Vampires Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer, left), Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard), and Eric's vampire sister Nora (Lucy Griffiths) show their game faces. Can you sue for narrative whiplash? I think Alan Ball might have a class-action on his hands. "True Blood" stays true to recent form with a dizzying, disjointed premiere that has our favorite supes and their human pals spinning off in a dozen different directions.
We pick up a few moments before we left off in the finale, with Debbie blowing a hole in Tara's head. Lafayette, who's been through quite a lot in the last couple of days (killing his lover while being possessed by a frumpy, bitter witch, for example), wakes upstairs and rushes to the kitchen to find Sookie cradling a dying/dead Tara on the floor.
Pam, who is on the outs with Eric after she tried to stop him from killing himself to save Sookie, also turns up at Sookie's house, still on the hunt for Eric. She takes in the carnage and purrs, "Color me impressed. Y'all know how to party." A desperate Lafayette tells Pam to turn Tara into a vampire, even though Sookie points out that Tara hates vampires.
Only when Sookie promises to help Pam reconcile with Eric does Pam relent, although she says that the only other time she made a vampire, it didn't go so well. Next thing we know, Pam is in a Wal-Mart sweatsuit printed with kittens about to buried in Sookie's yard with Tara -- guess she didn't want to mess up her couture.
As Sookie and Lafayette clean up the mess that was Debbie Pelt, Lafayette tells her to call the police and claim self-defense. "You're a white girl. They gonna believe you." But Sookie tells him that she had a chance to spare Debbie, but she killed her instead. Then they head over to Lafayette's to deal with Jesus' body, which is still tied to the chair. Or not. The body is gone.
Lafayette spends some quality time PTSDing and trying to communicate with Jesus. "You told me keep on breathing. Told me to keep on living. How?" Poor Lafayette. Back at Sookie's house, she's in the shower, which, for once, does not mean she's about to have sex. Instead, she has a flashback to childhood, and we see the other kids ostracizing her because of her telepathy, and Tara sticking up for her. Lafayette takes a bath and eyes a razor -- da da DUM! -- but it turns out he was only hankering after a haircut.
Alcide, who realized in the finale that someone had let crazy vampire king Russell Edgington out of his concrete cage, shows up at Sookie's house to warn her that Russell's on the loose and probably thinking the part-fairy Sookie would make a delightful midnight snack.
Sookie kicks one of Debbie's bloodied teeth out of the way while Alcide's not looking, but she's about to confess that she offed his ex-fiancee when Lafayette busts in and stops her. He tells Alcide they're done with all the supernatural bull and wants him to get out of their lives.
That night, Sookie and Lafayette are standing sentinel outside Tara and Pam's grave. When Lafayette goes inside to make themselves a snack, Pam's hands poke out of the hole. Pam unearths herself, but Sookie has to dig out Tara. Looks like she is still dead. Sookie starts crying over the grave, and shakes her head as Lafayette returns. But wait! A pretty pissed looking Tara pops out of the grave and starts coming after Sookie. Cue Sookie's scream.
Thelma and Louise, er, Bill and Eric are cleaning up evidence of their massacre of former American Vampire League spokeswoman Nan Flanagan and her goons and plotting their escape. After all, Eric reminds Bill, Sookie made it clear she wants no part of either of them. But they no sooner are out the door when brand-new goons from the Authority -- apparently the NSA of the vampire world -- show up to take them into custody. They're silvered and shoved in the trunk of a car, and two of the Authority vamps drive out of town.
But Bill manages to use an umbrella stashed in the trunk to pierce the fuel tank and, somehow, ignites a flame. The car explodes, throwing Bill and Eric clear, and when an injured Bill tells Eric to run and save himself, Eric tells him, "I'm not leaving you here." When did they turn into Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? When one of the Authority vamps is about to take them out, the second vamp, an attractive brunette, stakes him with the wooden tip of the umbrella. Turns out one it's Eric's vampire sister, Nora. They're very close, and their reunion is very ... moist.
Nora, also Godric's progeny, is a muckety-muck in the Authority, but she tells Eric that she and other vampire factions feel the Authority's current agenda is "out of step" with the real world, evident in its willingness to administer the true death to Eric and Bill for killing a necromancer, which should really be rewarded. They hole up in a shipping container for the night, but she tells them that in order to keep them safe, they'll have to disappear, say goodbye to their current lives forever.
After the sun sets the next day, Bill skulks around the shipping container while Eric and Nora zestily continue their reunion. They're interrupted by Eric's phone; it's Alcide giving him the news of Russell's escape. The smile on Eric's face dies. We whoosh over to some abandoned warehouse, where a body is being dragged down a hallway and deposited in a room. Blood splashes against the windows.
Eric and Bill get their new identities -- Eric rolls his eyes at the prospect of spending the next millenium as Ike Applebaum -- but silver gunfire rains down on the dock, killing all of Nora's lackeys. An unseen voice commands Eric, Bill and Nora not to move.
At House of Himbo, Jason discovers the Rev. Steve Newlin, former of the Fellowship of the Sun, on his doorstep, freshly fanged. Jason, whose last encounter with Steve ended with him punching the good reverend in the face after informing him he'd slept with his pretty blond wife, isn't so stupid that he can't recognize a threat, so he refuses to invite Steve into his home and won't look at him, so he can avoid being glamoured.
But Steve plays the pity card, telling Jason that he was turned as punishment for his anti-vamp crusade, and he doesn't know the first thing about being a vampire. As Jason softens, the sneaky Steve glamours him -- that's how stupid Jason is -- and gets the invite. When Jason comes to, he's in his easy chair with duct-tape over his mouth, and Steve makes his big reveal: he's a gay vampire American. And he loves him some Jason Stackhouse.
Jason tries to let Steve down gently: "This dog don't bark that way." But Steve didn't come all this way for rejection. "Do not pity me," he demands. "Love me!" He grabs Jason's neck and is about to guzzle some Jason juice when Jessica returns. "Jason is mine!" she tells Steve.
She pulls rank, threatening to kill him unless he unhands Jason. Jason uses this opportunity to revoke his invitation, and Steve is helplessly sucked out of the house -- that never gets old -- moaning, "I love yoooouuuuu." As is their wont, Jason and Jessica have sex.
At Merlotte's, Jason attempts a reconciliation with Hoyt, who's not biting. Later, he shows up at the Compton mansion, where Jessica has been left in charge, and discovers she's partying with some pals from the University of North Louisiana. He thinks they're back to together, but she says that she meant what she said earlier -- she's not looking for a relationship right now.
He decides to stick around for the party, though, and quickly makes himself comfortable with some of the sorority chicks. Jessica starts making out with one of the frat boys, and Jason leaves with one of the blondes, but he lets her down easy -- he doesn't want to be the same guy who treats women like conquests anymore, so he's just going to give her a ride home.
Sam, who'd helped Alcide kill werepack leader Marcus Bozeman, Luna's possessive ex-husband, is cornered by Marcus' pack but shifts into an owl and flies away. He finds Luna and tries to convince her to run away with him, but she thinks he should just throw Alcide under the bus for Marcus' death. Sam, honorable yet stupid, refuses, saying Alcide saved his life, and tried to save his brother's life.
The pack catches up to them, and when they threaten Luna's daughter Emma, Sam confesses that he's responsible for Marcus' death. They take him away and try to beat the whereabouts of Marcus' body from him -- unclear why Sam won't tell them, what's the harm if you've already confessed to killing him? -- but he refuses. Finally, an older redheaded, Martha, threatens to hurt Luna and Ella unless Sam tells him where the body is. He agrees. He leads them to the body, and they're about to kill Sam, too, when Alcide shows up with Luna and tells everyone that he killed Marcus. "And he (bleeping) deserved it."
That puts the werepack in a bit of a quandary. Because Alcide killed the packmaster apparently means that he's the new packmaster. We also find out that Martha was Marcus' mother, which means she was threatening to harm her granddaughter in order to get the goods on Sam. Martha starts keening by Marcus' body and then transforms into a wolf and begins ... eating it. Gross, but that's the werewolf way.
And we haven't even dealt with the Bellefleurs yet. Apparently Sheriff Andy made it up to Holly, and they end up in her bed, where they are discovered by her teenage sons back from a hunting trip. They're disgusted, and Andy beats a hasty retreat. There's no mention of fairy fling from the finale, and my head hurts just thinking about where that subplot is headed.
But we do get another subplot: A new character, a local judge, shows up and basically bribes Andy into forgiving his son's speeding ticket -- 75 mph in a 25-mph zone, no biggie.
Meanwhile, Terry's old Marine commander, Patrick Devins, is visiting, and making the tenuously stable Terry even more agitated, particularly when Arlene tries to pump Patrick for info about Terry's past. When Arlene mentions that they're staying in the Bellefleur mansion because their house burned down -- remember, that book of matches that lit itself on fire, which we were led to believe was the work of Mavis, the pretty ghost who believed Mikey was her "bebe"? Well, looks like it wasn't Mavis' fault after all.
Patrick takes Terry aside later and tells him that he also had a house fire, and two other members of their unit in Iraq died in house fires. "This is about what happened that night in Iraq," Patrick tells him. He though maybe Terry was behind this, but it's clear now he's not, and so he just wants Terry's help tracking down another soldier who also served with them.
Terry tells him he doesn't know where the guy is and makes it clear he wants nothing to do with anything related to his time in Iraq. "Thanks for your help, Bellefleur," Patrick tells him. "You've done the corps real proud."
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