‘True Blood’ 5.11 Recap: “We Own the Day”

As ‘True Blood’ barrels toward its season finale, the impending war between vampires and humans appears to be coming to a head. Is this really a time when we need to bring out more of the damned fairies?

I’ve written before about how lame I find the fairies in this show. Their presence this season has perhaps been slightly less annoying than in previous years, but I still find myself wanting to fast-forward every time they appear on screen. That’s a problem this week, because they feature prominently in episode ‘Sunset’.

Still fearing the mysterious vampire named Warlow, to whom her ancestor had apparently sold her centuries earlier, Sookie takes refuge in the fairies’ silly circus brothel. She’s introduced to “the Elder” (Erica Gimpel from ‘Fame’), who is allegedly the oldest and most powerful fairy ever, and is also very batty. We’re told that she “operates on many frequencies at once,” which she demonstrates by non-stop kooky dancing and repeatedly asking Sookie how she feels about various pop music singers and bands. (Sookie has really bad taste in music, incidentally.)

Sookie hatches a plan to rally all the fairies behind her and put an end to Russell Edgington once and for all. Using Jason as bait, they lure Russell and Newlin to the empty field. Coco the Elder (she doesn’t actually have a name, but that’s what I’m calling her) steps out to fight Russell. The plan backfires. Coco loses, and Russell drains her to a husk, which allows him to see the invisible brothel and all the fairies in it. Cue cliffhanger.

Is it wrong of me to hope that Russell slaughters every single fairy in next week’s finale? I’d even be OK with him killing Sookie. She’s the least interesting character in her own show these days.

Other Stuff That Happens
  • In Authority HQ, the vision of Lilith appears again and tells Bill that she has chosen him to be the one true leader of all vampires. He just has to drink the rest of her blood. Bill hesitates, but clearly feels like a very special boy. Later, we discover that Lilith has actually been “choosing” pretty much everyone. Bill literally tears the head off one of the other Chancellors out of jealousy.
  • Haunted by the memory of Godric, Nora has a change of heart about all this Lilith stuff and turns to Eric for forgiveness and help. First, they must have sex, though.
  • A human named General Cavanagh visits Authority HQ and demands to speak to Roman. He knows that they’re behind the Tru-Blood factory bombings. He warns the vampires that the military has been preparing for war, and has weapons they cannot imagine. He also tells them that he has a video of Russell and Newlin slaughtering the frat house that will be released and turn public sympathy against the Authority should anything happen to him.
  • Eric promptly kills General Cavanagh. He apologizes for his impulsiveness and offers to clean up his mess by glamouring the General’s chief of staff and anyone who has knowledge of the video. He and Nora are sent to take care of this. Of course, this is just a ploy to get out of the HQ and run.
  • Bill tells Jessica that he doesn’t care about humans anymore. She asks him if she can turn Jason into a vampire so that he’ll be with her forever. Bill then orders her to do so, and sends her with guards to make her do it.
  • Jessica can’t bring herself to turn Jason. She helps him trick the guards and shoot them with wooden bullets. Jess then runs to Fangtasia to seek sanctuary. Unfortunately, Pam is soon arrested for killing Elijah. Both she and Jessica are dragged back to Authority HQ.
  • Everything seems to be converging in Authority HQ. Sam and Luna had followed Newlin there to find Emma. They get captured and mistaken for some of the humans being held as vampire chow. Sam volunteers to be Bill’s dinner, presumably because he thinks he can reason with Bill. In a very funny scene, Sam sees Pam in the hallway and begs her to help Luna, to which Pam asks who the hell Luna is.
  • Alcide and his father (Robert Patrick) fight off some baby vamps. (Those would be recently-turned vampires, not literally babies who are vampires, which I think would be pretty awesome.)
  • Fairy Maurella visits Andy and tells him that she’s carrying his baby.

I kind of like that Bill has turned into such an outright dick this season. The love triangle with him, Sookie and Eric had gotten tiresome. He’s more interesting as a villain, even if he’s really just a patsy.

The next episode is the finale. Given the show’s track record with such things, I will set my expectations very low.

8 comments

  1. T.J. Kats

    The fairies are lame but I loved the last scene for how great Russell Edgington was. I agree that him killing everyone in the club would be great.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      Yes, that’s why I called her Coco in the recap, but that isn’t actually her name in the episode. I don’t think she was given a name other than “the Elder.”

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      Glatter works extensively in television. She directed multiple episodes of ER, The West Wing, House, Mad Men, The Mentalist, and more. I’m curious what you saw as being Twin Peaks homages in this episode.

      • Shannon Nutt

        Yes, I’m aware that Glatter “gets around”…but Spielberg and Lynch (Amazing Stories and Twin Peaks) were the two who helped her establish herself.

        The red drapes of “farie land” are very much like the drapes used in the Black Lodge (not to mention the fact that you can enter in the middle of a field in the woods) and there’s a nice shot of a stop light turning from Red to Green. Those were just two that really stood out. I also drew some anaolgies between the Elder and both the dwarf and the giant (speaking in riddles/non-sensical dialogue).

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          Interesting. I won’t argue against the comparison, but I didn’t make that direct connection. We’d already seen the fairy brothel in previous (non-Glatter) episodes, and I don’t know how much influence an individual episode director really has on something like that, as opposed to the writers and show-runners.

          • Shannon Nutt

            Right…I need to go back at some point and see if those red curtains were used in the faerie “exit” before…but I certainly think the stop light and the way the elder was portrayed (she even danced like the dwarf!) might have been PEAKS-homages. They certainly felt “Lynchian”.

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