The Dope Box TV Blog

True Blood, HBO TV show, Sundays

Lying to Layfayette makes him cranky. Lying and hypocritically railing against vamps and gays on television makes him scrub off the makeup, chuck the dew rag, and put on a suit. Seeing him like that was like seeing Bill in a tutu.

Bill innocently waits for Jessica to rise from the ground, a 4-pack of True Blood by his side. He envisions mentoring her for mainstream life; she prefers to celebrate her newfound freedom from clarinets and oppressive-parents-who-make-her-wear-apron-dresses by swearin’, gigglin’, and blood suckin’. Following her barrage of “whys” and wave of disappointment at his squareness, Bill passes Jess off to Eric.

After Sam’s well-timed saving of Sookie from the mystery killer, they’re like two peas in a seriously fucked up pod. He’s sleeping on her sofa now, shotgun on the mantle, continuing to watch over her in a less naked way. She’s gotten past his whole clandestine part-time doggie situation and he’s forgiven her for being a heinous bitch about his big reveal.

The two play detective, searching for the killer by following the dead girl’s trail. It leads them to a diner where a pie connoisseur eats and gabs. From there, they hit the local police station where Sookie’s bite marks cause the provincial cop to clam up. He loosens right up when she uses her mind powers to blackmail him. He promises to fax the picture of dead chick’s brother, Drew Marshall, to the Bon Temps cops.

On the drive home, Sook and Sam talk love while he shoots her moony looks. Do her telepathic talents impinge on her ability to see the glaringly obvious?

Sam’s rather distracted by Sookie all day and only pauses momentarily to call the girl he’s actually having relations with. Tara, who we last saw swerving off the road, has been busy flunking sobriety tests and babbling about filthy nude women with giant pigs. She’s thrown in a cell and the cops call her mom. If anyone were to understand nonsensical ranting whilst intoxicated, it would be her mother, right? It turns out, now that mommy thinks she’s exorcized, she’s all into prayer circles, salvation, and tough love. Tara is told she’s a danger to her mother’s newly saved soul and can’t go home. Luckily (?) hog lady, Mary Anne, comes to bail her out. Tara doesn’t recognize her and takes her up on an invite to crash at her mansion. Sure, she might be swine food but at least she’ll be able to change out of that fugly dress.  

Earthchild Amy (who’s not crazy at all) and Jason are swimming in the bloody vestiges of Eddie, the staked vampire. Aw, poor Eddie. He was such a hapless, hopeless case. Amy rationalizes killing him since he was already dead. Jason gags, calls her a Yankee bitch, tells her to stop using V or she’s history. She calls him a dumb hillbilly (ok, kinda true) but then assures him what they have is “beautiful”. Uh, no. What you have is an addiction to supernatural body fluids and a gooey, stringy pool of vampire pulp.

Jason decides to tell his pals, Hoyt and Rene, that his girlfriend is a V-head. He conveniently leaves out the part where he helped kidnap and drain a local vampire so he could have bizarre floaty sex with her while the gloomy vamp watched and cried blood-tears. Mama’s boy Hoyt recommends working it out. That night, vegan-warrior presents J with a candlelit dinner. She makes a convincing argument for doing V one final time by throwing around big words he can’t wrap his pretty little head around. She wants this last time to be a symbolic representation of a circular journey. It’s an inflated argument when put to a fella who doesn’t understand the concept of sleeves, let alone symmetry. Then some guy strangles her with a belt and interrupts J’s dream of frolicking through a field in tighty whiteys.

Andy Bellefleur has it out for Jason and helps convince the poor dim bastard that he’s the killer. While he walks past, a gossipy receptionist gets the fax for Sookie with a picture of Drew Marshall (except it’s totally Rene).  

Bill arrives at Sookie’s just in time to catch her and the were-collie making out. Fangs out, he tackles and bitch-slaps Sam. Hot supe brawl ensues! Sookie, reserving the right to get her freak on with whomever she pleases, rescinds Bill’s invitation and rejects Sammie.

“It means that I don’t have to sit like a lady. And I can kill anybody I want. And there’s an awful lot of people I’d like to kill.”

-Jessica, on being a vampire

True Blood, HBO tv series, Sundays

Understandably, waking up with naked Sam at the foot of her bed scares the shit out of Sookie. After a demonstration and explanation of his shape-shiftiness, Sook aptly says, “Shut the fuck up.” Her look tells us she’d like a break from mystical-creatures-come-reality for a while.

We got some telling flashbacks about Sam this week. Apparently, he’s been repeatedly abandoned. Once by his shifter parents, and again by his adoptive parents when they realized he was…special. I have to say, his part was cast brilliantly. He totally seems like a guy who would shape shift into a collie.

Tara finally has that exorcism she’s been itching for, during which she drinks “snake juice” and is given Miss Jeannette’s spit to rub on her face (Icky). She spazzes out, throws up, cries, and stabs the emerging demon who manifests as a young Tara. The following morning, the exorcized mother and daughter ingest several celebratory buckets o’ crawfish. Tara’s excitement is flattened when she spots their exorcist in wig and uniform working at a drug store. Turns out the exorcism was a fake and the snake juice was ipecac and peyote. Cripes, that was a seriously pricey hallucination.

Amy discovers Jason has been feeding the imprisoned vampire and she’s one unhappy vegan. Eddie tells her Jason won’t forgive her if she kills him. Her plan: they keep the plump vamp as a pet and hope he develops Stockholm syndrome so he’ll want to be with them and they can use his blood to fund their travel expenses as they traipse through untamed villages and mountain passages searching for existential bliss. Solid.

At Arlene and Rene’s fish boil, a whole lotta shit goes down. Tara saunters in, sloppy and wearing her red spandex prom dress, eager to get busy with Sammie. Lafayette accosts Jason (who was guzzling beer & urinating simultaneously) for being responsible for the missing vampire. Of course, he has no idea just how responsible Jason really is. Sookie narrowly escapes an attacker inside the darkened, empty bar. She was privy to the mental replay of his last victim’s murder. They made a point of showing the vampire bites on the dead girl’s neck. I’ve read the books but I’m curious…who do you think the murderer is?

On the way home from the Cajun soirée, Tara swerves off the road to avoid hitting a very naked, very dirty woman with a hog companion. Another mystical creature, perhaps? Or maybe just a fruitcake escaped from the “clothing optional” retreat in Shreveport?

The most intriguing portion of the episode was the vampire tribunal. Held in a junk yard of sorts, the “Magister” sitting in the back of an old El Camino with his Blackberry in hand; it hardly seems a formal affair. The first guy’s punishment was to have his fangs plucked right out of his gums. Uh, ouch. And Bill, despite Eric’s backup, is told he’ll have to spend five years locked in a coffin cell. But the judge decides he’d rather have Bill “make” a lovely virginal teen into one of them. Oh, Bill. So valiant. He asks for the cell instead. Then he tries to glamour the girl so she won’t be afraid until the Mage forbids it. Even though he’s a vampire, he’s certainly still in touch with human sympathy and guilt.

Amy stakes Eddie when Jason tries to release him. Thus ending the “treat him like a pet” plan. Unless she’s in the habit of staking puppies.

I can’t believe there are only 2 episodes left. I hope they don’t make us wait an eternity for season two!

“I was trained in the Inquisition and I am the adjudicator for every vampire territory in North America. As the humans say-the humans who you love more than your own kind-back your shit down.”

–Magister, a little miffed about his authority being questioned