING A EULOGY.
So... that happened.
(One more thing: during all of this, we hear Uncle Bartlett thinking, Forgive me, Adele... I never meant to hurt no one, but I couldn't...)
And then Tara's crazy, crazy, drunk, crazy mother decides she needs to get up and Say a Few Words despite Tara's best attempts to pull her back down ("Omafuckin' God, girl," moans Lafayette, "this about to get ugly"), but she actually manages to hold herself together and talk about how Adele Stackhouse basically raised Tara when Tara's mom was "going through some bad things," which is kind of awkward given that she looks like she's got the DTs even as we speak, but--that's almost an even greater tribute to Gran, that this woman would stand up and reveal her own failings in order to give Gran the credit she deserves.
So... that's the funeral, pretty much. And then Jason and Sookie have a fight out deeper in the cemetery where Jason tries to apologize for hitting her ("Well, I didn't mean to hurt you!" HEY JASON THAT'S KIND OF WHAT HITTING'S FOR) and insists that Uncle Bartlett has a right to be there, because "that's what family does. We forgive each other." Yeah... I'm not saying that's not true, but you'll notice it's always the fuckups who dredge up this particular pearl of wisdom and never, you know, "Family's about not treating each other like shit." I'm just saying. Anyway: "Sookie, please... I mean, we're all we've got," he says helplessly, and Sookie retorts, "We've got nothing." And by "we" she means "you." And after she storms off, Jason kind of lifts up the ends of his jacket and tugs at them like he's five years old, and I started to feel genuinely sorry for him.
As the townsfolk drift away, Tara pulls her mom away from Hoyt's Mama and starts chewing her out: "You had no right to speak for that woman! She was more the mother to me than you ever were. She took care of me, she fed me, she put clothes on me--she called social services on you twice! You hated her guts! Yes you did! You used to call her a white devil bitch!" Okay, I kind of laughed at that. But now Tara's mom claims that it "wasn't me that said those things," and she reveals why she really came to the funeral: she needs money from Tara. Of course she does. For... an exorcism? "I have a demon inside of me. Livin' and breathin' inside of me. Eatin' me up!" And Tara just starts laughing: "You have a demon inside you? Aw, fuck me, that's too good." And we get the "you're all I've got" speech again here, just in a different key, and Tara, too, walks away as her mother wails, "I neeeeed youuuuu!"
Meanwhile, Sookie's still wandering through the cemetery trying to pull herself together, and she stumbles across a flat gravestone inscribed... WILLIAM THOMAS COMPTON. Awkward. (I'm guessing his family placed it there after he never came home, assuming he'd been killed in the war? He wasn't actually buried under it or anything.) Sookie jumps back like she's been stung.
So then Jason goes back to his truck and pulls out another paper square of Lafayette's V and nearly takes it, but at the last moment he does the right thing and throws it out the car window. And then he changes his mind ("Fuuuuuck! Fuck!" ) and goes scrambling through the dirt for it, unable to find it again, tweaking his brains out (he spent the entire funeral sweating through dizzy, jerky flashes). I'm starting to dread what the next level in Jason's Downward Spiral might be.
Back at the gravesite, Gran's coffin is being slowly hand-cranked into the grave as Sookie watches, numb. Sam comes up and congratulates her on her speech: "I especially liked the part where you told the whole town to shut the fuck up." ("Yeah, I'm a real crowd-pleaser.") He walks her home and offers to stay and, like, watch stupid alien movies with her, you know, after she's had a long bath (what?) and SERIOUSLY, SAM, BACK THE FUCK OFF, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. Like, I appreciate that you're trying to stake your claim, which is at least better than those self-proclaimed Nice Guy types who sit around whining about the object of their affections and never man up and do anything about it, but SHE JUST BURIED HER GRANDMOTHER, JESUS. And when the girl asks for another guy in her time of grief, it's time to let her go.
To his credit, Sam actually starts moving towards doing just that (I'm doing this a little bit out of order, but it's clearer this way): Tara comes up and says that she doesn't want to be alone just now, and he says that he doesn't either. So they go to Tara's new apartment--last we saw, she was crashing at Lafayette's, but it turns out that he had a webcam in his bathroom: "No way I'll let a buncha perverts watch me pee." So she's actually taken Sam's advice and gone and gotten her own place, complete with crazy neighbor lady shouting "Piece of shit! I'll fuckin' kill you!" ("Don't worry. She says that all the time"). Sam asks why she just didn't tell him she needed a place to stay, because, you know, he's got the Sad Trailer out behind Merlotte's, and she retorts, "So you could ride up on your white horse and save me?" And Sam, who is tired of pretty much everything, asks why she tries to turn everything into a fight; Tara snarks that that's just her way, low self-esteem, only way to express her feelings, etc. But Sam's tired of being teased: "I want something real in my life," he smolders. I do believe it is time for some more mutually beneficial action, y'all, and none too soon. But "if we do this," he says, "we really did this."
And how! "HOLY SHIT!" gasps Tara some unspecified amount of time later. She flops back onto the pillows in the Leading Lady Bra of Modesty. Sam wants to go again, but then they hear Crazy Neighbor Lady making things up with whoever she generally crazies at, and a weird look passes over Tara's face and you can see her just emotionally close up again. So she actually runs out on Sam, out of her own apartment, in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, Randi Sue's riding Jason like a rodeo (a reverse rodeo, at that) but he is so alone. So very, very alone. And tweaking for V. *emo addict tear*
And then we find out what Tara's deal was. I didn't realize it at the time--I thought Tara was just freaked out by the whole Baby baby I love you baby thing going on next door while she's having her complicated maybe-relationship with Sam, but it turns out that what she also heard them saying was I need you. I need you so fucking much. So she's gone home to her crazy mother, is what's happened. "I knew you'd come," her mother says with a trusting, childlike smile. If I wasn't so afraid for Tara's psyche at this point, it would actually be sweet.
So interspersed through this is Sookie alone in her house, really alone for the first time since she discovered Gran's body. She takes out Gran's Pie--there's about half of it left--sits down with a fork, and starts to eat. Which is a really lovely thing, if you think about it--there are all kinds of beliefs about taking in the flesh of another person to acquire some of their strength (and let's not forget Lafayette's whole spiel about taking in the personality of a vampire), but here, Sookie is taking in what is possibly one of Gran's last acts--a pie she baked, and there is love in it, unlike the bad juju kurnbread. It's both one of Gran's last expressions of caring for Sookie and her caring nature itself, a nature that might transfer, in part, to Sookie through the eating of this pie. And it's an interesting pie, too--it's got pecans laid in all over the top, but the filling itself doesn't look like pecan pie as I know it it--it's a lot creamier looking. (What'd you say it might be, sucrelefey--a backwoods pie? ETA: Is it a chess pie?) So I don't know what that's about. But Sookie sits down and starts eating it, forkful by forkful, sobbing all the way through her sorrow cream pie, if you will, and by God, she eats the whole thing.
And I think all that sugar went straight to her brain, because then Sookie takes out, like, this floaty white Empire-waist princess nightgown (Lord knows I always keep one on hand for special occasions), stares at herself in the mirror, makes up her mind, and waits for the sun to go down. So then she goes running barefoot, in Lizzie Bennet's best negligee, down Convenience Road THROUGH THE CEMETERY to the Compton house and Bill DRAMATICALLY flings open the front door and SENSES HER APPROACHING from the front porch and they run across a moonlit meadow to each other while the sexvolins are urging them on--I AM SO INCREDIBLY NOT MAKING THIS UP, YOU GUYS--and he sweeps her into his arms and carries her across the front yard and storms into the house where there is a ROARING FIRE, for real, really for really real, in Louisiana, in a vampire's house where he doesn't get cold (I guess he was making Woe Toast for old times' sake or something) and this whole scene is ripped from Generic Romance Novel #23, it is fantastic. Aaaand Anna Paquin does not get the Leading Lady Bra of Modesty, and after this I can never watch any movie she made as a child ever again. And I really liked that version of Jane Eyre, y'all. Aw, and now Bill's having premature fangulation again. It's okay, honey, it happens to everybody sometime--but no! Sookie doesn't do things by halves, she's gonna do this right, and she offers her throat to Bill. Hot! bloody! closeup! nose on neck action! Aw, and that means that Bill got a taste of Sookie's outrageous flavor while she was still a virgin. Nicely done.
And it was at this point that I said to myself, okay, that's it, I'm packing it in. Last one out turn out the lights, I can't ever watch this show again. It is never gonna get any better than this. This is the zenith of Southern-fried vampire melodrama. It can only go downhill from here. (LOOK, I WAS VERY TRAUMATIZED BY WHAT HAPPENED TO THE X-FILES, OKAY? THOSE LAST TWO SEASONS WERE LIKE WATCHING JEFF GOLDBLUM DISINTEGRATE IN THE FLY, THAT SHOW WAS MY FIRST LOVE AND I AM NEVER GONNA GET OVER THAT. I HAVE SHOW-QUALITY ABANDONMENT ISSUES, OKAY? )
And then we get to the preview for the next episode, and this show delivers the one thing that could possibly make me keep watching, which is Sam Hardcore Merlotte threatening to throw down on the Vampires Three with a broken pool cue. Oh, show. How do you push my buttons so well?
(Continue: 1x07: "Burning House of Love.")
(All True Blood recaps.)
Second: I have got to give a million thanks and e-cookies to mcamason, who has saved both my fingers and my sanity by finding transcripts of the dialogue captioning. They don't describe the action (or even tell you who's speaking), so just reading the dialogue isn't really going to help if you didn't watch the show, but it's a lifesaver for me, because I can go copy-paste the exact lines I want to use and then check them against a single viewing of the show without having to spend three hours pausing and unpausing and transcribing it myself. Shit, Lafayette's Epic Moment of Awesome wouldn't have taken half an hour to write if I'd had these.
So! Previously on "True Blood": Somebody killed Gran, y'all. I mean, a lot of stuff happened (Bill was a huge hit at the DGD meeting and then we found out how he got vampired, Sam's date with Sookie blew up in his face, Lafayette was exceptionally awesome, a V-tripping Jason managed to fuck up yet again and maybe even put Tara permanently off her crush), but somebody killed Gran, y'all.
So Sookie is staring at Gran's body in its pool of blood (and seriously, it is really upsetting) (also: really, show? You have to make us watch the cat licking up the blood?), unable to process what's happened, when suddenly Bill grabs her. I TOLD YOU HE WOULD KNOW SHE WAS IN TROUBLE! Except that... Gran is real, real dead; my hopes of Bill saving her with happy magical vampire blood were for naught. But then while he's holding Sookie, they hear a noise and someone creepin' around that house is about to be in real bad trouble (FANGS!) with Bill and his Sookie-protecting bitchface except that... it's Sam? Wait, I thought trying to make Sam look like the killer was so two episodes ago? He says he came over to make sure Sookie got home in her cab okay after their date went bad... and then he looks down and sees blood smeared all over Sookie's legs. And then he sees Gran.
After the credits, Detective Andy and the Sheriff are on the scene. Andy's trying to pull himself together (Do your job. No wonder they don't respect you. Aw, Detective Andy!) and the Sheriff is examining the body: Cut her up real good. Must be thirty stabs. The throat is wide open... holy hell, we got ourselves a serial killer here. And then we have a weird exchange on the porch where Sam's trying to apologize to Sookie for the fight they'd just had on the date--keep in mind that she's hearing his thoughts:
SAM: "I never shoulda left you alone, I lost my temper, I shouldn't have--"
SOOKIE: "Sam, do you think you could apologize to me some other time?"
SAM: "Whatever you need, anything I can do, you know, I'm right here..." Hold you, make it better, I'm the one, I'm so sorry, sorrowful, soft skin...
Wait, what?
And then Sookie starts asking where Bill went (I suspect he really didn't want to be around that much blood, given what he told Andy and the Sheriff in the previous episode), so Sam stomps off to Sookie's room to get him, basically saying, "Sookie wants you, stay away from her." Um, what? "You know," says Bill, "Sookie doesn't take kindly to people making decisions for her." And Sam's all like YOU DON'T KNOW HER!! I KNOW HER!!!, and the first time I watched this, I blurted out, "GUYS, JUST PEE ON HER AND GET IT OVER WITH," and I swear to you, Bill then says, "Then you also know that this is neither the time nor the place for you to... mark your territory." AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sam is a werecollie and Bill totally knows it, y'all.
(Something else interesting: Bill notices that Sookie's window screen has a big gaping tear in it.)
Downstairs, Andy and the Sheriff are discussing who could have done it (Andy's still on Jason's case, but even the Sheriff doesn't think Jason could have killed his own grandmother), and the Sheriff suggests that either someone killed Gran because she pissed people off by bringing "the fanger" to the DGD meeting at church, or Bill did it himself. But Andy remembers the same thing I just pointed out: "But Vampire Bill said that--" HA! The Sheriff: "Vampire Bill? You're on a first-name basis with that bloodsucker now? These things are crafty--" Bill: O HAY GUYS, WHAT'S UP. Andy wants him out of there, but, as the Sheriff snarks, "I suspect Vampire Bill's been around a dead body or two before." They have a few more questions as well, and Bill explains that he speed-moed on over when he heard Sookie's car pull up (he didn't see that it was a cab, I guess): "After you left my home, I was waiting for her to return from her engagement." Aw! The Sheriff also establishes that Bill was able to hear this "from clean across the cemetery," which is reasonable enough given his heightened vampire senses, but I think that the important thing is what he didn't hear: he didn't hear any other vehicles (no, not even Jason's truck, Andy) but--and the show doesn't point this out--he didn't hear Gran scream, either. And the coroner just established not thirty seconds ago that Gran "put up a hell of a fight." And yet the only thing Bill heard was Sookie arrive home. I don't quite know what to make of it, but I've read enough Sherlock Holmes to know a Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time when I see one. Anyway, Bill doesn't think that it's at all a coincidence that all three victims were "gracious to his people"; he thinks someone is specifically targeting women who "associate" with vampires... and that Gran wasn't the intended victim.
Back out on the porch while Bill's being held up, Sam offers to call Jason for Sookie and break the bad news to him. Hey! I don't think we've seen Jason's ass in a while! Let's get back on that. Actually, we get a bare-ass twofer, because he's sprawled out in bed with Randi Sue the Divorcee Chick. I don't know if they actually showered after Tara dumped the garbage on them, and I'm kind of afraid to ask. So his phone starts buzzing (his ringtone is a snippet of some song urging you to "shake that ass"), and... Jason throws it through a slatted door. Oh God, this is not good.
Back on the porch, the coroner's wheeling Gran's body out, and the apprentice we met at Dawn's house ducks away from Sookie: Please, God, hope she didn't recognize me from that vampire bar, I look different, it was dark and she was fangbangin' too... That's right: he's the "skinny, punky goth" I mentioned in the Fangtasia recap.
So then Bill and Sam and the cops start arguing with Sookie over where's she's going to stay for the night: Sookie's determined to stay in her own house, but both the guys think she would be safer elsewhere (Sam offers the Sad Trailer). "I got both of you to protect me, haven't I?" she says (and if there is the faintest whiff of sarcasm in her voice, we will not blame her). Well, except that it's about a quarter till sun according to Bill's watch, and he's got to go, but he sexyvoices that he will return. And then he and Sam nearly get into a pissing contest again. But I guess Sam stays in the house--Sookie does make him go get the extra mop round back so that she can... start cleaning the kitchen floor. Oh God. And she does ("Gran took a lotta pride in her home. She wouldn't want anyone to see it like this"), with a rag and a tub of water, one small patch at a time.
Chez Stackhouse, the next morning. The Casserole Cam ushers us into a house crawling with townsfolk paying their "respects" and their bitchy, uncharitable thoughts: That Stackhouse girl hasn't come out of the kitchen... I heard she hasn't cried a single tear... You know she's been going around with that vampire... Hoyt's Mama is particularly bad: Heard they almost cut off her head. I don't see any blood. Shoulda gotten here sooner. Maybe I shoulda brought my red velvet cake instead. WOMAN! WHAT THE HELL! And here's Arlene and her idea of being helpful: "Now, if you need help with movin' or anything at all..." Sookie declares that she is staying put, because "I have far more good memories of this kitchen than bad ones." "Aw, what a good way to look at it!" coos Arlene. "You know, you really are smarter'n anyone gives you credit for." Sigh. And then Sookie FLIPS THE FUCK OUT because Hoyt's Mama is poking around her fridge: "MAXINE FORTENBERRY, YOU PUT THAT PIE DOWN RAHT NOW!"_You see, "THIS! IS GRAN'S! PIEEEE!" Which, of course, only makes it worse: Poor girl is crazy as a bedbug... We all know you killed your grandmother... After I spent all morning making this casserole... That she would even show her face to everybody... Yeah. It is time for a Tara Intervention: "Excuse us, I need Sookie upstairs--just give us a little girl time. LAFAYETTE!" Heeeee.
Sookie's room. Tara and Lafayette comfort her, telling her that she doesn't have to "dance for these circlin' buzzards," and that feeling numb right now is probably the best thing for her. To that end, Lafayette leaves a Valium on her nightstand, you know, just in case she decides she needs it. Oh, and Lafayette? "Yes, madame?" Sookie holds out Gran's Pie: "Would you mind... take this downstairs for me?" "I will guard it with my life," he says like a total sweetheart.
Over at whichever construction site wherever, Jason's shown up for work. You know, because he didn't answer his stupid phone and he has no idea that his grandmother is dead and that her house is full of mean-ass people with tuna cheese casseroles. "Ho-lee shit. Dis ain no good," groans Cajun Rene.
Sookie's room. Tara's asking if Sookie's going to invite Bill to the funeral, at which point Sookie points out that he can't go, because it's going to be during the day, obviously, and Bill's a vampire. Tara's not terribly disappointed: "You should hear the things people are saying." UM, TARA, SHE KIND OF DOES, THAT'S THE PROBLEM. Anyway, Tara is still not entirely on board with Bill hanging around: "I'd fuckin' lose it if anything happened to you, you know that, right?" But Sookie tells her, "Last night was so horrible... I don't know how I would've gotten through if it weren't for Bill."
And then suddenly Jason bursts into the room and, I swear to God, bitchslaps Sookie halfway across the room (a roar of "WHAT THE FUCK?" comes from Tara's general direction), shouting, "IT'S YOUR FAULT! GRAN IS DEAD 'CAUSE OF YOU! IT SHOULDA BEEN YOUUUUUU!" As promised, Tara immediately goes into mama-bear mode: "SON OF A BITCH, DON'T YOU LAY YOUR HANDS ON HER!" "SHE'S SCREWIN' A VAMPIRE, TARA! A FUCKIN' VAMPIRE!"_(Why does everyone assume that Sookie "I Am a Lady" Stackhouse is sleeping with Bill?) And then Tara has a mini-moment of Epic Awesome: "Yeah, and that vampire was here for her when you weren't!" O MY FUCKING SNAP. "You oughta be ashamed of yourself! Is that how your grandma raised you, to beat on your own sister? Look at you! I 'on't even reckonize you anymore! Get the hell outta here! GET OUT! GET OUT!"
Yeah... Sookie will be taking that Valium now.
Outside, Detective Andy tries to question Jason as to his whereabouts the night before, and Jason freaks out ("ARE YOU SAYIN' I KILLED MY GRANDMOTHER?") and basically flings Andy "like a rag doll" against his (Jason's) truck, and then speeds off, to the shock of all the rubbernecking casserole-makers. "You's a stupid bitch, Jason Stackhouse," mutters Lafayette, because not only does Jason look guilty as all hell, that little display of he-man superstrength was lost on no one, and, as you will recall, the last thing Lafayette wants is for anyone--dead or alive--to figure out that he's dealing V.
Back in the house, Tara decides that the party's over: "All right, everybody! Sookie needs her rest, it's time for y'all to go. You heard me, sideshow's over! GIT! Let's go, leeeeet's go! We appreciate y'all comin' out, we love y'all. Come on, let's go. Thank you. THAT MEANS YOU TOO, SAM." Sam tries to protest (IF HE LEAVES, THAT VAMPIRE WILL STEP UP TO HIS WOMAN AGAIN!), but Tara insists that Sookie needs some peace and quiet. ALONE: "You're a good friend. Now get the fuck outta here. Please."
(To Arlene and Hoyt's Mama: "DON'T MAKE ME THROW Y'ALL OUT MYSELF, 'CAUSE YOU KNOW I WILL." )
Once everyone's cleared out, Tara and Lafayette are back in the Stackhouse kitchen trying to clean up the casserole carnage ("What the fuck is it with white people and Jello?"), and Lafayette is all for just throwing the whole mess of condolence food away: "Sookie don't need no bad juju cookin'." Tara doesn't understand, but I do--we've heard those people's thoughts, we know what they think of Sookie. There's no way any of that food was cooked in a spirit of generosity; they made all those awful casseroles and congealed monstrosities because that's The Done Thing, and so they'd have a reason to congregate in Sookie's house and possibly get an eyeful to gossip about. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," explains Lafayette. "That shit true as gold. Put some love in yo' food and folk can taste it. Smell this--you can smell the fear and nastiness comin' off that cornbread." Except that he says it "kurnbread," which made me laugh. Tara stuffs a pinch of it into her mouth: "Taste just fine to me." Lafayette: "See, bitch, you gonna wish you ain't did that."
Sookie's room. She's still trying to sleep when suddenly, someone starts choking Sookie--and just for future reference, I would direct you to look at the hands, although this might pan out to be nothing, because--well, we'll get to that.
And now we find out where Bill sleeps during the day--in a crawlspace under the Compton house--because, just like I said, he can totally sense when Sookie's in trouble and he knows she's in it now. Except that the sun hasn't quite set yet--he actually checks his watch (well, I guess when such a thing is relevant to your continued existence, you very well might have the sunrise and set times from the weather forecast memorized) and it reminded me of this really awesome watch I had in grade school, maybe a Fossil? It had a little panel around the top half where you could see the sun and moon and stars go around according to what time of day it was--the sun would be on top at noon, for example. I like to think that Bill has a watch like this. So all he can do now is just lie down there under his house freaking out helplessly ("NNNNGH! FIVE MINUTES UNTIL MOON! NNNNNNNGH!" ).
So finally the sun's all the way down and Lafayette and Tara are trying to clean up after the whole town tromped through the house that morning with their nasty-ass bad juju food, and suddenly the Stackhouse front door slams open and Bill bolts through the hall and up the stairs in speed-mo. This itself is not necessarily that hilarious; I can think of a number of effects you could use to make this something other than supremely lame. Such as, for example, a vague blur, or just having the door fly open and not show Bill at all. This show, however, did not think of any of those ways. It's like they just had Stephen Moyer run up the stairs and then sped up the footage, because when you want to show your vampire hero racing to the side of his damsel in distress, you want it to look like something out of Benny Hill.
So I'm on the floor crying with laughter and Sookie's out cold on her bed and Bill is shaking the shit out of her: "SOOKIE! SOOKIE!! SOOKIE SOOKIE SOOKIE SOOKIE!!1!" (Tara: "WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOIN'?" You can always count on Tara for a solid WHAT THE FUCK?) Finally Sookie comes to--I had wondered if Sookie was just having a nightmare about the killer, but it turns out that Bill was the one having the nightmare (you know, down there under his house in the crawlspace), and Sookie's fine--just still really groggy from Lafayette's Valium. And Bill's kneeling by her bed, relieved, and for a moment I thought he was just going to camp out there and watch her sleep. And hey, you know, at least she would know that he was there, EDWARD. But no! He is far too much a gentleman to remain in a lady's boudoir while she lies abed insensible to his presence, EDWARD.
So Tara and Lafayette are standing at the Stackhouses' front window watching Bill standing in the yard, drinking his Tru Blood, watching Sookie's window. And then the werecollie runs up and sits down beside him. Bill's all like, S'up, werecollie. "Nothin' much. Workin' for The Man." And they both just hang out there in the yard and watch Sookie's window some more.
(Tara: "Do you think they're capable of lovin' a person?" Lafayette: "Who knows what they're capable of.")
Gran's funeral. Of course there's a lady from church singing a hymn and making everyone misty-eyed. And then the Stackhouse kids' Great-Uncle Bartlett shows up in his wheelchair and Sookie is Not Happy--apparently Jason invited him, and there was some kind of terrible falling out ("You haven't been part of this family in a long time"), but the show does not feel like filling us in on it right now. I hear we might find out in the next episode, though. Given how upset Sookie is and how not-getting-it Jason is, I'm going to guess that whatever happened, Sookie knows the truth but Jason doesn't, and it might have even involved Sookie (or possibly her parents). Who knows?
(On a shallow note: I love Tara's dress.)
So Sookie gets up to Say a Few Words about how Gran was everything to her, but all she can hear is the townsfolk thinking (Poor pathetic thing... She is as nuts as nuts can be...) about how it's her fault Gran died (Oh, please. If it weren't for you, she would be alive...) because Sookie hangs around with Those Vampires (I thought she was a good girl. I guess you never know... You sleep with your grandmother's killer...) and it should be Sookie's funeral (You should be in that grave. And you will...) and "SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!"_Yeah. Sookie just cussed out the entire town of Bon Temps. At her grandmother's funeral. DURING A EULOGY.
So... that happened.
(One more thing: during all of this, we hear Uncle Bartlett thinking, Forgive me, Adele... I never meant to hurt no one, but I couldn't...)
And then Tara's crazy, crazy, drunk, crazy mother decides she needs to get up and Say a Few Words despite Tara's best attempts to pull her back down ("Omafuckin' God, girl," moans Lafayette, "this about to get ugly"), but she actually manages to hold herself together and talk about how Adele Stackhouse basically raised Tara when Tara's mom was "going through some bad things," which is kind of awkward given that she looks like she's got the DTs even as we speak, but--that's almost an even greater tribute to Gran, that this woman would stand up and reveal her own failings in order to give Gran the credit she deserves.
So... that's the funeral, pretty much. And then Jason and Sookie have a fight out deeper in the cemetery where Jason tries to apologize for hitting her ("Well, I didn't mean to hurt you!" HEY JASON THAT'S KIND OF WHAT HITTING'S FOR) and insists that Uncle Bartlett has a right to be there, because "that's what family does. We forgive each other." Yeah... I'm not saying that's not true, but you'll notice it's always the fuckups who dredge up this particular pearl of wisdom and never, you know, "Family's about not treating each other like shit." I'm just saying. Anyway: "Sookie, please... I mean, we're all we've got," he says helplessly, and Sookie retorts, "We've got nothing." And by "we" she means "you." And after she storms off, Jason kind of lifts up the ends of his jacket and tugs at them like he's five years old, and I started to feel genuinely sorry for him.
As the townsfolk drift away, Tara pulls her mom away from Hoyt's Mama and starts chewing her out: "You had no right to speak for that woman! She was more the mother to me than you ever were. She took care of me, she fed me, she put clothes on me--she called social services on you twice! You hated her guts! Yes you did! You used to call her a white devil bitch!" Okay, I kind of laughed at that. But now Tara's mom claims that it "wasn't me that said those things," and she reveals why she really came to the funeral: she needs money from Tara. Of course she does. For... an exorcism? "I have a demon inside of me. Livin' and breathin' inside of me. Eatin' me up!" And Tara just starts laughing: "You have a demon inside you? Aw, fuck me, that's too good." And we get the "you're all I've got" speech again here, just in a different key, and Tara, too, walks away as her mother wails, "I neeeeed youuuuu!"
Meanwhile, Sookie's still wandering through the cemetery trying to pull herself together, and she stumbles across a flat gravestone inscribed... WILLIAM THOMAS COMPTON. Awkward. (I'm guessing his family placed it there after he never came home, assuming he'd been killed in the war? He wasn't actually buried under it or anything.) Sookie jumps back like she's been stung.
So then Jason goes back to his truck and pulls out another paper square of Lafayette's V and nearly takes it, but at the last moment he does the right thing and throws it out the car window. And then he changes his mind ("Fuuuuuck! Fuck!" ) and goes scrambling through the dirt for it, unable to find it again, tweaking his brains out (he spent the entire funeral sweating through dizzy, jerky flashes). I'm starting to dread what the next level in Jason's Downward Spiral might be.
Back at the gravesite, Gran's coffin is being slowly hand-cranked into the grave as Sookie watches, numb. Sam comes up and congratulates her on her speech: "I especially liked the part where you told the whole town to shut the fuck up." ("Yeah, I'm a real crowd-pleaser.") He walks her home and offers to stay and, like, watch stupid alien movies with her, you know, after she's had a long bath (what?) and SERIOUSLY, SAM, BACK THE FUCK OFF, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. Like, I appreciate that you're trying to stake your claim, which is at least better than those self-proclaimed Nice Guy types who sit around whining about the object of their affections and never man up and do anything about it, but SHE JUST BURIED HER GRANDMOTHER, JESUS. And when the girl asks for another guy in her time of grief, it's time to let her go.
To his credit, Sam actually starts moving towards doing just that (I'm doing this a little bit out of order, but it's clearer this way): Tara comes up and says that she doesn't want to be alone just now, and he says that he doesn't either. So they go to Tara's new apartment--last we saw, she was crashing at Lafayette's, but it turns out that he had a webcam in his bathroom: "No way I'll let a buncha perverts watch me pee." So she's actually taken Sam's advice and gone and gotten her own place, complete with crazy neighbor lady shouting "Piece of shit! I'll fuckin' kill you!" ("Don't worry. She says that all the time"). Sam asks why she just didn't tell him she needed a place to stay, because, you know, he's got the Sad Trailer out behind Merlotte's, and she retorts, "So you could ride up on your white horse and save me?" And Sam, who is tired of pretty much everything, asks why she tries to turn everything into a fight; Tara snarks that that's just her way, low self-esteem, only way to express her feelings, etc. But Sam's tired of being teased: "I want something real in my life," he smolders. I do believe it is time for some more mutually beneficial action, y'all, and none too soon. But "if we do this," he says, "we really did this."
And how! "HOLY SHIT!" gasps Tara some unspecified amount of time later. She flops back onto the pillows in the Leading Lady Bra of Modesty. Sam wants to go again, but then they hear Crazy Neighbor Lady making things up with whoever she generally crazies at, and a weird look passes over Tara's face and you can see her just emotionally close up again. So she actually runs out on Sam, out of her own apartment, in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, Randi Sue's riding Jason like a rodeo (a reverse rodeo, at that) but he is so alone. So very, very alone. And tweaking for V. *emo addict tear*
And then we find out what Tara's deal was. I didn't realize it at the time--I thought Tara was just freaked out by the whole Baby baby I love you baby thing going on next door while she's having her complicated maybe-relationship with Sam, but it turns out that what she also heard them saying was I need you. I need you so fucking much. So she's gone home to her crazy mother, is what's happened. "I knew you'd come," her mother says with a trusting, childlike smile. If I wasn't so afraid for Tara's psyche at this point, it would actually be sweet.
So interspersed through this is Sookie alone in her house, really alone for the first time since she discovered Gran's body. She takes out Gran's Pie--there's about half of it left--sits down with a fork, and starts to eat. Which is a really lovely thing, if you think about it--there are all kinds of beliefs about taking in the flesh of another person to acquire some of their strength (and let's not forget Lafayette's whole spiel about taking in the personality of a vampire), but here, Sookie is taking in what is possibly one of Gran's last acts--a pie she baked, and there is love in it, unlike the bad juju kurnbread. It's both one of Gran's last expressions of caring for Sookie and her caring nature itself, a nature that might transfer, in part, to Sookie through the eating of this pie. And it's an interesting pie, too--it's got pecans laid in all over the top, but the filling itself doesn't look like pecan pie as I know it it--it's a lot creamier looking. (What'd you say it might be, sucrelefey--a backwoods pie? ETA: Is it a chess pie?) So I don't know what that's about. But Sookie sits down and starts eating it, forkful by forkful, sobbing all the way through her sorrow cream pie, if you will, and by God, she eats the whole thing.
And I think all that sugar went straight to her brain, because then Sookie takes out, like, this floaty white Empire-waist princess nightgown (Lord knows I always keep one on hand for special occasions), stares at herself in the mirror, makes up her mind, and waits for the sun to go down. So then she goes running barefoot, in Lizzie Bennet's best negligee, down Convenience Road THROUGH THE CEMETERY to the Compton house and Bill DRAMATICALLY flings open the front door and SENSES HER APPROACHING from the front porch and they run across a moonlit meadow to each other while the sexvolins are urging them on--I AM SO INCREDIBLY NOT MAKING THIS UP, YOU GUYS--and he sweeps her into his arms and carries her across the front yard and storms into the house where there is a ROARING FIRE, for real, really for really real, in Louisiana, in a vampire's house where he doesn't get cold (I guess he was making Woe Toast for old times' sake or something) and this whole scene is ripped from Generic Romance Novel #23, it is fantastic. Aaaand Anna Paquin does not get the Leading Lady Bra of Modesty, and after this I can never watch any movie she made as a child ever again. And I really liked that version of Jane Eyre, y'all. Aw, and now Bill's having premature fangulation again. It's okay, honey, it happens to everybody sometime--but no! Sookie doesn't do things by halves, she's gonna do this right, and she offers her throat to Bill. Hot! bloody! closeup! nose on neck action! Aw, and that means that Bill got a taste of Sookie's outrageous flavor while she was still a virgin. Nicely done.
And it was at this point that I said to myself, okay, that's it, I'm packing it in. Last one out turn out the lights, I can't ever watch this show again. It is never gonna get any better than this. This is the zenith of Southern-fried vampire melodrama. It can only go downhill from here. (LOOK, I WAS VERY TRAUMATIZED BY WHAT HAPPENED TO THE X-FILES, OKAY? THOSE LAST TWO SEASONS WERE LIKE WATCHING JEFF GOLDBLUM DISINTEGRATE IN THE FLY, THAT SHOW WAS MY FIRST LOVE AND I AM NEVER GONNA GET OVER THAT. I HAVE SHOW-QUALITY ABANDONMENT ISSUES, OKAY? )
And then we get to the preview for the next episode, and this show delivers the one thing that could possibly make me keep watching, which is Sam Hardcore Merlotte threatening to throw down on the Vampires Three with a broken pool cue. Oh, show. How do you push my buttons so well?
(Continue: 1x07: "Burning House of Love.")
(All True Blood recaps.)