True Blood Episode Recap: "We'll Meet Again"
On this week's True Blood, Tara, Pam and Eric explore the challenges of vampire parenthood. Someone finally wonders aloud why so many of Sookie's friends take such big risks for her. Jason and Andy discover the faeries' secret hideout... and a big secret about the backstory of the Stackhouse family legacy.
TARA, PAM and ERIC
This week we see the stories of two parent-child vampire relationships take very different turns. As Tara begrudgingly comes to terms with her fate and her role as Pam's child, Eric realizes that his precarious agreement with the Authority could endanger Pam, and thus he releases her from his bond. I wish I knew more about this process, because while it all seemed very sad and solemn, I wonder what the real effect is. I mean, they can still hang out, bump into each other at the grocery store, maybe even still work together, right? I understand the bond between maker and child is a poignant one, but for all intents and purposes — and provided Eric escapes his iStake and kills Russell -- couldn't things continue as normal?
SOOKIE and LAFAYETTE
Is Sookie the angel of death? This is a perfectly logical question posed by Lafayette in his frustration to keep the Debbie Pelt mess a secret. As a result, Sookie goes a little round the bend in this episode, as she ponders this question and the immense sacrifices her friends have made for her. So when the brakes in her car fail and she has to roll out the driver's side door to avoid a crash, she was probably too distracted to ask: Why did my brakes fail? (Answer: Because Lafayette put on his lucha libre face and put a hex on Sookie's Pinto.)
So what's a girl to do when she narrowly escapes death but is facing incarceration? Get sloppy drunk, of course! (See more on that below.) But no need for the one-woman pity party. Alcide shows up to tell her she's off the hook for Debbie's death because he lied for her. She rewards him with a hot makeout sesh, which naturally Bill and Eric witness through the window.
FAERIES
What seems like an incidental development — that pervy judge invites Andy and Jason out for an evening of debauchery — turns out to be a very important night. They climb into a limo with three comely lasses who cover their heads with pillowcases and bring them to a top-secret nightspot, which is, of course, the faeries' Bon Temps-based wonderland.
It's best described as the set of a traveling show of Moulin Rouge, which is to say it looks cheap. But there are hot boys and girls in all states of undress and everyone seems to be having a grand old time. Andy even bumps into Maurella, the faerie to whom he promised his loyalty last season. They kiss, and it's clear that whatever Maurella wants, Maurella gets.
Jason bumps into his faerie cousin Hadley, who is surprised to hear that Sookie is still alive and that he isn't in hiding from the vampires. She also drops a big bomb on Jason's size-of-a-walnut brain: Jason and Sookie's parents were killed by vampires!
But Hadley has said too much, and Jason causes a ruckus that gets he and Andy booted from Faerieland. As a final insult, once they're laying on the lawn, dumbfounded as to what just transpired, two bouncer-types shoot their faerie blasters at them and the screen fades to black. Memory erasers?
PLUS!
-Clever! Alcide clears Sookie's name when he lies to Debbie's parents and tells them that Marcus killed her, and that he in turn killed Marcus.
-Terry and Patrick travel to South Dakota to find Eller and we learn what happened in Iraq. Basically, the boys took some goofballs, watched some fireworks and then Eller shot a civilian, which sparked a firefight with some hostiles that led to several civilian casualties. (I am 300 years old so this whole sequence was very reminiscent of one years ago on China Beach, in which accidental civilian casualties in a firefight haunted Boonie and Dodger.) At any rate, once they reach Eller's secret bunker, they discover that he is batsh-- crazy, and, as he puts it, "armed."
-"I'm turning myself in," Sookie tells Jason, before she realizes that Alcide has taken care of the matter for her. "Into what?" Jason replies. Hilarious, but also, to be fair to Jason, this is an entirely feasible question to ask in Bon Temps.
-Didn't it seem totally out of character for Bill to comment on the "low-quality s--" marijuana that Jessica had at her party? I liked it better when he was the officious, arms-crossed kind of vampire dad.
-Sookie and I have the same "singing while drinking song": Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." Go back and listen to her customized lyrics; they're really great. Now I'm going to have to try her signature drink: triple sec, Amaretto and Bailey's (barf).
-Two of Sam's shifter friends come to see him in a last-ditch effort to get him to rejoin their group. He relents, because he's an idiot, and when he happens upon their tasteful dinner gathering, he finds them both murdered.
-OMG! The little-kid chancellor was the traitor, so he gets the stake! This is a shame because I really wanted to hear more about his conversion efforts in Scandinavia. On the upside, Meloni showed a bit of life this week, sexily covered as he was with the kids' blood.
What did you think of "We'll Meet Again"? Do you think Tara will make a good vampire? Were you more moved than I was by Pam's "freeing"? What exactly do the faeries have up their nonexistent sleeves? Pour yourself an Orange Marzipan and tell me all in the comments below.
