True Blood Recap: Then we woke up in a puddle

True Blood Season 3

Episode 7: Hitting the Ground

Hitting the Ground hit the ground running just where we’d been left off on the edge of our seats last week with Lorena sucking Sookie all but dry.“You’re delicious,” Lorena says to Sookie, saying she can see why Bill is so enamored with her.  This is, coincidentally (or not?) similar to what she said to Barry the Telepathic Bellhop in Season Two after she took a bite out of him.  Except then she described Barry as tasting, “funny.”  As she’s musing over this in her unsophisticated way, Bill takes the opportunity to drag himself up on his haunches and wrap the silver chains he’s bound with around her neck.  He pulls her to him and tells Sookie to stake her.  Sookie goes for it and then some, leaving Lorena in a puddle of sloppy blood chunks all over an unresponsive Bill.  Ding dong the witch is dead!  And True Blood wraps yet another truly great gross out scene as the opening credits roll. 

It just keeps getting better and grosser this season, doesn’t it?  As the theme song wails to a close, Alcide pulls up to Bill and Lorena’s little death/love shack behind Russell’s manse.  Tara tries to get Sookie to leave Bill behind, saying he looks dead.  Sookie points out that when vamps die they look like the slop that was Lorena that’s now splooged all over Bill. I really hope that’s registering for Tara, given how that totally didn’t happen to Franklin but there’s not a lot of time for reflection.  No sooner do Alcide, Sookie and Tara get Bill wrapped up in a tarp, a gun-toting Debbie comes in a whoopin’ and a hollerin’ at her good fortune.  “A vampire burrito?  For me?” She asks, prompting me to ask myself, where has Debbie been all my life?  Now that Lorena’s dead, there’s a new bitch in town and I much prefer this slutty junkie werewolf one to the simpering, petty lovesick vampire one.

I still can’t believe Lorena’s dead!  But I’m even more incredulous that I’m finally being pulled into Sam’s redneck shapeshifter family storlyine.  Sam’s trying to infiltrate the dog fighting ring over in Union Parish that Ma Shifter and Pa Not-Shifter-Just-Shifty have Tommy messed up in.  But the stank ass hillbilly Sam’s come across to question about the ring ain’t buyin’ it.  He pulls a gun on Sam and sends him on his way after taking his gun.

Back at the shack behind the manse, Alcide’s trying to talk Debbie down from the ledge.  Sookie’s reading her thoughts and Tara’s sending Sookie purposeful “this is how we do Debbie in” thoughts. Alcide and Debbie, meanwhile, are fighting about the typical relationship stuff lovers never stop hashing over.  She brings up the baby he refused to have with her because he didn’t want to bring another wolf child into the world.  Alcide says that didn’t mean he didn’t love her.  Tara sends a thought Sookie’s way that she should try to distract Debbie while she’s processing. Sookie screams and Tara charges at Debbie.  Alcide grabs Debbie’s gun.  Coot bursts in (I was wondering where he was since last we left these two they were freaking all over the grounds on an epic V trip).  But he’s here now and on the receiving end of Alcide’s gun.  Alcide shoots and kills Coot. 

Let’s take a moment of silence for the entertaining, ancillary character that was Coot.  If we don’t do it, no one will.  Debbie sure as shit won’t.  As Alcide points her own gun at her, she swears that he better kill her right fucking now. If he doesn’t, she’ll sniff him out and hunt him down and AWOOOOWWWWOOO! I love this girl.  I hope she doesn’t die as fast as Coot.  She’ll at least be back to see another episode because Alcide doesn’t kill her.  Instead he locks her in the barn which doesn’t seem so terrible since she’s stuck in there with Coot’s corpse and enough V for an epic bender.  Seems like a situation that an enterprising young weregirl with loose morals could make the most of, if you ask me.

Sookie and Tara fight about how charming Tara’s personality is when she’s all hopped up on V. Then they fight about Bill and whether or not he’s a massive jerk while they maneuver him into the back of Alcide’s truck.  As soon as they get him in the back and Tara gets up front, a significant chunk of what’s left of the wolf pack guarding the mansion comes after them but Alcide runs them over and kills at least one of them right quick.

Over in Bon Temps, Jason and Hoyt are having some quality roommate time.  Jason tells Hoyt that while he never thought he was smart enough to get depressed, he’s depressed over Crystal.  He just can’t figure out the enigma that is this new hot piece of ass he screwed in the woods behind Merlotte’s.  Hoyt calls her a meth head, pointing out, rather astutely, that there’s probably a reason her names Crystal.  As far as I’m concerned that pretty much fills in the blanks on her erratic behavior but I don’t live in Bon Temps.  Hoyt does so when he suggest that Jason talk to the meth dealer Hoyt he busted from Hot Shot last week for more info it makes sense.

Sam’s still trying to get to the bottom of his own mystery and is now using his shapeshifting skills to gather evidence.  Or maybe he’s just getting naked. Not getting naked are Hoyt and his new lady friend, Summer, who’s stopped by Jason and Hoyt’s unexpectedly with some biscuits in what amounted to the most useless scene of the episode where Summer tells Hoyt she wants to be his girlfriend.  Thankfully that’s over fast and the action shifts to Sofie Anne’s palace where she’s being kept prisoner in a giant old style birdcage. It looks humiliating but also kind of classy as far as cages go.  Sofie tells Eric he’s a fool for trusting Russell, Eric says a vamp can only trust another vamp if he’s made them.  It’s really too bad him and Bill don’t talk more.  Eric then threatens to kill her human, Hadley, who in the timeless soap operatic fashion of countless intersecting storylines, is also Sookie’s cousin.  When the Queen doesn’t confess why she’s been tracking Sookie so closely, Hadley whispers why in Eric’s ear to save her own neck.  Eric stops sucking, says that’s not what he was expecting at all, and bites open his wrist so Hadley can slurp up some V and heal.

Back at Sam’s lone undercover dog ring bust, Sam’s shifted into big gnarly looking pit bull.  He gets taken in by a greedy unsuspecting redneck right into the belly of the dog fighting beast.  In the back of Alcide’s truck, Sookie is being a bit of an unsuspecting redneck herself – but one who’s blinded by love as opposed to greed.  After continuing to tenderly cradle Bill with no response, she cuts open her wrist vein with a nasty looking serrated-edged knife and holds it up to Bill’s mouth.  Talk about greedy.  Bill drinks from her, then bites her HARD, then is on top of her attacking her!  All while their song is playing!

Cut to Tara and Alcide driving down a sunny country road. Alcide is telling Tara that she needs to relax.  She says she hasn’t even breathed for a week.  He says she should try it.  At first she looks like, bitch, please, then she looks like she think he might have a point but she doesn’t say anything.  Probably so the writers can get the action back to the back of the truck where Bill is totally raping Sookie and draining her blood.  It is so time for her to quit him.

But there’s a stubborn streak in the Stackhouse family.  Jason needs to quit acting like he’s a cop already but instead he’s down at the station trying to interrogate the meth dealer. He asks him about Crystal.  He tells Jason she’s his cousin. He says if Jason should run along and get him some meth if he wants to know more about Miss Crystal.  One thing I know? Crystal is an inopportune but fitting name for a girl who lives with a tribe of inbred meth heads on the outskirts of town. Another thing I know? Jason will be back in an episode or two with meth for this tweaker.

Something I don’t know?  What’s going to happen next when Alcide pulls the truck over to take a piss by the side of the road and Tara goes to check on Sookie.  When she opens the door, Sookie’s near death and Bill seems genuinely confused. He really didn’t know he was raping and killing Sookie.  He was acting out of some vampire animal instinct.  Bill pleads with them to let him save Sookie with his blood.  Tara does what any woman who was just kidnapped by a psychopathic vampire would do and kicks Bill to the curb into the glare of the hot Sun.  Bill starts frying then runs into some trees – presumably to dig himself a hidey hole till daylight passes.

Sam shifts back into humanoid form and frees himself from a cage he was put in as a dog.  Then he knocks out the guard guarding the dogfight cages and lets out all the other poor little fight doggies from their cages.

Elsewhere, Tara and Alcide have managed to get Sookie to a hospital where she’s going into convulsions from a blood transfusion her body’s rejecting.  The attending physician tells Tara they’ll have to notify Sookie’s next of kin.  Tara seems to think this is bullshit and questions whether the nurses have done their due diligence and that they maybe gave her the wrong type of blood. The nurse says they were unable to establish Sookie’s blood type.  She’s never seen anything like it actually – Sookie has no blood type.

Back at the dog fights, Sam’s no good birth parents are callously putting Tommy in the ring.  Sam shows up and saves Tommy by staring down the dog that’s been kicking Tommy’s ass till it runs away whimpering from Sam’s powerful puppy dominating vibes.  Tommy shifts back to human form.  He’s a bloody, battered mess.  Sam’s pissed!  He makes trashy Jolie give Tommy his clothes.

Lafayette’s not so much pissed as he is bemused and irritated when Jason tries to hit him up for some meth.  But before he can queenily dissing his ass good and proper, Tara calls Jason and tells him he needs to come to the hospital immediately.  Sookie’s in a coma. 

The action quickly cuts back to a naked-except-for-his-underpants Jolie.  Sam tells him off BIG TIME: “You’re just a scared man in saggy underpants with no discernable life skills whatsoever!” Yeah! Then he leaves, taking a scared but hopeful Tommy with him.

Cut again and we’re at Sookie’s hospital bedside where Jason has just arrived with Lafayette.  Tara asks Jason if he has a blood type.  He’s AB negative.  Whycome Sookie doesn’t have one then?  Jason says she was born at home on the kitchen table and has never been to no hospital on account of her being basically a good girl (except for fangbanging). Not anymore, Tara says!  That piece of shit vampire she was with is a pile of ash back on the road.  But the two don’t trifle over Bill for long. Instead, they hold Sookie’s hand to try to get her to wake the fuck up.  Lafayette admonishes them to stop cussing at her and talk to her.  Sookie can’t hear them though.  She’s headed towards the light or at least towards a scene that looks like it could have been rendered by Thomas Kincade painter of light.  She walks down a hallway filled with shimmery water towards an idyllic looking garden as lesbionic Lilith fair music plays. Then she starts talking to a refined looking British lady in a prom dress who goes by the name of Claudine.  The two walk arm and arm towards a fountain in the middle of the garden where she makes Sookie drink glowing water.

Back at Sookie’s bedside, Lafayette is reciting some moving words from the bible or an inspirational poster at a telemarketing office or something.  “And yet ther’es only one great thing,” he intones,  “the only thing – to live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.” Whtever. Once again, Lafayette: Life Coach.  WANT. 

In Sookie’s dream/otherworldly experience, Claudine and Sookie are reading one another’s thoughts.  Claudine yell-thinks, THE DOG APPROACHES.  Bill shows up at Sookie’s bedside IRL, lookin’ fresh in that retro black track jacket from a couple episodes back.  Back in Sookie’s dream/otherworld, Claudine is thinking hard at her.  Bill will steal her light.  She should not let him take it from her. She asks her to dive into the pond with the beautiful people. She says it’s not safe for her there anymore.  Sookie refuses to go and falls to the ground as the others dive into the pond.  Outside of her head/vision, Jason gives Bill permission to give Sookie his blood and Tara and Lafayette look on disapprovingly as Bill opens his wrist into Sookie’s IV. 

Sam and Tommy are driving along listening to sad country songs and letting the words stay unsaid between them.  The Magister however, is saying many un-sweet nothings to Pam who he’s been torturing for nights on end at Fangtasia.  Pam is staying resilient and sassy under pressure though, even when the Magister threatens to pierce her eyelids with some Tiffany’s diamond earrings he bought for her.  Just then, Eric busts in at vamp warp speed with the Queen in tow.  He confesses to selling the V, but at his Queen’s command. Then he renounces her, saying his loyalty is w/ Mississippi now.  Russell takes that moment to enter dramatically and get Eric’s back.  The Magister asks Sofie Anne if she sold the V.  Unexpectedly, the King takes that as an opening to question the Magister’s so-called “authority.”  He’s a fucking rogue King, denouncing the entire nebulous vampire authority, yo!  It looks like he wasn’t fucking around when he told Eric Northman last episode that it was time for the supes to take over the pathetic humans once and for all.  He’s walking the walk after talking that talk. 

The Magister says he’ll turn the King in for blaspheming the vampire authority but in response, the millennia old vampire frees Pam and chains the Magister up at light speed. The scene briefly moves back to Sookie recovering peacefully as Bill holds her hand. Then she wakes up, looks in his eyes, and screams.  There’s a quick and final cut back to the tied up Magister pronouncing Sofie Anne and Russell husband and wife under torture by Russell.  As the newly betrothed couple and Eric and Pam walk away, the Magister says the authority will never recognize their union.  To this the King says,”Say hello to the true death,” and chops off the Magister’s head which hits the ground and dissolves in a puddle of goo and groovy new wave music.

Nice one.  This whole episode was really nice, save that one out of place scene with Hoyt and Summer.  At least I thought so.  What did you think?