As the music proclaims at episode’s end, it looks like the season of the witch for our fanged friends in Bon Temps. Creepiness abounds as this week’s episode of True Blood features a magically reappearing baby doll, a spirit appearing in a mirror and whatever mess is going on in Hotshot. Combine all this with the ominous line dropped by Maxine that the calendar is marching towards October 31st and this season is shaping up to be more spooky than ever before. There has rarely been a creepier scene than watching serial-killer baby Mikey play gleefully with the dirty baby doll that keeps reappearing in Hoyt and Jessica’s house.
But it’s Eric, as usual, that steals the show this week. Memory wiping Eric really lets Alexander Skarsgard play a lighter, funnier version of his character that manages to make him even more endearing. Watching the tall, shirtless Eric awkwardly stumble around an open doorframe to avoid traipsing mud on Sookie’s carpet was only one of the many comedic pleasures of this storyline. Frankly the show should drag out Eric’s memory-wipe, if only so we can see an oddly sincere Eric apologize for eating Sookie’s fairy godmother as often as possible.
The Hills Have Viagra
Poor Jason. He spends the entire episode tied up to that same bed in Hotshot, severely wounded from where Crystal and Felton mauled him. Despite the fact that his last girlfriends were a.) the wife of a cult leader who tried to kill his sister and b.) a drug-addicted sociopath, it’s fairly impressive that Crystal manages to be his worst girlfriend yet. Perhaps that’s because she feeds him Viagra and then rapes him? True Blood is always pushing the sexual envelope in new and disturbing directions, but this might be the most creepy sex scene ever featured on the show. Or at least tied with that time Bill twisted Lorena’s head around Exorcist-style. It’s made doubly creepy when the rest of Crystal’s brother and sister cousins peer around the door to watch.
What Crystal really wants is for Jason to get her pregnant, so they can make more werepanther puppies. It seems like the werepanther girls in Hotshot aren’t getting pregnant anymore, and when they are the babies don’t carry to term. Crystal is hoping that adding Jason to the gene pool will save their species. But who will save Jason?
Vampires Going Viral
Bill continues dealing with the post-Russell Edington world of vampire politics. It seems there are now James O’Keefe-style groups running around, entrapping vampires into feeding so they can catch them on video. It’s like Chris Hansen using blood instead of lemonade. Bill shows a captive vampire a Youtube video of a few breathless crusaders telling others to spread the word through Facebook. Bill then informs the vampire that the penalty for being caught on film feeding on a human in the true death.
As the vampire is being dragged away, in walks another vampire who recently fed: Jessica. She’s feeling guilty about cheating on Hoyt at Fangtasia and is looking for some fatherly advice. Their relationship has always managed to make Bill more likable and their heart to heart is supremely sweet. Bill advises her to “vamp up” and tell Hoyt.
Meanwhile, Portia Belfleur endears herself by being shamelessly direct about wanting to add some sex to her business relationship with Bill. He’s the most powerful and attractive man she knows and since she’s powerful and attractive herself, she thinks it only makes sense that they get it on. Sound reasoning. Bill advises her he has no love to give, but she seems fine with that and they break in his fancy office chair.
Witches…
Lafayette has the good sense to freak out about what unleashing magical mojo on Eric will mean for his long-term life expectancy. His plan is to go to Fangtasia and explain himself to Eric, hoping he can save their asses that way. He thinks if he can explain that they didn’t mean any harm and it was all Marnie, Eric might leave them alone. Jesus and Tara agree that this is a terrible plan likely to get Lafayette killed, but he’s determined. Despite their constant vigilance, they lose Lafayette just long enough for him to put his plan into motion. Unfortunately it’s an angry Pam that he meets instead. Jesus and Tara come to the rescue as Pam pummels him, Tara awesomely sporting a wooden-bullet firing gun. The show has truly worked hard to fix the terrible ways Tara’s character was broken the last few years. This season Tara is feisty, self-confident and badass. Pam gives them a week to bring witchy leader Marnie in or things are going to get uncomfortable for them.
Speaking of Marnie, the witchy coven leader is going further and further off the deep end. She cuts herself several times in an attempt to call the spirit that possesses her, only to miss the spirit’s appearance looking out of a mirror.
…Tramps…
The confrontation between Hoyt and Jessica goes as well as can be expected. Hoyt feels betrayed by Jessica feeding off someone else and tries to leave. Jessica decides that he’s too good to know the terrible thing she did, so she glamors the knowledge out of him.
The creepiest part of the episode is undoubtedly the reappearance of the dirty baby doll last seen casting an ominous pall in the shot of Jessica and Hoyt’s new home. Seems the doll keeps popping up, even though they continually throw it away. I’m pretty sure I saw this same storyline on Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark, which ironically does not make it less scary. Instead of maybe burning the thing they decide it’s an excellent idea to give it to Arlene’s killer baby Mikey. Great plan!
…and Thieves
Meanwhile Tommy is learning to read from the home shopping network in Maxine’s house, where she has pretty much adopted him as her new dutiful son. But Tommy is a shifter that doesn’t change his stripes and when he finds out Maxine’s house is sitting on a fortune’s worth of natural gas he begins plotting. Sam wants nothing to do with his plan to buy Maxine’s house and use it to turn a profit and the two argue like only brothers who have tried to kill each other multiple times can.
Thankfully it’s not all arguments for Sam, as he and Tara reconnect over flirtatious shots. She explains she never hated him because he was a shifter but she needed to get away. He thinks you only get one life but Tara, aka Tony from New Orleans, isn’t so sure.
You Killed My Fairy Godmother!
The true highlight of the episode, as always, was the interaction between Eric and Sookie. Or as he mistakenly called her, “Snooki”. It’s always appreciated when the show has fun with the truly ridiculous ways that the characters say Sookie’s name. It’s practically its own meme at this point, both on the show and online. Mind-wiped Eric stumbles around the entire episode being by turns sheepish, sincere and endearing. It’s like watching an adorable shirtless golden retriever. He knows he’s a vampire but doesn’t remember anything about his life, including the fact that he owns Sookie’s house. When Pam shows up she convinces Sookie to hide Eric, her theory being that Bill purposefully sent Eric into the coven of witches because he wants him dead. Sookie agrees not to let anyone know that Eric is staying with her.
But Sookie isn’t keen on the idea of Eric sleeping downstairs in his tricked-out cubby, popping fangs at her like a vampire teenager. So off she goes to meet up with Alcide, because if there’s one thing Sookie can always count on it’s using the affections of her backup boyfriends to her benefit. Unfortunately for Sookie and against all odds, Alcide is back together with druggie Debbie, now clean and sober. Debbie looks so different without her heroine biker style and ten pounds of makeup that she was virtually unrecognizable when she showed up serving sausages in a sensible sweater.
Back at the homestead, Sookie is once more approached by her fairy godmother Claudette, who wants her to return to the Barbara Walters soft-focus world of the fae. This storyline, unsurprisingly, has not gotten less cheeseball despite the revelation that it was Claudette that helped save Sookie in the show’s pilot. But not to worry! Eric is here to literally kill the fairy storyline dead. He drinks Claudette dry as Sookie ineffectually yells at him because even Sookie is ready for this fairy nonsense to be over. “You killed my fairy godmother!” Sookie yells indignantly, in the funniest line of the night. “Sorry” Eric replies sheepishly. Only on True Blood.