True Blood

I haven't written about my 2nd favorite show from last season yet this summer, since the sophomore season of the vampire saga on HBO has been in a creative slump, in my opinion, despite record ratings.  There's been a ton of orgiastic sex in the strange, but mostly unfulfilling storyline of Maryanne.  There's been a lot of Bill/Sookie lovemaking as well, but I was never captivated by the romance between the two.  And then there's been Jason Stackhouse joining the Christian army and fucking the head priest dude's wife, but again, it's left me wanting.  Pretty much this season has been filled with a lot of naked sex and a lot of carnal desire, but not a whole lot of suspense (other than the great early episode where Sookie is attacked in the woods by some strange creature with a bull for its head) and not nearly enough into the minds of the characters.  But it turns out the whole season was just a buildup for this week's episode, which brought almost all the disparate storylines into creative climaxes and finally made sense of everything that's been going on in an explosive, riveting way.  This is the show I fell in love with last year.  And I'm so glad it's finally getting great again.

At the start of the episode Sookie, is locked downstairs at the Fellowship of the Sun, the Christian freaks who are trying to start a war on vampires (and their human defenders).  Now, I've never liked the way the show has handled the Fellowship -- yes, these are "bad guys," and ultra-religious types are easy targets and ones I typically enjoy making fun of, but ultimately, we've found out that something like 95% of the vampires on the show are the evil soulless beings the Fellowship says they are and so their message of Christian-style intolerance, while clearly standing in for the anti-gay stance in actual fundamentalist churches, is actually wise in this case.  It's the rest of the tolerant, liberal country that is sort of mistaken by accepting vampires so readily as equal citizens.  Perhaps killing them all like the Fellowship hopes to do is a bit of an extreme measure, but openly allowing vampires who can glamor and kill to just walk around like normal is also pretty extreme.  Anyway, that's been one of my major complaints of the show this season, and it's not really addressed here, but we do see the Fellowship leaders get violent and deadly towards Sookie and Jason, which definitely makes them easier to hate. 

Sookie's fake boyfriend in the ill-fated attempt to infiltrate the group turns out to be the one who tipped the Fellowship off, because he's pissed at his vampire girlfriend's unwillingness to turn him into a vampire himself.  How he makes the leap from vampire-lover to helping the Fellowship is odd, but he gets his comeuppance at the hands of the Fellowship security guy, who doesn't give a shit that he's turned to their side -- "once a fangbanger, always a fangbanger", and he beats the crap out of him.  Sookie tries to help, but ends up on her back, about to get raped by the wacko army dude, until her telepathic message to the hotel bus boy gets back to Bill -- and Eric, who races off to help her, since Bill is trapped in his room by his maker.  But the vampire who gets there first is the one that Sookie has come to save in the first place, Eric's maker Godric, whose surprise appearance in this closing scene actually had me clapping.  So yeah, I guess the show did a good job convincing me that the Fellowship army fuck was one of the bad guys and all the vampires are the good guys.  At least when they're saving Sookie.  Because how can you not love Sookie?

Before the guy who turned her into Fellowship bait had inadvertently spilled his thoughts to Sookie, he'd also unknowingly spilled the secret to the Fellowship that she was Sookie Stackhouse, brother of Jason, who was in training at the very site and one of the Fellowship's biggest rising star soldiers.  Reverend Steve goes ballistic and, with the army guy's help (before he tried to rape Sookie), they trap Jason and, knife to his throat, try to get him to spill the details of his traitorship.  He of course believes he's been caught for fucking the Reverend's wife, but when Jason realizes that's not the issue, he protests ignorance about helping the vampires (which is accurate), although it does no good and he's left by Steve to die at the hands of Army Guy.  Jason's been taught too well at soldiering though, and kicks Army Guy's ass and escapes down the road.  Unfortunately, he's stupid enough to walk in the middle of the road and not run off in the woods and hide and he's easily found by an approaching vehicle.  Thankfully, it's the Reverend's wife, the one who's in love with him, and she's coming to save -- oh wait, why does she have a gun?  Holy shit.  Jason can only protest for a second before he's shot in the chest and falls... dead?  Yeah.  Another shocking climactic moment in the episode that left me gasping.  But there were more...

We learn all about the secrets of Maryanne in this episode, mostly from Daphne, who is not only a shapeshifter but is "working for" Maryanne ever since she was attacked (by Maryanne, in beast form), to cause the scars on her back, but her life spared.  Yes, Maryanne is that beast with the head of a bull that attacked Sookie in the woods back in Episode 2, and Sam makes the connection that her association with a "god" (Dionysius) can also be construed to mean she's covorting wtih Satan.  So, she is an immortal, she is some sort of god, but she's also pretty fucking evil (cue the connection to Bill reading Gods & Monsters in a flashback scene), and she can control all human beings' ugliest emotions -- lust, anger, gluttony, desire (as Daphne says, "the good stuff") -- but she can't control "super"-humans, such as Sam and herself (shapeshifters), which makes them a challenge, which explains why she's obsessed with Sam.  Daphne encourages Sam to give in to her and maybe she'll spare his life, but Sam wants no part of it.  He barely escaped at the bacchanal the night before and was chased into the woods by the Maryanne bull-beast, only giving her the slip by shapeshifting into an owl and flying away.  Sam tells Daphne to never speak to him again, which isn't going to be a problem, because Maryanne shows up, with a hypnotized Eggs, and tells Daphne thanks for her services, but she's no longer needed.  Then Eggs knifes her in the heart.  Yeah.  Another gasp.  I told you this was a great episode.

Lastly -- or the last thing I have the energy to share in this non-stop exciting episode -- Tara is finally starting to figure out that something super-fucking-crazy is going on with Maryanne.  Detective Andy was the only one not hypnotized at the bacchanal (perhaps because he was so drunk) and he enters Sam's bar to tell off all its patrons for their great sex orgy.  Everyone thinks he's funny, except for Tara, who's beginning to connect the dots between her own lost memories of the night before, Eggs's similar reaction, and Arlene's similar story about blacking out and possibly raping Terry (Tara's initial retort: "How is that even possible?")  So the super-long arc of Tara's redemption in the hands of Maryanne is finally getting resolved.  Why Maryanne has chosen her of all people still remains a mystery, unless it's simply as a companion for Eggs, but the shit is about to hit the fan there.  It might be tough to stop a god, or Satan, or a vibrating bull-beast who can hypnotize humans, but I'm pretty sure this storyline will explode in the coming weeks like the Godric/Sookie/Fellowship/Jason one did tonight.  And I can't wait.

In the previews for next week, the Fellowship is having it's "lock-down" at the same time the vampires are coming to save Sookie and Godric, and the whole Godric/Eric maker/makee connection become a hugely important plot point.  Bill isn't seen -- and honestly, I haven't liked his flashbacks with his maker from the 1930s, even if they are an important insight into his past (Eric's bloody flashback was much better).  Neither is Jason -- we don't know if he's alive or dead.  And I don't remember what we see about the Maryanne side of things, if anything.  I can't wait though.  The good great True Blood is back with a vengeance.  Just like the vampires about to hit the Fellowship of the Sun...

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