“True Blood” – Bad Daddies!

By Elaine Bergstrom

At our local zoo, the animal that really gives me the chills is the slow loris. Moving oh-so-lethargically that it barely seems to move at all as it hangs from a branch, its huge eyes stare, seemingly straight into your soul. But given that the loris hunts small reptiles, it is likely that when the moment is right to strike, it focuses on its prey and moves quickly and lethally. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter had this sort of lethal stillness and focus. Eric, who always seems a bit scattered, does not. Bill, with his dated language and brooding power, seems older and calmer and far more powerful. But enough harping on the badly cast Eric when we were treated to an incredible exploration on the notion of good and evil.

First, there’s the evolution of Jessica that began last week, when, after she talked Sookie into taking her to see her family, she found an inner strength not entirely vampiric and stood up to her abusive father. Somehow, that moment linked her back to the goodness that was a part of her when she was human. “Go after her,” she tells Bill when Sookie, fed up with his angry lecture about her supplanting his authority with Jessica, runs from his car. He doesn’t and Sookie is attacked by some sort of strange clawed creature. Bill rushes her to Eric’s for help. The result of this is that Jessica gets to spend the next night alone and take her first steps toward independence. After she wakes and finds that Bill has not returned, she is frightened at first, then decides to make the best of things. She ventures into Merlotte’s looking as fresh and sweet as any southern belle. Shy Hoyt is so smitten that he manages to say a few words and is invited to join her. When she orders a True Blood, he thinks her being a vampire is “awesome.” Soon they are back at Bill’s where, in one of the most charming vampire love scenes ever, she is so embarrassed when her fangs come out while they are necking (pun not intended, but I tried, I really tried, to come up with a different word) that she covers her mouth and says, “I’d die if I weren’t already dead.” But Hoyt sweetly reassures her that “it’s only natural.” One thing leads to another, but when Bill arrives and finds her nibbling on Hoyt’s neck he is far from amused. Hoyt seemed to be in no danger and we can expect to see him mooning over her for some time.

Then there’s the soul searching done by Jason, who is having nightmares about Eddie and really does not want to stay at the Light of Day Leadership Conference any longer. So he confesses that he’s met plenty of bad people and more than a few good vampires and he’s had enough of all this hate and is going home. As he starts to leave, Sarah goes after him. She may be a minister’s wife but there is more than a hint of eroticism in how she convinces him to stay. Later, at Steve and Sarah’s, Steve tells Jason that “hating evil” equals “loving good” and “we need hate in order to survive. We got to choose.” Jason seems to see through that twisted logic but still decides to stay – I suspect to bestow some “good loving” on Sarah.

But what is good and what is evil? Does evil have fangs? Does it have fur? Are people good just because they say they hate evil or is that hatred itself evil? In the world of True Blood, it’s all pretty complicated.

In other developments, Sookie bargains with Eric for Lafayette’s life. Eric says he will release Lafayette if Sookie will help him find a very old vamp who has gone missing in Texas. She agrees and Bill intends to go with her, though Jessica may make him change his plans. This may turn out to be a good thing, as the preview for next week shows that while Eric may have let Lafayette go, he didn’t say he would leave him alone.

Tara takes a good look at the sort of people Mary Ellen invites to her soirees, and how they behave at them, and decides to take a hike. She just may be strong enough to break away. And Sam ends up skinny dipping with ditzy waitress Daphne, who has scratches on her back much like the ones Sookie had after something attacked her. Is this Mary Ellen’s work perhaps?

But my favorite moment in the episode came when Bill and Sookie drive Lafayette home and he says he’ll see a vet to stitch up the bullet wound he got at Fangtasia. It reminded me of a vamp friend of mine who used to get his antibiotics from a vet. The moral? Even people far out of the mainstream need good insurance plans.

Photo: HBO