Can you believe we’re at episode eight already?! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that means only four more episodes to go. Sigh. Anyway, tonight’s episode is titled “Somebody That I Used to Know.” I have to tell you that I was dreading this episode. Why, you ask? Because, I thought I might be forced to listen to that awful Gotye song, you know the one that’s playing in a seemingly endless loop on the radio. Doesn’t it sound like it was recorded in an aquarium? Seriously, the sound effects in that song sound like sonar from an old Jacques Cousteau documentary. Fortunately, there are a ton of songs with the title and this version was by Elliot Smith, another indie rock and folk artist. Will we see people that we used to know?

We have all read the plot summaries. We all know who is responsible for the vision in this week’s episode. And this is it, the episode we have been waiting for. I know you all probably had the same fear I did. What if the episode sucks? I have to admit I was nervous over what the episode was going to present. Steve worked so hard, after all, this is the episode that Anna said made her a widow for a month. So, was Steve’s effort worth the wait? What, did you think I was going to tell you up front? Oh, you’re so silly, no such luck. Read on fellow viewers …

We open with the asshole bigot that worked in the hospital being taken away by Andy, but not before imparting some redneck, bigot philosophy on Sam. Basically, that asshole bigots travel in packs and therefore his arrest won’t have much of an impact. Sadly, Sam realizes “butt plug” is probably right. Luna is having a bit of a tense moment. Well, who can blame her? She’s been shot, her daughter’s been shot at and now a hospital worker who is supposed to be there to help is part of the pack of assholes who put her there to begin with. Sam tries to reassure her that he has everything in hand and leaves walking past Deputy Gomer. After Sam leaves, Luna feels powerless and helpless and in a fit of temper shifts into Sam.

The vampire party has now moved back to the Authority HQ. Everyone is still pretty toasted, all except Eric, who stays in the elevator after everyone dances out. I will say it again, it’s a shame Bill is such a solemn character. Steve has such a lovely smile. I can count on one hand how many times he has genuinely smiled in the entire five seasons. Anyway, don’t Bill and Salome seem to be getting along famously? Russell spits on the portrait of Roman, Kibwe realizes that Thomas Edison was the fucking man and Steve Newlin and Russell play ride the pony, while Rosalyn has an intimate, babbling moment with an encrypted wall. All this time Eric is just watching, he then finds Bill, turns him around and asks him what the hell is happening and Bill shares his epiphany with Eric. I feel kinda bad, Bill looks so excited. I hate to see his bubble burst, but burst it should, and Eric is the pin right now. He tells Bill they indeed saw something, but that they were all “high as fucking kites.” Bill has been officially deflated and he realizes that he was hallucinating. It’s sad though, Bill was happy, he had something to believe in again. Bill is a man adrift … he’s lost Sookie, he’s said goodbye to Jessica; everyone he has loved has either left or been taken away. He has nothing. Like most people who are taken in by religious zealotry, it’s now while he is sad and vulnerable, he’s at his weakest. I will get back to this, I promise. Suffice to say, this scene even though short, was well done by Steve and Askars, they play very well together. I don’t play well, but that’s for another time.

Sookie is still trying to empty herself of fairy light. She is indiscriminately throwing lightning every where and accidentally hits Jason. I laughed out loud when Sookie asks Jason if he’s okay and he says that he’s fine, he just got hit in the head. There are times in this show when a character fulfills his potential. Jason is a so-so cop, a lousy boyfriend and by Hoyt’s estimation I’m guessing he wouldn’t be judged best friend of the year. But as a big brother (when not on V), Jason is awesome. He tells Sookie that her being different is nothing short of miraculous. Her abilities have shown her real love (Jason referring to Bill, woot woot Jason!) and have given her a chance to see and hear Gran again. To deny what she really is, is to deny their parents. Her special power may be what they need to bring their parents’ killer to justice. They then have a giggle about Mike Spencer (coroner) broadcasting his foot fetish into Sookie’s head. It was an adorable moment between a brother and sister. I think Jason’s intelligence must be on a dimmer switch.

Luna realizes she has shifted into Sam and is totally freaked out. Sam/Luna walks past Deputy Gomer who looks quite perplexed, since he just saw Sam leave a few minutes prior. Sam/Luna walk past and in a fem snit he/she tells Deputy Gomer to mind his own business. Sam/Luna find clothes to wear out and for once in the history of TV, they don’t fit. Don’t you hate it in the movies when someone finds clothes to wear and they’re always a perfect fit? By the way, the sweatshirt that Sam/Luna finds says “Free mustache rides”. Oh yeah, nice ass Sam!

Jessica is at Fangtasia and some random guy walks up to her and tells her his blood is “like a milkshake”. Ewww … Anyway, Jess must have a sweet tooth, because she leads him from the dance floor. This just seems way too convenient given what we know about coming attractions.

We find ourselves back in the Authority rec room and mostly everyone is still riding the high from Lilithstock. I get the impression most of them thought the Lilith blood ritual was bullshit, but the LSD high they got from the blood shifted their perception of reality and now they’re seeing the hallucinations as real events. Russell, in his post high state, delivers one of my all time favorite lines; “Praise Lilith! Praise Jesus! Praise Moses’ cock!” Indeed! Nora and the rest of the vampire-tripping clan are seeing the events of the evening as an excuse to rationalize their behavior as Lilith’s will come to pass. Eric and the newly awakened Bill are troubled by the nights’ festivities. In fact, while Nigel the baby eater recounts the gastronomic joy of ingesting a child’s blood, Bill starts to shift in his seat uncomfortably. Salome orders Steve Newlin to fetch snacks for everyone including a baby for Nigel and Eric takes this as his cue to leave. He asks Bill if he is joining him. Bill declines and stays, Nora waves goodbye to Eric.

Oh, My! Alcide is getting a taste of Rikki and then some. I have to say, Holy Shit! This scene was hot! Wow! And while I think Joe is really handsome and he’s not my cup of tea, I was totally on board with Alcide. Hmm … must be the direction of the scene. N’est-ce pas? Oh yeah, Alcide and Rikki may be a couple now.

Bill comes into the spider web that is Salome’s room and finds she has a new victim, the mother of a four month old child. Salome wants to share her with Bill as a snack. Bill tries to bow out by simply saying he is not hungry, but Salome is in full religious guilt mode now. She tells Bill he does not have the right to refuse Lilith’s will, that their night in the club was not an anomaly, but the new way of things to come. Bill finds his voice and tells Salome that he will not be bullied, he has fathered children in the past and cannot be a part of this. Salome, being the rotten, power hungry, manipulative bitch that she is, tells Bill that if he really loved his children he would have turned them. He then could have kept them forever. This cues a flashback for Bill recollecting his daughter, Sarah’s death …

Bill is at the foot of his daughter’s bed, essentially there to say goodbye. Sarah is made aware of a visitor. She looks at her father whom she recognizes immediately and asks if she now is in heaven, because Bill looks so young. Bill gently replies to his angel, no this is not heaven, he is simply as she remembers him when she was a child. Bill tells Sarah that he has missed her “every hour of every day” and Sarah, trying to hang onto life with everything she has wants to know why her father looks so young. Bill tries to explain in a gently vague way that he has been shown how to live longer than was thought possible. When Sarah hears this she grabs onto the thought like a drowning woman, she wants her father to show her, to make her like him. We all know Bill’s thoughts on being vampire: for a long time he was filled with self loathing and felt that he was an abomination. Bill tells the crying and pleading Sarah that immortality is a curse and Sarah responds now by begging her father to make her like him, screaming that she can feel herself rot. Bill tries to pull away … you see in his face a myriad of emotions, namely grief and guilt. We flash back to Salome’s room where the young mother’s cries echo into Sarah’s.

Salome goes on and on about blasphemy and personally I don’t think Bill hears much of what she is saying. I told you I would get back to Bill and now I will. You see, I think this is Bill’s tipping point. Bill was not able to save his son as he was already dead when he visited with Lorena and Bill felt it wasn’t right to turn Sarah. Bill has tried to rebuild his life many times around the wreckage that it became after his turning. Bill has nothing, no support system at all. As I said before, anyone and anything that Bill has loved or believed in has been taken away or has left. Bill is walking alone in a cloudy land of confusion and grief. Whatever progress Bill has made with regaining and retaining his humanity was fragile. Salome presenting Bill with this young mother and Bill facing what he may perceive as his various sins, was enough to snap the tether that was holding his fraying humanity together. Bill reluctantly walks to the bed and while the light flickers in the background, we can imagine Bill’s humanity flickering too. Is the light in him dying? Is this whole thing an act of great deliberation on his part … is Bill a mole? I don’t think so. Bill’s emotional crash has been a long time in coming. Bill looks sad and resigned as he takes the woman’s vein. Bill has fallen down the rabbit hole. Salome prays.

Hoyt is traveling with the asshole bigot road show and they take him to a ramshackle house in the woods. The redneck bigot party explains to Hoyt they have a present for him. We all know that it’s Jessica. She is silvered and beaten up. How that happened, I don’t know. She took down a friggin’ werewolf two seasons ago and now a group of redneck bigots get the best of her? Maybe, without Bill around to continue her training her fighting skills got rusty? Anyway, the assholes tell Hoyt that he’ll be locked up in the room until he shoots Jess with their wooden bullets. Hoyt doesn’t kill Jessica, instead he tells her how hurt he is about her sleeping with Jason and how she broke his heart. Jess explains she is sorry that she doesn’t love him anymore and she tells him she tried to love him and it just didn’t come. Hoyt shoots the gun, the asshole from the bar runs in and Jess breaks his neck. Jessica can’t follow Hoyt as it’s daytime, so Hoyt says he will go for help. Jessica thanks him, to which he replies ”Fuck you!” Okay, so I guess the reconciliation is off for now.

Sookie is in the Fae bar telling Claude that she wants their help in finding who killed her and Jason’s parents. Claude asks Sookie if she really wants to use her special powers. Sookie answers that she didn’t even know she had special powers until he brought it up. Sookie tells him a little loudly that he doesn’t know what it’s like to have your parents killed by vampires. Oops, she used the “V” word in the Fae bar, everyone gasps and looks around. Claude gets all pissy about Sookie throwing the “V” word around and tells her that even though their families are bonded, she can’t come traipsing in expecting help. Claudette, one of Claude’s many sisters (god someone needs to buy a baby name book in that house), says she knows of a way they can help. They are all going to meet at the bridge where her parents were killed at noon (Why is it always at noon?).

Lafayette is driving back from Don Bartolo’s house of fun. He looks in the rear view mirror and sees the scars on his lips from the not so successful visit with Jesus’ grandfather. Lafayette finds not only the first aid kit in the car, but sadly, Jesus’ ID tag. Lafayette dabs some V on his lips, they heal. Jesus appears in the seat next to Lafayette and even though it may not be real, they hold hands as Lafayette drives off.

Andy is interrogating the asshole bigot that worked in the hospital with little success. Sam tells Andy he thinks maybe he can do better which starts out really funny. Sam starts by taking his clothes off which makes the asshole bigot think Sam is gay. Good god, if he were, he’d do way better than that idiot. Sam shifts into a cobra and scares the crap and a confession out of the guy and he gives up Jessica’s location. In the meantime, Sam/Luna walks into the police station and it’s just hilarious. Sam Trammell is so good here. He hits the sweet spot in coming off as a woman without it being campy. Sam/Luna is scared because she can’t seem to shift back into her real form. Sam does have a really nice scene with himself? Andy with a sigh of exasperation declares, “I hate this goddam town”. I feel you Andy, just the reason I’m not looking into any realty in your area.

Sookie and Jason and Claude and the Claudettes are explaining what they are going to do. Everything is made of energy as the halfling Einstein explained through e=MC2 … that matter is frozen energy and that all life events create energy that ripples time and that can be accessed by participants or people connected to the participants. So in effect, if you’re connected to the life event you can peek in via the time ripple. Sookie will see the event through her mother’s eyes. Which she does. Sookie watches her father being killed as her mother experienced it and then Sookie sees her mother killed through the vampire’s eyes. The vampire smells the band aid and you see Sookie acting like she can smell it too, as though she is the vampire. Claudine appears and tells Warlow, ”Leave the girl alone!” and Warlow gets zapped and Sookie hits the ground.

Oh no, Arlene and Holly are waiting outside of Lafayette’s house! Lafayette rolls up and the girls launch into why they want his help. Lafayette, back to his former fabulousness, tells them unless they are there to tell him he won the lottery they should just fuck off, he’s going to go inside and get high. Sounds like a plan to me. Arlene and Holly tell Lafayette how fucked up Terry is and the reason for it. Lafayette tells them Terry is off his meds and they agree, but that they want him to perform a fake seance to act as a sort of placebo, I suppose. Lafayette is done with bullshit and will do it … for a price. Arlene offers fifty dollars and Lafayette tells her three hundred. Snap! God Lafayette, I’m so glad you’re back! I missed you! They have the fake seance, but in the middle of the shenanigans it becomes real. The lady who was shot in Iraq appears and tells Terry and Patrick through Lafayette, that they can void the curse by one killing the other. Terry and Patrick run out.

Jessica is still in the bigot house waiting for Hoyt when Sam, Andy and Sam/Luna run in. It seems, Hoyt never made it to get help and I’m not sure that he ever planned to. Later, Hoyt sees someone he knows in a truck. He seems relieved to see them, until they aim a gun at his face. Back at the bigot house, Sam/Luna can smell that another woman has been in the room. One who is apparently fat, and likes Cheetos. God, for a minute I thought I was going to have to come up with an alibi. But then Sam/Luna says she’s a smoker. Whew, I’m off the hook! Sam/Luna grabs her side and screams in pain.

Sookie is explaining to Claude what she saw and Claude is confused as to how Sookie physically bonded to a vampire. Jason wants revenge and Claude is urging caution, as being physically bonded in this way can be dangerous. Ah yes, Danger thy name is Sookie.

Tara is working at Fangtasia and a girl she knows from high school named Tracy is there. Tracy is condescending and irritating. Tara makes her aware of her new situation. Tara being Tara and Tracy being a bitch, have words, which Pam overhears. Pam makes a great show of dressing down Tara and telling Tracy her drink is on the house. It was all just for show, as Pam takes Tara down to Eric’s former torture holding area and we find Tracy trussed up. Pam glamours Tracy into thinking Tara is her hero and that she is now Tara’s blood slave. It’s nice. I don’t get the big deal everyone is making of Pam and Tara. This scene was one of the best of what we’ve had thus far. I just think all this Pam is too much of a good thing. She was reliable for a good zinger and now it’s like a steady diet of cheesecake.

The time has come for Alcide and his play for control of the pack. Okay to sum up: Apparently to wrestle control of the pack there is a hunt. Whomever gets the prey first is pack leader. JD gets a college track star to be the prey. The kid seems resistant to this plan as does Alcide. Alcide is ready to forfeit to save the boys life and Rikki gives him the stink eye like she thinks he’s a pussy or something. But the real horror is on Martha’s face. I was hoping I was gonna like her and I’m thinking I do. JD accepts Alcide’s forfeit, but decides to hunt the college kid anyway. JD goes to hunt the boy and Alcide goes to hunt JD. It all ends with Alcide finding the boy and sending him on his merry way and JD beating the shit out of Alcide. Just before JD is about to kill Alcide, Martha stops him. I’m thinking I see a lady packmaster.

Nora is praying at the altar that hold Lilith’s blood. Eric comes in and tries to convince Nora that he has loved her for six hundred years and that this behavior is not her. Eric points to the vial of blood and around the rec room, telling her that all of it has clouded her mind. Nora tells Eric that Lilith chose this path for her and Eric tells her that “No, Salome chose this path for you and that Lilith doesn’t exist.” Eric tells Nora that he saw Godric in the club and on the night she was made he promised Godric he would always watch over her and protect her. Nora looks as though she may be considering what Eric is saying. Nora then goes off on how Godric was at one time a pure vampire, but toward the end he was an apologetic blasphemer. Nora makes the mistake of saying “Fuck Godric!” Eric grabs her by the throat, but not before asking her what has happened to her. Eric releases her and Nora touches Eric’s face and tells him that Lilith will show him the way. Eric looks as though he’s about to cry. He has lost his sister.

Sam has Sam/Luna lying down with his/her head in his lap. Sam/Luna is convinced she is going to die. Sam is trying to cheer her up telling her she needs to live for Emma and making jokes about arguments they have had. Sam moves in for a kiss and I thought for a second he was going to, well … never mind. The chaste kiss on the forehead forces the shift back to Luna and she vomits and all is well.

Sookie is fresh from the shower and while brushing her hair she see’s the vampire, Warlow, telling her he is coming for her. Sookie screams as only she can.

Bill and Eric enter the Authority rec room as the council is brainstorming ideas about how to abort the Mainstream movement. Nora acknowledges while main streaming is a global problem the key is to start locally. They also have a high ranking member of the British Parliament that is willing to help and with that Rosalyn chimes in that she knows some members of the Duma will help. Russell and Steve Newlin are having a hilarious conversation about Hong Kong and their men with British accents giving massages that make you feel like James Bond. Russell assures Salome or “Sugar Lumps” that he is all ears. Kibwe wants to bankroll vigilantes into staking Mainstreamers on sight. Then out of the blue Bill says, “Tru Blood.” His plan is simple and really quite ingenious. Bill suggests bombing the five factories that make Tru Blood, which will force the Mainstreamers to feed on humans … ”as they were meant to.” Eric asks Bill what he is doing, to which Bill answers,“Evolving.” God, he looked sexy saying that. Eric is shocked. We close …

What did I think of the episode? I think it’s one of the best I’ve seen. Not just because I fancy the director, but because we saw insight into the characters we haven’t seen before. The actors all shined in this episode. Sam Trammell and Askars especially, and of course, Steve. There were subtleties to all the performances that were brilliant. How Steve pulled all this off and still offered a terrific performance himself is beyond me. I am not bothered by Bill possibly being dark for a while. Like I said before, Steve is a great actor, give him something to do besides look sad and pine for Sookie.

I know I was very wordy this week, but I was on a roll regarding Bill. He deserves the attention. I keep picturing him like the mom in “Poltergeist”, when she falls into the pool towards the end of the movie. The pool is not yet finished and it’s basically a well dug mud hole. When the mom falls in, she can’t get out. She has nothing to grab onto but mud, and she keeps sliding back in. She only gets out when she has something to hold on to. Sound familiar? What are your thoughts? Am I full of shit or what? As always I want to know what you think. Until next week …

GIF Credits:

Vampire High

Sam’s ass

Alcide’s ass

Bill and Sarah

Andy

Tara

Bill “evolves”