‘True Blood’ 3.06 Recap: “Killin’ Vampires and Savin’ Your Ass!”

Whoo-whee! This week’s is a really big episode of ‘True Blood’, written by series creator Alan Ball himself. Despite its laconic title, ‘I Got a Right to Sing the Blues’ gets right to the action, crams in a ton of important plot developments, and moves like a shot the whole time. It also reaffirms this season’s commitment to being as over-the-top bloody and gruesome as possible. In other words, it’s pretty awesome. (Spoilers and more profanity after the break.)

The episode wastes little time with set-up before getting down and dirty. King Russell has captured Sookie and Bill, and has dragged them back to his estate. (Alcide is nowhere to be found.) In the lobby, Bill quickly finds an opportunity to break a wooden railing off the staircase and uses it to stake one of the vampire guards, who explodes in a huge bloody mess all over the place. Bill immediately leaps on top of the King to do the same, but the King flings him off easily, smashing him into the ceiling and back down onto the staircase.

Talbot, the King’s consort, flies into a hysterical tizzy… about the mess they’ve made in his lovely mansion. The King orders Lorena to take Bill out and kill him. She’s visibly shocked and dismayed by the command, but says nothing. Sookie begs Eric for help, but Eric just hands her back to the King. This prompts one of the episode’s funniest lines, when Sookie screams out to him, “Eric, what the fuck?!”

In Bon Temps, the night is winding down at Merlotte’s, but one annoying customer just won’t leave. Arlene is having a really bad night. Not one of her customers has tipped her. (Unbeknownst to her, Jessica glamoured them all with this suggestion.) She accidentally cuts her finger, which reflexively causes Jessica’s fangs to pop out. Arlene completely freaks at this and blurts out that she’s pregnant when begging the girl not to bite her. Now that she actually feels bad about what’s she’s done, Jessica glamours that last customer into leaving a big tip and going immediately to the ladies’ room, where Jessica corners her, bites her, and then sends her on her way. It’s a win-win for everyone!

Lafayette and Jesus start to get hot and heavy on their date, until some of the rednecks from a couple episodes back smash up his new car and try to pick a fight. Lafayette and Jesus manage to run them off, but in the chaos, Jesus learns all about Lafayette dealing drugs and vampire blood. He gets pretty upset and the date is ruined.

Speaking of ruined dates, Jason tries to get it on with Crystal, the weird-looking (shifter?, werewolf?) chick he’s become infatuated with. Before they get too far, she gets spooked and runs off, saying, “Forget me, for both our sakes.” But Jason doesn’t take instruction all that well. The next day, he goes to her house and discovers that she has a fiancé. She pretends not to know Jason, and acts like complete white trash, shouting for him to get off her damn property.

Sam’s birth parents run off with his younger brother Tommy. Sam finally puts it together that they’ve been forcing him to participate in dog fighting matches, which is where all those scars came from. He finds out from Andy that there’s a dog fighting ring in the next county, and chases after them.

In Mississippi, the King sits Sookie down for a little Q&A. He tells her about the file Bill’s been keeping on her family. She doesn’t believe it, but admits that her grandfather was a telepath like her. She doesn’t know what other powers she may have beyond reading minds and the blast of white light she can conjure up when in danger.

Lorena has brought Bill out to a shed on the property, where she chains him to the floor and tortures him for their last night together. She slices him up pretty ickily, but keeps him alive through the morning. When Cooter and his were-bitch (Alcides’ ex) barge in, she lets them drink as much of Bill’s blood as they can handle. They eventually wander off, in a blissful high.

Eric continues to cozy up with both Talbot and the King. Without saying as much, he implies that he’s also gay, and flirts with each of them separately. The King orders him to take a trip with him back to Louisiana. Eric assumes that they’re going to see the Magister, but the King diverts them to pay Queen Sophie-Ann a visit instead. They find her scratching lottery tickets in a desperate attempt to fix her financial problems. Russell kills most of her guards, and makes her another ultimatum to marry him. Eric acts as his enforcer, renounces his allegiance to the Queen, and pledges himself to Russell. Because he’s older and stronger than she is, he pins the Queen to the floor and threatens to tear her head off. She grudgingly agrees to Russell’s oh-so-romantic proposal.

Back at the King’s estate, Tara continues to play Franklin for the fool. She convinces him to untie her so that they can have some nasty sex in which he makes her tear his neck open with her teeth. Gross! While in the midst of this, she thinks a message to Sookie, telling her that she’ll save her. As Franklin sleeps the next morning, she slips out of his arms, takes a spiked mace off the wall decorated with old weapons, and smashes his head into a disgusting pulp, spewing blood all over herself. He twitches for a moment and then comes to a stop. Perhaps because she doesn’t know any better, Tara doesn’t grab one of the swords from the wall to chop his head off. She should have. Something tells me that this isn’t the last of Franklin.

Tara manages to get Sookie out of the house, but she won’t leave without Bill. Tara runs on ahead to find a car, only to get chased by a wolf. Fortunately, it’s Alcide. He transforms back into his naked human form. (Ladies, commence swooning now.) He tells her that he’s one of the good guys there to help, and asks where Sookie is.

Sookie finds Bill barely alive in the shed. But Lorena’s still there too. As the episode ends, she attacks Sookie and appears to bite her neck. That probably won’t go so well for either one of them, but I’m sure Alcide will show up in time to intercede.

This was a pretty great episode, but the scenes for next week’s episode look downright fantastic. I can’t wait!

4 comments

  1. JoeRo

    I’m definitely digging the whole Were/Vamp storyline, but I could do without Jason and Sam at this point. Sam has never been a very interesting character for me, although Jason once was. Having read some of the books, they were cheap in ebook format what can I say, I have a good idea of where things are going with Jason, but I think the writers are making a huge mistake.

    Anyone who’s watched Dexter knows that it’s a remarkably good show, although it does have its ups and downs. Anyone who’s also read the Dexter novels, about a five minute read from start to finish, knows that the series writers long ago abandoned the books for source material. For this I am thankful. The Dexter stories quickly went off the rails into the realm of Cthulhu-level silliness, and it just plain sucked. Likewise the Sookie Stackhouse novels quickly devolved to a point where the audience was “just” reading to see who Sookie sleeps with next.
    **********SPOILER ALERT*********
    She sleeps with everyone.
    ********************************

    Now my intent isn’t to bash those novels or its fans, but I do think copying each and every storyline from the novel and pasting it into the show is the wrong way to go about doing things. The Trueblood staff is capable of writing great original content set in the Sookie Stackhouse universe. They’re also capable of writing bad content as well based on what I’m seeing with Sam’s character … ugh.

    In any event I am very happy with how Trueblood is shaping up so far, although as I’ve stated already it’s not quite perfect. Hopefully the Sam and Jason storylines will pick up the pace a bit and land somewhere interesting.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      I agree that the Sam and Jason storylines are the least interesting parts of the show this season, but I don’t feel that either of them is “bad” yet.

      As for the books, I haven’t read them. From what I hear, the show already diverges from them quite significantly.

      • JoeRo

        Maybe bad isn’t the right term, but I certainly find those two storylines boring. It’s a shame because both of those characters are so likable. I’m not saying I want full vampire craziness all the time, but why not focus more on Merlotte’s for a change? How is that place even staying open what with all of the missing/murdered waitresses (thanks Arlene for bringing that up). Also everyone’s favorite baby vampire is at this point far more fun to watch than either Jason or Sam. I mean damn I’m having trouble remembering the last time I was looking forward to seeing either of those characters, they’re just not doing it for me this season.

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          After Eggs was killed in the parking lot, Sam made a comment that, “It’s a good thing there aren’t any other bars in this town.” I think that, basically, things in Bon Temps are so slow that there’s nothing else to do except go to Merlotte’s.

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