I had two main problems with this week’s episode. First, NO PAM! How fucking lame. Second, please stop waving the damn Taylor Swift CD around. True Blood is known for a lot of things, but blatant product placement isn’t one of them. They could have made it more subtle, like the Twilight book they slipped in there. My only other issue was more of a confusion than anything else. After last week’s teaser that made it look like we have another life or death Sookie moment, well, absolutely nothing happened. We go from Bill wondering why Sookie isn’t taking his blood to, BAM, Sookie’s awake and doing just fine. Both my boyfriend and I were saying ‘huh?’ It’s strange to set that situation up and then not even show the resolution, but since we all know that Sookie isn’t going to be dying anytime soon maybe the writers thought they should just skip the rest of the drama? Moving on, plenty of things happened in this episode, but in usual True Blood fashion the credits rolled just as things were getting good.
I’m going to address the Lafayette/Mavis/Mikey plot first, because I think I may finally have it figured out. In the past I’ve wondered whether or not this storyline was going to intersect in anyway with Sookie’s, and after this week I can confidently say nope. But it did have a larger purpose, although I personally think it took up way too much time to show us what it needed to show us. Basically my theory is that the writers made this detour to show us that:
- There are restless spirits wandering around
- They need to have some kind of past transgressions resolved to ‘move on’
- Lafayette can channel them and Jesus can guide them
- Jesus can expel the spirits
Looking at it from this perspective, we can perfectly tie this into the AntoMarnia main plot, and maybe even give us a hint at what’s to come. Antonia is a restless spirit, although I’m not sure what would calm her down to the point where she could move on peacefully, but that’ll be up to the new Fab Ghostbusting Duo to figure out. Maybe something other than vampire genocide? If they can’t get Antonia to leave Marnie maybe there is a way for Jesus to just force her out, but then there’s the issue of Antonia repossessing Marnie or possibly even Lafayette. Regardless, this could have been portrayed differently and still gotten the four main points across. Getting back to the episode at hand, Nelsan Ellis continued an amazing performance as Mavis. The glowing gold light while Jesus expelled Mavis was kind of overkill, but I suppose the idea was to make it apparent to the non-brujos around that Lafayette was not just going crazy.
However, someone else in Bon Temps is most definitely off his rocker, and that would be one Tommy Mickens. I’m not going to talk about this too much, because really what the hell is going on here? Tommy decides to confront Marcus as “Sam” and then antagonize the scary biker gang werewolves into beating the shit out of him? My best guess is that this was a suicide attempt, and a very strange one at that. I’ve seen a lot of people criticizing Sam, Luna, and Emma’s little impromptu camping excursion, but I think I understand the point of it. Yes, for Sam and Luna to finally get it on, but also as a good alibi for whatever damage “Sam” did. Also the scene with Sam turning into the bunny for Emma to pet was so fucking adorable, I ‘awwwwww-ed’ for like five minutes straight. This glimpse into shifter families was fairly interesting; your daughter wants a pony for her birthday? Be right back! Also the fact that Emma knows about her mom and dad and that she might turn into something too was nice foreshadowing along with introducing a new family dynamic that the show hasn’t touched on before.
AntoMarnia is starting to lose her grip on the witch group, and it’s about damn time. Not a whole lot from the fourth book has made it into the fourth season, but I was fairly sure that this was going to. In the books the witch circle has hostage witches mixed in, including Holly, so the final battle is partly a rescue mission. That may or may not come to pass in the series, but it is nice to see Tara getting some of her sanity back. Not sure if Tara will ever love vampires, but as long as she no longer wants to kill them all I’ll be happy. When we first found out she was a lesbian, I had some high hopes that her and Pam would hook up. Can you imagine the snark fest between those two? Amazing. But alas, I don’t think that will ever happen. At this point I’m betting that Tara won’t make it out of Moon Goddess Emporium alive.
Which brings us back to Sookie. Really? You thought it was an awesome move to head on over there with Debbie of all people to try and rescue Zombie Eric, outnumbered by like 10 to 1? In the words of Tara, “God Damnit Sook, how fucking stupid can you be?” Also trusting Debbie is probably a huge mistake. It kinda seems like she ended up selling Sookie out while talking to AntoMarnia, and her running out of things to say isn’t a good excuse. So what the hell is going on with Debbie anyways? Back on the V, but then wants to help Sookie to impress Alcide? And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought those flowers behind her back might have been a gun. I don’t exactly know what to make of this half-hearted attempt by Debbie to reconcile, only that I have a feeling that it won’t be lasting long.
In her latest vampire-blood-fueled-sex-dream, Sookie wonders why she can’t have both Bill and Eric. I like how this is clearly a Sookie in control, bossing around her vampires, making the decisions etc. We don’t get to see this side of her very often and it’s refreshing; continuing on previous themes this was more faerie Sookie than human Sookie. But there’s one reason why the idea of a threesome will never, ever, in a million years, work out. Bill and Eric hate each other. Like really fucking hate each other. You don’t share your toys with people you hate, so I don’t think we will ever see any real continuation of this concept. It was a fun dream, but in the end she is going to have to choose. The best part about this dream though was the brief return of normal Eric! I think at this point we’ve seen the last of lame Amnesia Eric, under AntoMarnia’s control he still has no memory but at least gets some action that doesn’t involve gratuitous sex scenes. Also the synopsis for the next episode says that Sookie uses her faerie powers to break a spell, my guess would be on Eric definitely breaking the Zombie spell and possibly taking the Amnesia with it. As you can probably guess, Sookie’s faerie powers are going to be pretty important this season; the vampires are powerless against AntoMarnia and the other witches seem to be outmatched. I really hope that as Sookie’s faerie ability grows, that she also gets the evil green eyes that the faeries from the first episode did. Everyone else has eyes changing color, she should too! Just a side thought there.
The tolerance festival, thanks to AntoMarnia, turns out to be anything but. I would have really liked to see more of the battle this episode, but in typical True Blood Fashion it ends right before the main event. Of course the festival brings us the return of Nan, who is my temporary Pam replacement. Not nearly as bitchy, but a good start. Her scenes with Jessica and Bill were hilarious, and the shot of the three of them silvered in the basement arguing is one of my favorites this season. The hilarity dies off when we start into the carnage caused by AntoMarnia and her now horde of zombie vampires. The dead guards with their intestines hanging out was a nice touch, but it still can’t top the spine ripping by Russell from last season. Also the random people flying all over the place in the crowd, as captured by the video camera and soon to be on the internet, was pretty awesome. Hopefully the majority of the action will come next week, and we could use a good fight scene, the graveyard business a few weeks ago ended pretty quickly after Sookie was shot.
So we have three episodes left, and they’re looking pretty exciting! Now that they evil baby plot has been resolved I’m looking forward to Jesus and Lafayette joining back in the action with the witches. And whatever happened to Hot Shot and Crazy Crystal? We still have a lot of loose ends to tie up this season, but I’m confident that we’ll get to most of them. As always please leave comments, and I’ll see you next Monday!
Random Thoughts:
- Umm Bill, not even a thank you to Alcide for saving Sookie? What happened to your famed southern gentleman manners?
- Tara thinks Bill’s offer of peace was pretty good, nice to see some sanity returning.
- I simultaneously love and hate AntoMarnia’s new bitch boy, Roy. I want him to die, but he’s just so damn funny!
- I don’t think that shot of Alcide climbing in bed butt-naked was necessary, but I’m not going to complain.
- Man Hoyt’s world has really gone to shit without Jessica, that house is a mess.
- Loved the noir look of the dream sequence, especially paired with the old-timey music.
- The telepathic vampire three-way in the dream sequence was fun, although not sure if it will amount to anything outside of her dream. Being able to hear vampire thoughts would be a fun twist for next season, and is in line with the books although the timing is off.
- Sam and Luna have great chemistry together, and I adore the actress that plays Luna, Janina Gavankar. I think she’s doing a fantastic job, and comes across as very believable.
- Debbie’s thoughts were “I need her to see that I wanna help” not “I really genuinely want to help”. That’s the trouble with thoughts, remember how Sookie was lied to in the second season by Hugo?
- So with the conclusion of the Mikey storyline, is it safe to assume that he’s not an evil baby? Hmmm…
- My biggest issue with Marcus is that with the pack scenes he seems like a sane leader, while with anything relating to Luna/Emma he goes batshit crazy. I can kind of understand it I guess, but it is a stark contrast.
- Digging up the dead bodies was definitely creepy, as well as Lafayette/Mavis holding her dead skeleton baby.
- The vampire tolerance group is called the Living-Dead Alliance, much like in real life the Gay-Straight Alliances.
- Loved “Sam” doing the Tommy walk; skin-walking has been the best thing to ever happen to Tommy.
- Alcide is now tasked with trying to save Tommy, so he pretty much went from being tangled up in vampire shit to being tangled up in shifter shit.
- The ominous wind machine that happens whenever AntoMarnia does a spell is amazing, they fast have like 15 fans on the set just blowing for hours.
- Nice how Jason scratched “For you, Monster” off the box before he hands it to Jessica. I haven’t talked about them so far in this interview, mostly because besides the dirty pickup truck sex there wasn’t too much else. Oh except that they were screwing next to chainsaw. Anyways, I expect the drama between these two will pick up more in the remaining episodes, but I’m not quite sold on these two yet.
Favorite Quotes:
- “Werewolf I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up!”
- “We can pray.” “Werewolf and a vampire. Who’s going to listen?”
- “Tell them blonde one!”
- “There have been times, I’ll admit, when it’s occurred to me that maybe I should put my career on hold and become a maker. But these last several hours, here with you, have erased those doubts. Forever.”
- “You are nothing like you are on TV.” “Awww. Thanks!”
- “What have you gone and fucked up now?” Story of Bills Life.
- “I didn’t think it was possible, but you actually make me long for Sophie Ann.”
- “And the cameras had damn well better find you in a festive and tolerant fucking mood.”
- “You sound like a white man!”
- “This situation became pre-undiffused the minute that she-male broke into my house.”
- “On behalf of Renard Parish, the state of Louisiana, and Jesus Christ his fucking self, ready or not, here we come!”
- “What the hell was I supposed to do, shoot him with a baby in his arms?”
- “Because if I’m a shifter, one day I can be my own Bunny, and pet myself whenever I want!”
- “I’m the King of Louisiana, I do not share.”
- “When you guys, uh, role play. Does Lafayette ever turn into a woman named Mavis?”
- “Since you’re about 6’6” and wider than a door he might be more inclined with you standing behind me.”
- “To communicating shit!”
- “You got it bitch.”
- “I mean, I don’t even think I’m a real Wiccan! I’m just doing this to piss off my parents!”
- “How can we have an event in honor of the living dead, without any living dead? It’s like having a civil rights protest without any black people.”
- “They’re called African-Americans.” Nan, ever the politically correct bitch.
- “So take the monsters CD, and put it in the monsters monster box.”
- “But facts, are facts. Even if the fact is that facts are almost never heard.”
- “I might be parrot-phrasing a little.”
- “Oh Jesus fucking Christ.”
