Marnie the witch calls her inferiors “dog.” It’s unclear if it’s because they are related to animals or because she is just cool like that. A chill beard dog helps break her out of prison. Pam, still cursed, beats the shit out of Tara and her girlfriend. For a couple of cage fighters they sure give up pretty easily! The only thing stronger than Pam’s will for revenge is her hatred of being seen without her face on. Jesus and Lafayette are still stuck in “Mexico” which seems to be somewhere near “Louisiana” on the Malibu backlot. Jesus’ dad’s Gregg Allman wig looks like it chafes.
Speaking of the Allman Brothers, the werewolves are having a mountain jam! Debbie gets mad at Alcide for moping around about Sookie when he should be hell-bent for leather around the bonfire with the rest of the pack. Alcide and Debbie go looking for Sookie and then find her getting romantically boned by Eric in the mossy forest clearing we last saw them boning in at the end of last week’s episode.
With Tara finally back in Bon Temps, it was only a matter of time before she became horrifically traumatized again. Which is too bad, because I enjoyed the five seconds of carefree Tara (aka “Toni”) we got. Now she’s back to pushing everyone away, dumping her hot girlfriend and skulking around outside of Merlotte’s sobbing. Jason is thinking about doing Jessica during a Diet Coke break/push-up sesh. Hoyt shows up to play rape counselor. Jason seems concerned that Hoyt will be able to read his mind, because Jason is so stupid he might think that is how it works (also, his sister reads minds).
Jessica is at Bill’s for a slumber party, where Bill is doing an expositional monologue explaining Marnie’s backstory and setting her up as this season’s big villain. Basically we are heading right into a vampire-witch Civil War. “When has anything been held back by improbability” on this show, Bill? Including the use of silver as a verb. Silver that, True Blood. Eric and Sookie go for broke on the Skinemax multipositional sex montage. Apparently Eric and Sookie rolled in a sex-katamari all the way from the forest onto the rug in front of the stairs. Eric is SPRUNG as HELL. Thought Sookie might bounce him all “yeahhhh I have to workkkk” but of course she’s into snuggling with brainwashed Eric (who reminds us of Edward Scissorhands).
Pam gets vampire plastic surgery from a thoroughly unlicensed technician. Sam Merlotte goes to pick up his brother Tommy from a minimal hospital set. Bill appears at Sookie’s house, where Eric is wearing a very boyfriendy-looking plaid flannel shirt. Does letting Sookie domesticate him mean Eric’s wardrobe switched over instantly from warm-ups to grown-man shit? Is it weird if I miss the basketball shorts? Tara goes looking for Pam, because when there is danger Tara has no choice but to go right towards it. Instead she finds Marnie talking about herself in the third person. Marnie knows how to wrangle Tara into joining up against the vampires that have made their lives hell.
All the vampires are engaging in the pseudosexual trust exercise ritual of “silvering,” wherein they allow a close caretaker to tie them up in chains and hurt them in the name of love. It’s meant to protect them against Marnie, who is on the warpath and apparently has the power to make every vamp head into the sun. Luna the shifter horse/teacher greets Sam’s friendly phone call with the anger of somebody who accidentally banged his evil brother but doesn’t know it yet. Tara tries to round up some vigilantes for the witch side. Luckily Bon Temps is full of Manson girls (and boys) willing to take on stupid dangerous causes. Bill tries to explain their vampire straits to Jessica, but she’s passive-aggressively starting to see the true death as the best way to opt out of having to deal with dumping Hoyt.
Sookie is not going to let Eric die without another fan-servicey sex montage. Can you blame her? It took this many seasons to get to consummating, they need a week on a tropical island at least. If this show were nothing but Sookie-Eric vacation sex for an hour, the ratings would only go up. Sam confronts Luna and the mystical maraca of inner revelation sounds when he realizes that Tommy has been impersonating him all the way to the bedroom. Sheriff Frank Sobotka hopes his date-night plans won’t be thrown akimbo by the impending vampire holocaust. Good luck there. Lafayette is getting weird ghost vibes in the kitchen at Merlotte’s. Is it his own crazy visions or the devil baby? I do not know.
Debbie asks Alcide if he’s in love with Sookie, because he is totally doing it differently after their little brush with voyeurism. Alcide sounds sincere by the end, but his first few denials were total defensive Don Draper. All the witches show up at the library for the vampire war. Marnie is now “Antonia,” which is different from Tara being “Toni,” although it’s notable that they are both way better at eye-screwing as their alter egos. Marnie shrieks as her coven assembles. Is this a mean parody of feminism?
Sam gives Tommy a warning-choke. Jason gets to Sookie’s as the witch-tornado starts. The witches chant, vampires tremble in their beds, people catch on fire and a bunch of medium intentional physical comedy ensues. Jessica is pissed. She has as much blood-lust as she has regular lust-lust. She breaks out of her “silver” chains, then crawls to the Vampiretology center to open the secret door. God help us if she goes to Fairyland.