Truebies, welcome to the first recap of our beloved True Blood on AfterEllen.com. While the show has always been very, very gay, it has gotten even more lesbian-friendly in the last season. And with the beginning of Season 3 featuring gay vamp Pam in a bigger role and Sapphic Queen Sophie-Ann returning, it’s time for us to talk about it every week. And boy, was my interest in recapping True Blood solidified with last night’s episode, “Bad Blood.”
(It should go without saying that spoilers lie ahead. Please don’t read if you haven’t watched the premiere episode yet!)
Season 3 picks up exactly where Season 2 left off, which means Sookie is trying to file a missing person’s report for Bill, who has vanished during their dinner. She had taken a quick potty break to decide whether or not to accept his marriage proposal. But she’s having a hard time reporting him as a missing person because he’s not technically a person. Also, there’s a pesky law in the U.S. that says 48 hours must have passed before someone can be considered missing. The lady cop thinks that he could have just been pissed that Sookie didn’t say yes to the dress right off the bat. (If the vamps on this show actually turned into bats, that would have been a great pun.)
Meanwhile, we find out Bill has been taken by a group of hillbilly V drinkers that are draining him while driving him somewhere. He attempts to over-dramatically threaten them, saying if they have “any sort or orders to deliver him alive” they had better stop drinking his blood because he could die. They laugh and get crazed off the blood, which one dude spits into another one’s mouth, despite saying “That’s gay” when it’s first suggested.
Speaking of gay, Sam is in Arkansas trying to find his birth parents. He’s in a hotel room and has a dream that Bill comes to him, shirtless, and asks Sam to shower with him.
Doesn’t it make you so glad they cast straight actors so it’s believable they are having gay feelings? If they were gay, you’d be so confused! Gay playing straight playing gay? Our heads would just explode trying to understand how acting works – right Newsweek?
It’s a really hot scene, but ends with Sam waking up with a start. He will continue to have sexy dreams about Bill because he drank Bill’s blood to survive last season. So that must be it – you catch the gay in the vampire bloodstream. Someone alert the conservatives!
Sookie goes to Fangtasia where she comes across Pam, who greets her with a onceover and a smirk.
“I’m in no mood for lesbian weirdness tonight, Pam,” Sookie says to her, demanding to see Eric. But Eric, as Pam says, is indisposed. Pam feigns interest in stopping Sookie from finding him in the basement: “Sookie, stop, don’t,” she deadpans and they both come to find Eric furiously, uh, greeting the new dancer, Yvetta.
Eric, completely naked, says to Pam, “I assume she couldn’t be stopped,” and Pam smiles evily, appreciating the other naked figure in the room – Yvetta. Pam is sent away while Sookie grills Eric. She thinks he’s responsible for Bill’s disappearance, but Eric said he’s been with Yvetta for the last six hours. Sookie is taken aback. “You’ve been doing this for six hours?”
Eric asks, “Is Bill’s stamina not up to snuff?” It’s probably true, but Sookie shakes it off and tells him she will not rest until she finds her boyfriend, which is Bill and totally not Eric, in case anyone forgot!
Meanwhile, Andy tells Jason they need to act as normal as possible so that no one suspects they’ve lied about who shot Eggs. It was Jason, but Andy took the blame so Jason wouldn’t be in trouble for killing Tara’s boyfriend. And by acting “as normal as possible,” it means Jason meets two co-eds at Merlotte’s and brings them home with him. But the problem is he can’t get excited – he keeps picturing them with bullet holes in their heads. He even asks them to start kissing in front of him and there’s nothing happening for him. One of the girls says “I can’t believe I’m doing this again!” OMG, Missy – a threesome with your friend again! How do you always get roped into these crazy things? Oh that’s right – you asked if you could join.
Eventually, Jason tells them he’s seeing bullets in their heads, and they race out in the nude. Shrug.
Tara’s having a mental breakdown after the death of the only guy she’s ever really loved. She goes to Lafayette’s to recover.
But in what could be considered the worst idea ever, Tara’s mom comes over, and brings the reverend with her. After being pumped full of God’s word and the idea this was all God’s plan to bring her and her alcoholic mama back together, Tara decides to take a shower – aka lock herself in the bathroom and push pills down her throat. Luckily, Lafayette returns to kick in the door and try to stop her.
Pam pays a visit to Sookie, giving her a check from Eric that’s overdue from last season when she went with him to Dallas to find Godric. (R.I.P.) Pam gets a shiver and says it’s Eric calling her, which gives Sookie the idea that Jessica can help find Bill, since he’s her maker.
Jessica has her own problems. The baby vamp has accidentally killed someone, and she doesn’t know how to dispose of the body.
But when Sookie comes over, she decides to help out, because she did feel a weird vibe earlier that night, and had a vision of a place that could be where Bill is.
Queen Sophie Ann shows up to Fangtasia with Mangus, the head vamp who sentenced Bill after he’d killed a vampire in Season 1. (The things he does for Sookie! Please say that in his accent – “Sookeh!”) The Queen closes the bar down and says Yvetta can stay – she’s in the middle of a pole performance – but Mangus says there should be no human distractions. Sorry guys!
Mangus is pissed that V is being sold widely and vampires are going missing – and all signs point to Louisiana, especially Eric’s parish. The Queen and Eric are great liars, so they tell Mangus that they have no idea how this could be possible, but they’ll get to the bottom of it.
Of course, they are the ones dealing the V, and Sophie-Ann says she’s broke and needs to keep dealing it, and for a bigger price. Also, she has no sympathy for Bill being gone – he knows too much already, so she could care less. She bares some fangs, though, when Eric tries to defy her and says they should probably put a stop to the V dealing. She wants money, honey.
Sookie and Jessica are on the road and find Bill’s car with a body inside. Jessica pulls the corpse from the wreck and finds it’s not Bill. That’s because Bill was able to take over the car when his drivers were hopped up on V and wrecked it, but survived. He walked to the nearest house, which was occupied by a little old lady hooked to a portable oxygen tank. She mistakes him for her son at first, but then lets Bill in because he “looks hungry.” And yes, he is. He takes some of her blood and then glamours her into thinking her son came to visit and gave her some cash because he loves her. He’s such a nice vamp – unlike Jessica who hasn’t learned to let her victims live just yet.
Back at Fangastia, Eric is on the phone with someone who apparently was supposed to capture Bill but was unable to because he’d already been taken! So Bill has big problems, guys. He has people after him, and not just Sookie. But Sookie won’t give up and she’ll have to find him eventually, especially with Jessica helping her out.
When we last see Bill, he is leaving the old lady’s house to meet up with some wolves, and they don’t look happy. In fact, they also look a little hungry, themselves.
I’m pretty sure that’s not Sam shapeshifting to get a piece of Bill.
So my thoughts on the premiere as a whole: It was a great beginning that managed to tie into last season’s finale, open up several new storylines at the same time and progress the old ones that remain unanswered. I can’t wait for next Sunday already.
How ’bout it Trubies? How did you feel about the premiere?
