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“True Blood” Recap (5.08): “Somebody That I Used To Know”

This week on True Blood, we finally have a reason to hate Bill Compton other than the fact that he’s really annoying. Also, I was waiting throughout the entire episode to see Jessica Clark again but was deeply disappointed. Lilith, were you ever really there at all?

All in all, though, I liked this episode way better than last week. We begin at the hospital, after the police take away the man who shot Luna and Sam. Subsequently, Luna has a totally justified freak out session. Her emotions are so severe that she skin-walks, transitioning into none other than her maybe boyfriend Sam Merlotte. I miss her face. She sneaks out of the hospital in some stolen clothes, with Sam Trammell doing his best Papi walk. I think his hips are too swishy to be convincing. Papi has more of a strut.

Meanwhile, the Authority crew comes home from their night of partying in blood puddles, wearing Mardi Gras beads. They appear to be in that unfortunate part of a good night out known as post-drunk. They process seeing Lilith, and Salome tells Steve to round up some humans for them to have drunk munchies on later — including a baby for Nigel. Eric really isn’t into it, since seeing Godric spoiled his high and he’s realized that killing humans for food/sport is wrong. Bill, however, did not get the memo.

When Salome calls Bill into her room for a late night snack on a woman with a four-month-old daughter, he does have a few moments of pondering the morals of eating a mother. Salome asks him, “If you really loved your human children, why didn’t you make them vampire?” I would like to point out that this is akin to suggesting that if parents love their children in general, they wouldn’t let them ever like, go to college, move out, start their own lives, etc. Bill flashes back to his daughter’s deathbed, where she begs him to turn her, and he refuses, because he says it is a curse to be immortal. But now that Bill has seen Lilith — all of Lilith — he sees the vampire condition differently, and settles in for a snack. Bill is quite the impressionable one.

Eric tries to convince Nora that Godric doesn’t approve of her behavior, but Nora is over Godric so she doesn’t care. They engage in some light choking play, but that doesn’t convince her either.

The members of the Authority then have a meeting to plan out the End of Days. Russell and Steve whisper sweet nothings to each other about massages from Asian men with British accents. I sincerely hope that we don’t have to see them having sex. Bill has the brilliant idea to start bombing True Blood factories — of which there are only five — so that the mainstreamers are forced to feed on humans “as they were meant to.” Eric is horrified. Bill says he is “evolving,” which, while definitely scary, is a welcome development for this rather stagnant character. Also, Bill, I never liked you.

Back in Bon Temps, Sookie tries her best to dump her fairy juice out on the front lawn, since she’s super tired of hearing Mike Spencer think about sucking her toes. Jason talks her out of it pretty easily, so maybe she didn’t mean it. And then she goes the opposite route, and she and Jason go to the fairy club to try to access her higher fairy powers. They really want to find out who murdered their parents.

The fairies take the Stackhouse kids to the bridge where their parents were killed. After a brief lesson in matter and energy, they join hands so that Sookie can access the ripples of time. And indeed, she enters her mother’s memory of the vampire attack. But then something creepy happens: Sookie switches from her mom’s brain to the vampire’s brain and seeks out the bloody Band-Aid in the backseat, only to be interrupted by the fairy Claudine, who zaps Sookie/the vampire. Have I mentioned how much I hate used Band-Aids? There’s been one on the stairs of the subway station near me for weeks and it is constantly ruining my day.

Sookie’s ability to access a vampire’s mind is supposed to be impossible, and everyone is really concerned about it. Sookie remembers that his name is Warlow, but to me it sounds more like she said “Wallow.” Wallow! Leave the girl alone! It has a nice ring to it.

Later, while Sookie is brushing her hair one hundred times like a princess, Wallow’s face appears in the air and in a Cookie Monster voice, tells her that he is coming for her. I found this more funny than scary, but while I was replaying it, my dog totally freaked out.

Jessica is trying to pick up a girl at Fangtasia when she’s interrupted by a member of the Hate Club posing as a fang banger who has a milkshake that brings all the vampires to the… blood vessel (sorry). Jessica really likes milkshakes, so she agrees to stop dancing at the hot girl stripper. The scumbags in the Hate Club bring her to a house in the middle of nowhere, and then they bring Hoyt out to let him stake her. Their bond of brotherhood is strong, and they just want to help Hoyt heal. What nice guys! Healers, all of them.

They leave Hoyt in the room with Jessica, and he gives her an unnecessary guilt trip about how she broke his heart. I’m sorry, but when was being dumped a good reason to chain someone up? Oh yeah, when you’re an asshole. At least he doesn’t really shoot her though, and fires the gun so that the person guarding the door comes in. Jessica kills him, but she can’t leave because it’s daylight. Hoyt says he’s going to go get help, but after an underserved “F–k you Jess,” he bounces.

(While wandering down the road alone later that evening, Hoyt stops a car and asks for a ride. Instead, he gets a gun pointed in his face. And you know what? Karma.)

Jessica is rescued by Sam, Luna-as-Sam, and Andy, who got tipped off about her kidnapping by the guy that shot at Sam and Luna. Luna smells the possible remains of a large woman in the room, but before that subplot gets a chance to develop further, she doubles over with ulcer-like pain.

Sam takes Luna back to his couch to have a masturbatory cuddle in which he gazes into his own eyes talks about love. She resumes her form when he kisses her gently on the forehead and then pukes on the floor. I felt the urge to puke on the floor during this scene as well.

Alcide finally has sex with Rikki, and like a true lesbian, goes right in for the commitment. Then it’s time to battle for pack mastership, and since Alcide and Rikki are in their post-orgasmic glow, they feel ready for anything. Except murdering an innocent boy: when JD revises the rules of the battle to chase down a human, Alcide backs down (he’s so noble and sensitive, not unlike a young Bill Compton). But that doesn’t stop JD from hunting the boy, so Alcide goes after him anyway.

But since JD is on V, he easily beats the shit out of Alcide, and is stopped from bashing his brains in with a rock by the pack. Grandma Wolf herself stops him, and he tells Alcide to find a new pack before storming off. 

Poor sweet Lafayette drives himself home after having his lips sewn shut. He finds Jesus’ first aid kit, and in it, some vampire blood for the wounds. Good thing, too, because I bet having to wear scab makeup on his mouth for the rest of the season would be pretty uncomfortable. He sees Jesus sitting next to him in the car and my heart breaks into a million tiny pieces.

When he gets home, all he wants to do is take a bath and smoke a J, obviously. But he’s interrupted by Arlene and Holly, who need his medium help in stopping the Ifrit — or at least, to convince Terry that it’s stopped. In what was probably my favorite Lafayette moment of all time, he responds, “I’m sick and tired of doing this shit for free. So if you wants my help, you gots to pay for it.” And then he asks for $300. Finally! A queer on this show asking for what they deserve.

Arlene, Holly, Terry, Patrick and Lafayette sit around a table holding hands to channel the woman who cursed them. Lafayette doesn’t take it very seriously at first, but jangles his bracelet for effect anyway. Then she appears, and is really pissed off. Holly smells ozone, which apparently happens when spirits breach the atmosphere. What does ozone smell like? The spirit enters Lafayette’s body and says that she’ll lift the curse if Terry kills Patrick, or the other way around. So, like a brave soldier, Patrick runs out of the room. 

At Fangtasia, Tara is visited by her old classmate Tracy. Do we all have a Tracy? She’s such a f–king bitch I can’t even look at her stupid face. She orders a strawberry daiquiri, but when Tara serves it to her, she claims that it’s not what she ordered, and calls Tara lazy, and then calls her uppity. Tara, in turn, calls her a “white trash f–k twat,” saying that if she pulls that racist bullshit again, Tara will eat her heart fried up with grits and collared greens. This is officially my new fantasy for what I would say if I ran into several specific people that I went to high school with. Pam intervenes, chastising Tara and giving Tracy her drink on the house.

But later, Pam glamours the man Tara is about to serve into wanting a glass of half-empty beer so that she can whisk Tara to the basement. There, she has tied up Tracy, and gives her to Tara. Tara thought she was mad, but that’s just because Pam’s mad face and her happy face are the same. She glamours Tracy into worshipping Tara. And then she takes it a step further, saying, “You are a slave and Tara is your master.” Tara drinks Tracy’s blood, and Pam walks away, smiling proudly.

Ok you guys, can we talk about the slave thing? I really don’t think that in order for her to be empowered Tara has to switch from slave to master. I feel like this scene was trying to make up the abuse that her character has suffered at the hands of the writers, but it doesn’t feel right to me. Can Tara have a plotline that exists outside of a slave allegory? Maybe she and Lilith should just run away together. I would love to recap a spin-off show about that.

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