On this episode of True Blood, like 8 million things happen but also nothing really happens. Lots of stuff PRETENDS to happen, but when you think about it what plots were even advanced in the slightest? So, since this hour wasted our time, let’s all waste some more time by reading a bunch of dumb words about it! NOW YOU’RE HOOKED. Anyway, if that didn’t drag you in, I promise you at some point in this recap you will see a hilarious picture of a puppy wearing a dress and it is just the best thing ever. So get reading!

Anyway, Tara is beating the shit out of Sookie. For anyone stupid enough to believe that the cliffhanger last week meant Tara was actually going to kill someone, you should remember the golden rule of True Blood: any and all cliffhangers, no matter how momentous, will be resolved in the first 30 seconds of the next episode. No exceptions. So, Tara is like going crazy and eating Sookie. Pam pulls her away, and Tara is just growling like a straight-up monster. Is this how vampires act when they’re new? I don’t remember this sort of shit happening to anyone else before. Leave it to Tara to become the most obnoxious vampire of all time (easily edging out that old queen played by Evan Rachel Wood 8,000 seasons ago). Pam commands Tara to not eat Sookie or Lafayette and also to not leave the house. So Tara destroys the house. She is just the worst, no matter what. Good choice keeping her around.

Some SWAT team truck brings Eric, Bill, and Eric’s sisterlover to a warehouse. There are lots of guys with machine guns and trendy vampire berets, so you know this is just going to be cheesy. We meet a new woman vampire, Salome, who has a ridiculously stupid Eastern European accent. She won’t say who she is, which seems like an impolite thing to do. Eric’s sister is like, “Would I really betray you guys?” and she gets slapped, which is how we know that this Salome character is NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH. She will slap any bitch she wants!

“My name is Salome and I’m here to SMIRK.”

A fingerprint thing in the wall reads her blood (hahahaha, isn’t that LESS SECURE than a fingerprint reader? At least with a fingerprint scanner, you have to somehow, like, CHOP OFF A FINGER to trick it. With this, all you need is a drop of vampire blood! I did it, you guys, I found the one logical flaw in True Blood!) and they go down in an elevator to reception. Looks like we’re in for some more long-winded vampire bureaucracy scenes. Ugh.

She marches them back to a prison and shoves Eric’s sister into a cell at SUPER SPEED. Oh no!!!! She probably skinned her knees. :(

Meanwhile, these stupid werewolves are still eating that stupid corpse. Gross. I refuse to make a bath salts joke here. Alcide doesn’t want to eat the body. Grouchy old man is like, “Go back to Mississippi.” Then the old lady is like, “Wait, eat the body.” MAKE UP YOUR MINDS, WEREWOLVES. Turns out the old lady was Marcus’s mom. I think we saw her last season? Doesn’t matter, all these werewolves are awful. Also it turns out that she wants Alcide to be the new packmaster? Even though she hates him? And he has to eat the body in order to become the packmaster? Wait, then why is everyone else eating the body? Are they all packmasters? Are we all packmasters? True Blood is so philosophical.

“Last one to say ‘packmaster’ has to be the packmaster!!!”

Ugh, Arlene is sleeping and Terry is freaking out and standing over her creepily and talking about death. IRAQ WAR FLASHBACK!!! Looks like someone torched some Iraqis to death. I don’t know if this says more about me or about our post-Abu-Ghraib world, but I kind of thought, “Is that it?” Sadly, you have to do worse things than that in Iraq to really shock me anymore.

Sorry for getting so serious. Let’s check in with Tara! She’s still being awful. Are you surprised? No one is surprised. Even Sookie and Lafayette are like, “Ugh.” Tara’s not even speaking English, she’s just growling, and I seriously don’t understand why she’s acting like a dog. Let’s get away from this scene because nothing happens.

New vampire rule: all new vampires act like puppies for a few hours.

PAM FLASHBAAAAAAACK. Cool, actually one thing I am interested in. I literally only care about Pam on this stupid show, so I am totally on board with this. I guess she was a prostitute in San Francisco in 1905? Ugh, Pam. Take better care of yourself. She gives cocaine to another prostitute and then finds one of her prostie friends all murdered. I SMELL AN ERIC ENCOUNTER.

Best new character: Pam’s old-timey whorehouse bartender friend. (He is also a warlock from another dimension.)

Meanwhile, in Vampire Jail, there’s a really ugly-faced Elephant Man who loves eating babies. Great, another insufferable character. A British man comes on the loudspeaker and basically wants Eric and Bill to sell out Nora. Hahahaha, didn’t they see her with like 50 vampire boats trying to help Eric and Bill escape? Isn’t that enough proof of her guilt? These fucking vampires would have also freed Casey Anthony.

Anyway, they turn on some ultraviolet lights and everyone gets super burnt. So that’s why that guy’s face is all Elephant Man. Which doesn’t make much sense because vampires can heal? I guess this is a magic jail cell or something.

Start the countdown to this guy’s horrific sex scene.

Meanwhile, Sam is being nursed by his stupid girlfriend, who, by the way, apparently left her child alone without a babysitter in order to go with Alcide to confront the pack of werewolves EVEN THOUGH SHE DID NOTHING IN THAT SCENE AND WAS NOT REQUIRED TO BE A PART OF THOSE CORPSE-EATING NEGOTIATIONS AT ALL. This bitch rivals Betty Draper in motherhood.

So the mean old bitch shows up and says she wants to raise her granddaughter because the granddaughter is obviously a werewolf. The mom thinks she’s a shifter, and I could honestly care less about this Magical Custody Battle.

The old lady leaves and then Sam is like, “Maybe we should hand your daughter over to a bunch of cannibal psychopath werewolves?” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GOOD SUGGESTION SAM WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT ANYMORE. There is no one to support in this relationship because they are both idiots. Anyway, she kicks Sam out and hopefully that plotline is done forever!

“Also, I heard Charles Manson is looking to adopt?”

Ugh, Sookie needs to get Tara into a coffin so she doesn’t burn up in the sun. This is the most obnoxious episode of Intervention ever. Lafayette baits Tara by cutting his arm and then Sookie chokes her with a silver chain and they drag her downstairs. Surprise! Tara sucks at being a vampire!

Continuing this episode’s chain of entirely pointless, boring scenes, Jason and the sheriff go for a car ride and talk about whom they’re fucking. They barely even care, so why should we? “There’s that abandoned car that lady called in!” the sheriff points out, which is a VERY natural way to catch us up on the plot. The sheriff finds a vial of vampire blood in the car door but then he shows it to Jason and they pour it out. Good, he’s no longer an addict, let’s move on, no one gives a fuck.

Sookie is shopping for, like, stakes or something? I don’t know, but she’s at an anti-vampire store. Cool. More shopping scenes, please.

Terry is frying some bacon and then GREASE FIRE IRAQ BACON FLASHBAAAAACK. Arlene comes up behind him and he PUNCHES HER ACROSS THE ROOM. Whoa, dude. There’s a lot of yelling and this bar is honestly the worst bar in the world. Who even goes there anymore? Everyone who works there is a monster.

Back at Sookie’s she’s installing some thing outside her door that sprays silver mist. Is this to keep Tara inside? (We will see later how this was a VERY good purchase and it just works perfectly.) She hears Lafayette thinking about killing Tara in that way that people on this show think in perfect sentences describing literally what they’re doing at that very second, which is extremely helpful and considerate when you’re living with a telepath, so she runs downstairs and he wants to stab Tara with a stake. I think you can guess how I feel about this. Anyway, no duh, he doesn’t.

DON’T TEASE US, SHOW.

Meanwhile, Jason is watching Steve on TV talking about how he’s now a vampire and he loves vampires and we’re supposed to love the, like, Ted Haggard irony here or something. But I’m distracted because this interviewer is AWFUL and needs to be fired, because they have a “serious” discussion about vampire/human relations (“serious” on this show being a relative term) and then her next question is literally, “Is there a special someone in your life????” Hahahahahaha imagine Barbara Walters doing that. (Side note: Why does every news program about vampires only ever interview vampires from Louisiana? Why don’t we ever hear what, like, vampires from New York and LA think? When has the nation EVER checked in with Louisiana’s opinion on politics and religion?)

Some kid comes into the police station and straight-up PUNCHES Jason in the face which is definitely something a teenager would do to a police officer. Turns out Jason fucked his mom. Jason says, “Oh, Crazy Sharon?” which is not a thing a human would say in this situation? And then Jason says that he’s probably fucked everyone in town? Is Jason even supposed to have a human brain at this point?

We are abruptly back in Pam’s flashback, which is where I feel most comfortable. Flashbacks are some of the only genuinely enjoyable parts of this show, unless they involve the stupid Iraq war or demon babies or witches. Actually, never mind, I take it back, I don’t genuinely enjoy anything. Anyway, a super creepy man tries to rape Pam and Eric flies by and rips his throat out. He says, “You’re not afraid,” to Pam as he’s licking the blood off his fingers and she says, “I’m no stranger to dead bodies,” but uhhhhh what about the guy who moves at super-speed and licks blood off his hands????????? Guess Pam is just the coolest cucumber in town, no matter what. Anyway, Eric pays her for her bloody dress and then runs away. Now Pam loves him, and we love Pam. Circle of life.

I’d be fine if the rest of the show was just these two in 1905.

UNBEARABLY TEDIOUS TORTURE SCENE ALERT! Bill is hooked up to a machine that injects silver into his bloodstream and he’s being questioned by a smarmy dude named Dieter who is doing a TERRIBLE impression of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds. It’s really bad and painful and he’s clearly just trying to rip off that character. Anyway, they’re still trying to get Bill and Eric to confess that Nora betrayed the vampire government or whatever. Ugh, seriously? I never thought I’d say this, but I NEED DICK CHENEY, if only to speed this confession process up.

Things get really, really, really, really outrageously groan-worthy as the guy launches into an awkwardly out-of-place recap of the “Original Testament,” the fucking VAMPIRE BIBLE and listen to this crazy shit: Before God created Adam and Eve he created Lilith, who, like God, was a vampire. HAHAHAHAHAHA NOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY EAAAAAARS. Also Adam and Eve were supposed to be food. I hate this so much.

“You’ll have to forgive me, I literally just saw Inglourious Basterds for the first time last night.”

Bill doesn’t believe in this bullshit, but I guess Nora does, which is why she’s a VAMPIRE EXTREMIST. Oh god, between this and the Iraq War flashback stuff, was this season written in 2004? This feels stale and VERY heavy-handed and obvious. Anyway, apparently there are some Vampire Al Qaeda folks running around and wanting to eat all the humans (I bet you anything Tara mistakenly joins up with these guys by the end of the season because you can always trust her to do the worst possible thing). Fake Christoph Waltz wants to find out if Bill believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible, so he pumps silver into his arm, which apparently makes vampires over-emote to a gross amount.

Meanwhile, that Salome lady (also rockin’ a terribly vague “European” accent) is torturing Eric using the same method. I honestly don’t care about this, because I just want them to kill Nora so we can get rid of a few characters that don’t matter at all. Salome says Nora is dead, and I pump my fist, even though it’s obvious she’s lying. Did any of these vampires get past Torture 101 at the Vampire Academy? Anyway, Eric gets the silver-blood infusion too, and I should mention that he does a MUCH better job of acting in pain than Bill does. Of course.

Back to Bill! The fake German says Eric turned on Bill and now Eric is walking around free, which is definitely a very good lie and not at all obvious. Good job! More torture. Lots of Bill faces. Way too many Bill faces in this scene. HBO should have put a “Bill Faces” warning before the episode:

WARNING:

Excessive amounts of

BILL FACE.

HAHAHAHA JESSICA IS HAVING ANOTHER FRAT RAGER. These frat parties are easily the best part of this new season. It starts with everyone literally yelling, “CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG,” which, if it ever happened in college, has definitely not happened since 1975. Steve is at the door and he dances in and he is SUPER gay and it is VERY annoying and bordering on insulting. When you decide you’re gay, you act just like this!!!! Also, all the college kids love him now? He gets like 5 high-fives when he walks into the party. This makes no sense. Has anyone on this show even MET a college kid before???? Anyway, he wants to talk to Jessica in private, which, have these two even met?? It takes me a while to remember they met last episode. That’s how meaningful this show is.

So, he apologizes for crashing her party with Jason and offers her $10,000 for him? What? What is even going on? Does he not know how the world works??? There’s a really dumb bargaining scene where she describes Jason’s ass and balls and Steve gets a boner and it’s just a really stupid thing that’s happening on my television. Then they have one of those dumb fast-motion vampire fight scenes where they just kind of push each other up against the walls really quickly, and then she kicks him out and the douche from last episode is like, “AWESOME,” (he really loves when people get lightly shoved out of doors, I guess?) and then Jessica kicks everyone out. Nooooo! Don’t end the party! Also, someone in the background yells, “A VAMPIRE!” which is LOLOLOLOLOL hilarious because that poor dumb idiot.

This is the worst party ever, but somehow I still want to be there?

Ugh, back to some meaningless nonsense. Arlene goes to see the marine or whatever (his name is Patrick, so I guess we’ll call him that even though I’m running out of brainspace for all these names) at his motel and they talk about Terry’s nightmares and Patrick lies and says nothing happened in Iraq. Hahahaha. “How was the Iraq War? Did anything happen during it?” “Nope, nothing happened during the war.” Right, very normal lie. Anyway, Terry shows up and is acting like a real jerk and Arlene storms out and yells at Patrick, “FIX THIS,” which, like, what? Fix what? PTSD? “I EXPECT YOU TO FIX MY HUSBAND’S PTSD BY TOMORROW.” Very sensitive. I hope you get eaten by your demon baby.

Anyway, turns out one of their old marine buddies is an arsonist lunatic now. Of COURSE. So now they need to find him. In a show filled with worthless plot lines, this may be the most worthless yet! Congratulations, everyone!

Speaking of, Hoyt is helping his bitch of a mother fix her sink. Jason comes over and wants to be BFFs again. Hoyt doesn’t. Still no progress on the becoming-friends-again front. Thanks for checking in.

Back at Sam’s girlfriend’s house (apparently we are following this character independent of Sam now? Which is exactly what this show needed), she’s just yelling down the hall at her daughter to STFU and go to sleep. Perfect mother. Love this woman. Then she goes down the hall and opens her daughters door and LOLOLOLOLOLOL IT’S A PUPPY WEARING A DRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Best part of any episode of any TV show ever:

YESSSSS LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL <3<3<3<3<3

Uh oh, Tara’s awake. Brace yourselves. She yells, “I will never forgive EITHER OF YOU,” so I guess she remembered English after her nap, and then she runs outside and gets FACE-MELTED by silver. Hahahaha good prank, Sookie! Hilarious prank. Also, the silver stuff doesn’t work because Tara just runs away, hopefully forever. Let’s just cut to a quick shot of her running right off a cliff and let’s all pretend she never existed.

Ugh, and then things get reaaaaaaaaaaally slow here. Brace yourselves. Eric and Bill and Nora are brought before the AUTHORITY, which, it turns out, is Christopher Meloni (hi, Christopher Meloni! Take off your suit! I’ve never understood why I find you so sexy but I’m done fighting it!) and some other normal-looking people sitting around a boardroom table.

OKAY. Let’s talk about this for a second. This show is set in a world in which nightmare undead creatures walk and talk and fly and fuck and drink blood, and then it is like, “What if we take these horribly terrifying monsters and show you what they would be like at a CORPORATE RETREAT???” How is this interesting at all? Show me fucking Nosferatu and people turning into giant leathery bats and all that shit, don’t show me a bunch of people in suits SECONDING MOTIONS or whatever these nerds are doing.

Anyway, they do this whole prayer thing to Lilith, the first vampire blah blah blah, and it’s kind of odd that we’ve met about 100 vampires now in the past 5 seasons and this is the first time anyone has even MENTIONED what is apparently a very, very deep-seated religious history in the vampire culture? Right, yeah, definitely, that makes sense. Anyway, the Council of Vampires or whatever votes on whether or not to kill Bill and Eric. Also, Nora is dragged out of the room in like 2 seconds so I don’t even know why she was in this scene.

“Honestly, just kill us. Who even cares anymore.”

So, do you guys think they’re going to kill Bill and Eric in the second episode of season five????? I BET THEY DO!!!!! Oh, I should mention there’s also a stupid kid on the council that’s supposed to be super creepy and edgy, but I think we’ve all seen movies and TV shows with undead kids before that have been done MUCH better than this, so shut up, show. Sooooooo blah blah blah, Bill is like, “Don’t kill us, we’ll kill Russell Edgington for you,” and Christopher Meloni is like, “Wait, isn’t he dead?” and Bill’s like, “We lied and didn’t kill him, we just poured some mud on top of him,” and I’m yelling at my TV, “WHY ARE YOU ADMITTING TO MORE FUCKING STUPID MISTAKES? KILL ALL OF THEM, CHRISTOPHER MELONI!” Bill is an even worse hero than Jack from Lost. That’s right, I said it!

And then our dumb cliffhanger is we get to see that Russell is, in fact, alive (which we already knew, like, two years ago) and he’s looking really gross and sleeping in a dirty cave. GET IT? OSAMA BIN LADEN? AL QAEDA???? THIS SHOW IS GARBAGE?????

Danny | 06.19.12 | Filed in Recaps,True Blood