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“True Blood” Recap (5.03): “Whatever I am, You Made Me”

I hope everyone in New York City had a lovely Pride weekend. I know I certainly did, as evidence by the way every part of my body hurts. Seriously, somehow everything from my toes to my abs are in pain — time to watch TV.

This episode of True Blood, in honor of the 20th annual NYC Dyke March, focuses largely on lesbian favorites Tara and Pam. (Just kidding! They don’t know about dyke marches in Bon Temps). We open with Tara fleeing Sookie’s house. As her boo boos are magically healing, she’s all of a sudden aware of her vampire super senses. She hears and smells the forest and all its creatures around her; she looks up at the stars and they glow as if they are closer than they used to be. I remember reading about this in Interview with the Vampire, so it must be accurate. Then Sookie and Lafayette appear, desperately searching for her, and she zooms off, only to encounter some fresh young thing trying to change a tire. It’s really too much for the starving baby vampire, and she pins the woman to her car, looking absolutely joyful with her fangs out — but after catching a glimpse of her fanged face in the rearview mirror, Tara apologizes and zooms away.

Desperate and alone, Tara turns to none other than your favorite neighborhood restaurateur, Sam Merlotte. Sam feeds her a few six packs of True Blood, which she chugs, while refusing to tell him anything. Then she falls asleep! I wish I could fall asleep that easily. Sam scoops her up to go find some light-safe space.

Still searching for Tara, Sookie finds Pam to ask her to help out a little, but Pam is too worried about Eric to be of use to anyone. Then, you guys, they actually have a bar brawl! Pam throws Sookie across the room with her vampire super strength. Sookie throws Pam across the room with her glowing super palm. Sookie leaves, her tiny nose triumphantly in the air, and Pam tells the bar patrons to go back to dry humping each other and buying overpriced drinks. Someone should tell her she’s just created the business plan for a very successful lesbian bar.

The next morning, Sookie and Lafayette roll up to Merlotte’s to look for Tara/work their shifts at their day jobs. Sookie quickly determines via Sam’s secret thoughts that not only has Sam seem Tara, he has put her in the walk-in freezer. Sam understands why Sookie turned Tara, as he feels like maybe he should have fought harder to save his brother from dying. It’s a good talk, so Sookie asks if she can hug him without him thinking about her boobs. What if people in real life asked questions like that?

Sheriff Andy comes round Merlotte’s with a picture of Debbie, and questions Sookie about it. Debbie’s werewolf parents also came to town to look for her, and questioned Alcide about it, so he swings by Merlotte’s to warn Sookie that Debbie is MIA. When she acts like it’s no big deal, he gets real suspicious. At the same time, Lafayette tries to gently wake Tara up with a nice hot bottle of True Blood. Since maybe she wishes she could want coffee instead, Tara throws Lafayette to the ground, creating a big commotion that everyone runs to investigate. Alcide is really pissed at Sookie for not telling him that Tara’s a vampire, but he’s even more pissed when he hears the whole story of how Debbie killed Tara and then Sookie killed Debbie. I mean she really should have told him though. He’s always on her side no matter what; it’s literally the central tenant of his character on this show.

Meanwhile, Pam has been having more flashbacks to San Francisco, 1905. Her flashbacks are my favorite part of this season so far. So basically Eric shows up to the brothel and tries to woo Pam, but since she’s the madam, that’s not really in the cards – though Eric knows that everyone has their price. And Pam’s price is apparently that Eric save one of Pam’s girls from being drained by – GASP! – a young Bill Compton and his maker, Lorena. I have a secret crush on Lorena, so I was pretty excited to see her again here. This is the first time that Eric meets Bill! The conflict during which they meet sets the tone for their relationship in general. What starts in chaos ends in chaos for vampires too. They’re just like us! Eric makes Lorena apologize to Pam, and Pam demands $500 for every girl they’ve drained. This sets Eric’s eye a twinkle at Pam. She’s just so sassy.

Since Pam is so turned on by Eric dominating Bill and Lorena, she not only sleeps with him, but begs him to turn her into a vampire. He refuses, saying that if she knew what it took to be a maker she wouldn’t dare ask. But Pam doesn’t take no for an answer, saying that he can turn her and leave her. Eric points out that this is a lot like throwing a newborn baby in a gutter. So, very rationally, Pam slits her wrists and says that Eric can either turn her or watch her die. I mean, it’s a pretty good plan, and also I really like how she manages to top the decision-making process here. Pam is the original bossy femme!

So, when in the final moments of the episode Tara begins to kill herself via tanning booth, Pam hears her screams through the abstract emotional channel between them. Even though she rolls her eyes and calls Tara a stupid bitch, there’s finally hope that she’ll step up to the parenting plate. She was raised by a loving parent, after all, and has recently been remembering Eric talking about the importance of the bond between maker and made.

Speaking of whom, Eric and Bill are still in the council of the Guardian. I thought we resolved this last week, but the council is still debating whether or not to let them live in exchange for killing Russell Edgington once and for all. According to the Guardian, Russell Edgington is the “Osama bin Laden of the Sanguinista movement,” gaining infamy when he killed that news anchor on live television. Interesting comparison, HBO. Bill and Eric swear once again to bring Russell in or die trying.

The Guardian sends Bill and Eric out and calls in the new Nan Flanagan — none other than Rev. Steve Newlin! Since he’s a baby vampire and a baby gay, Steve is super excited to join as many relevant causes as possible. The Guardian asks Steve to tell the human world that Russell Edgington is still alive. Unfortunately, eager to show off, Steve decides to say that he thinks he can just lie to humans and they’ll believe it. This pisses the Guardian off, but luckily everyone is able to process their feelings about the whole situation and conclude on the same page.

Meanwhile, a cute lesbian is putting vampire-staking/tracking devices on Bill and Eric that are controlled by an iPhone app — just once click, and the device activates to stake ’em. The devices, worn like chest harnesses, will also activate if removed. Talk about stressful. I guess vampires don’t have body odor though, so not taking it off for a long period of time shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Both Bill and Eric are seduced by the vampire Salome, who is the Guardian’s chancellor. Interestingly, she tells both of them during the seduction that there are always choices. The point of all this is so that she can report back to the Guardian to decide whether or not they are trustworthy — since Eric’s sister confessed to being Sanguinista, it still seems possible to them that maybe Bill and Eric are, as well. I think the more pertinent question is what Salome’s ulterior motive is, because she’s too hot to not have a subplot of her own on the way.

Meanwhile, in human land, Jason runs into his former teacher, whom he seems to have lost his virginity to at a very young age. Following the scent of their sexual tension, Jason joins her in her cat lady home for some tea served out of cat mugs. She apologizes to Jason for sleeping with him, having eventually understood that it was wrong to take sexual advantage of child. He convinces her otherwise, and they do it on the floor. However, this turns out to be extremely triggering for Jason, and he realizes that perhaps it was indeed wrong for his schoolteacher to have sex with his adolescent self. It brings up a lot of feelings that he truly does not know how to deal with. I hope that this week on Pretty Little Liars, Aria and Ezra watch this episode together and maybe catch a glimpse into their own futures.

My boo Jessica is busy trying on dresses in a boutique, when in walks someone who smells totally awesome. He’s picking up an order for his 16 sisters, no big deal, but bolts out the door when Jessica pops her strawberry face out of the dressing room to ask him what he is, with her fangs eagerly bared. Jessica has just enough time to pull up the back zipper of an amazing little pink number before chasing after him, but finds herself in an empty field, dancing in the afterglow of his scent. He’s probably a fairy, because if you recall, fairies smell really great to vampires. Please keep in mind that despite the presence of fairies in True Blood, this is a show for grownups.

So, Jessica is so aroused by the fairy scent that she really just needs to find a port in the storm as fast as possible. This leads her to Jason’s house, but he’s totally not in the mood to fornicate. Obviously. He’s just been triggered into realizing that he tries to heal his inner turmoil with sex, as he was taught at a very young age to do. There is a really painful moment in this scene when he says, “because I was too f–cking young and it felt too f–king good, and it made it all go away. But it’s ain’t working no more.” The source of his major character flaw has just been explained, so there’s kind of a lot to cope with at the moment. Since Jessica is beautiful on the inside as well as the outside, she puts on a pair of sweatpants and buckles down for some quality friend time. She’ll deal with her blue balls later.

Oh, also, Terry is leaving Arlene to go off with his army buddy somewhere to do something, but he can’t really say more than that. I wasn’t going to recap this part of the episode because of my overwhelming indifference to this particular subplot, but then I noticed that Arlene is wearing the most amazing PLEATHER TURQUOISE STUDDED FANNY PACK. If anyone can tell me where to procure such a perfect item, please do so in the comments section.

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