Sunday, June 30, 2013

What If God Was (A Vampire Like) One Of Us?

Hi All - A little delayed, but here's the recap for last week's episode of True Blood, "The Sun."

TL;DR:  Surprise! The guy we thought was Warlow is actually the Stackhouse pater familias who tells Sookie she can kill every vampire at the price of her faerie-tude. The Governor has a few technological tricks up his sleeve including silver-UV bullets, glamour-resistant contacts and a sense of the dramatic. Sookie meets yet another handsome wounded man who is half-faerie. Eric has a plan involving the Governor's daughter. Bill has a Lilith-acid trip and learns that he is JesusVampire and can see the future and we're ALL GOING TO DIE!


FULL STORY: While Sookie sleeps and the magic fairy contract glows, a monster or possibly Odin from the Neil Gaiman universe rips open a tear in the fabric of space and time and forces himself into our world. NotOdin bears his vampiric teeth and vanishes into the night. I would kind of love this show forever if it turns out he’s just popping around to our world because whatever hell dimension he is from just doesn’t have twinkies or something and he’s really got a craving.

"In the event of inter-dimensional invasion, the secondary party as described by the blood oath in section 2, paragraph 1, shall be entitled to full compensation via faerie orgy party."


Warlow stops Jason from crashing the car into a tree with magic laser blasts out of his hands. Since the only reason the car was crashing to begin with is that Warlow, who was driving, vanished out of it, seems like there was an easier solution. The laser blasts are at least quickly explained – Rutger Hauer is actually not Warlow (joke’s on us) – he’s Jason’s Fairy Grandfather. Oh True Blood. I really do love you sometimes for the things you let me write. Anyway, the reason he convinces Jason he is who he says he is by telling him he knows about the “juicy porn” that Jason keeps stashed under the bed. He cooked up the hitchhiker opportunity to test Jason’s ability to defend himself against Warlow – and Jason has failed. In fairness, if Grandpa has been watching Jason for years, the news that Jason can’t trust people or keep his mouth shut when big things are afoot really shouldn’t have needed any more proving. Grandpa tells Jason that something big is coming and neither he nor Sookie is ready.

At Fangtasia, Tara is in pain after being shot by the National Guard and she isn’t healing. Eric and Nora figure out that the bullet is made of silver and emitting UV light. The Governor’s folk have been watching a lot of Underworld, apparently. Nora admits that the Vampire Authority was talking about humans developing new weapons. Eric says he isn’t scared, but Pam points out that “there’s more of them than us, maybe we should be scared.”

At Bill’s house, Jessica wakes up to Bill screaming downstairs. He is manic, insisting that he can feel all the vampires’ pain, everywhere, and has visions of vampires being harmed in different ways including one who is being chained and dragged behind a car. (Subtle, True Blood.) Bill goes into a kind of trance where he sees himself being led by three naked and bloodied women through a field to a woman who appears to be Lilith, who tells Bill that events have been set in motion. A Tide Is Rising. It Is The Beginning of the End. Etc, etc. Jeez, even vampires’ prophetic dreams are cryptic. Lilith tells Bill he’s not a God, although one day people may worship him as one. (Foreshadowing!) There is only one God, and He created Lilith as a Vampire and Adam and Eve as humans. Theological differences aside, Bill must complete Lilith’s “work”. Just when we might find out what that is, Jessica manages to snap Bill out of the trance, saying she’s ordered delivery for him.

 From the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog in Hell.

Sookie wakes to a phone call from Arlene who is upset that Sookie (again) has not shown up for work. Terry and Arlene notice that one of the pregnant women who has just entered the very busy Merlotte’s bar is the wife of Patrick, Terry’s old army buddy from last season. The wife demands to know what happened to Patrick, assuming he left her for another girl. Loveable Oaf Terry wants to tell her the truth – that he was implicit in the summoning of an Ifrit that almost consumed everyone from their unit in Iraq but Terry killed Patrick thus allowing the Ifrit to resolve its bloodcurse without further destruction, but Sensible Human Arlene steps in, telling her that yes, sweetheart, he left you. Men, right? Ice cream? It’s Death By Chocolate!

Sookie hauls herself to work for once and passes a potential love interest strange man in the bayou groaning. “Not today. I have a real job,” Sookie hilariously tells herself before giving in and checking on the man. The thing is, no one on this show ever just has a stomach ache, so I honestly can understand her logic that a groaning or wounded man on the side of the street is certain to be a supernatural entity that will probably look amazing with his shirt off and that’s just not the distraction she needs right now. The man says a vampire attached her, but she hears his thoughts that it was for his blood. Sookie asks him telepathically if he’s a faerie, to which he responds that he’s a halfblood, like her. She drags him back home (Again, Sookie gets out of going to work. How does she afford her house?) as he tells her that she reminds him of the first girl he ever fell in love with, but she's nicer.

There's only so much Meet Cute FLOTUS can take.

At Merlotte’s, Arlene seats a collection of cool kids who have arrived to be ironic in places you’ve never heard of. One wants to know if the food is organic. “This is Bon Temps,” Arlene tells them. “Around here, that means you play the piano in church.” Meanwhile, Sam checks in with Lafeyette who is watching little Whatshername by allowing her to play dress up tea party with him.


Whatshername literally could not have picked a better person in Bon Temps for this job. 

One of the hipsters asks for Sam by name, saying she knows he’s a shifter and she’d like to start a dialogue between humans and supernaturals and she knows he’s been targeted by hate groups. The girl, Nicole, is the founder of the Vampire Unity Society and she wants Sam to “come out” and tell his story to the world because politicians are forcing them to stay hidden. She’s basically like a one-woman ACT UP intern who’s probably just graduated from Berkley and wants to live in an environmentally friendly co-op and refer to people as “the Movement.” Nicole admits that her mixed-race grandparents were Freedom Riders and, once again, True Blood does not miss an opportunity to tell us how much it thinks subtlety is a thing for pansies.

At Bill’s, the delivery service has arrived. Delivery is a platinum blonde woman named Veronica who works for a service called “Human Edibles” (Honest tagling: “We’re Tasty!”). I honestly really like this idea – they’re basically prostitutes for vampires who need blood instead of sex. Now I’m honestly wondering if the folk who work for this service are viewed differently from other prostitutes in this reality. Leave it to me to think of the socio-political implications of an easily telegraphed joke. I’m here all week, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway,  Veronica isn’t exactly tickled by letting Bill, who is unresponsive, feed off her and tries to leave when her body begins to contort suddenly and she’s pulled back in front of Bill. Veronica begins to hemorrhage from her mouth, the blood pouring out from her and floating directly into Bill’s until she’s nothing more than a husk.  

Sookie is nursing the latest mysteriously attractive man (this one’s named Ben) to pass out on her couch when she notices that touching him causes her faerie light powers to act up. She confesses that she has wanted to get rid of her light, wishing to be normal. He agrees and offers folksy wisdom about things not turning out how we want before getting up to leave. Sookie tells him about the faerie sanctuary near town where he may be able to be safe.
Speaking of which, Andy Bellfleur is bringing his rapidly aging quintuplets to the field where the sanctuary is yelling for Mirella, the mother, to take them back. Given that he’s yelling this in front of his kids and the girls are still giddily running literal circles around him without feeling at least a little hurt by their father’s intense desire to be rid of them, faeries must have a pathological inability to recognize reality.

Jason has brought Grandpa to Sookie’s house to show her where Warlow attempted to break into our world in Sookie’s bathroom at the end of last season. Grandpa finds the portal and leaps through it to see if Warlow succeeded, returning seconds later covered in slime. “Well, that was worse than I thought,” he deadpans.

Ben walks with Sookie to the Faerie Field, dropping like his twentieth hint that he’s had something really bad in his past, but Sookie’s not picking up on it. See above, re: faeries and their inability to recognize things. Sookie is more interested in dissuading Ben from any kind of romantic interest. “I shouldn’t be taking walks with handsome strangers,” she tells him. “That never ends well.” Ben overhears Sookie’s thoughts about Bill and asks about him. Shoe’s on the other foot now, huh Sookie? She demurs but tells Ben how to find the faerie sanctuary.

 "The fact that you're telling me up front about your supernatural abilities is frankly 80% of the attraction."

Nora is scouring the Vampire Bible for references to Lilith and Bill. Pam snarks her, as is Pam’s wont, but Nora realizes that a passage may have been mistranslated and wants to investigate. Nora tells Pam that Eric loves her and is proud of her and the reason he never told her about Nora is because it would have put Pam in danger if the Authority connected the three of them.

At the Governor’s mansion, aides are burning the midnight oil trying to figure out this vampire thing. Again, possibly they shouldn’t be doing this at night, but whatevs. The Governor’s daughter, recent Tulane grad, wants to go out drinking with the staff rather than stay at work, but Gov says no. She instead sees in the Gov’s next appointment, which happens to be Eric, who has put on nerd glasses and a bad haircut and is pretending to be human from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

"Golly, Miss Lane - I don't know how it is that I keep just missing Superman."

Eric chats up the Gov, applauding his vision on the vampire front after the Gov tells him about a vampire attack on a Chuck E Cheese. (Me: heh. Awesome.) Eric carries on a double-entrendre laden conversation about how the Whooping Crane is just trying to survive and that maybe the Gov shouldn’t make things worse for them because a Whooping Crane will rip your fucking throat out while you sleep. Oops, a step too far, Eric. Eric attempts to glamour the Gov into reversing his course of action, informing him that he now loves all vampires, but it MASSIVELY doesn’t work thanks to the Gov’s special contact lenses that protect him. The humans have more than just the silver-UV bullets up their sleeves, apparently. The Gov thanks Eric for gift-wrapping the political excuses he needs to look like a hero to the state and orders Eric taken to “the camp.” He’s marched outside before being all “hell with this” and flying away before the guards can do anything.

Sookie arrives home to find Jason who introduces her to Grandpa, saying he’s hunting down Warlow, just like Boba Fett. Grandpa assures Jason he’s not from “outer space” like Jason thinks but that Warlow has definitely made it into this reality. Apparently Sookie’s actions last season with the faeries created the energies that have let Warlow get through. Grandpa tells them that Warlow has been obsessed with the Stackhouse family for years because they are the original Fey and in fact, Grandpa is the King of their tribe. Jason brightens: “That means Sookie is a Faerie Princess and I’m a Faerie Prince!” he exclaims. “The gene skipped you,” Grandpa says. Wah-wah. Anyway, backstory time: Warlow massacred Grandpa’s entire village when he was a child, killing everyone but him. Grandpa tracked Warlow, but not before Warlow showed himself to one of Grandpa’s sons, John Stackhouse, who signed the fearie pact with Warlow to give him Sookie. The night Warlow came for Sookie and killed her parents on the bridge, Claudine (their Faerie Grandmother) managed to send Warlow into another existence before he could get to Sookie. Grandpa tells Sookie they have a unique ability among the fey – they can channel their light into essentially a supernova in a glowy ball that will kill any vampire nearby. Because Sookie is only half-fey, she can only do this once and after it’s done, she’ll no longer be a faerie.  

But if you clap your hands three times and say "I do believe in fairies!" nothing will happen and you just look like an idiot.

Sam arrives home to find Lafeyette has already put Whatshername (turns out it’s Emma) to bed and is now watching reality TV. Alcide, Luna’s grandmother (Martha) and some other wolves show up looking for her and Sam has to tell them that Luna is dead. Alcide says the feds will be investigating Luna’s stunt on TV, looking for all shifters and werewolves sooner or later and that Sam may not be able to hide for long. Martha insists that Emma come with them, grabbing her when Emma rushes outside looking for Sam. The predictable fight ensues, all the while being witnessed by the Vampire Unity group.

In her room, The Governor’s daughter removes her special contacts to go to sleep when Eric Draculas up to her window and glamours her into inviting him in. It took six seasons, but we finally got the “Vampire at the Window Next to the Willowy Virgin in the Nightgown” scene.

 "My father's secret defense, all undone by my discomfort with dry eyes!"

At Bill’s, Jessica has cleaned up what’s left of Veronica while Bill is still catatonic in his chair. Trying to reach him, Jessica reminds him that if he can feel the pain of all vampires, he should be able to feel how scared she is right now. Jessica confesses she doesn’t know which Bible is real, having been force fed the traditional version by her father as a repressed human girl and now the vampire one by the Authority, but she’s starting to wonder if Bill is God, kneeling to pray before him and confessing her sins and asking Him to bless her friends, including Hoyt, wherever he is. (Cue audience sob at the Hoyt reference, remembering that breakup scene.) Finally, she asks God to bring Bill back to her. Internally, Lilith tells Bill that he must save them all, forcing Bill awake. As he comes to, the television turns on to news of the vampire lynching that Bill saw earlier, along with the news that the Governor has announced that vampires have no rights, so violence against them is not illegal. Jessica realizes that Bill can see the future just as Bill has a vision of a room full of vampires, including Jessica, Tara, Pam and Eric, being executed in a room that is opened to the sun.

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