‘True Blood’ 4.02 Recap: “Oh No, Witches”

OK, this is better. After the atrociously bad season premiere, a big sigh of relief is in order that the second episode of ‘True Blood’ this season is a substantial improvement. While I wouldn’t say that it’s one of the show’s best episodes, at least it feels more like the ‘True Blood’ we know and like.

‘You Smell Like Dinner’ still has the problem that it’s mostly a lot of plot exposition without much cohesion between the various storylines being set up. But at least this one has next to no fairy bullshit, and some of the characters are given a little room to breathe.

Things start off with the cliffhanger to Jason’s storyline. He wakes up tied to a bed. One of the Hotshot kids is licking the wound on his head, like a cat. It’s both gross and funny. The kids feel bad about what they did, but before Jason can talk them into releasing him, we learn that Felton is back in town, even crazier than ever.

As expected, the cliffhanger with Eric and Sookie defuses pretty quickly. He was not planning to hurt her. He just wanted to scare her a little by baring his fangs, but Sookie doesn’t scare easily. Eric then offers to make her his, so that he can protect her. Once word gets out of what she is, vampires will go crazy to find and drink from her. He explains, “Your blood tastes like freedom, Sookie. Like sunshine in a little blonde bottle.” Sookie declines the offer.

Anti-vampire protesters are picketing Fangtasia. Hoyt stupidly picks a fight with some of them over things they yell at Jessica, and gets the crap beat out of him. Jessica wants to help, but Pam holds her back. With all the cell phone cameras recording, vampires can’t afford another PR setback now. “Technology’s taken all the fun out of being a vampire,”Pam laments. Hoyt will have to take care of himself.

The next day, Hoyt refuses to drink Jessica’s blood to heal himself. He makes a stupid comment about not wanting “that shit,” which leads to a huge fight and Jessica running out to Fangtasia to cheat on him with another human.

Sam continues to run with his Shifter friends. He’s hot for a Shifter babe named Luna. She tells a story that she was once able to shift into the form of another person – her mother. This is a power possessed only by a Shifter who kills another Shifter, something that happened when her mother died giving birth to her. A spying Tommy overhears the conversation. Sam chases after him and learns that Tommy’s leg is actually all healed up. He was faking the injury. Nonetheless, Sam and Tommy have a talk and almost make up.

Sookie seeks out Bill, learns that he’s the new Vampire King of Louisiana, and also discovers that he’s screwing his little spy girl, Katerina. Realizing that much has changed in the year that she was gone, Sookie merely asks Bill if he can help fix the problem with Eric buying her house. He tells her that he can’t order Eric not to buy the house, but he’ll have a talk with him.

In a flashback, we see Bill as a punk in 1982 London, and find out that he was recruited then by Nan Flanagan to infiltrate Queen Sophie-Anne’s inner circle, as part of a growing initiative at that time for vampires to reveal themselves publicly. She also tells him that Louis Pasteur is a vampire and the inventor of True Blood.

In another flashback later, we finally see the outcome of that cheesy ‘Matrix’-style standoff between Bill and Sophie-Anne that ended last season. She kicks his butt pretty easily, but it turns out that Bill had backup. A swarm of soldiers flood the room, their guns loaded with wooden bullets with silver tips. They blow Sophie-Anne to pieces. It’s a pretty cool scene (as opposed to how it started), but a rather inglorious end to the entertaining Sophie-Anne character. Nan Flanagan walks in behind the soldiers. She was behind the plot the whole time, and backed Bill to take Sophie-Anne’s throne. Bill lies to Nan about Sookie not being special. She seems a little dubious, but lets it go. She tells Bill to, “Go clean yourself up. You’re covered in queen.”

Tara comes back to Bon Temps to visit Sookie, and they’re instantly best friends again. This basically means that everything about her character arc last season has been undone in a blink. When Sookie gets caught up in the Eric situation (he built a cabinet with a passage to an underground lair in her living room), Tara leaves Sookie to catch up with Lafayette and Jesus. She winds up tagging along to their witch coven.

Eric meets with Bill. He says that he won’t give up the house. Bill doesn’t press him on it, but instead gives his Sheriff a new assignment – to clear out the witch coven. Eric dismisses the witches as a silly nuisance, until Bill tells him that they’re practicing necromancy. If necromancers can control the dead, they can control vampires, and that’s going to be very bad news. Eric tells him that he’ll get right on it.

At the coven, head witch Marnie announces that she wants to raise a human from the dead next. Everyone is shocked. Before this can go much further, Eric invades the group, orders them to permanently disband, and threatens Marnie’s life. The other witches (including Lafayette) form a circle and begin chanting a spell to protect her. Whatever they conjure is very powerful. It scares Eric off. Later, Sookie discovers him wandering the streets, apparently suffering from amnesia. He doesn’t know who she is, but he sure thinks that she smells tasty.

As the episode ends, Crystal comes to Jason, but she’s not there to rescue him. She’s totally hopped up on V and is back on Felton’s side. They want a baby, but apparently aren’t able to conceive. They’ve captured Jason to make him an involuntary sperm donor. The only thing is that… well, he’s not a were-panther. So they’ll have to make him one first. Doing so involves turning into panther form and chowing down on his mid-section. Ouch!

There’s only one appearance by fairies this whole episode, a brief PTSD flashback that Sookie momentarily suffers. It’s over pretty quickly. I kind of like the witch storyline and will gladly take that one over the fairies. Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear that the fairies are going to have to come back eventually. I just hope that we can get in a few more good episodes before that happens.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *