True Blood: Southern Comforts

There are reasons why some Southern traditions die hard.  Perhaps like most traditions, it’s a way to acknowledge the past while finding comfort in the familiar things.  We find Sookie and the rest of Bon Temps having to do exactly that after another murder hits close to home with the brutal death of Grandmother Stackhouse.  As Sam and Bill show up to the house, arguing over who should watch over Sookie, and the police arrive to investigate, Sookie is in a state of shock.  After she reads the minds of the police and their various theories of who might have committed this murder, including Bill Compton and even Jason Stackhouse, Sookie goes inside, gets on her knees, and cleans up the blood on her grandmother’s kitchen floor because she would never have wanted people to see it in that state.  She then goes to bed, sure only of her strong feelings for Bill and that they are returned.

As the townspeople arrive to Sookie’s grandmother’s house harboring morbid thoughts and carrying platters of casseroles and cornbread, Sookie reads their minds which chiefly harbor the belief that her friendship with Bill led to her grandmother’s death.  Sookie finally screams at Mrs. Fortenberry to put down her grandmother’s pecan pie, and Tara takes her upstairs for some “girl talk”.  Naturally, Tara also has Lafayette stop serving sweet tea to the guests so that he can accompany Tara and Sookie for their vent session.  They sit upstairs, talking about the horrible town gossips who have no lives.  Lafayette offers Sookie a Valium to help her get to sleep later.  Tara stays to comfort Sookie for a while.  Jason, who has been with his new companion all night and who has ignored the calls on his cell phone about his grandmother, finally goes to work.  There, Rene tells him what happened the night before and he races off to his grandmother’s house where he storms up the stairs and slaps Sookie across the face, blaming her for what happened.  Tara screams at him that she doesn’t even know who he is anymore and pushes him out of the room.  Outside, Detective Bellefleur questions Jason about whether or not he had anything to do with his grandmother’s death.  Jason, outraged, uses the residual strength from taking V to shove Bellefleur down.  Sookie finally takes the Valium to get to sleep.  Bill has a nightmare that someone is choking Sookie in her sleep.  He waits till dark then races up to her bedroom where he finds her alive.  Worried about her, he stands underneath her window, drinking Tru Blood.

The next day, there is a traditional Southern funeral scene in an old cemetery underneath grand weeping willow trees where Grandmother Stackhouse is laid to rest.  Everyone is dressed in their Sunday best and past secrets turn up as well, including Grandmother Stackhouse’s estranged, wheelchair-ridden brother, Uncle Bartlett, and Tara’s mother who actually gives a kind but slightly slurred speech about the woman who sheltered and fed her daughter the way she never could.  Sookie also tries to give a moving speech about her grandmother, only to lose her temper in the face of the thoughts of the townspeople whom she tells to “Shut the f*ck up!”  She runs off and is chased by Jason who regrets having slapped her.  Afterwards, Jason struggles with himself to give up the V as he takes out one of the blood stained tissues Lafayette gave him.  He throws the tissue out, but like an addict, crawls to the ground to find it and slips it into his mouth.  Potent from his second shot of V, Jason returns to his companion from the night before to find comfort between her legs.

Tara, confused after seeing her mother act like a normal human being at the funeral, finds comfort in the arms of Sam after the two decide they don’t want to be alone.  Sookie goes home to find comfort by eating the last of her grandmother’s pecan pie, which she slowly eats as warm tears drip into the pie plate.  But Sookie, perhaps realizing she must be a woman now, also seeks comfort in someone’s arms when she slips into an old-fashioned, flowing nightgown and runs barefoot through the dark night.  I know, I know, where would someone even find an old-fashioned, white cotton nightgown-or do I call it a negligee-but hey, let’s just go with the fantasy we’ve been waiting for since the beginning of the show.  Bill, sensing Sookie is close and looking especially sexy, opens his door and waits for her.  There is that pivotal, slow motion scene in which she leaps into his arms and he carries her over his threshold and off to a dimly, lit, private room.  He undresses her, and smelling her blood, his fangs protrude from his mouth.  She is not scared, and begs him to go ahead and bite her.  He thrusts his fangs into her neck, and the blood gushes out in between his lips…  Shhhh, I just don’t want to ruin this moment.

True Blood, Episode 2.6 “Cold Ground” (originally aired October 12, 2008)

Sundays at 9PM/8C, HBO

Photographs courtesy of imdbpro.com