"If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?"

True Blood Post Mortem, Episode 3.

Sooo, what did y'all think? Here it is, in a nutshell:

The Good:

1. Eric calling Ms. Stackhouse "Snookie" (hee hee)

2. Eric giggling when Sookie was cleaning his feet off because "it tickles"

3. This conversation:

Eric: You live... in my house? Are you - mine?

Sookie: No!

Eric (considering this): Would you like to be mine?

(Us: Yes, please!)

4. Also this conversation:

Sookie: You just killed my faery godmother!

Eric: Sorry! {sheepish grin}

5. Jessica calling Bill "My liege" (doesn't this make her like a princess now, or something?)

6. Sookie reading a Charlaine Harris novel.

7. Seeing Alcide again! Hooray, werewolves!

8. Sam seems to be in a better mood. That's always good....

9. Jason's voicemail message. "If this is an emergency, dial 911 and ask for me..."

10. Oh, just watch this...

Ep. 39 - Recap

11. And finally: our meal: we've been having themed dinners at our little viewing parties - for the first two episodes (which we watched together - thanks again OnDemand!) we had fried chicken, hush puppies and french fries. This time, it was a Swedish feast, courtesy of IKEA and in honor of our favorite Viking Vampire: Swedish meatballs, pasta in the shape of elk (?), a sparkling peach beverage, salad and princess cake for dessert, that was approved by the King of Sweden himself, and that also came with helpful eating instructions on the box.

But back to the episode:

The Bad

1. All that godawful were-panther shit. Blah blah blah blah earth daddy blah. Not a fan of this plotline. Ugh. Ever since they turned Calvin all skanky meth dealer (and now, if I recall correctly, dead skanky meth dealer) I've found that I've rather turned against the panthers. Poor Jason. He did not deserve this. None of us deserved this.

2. Andy's v-fueled rant at Sam about his trees (although that was also kind of funny). But seriously here, can we get Andy off of the v now please?

3. What is happening with Tommy and Maxine? Is he scamming her or sleeping with her (ew. But with this show, you never know.) Is he just a substitute Hoyt or is she teaching him to read or what? His little forray as "Max Fortenberry" reminded me of a line from 30 Rock - "What's the past tense of scam? Is it scrumped? Because, Mz. Fortenberry, I think you about to get scrumped!")

4. Jessica glamouring Hoyt to forget her indiscretion. Why can't we have one sweet and happy couple??? Arrghhh......

5. The tray of "refreshments" Debbie offers Sookie. I can totally imagine it. Alcide hangs up the phone with Sookie and goes "Hey Debs! Great news, Sookie's not dead! And she's comin' over to ask me a favor!" "What? Sookie's not dead? Damn, I mean, what a shame, no, wait, I mean, that's real good. Uh... why don't I go fix up some food for when she comes? You think she likes sausages?" That's what you get when you put a former v-addicted junkie werewolf in charge of snacks.

6. Nobody listening to Lafayette when he outlines the best plan to deal with Eric. Let's just forget about it. Lay low. LaLa, you've got brains AND power! Use it wisely, my son!

7. Marnie and her coven getting all uppity about Eric entering (duh, it's a public shop, he doesn't need an invitation) and getting all up in their business. Well, excuse me, but it's not like you were sitting around peacefully mixing up potions. You wanted to raise the dead! That's not okay, missy! Not okay!

8. Marnie then channeling the Power (or whoever?) asking her to come and use her as her servant on this plane. Be careful what you wish for, Marnie. Because something wicked is definitely on its way up in here.

The Ugly

1. The Hotshot werepanther stud farm (oh, poor, poor Jason).

2. Bill and Portia. Dude. You're her great-great-great (etc) grandfather. NO. Wrong. Stop. (please?) Maybe Andy will find out and join in, to get his v-fix? Urggh, now I've grossed myself out. Sorry.

3. The creepy doll Jessica gives Arlene and Terry's baby (mercifully the only time we see those two crazies in the entire episode). Why do I have a feeling that we'll be seeing more of that thing?

4. Bill doling out justice. "Ah am sennucning yew to the truew deayuth" Arrrghhh. Why are you king? Why? Why?

5. The Marie Osmond belle halloween doll thing that Maxine orders. Why all the creepy dolls?

6. Those idiots that made the "vamps-kill.com" PSA. Why do I have the feeling we'll be seeing more of that thing?

So, yeah. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. The Eric. Sigh. I'm out, Trubies. Until next week. Do bad things.

"You Smell Like Dinner"

Recap: True Blood season 4, Episode 2 (Thanks, OnDemand!)

SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER

(don't read this if you don't want to know. Okay, you've been warned.)

Where did we leave Sookie? Oh, right, in the arms of Eric Northman. But she's far more dumber than your average, not blind woman, and throws him out. Kind of. She asks him to leave, in very strong terms. He owns the house, right? She can't revoke his invitation, so she has to use her fairy powers of persuasion. Or whatever. Eric swaggers off, Sookie runs off to Bill. Sorry, that's King Bill to us peons. He even has guards around the house. She whines about how Eric bought her house and like, now he's always there and stuff. Um, that's a problem because why? Bill is all like "Ah will take cayur of that fer yew." Then he flashes back to the 80s when he was a punk vampire in London and made some kind of secret vampire deal with Nan Flanigan (oh, yay, she's a permanent cast member!). And we found out that Louis Pasteur was masterminding the creation of the synthetic blood. Sure, he can be a vampire, but where's Bubba??

Maybe he should be doing something to improve vampire/human relations in the post-Russell Edgington world. The crazies are protesting outside Fangtasia, and Hoyt gets into it with one of the protesters. Later on, Jess offers some of her blood, but Hoyt doesn't want it. Jess gets upset and takes off in the car. She says she's off for some advil for him, but she heads to Shreveport instead.... there's a hot fangbanger that she's got her eye on... Baby vampire gone wild...

In Hot Shot, Jason is feeding hungry were-panthers (he's sort of like their brother-cousin now, I guess, right?) and they lock him in a freezer. Crazy Felton and Crystal have a plan for him - they're gonna turn him into a panther, too, so that he and Crystal can have baby panthers. Dude, Jason, we told you that girl was trouble!

Meanwhile back at the ranch - wait, magic shoppe, Lafayette and the coven re-animate a bird and awaken all kinds of dark forces and shit. Oooohhhhhh, spooky witches. Bill has a spy on the inside, as it were, and orders Eric (!! Dammit, Bill, WTF!) to go to the magic shop and, in the words of Jack Donaghy, "Shut it down." But first, he asks Eric to sell Sookie's house back to her. Or, short of that, to Bill. That would be hell to the n-o. Your majesty. But Marnie's getting excited and wants the gang to try and reanimate a human - fun times for a Friday night! Eric busts in, on cue, asking if anybody's looking for a dead body. But no, he's just kidding. He's not there to play, he's there to shut.it.down. He grabs Marnie who starts chanting. Lafayette joins in when Eric grabs Tara. And then the dark forces really start a-brewing. Marnie has tapped into something really dark and dangerous...

Back to Sookie. She's driving down her street in her little yellow car, thinking Sookie-thoughts when she sees.... a running shirtless man. Oh no! What to do! But then she sees... it's Eric. Who somehow lost his shirt between the magic shop and Sookie's street. Whatever, don't overthink it!! He's looking (adorably) lost and confused and she calls out to him. "Eric," she says, "You know me." And he's all like "No, I don't" and she's all "It's Sookie."

"Who?"

{Swoon}

And end of episode two. What's happening in Bon Temps?

post mortem...

Recap of True Blood, Season 4, Episode 1: "She's Not There"

(Spoilers are contained in this post, by the way. So if you haven't watched don't read. Or if you read, don't blame me. Okey dokey?)

Look, I get that the series can't exactly follow the books. Where would the suspense be? All of us well versed in all things Sookie would know what's going to happen, blah blah blah. I get it, right? But there are just some things that I like in the books that I wish would have come to life in the series. For instance:

1. I liked it when Tara was in the background, running a clothing store, not cage fighting and kissing girls. Why can't we introduce JB duRone? Are there too many good looking residents of Bon Temps? Can't take one more hot guy wandering around??

2. I liked when Sam was a regular guy, without anger management issues and a sneaky half brother and messed up family.

3. I liked that Terry and Arlene were NOT together and that there was no damned demon baby.

4. I liked Calvin Norris when he wasn't a meth dealing uncle-daddy. Why did they do that to Calvin? Why? Why?

5. I liked Andy Bellefleur when he was just a bumbling deputy cop, married to a sweet schoolteacher and, this is important, without the additction to V.

6. I liked the fact that there was no Nan Flanigan and no mysterious "Authority." Who the hell are these guys, anyway?

7. I liked when Bill Compton was in Peru through most of Dead to the World. Out of sight, out of mind, buddy.

On the other hand, I do like the addition of baby vamp (princess?) Jessica, and the expansion of Hoyt's character, and I love the fact that Lafayette is not dead.

But there is not one single normal resident of Bon Temps. Not one. Do they all need to have bat shit crazy storylines all running at the same time? We can't have one moment of happiness for anybody?

Apparently not. We join Sookie in Faery, where she has gone into the light (but not in a dead way) to join her fae relatives. But it's not all light fruit and flowy dresses and dancing like children of the - uh - light. The Faery Queen wants to close the portal into their world, keeping all those with faery blood inside. Sookie refuses to eat the light fruit, thinking something fishy is going on. Too bad for Barry Bellboy, randomly re-introduced here (in the books, he ends up working for Stan in Dallas. Since I think Stan got killed off last season, that wouldn't have worked.) and also for Sookie's granddaddy, Earl, who'd been missing (presumed drunk?). Sookie is helped by Claude (weird shift of roles here, for Claude and Claudine. I think I liked him better when he was an ego-maniacal male stripper and romance cover model) to escape.

Except - surprise! She returns to Bon Temps only to find that it's a year later and Jason has up and sold her house. Everyone figured Bill had killed her (well, sure) and gave up on her ever coming back. Thanks a lot y'all! Sookie tells Jason where she's really been - "I was in fairy land! It was, well, kind of lame, but I met granddaddy! Here, he gave me his watch for you!'

Jason's a cop now, and in another weird shift of roles, is actually the brains behind the Bon Temps police force because Andy is addicted to V (maybe at the end of the season, Sookie will find out that the fairies dropped her into Bizarro Bon Temps so that she'll want to come back and eat the light-fruit?). He sold the house to some large corporation AIK International (huh, hmmm, I wonder who that could be?) and they redid the house (cleaning out all maenad-related messiness). Just outside, Sookie finds she has two vampire shaped lawn ornaments - Bill and Eric. Bill orders (?!) Eric to leave and he does. What is happening??

We see what else has been happening since Sookie's been gone. Hoyt and Jessica are playing house, and that's not going all that great. She's not much of a cook, and she's starting to want to have more of a variety, blood wise. Uh oh.

Lafayette and Jesus are still together, and dabbling in the occult. Well, Jesus is dabbling. Lafayette is, rather reluctantly, tagging along, despite his own true power. Jesus manages to convince him to come hang out with his coven, led by a housewife-ish witch named Marnie. Yeah, sure. This is going to end up great.

Tara, scarred for life because of Franklin, and presumably saddened by the loss of Sookie, took off on the road, and uh, became a lesbian and a cage fighter. They haven't really explained what's been happening with Tara. But something is definitely up with her girlfriend. Stay tuned.

Sam is taking shifter anger management classes for shooting Tommy in the butt. He meets a girl. They shift into horses and run around together. Woo hoo! Tommy is (strangely) dating or possibly (hopefully?) scamming Hoyt's mom.

Arlene had her baby, Mikey, spawn of Rene, who is possibly evil (why? huh? where is this going? they're either going to have to kill the baby, which nobody wants to see cause that's just mean, or, like, exorcise him, which nobody wants to see because nobody really even cares about Arlene.) Terry is the sane one in this relationship. Terry sane? Jason smart? See? Bizarro Bon Temps.

Oh, and Bill is the King of Louisiana.

!!!

I know, right? Despite the fact that he held no office, had no experience in leadership or anything like that, he kills Sophie-Anne and is crowned (ish) by Nan Flanigan. Blah blah, vampire politics, blah. That's why he gets to order Eric around. Boo.

Speaking of our tall, blond, viking vampire, you'd better sit down when I tell you this- he's the one who bought Sookie's house! I'm shocked (not really). He walked right in on Sookie (who is naked, of course) and declares "You're MINE."

End of the first episode.