‘True Blood’ 4.05 Recap: “Oh My Gravy!”

‘True Blood’ is so frustrating this season, isn’t it? The show is capable of so much entertainment value, yet it feels like the writers are squandering all its potential in a series of increasingly-dull storylines. With this week’s episode, I’m even starting to get bored with Eric’s story. Things need to turn around on this show really fast.

The fifth episode of the season is either called ‘Me and the Devil’ or ‘I Hate You, I Love You’. Online listings say one, but my cable guide says another. The easiest way to recap this is to break it down by character:

Tommy

Who the hell cares about Tommy or his storyline? I sure don’t. Unfortunately, the episode starts off by giving a lot of screen time to this.

Joe Lee captures Tommy in a choke collar, which leaves me wondering why Tommy doesn’t just shift into a bird or a rat, or some other small animal that can slip out of the collar. Maybe that’s what he does off-camera, because Joe Lee turns his back for a second and Tommy is out of the collar. He attacks and kills Joe Lee, and inadvertently kills his mother too. Boo hoo.

Tommy packs the bodies in his van and brings them to Sam, begging for help. Sam drives them out of town, only to get pulled over by Andy, high on V. Andy demands to see what’s in the back of the van. Just as it looks like either Andy is going to discover the bodies and arrest them, or Tommy will attack and kill him, Tommy has a good idea to shift into an alligator and scare Andy away instead. The ploy works.

Sam and Tommy dump the bodies in a swamp, where real gators begin chowing down on them. Sam tells Tommy that he has killed two people before. Tommy is impressed.

Lafayette, Jesus and Tara

After the incident that left Pam injured, Lafayette, Jesus and Tara head for the hills. Tara is returning to New Orleans, where her girlfriend has found some bills addressed to her real name that she’s going to have to explain. Lafayette and Jesus are heading to Mexico to seek protection from Jesus’ grandfather, a powerful and scary shaman.

Before she leaves, Tara stops by Sookie’s house to say goodbye. When she discovers Eric there, she freaks out and screams at Sookie. In the process, she tells Eric some of the horrible things he’s done, which makes him sad. But we’ll get back to Eric in a minute.

Arlene and Terry

Arlene still fears that her baby is evil. Terry believes that the house is haunted instead. He calls in Reverend Daniels (who is now married to Tara’s mother) to perform an exorcism. It’s a silly affair, but it makes them feel better.

Meanwhile, the stupid doll is still in the house looking like a creepy evil thing. Why don’t they just get rid of it?

Bill

Andy’s sister Portia still has the hots for Bill. She isn’t bothered by learning that she’s his great-great-great-great-granddaughter. In fact, a little incest kind of turns her on. Bill, not so much. He glamours her into being terrified of him. Portia runs off screaming.

Pam’s face is rotting away. She begs Bill to let her torture and kill Marnie. He orders her not to. Any vampire who harms a human will be put to the true death.

Bill sends his other girlfriend Katerina back undercover to see Marnie. She tricks Marnie so that Bill’s goons can kidnap her and throw her in a cell in Bill’s mansion. In the cell, Marnie has another vision of the “Great Spirit,” and sees that the priests who killed her were vampires. Later, we learn that the spirit’s name was Antonia. She obviously has a grudge against vampires to work out.

Bill speaks to Marnie over the intercom. Marnie insists that she doesn’t know how to reverse the spells on either Eric or Pam. Bill risks going in to talk to her directly, so that he can glamour her. He’s convinced that she’s telling the truth.

Disappointed in this, Pam lets slip that Eric has lost his memory. Of course, how could she know this unless she’d seen him since he disappeared? Bill forces her to tell him that Eric is staying with Sookie. He’s pissed and runs off, presumably to the house.

Jason

Thanks to Jessica’s blood, Jason has recovered physically from his attacks. He tells Hoyt that his being raped is some sort of cosmic payback for all the hound-dogging he’d done over the years. All of his problems in life are due to sex.

Nonetheless, that night he has a sexy dream about Jessica (caused, no doubt, by the blood he drank). Just as he’s getting into it, dream Jessica turns into dream Hoyt. Jason wakes up in horror, totally freaked out.

Speaking of Jessica and Hoyt, they’re still on the outs. Hoyt forgives her for cheating on him, but she acts cold and distant to him. This relationship is doomed to failure.

Alcide

We only see a little bit of Alcide this episode. He gets paid a visit from the Packmaster of Shreveport, who is rather upset that Alcide hasn’t registered with the pack since arriving in his territory. Alcide tells him that he’s “exploring free agency” and sends him on his way. This will obviously come back around shortly.

Sookie and Eric

Before Marnie gets kidnapped, Sookie pays a visit to her shop, acting like a naïve tourist who just wants a palm reading. Marnie agrees, and channels Sookie’s Gran, which Sookie is able to listen in on by reading Marnie’s mind. Gran tells Sookie that Marnie is dangerous and she should run.

Eric dreams that he’s visited by Godric, who tries to get him to embrace his evil nature, and tells him to bite Sookie. Eric can’t bring himself to do it. He doesn’t want to be evil.

Eric spends most of this episode acting like a lovesick child. All he wants to do is cuddle with Sookie. He also cries a lot.

Where all this leads is that Sookie’s resistance to Eric breaks down. She feels sympathy for him, and likes the softer, gentler Eric. At the end of the episode, they kiss, and possibly more.

While this is all pretty funny, and I support the idea of Sookie and Eric getting together, I also feel like the amnesia storyline has run its course. It’s time to get the real Eric back.

[Banner image screen cap from Skarsgardfans.com.]

1 comment

  1. I loved this ep. Best of the season so far. The scene with Sookie speaking to her Gran through the witch and Jason having sex dreams of Jessica/Hoyt were two of the best scenes in the history of the show.

Leave a Reply

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