True Blood: Very Special Lessons In Paintball, Nut Shots, And Awkward Hugs

Hi Gasmi, well another week, another great episode of True Blood, but I can’t help noticing something has been missing from this show, the very special episodes. Sure we get to see people get cable neeked and vampires chomping on people, but where is the very special episode where the kids learn a valuable lesson about life? The one drawback of this show is it doesn’t talk about not judging other kids by their looks, or take a look at how teen suicide affects Michael J. Fox, or that Mr. Carlson from WKRP wants to get into Gary Coleman’s pants.

Well I’m not going to take this laying down. It’s like I always say, if God gives you lemons, you’re doomed to choke down some incredibly bitter liquid the next time you’re thirsty, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work a feeble comparison to 90′s teen sitcoms into your recap. So let’s see the kids from Bon Temps learn getting shot in the gonads with a paintball gun really, really hurts, that when a young vampire girl meets the right boy she can become a woman, at least until her hymen grows back and then she’ll feel like a disgusting freak, and that vampires and humans really can get along, as long as they aren’t blowing each other up. See you after the jump

This week’s episode starts right where last week left off; Godric is holding the big ex-wrestler dude by his ear, like he’s just about to give him a good talking to for the monkeyshines he was pulling in the last episode. Or he can snap the big ex-wrestler dude’s neck like a twig, I mean that was your next guess right?

At first this might seem a little over the top, but considering the big ex-wrestler dude spent the day trying to kill Jason and gain forcible entry into Sookie’s granny panties, it’s not that big of a shock. If you add in the way he was constantly giving people grief for their chain link fence climbing ability, he was sort of the world’s super duper extra creepiest high school PE teacher. Anyway, it’s too late to worry now; he’s gone to those big showers in the sky to tape Larry Lester’s butt cheeks together. We’ll all miss you big guy, and when I say we, I mean nobody.

Godric tells Sookie she shouldn’t have come, and is it too early in the post to point out Godric blinks about as often as Dakota Fanning? Oh and actually Godric, Sookie really did need to come and get you because otherwise we would have spent another 10 minutes last week with Bill and Lorena and there was entirely too much eyeball bleeding going on as it was. We hear a noise and Sookie thinks it’s Bill, but Godric knows his boyfriend, long time companion is the one coming through the door.

Eric shows up and Godric tells him he shouldn’t have sent the humans. God he’s still going on about this? I don’t care how many necks he snaps, until he gets a producer’s credit he needs to give it a rest.

Some alarms start going off, so Godric tells Eric to get Sookie out of the church, oh and not to hurt anyone while doing it. Wow, too bad for the big ex-wrestler dude this interest in non-violence didn’t surface say five minutes earlier, huh? Anyway Eric gets Sookie, and they take their act out the door.

We cut back to Jason who he is lying in the middle of the road, and praise the lord he’s not dead! Jason thinks it’s a miracle. The Plastic Preacherette points out that actually it’s a paintball, oh and that Jason is a bit of a water head.

The PP is super pissed, because Jason totally betrayed her even after a quality bathtub squeezer and a little church balcony nookie. She points out Jason is worse the Judas which prompts Jason to ask what did Judas ever did to her. This is really funny, but not nearly as funny as when the Plastic Preacherette gets ticked and shoots Jason right in the baby bee-bees with another paint ball. Oh shots to the nuts, when will you ever stop being funny?

The Plastic Preacherette takes some time and slowly spells it out for Jason with small words and visual aides that the Wingnuts took Sookie prisoner yesterday and they know that those sneaky Stackhouses are just there to spy for the bad icky vampires.

When Jason hears that the Wingnuts have Sookie, it’s his turn to get pissed. He takes the paintball gun away from the PP, knocking her to the ground and tells her nobody better have messed with his sister or there will be H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks to pay.
Jason is pretty badass when he says this, which takes a little work because he’s driving away in a golf cart.

Back at the church, Eric and Sookie are trying to get out, but it’s not easy because some doofuses are guarding the door. Eric heads over and instead of just killing them, pretends to be human. This involves him slouching and using the word dang. It’s almost as funny as Jason getting shot in the nuts with a paintball. It’s not quite as funny, but it’s funny enough for at least one rewind.

One of the doofuses gets suspicious and tries to stake Eric, but Sookie gives Eric a heads up at the last second. Eric gets super duper vampire fast and disarms all the doofuses. Sookie makes sure to remind him not to kill anyone, thus extending her consecutive streak of episodes as a wet blanket to 20.

She and Eric try to slip out the front door, but the Lukeinator and the rest of the Reverend Steve-o’s army of dipshits and slack jawed mouth breathers are coming up the walkway. They end up heading back into the church because Sookie says there’s another way out, but the Reverend Steve-o is waiting for them, and Eric gets taken prisoner. Oh if you’re wondering why a thousand year old vampire just got taken prisoner by the 8th best dodge ball team in the state, may I remind you if Eric had just killed them all we would have ended up with a 40 minute episode this week, and there are only so many times HBO subscribers can watch Hung trailers in a row before their heads explode.

Back at the hotel Barry the Unemployed Mind Reading Bell Boy is trying to convince Lorena he’s not a cheeseburger sent up by room service and failing miserably. Lorena asks Bill if he wants to go family style on Barry, but Bill is getting another physic wakeup call from Sookie. Lorena digs in and notices Barry tastes different then your average out of work bellboy.

While Lorena is trying to figure out just what the chef did to Barry, Bill grabs the 52 inch plasma off the wall and whomps her right in the melon with it, twice (apparently the two for flinching rule was in effect) and puts her down for the count.

Wow, Bill trashed the TV in his hotel room? How very Courtney Love of him. You know there might be a little zip in him yet.

As Lorena has the mother of all nosebleeds on the floor, Bill gathers up Barry and exits stage left.

In the next room Jess and Hoyt (Hoyt!) are making love for the first time. It’s a warm and very tender moment and there is only one thing that could make it even more magical. Sadly, Bill forcing his way into the room isn’t that one thing. Hoyt hops off of Jess and assures him that whatever he heard, “those screams were screams of pleasure,” and then just to remind us why we love him he looks down at Jess and says, “right?”

Bill is only slightly less mortified to be here right now then Jess is to have him in the room, tells Hoyt he needs to get Jess back to Bon Temps before the sun comes up, and then he super duper fast vampire runs out of the room. Jess and Hoyt are both pretty bummed because once your vampire dad shows up, it doesn’t matter how many blood scented candles you’re burning; the mood is ruined.

Back at Merlotte’s Tara and Lafayette are drinking tequila as Lafayette does a tarot reading for Tara. Lafayette is concerned because the cards are saying Tara will have to sacrifice a loved one. Tara wants Lafayette to tell her she’s going to be okay and Lafayette makes a face liked she asked him to say he likes her blouse.

Luckily Eggo shows up right before Lafayette has to do a fashion makeover. He wants to ask Tara an important question, what time is it? Tara is a good sport and doesn’t respond to this question by asking if Timex is written on her forehead and instead tells him it’s a little after midnight.

This gets Eggo sniffling like he just found out his gym membership expired. It turns out he’s blacked out again and can’t remember what happened or why he woke up in the middle of a field tonight. Tara tells him not to worry, because there has to be a perfectly logical explanation why everyone in town seems to be blacking out and waking up thinking they’ve done something horrible that doesn’t involve Tara’s new roomie Maryann, who like to throw late night hippy orgies and hunt rabbits with her bare hands.

Stop me if I’m wrong, but Tara was the smart person on the show last season, right? Anyway, Tara decides to call it a night and take Eggo home so they can blackout, talk about what is happening to them.

Back at Camp HateAVampire, Jason pulls up in his golf cart at the church. There are a bunch of doofuses standing guard out in front who don’t want to let him in even though Jason claims to be a bad ass vampire hunter sent for by the Reverend Stevie. It takes a little finagling, but Jason shows them his Hot Topic “Honesty” ring and that gets him through the front door. The guy who lets him inside wants to take him straight to Stevie, so Jason is forced to whack the guy in the head with his paintball gun. Am I the only one who has noticed that when Jason hangs around with the Wingnuts, he almost looks bright?

We cut to Sam sleeping in his car in the middle of the woods. If you’re wondering why Sam is not only hanging around town when knows an all powerful godlike being wants him dead, but sleeping in the same woods where she spends a lot of her time wandering around in at night with bigass minotaur claws, then I hate to break this to you, but you think too much and your friends really don’t like to watch TV with you. Sorry, this is just one of those many times when not thinking makes your life better.

Anyway Sam gets a call from work, but nobody says anything and hangs up as soon as Sam says hello. Sam promptly heads into work, because what’s the worst that could happen? Did you guess he’d find Daphne, the world’s worst waitress who was also banging her boss, and now has a big hole in her chest where her heart used to be in the walk-in, and the cops would show up right behind Sam? No? [Waffleboy looks around], Why don’t you go back to the top of the paragraph and take another guess?

Hey speaking of Maryann, she’s back at Sookie’s and has broken out her apron and is making a little noise with those pots and pans. She’s got a little mirepoix going on the stove and tosses in her protein, in this case Daphne’s heart. Ignoring the whole morality of the situation, I can’t help that point out she should have sliced it against the grain to keep it from being tough. How do I know this? That one episode of Julia Childs that she was never willing to talk about, and now let’s never speak of this again.

Back in the church Eric is strapped to the altar with silver chains and points out that seeing as he is being such a good sport about letting Stevie and the wingnuts set him on fire for their big pageant, the least they could do is let Sookie go. The Reverend Steve-o says no way Jose because as a man wiser then me once said, “If he was an ice cream flavor, he’d be pralines and dick.”

Stevie is letting his inner asshole come out for a nice long stretch and says not only is he not going to let Sookie go, he’s thinking of strapping her to Eric so she’ll burn up too for being such a Lucy Loose Labia when it comes to vampires.

Just then Bill shows up to rescue Sookie. Only Stevie holds a gun to her head, so advantage intolerant a-holes. Too bad for Stevie Jason shoots the gun out of his hand and then pops him right between the eyes. Too bad for us it’s with a paintball gun (although the big red dot on Stevie’s forehead for the rest of the episode is very cool).

Bill rescues Sookie, who rescues Eric (awk-ward!) who grabs Stevie and puts some serious thought into eating him. The Reverend Steve-o is yapping that this is fine because he and the wingnuts are ready to be martyrs. This is cool, because big cowboy vampire Stan shows up with a bunch of vampires to take advantage of this amazing offer.

Just when all the wingnuts are about to get eaten, Godric shows up and tells everyone to take a chill pill. He launches into a long spiel about how vampires and humans should get along, but the Reverend Steve-o wants to be a martyr. Godric asks if any of the other wingnuts want to go on the menu, and it turns out everyone would rather just go home and wait for Touched by an Angel to start, so Godric says the party is over and everyone needs to move it down the road.

As all the vampires and wingnuts shuffle out of the church Sookie and Jason have a little Stackhouse family reunion. Sookie tells Jason he’s a moron, and Jason says he knows, but part of the blame lays with Stevie for filling Jason’s head with “his babies.” (This metaphor doesn’t work on so many levels we’re just going to forget he brought it up. Annnnnd, Gone! What were we talking about? Oh, True Blood, thank you, you’re the bestest!)

Stevie is still in full butthead mode, and tells Jason and Sookie they are going to hell. Jason uses this time to tell Stevie that Jason has already been to heaven, inside the Plastic Preacherette. Dear True Blood writers, please, no more Jason metaphors ever again, okay? Love Waffleboy. Anyway, Jason gives Stevie a well deserved punch in the mouth and throws his Hot Topic ring at him as Bill and Sookie pull him out of the room.

Back at Merlotte’s Sheriff Bud and Kenya are questioning Sam. Well mainly what is happening is Bud is trying to get Sam to wrap his noodle around the concept of an anonymous tip. Sam says he couldn’t have killed Daphne because they found her body in his bar and it becomes official that he’s never been to law school.

Just when things are looking grim for Sam, Andy shows up to save the day. Andy says Sam can’t be the killer because he’s being stalked by a bull, with claws, oh and in a dress.

This is right about when Sam realizes he’s going to jail.

Meanwhile Tara and Eggo are curled up back on the couch trying to figure where all the hours in the day are going. Eggo has a moment of clarity and points out what Andy said the day before at Merlotte’s, however Tara is positive that Andy is nuttier then a fruitcake baked by Tom Cruise. She wonders if maybe there was a gas leak. A gas leak? Maybe when the season DVD comes out we’ll see the deleted scene where Tara gets a lobotomy.

It’s right then that everybody’s favorite cook, Maryann, strolls into the room. She sees the long faces, and says maybe they’ve been having too much fun lately, so they should ease off the partying for awhile. Tara and Eggo look like somebody just kicked a puppy in front of them, but Maryann cheers them up and tells them to come into the kitchen for a snack.

Tara and Eggo sit down at the table and Maryann brings out her hunter soufflé. Tara gets the knife out to cut it open, and it’s a little pink. It’s a lot more then a little pink, I’d go with aortal red, but Tara and Eggo are like “mmmmmmmmmm!”

Look, I am not a picky eater. In fact I have what the French call a “sophisticated palate”, or what in America is referred to as “the eating habits of a raccoon in a dumpster,” but if I stick a knife in something and it starts bleeding like a hemophiliac, it goes back in the oven or I head on over to Roi de Burger.

Tara and Eggo on the other hand don’t have a problem that dish looks suspiciously like soufflé de serveuse de merde. They start wolfing it down like it’s a tootsie roll pie. Tootsie roll pie? God that sounds good, is anyone else hungry?

Back in Dallas everyone has gone back to Godric’s for the after party, and it’s talk, talk, talk. Eric has a little talk with Jason, telling him he did a very good thing in Dallas helping Godric, but a bad thing in Bon Temps when he was using V. Jason has the good sense to poop his pants and that seems to be just the response Eric was looking for.

Sookie and Bill are talking. Well Sookie is pointing out that Bill is avoiding being alone with her. Bill is denying this and saying it certainly isn’t because his vampire ex-girlfriend was using him as a speed bag for the last couple of days either, but that dang old Eric “detained” him.

Eric just happens to be walking by and asks if anyone mentioned his name. Sookie decides this is the perfect time to let Eric know she’s pissed he let her walk into a trap, and Eric is a good enough sport not to mention that walking into the trap in the first place was Sookie’s idea. Sookie tells Eric he would have risked anything for Godric because Godric is his maker. Eric tells Sookie she’d be amazed what a vampire would do for his maker and gives Bill a look. Man, don’t look now, but the big bad creatures of the night are getting totally bitchy with each other.

Hoyt and Jess get back to Bill’s and Jess can’t wait to hump like lust crazed weasels, make the sweet, sweet love again. Hoyt wants to do it but he’s a little worried Bill and Sookie will come home, and is getting a little tired of Bill seeing his moobs all the time. Jess doesn’t care, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of convincing to get Hoyt to climb back in the saddle.

There is just one problem; Jess’s hymen has grown back since the last time they did it, because vampires can regenerate any “wounds.” Hoyt tries to tell her it will just make it special because every time will be like their first time. Jess isn’t buying this because she knows it’s going to hurt like hell every time they do it, and this gives Jess the perfect excuse to start wailing about how she’s a freak.

I kind of feel for Jess here, but because all of my experience with teenaged girls losing their virginity has come courtesy of very special episodes of Blossom, I’m at a bit of a loss. Think waffleboy, think! What would Joey Lawrence do in this situation…Whoa?

Back at the party Bill runs into Eric when Sookie isn’t around and tells him sicing Lorena on him was a dirty trick, but it doesn’t matter because Eric will never take Sookie away from him. Eric asks if Bill is picking a fight, and gets the happiest smile I’ve seen on him since he was scaring the poop out of Lafayette back at Fangtasia.

We don’t get to see what happens with this mess because spicy Latin vampire Isabel brings in Hugo so Godric can punish him. Godric asks Isabel if she loves him and she starts crying and says yes even though she shouldn’t, and I start trying to figure out when this turned into an episode of Maury Povich. Anyway, Godric decides to just let Hugo go, which ticks off big cowboy vampire Stan, which gives Godric a massive case of the whogivesashits.

Bill and Sookie decide to go talk it out and it looks like Bill is ready to tell her about Lorena and how Eric is a sneaky nogoodnik, when Jason comes up and says he needs to talk to Bill alone because it’s super duper important. Sookie wants to tell Jason to take a hike, but Bill has enough common sense to know it’s easier to humor the guy with the room temperature IQ so he and Jason step outside.

Back in Bon Temps, Sam is getting shown to his jail cell. He’s telling Bud this is BS and he didn’t kill Daphne. Bud points out that if someone is really trying to kill him, being in a jail cell might be the safest place to be. Sam doesn’t really buy this argument but he goes in his cell anyway.

It turns out Sam isn’t the only one in jail that night. All sorts of people have been blacking out and doing dumb stuff all over town, but the guy with the best story is Coroner Mike, who got arrested for sodomizing a pine tree. You know, there are just so many jokes for that one; I’m not even going to start. Although if I was Coroner Mike’s lawyer I would constantly stress that the way that pine tree was dressed, it was asking for it.

Back at Godric’s Jason gets Bill alone and apologizes for being a vampire hater and says as long as Bill loves his sister that’s all that counts. It’s all very sweet, and Jason follows it up with the world’s most awkward hug, which is funny, but not nearly as funny as Bill pretending afterwards it wasn’t awkward.

Inside the party, Eric has gotten someone with rare blood for Godric’s dinner, but Godric says he isn’t hungry. Eric tries to get him to change his mind and from there we find out that Godric thinks the reason the wingnuts hate vampires so much is because vampires are pretty much a big bunch of scary a-holes, and Eric doesn’t have a comeback for that.

Back at Sookie’s Tara and Eggo have finished off all of Daphne’s heart and are getting a full blown case of the giggles, which leads to them smacking each other around until they have those big black hoodoo eyes and end up humping on the living room floor while Maryann watches with that creepy grin of hers. By the way, being creeped out by this scene is a perfectly acceptable response.

While Bill is getting his big hug from Jason, guess who shows up? No, not Mr. T. Although that would be awesome. No, it’s old bloody eyes herself, Lorena. She comes over to Sookie and strikes up a conversation and within 10 seconds lets Sookie know that she’s an old flame of Bill’s and was the reason it took him so long to show up at the Fellowship of the Sun. Bill comes in and sees that Lorena is there and gets a look on his face like he wishes Jason was still hugging him.

Sookie and Lorena start going at it as to who Bill loves and Sookie starts getting feisty and pretty soon she’s calling Lorena a bitch and dropping F bombs about how Bill is her man and Lorena just needs to deal with it, and we are one paternity test to see who’s baby Bill is the daddy of for this to turn into an actual episode of Maury.

It doesn’t work out that way; Lorena decides to eat Sookie instead. The only thing is Godric shows up and stops her. This gives Godric another chance to talk about how vampires need to start treating humans as equals, and then he tells Lorena she needs to be gone by sunrise. Hmmm, that means no more flashbacks, eyeball bleeding and Lorena’s accent in full fiddle-dee-dee mode? Godric is well on his way to being my favorite character on the show even if he blinks as often as an iguana.

Bill walks Lorena outside and she’s still going on about how much she loves him, bleeding out of her eyeballs like crazy and wanting to know when they will see each other again. Bill looks like he poops himself on that last part and says never but Lorena points out that they are immortal. If Bill has a brain in his head he’ll see about getting an immortal restraining order.

Inside we just see the shoes of somebody walking through the house. Jason looks up and sees it’s the Lukeinator. Jason goes over and asks Luke what he’s doing there and Luke tells him to leave the party, right now. Then the Lukeinator announces that the Reverend Steve-o sent him, and when he opens his jacket he has a bomb strapped to his chest. We see his finger pressing the trigger, and The End.

Wow, a very good episode, maybe not my favorite of the season, but it does a pretty good job of setting things up for the last four episodes, and you can’t get much more of a cliffhanger ending then a bomb about to go off. I know where my butt will be parked next Sunday.

“There’s no excuse for domestic violence.” Okay, I am really hoping we’ve seen the last of Lorena, but seeing as she’s been beating on Bill like a red headed stepchild for the last two episodes that line made me laugh.

I thought Allan Hyde did a very good job as Godric (even though I gave him a full ration of poop for not blinking). I thought he pulled off being the oldest badest vampire in the room who just happens to be in the youngest body quite well, and I’m hoping we don’t find out next week he got blown to bits.

Hey speaking of good jobs, Michelle Forbes has been great as Maryann this season. She’s creepy just about every minute she’s on the screen, and you can tell she’s having a blast.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and see you next week.