You're The Love of My Life (At Least Until Next Season)

Okay, folks - only two more episodes to go. That circular white room the vamps keep worrying about is getting closer and closer and our plot lines are getting more and more complex. Also, remember this is True Blood - while there's no nudity, some of the images below may be risqué. Perhaps this is not the best blog post to show your kids. Unless they're evil. 

TD;DR: New vampire mistress Violet claims ownership of Jason leaving the other lady vamps unsure what to do. Alcide frees Nicole and her mother but before they can return home, Sam is able to sense that Nicole is pregnant with his child and tells her he loves her to keep her nearby. Jessica and Steve both are hot for new brooding vampire James and but to save himself, Steve tells Sarah that some of the vampires know the True Blood is tainted. Ben offers to save the vampires, but only if Sookie will become a vampire herself and marry him for eternity. Sookie eventually agrees, rationalizing that she can't fight destiny forever, however when she and Bill go to fetch Ben from the faerie world, Eric has gotten there first...

Recap: Don’t you hate awkward conversations? Don’t you hate awkward conversations with people you kinda don’t really like anyway? Don’t you hate awkward conversations with people you kinda don’t like over the melted bloody remains of your sibling and sometimes paramour? That’s the position Bill finds himself in as he watches Eric mourn Nora’s seriously disgusting death. Eric is less inclined to help Bill with his mission to save everyone, especially since Bill failed to bring Warlow back in time to save Nora. Though, really Eric, you’re thinking a little short considering you die in that vision of Bill’s. Anyway, there’s a lot of cry-yelling, some levitation, some talking trash about each other’s makers, a little questioning the divinity of everyone in the room, the usual before Eric flees.

Who hasn't been there after the death of our 300-year-old incestuous sibling/lover?

At the Oh God We’re Still In This Plotline werewolf camp, the “were-bitches” have had just about enough of Alcide not Nicole and her mother and opt to challenge Alcide for the position of Pack Master. Alcide really needs to think more about the women he has sex with; things never go well with them. Ricki (Nicki? Becki? I can’t recall her name) is betting that Alcide can beat her in a fight but won’t be able to kill her like Werewolf law says. I now find myself really hoping that if there is werewolf law, there are werewolf lawyers who study it. Please VampireJesus, make this a subplot for season seven. Anyway, she’s kinda right. Alcide successfully defends his position, but doesn’t kill her.

At VampCamp, the Mistress inmate is toying with Jason and there’s nothing Willa or Tara can do about it. “That bitch is a dog and he is her bone and she will fucking fuck us up if we fuck with her bone,” Tara summarizes it nicely. Jason confesses to the Mistress that the reason he’s in here is because he was getting sexy with Sarah Newlin and the Mistress devises a plan. She also tells Jason that he is now “hers”, meaning that she can feed off him as she likes. Jason’s worried about being passed around, but she tells him she doesn’t play that way because she’s Catholic. As in, medieval Catholic. So I guess as long as Jason’s not Jewish or trying to occupy the Holy Land or something, he’s okay?

Sookie returns to the Faerie land with Ben still restrained. Damn, sister – screw him and leave him chained to a tombstone. It’s the Bon Temps way, I suppose. Sookie wants Ben to use his blood to help save her vampire friends, yes, including Bill, which Ben isn’t exactly tickled about, even if Sookie is promising that she’ll make his safety a requirement. Ben agrees only on the condition that Sookie will be his, in the vampire way, forever. Sookie heads back to the real world to ponder, unaware that Eric has stumbled upon the gateway between the two dimensions and when he approaches, Ben is able to feel him. “Eternity?” she mutters as she walks away, oblivious. “He couldn’t ask me to go to the movies? It’s like men are incapable of just wanting to date me.”

Sex and the Bayou, starring Sookie Stackhouse

Jessica and James are enjoying their weirdly fully-clothed afterglow in the Vampire Conference Room (why so modest, True Blood?) and James wants to know what’s the story with her and Jason. Eric clearly isn’t the only one facing awkward conversations in this episode. They’re both ready for round two when the lovefest is broken up by two guards. As Jessica is being escorted, they conveniently encounter Pam coming out of her Shrink’s office. The Shrink, having abandoned all pretense at professionalism, is literally zipping up his pants when he asks the guard to take Pam back as well if he’s already going that way. Jessica is mildly appalled asking Pam how it was. “Boozy,” Pam admits, “but productive.”

Sam has come back to his restaurant (you know, the one with his name on it – guess he can’t really fault his waitresses for never making their shifts anymore) when Alcide finds him. Alcide has brought Nicole and her mother to Sam, saying his Pack days are done. Nicole and Sam put her mother to bed with an extra whiskey or two in her and in the process, Sam is able to smell something about Nicole. Intriguing… (Well, actually boring. But I at least applaud the writers for trying to do something with this.)

In the common area of VampCamp, True Blood is back on the menu! Only our heroes know that it’s contaminated, of course. Steve Newlin is hilariously threatened for his bottle and then tries to hit on James. Steve, I know prison sex is a huge theme in gay porn, but this is not going to go how you want it, trust me.  James, fool that he is, warns Steve not to drink the True Blood, thus assuring that this plotline will be foiled.

While considering the possibility of being Ben’s forever, Sookie remembers the first time Warlow tried to come into our reality. For those who never saw, it…wasn’t pleasant. Kind of like a horror movie, actually. In any case, clearly at odds with the attractive man she’s got tied up in a faerie dimension to occasionally have sex with.

Lady Vampire strategy session at VampCamp – turns out the Mistress is named Violet. That’s just because we got rid of two characters in two weeks, so clearly we need to stock back up. The ladies ask Pam to talk to Violet about keeping Jason safe, which leads to the first moment this episode that actually made me laugh out loud – Pam approaches the back wall of the common room which has chambers like a morgue where bodies are kept. Pam knocks on one of them and we hear Violet from inside yelling, “Fuck off, I’m eating” while she's noshing on Jason. I actually really love that in putting together VampCamp, they thought to store vampires in morgue slots in the wall. Well done, set designers.

Worst. Avon Calling. Ever.

The morning after the miserable murder, Arlene is beating herself up for being drunk in front of her kids while Lafayette makes her breakfast and the rest of the Bellfleurs offer their tea and sympathy. It’s sort of like the Golden Girls, honestly, only less cheesecake and more snipers and faerie daughters. I would watch a spinoff show about these people and their wacky madcap adventures is what I’m saying. For their first one, Lafayette tells Arlene about the life insurance policy. In her grief, Arlene’s thoughts indicate she blames herself and the faerie girls, which is overheard by Adilyn, who runs off. Yes, I would definitely watch this spinoff.

Sookie comes to Bill’s house. Bill, who’s just showing off by going outside in the daylight for the conversation, tells Sookie that his plan is to bring Ben to the VampCamp and give all the vampires some of his blood making them immune when the ceiling opens and they get flooded with sunlight. Why he wouldn’t also just, like, break them out seems unplanned at best, but whatever. Bill promises to keep Ben alive, if for no other reason than because they can’t synthesize his blood. Bill is getting short tempered, but Sookie tells him that Ben will only agree to help if he gets to make Sookie a vampire bride so maybe we all have shit that we have to think about, okay?

Sarah Newlin arrives at VampCamp in her best I’m-Totally-Not-Covering-For-The-Governor’s-Death-And-Stealing-His-Prestigue power suit to learn that there’s a hunger strike among a small group of the vampires, one of which is her ex-husband. Her solution is to put him in a giant hamster wheel and make him run until he confesses that his new BFF James who he feels a real connection with told him about the Hep V. In repayment, Sarah arranges for Steve and James to be brought to VampireThunderdome.

Stand aside, Hillary. Mama's got a political agenda to solidify. 

Adilyn deals with the guilt from Arlene (which, btw, she’s taking pretty well considering that she herself just lost three of her twin sisters, like, two days ago but no one’s concerned about that with her) by sneaking off with Holly’s teenage sons who have showed up at her window, Romeos to her telepathic Juliet, with a purloined bottle of alcohol.

Nicole and her mother are about to leave town when Sam confesses his undying love for her. Again, I remind you all that in this show’s continuity, his previous eternal love, Luna, only died, like a week ago. The argument is interrupted by Sookie, making her first appearance at her place of work, literally three-fourths of the way through the season. “Did I come at a bad time?” she asks. Remember folks, she’s supposed to be a telepath. Sookie tells Sam that she’s considering going FaerieSuperNova if it would make her normal for a change and she’s telling Sam because she always figured they’d probably end up together some day. That actually makes more sense that it seems, trust me, but Sam is right to get pissed that the object of his eternal love (maybe he has so many because he’s a shifter? Just considering…) is finally coming around right at the moment that he’s realized that Nicole is pregnant. Hence the sniffing earlier.

Arlene and the other Bellefleurs are making plans for Terry’s funeral. The Mortician says he’ll be buried with full military honors, 21 Gun Salute and all. Arlene points out the irony of such a thing for a man who was shot to death to say nothing of the fact that he knew about his own death. Arlene doesn’t want to keep the money, but Holly and Andy argue that it was his last wish. Arlene agrees on the condition that they get the reverend from the local “black church” to officiate.

Testify!

Sookie visits the graves of her parents and her grandmother to consider their lies to her in their lives and what that means. She To Be or Not To Be’s for a few minutes before deciding that it’s a moot point since literally all three dead Stackhouses keep finding some ghostly way to come back.  “Death is just a fucking pit stop on a road that keeps on going,” she says, deciding between tears to take Ben up on his offer and become a vampire, the very thing her parents were going to kill her to stop he from being rather than spend eternity by their sides in the ground.

The representative from the True Blood manufacturers arrives at the VampCamp demanding to see the Gov and wanting to know what’s going on. Sarah stonewalls her, but offers to make her a deal as fellow “strong women, forging our way ahead in a male-dominated industry.” The True Blood Rep clearly never read her Gloria Steinham because she punches Sarah in the stomach and pushes past her into the lab and realizing that they’re chemically altering the True Blood. Sarah tries to attack her when she goes to call the FDA, but the rep runs into VampCamp and sees everything that’s going on.

It’s unclear what the purpose of this experiment was.

Sarah chases the Rep into one of the vampire common rooms, catching up with her when her high heels get caught in a grate and tackling her. Sarah beats the rep’s head into the grate, causing her blood to drip down to the hungry vampires below. Eventually Sarah kills the rep by stabbing the back of her head with her own high heel. At which point Susan Faludi pretty much just shut off her TV and went to bed.

 "I'll never forget what you've done for me, Manolo Blahnik."

Adilyn and one of the two interchangeable teenage boys are making out in the graveyard, which for Bon Temps probably is the same as Lover’s Lane, when Eric interrupts them. Eric glamours the boys into forgetting they saw him (He also makes them forget they saw Adilyn topless, but he at least apologizes for “taking that one away from you.”) before chasing Adilyn down and feeding off her.

At VampCamp, Violet is getting talk from the guards for not drinking her True Blood rations, but she’s apparently smarter than the average bloodsucker because she’s starting to realize that our heroes aren’t drinking any either. Steve and James, meanwhile, are still in the circular white room when Jessica, Pam, Tara and Willa are brought in. This is looking eerily similar to the scene that Bill saw in his vision a few episodes back.

Sookie tries to call Jason, only getting his voicemail. She tells him about Terry, asks if he knows where their grandfather went and tearfully tells him that she loves him. Then she calls Bill to tell him they have a deal. Later, Sookie is dressed in her Sunday best as she escorts Bill to the faerie dimension. When they arrive, however, Ben is unconscious, his throat ripped open.

She's Just Not That Into You

Picking up right where we left off last episode, Psychotown’s Finest are on the case, arriving several minutes after the nick of time to stop the psychotic child sex trafficker on the force who just tried to kill the Bates family. Good on ya, PD. As the Sheriff rolls into the parking lot, he sees Shelby’s body and Dylan holding the gun. “We’d better talk,” he says. We cut to sometime later with Mother having just finished telling the entire story to the Sheriff. “Now you know it all,” she says. The Sheriff is apparently not as pure as he seems, because he instantly agrees to go along with a fake story whereby they all pretend that the Sheriff has long suspected Shelby was dirty and Shelby killed Keith and the Sheriff is the hero in everything. Dylan ain’t pleased, which is understandable since he’s the one who actually stopped the raving madman, but Mother and Norman are just thrilled to be not under indictment.

Some indeterminate time later, Norman and Bradley make tender passionate love like the experienced sexers they are has a wet dream about making tender passionate love just as mother enters the room to wake him up in the morning. The motel is opening in seven days and Mother wants them to be ready now that all the Shelby mess is behind them. Sidebar, Norman plays out this entire scene with his blankets specifically draped over his lap. Well done, actor!

"Would you be comfortable if I called you 'mother' while we do this?"

Norman repairs a trellis at Mother’s request when he discovers a wee, angry dog underneath the porch. He tries to coax it out with a donut, but the dog makes a break for it and runs.

In the house, Mother cooks Dylan a lovely breakfast, arousing Dylan’s suspicions. Mother seems like she’s honestly trying to just thank him for, you know, getting shot saving them and all and seems genuinely hurt when Dylan says he’s still planning on moving out. Mother throws a temper tantrum over a trash bag, which Dylan all but wrestles away from her to help her out. Taking the trash to the dumpster, a swanky car pulls up to the motel. A dapper man asks what has happened to the motel and where he can find Keith Summers before speeding off when he learns that Summers is dead.

In school, Norman walks RIGHT PAST EMMA to go to Bradley, who is back at school and surrounded by her Super Model handlers who have literally done her homework for her while she was gone. When Norman asks if he can see her later, Bradley just kinda shrugs. Norman, you just got PWNED!

Mother puts on her nicest business suit and heads to a restaurant to ask them to help promote the Bates Motel. The manager instantly shuts Mother down, saying she doesn’t like to associate with certain businesses. Mother is confused until the manager explains that everyone in town knows about Shelby being shot there and the missing/dead Chinese girl. Small town life, everyone knows everyone else’s shit, nothing to be done about it.

"So, you're telling me the three dead people on my property in less than a month might be a deterrent to success?"

That night at the motel, Mother notices the dapper man from earlier trying to get into room 9 with an old key. He tells her that he has had a standing weeklong reservation for this room every other month. Mother offers to give him the room, eager for a customer.  Dylan notices him from earlier in the morning and is worried. When Dylan asks him for his license, the man tells him they should already have it on file. Dylan feigns ignorance, new system, etc. Dylan “casually” questions the man, who says he comes to town on “sales” and pays in cash rather than giving a credit card. Meanwhile Mother, smarting from what the local business folk have said, is trying to scrub the blood out of their steps at the spot where Shelby died. Actually, kinda starting to see the townspeople’s hesitation about this place, now that I think on it. And yes, this is a scene about Mother trying to “get blood from out of a stone.” Jesus, writers – we get it.

The next day, Bradley approaches Norman and Dylan buying supplies. Bradley mentions that her mom is out of town so she’s alone, but also says that she’s heard that Dylan is working for Gil now, who used to work with her dad. Man, Bradley. You do not do “casual” well at all.  Dylan puts two and two together, however, and figures Bradley’s up to something and it’s not just booty calls with Norman that she’s embarrassed to tell her friends about.

Emma is not going to take Norman’s snubbing lying down. She shows up at the house and Mother invites her in. When Mother goes to fetch Norman, Norman asks her to say that he’s sick and can’t come down. Emma, the resident wounded puppy dog, blames the tears in her eyes on allergies, arousing Mother’s sympathies. Mother asks Emma to come with her to help her on an errand for the motel. In the car, Mother tells her that Norman is “going through something” right now but not to worry he’ll get over it. “Between us,” Emma tells her, “I go to school with ‘it’ and I don’t think he’s getting over her.” Oh shit. See that bag, the one that used to have a cat in it? Emma may be non-threatening to Mother, but the same can’t be said about someone Emma describes as “the prettiest girl in the school.” Emma offers to point her out at her yoga class downtown, which is conveniently right by where they need to go on their errand. Mother is SO NOT STEALTHY in checking out Bradley at her class. Mother begins to imagine fantasies of Norman and Bradley having all kind of porn-y, S&M sex with nipple licking and lights swinging around right under her roof. (I’m not exaggerating, this seriously is something the show filmed.) Mother is, in short, taking this a lot harder than Emma.

"Let's be friends, so that you can better help me to manipulate my son and your affections."

Back at the motel, Norman is hanging up the welcome sign (literally) and trying to woo the dog from earlier with cookies that he’s set out, despite Mother telling him not to attract strays. Norman tries to get Mother to let him keep the dog, saying it’s what normal families do. Mother reluctantly agrees as long as Norman takes care of it. That’s when Mother decides to give Norman “The Talk” out of the blue. When the polite route doesn’t work, Mother lays it out: “you don’t know that girl well enough to be screwing her,” she tells him. Mother almost erotically tells Norman about what happens in woman’s body during and after sex and he shouldn’t be dabbling around in that. Also, Mother says she’s hired Emma to help out, so have fun with that obstacle that I’ve just given you. This leads to a fight when Norman insists that Bradley is his girlfriend, even though they’ve only talked twice since having sex and Bradley is a special flower who’s just dealing with her dad being dead which is why she’s not answering any of his texts and then he storms out. (As a total sidebar, I haven’t really said enough about how great Vera Farmiga is at playing Mother – she really nails the manipulative smoothness that Mother has in this scene and it’s frankly a lot of fun to watch her.)

Norman goes to Bradley’s house to talk to her and you just know this isn’t going to go well. Norman gives a long passionate speech about how he knows how much they mean to each other and how great their soft-focus early 80s-music video style sex scene was and he knows she feels the same and she should break up with Richard (remember him?) and God, it’s like watching the cliff approaching while the car is stuck at 90mph. When Bradley tells him, honestly in a very adult, mature way, that she’s flattered but she really doesn’t feel the same way, Norman runs off, causing her to run after him. She finds him a block away, walking with a creepy blank look on his face reciting Mother’s earlier words about Bradley’s low behavior verbatim. “I don’t think you’re a nice girl,” he tells her menacingly.

Might want to avoid taking any showers around this kid, I think...

Back at the motel, the dapper man comes upon Mother working late in the office. He tells her that he likes her changes to the motel and offers to put out the word about her place with “all the business contacts” that he has in the area. He asks for the same business arrangement that he had with Keith, where he books every room for the first week of every other month. “Is that for all the other people you work with?” Mother naively asks. Yes, Mother. That’s totally it. Sheesh. For a murderer, you really don’t have any instincts, do you?

Norman arrives back at the motel to see the dog waiting for him across the street. He calls for the dog to come to him and when the dog does the show totally drops a bridgeon the poor mangy thing in the form of a suddenly speeding car. And yes, the camera shows us everything. If you have any kind of sensitivity to animals dying, this is NOT the scene for you to watch. Norman breaks down as Mother arrives, telling her that he was wrong about Bradley. He decides to bring the dog’s body to Emma’s father because he can "fix dead things." That he's saying this to Mother is doubly creepy, since we all know what eventually is going to happen to her.