‘True Blood’ Recap (Season Five, Episode Two): “Authority Always Wins”

Today in Bon Temps: wolf babies, flashbacks, Eric Northman in chains, and red-headed sluts (the best kind of sluts!).

I just met you/ and this is crazy/ but here’s my recap/ this show has too many plotlines, maybe?

SOOKIE, LAFAYETTE, AND TARA: Beginning seconds after we left off last week, Tara is all trying to eat Sookie’s face and stuff. Pam commands her to stop, then shoves her into Sookie’s house, where she proceeds to totally fuck Sookie’s shit up. I mean, wouldn’t you? In life, Tara hated nothing more than vampires, and now, in death, due to Sookie and Lafayette’s whack decision-making skills, she must live as one of the ones she so loathed. Listen, I hate Tara, I think she is (for the most part) a whiny, useless character, but even I’m starting to feel bad for her. What are we supposed to be taking away from her nonstop torture and humiliation? Sookie persuades Lafayette not to mercy-stake Tara in her sleep (compounding an already-huge mistake, I think). When Tara calms down, she tells Sookie and Lafayette to fuck off, and when she tries to exit the house with a little dignity, she gets sprayed in the face with some liquid silver. CAN THIS WOMAN HAVE NO REST??!!

BILL AND ERIC: Meanwhile, uptown, Samantha was getting down. Wait, what? Sorry, wrong ridiculous HBO show. Anywhoodle, meanwhile, at the offices of the Authority, Eric and Bill were getting the shit kicked out of them for not revealing the secrets of Nora, or the vampire fundamentalists or whatever. We’re introduced to the Vampire Bible, which, in addition to being LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, is the story of Lilith, the first vampire, who was created in God’s image. Sure, why not! Anyway, the Authority is at odds with some vampire fundamentalists, who take the Vampire Bible literally, don’t go for mainstreaming, and think humans should exist only as vampire canapes. Vampire Detective Eliot Stabler finally makes his long-awaited debut, nearly staking Eric and Bill, before the Glimmer Twins promise that if he lets them go free, they’ll find and capture Russell Edgington. Oh, also, Nora gets dragged off somewhere. At least that’s one less name in the opening credits, maybe!

PAM: Even more meanwhile, at Fangtasia, Pam has no idea where Eric is. And so, to fill the many hours, she has a sepia-toned flashback to 1905, when she was a saucy prostitute in San Francisco’s rowdy Barbary Coast. After finding a co-worker brutally murdered, she is accosted on the misty streets by a Jack the Ripper type…for about thirty seconds. And then one Mr. Eric Northman, dressed in a top hat and tails that reminded me of the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” sequence from Young Frankenstein, totally punched through that guy’s chest. And then just wandered off! Vampires had a lot less focus around the turn of the 20th century, always just wandering in, punching through a guy’s chest, getting distracted by something shiny, wandering off…

ALCIDE: Those wacky werewolves are still eating the dead body of their old pack leader. Alcide declines a nosh of ol’ Marcus, and then declines the position of wolf pack leader, even though it is the law that he who kills the previous wolf pack leader must become the new wolf pack leader. You know, now that I type that out and look at it, that’s actually a pretty shitty law for all parties involved.

ARLENE AND TERRY: Terry’s sleepwalking and mumbling death threats! He’s having flashbacks and pushing Arlene into pastry trays! He’s going to Patrick’s motel in the middle of the night and saying he lied about their war buddy, telling Patrick that he was dead when he is really alive! Aggggh, wake me up when we have any idea what’s going on with this one.

SAM AND LUNA: As Sam is recovering from the beating he took at the hands of the wolfpack, Luna’s ex-mother-in-law/ Marcus the dead pack leader’s mother shows up. She pleads to be allowed contact with her granddaughter–Luna’s daughter, Emma–saying she’ll need the support of the pack when she turns. Luna kicks her out and she and Sam argue, leading to total dialogue gold:

Sam: “She just lost her son!”

Luna: “She just ate her son!”

Luna kicks Sam out, then–surprise, surprise–sees that Emma has just turned into an adorable baby wolf in teeny, tiny pajamas! Awww! Re-tool the show so it’s just about her!

JESSICA AND JASON: in “Vampire Friends with Vampire Benefits,” a saucy new rom com from the people who brought you “No Vampire Strings Attached (to Vampires).” Steve Newlin busts up a kegger Jessica is throwing, and tries to buy Jason for $10,000. Jessica fucks with him, then busts his ass verbally for trying to “buy” her friend, then busts his ass literally, then kicks him out. She also says “fang boner.” Jason shows up to Hoyt’s house to try to apologize, but he is fangerbangera non grata to Hoyt. Mrs. Fortenberry, however, now adores him for breaking up Hoyt and “that red-headed slut. I’m gonna make you a pie!”

RUSSELL EDGINGTON: In his hospital at R’lyeh, dead Russell Edgington waits dreaming.

Fuck, is that everyone? This show is exhausting! While Pam is killing it (literally and figuratively, of course) this season, and Russell Edgington is always a delight, I just feel like I’m running a race to even keep up with all of these plots, many of which will inevitably turn out to not be rewarding, and will have taken up precious time we could have used to watch Jessica do something sassy. Oh, True Blood. You frustrate me in the most glorious ways.

Comments