Monday, July 1, 2013

True Blood, Season 6, Episode 3: You're No Good


Last episode Eric managed to get into Willa’s room (Govenor Truman’s daughter) and glamour her. He plans to kill her to punish his father – and does this with lots of creepy, sexual assault overtones that are really unnecessary. As he moves to bite her – her thigh of course – she babbles quickly about things she knows – including about “experiments.” Which is when the guard team arrives – to find an empty room.

In more drama, Bill has his new, shiny psychic ability and just saw a lot of vampires, including most of the ones we know, burning up. He’s, unsurprisingly, determined to stop it especially since Jessica is among those getting an extreme tan

At chez Stackhouse, Warlow makes a blurring appearance in the woods and Niall goes flashing out after him. And Jason decides to stumble outside rather uselessly, with Sookie following because who needs that whole “vampire can’t enter the house without an invitation” protection from supervamp? Niall gets his grandchildren back inside (he must be realising by now that whatever else they inherited, intellect isn’t one of them). Sookie doesn’t like Niall patronising Jason (oh Sookie, Jason needs a little patronising now and then) and Niall doesn’t like Sookie not being completely panicky – but Sookie, in perhaps her first reasonable line for the last 3 seasons, says she’s ALWAYS in danger these days so she doesn’t really panic any more. Niall goes out vampire hunting and we’re reminded how special and royal Sookie is. Come to think of it, lots of generational inbreeding with the noble families may explain a lot…

At Fangtasia neither Tara nor Pam are even slightly impressed with Eric kidnapping the Governor’s daughter. Pam wants her dead, Tara wants her glamoured and sent home – saying it’s savage shit like this that makes humans hate them. Eric orders them to pack up and be ready to leave – and Tara encourages Pam to stand up to him; it seems she will for a brief moment before Eric shouts and Pam folds.

Willa claims to not be a fan of her father’s policy either and tells Eric about a camp where arrested vampires are taken to be studied. (Cut to that camp where Steve Newlin is dragged in to be experimented on). In Fangtasia they’ve packed up their things but Pam makes it clear that it’s the bar that matters to her – and Eric, no matter how he pretends. So they leave – and take Willa with them, much to Tara’s and Pam’s objection.

Sam and Lafayette wake up after being beaten, helped into Sam’s trailer by do-gooder Nicole and her boyfriend, Jesse. Jesse is all curious – Lafayette gives him sound advice on zipping that curiosity and Sam tells Nicole to leave when she offers to help getting Emma back. Unfortunately Lafayette doesn’t take his own advice; making it clear he’s there to help Sam because Sam gave him a job and doesn’t treat him like shit.

Poor Ginger thinks her dreams have come true when Eric knocks on her door and wants to join her for a sleepover (no glamour needed oh no). Oh and he brought some friends. More tension between the gang with Eric continuing to shout and lay down the law, claiming the coffin and keeping Willa away from Pam so she doesn’t kill her.


Over to Billith who has decided to take up sunbathing. Jessica thinks this is a bad bad bad idea, reminding Bill that SOMETHING killed Lillith so going through a list of all the things that kill vampires and trying them all out is just not wise.

The sun rises… and Billith catches on fire – he staggers into the house where Jessica lets him in and smothers the flames with a blanket. Jessica can join Tara on the bus for people with an ounce of common sense leaving Bon Temps. A big bus won’t be necessary, there’s not a whole lot of people getting on. Billith gasps that he just doesn’t understand why a vampire burns in sunlight. Someone needs a refresher course.

Niall goes to the faerie safe club and finds it deserted, wrecked and covered in blood stains. As he puts a sunshiny hand over the blood he hears screams and fighting. Using his recap powers he sees one figure slaughtering the fae and finds Claude, severely injured in the wreckage. Communicating by thought, Claude tells him a vampire got in, a very powerful one – then begs Niall not to leave him like that. Niall reduces him to dust.

Alas, we must return to the Stackhouses where Sookie wants to take Jason to the hospital and he assures her he’s fine by telling her he’s been hallucinating but it seems to have stopped. See, all better! Jason’s upset that his hallucinations were racist (I’m not sure – but this may be referring to prejudice against vampires in which case, again, True Blood STOP) and he hates that he put that undeserved label on their parents. Sookie is less inclined to deify their parents and tells him they had their faults (which she’d know since she read their minds) and that their mother was afraid of her – and it’s fine to love them if they’re imperfect, you don’t need to ice over the memory.

Time for a storyline we don’t give a damn about – Andy Bellefleur! He’s got lots of anti-vampire toys assigned to him (bah, like Louisiana could afford to give silver UV-emitting bullets to every tiny police department in the state) and Holly arrives to complain about vampires outside her motel room disturbing the kids; and getting disturbed herself by Andy’s rapidly aging faerie kids (who he has given numbers not names). He decides to deal with Holly’s worries by teaching her how to shoot – and trying to convince her that it’s purely platonic; despite her thoughts giving her away to the kids (though I kind of like how Holly handles that).

The only redeeming feature of this pointless scene is Andy’s “girls! Hand lasers off!” to his faerie daughters.

Next storyline we don’t care about! The police want to talk to Martha about Emma going missing, especially since her father has also disappeared; Alcide and Rikki try to keep them out but they insist on talking to Martha (with Emma inside). Martha has to go fake emphysema (of all the ridiculous excuses) and talk to the nice police, while Rikki tries to menace Emma into shifting. The police aren’t mollified and want to come in – apparently not needing a warrant because the governor’s anti-vampire agenda now means they can just enter any property for any damn reason, apparently. Inside, Emma has, of course, shifted into a wolf puppy so the police ignore her.

When they leave Rikki is furious since taking Emma has brought trouble to them. She adds that the police/authorities/miscellaneous “they” aren’t that far from figuring out Shifters exist – and if they do they’ll be treated like the vampires. Alcide tells her to shut up and Rikki’s force to bow and creep to him. A large owl watches all this, despite it being daylight – probably Sam.

Back to Eric, while I still care about this storyline, he and Willa are sharing a coffin and she removes her gag to spill more of her dad’s secrets; her mother had an affair with a vampire and ran off with him to California. Why is she telling him all this? Eric thinks to convince her she’s a pro-vampire person, I think it could be the result of being in bed with Eric. Eric starts to bleed from the ear – which he puts down to being “meant to be dead during the day” (I don’t remember any other day time vampires bleeding randomly) – she touches the blood and almost puts her finger in her mouth when Eric stops her. Lots and lots of sexual undertones going on here.

Back to the faerie field where new-and-totally-unnecessary-character Ben is looking for the faerie hideaway and finds Niall. Upon meeting Ben for the first time, Niall decides a massive info-dump and recap is in order, as you do. Ben realises who he’s talking to and kneels to Niall who apparently came to the club to assemble an army (since that club full of fae were slaughtered by Warlow, I don’t think the army would have been all that useful) and wants Ben to be the first recruit in the suicide club  - I mean, Niall’s soldiers.

Back to chez Billith where, after much arguing, Billith sends Jessica to talk to Professor Hiro Takehashi at the university of North Louisiana; he’s rumoured to be the man responsible for creating True Blood. She wears something “inappropriate” to his lecture since Takehashi has a thing for young women. There follows a request for private tutoring and a kidnapping

Back to Steve Newlin (a character best summed up as “we thought this man was dead, why do I still have to watch his storylines?!”) who gets a visit in his cell by Sarah, his wife back when he was a human anti-vampire religious fanatic. She still is and after some snarling back and forth, she tells him the canmp is about eradicating vampires. Oh and she’s in politics now (+10 points True Blood for Steve pointing out it’s a paycut for her to move from a megachurch into politics). A doctor comes to ask Newlin questions and he folds after merely seeing a syringe.

Billith goes to see Sookie – he wants her help. She’s not letting him in. Shame the whole invitation thing doesn’t apply to Billith. Sookie screams for Jason (because Jason’s going to do so much) so we get to see him slammed into a wall by Billith’s telekinesis (ok, that was kinda fun to watch, so I guess screaming for him had some point). She wants Sookie so she can use Takehashi to synthesise her blood; with lots of grandiose talk that makes it clear that Billith thinks of all vampires as his “progeny.” Sookie throws plates at him, likely only minimally effective against any vampire, it’s not convincing against Billith. When she refuses to help and orders him to leave, Billith declares she’s dead to him and leaves.

Y’know, explaining things before breaking crockery, breaking and entering and throwing Jason across the room may have helped. And why does he need Sookie? Well, if you recall Sookie’s fairy blood allows vampires to go out in sunlight.

Time for more pointless storylines! Nicole, Jesse and the rest of their group are off to poke werewolves for funsies. Alcide is pissed when he finds they’re carrying cameras and destroys one – and demands the rest to destroy before kicking them out. Owl Sam watches the whole thing. Rikki loses it, something she does on a semi-regular basis, it seems, wolfs out and attacks – followed by several other members of the pack. Nicole runs and is bitten, but Alcide stops the wolf (Rikki, I think) from killing her. Sam takes the chance to grab Emma and run but insists on running with Nicole because she’s injured and needs help.

Governor Truman calls Eric to beg for his daughter – while someone tries to trace the call (which Willa warns him about – wow she has jumped ship awfully quickly). While Eric takes the call and talks about killing Willa, he and Pam leave her with Tara who, with vampire ears, hears everything. When the trace is complete (Eric seems to want the call to be traced, for reasons unknown), they check on Willa and find the room empty – it looks like Tara has taken her to safety. Eric leaves a glamoured Ginger behind and follows Pam after Tara.

Ben and Niall return to Sookie’s house where they all sit around and discuss how bad Warlow is (in case we forgot). Sookie and Ben continue their sexual tension and Sookie can feel Ben listening to her thoughts, something she can’t normally do. He can also feel her. Apparently sensing someone violating your most intimate privacy adds to sexual tension.

But then Niall senses a vampire outside. In the woods, staring at the house, hidden very carefully – until Niall hits them dead on with a fae blast then teleports next to – Nora. Who is also looking for Warlow because of the vampire Bible thing. Then Jason collapses and that distracts everyone from any plot development, alas.

And Bill, walking home, runs into Andy who’s very polite and nice about it, but there is technically a vampire curfew. Where Bill learns about Andy’s daughters – and seems happy about it. Ok… so he learns Andy has children but how does he know they’re fae?



I kind of hate Lafayette risking himself for Sam; maybe if he had a better reason, but the whole “you actually treat me like a human being” is a really shitty reason for a marginalised person to believe they owe a privileged person. Sad thing is the media adopts this a lot and it bleeds over a great deal into real life; the idea that treating a POC/gay person with respect and *gasp* employing them is somehow a gift that puts that person in debt is pernicious. It suggests that straight, white people are doing a miraculous service by simply being a decent human people to POC/GBLT people.

I’m increasingly waiting for the time Pam and (or at least) Tara leave Eric because him dragging them around as an entourage who have no say but constantly have to deal with his actions is getting tiresome. And while I don’t particularly like Rikki, having Alcide be another supernatural boss man making his ladies get in line is creating a trend here.

Willa becoming Eric’s love interest or lusting after him? No I don’t like this – he glamoured her and seemed top sexually molest her while doing so and now has kidnapped her. Don’t turn this into happy, sexy or, even worst, loving it’s beyond creepy.


10 million storylines. Very little story progression.