Recap: ‘True Blood’ Episode 1, Season 2
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Greetings! OMG, let’s recap what happened during the Season 2 premiere of “True Blood.” First, boobs! Next, blood! Finally, was I hallucinating, or did Eric bite a man’s penis off? But let’s not go there just yet. First things first.
Lafayette is not dead. Things start with a bang and a scream as Sookie, Tara and Andy find a body in the back of Andy’s car in the parking lot of Merlotte’s. “Please tell me it’s not Lafayette,” says Tara, trembling.
“There ain’t no pulse, ‘cause there ain’t no heart,” says Andy, revealing a dead face frozen in excruciating agony and a chest torn open. Tara lies to the police, saying she has never seen the woman before. But Sookie, always the telepath, calls her bluff. The woman is Miss Jeanette, the crazy forest-dwelling exorcist that rid Tara and her mama of their demons last season by plying them with peyote. How could Tara forget?
Meanwhile, Bill is in his mossy mansion with newbie bloodsucker Jessica being a total downer of a dad. “Your bedtime will be at 4 a.m. and not a minute later. We also recycle in this house.” Blah-de-blah. Poor Jessica. Eric was so much more fun. Sookie calls and says she’s coming over. She still doesn’t know about Jessica’s existence.
Cut to sweet, dimwitted Jason reading the Fellowship of the Sun book and slowly buying into its whole the-dark-ones-are-bad ethos. But, wait, oh no, he remembers kissing V-addicted Amy and lies down on his bed to cry.
Back at the Bon Temps police station, Andy interrogates Tara, and Tara’s crazy old mom shows up sputtering on and on about how Miss Jeanette saved her and was not a grifter. A good dose of peyote never fails to convince crazies of just about anything!
Cut to a dark, slimy dungeon (yes, a dungeon, seriously, God I love this show) and who is that chained by his neck to a big old medieval wheel with a bunch of coughing sad sack prisoners? Why it’s Lafayette. Yay! So glad he’s still alive. Although, really, did any of us truly believe he was dead? I don’t think so.
Back at Bill’s mossy mansion, Sookie is in her man’s arms, looking lovingly into his dark, sexy eyes, crooning about how finally she’s got some peace and quiet when Jessica pops out of the shower in a towel and totally ruins the let’s-make-undead-love vibe.
That same evening, Maryann picks Tara up from the police station and puts Tara’s mom in her place. “I’ve often wondered what it would be like to gaze into the eyes of someone so devoid of human compassion,” she says with cloying sweetness. Cat fight! Sort of. Tara’s mom is too koo-koo-roo to fight effectively.
Back at Bill’s place, Sookie is nonplussed to learn about Jessica. “You bit her? You drained her blood? Did you have sex with her?” No! Because the sex thing would definitely be a deal breaker. Not the you-killed-her part. Since Bill is such a liar, Sookie leaves. “How am I supposed to ever trust you if you keep something like that from me?”
The next morning, Steve Newlin, the leader of the Fellowship of the Sun church, is on TV having a charming tête-à-tête with Nan Flanagan of the American Vampire League. “Opening shots of human vampire war?” the type on the TV screen reads. Oh yeah, it’s on. Steve is blaming vampires for the assassination of his father, Theodore. His wife, Sarah, looks on adoringly.
At brunch after the interview, Ori, who originally started recruiting Jason to the church when Jason was in jail last season, introduces Jason to Steve. They invite him to pay $1,200 to be a part of the Light of Day Institute Leadership conference. “There’s no price for salvation,” says Steve with sublime sliminess. “Why don’t you pray on it,” adds Sarah. “God will give you a sign.”
Later, Sam shows up at Maryann’s house with a trash bag and has the looniest vision while he’s waiting for her in her living room: He’s a puppy and he comes in through her doggy door, morphs in to a nerdy 17-year-old boy and begins to rob her house in the buff but not before lustily biting into a giant Renaissance-fair-worthy turkey leg that is inexplicably part of some orgy-tastic feast that happens to be laid out on her dining room table. She comes down and catches him.
Cut to Sookie, who is trying to pack up Gran’s things (saddest unfinished knitting ever!), only to be interrupted by a lawyer who tells her that her Great-Uncle Bartlett is dead, washed up in Walnut Creek, seemingly an accident. But there’s good news, he loved you (in all the wrong ways, molester!), and he’s left you all of his money: $11,000. Sookie reluctantly takes it.
At Maryann’s house, Tara and Eggs Benedict (please, somebody explain that name to me, I can’t remember why he’s called Eggs Benedict, even though I definitely love the tasty breakfast dish) sit by the pool while Maryann plies them with exotic fruit and pot. There is a brief discussion of the mural by the pool. “It’s the god Pan and his human lover,” Maryann explains. Hmmm, oh wow, wait a second. Could Maryann be a Greek goddess of some sort? That would explain that freaky fluttering energy thing she does when she’s being intense with people.
Tara and Eggs almost kiss, but Carl the houseboy interrupts them with fresh Egyptian cotton towels and, moment ruined, Tara hustles off to work. Carl receives a sturdy slap from Maryann afterward. “Nobody needed towels!” she says ominously.
Soon after, Jason is interrupted from working with Hoyt by Sookie, who gives him the check Uncle Bartlett left her. She doesn’t want it. Bartlett did some bad things. Jason takes it as the sign from God that he’s been waiting for. Poor, silly Jason.
Happily, we are now treated to another vision; this time it’s of little teen Sam having sex with big, bad goddess Maryann, and when she is about to climax, she does that total deal breaker of a freaky, fluttering energy thing, which absolutely makes him think that she is way too intense for him. “Baby boy, you’re not the only one who’s special in the world,” she says before hopping in the shower and leaving him alone to steal all the valuables in her bedroom. Note to Sam: Do not steal from a supernatural creature. She will find you and flutter.
Back to the dungeon (yes, dungeon!). Lafayette talks to a dumb but humorous hick who has been brought down by an unseen person. They speculate as to why they are in the spot they’re in. The hick, whom Lafayette once beat up for being a gay basher, starts talking about all the bad things he’s done. At the top of the list? Getting it on with his cousin Roofus’ girl, who could crush beer cans between her breasts and did the same thing with his head before Roofus threw him out a window and shattered his hip. Now his hip is made of metal.
Also on his list of misdeeds? Letting a boy give him oral sex when he was 15 and at safety patrol camp. Poor Lafayette.
Back at Bill’s mossy mansion, he is trying to train Jessica to drink Tru Blood. She hates it. “Eric let me feed on a guy with tattoos and nipple piercings,” she whines. Eric, Eric, Eric. Yeah, it was pretty cool living with Eric.
At Merlotte’s, Sam is acting sullen, drinking whiskey and flashing back until Maryann shows up. He tries to give her back the money and jewelry he stole, but she laughs in his face. Did he really think this had anything to do with him? Silly, shape-shifting Sam! While they’re talking, Eggs shows up at the bar and kisses Tara. Sam sees and is not happy.
Cut to Bill and Sookie. She wants to know if he had anything to do with Uncle Bartlett’s death. He did? “He hurt you,” says Bill. “Oh my God, is it that easy for you to kill?” asks Sookie. Cue Bill’s morose, vampire strings-driven soundtrack. Tears drop from her eyes; his lips tremble. He stops her at the door.
“I cannot and will not lose you. For all the ways I have dismayed, aggrieved and failed you, I swear I will atone,” he says. “But I am not sorry. I refuse to apologize for what you have awakened in me. You are my miracle.”
Whatever! Boys say that to me every other night, but I don’t hop into bed with them like Sookie does with Bill. But then again, they do have super-hot sex and his fangs come out and he bites her neck and blood runs down her neck and he kisses her mouth and blood gets all over her lips and its all very hot and gothic and carnal, and I guess you could win me over with that line if you were Bill.
Suddenly, things become decidedly less pretty as Eric comes downstairs into the dungeon where Lafayette and the hick are being held and unchains the hick. “We have a few questions for you in regards to a fire that killed three of our own,” he says. The hick thrusts a silver necklace onto Eric’s face and burns him, and omg if Eric doesn’t lose it and rip that hick to shreds. And that is when I think I saw him bite the hick’s penis off. Seriously.
Roll credits.
-- Jessica Gelt
