… and the True Blood gifts just keep giving!

I gotta say, I am really enjoying the play out with the Eric amnesia thing, mainly the almost sadistically innocent way that Alexander Skarsgaard grins out Eric’s nigh-constant “sorry”s to Sookie. On top of that, is it just me or is Bill way cooler this season? Mr. Compton has always been more fun when separate from his beloved Sookie, but seeing him take on His Majesty’s duties and have random sex with lots of people has brought him to new heights. And it’s not as though he’s entirely “dark Bill” now. I really liked his Dad monologue scenes with Jessica, even if his advice wasn’t exactly followed to the letter.

And I was all ready to complain about the coven crap and how sick I am of chanting, when instead of a lot of wistful glances and whining from Tara, LaFayette and Jesus, we got the three of them going all proactive, storming into Fangtasia and being greeted with the world’s all time best threat, Pam’s “you have 24 hours. After that, I will personally eat, fuck, and kill all three of you.”

 

Now, as is almost always the case with True Blood, there’s still a healthy heaping of things that don’t quite work. The Hoyt and Jessica domestic drama is beginning to grate, and if I have to watch one more scene of Arlene staring down at her baby with fear in her eyes I might start chucking creepy, dirty dolls at the screen. And speaking of things I don’t want to look at, keeping Jason shirtless for an entire episode should be a good thing, but when he’s surrounded by inbred creeps and covered in panther bites you’re kind of ruining the view.

 

On top of that, dude. Last season’s main Jason love interest, Crystal, just flat out raped Jason. I hope the show realizes how serious that is. It’s pretty rare that male characters get raped on television, even rarer for them to get raped by a female character, but what Crystal did to Jason at the end of this episode was unequivocally rape. And if the show doesn’t take that serious, well then they’re doing the character and their world a disservice.

 

Despite the ooky sexual politics of the inbred v-dealers, and the utter-boredom I feel every time I see Sam’s little brother, this was a damn fine episode of True Blood. It had one-liners a plenty, tons of drama, and more shirtless Eric than you can shake a stick at. In other words, grade A negative* stuff.

 

Best Line of the night: a tie between Pam’s one liner and Eric’s overly sincere, “I know I’m a vampire, Snookie.”

 

*that was a blood joke, not a grade.