Another week goes by, and I’m still not certain who the “Big Bad” ultimate villain for Season 6 of ‘True Blood’ is supposed to be. We have another new candidate this week. Made clear in this episode is that it’s certainly not Warlow. After so much build-up as the most evil vampire in all of vampiredom, he’s turned out to be an ineffectual nothing.

I guess we’re supposed to believe that Warlow’s not even a bad guy at all. Episode ‘Fuck the Pain Away’ (or ‘F*** the Pain Away’, as my cable guide calls it) gives us his origin story in flashbacks to ancient Mesopotamia or something, where friendly tribesman Warlow is seduced and vampirized by a horny Lilith. Not really understanding what’s happened to him (he is only the second vampire ever, after all), he later tries to go back to his tribe, and is overcome by the urge to slaughter everyone, including his family. Warlow then spent the following millennia despising the monster he’d become. When Bill tries to enlist his help in saving vampirekind, he isn’t at all sympathetic. Fortunately, Bill has inherited Lilith’s power to command him as his Maker.

Warlow has also been chasing after Sookie not to kill her, but because he’s in love with her and believes they’re fated to be together. It turns out that, when she was a child, he introduced himself to her parents and explained that he wanted to make her his companion so that they could live forever together. Sookie’s father was a real piece of work, who would rather drown his own little girl in a lake than see her turned into a vampire. Warlow claims that, on the day her parents died, he was actually trying to save her from them.

So, yeah, Sookie’s dad is another villain. When she makes the mistake of asking Lafayette (who’s a medium, lest we’ve forgotten) to contact her parents and confirm the story, her father possesses poor Lafayette (he really ought to know that he’s awfully prone to that), hogties Sookie, and tosses her in the trunk of Lafayette’s car to finish what he started so many years earlier.

Why Sookie is suddenly so weak and helpless isn’t explained. The jump from her father possessing Lafayette to Sookie being shoved in the trunk is weirdly abrupt, as if most of the scene in between had been cut.

Other Stuff That Happens

• Andy finds his daughters in the aftermath of the attack by Jessica. One is still alive and tells him what happened. Andy feels that Bill (or “Vampire Bill,” as he still calls him) is responsible and swears revenge.
• Jason is pretty much feeling back to his old self. Sarah Newlin visits with plans to save his soul through the power of sex, but gets really upset with him when Jessica shows up in a panic and Sarah realizes that Jason has been fornicating with a vampire. Sarah somehow is able to rescind Jessica’s invitation to Jason’s house, thus ejecting her outside into the hands of the LAVTF.
• A huge chunk of the episode is spent at the governor’s prison camp for vampires, where it indulges in pretty much every prison movie cliché you can think of. Pam is interviewed by a psychiatrist (Pruitt Taylor Vance from the second season of ‘The Walking Dead’) who wants to understand how vampires think. After a little incentivizing in the form of a “Living Donor Program,” Pam is more than happy to tell him all about how emotionally detached vampires are from the petty concerns of morality and loyalty that bother humans.
• In addition to all the major characters who’ve been arrested, Eric and Tara surrender themselves in order to find Pam and Willa and see what’s going on in the prison. Eric is pitted against other vampires in a series of cruel games and experiments. In the climax, he’s made to face Pam in a form of gladiatorial combat.
• Overwhelmed by guilt over killing Patrick, Terry asks another old Marine buddy to kill him. This ridiculous storyline feels utterly contrived just to give Terry some additional screen time.
• Likewise is the storyline where Alcide chases after Sam to get little Emma back. This week, his father (Robert Patrick) spots them at a motel. This is just not a very compelling story.

Once again saving the show are the small character moments. Andy has a good one where girlfriend Holly talks him down from his plan to go charging into Bill’s mansion, and convinces him that he has to be smarter about what he does next. Sarah Newlin has the episode’s best line when she announces to Jason that, “I truly believe God wants me to fuck you.” After the deed, Jason hilariously comes back with, “How’s God feelin’ now?”