Sunday’s episode of “True Blood” was easily the best of the season, and
possibly of the last few years of the show. It felt like the new showrunners finally got a feel for the characters and the
tone of the show, and I saw flashes of the sleazy, campy show I used to love –
and even a bit of the book source material it’s based on. That’s not to say it
was perfect. There are still a lot of problems. But I found myself entertained
and even a little, uh, excited by at least two scenes.

Since
a bunch of stuff happened I’m going to keep it to the Top 5 best and worst
moments of the episode.

WORST:
The goddamned werewolves continued to be stupid and awful. After ripping almost
all the human activists to pieces last episode, head bitch Ricki
was eager to track down the last remaining survivor, the wounded, annoying
Nicole. Alcide fluffed up his man titties
and ordered her to scrub down the were camp instead
while he and Martha tracked Nicole, her rescuer Sam, and constantly abducted
were-puppy Emma. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this show has
basically ruined Alcide. I don’t care if he’s on V or
what, but he has become totally unlikable over the past two seasons. I demand a
penance. It involves Joe Manganiello doing various
athletic things in very, very little clothing.

WORST:
Sam played Captain Save-a-Ho again and dragged a limping, bleeding, moaning
Nicole away from the were feast, somehow losing the
alleged master trackers in the process. OK. After a brief interlude with the
increasingly pointless Lafayette, Sam turned into a majestic pony and gave a
ride to both Nicole and Emma to some seedy motel. There he did what he does
best: cry, drink, and have awkward, regrettable sex with a woman he barely
knows (Nicole). In Nicole’s defense, she had just seen Sam transform into a
horse.

WORST:
They referenced that goddamned Terry/Patrick/Ifrit
plotline again. Show, please! I beg of you! Let it go! Give Terry and Arlene a
few episodes off! It’s really OK! If it wasn’t for Arlene’s glamorous cholitablanca
wardrobe I’d be fine with them leaving altogether.

WORST:
Tara and Pam continued to scream at one another some more. There’s the great
lesbian vampire story of our time, folks: two bored women snapping at each
other episode after episode. Ultimately Tara flipped off Pam right before Pam
got shot and taken to the governor’s Vamp Camp.

WORST:
Billith holding the Japanese blood scientist hostage
in Casa Compton so he can crack the genetic code of fairy blood, in the hopes
of reproducing enough of it to make the vampire race immune to the Sun. This
plotline makes so little sense to me, because it’s not
like fairy blood makes vamps invulnerable, just able to walk in the sun. And
Bill himself knows that fairy blood quickly wears off. Remember the Great
Russell Edgington Bake-Off of Season 3?

BEST:
Andy’s Fairy Four magically aged from tweens to early 20somethings this
episode, busted out of the house, and went on a joyride – where Billith and Jessica intercepted them while trying to buy
hooch. This led to some great scenes with Jessica, culminating in her inadvertently
going into a bloodlust and sucking all four fairy kids dry. It was both tragic
and awesome, and Bill’s face when he saw that his daughter had basically
screwed his chance at “saving” the vampires – as well as committed multiple homicides
– was pretty great. Most importantly, it got rid of the obvious plot device
that was the Fairy Four. At least Jessica got to learn their names: Betty
Crocker, Little Debbie, Sara Lee, and Capri Sun.

BEST:
Magic Grandpa Lou Reed (TM Matt Austin) did something useful and fairy punched
stupid Nora into the sky. When she landed she was quickly shot and imprisoned
in Camp Vamp. Yay! I realize my hatred of Nora is largely irrational, but when
I look at her I can’t help but see everything I hated about S5 and the Authority/Lilith
crap. Nora did give a cryptic message that Warlo is
the only person who can defeat Lilith, but, well, we’ll see. Things to
remember: Nora is an idiot. Meanwhile, Fairy Colonel Sanders got sucked dry by Warlo (who interestingly did not drink his blood – he spat
it out) and then hurled into the hell dimension that Warlo
had been imprisoned in for 20-something years. So RutgerHauer gets this season’s Chris Meloni
Memorial Award for wasted guest star.

BEST:
We finally, FINALLY got some great Eric scenes, including an incredibly erotic
one in which he transformed fangbanging
governor daughter Willa into a vampire. Watching that sequence, even with the
goofy crucifix-neck-piercing, explains precisely why vampire fiction is so
attractive to ladies (and some gentlemen) who aren’t getting laid enough. His
assignment to Willa – to go back to her father, and force him to accept his
vampire daughter and, by extension, vampires in general – was a brilliant
strategic move. Either way Eric wins. If the Governor kills Willa, Eric knows
it will ultimately destroy him. But Eric isn’t factoring in the wild card that
is Sarah Newlin, who will play the Gov like a fiddle. Especially once she reveals that she’s
pregnant with his kid. (I’m guessing.)

BEST:
I’m not sure I can accurately describe the hotness of the Jason/Ben shaving
sequence. The set up: after Jason’s collapse last episode, Ben brought him back
into Sookie’s Death Shack. Sookie
ran to call for help, at which point Ben revealed to viewers that he’s actually
a vampire, surprising exactly no one. He fed Jason his blood, which instantly
cured the ailing Mr. Stackhouse. The next morning Jason was doing shirtless
pull ups in the doorway (bonus) and then having a very, very hot erotic dream
in which he and Ben shaved one another’s faces, climaxing with Jason
accidentally nicking Ben with the razor, and Ben inviting Jason to lick his
blood. Later in the episode we got Ben almost totally naked getting ready for a
show. Let’s all chip in for a THANK YOU bouquet to the “True Blood” producers
for casting Rob Kazinsky, and for deploying his
various states of nudity so effectively. And for giving us the most homoerotic Jason
sequence ever. And that’s saying something, given his past with LaFayette, Eddie, Steve, etc.

BEST:
But the real, surprise star of the episode was actually Sookie
herself, who actually demonstrated why we should be rooting for her in all of
this insanity. Boggled by Jason’s sudden improvement, Sook
did a little investigating and found a bit of Ben blood in her living room. She
did some magic woo-woo and noticed that it reacted in the same way Niall said
the fairy blood did after Tent Show Massacre. She put 2+2 together, realized
Ben is a fairy-vampire hybrid, did some sneaky cooking (including spiking the
food with garlic oil and colloidal silver), and invited Ben over for dinner.
When he ate the food without problem, Sook asked what
he wanted of her, they got to screwing around, and the episode ended with Ben
mounting Sookie on the couch, Sookie
generating her Vampire Big Bang Ball, and saying the words, “Get the fuck off
me, Warlo.” Really fantastic ending, and the most
book-Sookie-like Miss Stackhouse has been in ages.
Two big thumbs up. Three, if we’re counting shirtless Ben scenes.

Of
course we know that Sook won’t zap Ben/Warlo, since the teasers for next episode show them having
a little chat. Plus, we’re only going into Episode 5 of 10. But I give credit
to the writers for realizing that a good chunk of these storylines were
painfully obvious to the viewers (Ben/Warlo was clear
since last episode at least), and clearing the decks of them to make room for
something else in the second half of the season. On that tip, I am extremely
nervous that Billith is going to turn his
experimental eye on his daughter…

This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2013.