Episode Title: "Hitting the Ground"
Writer: Brian Buckner
Director: John Dahl
Previously on "True Blood":
Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) were captured by the Vampire King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington (Denis O'Hare). Although Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) was present, he refused to help Bill and Sookie escape as he continued to get closer to the King in order to avenge the murder of his family hundreds of years earlier. The King ordered Bill's sire Lorena (Mariana Klaveno) to kill him while Eric dragged Sookie off to face the King's interrogation.
Russell threatened Sookie for answers about her ancestry and powers which she clearly didn't have. Sookie's lack of knowledge amused the King, but not enough to save Bill from Lorena. Deeply moved by her love for Bill, Lorena cried tears of blood as she methodically carved up his body and let two of the werewolves drink from him directly. Meanwhile, Tara (Rutina Wesley) duped Franklin Mott (James Frain) into believing that she wanted to become his willing lover. After pounding in Franklin's head with a mace and leaving him for dead, she helped Sookie get out of the mansion.
The King took Eric out to see the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne (Evan Rachel Wood), who openly admitted that she betrayed Eric and implicated him for dealing "V." She rebuked the King's offer of marriage, but was forced to change her mind when Eric nearly killed her. Back in Bon Temps, Sookie's brother Jason continued his bizarre pursuit of the girl named Crystal, while continuing to abuse police authority that he doesn't actually have yet. Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) also learned that his parents were forcing his younger brother Tommy to shapeshift into a pitbull for a dog-fighting circuit and he raced out to save him.
Back at the mansion, Tara ran into Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello), who was there attempting to rescue Sookie. On her own and determined not to leave without Bill, Sookie found Bill in the slave quarters, drained and near death. As she cried over Bill's motionless body, Lorena assaulted Sookie before viscously biting her neck.
Story:
Lorena begins to drain Sookie before pulling back and remarking how delicious Sookie's blood is. Lorena is momentarily distracted by her attempts to discover exactly what Sookie is when Bill rises behind her and chokes Lorena with his silver chains. Realizing that her death is imminent, Lorena proclaims her love for Bill just before Sookie stakes her heart, causing Lorena to explode into a torrent of blood Tara and Alcide reunite with Sookie and attempt to help her rescue Bill. They are briefly stopped by Alcide's evil werewolf ex-girlfriend, Debbie Van Pelt (Brit Morgan) and her new lover Coot (Grant Bowler). Alcide kills Coot to facilitate their escape but refuses to kill Debbie despite her promise to hunt them down and seek her revenge.
In the back of Alcide's van, Sookie cuts herself in order to feed blood to Bill and stave off his death. However, he soon awakens in his natural predator state and drains her nearly to the point of death. Tara and Alcide intervene almost too late and a furious Tara literally kicks Bill out of the van and into the daylight, where Sookie's blood apparently spares him from burning up.
Sam tracks down the nearest dog-fighting ring and goes undercover as a pitbull to get inside. Once he turns back to his human form, he releases all of the other dogs to distract the patrons and the dog fighters before confronting his family for forcing his younger brother Tommy to fight as a dog. Sam angrily takes his brother with him and dresses down his father, Joe Lee. Back in Bon Temps, Jason continues to try to learn more about Crystal (Lindsay Pulsipher), his would be lover by attempting to score Crystal Meth for her cousin (seriously), who is currently in jail. However, once Tara calls him with the news about Sookie's injuries, he and Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) come running.
At the hospital, Tara and Alcide learn that Sookie has no blood type and thus can not be saved by modern medicine. Inside her mind, Sookie has a bizarre vision in which she dances around with nymphs or some other kind of magical beings. Her guide is a woman named Claudine who seems to know her. Bill appears at the hospital room and offers to help save Sookie with his blood. Jason agrees to let him try over Tara's loud protests. The vampire's blood causes Sookie's vision to darken and the beings to flee. When she awakens, Sookie screams in terror when she sees Bill standing over her.
Meanwhile, Eric successfully gets information about Sookie's bloodline out of her cousin Hadley (Lindsey Haun), who is also the Queen's lover. Later, Eric, the Queen and Russell return to Fangtasia to save Pam (Kristin Bauer) and confront the Magister (Zeljko Ivanek). Russell tortures the Magister until he agrees to officially recognize his marriage to the Queen. Russell outlines his plans to eliminate the current "authority" and conquer humanity. Despite his earlier promise to spare the Magister for complying, Russell decapitates him. Killing him instantly.
Breakdown:
You know, I wonder if Zeljko Ivanek has a special contract provision that states his characters must die horribly at the end of his run. This is the third time a character he's played has been killed off in fairly graphic fashion, after "Damages" and "Heroes," respectively.
Of course, getting killed off from "Heroes" was probably like getting out of prison...
But I digress: "True Blood" served up a hot plate of "What The F***?!" this week with Sookie's... fairy vision, I guess. That made no sense.
I mean, I've read up on the novels through Wikipedia so I kind of know where they're going with it. But if the writers and producers want to make the fairy stuff compelling then they still have a lot of work to do. Because even with the minor context that I had going in, that sequence seemed out of place. Not as out of place as Jason's antics, but pretty close.
I'm sure by now you've noticed that I feel the need to point out Jason's stupidity, week after week. He really is that dumb. But this was actually one of his better weeks, with lines like "I never thought I'd be smart enough to get depressed" and his strong commitment to his sister. It was like for the first time this season that the supporting cast members like Lafayette and Jason felt like they were actually contributing something to the main story instead of having meaningless misadventures. And Tara continues to step up into a more heroic role. I loved when she kicked Bill out of the van and into the sunlight. If he had burned up and died there, it would have been worth it just for the laugh.
And speaking of worthless characters, is Hoyt even on this show anymore? Jim Parrack's lone scene and weird love story doesn't exactly justify his presence. But at least Arlene wasn't around this time. "True Blood" is one of the rare shows in which I despise almost the entire human supporting cast. And even this week, they're only tolerable when they are directly connected to the supernatural storylines. Seeing everyone waiting helplessly around Sookie's hospital bed did a lot more to "humanize" them (so to speak) than any of that crap earlier in the season.
The biggest thing to happen in this episode seems to be the disintegration of Sookie and Bill's relationship. And to be fair, they both f***ed up. Sookie had the horribly bad idea of cutting herself to feed Bill and Bill didn't just drain Sookie, he was actually covering her mouth so she wouldn't scream. I would say that takes his "I couldn't help myself" excuse away because that shows some level of cognitive awareness.
Also... its time for another question: Shouldn't Bill have become stronger after feeding on Sookie's superblood? Let's recap: in the first two episodes of the season, Bill was able to fight off a pack of werewolves after feeding from an exceedingly unhealthy looking old woman. But just after feeding from Sookie, even Tara is able to overpower him. Tara!
Now, the excuse may be that he was so badly wounded that Sookie's blood could only bring him back so far. But it still feels like they're being deliberately inconsistent to serve whatever the plot of the week may be.
Speaking of dangling plotlines, considering that Franklin's body didn't explode when Tara attacked him last week, does anyone else think that he's still out there somewhere?
Bad news for Tara then...
Crave Online Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
