‘True Blood’ 3.03 Recap: Ewwww, Vampire Sex is NASTY!

“Gruesome” is the keyword of the week in the latest episode of ‘True Blood’, called ‘It Hurts Me Too’. Gruesome, violent, shocking, and altogether icky. And that’s just the sex scene! There’s also plenty of other bloody mayhem at play too. In other words, the show is in fine form. Let’s get right to the spoiler-filled recappin’, shall we?

One of last week’s cliffhangers found Eric facing off against a werewolf in Sookie’s house, as Sookie also pulled a gun and shot at it. In a gratuitous use of the “bullet time” effect, Eric makes a split-second decision to take the bullet himself. He wants the beast alive for questioning. The resulting wound drives the wolf crazy with blood lust for some V juice. Eric still manages to overpower it even as it tears away at his chest, and Sookie has enough time to read the name “Jackson” in its thoughts. Then Eric has to kill it before it gets too strong from the blood, by ripping its throat out with his teeth. This leaves a huge bloody mess for poor Sookie to clean up. It seems to be her lot in life to eternally scrub blood from those floors.

Jackson, it turns out, is not a person’s name, but the town in Mississippi. Sookie is eager to race over there and find Bill. Eric refuses to help her directly, even though there’s a super-strong sexual tension vibe going on between the two of them this week. Later, he’ll find a way to help indirectly, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Remember that strange British vampire (James Frain from ‘The Tudors’) who showed up last episode? Tara sure does. She starts this ep having some crazy mind-blowing sex with him. (No, this isn’t the nasty sex I was talking about. That’s coming at the end.) His name is Franklin, and he acts awfully nice to her at first. Still, Tara realizes that she made a mistake, and leaves him at the motel without telling him her name.

Sam says goodbye to his birth family in Arkansas and heads back home. Later, they’ll follow him to Bon Temps and make a drunken spectacle of themselves at his restaurant. It’s pretty clear that they just want to mooch off and grift him. One of them (in animal form, probably the brother) also rifles through his office looking for something.

Comic relief this week is provided by Jason, who’s decided that he wants to be a cop. Unfortunately, he’s too dumb to pass the test. That isn’t about to stop him, of course.

Arlene finds out that her unborn baby is 9 weeks along, which upsets her because she hasn’t been with Terry that long. I’m a little unclear on the timeline of the show. Would that make this Rene’s baby? Or would this child have been conceived during the time she was having sex with Terry under Marianne’s influence and not remembering it? I think there may still be a chance that this baby does turn out to be Terry’s. For now, she tells him that she’s pregnant. When she sees how overjoyed that makes him, she leaves out the part about the timing issues.

Tara and Sookie finally make up from their argument when Sookie pays for Eggs to have a proper funeral. Unfortunately, because he had no family, they’re the only two to show up.

Bill is still in Mississippi as a “guest” of the King. Lorena has survived the torching he gave her, and is a little annoyed at the whole situation. The King continues to put the hard press on Bill to recruit him. He suggests that Bill turn his human companion (Sookie) into a vampire, and makes a veiled threat that he may not have a choice in that matter.

In flashbacks to 1868, we learn more of the backstory behind Bill and Lorena. A few years after his disappearance, Bill tried to return to his wife, and discovered that his son had succumbed to the Pox. His wife thought he was a demon from hell and was terrified of him. Lorena then used this as an opportunity to teach Bill a hard lesson about not becoming attached to humans.

Back in the modern day, Hoyt and the road crew discover a headless corpse in a drainage ditch, presumably Jessica’s dead trucker. In a hilarious moment, after seeing this, Sheriff Dearborne (William Sanderson) decides that he’s had enough of this shit, so he just up and quits right then and there. Will this leave Andy in charge?

Eric won’t go with Sookie to Jackson, but he sends a good (and super studly) werewolf acquaintance named Alcide to look after her. He accompanies her to a sketchy werewolf bar called Lou Pine’s (get it?) in order to dig up some information on Bill. This of course ends in a big bar fight.

Franklin pays a visit to Jessica and confirms (via the trucker’s severed head in a bag) that he cleaned up the body for her. In exchange, he wants information on Bill. This leads him back to Tara, staying at Sookie’s house. By this point, he’s in full-on creep mode. Tara refuses to let him in, but turns weak-willed again when he glamours her. We still don’t know what his agenda is or who he’s working for.

And, finally, this leads us to the biggest WTF moment in the episode.

Bill announces that he’s decided to accept the King’s offer, and will renounce his loyalty to Queen Sophie-Anne. (No, that’s not it; just wait a second.) Lorena remains skeptical of his motives. When she confronts him, they have an argument that she savors greatly, and that drives Bill into a wild sexual frenzy. Even as he screams at her that they will never be together, and that he cannot stand to be in her presence, he’s compelled to throw her on the bed and have really disturbing angry sex with her. How disturbing? He actually grabs her head and twists it a full 180-degrees around while thrusting into her. And she likes it! With her head facing completely the wrong direction on her body, she laughs an evil laugh of victory. Slam-cut to the credits.

Seriously, what the hell was that?!

If this is what vampire sex can be like, somebody might want to warn that Bella girl from the ‘Twilight‘ movies. I doubt her bony little body can take it.

Oh man, I love this show. No new episode next week? Curse you, holidays!

4 comments

  1. JoeRo

    Yup, all around great episode, and a nice recap. Thought the sex scene was a bit much, not in terms of tone or violence or how explicit it is, I’m just worried that the show blew it’s whole vfx budget on that one gimmick (although it is a pretty good gimmick). Loved Tara’s response to Franklin when he asks if he can come in, definitely chuckle-worthy.

    Also looks like something is changing between Lafayette and Eric. If the queen is so strapped for cash it doesn’t make sense for Eric to be giving away cars … well technically selling them for a dollar, but still you see what I’m driving at. Somethings up there.

    Be interesting to see if Andy becomes sheriff now, which would be an easy way to write off any tension related to Jason’s involvement in Eggs’ shooting. Also I love the way Kenya looked at Andy while he was musing about at the crime scene, that shit was priceless.

    Yeah, all in all good stuff. Glad to see that Trueblood has made a return to form. Fingers crossed that they don’t get lost juggling all the new plot threads they’ve introduced this season.

    Oh and for me the biggest wtf moment was definitely learning that there’s no new episode next week. Seriously? wtf!!

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      “Oh and for me the biggest wtf moment was definitely learning that there’s no new episode next week. Seriously? wtf!!”

      Well, it’s a holiday here next week. The bigger question for me is why HBO decided to premiere Entourage and Hung before the holiday, rather than just wait until after.

      • JoeRo

        I’ve never understood withholding new episodes because of a holiday. Just don’t get it, especially in 2010 when the dvr is as ubiquitous as the internet.

        I can only assume HBO premiered those shows before the holiday to drum up interest i.e. create some artificial suspense. I’m not a fan of either of those shows, but I downright loathe Entourage. And Hung is just boring, like Superman Returns level boring. /shrug

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