True Blood: Release Me

Another week of madness and mayhem begin in…

BONTEMPS

They don’t waste anytime picking up where we left off at that loud and raucous orgy. It looks like Sam’s a goner until Andy stumbles upon the strange scene and fires his gun. Of course, the man can only come through when he has absolutely no idea how much he’s helped. Sam breaks away, slaps Daphne and then runs with Maryann and fake head in hot pursuit. He spots an owl and channels something he’s never done before by shifting into an owl and flying away…for now.

Wakey, wakey! Tara’s finally normal again and wondering how the hell they got from following clues into the field to laying on the couch in the morning. Eggs thinks it must have been the marijuana, and she thinks if that’s what pot does to her lately that she should sober up. In the end it’s all hugs and kisses though and not too much more pondering because the best feeling is just that he gets her.

Out at the lake, Sam confronts Daphne about her betrayal. She says that Maryann could have killed her when she was scared and lost and deserving, but she saved her and showed her love instead, so basically Daphne would do anything for Maryann. Apparently when all those people around Maryann get all black-eyed and loopy, it’s because she’s filling them with her essence, and she can treat them like puppets. Other supernaturals can’t be taken over that way. They have free will. She thinks Maryann’s a God or as close to one as we’d get on earth. She’s really a Maenad which according to the Greeks were hand maidens of Dionysus. He was also called the horned god which reminds them of Satan. I never learned that in school, but I’ll run with it. In the end, the biggest thing is that she’s an immortal.

Maryann gets home and freaks Tara out with the dead rabbit in her hands. It’s clear that Tara isn’t as clueless as Eggs, but the light bulb just isn’t going off yet. When she gets to work, though, Diane pulls her aside and tells her that she blacked out and potentially date raped Terry and that now he’s acting all weird.

Then Andy appears screaming about how they’re all devil worshippers and that he saw them all. Of course, they just laugh but Sam’s looking on all twitchy and sweaty because he knows the truth.

Too bad Daphne can’t see the truth because the next time Daphne sees Maryann, it’s not a happy reunion since she uses Eggs to kill her.

THE FELLOWSHIP

Eric and Sophie stand outside the Fellowship headquarters. She felt her lover in danger but knows it’s passed for now. Eric seems to think they’re nothing, but Sophie knows how quickly they are growing. They talk about her love for Hugo. She says that they love more strongly, possibly because of their fleeting lives. To me, it’s an interesting juxtaposition between the conversation Sookie and Hugo had last episode about being in love with a vampire.

Inside, Sarah’s so happy she’s crying because now she  knows what real love is, and she feels closer to God than ever. The look on Jason’s face is the look of a boy who doesn’t know who sex turned so quickly into the biggest mistake of his life. She wants to tell her husband ASAP, but Jason does some sweet talking about how he has guns and there’s the impending lockdown and holds her at bay for now.

Sookie sees their lockup as an opportunity to scream out for Godric, but there’s no answer. It’s clear that since the Newlins new they were coming that they’re must be a traitor in the Texas vampire nest. Steve and Gabe visit their little dungeon, and Hugo just starts spilling the beans about who they are and why they’re there. Great partner in crime right? When Steve hears the last name Stackhouse, he puts two and two together that he’s her brother and high tails it out of there.

Well at least Jason held her off until he can get out of dodge, or thought he could. Steve picks him up before he can even walk off the compound. (It’s strange calling church grounds a compound!)

Gabe holds Jason at knife point while Steve berates him for being a traitor. For a second Jason thinks its about the adultery, but it becomes clear with all the “them” and “who you’re working for” talk that it’s not. Steve thinks he’s playing dumb so he doesn’t spell it out to Jason. He just looks at him with disgust and tells Gabe to take care of him.

Hugo keeps freaking out with his claustrophobia, and when Sookie tries to calm him down, she gets a flash of Hugo being all sneaky, i.e. being the traitor. He tries to explain that all he wanted was to be turned and be equal with Sophie, but that she wouldn’t do it because he was just a toy to be used. Sad how being burned can turn you into a total jerk. Sookie gets the final laugh though because it doesn’t look like the Fellowship cares about Hugo one bit.

He drags him to the woods and says some not so sweet things about Sookie which sets Jason off. Now I don’t REALLY believe that Jason could overpower that brick house, but he does and starts running and running and running. A car pulls up and Sarah steps out. The last time we saw her, Steve needed to talk to her in private, and I can only imagine the things he told her about Jason. She looks really crazed and messed up, pulls out a gun, and shoots him. Crimes of passion, man!

When Gabe appears in the holding cell, Hugo thinks he’s got his out but of course he doesn’t. Gabe, ticked off that Jason escaped him, continues to beat on him until Sookie jumps in. Gabe turns on her and even attempts to rape her. She’s already gotten out a telepathic call of help to Bob, the telepathic bellhop, but it’s anyone’s guess if he heard her or if he’d help anyway.

Luckily, she doesn’t have to wait long though because another vampire appears to save the day, and we’ve never seen him in present day before but it looks a lot like the young kid who turned Eric in a flashback not so long ago.

DALLAS

Hearing Sookie’s cries, Bill puts on his angry face and tries to get past his maker, but he can’t overpower her so it’s time for another trip down memory lane to 1935! It’s more dark and deadly from Maria when she brings home a chorus girl from a musical she went to see, but at this point Bill is done with it all. He tries to tell her no, but just like so many men, it’s hard for him to resist a pretty lady. But he doesn’t give into it in the end, and it’s pretty clear this is the beginning of the Bill we all know and love. What we also get to see is how much she cared for him and how much it hurt when she left him.

I didn’t know this but apparently vampires start bleeding out of the orifices if they don’t get sleep. Bill says he’s not suicidal and since Lorena won’t let him go that he just wants to contact someone to help her like Eric. But she laughs in his face saying Eric is the reason that she’s here, and that if Eric wants the girl then Bill should let her have him.

But Bill won’t give up. Another flashback shows us that Bill really stood up to her, telling him that he could never love her and that he would rather die than continue on like this. He even calls her sad because of her fear of being alone, and for once we see that she was once vulnerable as well. In the end, she releases him from her hold, and in present day, Bill can’t understand why she’s holding him hostage when she released him so many decades ago. It’s apparent that she still loves him even if he doesn’t want to say so, but just then Bobby appears to give Sookie’s telepathic message of where she is and the danger she’s in. Bill isn’t released but Eric hears the message and zips off on his own.

SIDE NOTES

Awww! Hoyt confesses to Jessica that he’s a virgin which is the sweetest thing a vampire virgin girlfriend can hear. I love them together even more than Bill and Sookie!

And Lafayette is back in business and back to normal. Well, at least, he’s put back on the eyeliner and mascara and is back to his fun quips again. He also makes it clear to Tara that Eggs seems like bad news!

So can two people die in one episode? I know Daphne’s a goner but Jason just can’t be! I need my eye candy. I can only hope we’ll find out next week and not have to wait as long as we had to wait to find out that Lafayette was still alive. At least there’s about 5 or so more episode to go!

For another take on this episode, read She’s a Manead Manead Out of Control by Ian Nyanin.

Season 2, Episode 7: Release Me (originally aired August 2, 2009)

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Sundays at 9pm on HBO

Photographs courtesy of HBO and IMDbPro