‘True Blood’ 6.08 Recap: “Don’t Drink the Blood”

I’ve been complaining for a while now that this season of ‘True Blood’ has done a lousy job of identifying which of its many antagonist characters is supposed to be the ultimate villain. As things have shaken out, we know that it’s not Governor Burrell or Niall. Although not entirely ruled out, it doesn’t seem to be Warlow, Sookie’s ghost father, Lilith or Bill. Well, this week we get a new contender for the title of “Big Bad.” I don’t know if this one will stick, but if it does turn out to be the case, I approve.

In what is easily the season’s funniest and most entertaining scene, the Tru Blood spokewoman storms into the vampire prison demanding to talk to the governor, ragingly upset about the bad publicity his actions have caused her company. In the process, she discovers that the assembly line has been tainting her product with Hepatitis V. She threatens to go public and notify the FDA. Desperate to cover up their scheme (and the governor’s death), Sarah Newlin launches herself at the woman and tries to kill her. At least initially, she proves hilariously inept at it. Her attempt to snap the woman’s neck (like she’s no doubt seen many people do on television) couldn’t be more awkward or ineffective. This leads to a very funny, drawn-out catfight where the two women race around through the prison in heels until Sarah finally gets the better of her and bashes her skull into a metal catwalk, dripping blood onto the hungry vampires below. Victorious, Sarah belts out a “Thank you, Jesus!”

I have enjoyed Sarah’s more prominent role this season, and would love for her to be the ultimate evil – except for one thing. Does this mean that the show will have to kill her off in the season finale? That would be very disappointing. She’s too entertaining a character for that.

Other Stuff That Happens
  • Eric is mad at Bill for not doing enough to save Nora. He refuses to help Bill in his mission to save the vampires in the prison, but may have some ideas of his own in that regard.
  • Pissed that he lied about killing Sam and Nicole, Alcide’s girlfriend Rikki challenges him for the role of packmaster. Although she knows that she’ll get her ass kicked, she also knows that he won’t be able to bring himself to kill her. Indeed, that’s the case. Alcide lets her live, but rescues Nicole and her mother and brings them to Sam. He then apologizes and patches things up with Sam. I approve of this part of the storyline. I was tired of Alcide acting like such a prick.
  • Jason becomes the prison bitch to the vampire Violet, who is protecting him from the other vamps in Gen. Pop. In exchange, he not only has to let her feed off him whenever she wants, he’ll have to become her personal slave, even if they get out. Naturally, Jason has mixed feelings about this. In a very funny scene, Violet explains how she intends to taunt him sexually.
  • Still hiding in the fairy dimension, Warlow also demands an ultimatum from Sookie. He’ll help her (and Bill) save the other vampires, but only if she agrees to let him turn her into a vampire and become his immortal companion. Sookie says that she needs time to think about it. When she tells Bill about this, he’s really dickishly unconcerned with her dilemma and tells her to just do it already.
  • Pam, Jessica and James are returned to the prison Gen. Pop. When Jessica figures out that Pam had sex with the prison shrink and asks about it, Pam gets the line of the episode when she describes it as, “Oozy, but productive.”
  • James feels bad for whiny Steve Newlin and warns him not to drink the tainted Tru Blood. This sets off a chain of events where Steve blurts out to Sarah that the vamps know about the Hep V. (If he’d had a brain, he should have told her that they were on a hunger strike.) In retaliation, Sarah rounds up most of our main characters (Steve, Jessica, James, Pam, Tara and Willa) and locks them in the white room. Jessica knows what this means and tells the others that they’ll meet the sun in there.
  • Sam smells his scent on Nicole, which apparently means that he’s impregnated her. He tells her that he loves her. This seems awfully fast, considering that his previous girlfriend just died a few days ago.
  • Lafayette tells Arlene about Terry’s life insurance policy. Arlene has a couple of very powerful, emotional scenes where she tries to work through her grief and anger.
  • Now a rambunctious teenager, Andy’s daughter Adilyn sneaks out of the house with Arlene’s two sons and almost has sex with one of them, until interrupted by Eric, who glamours the boys and bites Adilyn. He lets her live, but drinks enough of her blood to enable him to cross over into the fairy dimension.
  • Despite remembering how scary Warlow got when he initially tried to come for her, Sookie decides to agree to his deal – primarily just to spite her dead parents, whom she hates now. I feel like that’s not a great reason.
  • Sookie brings Bill over to fairy land to get Warlow, but finds his body with a slashed throat. It’s not clear whether he’s alive or dead. This is obviously Eric’s doing. I assume that he took Warlow’s blood to the prison to rescue his friends, which was Bill’s plan, just enacted in a less consensual manner.

The combination of Sarah Newlin’s murderous rampage and several other strong moments make this one of the better episodes of the season. I hope that the last couple can build on this momentum, but the show has a history of deflating expectations in its season finales.

1 comment

  1. I was hoping your title for this week’s blog would be “8th Grade was hard on all of us” 🙂

    I also liked how Eric apologized to the one boy he glamoured since he had to make him forget he got Adilyn’s shirt off – “Sorry to take that away from you.” 🙂

    I’m enjoying TRUE BLOOD this season…not as good as it was the first couple of seasons, but far better than it’s been in the last couple. I think Alan Ball’s departure was a GOOD thing for the series.

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