True Blood Special - All Shirts Half Off!

So, the True Blood episode "At Last" this week finally brought us back to some of the classic Season 1-era good stuff, with all the vampire-lovin' and crazy V Juice hallucinations and some good, old fashioned slaughter. It took us four episodes, but we're finally getting to the good stuff, people. 

We begin with Sookie and Ben distracting themselves from their nascent hormones to notice that Jason’s “I’m Totally Fine It’s In No Way A Problem” related sickness from last episode is, go figure, a problem now that he’s passed out on the floor. While Sookie goes to call 911, Ben vamps out (!!!)and bites into his own arm to feed Jason his blood. Why Ben – you sly dog you! So that’s why Sookie is so into you.  And it couldn’t possibly be in no way shape or form because you’re totally maybe not really Warlow. I mean, there’s absolutely no possible way our blonde heroine could be fooled by a handsome man who’s secretly the big bad, right?

Oh. Right. 

Nora is fleeing but is stopped by Grandpa. Nora has figured out that Warlow is the only one who can kill Lilith, but no one knew before now due to a mistranslation in the Vampire Bible. Don’t you just kinda wish there was also something about wearing mixed textiles or selling your daughter into slavery for not being a virgin as well? Anyway, It’s right about then that Nora realizes she’s talking to a yummy, yummy faerie and Grandpa has to literally blast her half a mile away, right into a troop of the Gov’s armed men, who bag and tag Nora like it’s their job. Of course, that’s because it is.

Back at the house, Jason has made an astonishing recovery and is back to normal in, literally, seconds. Ben feigns ignorance as Grandpa returns to remind Ben that Sookie is the one who is Fey and needs protecting, not Jason. Tough love, Jason. Don’t look to Grandpa to be your new father figure.

The werewolf pack is finishing up their meal of Hipsters Au Gratin when Martha notices that Sam made away with Emma. Alcide orders the wolves to give chase. Sidebar – did the writers this season just decide to throw out all of Alcide’s characterization from the past three years? He’s approaching serious dick-itude. Sam is helping the wounded Nicole get to Lafayette who’s waiting with the getaway car.

"I know. We're almost halfway through the season and we're both stuck in this plotline."

Ginger, meanwhile, is doing her best to keep the Governor talking, but his patience is up and his men raid her house with “silver oxide” tear gas. Ginger gets yet another chance to scream her trademark scream as the Governor orders her taken to the Camp as well. Given how often she’s been glamoured, the Camp may actually be restful for her. Eric and Pam, however, have already escaped to find Tara, who has says she’s hidden Willa at the county fairground.

At the Bellefleur’s, the Quintuplets are listening into Terry’s thoughts about Patrick, the dead fire-monster Marine from last season. Terry tries to tell them he’s just sad that Patrick had to go away, but the girls are like, “Um… we’re mind-readers. You killed him, dude.” These four are rapidly becoming the Mean Girls of Bon Temps with all their giggling and laser-hand blasting. Andy arrives to put the girls to bed. “You haven’t slept since you were three,” he tells them. He kisses them goodnight and turns out the light and closes the door, which is right when the next growth spurt hits and the girls instantly mature to late teenagers. “I don’t want to stay in bed,” one of them says. “We might be 30 by the time we wake up.” They decide to do what teenage girls do best – sneak out and find a rager somewhere.

"Maybe a pillow fight will break out while we're still developmentally age-appropriate for one."

At Sookie’s, Jason is working out (shirtless, naturally) and managing pull up reps in the upper 200s. Hrm… Sookie is tidying up the living  room when she sees a drop of blood on the floor. She remembers Grandpa showing her last episode how the blood that was all over the slaughtered faerie Go-Go club reacted strangely to faerie light and this drop does the same. Remember how Ben was supposedly walking around for a day before finding the place and I was asking if it was bad writing or a plot point? Guess we know which.

The Quintuplets meanwhile have stolen Andy’s police cruiser and headed to the liquor store in Aunt Arlene’s best “gal on the town” clothes, unaware that they’re being followed by Bill and Jessica. Inside the liquor store, the girls tell the skeezy cashier that they forgot their IDs, but they’re totes 27. The cashier says if they want to follow him to the back there’s a “little known trick of anatomy” that he knows that can tell him for sure if they’re of age. Jessica saves the day, glamouring the cashier into leaving. Jessica tries to bond with the kids before inviting them back to her place, but the girls notice that she “smells funny” and isn’t like them. Jessica admits that she’s a vampire, but tells them not to worry because she’s “Like, totally old and I can totally control myself and I have, like, a ton of faerie friends.” Sounds good to the girls! (See my repeated comments re: faeries and their lack of critical thinking skills.)

Jason, meanwhile, is shaving (shirtless, naturally). With Ben’s help. While Barry White style music plays in the background.  “Do you want to do me now?” Ben asks, winking. Jason lathers his face with shaving cream before accidently cutting Ben’s neck with the razor, causing a trickle of blood. Ben asks him to taste the blood and Jason moves in, mouth open, tongue out aaaaaaaand you TOTALLY knew this was a weird sex dream, right? Jason bolts upright in his bed, looking hilariously freaked out.

Ho-yay ahoy!

Bill talks one of the girls into letting him take some of her blood, under the guise of it being a foreplay thing. He then brings the blood to the professor that Jessica brought in last episode who’s being held in a makeshift lab in the basement. Bill asks him to use the girl’s blood to replicate this blood, just like he did with human blood to make True Blood, telling the professor “failure is not an option.”

Eric has found Willa in the fairgrounds. She reiterates that she’s on his side, not being happy with what her father is doing and she wants to help in any way that she can. Eric digs a grave in the earth and helps her into it before joining her (shirtless, naturally). “Is it going to hurt?” She whimpers. “Not the way I do it,” he responds before biting her, spilling blood all over her white nightgown. He then uses her crucifix to open his own neck and has her drink from him. FINALLY, TRUE BLOOD! Only took you, like six years to get to this classic dangerous, Dracula-y, sexy, sacrilegious vampire stuff. 

Jeez, way to make a guy wait for it, you know?

The next day, Sam and Nicole are patching up Nicole and breaking the bad news that her Vampire Unity group was killed. By Werewolves. There’s a joke in there, but I’m not sure exactly where it is. Nicole tries to leave town, but Sam points out that’s ridiculously stupid given that there’s a whole pack of werewolves on her tail that can follow her anywhere.

Sookie finds Ben at his hotel (shirtless, naturally). She offers to fix him supper for his trouble, but it’s totally not a date. Actually, it’s probably totally not since Sookie has uncharacteristically seemed to figure out that Ben’s not being totally upfront here.

Jason finds Grandpa at the kitchen table and decides to “coyly” ask about his sexytime dream. Grandpa immediately knows what’s going on, amusedly noting that Ben is “a handsome fella.” It could all be a good opportunity for a Bon Temps It Gets Better video, when it occurs to Grandpa that if a vampire could turn a Fey, the end result could be a vampire who can be out in the sun. Grandpa and Jason find Ben in his hotel room about to get into the shower (he apparently put a shirt on after talking to Sookie, however quickly takes it off, naturally) and move in for the kill. They try to ambush him in the shower, but Ben is already behind them, taking Grandpa out with a light blast and glamoring Jason into believing that they never found him, and suddenly speaking in an English accent. Jason is sent to the car, leaving Grandpa with Ben who feeds on him.

Andy Bellefeur is going nuts looking for his missing daughters and wants to put out an APB on “four Caucasian girls between 4 and 7 feet tall, 60 and 260lbs. and the ages of 10 and 50.” Arlene and Terry correctly point out that they’re probably just being teenagers and his reactions are exactly what parents go through. They’re not wrong, but, as usual, they’re so not right at the same time.

Sookie has set the table all nice and Southern-like, however like a true Southern Gothic novel character, she’s got a bottle of liquid silver poison next to her recipe box.  Upstairs she makes herself pretty (shirtless, naturally. Hey, everyone gets a little sumthin’ sumthin’ in this episode).

"Let me show you how a shirtless scene is done, boys."

In the lab, the Professor has figured out that the girl’s blood is highly unstable and will turn into regular human blood once outside of the girl’s bodies. The Professor refuses to work as long as Bill is holding anyone else hostage, but Bill’s not hearing it, throwing the Prof to the ceiling with his brain.

Willa, meanwhile, has awoken and is feeding off a young man until Eric tears her away, handing the young man some money as “short notice hazard pay.” Willa wants to either hunt or have sex, but Eric sends her home to her father. Eric tells her that in 1000 years, she’s only the second vampire he’s ever made and it wasn’t done lightly – if her father can see that vampires were once human and aren’t something to be hunted, it will be worth it. Have to say, I can’t see this going the way he thinks it’s going to.

Pam and Tara are trying to find an underground speakeasy for a willing human meal and fighting about Willa. Tara is pissed at Pam’s “This is war” attitude and runs away just as Pam is shot by an approaching Army guard and taken captive.

In the Governor’s mansion, Sarah Newlin is trying to distract the Governor from his missing daughter. Sarah, it seems, has embraced the mistress-y parts of modern politics. Just then, Willa arrives, and tells her father he has to stop persecuting “us vampires” and if he still loves her, he will call off his plans. “This is my daughter” he says, seemingly willing to agree. Too bad he’s still got that wound from earlier, leaking fresh blood which just sets Willa off. Thankfully, Sarah’s there to shoot Willa down like a dog. “You’ve got to send her to the camp,” Sarah tells the Gov.

On the bridge, Ben is feeding Grandpa his blood when Grandpa makes the connection that Ben is Warlow. Ben tells Grandpa that what made him spare Grandpa all those years ago was the struggle that he feels between his own dark and light impulses before opening the portal that he came through and tossing Grandpa into it.

Sam and Nicole hide out in a hotel room as Nicole has serious survivor guilt over being the last hipster standing and Sam is just now thinking about how Luna died in his arms. Well, this is a good time to make out, right?

Sookie is about to give up on Ben having stood her up when he shows up at the door with flowers. She serves him the plate of silver-infused chicken which he eats with gusto, confounding Sookie.

At Bill’s house, the girls are getting restless and ready to go and no amount of Jessica’s dress up clothes is going to keep them here. Jessica suddenly looses control and lunges at one of them, biting her neck. 

"None of you even have names. I'm just going my part to clean up the character roster."

Andy and Jason, meanwhile, have found Andy’s abandoned cruiser and the cashier who can’t recall the girls ever coming by. Jason says that its possible he was glamoured “or he might just be an idiot.” Right on both counts, Jason. Jason lets slip that faeries are catnip to vampires, sending Andy running for his car.

At Bill’s house, Jessica has fallen off the wagon in a major way. Like, in a “sorry I ate all of the Sheriff’s daughters, but at least we’ve resolved this aging plotline before they got to middle age” kind of way. Bill finds her sobbing over their bloody bodies, praying that they’re not dead.

Sookie and Ben are getting friendly on the couch. This being Sookie and Ben being a vampire, “friendly” means going from a kiss to straddling and unzipping within literally seconds. (I never have dates like this.) The shirts come off one last time (naturally) and Ben is about to get lucky when Sookie whispers all soft and sexy-like into his ear, “You can get the fuck off me now, Warlow.” We see she’s got her Faerie Nuclear Light Bomb ready to go in her hand as we cut to black.

"The writers never give me moments of awesome. Don't take this from me, Jerk."