True Blood: Fang-Bangers and Erection Night Highlights

While the world currently obsesses over the political theater that is the U.S. election, it’s nice to know the closest True Blood gets to politics is last week’s episode in which Jason Stackhouse danced around on videotape in a Laura Bush mask.  We return to Bon Temps this week just in time for Sookie to scream her head off after having discovered Dawn Green’s lifeless body.  Jason, holding flowers in an attempt to make up with Dawn, is stunned to see Sookie and a neighbor standing over her.  The neighbor, like everyone else in the area, recalls the fight that took place between Dawn and Jason the previous night and looks at him with accusingly.  Soon, the police arrive to investigate.  After the neighbor tells them about Jason’s fight with Dawn, including how he called her a bad B-word, they take him into custody.  Jason tries to argue his way out of it, telling them he is too pretty to go to prison.  Sitting in the back of the police car, he realizes he still has the vial of V Lafayette gave him.  He drinks the whole thing in order to keep it from the police.  Outside, nosy neighbors have swarmed to the scene, gossiping about what might have happened and that Jason is the prime suspect.  Sam arrives to console Sookie after the police take Jason away.  He mentions possibly shutting down Merlotte’s for the day, but Sookie tells him that will just deny people a good, stiff drink on a day when they could use it the most.

In the interrogation room, Sheriff Dearborne (William Sanderson who you may remember as Larry from Newhart) and his officer, Andy, grill Jason about the events leading up to Dawn’s murder.  Andy accuses Jason of getting off on the murders to which Jason replies that he thinks Andy gets off on them.  The Sheriff can’t conceal his laughter, to Andy’s irritation.  But before they can resume the questioning, Jason has to run off to the bathroom after his pants swell up.  The Sherriff tells Andy he doesn’t believe Stackhouse could have committed the murders, because he doesn’t have fangs.  Tara shows up at the station and asks Dearborne and Andy if they ever officially read Jason his rights.  She continues to intimidate them with law jargon they didn’t think she knew and is able to take Jason home after she tells them he was with her the night before.

Back at granny’s house, granny pleads with Sookie to use the gifts God gave her to help prove Jason’s innocence.  Sookie promises she will try and goes to Merlotte’s to work her shift.  While Sookie serves up plates of greasy fries and other deep-fried fare at work, she reads the minds of the clientele, most of whom have horrible thoughts in their heads about Jason, Dawn, and the vampires that might actually be behind the murders of the “fang-banger” women as well.  Tara shows up for work, and Sam asks to talk to her about their friends with benefits incident.  Tara doesn’t want to talk about it, telling him nothing happened, and to play along with her alibi to the police that she was with Jason.  When Sam is upset about her covering for Jason, she insists that Jason is a good person.  Cut to the next scene where Jason watches porn and masturbates so long that he actually develops a blister on his thumb.  His super-strength erection is not showing any signs of “deflating,” so he decides to go to Merlotte’s to ask Lafayette what to do.  At Merlotte’s Sookie asks Jason if he committed the murder, which he denies.  He rushes to the kitchen to talk to Lafayette who calls him a dizzy m***** f***** for not taking the one to two drops he instructed him to take.

Bill arrives at Merlotte’s to the cold stares of the townspeople and requests a bottle of O negative Tru Blood.  Arlene the waitress is hostile and tells him they only have A, despite the fact that they were fully stocked with all blood types.  Sookie catches her and takes a bottle of O negative to Bill and asks to speak with him in private.  She asks Bill to take her to the vampire bar in Shreveport, so she can question the vampires about Maudette and Dawn.  When she gives him a strange look after learning the bar is called Fangtasia, he defensively tells her puns are the oldest and highest forms of vampire humor.  You would think after all these centuries, vampires would come up with a better pun than Fangtasia.  He agrees to take her, and they both decide it is not a date, confirming that relationships can be complicated, even with the undead.

On their non-date date, Sookie is still pretty gussied up in a flowery, low-cut-but-still-respectable dress, and Bill, reminiscent of a high end car commercial, drives a luxury sedan while listening to opera music.  He tells her he promised her grandmother he would keep her safe, but he cannot assure her safety at the vampire bar since she looks like “vampire bait”.  They exchange longing glances.  Sookie and Bill enter Fangtasia where goth vampire go-go dancers dance to Blue Oyster Cult and Pam, the vamp manager, cards Sookie because Fangtasia does not serve minors on any capacity.  Sookie questions Longshadow, the vampire bartender, who recognizes Maudette and Dawn, but refuses to provide any more information—except for the fact that Maudette wanted to die.  Sookie and Bill sit with their drinks and watch Eric, head vampire and the “oldest thing” in the bar, who sits upon a throne while humans throw themselves at him in an attempt to be “turned”.  Sookie reads some of the human customers’ minds, only to find all they want is some fang-banging.  Bill, noticing that Eric has been watching Sookie, tells her “oh no” as they are both summoned to speak with him.  Sookie shows Eric the pictures, which he recognizes.  He admits he found Maudette too pathetic, but he had been with Dawn.  Eric asks Bill if Sookie is “his” and this time, Sookie has no problem with his answer, “She is mine.”  Eric says that is a shame.  Their conversations get cut short when the police arrive, just after Sookie warned them the police were on their way, and that Tarin, one of the vampires, had just attacked one of the humans in the bathroom.  Bill carries Sookie out, and they head back.

Tara, after finding Jason in Merlotte’s freezer with a T-bone steak pressed up against his now eggplant-like erection, takes him to the hospital.  The doctor asks if Jason is on any drugs including V.  Jason finally admits to it.  The doctor tells him he will have to remove all the blood from his penis, and that there is no time to put him under with anesthetics.  Jason begs Tara to stay, clutching her hand during the procedure.  On the way home, Jason is passed out in the car, and Tara recalls her childhood running from her drunk mother.  She ran to the Stackhouse place where Jason let her in and saved her from her mother who was trying to beat her for throwing out her liquor.  She smiled to herself, thinking about how he helped her.

Back in Bill’s car, Sookie asks Bill to cut off the Cambodian pop music he is playing and to pull over for some quiet.  They talk and are about to kiss when a state trooper shows up and asks them if they were at Fangtasia, the nearby bar that had been raided earlier.  The officer leans in with his flashlight, asking if Sookie has any bite marks on her.  To Sookie and the officer’s dismay, Bill coldly tells him that he should ask to shine the flashlight between her legs for bite marks, as vampires often like to bite near the femoral artery where blood flows more freely and vampires don’t have to suck as hard.  After the aggravated police officer calls Bill “son”, Bill glamours him into giving him his gun, telling him that he did not appreciate being called son.  Bill points the gun at the officer’s head, warning him to be nicer to vampires.  He keeps the gun and drives off, leaving the shocked officer to whimper and pee his pants.

The episode ends with Arlene asking Sam to walk her to her car.  He tells her she should never hesitate to ask him to walk her out.  Just before he leaves, he grabs some latex gloves and sticks the gloves in his pockets.  Later, he sneaks into Dawn’s apartment and goes into her bedrom.  As the disturbing image of Sam stretched out in Dawn’s bed and rolling around, sniffing the pillows and the sheets combines with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “That Smell,”  the show fades to closing credits.  It was bad enough when we just thought Sam barked in his sleep!

This week introduced yet another set of vampires and a whole new arena in which they frolic.  It was nice to take a break from Bill’s eerie mansion, Merlotte’s, and Liam’s, Malcolm’s, and Diane’s 70s style “nest.”  Eric, the willowy Nordic who doesn’t appear to have as much power or age as he was described to, may eventually play a larger role in the grand scheme of things—particularly with Liam, Malcolm, and Diane.  It’s also worth considering that Sam—like so many others resentful of women like Maudette and Dawn and their fang-banging ways—may be the killer behind the fang-bang murders after all.  Wouldn’t it be nice to kill two birds with one stone by finally learning the identity of the fang-bang murderer and eliminating the relatively futile Sam whose only point in the plot is to pine away for Sookie?  Finally, we discover why on earth Tara is so obsessed with Jason, and as usual, it all goes back to childhood.  Who would’ve thought the adorable, blonde kid in Tara’s memory scene would turn out to be the V guzzling sex-a-holic who actually had to stick a frozen T-bone steak on his penis this week!  Lastly, it looks like Sookie and Bill have played out all the on again, off again antics two love birds can go through.  While Sookie may have her doubts, she clearly wouldn’t try to look like vampire bait around Bill if she didn’t have feelings.  And if Bill didn’t have feelings, he wouldn’t be so possessive of her around other vamps like Eric and try to impress her with imported pop music.

Season 1, Episode 4, “Escape from Dragon House”, originally aired 9/28/2008

Sundays at 9PM/8C, HBO
Photographs courtesy of IMDbPro