Humans for Vamps! It's the True Blood Season Premiere!

Episode 1

Who Are You, Really?

Yes, yes, I know this is a week late. I've been traveling a lot with not much access to wifi. Hopefully I'll have yesterday's recap up very soon. I'll be apartment hunting in Chicago this week! But enough about me, I've made you all wait long enough...

Stupid clusterfucky opening that screws up my normal recapping style—Picking up exactly where we left off last season, Sookie and Eric run away from a newly empowered—and naked—Bill. They escape the Authority compound, and even swing by in an SUV to pick up Nora, Pam, Tara, Jessica and Jason (who is none too happy being ordered around by vampires).

The Authority compound explodes. Jessica urges them to go back for Bill, but he’s fine. Well, sort of. He walks out of the burning wreckage and flies away.

They hear a convenient press conference on the radio (see Burell for more on that), and Jason pulls over once they get to a safe distance, so everyone can hash out their own issues (which, in retrospect, are kind of tiny).

Pam is mad at Eric for siding with Nora, and for not telling her about Nora in the first place. And Eric is just mad because Eric. Pam goes off and cries, and Tara comforts her as best she can.

Nora has no idea what Bill has turned into. Nothing in the vampire bible mentioned anything like it (I forgot that there was a “vampire bible” haha). They might have to put Bill down, which pisses Jessica off. She runs to the nearby beach.

Sookie chats with Jess about losing Bill and how she’ll never be alone yadda yadda. Whatever he is, it’s not Bill anymore.

Nora charms Jason into telling her all about Warlow (the crazy vampire that Sookie was promised to last season). Jason doesn’t appreciate being “mind raped” and puts a gun to Nora’s heart.

She in turn tells him all she knows about Warlow, which isn’t much. He was one of Lilith’s progeny, so that means he’s super-old and super-powerful.

More arguing occurs when the whole gang congregates around Jason and Nora. Eventually Jason plays the “you love vampires more than your own family” card and runs away. Seriously, True Blood, we’ve seen this all before. Let’s give Jason something new to play with.

Just then, Bill summons Jessica. And he summons her hard. Eric tries to stop her, but she just vomits blood and collapses on the ground, her heart throbbing through her skin. Sookie decides to take Jess to Bill, leaving the four vamps. Eric and Nora fly off, and Pam and Tara make their way back to Fangtasia. Now I can finally resume my normal recap process.

Jason—He gets a ride from a mysterious older fellow (Rutger Hauer). They chat about Bon Temps, including the history of Merlotte’s and Jason’s family. Turns out Jason is still seeing a rather skewed version of his dead parents. Also this strange man might be Warlow, but I think there’s more to it.

Alcide—Over in Wolf Lake—oops wrong show! The weres have just finished picking Alcide as their new pack leader. He eats the flesh of that douchebag from last season, and then another sexy were-lady saunters up to him. Her name is Danielle, apparently. This pisses off Ricki and Bonnie Raittwolf (oh man you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to write that stupid joke name again). They all change into their wolf forms and go running.

Danielle gets Alcide all alone and starts putting the moves on him, until Ricki shows up. At first she seems mad, but then gets all sexy with Danielle. She drops the sexy were to her knees and tells Alcide “I’m your number one bitch.” Yes, girl. Yes.

Sam—Our favorite shifter had his own problems with the Authority last season. They had kidnapped Luna’s daughter, Emma. Along the way, Luna posed as Steve Newlin (friendly vampire poster boy) and Sam exploded a vampire from the inside out.

Luna collapses outside the Authority, and tells Sam to take Emma away. And truthfully, Luna isn’t looking so hot. And because he’s a total pushover, Sam takes Emma and fucking leaves Luna to die. 

I’m hoping this is a fakeout on the show’s part. We don’t actually see her die. I think Janina Gavinkar is one of the best actors to come this show in a while and it would be sad to see her go.

Anyway, Sam and Emma make it to Merlotte’s. They run into a Lafayette (sorely underused in this episode) and Sam pleads with him to forget he ever saw them. I wonder where they’ll go? Maybe to Emma’s grandmother (aka Bonnie Raittwolf).

Terry & Arlene & Andy—Oh, these guys. As you may recall, Andy knocked up a lovely faerie girl and she left him with the babies. Naturally, Andy is freaking out, but Arlene kicks some sense into him. It’s scenes like this that I remember how much I like Arlene (she really had nothing to do last season).

They teach Andy how to put on a diaper and put the kids to bed. Everything seems copacetic, but this being True Blood, there’s always something. Andy is woken up in the night by his kids, who have gone from being infants to toddlers—with a firm grasp on the English language—overnight. Call me optimistic, but this might actually be an entertaining storyline for these folks.

Pam—She and Tara make it to the bar, where they have an argument about Eric (of course). Tara is over how submissive Pam is to the Nordic vamp. And Pam is over Tara wanting them to be some sort of epic power couple (I mean, come on. They are perfect for each other.)

Before they can tear each other apart, the military shows up with guns and a cease and desist order for the bar. They’ve got Pam in their sights, and Tara stupidly tries to attack them. For her trouble she gets shot.

Burell—We’re introduced to a new potential bad guy for this season: Mayor Burell. He’s all about Southern hospitality and keeping humans safe from the vampire menace (remember last season, all the Tru Blood factories were destroyed, leaving a lot of vamps to their own feeding devices.) 

As he says in his press conference, he wants to impose a curfew, and close down all vampire-run businesses immediately. It’s also real convenient that the gang in the SUV happens to hear this on the radio as they make their Authority getaway.

A spectator/vampire rights activist blood-bombs the mayor, effectively putting an end to the conference.

Burell is later seen at a clandestine meeting with one of the Tru Blood executives, Ms Suzuki (no, really). He wants to help them start making the blood substitute again, and has just the place: an empty bottling plant.

I think Burell is a charismatic character. He has a certain swagger to his personality. I don’t know if he’s a “villain” per se, maybe he’s just set in his beliefs. Regardless, Suzuki agrees to take the bailout. It’s win-win, really. Helping to mollify the human population (more Tru Blood = fewer humans being fed on), and also making revenue for Louisiana.

Sookie—After the debacle at the beach, she and Jess make it to Bill’s mansion. They follow bloody footprints inside (and Sookie grabs a stake or two, just in case), and leads the upstairs, where they find a pile of bloody ash. At least that’s what it looks like. Or a giant pile of red cocaine.

They find Bill out on the veranda. Both are wary of him. He looks like regular old Bill again. Before they can talk about anything, Nora and Eric literally come flying in, where they are promptly trounced by Bill.

Sookie even stakes Bill when he tries to kill Eric. But apparently the staking didn’t take. Everyone calms down—sort of—and Bill tries to convince them that he’s plain old Bill, but now with extra godlike creepiness. Sookie wants him to leave, but Bill isn’t going anywhere.

Jessica is really mad that Sookie tried to kill Bill (yes, I realize there could be a pun there), so she decides to stay with her “father.”

Sookie, Eric, and Nora go back to Sookie’s house. Eric wonders if Sookie will leave Bon Temps, but she reminds him it’s pointless; she had a lot of Bill’s blood, and seeing how easily—and horribly—he called Jessica, there’s nowhere for her to hide.

Sookie reminisces about how much she’s changed. She’s not that silly girl in the white dress from season one. Eric says she’ll always be that girl to him. So, that’s cute, right? Or is it creepy? I can never tell with this show.

At Sookie’s place, Eric gives her back the deed to the house, and Sookie immediately rescinds her invitation to Eric. Also, they have been covered in blood this entire episode.

Nora has choice words for Eric when he’s kicked out, and he tells her to mind her own fucking business. But of course she won’t. She’s too intrigued by Sookie.

Bill—Winner for creepiest scene goes to Bill and Jessica. She’s getting ready for bed, and he brings her a cup of warm Tru Blood (cute?). She loves him, but she’s also scared. He is too and that’s why he needs her to balance him, so he doesn’t go mad with power. I mean, he’s still going to go nuts, but it’s nice he thinks he won’t.

Later, Bill hears voices in the mansion. He finds a bunch of naked Liliths in his office, and they get all up inside him. I’m sure this will end well.

I was a little underwhelmed by this episode. I would have rather had a time jump. Not a huge one, but I found this immediate pick up from last season kind of boring. Let’s hope now that they’ve fully resolved last season, they’ll hit the ground running next episode.