Vampires and Existentialism

Hello, Fangbaners! Welcome to season six of True Blood. In case you’re new to the show and want a summary of what’s gone before, here’s my write up. Fair warning, from here on out I’m either going to assume that you’ve been watching the show and don’t need to be caught up on five years of history or you just don’t care. Do join me!

TL;DR: Bill returns as something halfway vampire, halfway other and destroys what’s left of the Vampire Authority (and that stupid plotline) but still doesn't know what he is now.  Tara hearts Pam. Pam says she doesn’t heart Tara. Both are probably wrong.  Alcide becomes Packmaster and has his pick of the ladies. The Governor of Louisiana cracks down on vampires, but maybe definitely has a secret agenda. Eric gives Sookie back her home and searches for an answer to how Bill is connected to Warlow, the vampire that killed Sookie and Jason’s parents. Sookie swears for the umpeenth time that she just wants a normal life.

We pick right up where we left off with naked, bloody Bilith, the unholy union of Bill and Lilith, the first vampire, rising from his own pile of deconstituted goo to a terrified Eric and Sookie. This is all done “Bill Cam” style, btw. Eric and Sookie run away through the headquarters of the Vampire Ministry of Exposition but can’t get out before Bilith shuts down the power.  Things are looking dire as Bill-Cam speeds through the building looking for our other heroes, Pam, Tara, Jessica, Jason and Nora. Jason talks tough about his accuracy shooting the mean vampires coming at them with wooden bullets, saying he’s had a lot of practice “killing your kind” until Nora reminds him that she’s, oh, about two thousand years older than he is and she’s had a bit more practice killing his, so maybe lets just stop measuring our dicks and get out of the evil death trap building, okay? Nora gets the ragtag team out just as Sookie and Eric commandeer a sweet SUV. As they start to speed away, Bilith emerges from the flames of the destroyed Vampire Ministry of Religious Overzealousness before flying, still naked and bloody, off into the sky.

"But Mommy, why was that naked bloody man so angry?" "Because drugs, Sweetie."

The gang speeds away, hopefully not with Bill following them like, as Jason says it, “a naked, evil Superman.” Fortuitously, just at that time, Vampire NPR is carrying a live press conference on the radio from the governor of Louisiana (New character! Because we didn’t have enough!) announcing that he’s not life-ist or anything, but this “vamper” menace has got to stop and even though they’re “citizens” or whatever, he’s instituting a state-wide vampire curfew and recommending that everyone in the state buy a gun. I don’t know which I love more – that he’s announcing in an outdoor press conference at night instead of during the daylight that the state of Louisiana will no longer tolerate vampires or that when fleeing for their lives, the radio station of choice for Eric and Sookie is talk radio. Anyway, Jason is pretty thrilled with the Gov’s hardline take, leading to the entire car giving Jason his first “SHUT UP, JASON” of this season.

Eric pulls the car over to talk to Nora privately about whether or not there’s anything in the Vampire Bible about Lilith being resurrected into a modern body, but Nora says there’s nothing in this, but clearly Bill needs to be destroyed. Jessica is not pleased with the suggestion and vamps away. Pam meanwhile pouts on the beach (actual line: “I hate the beach. Fish piss and sand in your cooch.”) about Eric not ever telling her about Nora, leading Tara to try to comfort her. Oh Tara. You stopped dating men because you kept picking the bad ones who were emotionally unavailable and/or literal monsters. Good to see your patterns are the same now that you’re into chicks.

On another part of the beach, Jessica and Sookie bond over the fact that they both still love Bill, albeit in different ways, and they’re both afraid of what he’s become. Sookie says they need to let him go and that Jessica will never be alone as long as she’s around.

Literally the only two women on this show who have not yet made out with each other.

Nora decides to glamour Jason to learn more about Warlow, the vampire of mystery that we learned last season is the one who murdered Jason and Sookie’s parents and who is mentioned in the Vampire Bible as being progeny of Lilith. Glamouring Jason is not a smart idea though, because when he comes out of it and realizes what Nora has done he’s just more pissed off.  Jason threatens to shoot both Nora and Tara until Sookie steps between them, forcing Jason to run off, referring to Sookie as dead to him for sticking up for vampires.

Just then, Jessica is suddenly “summoned” by Bill. Jessica feels a powerful urge to go to his side and when Eric tries to stop her, she immediately begins to vomit blood all over him. (Eric, dryly: “Lovely.”) Sookie convinces Eric to let her take Jessica to Bill, despite the danger, because its clearly tearing Jessica apart. Eric and Nora sly off leving Pam and Tara to manage for themselves.

Meanwhile, on National Geographic: Earth the werewolf camp, the wolves are pulling apart their former Packmaster and bringing Alcide the severed human arm for him to eat, which he must do if he wants to become Packmaster. Alcide looks a little non-plussed about it, but what they hey – at least it’s not a full horse heart. Also, because he’s now Packmaster, there are a line of sexy weregirls who are “proud to serve” him. The wolves all decide to go for a frisky naked run through the forest, because apparently that’s just what you do on a Tuesday night.

At the Bellefleur home, Andy is still understandably freaked out about suddenly being the father to four newborn half-faerie babies after knocking up that faerie girl in the woods only, like, a week ago. Awesome waitress Arlene lays down the law and tells him to face up to his responsibilities. Andy is terrified because he doesn’t know how to care for one baby, much less four. Arlene softens a bit and tells him that every good parent is freaked out, now get in here and help but these diapers on. Arlene's right, although in Andy’s defense at least most parents have, like, a few months to think about the consequences of their sexy hookup in a field with a mysterious vanishing hot girl.

What to expect when you're expecting half faerie monster babies.

Elsewhere, a mortally-wounded Luna (don’t remember her? Don’t worry, she’s not around long) manages to get literally three lines in before dying, asking Sam to care for her daughter. Sam agrees and makes off with little Whatshername, taking her to Merlott’s. He thinks he hears someone in the darkness, but it’s just Lafayette, “holding down the fort.” “You mean drinking all my tequila,” Sam accuses. “Sobering up on the floor. Hell, drunk driving kills,” Lafayette responds, proving yet again why he’s awesome. Little Whatshername confesses sadly that her mom is dead and she’s hungry. Lafayette offers her “something deep fried, dipped in sugar and then deep fried all over again.”

Jason is making his way back to town in the dark when a car rambled by and offers him a ride. Who is driving? It’s Rutger Hauer, boys and girls! Gee, no way he’s going to turn out to not be Warlow someone important. To Jason’s credit, he at least realizes that this guy is a little off for not being freaked out by Jason being covered in blood and keeps his gun at the ready.

At La Casa de Bill, Jessica is being pulled inside. Sookie manages to grab a stick that she fashions into a stake just in case. They make their way to the upstairs verandah (this is Louisana. Of course there’s a verandah.) to find an utterly normal looking Bill sitting waiting for them who “just wants to talk.” Eric and Nora attempt a sneak attack, but Bill is much faster then them, even pulling out the stake that Sookie manages to plunge directly into his heart. Bill tells them that he’s not sure what he is, but he’s more than he ever was. Sookie insists that he’s not Bill, saying she felt him die. Sookie wants Bill to leave Bon Temps forever, but Jessica stands up for her Maker, telling the others to leave and that Bill can stay as long as he wants and the rest of them need to leave.

In new plot development time, the Governor meets with a representative of the True Blood production company at an abandoned bottling plant. The Governor wants to “bail out” the company by giving them the bottling plant free to start making True Blood again. Despite his political blustering, he claims to be interested solely in restoring the peace, which can be done with vampires back to having their True Blood and back to paying taxes like regular people. He referrs to himself as not “the new Big Bad” (ha! Joss Whedon humor!) and strikes a deal.

He's a politician, so it's possible his as-yet unrevealed superpower is lying.

In the woods, Alcide and one of the nameless naked werewolf ladies have sex when they are interrupted by Alcide’s other naked werewolf lady who’s kind into threeways, it turns out. She’s okay with Alcide doing what he has to go because she’s very GGG, but tells him to never for get that she’s his “number one bitch.” This, btw, is going to be your only sexy naked actors and actresses scene this episode, so enjoy it, people.

"Oh Yeah. It's good to be the Packmaster."

At Fangtasia, Tara tries to emo Pam into admitting that she actually has feelings and maybe some of those are for Tara herself. Pam lays it all out there, though and tells Tara that this isn’t going to be one of those lay in the meadow and gaze into each other’s eyes while admiring their sculpted marble bodies and not having sex before marriage kind of vampire love stories.

It kind of kills me that my browser history is going to have this image in it now.

Aaaand that’s when the National Guard arrives to shut down Fangtasia on Executive Order of the Governor to shut down all vampire-run businesses. Tara tries to defend her woman and gets shot by the guard for her trouble, causing actual distress in Pam and possibly undoing her own argument.

Eric escorts Sookie home, marveling that she would stake Bill to save him, a far cry from where the two of them were at the start of this whole series. Eric is feeling gracious and offers to return the lease to Sookie’s house back to her, removing his rights to it and restoring it to her. Sookie is genuinely touched and tells him that she wants her life back and for things to be the way they were. Which is why she’s taking back his invitation to her house, which is supposed to be sad but leads to a really cheesy effect that involves Eric looking like he’s been placed on a conveyer belt and carted out the door for bottling by either Laverne or Shirley. Outside the house, Eric tells Nora that Sookie stays out of this going forward. Nora isn’t convinced, to say the least.

"Schlemeel, Schlemazel, Hasenfeffer Incorporated..."

At the Bellfluer house, the little half fairy babies have literally grown into toddlers in just hours. Jesus, poor Andy isn’t goint to even have time to get to the bank to even start a college fund for these girls before they’re ready for senior year.

At Bill’s house, he tucks Jessica into bed inadvertently revealing some new abilities like stopping a glass of True Blood from spilling with his mind. Bill tells Jessica he doesn’t know what he is or what’s happened, but he needs her as his progeny to help keep him from going all “power corrupts”. It’s a really sweet scene, with the father/daughter dynamic that they have, but it does lead one to ask why in the world would a vampire go to bed when it’s dark out?

On the road, Jason is still driving with NotWarlow, complaining about Sookie and about how lately Jason’s been seeing his parents more frequently. Sure enough, the ghosts/visions/hallucinations whatever they are to Jason are, in fact, sitting in the backseat. “They’ve gotten kinda racist and scary since they went to Heaven,” Jason confesses. NotWarlow tells Jason he’s never going to be able to keep him, who is TOTES WARLOW OMG from Sookie, surprising no one but Jason before vanishing out of the car.

In her house, the fairy/vampire contract beside Sookie’s bed begins to glow. In Bill’s house, Bill begins to hallucinate lashings against his skin and hears his name called, leading him to his study. In the study is Lilith, who suddenly rushes at Bill, entering into him.

That’s the end of the first episode, which by True Blood standards actually kinda dialed back the wacky a bit. Maybe because they had so much plot to get through or maybe because Alan Ball is now off the show, but here’s hoping they keep it up. I pay good money for the crazy and I don’t care what people think.

Word.