True Blood Recap: Good Ol’ Fashioned Spineless Camp

Season 3/Episode 9: Everything is Broken

Everything in this episode was indeed broken.  It felt fractured, like it was in between something else finishing or starting.  But it also managed to keep a nice darkly comedic pace throughout. Like in the opening scene, where Eric returns to Fangtasia and tells Pam he staked Talbot only to find out that the VLA “feds” are in da house and all up his biznatch.  And they’re headed up by one of my personal favorite True Blood bit players, the incomparably chilly vampire PR lady, Nan Flanigan. She accuses him of making a mess when she should be dealing with ratification of the VRA in Oregon. Eric starts by laying some of his trademark smoothness down but she’s calls bullshit and orders him silvered.  Their  tired blonde, glamoured  to the point of no return bartender screams as he’s covered in links and the credits roll. 

The theme song ends as Russell comes home to the bloody mess that was Talbot.  The king tries in vain to reorganize Talbot’s entrails until he puts two and two together and realizes the Viking headdress is gone.  Then he starts weeping uncontrollably. Love. It can fall even the mightiest of Kings. It can also send all the nagging fears of a comely young psychic down the drain, which is just what it does when Bill gets in the shower with Sookie. But their peace lasts only as long as their sexy, licky, bloody shower scene.  They start fighting again over the dead werewolf in the living room.  “Normal couples don’t do this, Bill Compton,” Sookie says.  Bill says she needs to trust him.  Sookie rightly brings up the Stackhouse dossier.  (Although why she didn’t bring up him raping her at this point is beyond me). He counters by blaming it all on Eric, saying he had to find out what she was first so he could know how to protect her.

Elsewhere in Bon Temps, there are other fools in love.  Jesus and Lafayette, are sharing post-coital glasses of Jack while Lafayette sexily fingers the jaguar tattoo on Jesus’ chest (which will probably be important later).  Also foolish and in love – Jason, who walks in on Crystal and her fiancé, Felton, with a gun on them.  After some back and forth where it’s hard to see whose side Crystal’s on, Crystal and Jason knock Felton out. 

Then it’s back to Fangtasia where Nan’s working her vampire PR mojo.  She’s putting Eric on a webcam feed with the VLA so he can offer official witness testimony about what went down with the Magister.  After hearing what went down with Franklin and Tara, Sam’s offering her drinks at his place. He also implies she should get therapy but then Terry calls to complain about the freaky sex noises coming from Sam’s brother’s cabin.  As Sam leaves to rein Tommy in, Tara opens Sam’s state of the art laptop and starts clicking away.  She’s not finding a VLA Twitter feed of Eric’s testimony though.  That’s really too bad because Eric’s telling Nan all about Operations Werewolf’s secret V history throughout the ages and then some. He also squeals about Russell’s plan to subjugate the human race and to flout the VLA’s authority.  Nan calls his allegations treasonous. Eric says his (rather human) need for bloody vengeance usurps the VLA’s jurisdiction.  He wants the King to die at his own hands. Nan says the VLA will review his statement. Until then, he and Pam are under lockdown till the Authority makes its ruling.

Merlotte’s might be closed but the staff at Louisiana’s other supernatural bar is by no means under lockdown.  They’re fuckin’ and fightin’ over at Sam’s where Tommy’s banging a somewhat older and taller bar patron.  Sam tells Tommy to keep it down. Tommy tells him he’s not his dad and dammit if this shifter brother storyline isn’t finally growing on me.

As is Crystal and Jason’s escape from Hot Shot storyline.  Maybe it’s because the Talbot and Franklin storyline’s dried up? I dunno, but it’s getting more interesting, no?  At least it is from a police procedural perspective.  Jason and Crystal tie Felton to a tress in the woods, plant a big bag of V on him, then make an anonymous 911 call.  After a short and sweet scene with Lafayette, Jesus and Lafayette’s mom, Jason and Crystal carry out the second part of their con down at the police station. There they discover Deputy Kevin something-or-other was put in the hospital responding to their anonymous call.  Uh oh.  Also uh oh is when Crystal sees the meth dealer Jason put in the slammer countless episodes ago on the way to his arraignment – and he lets her know he’s seen her too.

Jason approaches Andy with his fake evidence story about the bag of V, telling him the word on the street is Hot Shot’s dealing V in addition to meth.  He manipulates Sheriff Bellefleur onto his side, until Andy opens a drawer filled with vials of V.  He’s either buying Jason’s story or he’s a closet V addict.  Recent V drinker, Tara, is taking the first step to turning her life around by walking into what looks like an AA meeting. It turns out to be a support group for rape survivors where Holly, the new Merlotte’s waitress, is sharing.  Her words about opening up and trusting again get to Tara whose eyes shine with hope as Holly speaks.

Sookie’s eyes are glazed over with nostalgia again. She’s looking through YET ANOTHER scrapbook.  This one looks like it was her gran’s.  It’s got yellowed newspaper clippings in it. The camera lingers on one about Sookie’s grandfather using his sixth sense to put out a fire. Then Hadley calls, asking Sookie to meet her at the Monroe Aquarium.  When Sookie gets there, Hadley’s there with her son, Hunter. She confesses to telling Sofie Anne about Sookie’s powers.  Then she tells her the real reason she brought her there. She wants to know if Hunter is like Sookie.  Sookie starts talking to him with her brain and Hadley quickly groks by their expressions that the little bugger’s a mind reader just like his freaky aunt.  She runs off with him to protect him from the same perilous vamp forces after Sookie.

Arlene thinks Tommy’s running off with her tips over at Merlotte’s.  Tommy calls her a shitty server.  This makes her cry and run into Sam’s office. She’s followed by Holly who’s apparently now the Bon Temps Women’s Issues Counselor.  Arlene tells Holly EVERYTHING… specifically that she’s not having Terry’s baby but is instead having Rene the evil serial killer’s evil baby.  When Arlene says she doesn’t want to have the baby, Holly first offers to take her to the clinic (see? Women’s Issues counselor and it’s a good thing too.  They totally need one.), then says mysteriously that there’s other ways to resolve her situation.

Bill’s situation goes like this: he wakes up in a leaking hidey hole with sunlight streaming in.  Then he opens a trapdoor onto what looks like Sookie’s magical new agey Retro 80’s Nighttime Soap playground from a couple episodes ago. He sees Sookie’s friend, Claudine, who he chases after and tackles. He seems to have an uncontrollable urge to bite her but before he can, she shoots light out of her hand and accuses him of trying to kill Sookie.  Claudine says “they’ll” protect her.  Who is “we?” Bill asks, then adds that “they” haven’t protected her so far. I assume “they” is that burning man camp she was hanging out with before. 

I also assume that Pam and Eric aren’t enjoying their VLA imposed lockdown (athough their coffins look pretty spiffy).  Eric tells Pam he’ll take the full rap for what happened with the Magister.  Pam’s mostly dismayed that Eric never told her about why his wolf-hating runs so deep.  Everything ends, he tells her. Even the immortals.  If he’s killed, she’ll need to make a new vampire.  It’s her time to be a maker.  Then she falls in his arms weeping at the thought of losing her daddy.

Newly made vampire Jessica gets her werewolf killer confident stride broken at Merlotte’s when Hoyt shows up with his new girlfriend, Summer.  She takes the two of them to their table and they fight till Jessica runs away.  Summer, on the other hand, just blathers away.  Hoyt keeps an eye on Jessica the whole time. No wonder too, since Summer, who’s already proven herself to be exceedingly annoying, pretty much cements that Jessica and Hoyt will get back together by showing off her doll collection at the table.

A couple tables over, Jason tells Crystal he’s bringing the weight of the law down on Hot Shot.  Crystal’s rightfully worried about her innocent kinfolk and what her less innocent kinfolk will do to her if they think she’s an informant.  The table hopping continues with Lafayette bringing Jesus a veggie burger with bacon and running into Tara on the way back to the kitchen.  Tara, at first, gives him shit about his new boyfriend, then remembers she’s going to give trusting people a shot and stops with the sass.

Back at Hoyt’s table, Summer’s goes to the little girl’s room and Jessica comes over to apologize.  The two get to talking.  Hoyt hates Summer, which seems like the wrong thing to tell your often bloodlusty vampire ex-girlfriend.  Jessica’s touched though. She wants to know why he’s with her then.  Hoyt says it beats sitting around thinking about her and makes Jessica cry.

Russell’s not crying but he’s completely lost it on the roof across the street from Fangtasia.  He’s talking to Talbot, or rather, an urn filled with Talbot’s remains, about how the AVL will suffer for protecting Eric. Then he zips off into the night as Nan goes in to read Eric the ruling. Turns out the AVL doesn’t want to get involved in the political minefield of dead Magisters and missing royals Russell’s created.  Since Eric’s so eager to exact revenge, she gives him permission to.  What about resources?  Resources, shmesources.  She tells Northman she’ll have his fangs if he doesn’t bring her Russell’s.

Calvin comes into Merlotte’s looking for what’s his.  When he finds her, he calls her a two faced whore and accusesSam of lying.  Sam breaks a bottle over his head and beats him so badly that Hoyt and Jason have to pull him off a thoroughly ass-kicked Calvin.  Jesus, Lafayette and Crystal (much to Jason’s chagrin) then take Calvin to the ER for much needed medical attention.   

Tara’s got unwanted attention coming her way. Franklin’s back and ranting over how she could ever leave him and how much he loves her. He doesn’t love anyone, she says. Tara holds her ground and refuses to play his games, saying she’ll die before she begs for her life. That prompts Franklin to ask why she wants to die so much?  Because then she’ll be free.  Man, Tara’s going through the ringer this season but she’s speaking some universal truths as she goes through it. Then Jason shoots Franklin into a pile of goo with a wooden bullet which either makes him even with Tara for saving her life or a total dick for killing her last two boyfriends.

Sookie should think Bill’s a total dick, but ever the trusting fanbanger that she is, she reasons with him instead.  Why didn’t you tell me about Hadley?  Did you work for Sofie Anne?  Bill sidesteps these inquiries, saying that now he’s been to her burning man camp, he knows what she is.  Hm.

Nan knows exactly who she is. She’s a typical sleazy, twofaced politician, going down on a comely fangbanger in the back seat of a limo. She’s listening to a news broadcast about the upcoming vampire political showdown for the VRA underway in Oregon when Russell suddenly appears on the screen (damn, he’s fast). He rips out the newscaster’s spine, then proceeds to catalog various evils of the human race, like global warming, garish mcmansions, and designer jeans. “Why would we seek equal rights?” He scolds, “You are not our equals.  We want to eat you and your children.” Then he cheekily turns the broadcast, ending True Blood on a campy up note that makes you remember this show can’t lose as long as it keeps things gorey, silly and darkly comedic.