TV Review: True Blood 2.07 – Release Me

Review: True Blood 2.07 – “Release Me”
Original Air Date: 2 August 2009
Rating: NR/AO (Not Rated/Adults Only)

Screencaps were done by True Blood Capture Blog this week.

This episode was so exciting, I peed a little in my pants. On a side note, I was wondering if you guys liked the amount of screencaps in these review/recaps. Do you want more? Less? If you say none and that you like my writing, I’ll know you’re my mom.

It’s still Fright Night out in the woods of Bon Temps! Policeman Officer Andy, still on the trail of that pig, stumbles into Maryann’s Bonfire of Horrors and is appropriately horrified. Sam’s about to get sacrificed at the altar of She Who Gives Everyone the Herps, when Andy accidentally fires his gun. This gives Sam the opportunity to head-butt Eggs in the face and escape. He runs his ass off into the woods with Bull-faced Maryann hot on his trail. Luckily, he’s really good at shifting because he catches sight of an owl, quickly shifts into one, and flies away. After the Sing-a-long Twangy Music Time, we come back to the orgy where everyone’s just milling around, naked and black-eyed, but no longer making with the unsexy sexy time. Andy finds War Vet Terry, is disgusted to see his cousin walking around without his pants on at some Devil Woman’s party, and tries to get him to snap out of it. Terry drops Andy like yesterday’s garbage and breaks his arm. Everyone then wanders off, leaving Andy face down in the mud.

Sookie and Hugo are still in the basement (and Hugo really is claustrophobic, which makes me wonder how’d he ever be a vampire if he couldn’t sleep in a coffin). So, he’s flipping out and sweating like a buffalo while Sookie’s yelling for Godric and checking out all the fun merch the Fellowship is planning on marketing to kids. Because she’s an awesome detective, Sookie deduces that they were set up by a mole in the Dallas nest. Everyone say it together, “DUH.” She also wonders where Bill is because he’s usually saving her about this time. You know, it being a day of the week that ends with a “y” and all. Also, how much do you think Kiefer Sutherland got paid to let them use his face on that box?

Lorena’s still holding Bill hostage. She makes a point to mention how she’s faster and stronger than he is, but not that she’s smarter. At some point, you know, when Bill removes his brain from his rear end, he might actually outwit her. We get another flashback, and it only took about 10 years for Bill to turn into the grump we know him to be today. He’s tired of killing innocent humans. He tells her that she has lost her humanity and stolen his, and she tells him he’ll outgrow his conscience because humans are food for vampires and that’s it.

This got my brother and me into an interesting exchange about how one should feel about killing. We’ve had this convo before about Louis and Lestat, but I like to argue so he just has to put up with it. It also brings up good questions about what exactly makes a human a human and why vampires don’t consider themselves to be human after a certain point. Holy cow, philosophical questions in the guise of a cheesy fluff of a sex show!

Back in the present, Bill threatens to kill Lorena if anything happens to Sookie. She flat out laughs in his face about how pathetic he is for being 100% in love with a human.

We quickly jump over to Isabel and Eric reconning the Fellowship. Eric notes that their army is a bunch of kids with sticks. Well, not everyone can be a spine-chillingly hot hard-assed Viking God of a warrior, can they, Eric? He’s… I’ll say concerned that Sookie and Hugo are still in the Fellowship. Isabel says there was a moment where she felt something in Hugo, but that it passed. This gets Eric to ask Isabel what she finds so fulfilling about human companionship. She says that everything is more urgent and intense with humans because their lives are so short (Eric: “Yes, they certainly don’t keep long.”). He asks her if the thought of Hugo getting old and sickly and dying “repulses” her (I love that character), and she says she finds it curious, “like a science project”. Which I think people could take the wrong way, but more about that later.

Isabel then turns to Eric and asks how Bill feels about his interest in Sookie. Of course, he denies he has any interest in her beyond using her to find Godric *cough*horribleliar*cough* and that he cares even less what Bill thinks about anything. Changing the subject back to Godric and how this puny church could possibly hold him, Isabel finds it hard to believe that anything could overpower Godric. In one of the most intriguing lines, Eric says, “Not anything human.”

Jason and Mrs. Newlin after sex = Mrs. Newlin is a basket case. This lady is one word: CA-RAAAA-ZEEEEE. She thinks she’s in love with Jason and he’s in love with her (they did “do it” in a church, you know), and Jason, of course, is in panic mode. That gets doubled when she tells him they have to go tell Rev what they did (she may be willing to cheat on her husband, but that doesn’t mean she’s completely immoral). He talks her out of it in that way where she thinks he’s saying they need to put God first by going through the Lock In and Meet the Dawn ceremonies, when he’s really saying that he doesn’t want to get capped by the Rev. She leaves all giggly and school-girlish, and he’s left wondering how he’s going to get out of this one.

Hoyt. He’s so adorable AND a virgin! I really, really want these two to work out, but you just get the feeling something bad is waiting around the corner for them. He’s such a good person, truly good in the way that Gran was last season. It may come off as naïve (when he tells Jessica that he doesn’t believe anyone is really a “slut,” there’s just people trying to connect with other people), but I like to think that he’s just that accepting of the people around him, knowing that he really just needs to be comfortable and sure of his own choices in life because he’s the one who has to live with them. I just hope he lives to the end of the season.

Eric, Isabel, and Rhinestone Cowboy are walking back to Eric’s room. Of course, Rhinestone Cowboy has to give them crap about how the two of them are doing nothing to save Godric. Eric’s finally had it with this dude, whips around, shoves him against the wall and threatens him. Isabel has to remind Eric he can’t legally do anything to R.C. since they don’t have proof of his involvement. Eric tell him he’ll show “no mercy” when he finds the evidence that R.C. is the reason Godric is missing, and that if Godric is gone he no longer cares what the Dallas nest does with each other or the Fellowship. He has lost something very important to him (he actually lets out a single bloody tear that I didn’t notice the first 2 times I watched this ep) if Godric is dead.

Eggs and Tara wake up the next morning on Sookie’s couch with no memories of what happened the night before. Probably a good thing because I’m still wishing I hadn’t remembered what I saw of that party. Eggs blames it on the Pineapple Express that Maryann has, but Tara’s not convinced. She’s a little worried that getting so stoned that she blacked out makes her like her mom. Eggs tries to reassure her she’s nothing like that, but Tara doesn’t seem to buy it.

The Rev and Sarge have a little sit-down with Sookie and Hugo. I loved it when she tells them “Jesus would be ashamed of you!” Classic. Hugo is the worse POW on the planet and practically confesses to being the third gunman on the grassy knoll, divulging their real names and everything. Bad news for Jason, because the Rev puts the ends together and figuers out Sookie is Jason’s sister. I refuse to believe Sookie couldn’t have heard Jason’s thoughts this whole time. Especially after the post-sex freakout he had the night before. She calls out to Barry in hopes he can go to Bill and tell him she needs help.

Speaking of Bill, he and Lorena are still in a stalemate, and “The Bleeds have begun” (that’s what happens when a vamp doesn’t sleep during the day — they start to bleed out their nose, ears, etc.). Bill tries to make it to the phone to call Eric, and Lorena finally spills that Eric is the reason she’s there in the first place.

Back at camp, Jason is trying to make his escape. In the most obvious way possible. Unfortunately, the Rev and Sarge find him and take off with him before he can get out of dodge.

Meanwhile, Andy is trying to convince the Sheriff what happened last night. No one, least of all the Sheriff, is going to believe him at this point because he smells like the floor of a taxi cab and booze and what he’s saying just doesn’t make any sense.

Maryann finally strolls into Sookie’s house. Holy Ever Loving Saint of Things I Don’t Need to See! Maryann has… MAN FEET AND LEGS. Have I mentioned how much feet make me gag? Oh, also, she’s covered in blood and is acting really creepy. Tara isn’t down with it, but Eggs seems to think it’s great that Maryann is so weird. I don’t think he’ll still be around once they get rid of Maryann. Man. Feet. I’m just saying.

This whole time, Jason thinks the Rev is pissed about him sleeping with the old lady. Not so much, he find out as the mock interrogation goes on. The Rev thinks Jason is just playing dumb when he really is just that dumb. He doesn’t realize they think he’s working with the vamps, and the Rev tells Sarge to “take care of him.” Didn’t he share in Circle Share Time that his sister was dating a vamp? Why is everyone so surprised by this?

Sammy got a gun (and when you say that, you say it in the Steven Tyler voice). He finally finds Daphne and gets her to spill the deets on Maryann (which didn’t take that much prodding on Sam’s part). She confirms that Maryann is in fact controlling the entire town, but that she can’t control supernaturals (like her and Sam). She tells him Maryann is a maenad, or handmaiden of Dionysus. She’s an immortal that’s been around the block more than a gazillion times. Sam asks if he gives himself up will Maryann leave, and Daphne tells him probably not. She’s having too much fun making all those passionate emotions in people go completely bananas.

Eventually, Sookie discovers that Hugo is the mole and at this point he’s all too happy to share with her. At first, everything between him and Isabel was great. The sex was great and it was a rush to know that something as powerful as she wanted him. But then it went south for him in a big way when he started to realize he had changed his whole life to revolve around her. Missing work all the time, hating when he had to leave her during the day, pretty much the same stuff Sookie’s been going through (she gets really butthurt when Hugo implies she knows exactly what he’s talking about). However, when Isabel refused to turn him and make them equals, he decided she was just using him and went to the Fellowship.

Back to the convo Isabel and Eric had, it’s easy to see why Hugo would think she didn’t “love” him the way he loves her. I don’t think she ever could love him that way. It goes back to humans being more intense about things because we don’t have forever, we have a very limited amount of time. So, I think in her own way, Isabel does love Hugo. Enough not to take away the very thing that makes him him.

Outside the basement, the Lock In has started and people have begun to show up at the church. The Rev takes Sarah aside to “talk” to her about Jason. Jason, on the other hand, is about to open a HUGE can of whupass. When Sarge calls Sookie a whore, that’s it for Jason. He flips Sarge. He flips him for real. Then kicks him in the junk and that’s why Sarge is in The Little Blue Pill commercials now. The more you know.

Everyone’s back at Merlotte’s like nothing freaky went down in their bits and pieces the night before. Arlene pulls Tara into the “ladies room” (which lead to a great exchange between them and Lafayette), and divulges that she may have date raped War Vet Terry. Arlene explains that she tried to loosen Terry up with a few drinks, then they blacked out, but when they both woke up it was pretty obvious they had slept together. I think the first clue was that neither were wearing pants. Tara seems a little concerned that she and Eggs weren’t the only ones blacking out that night.

Lafayette finally gets to meet Eggs, and in his Sassy McSasspants self that I love, he calls Eggs “Satan in a Sunday hat” and makes it a point to tell Tara to watch herself with him because Eggs is all kinds of trouble.

Andy barges into the bar looking for Terry, doesn’t find him, and proceeds to call everyone out on their “Orgy from Hell”. While Sam looks frozen with fear after Andy leaves, he has to feel a little better that at least one other person he can trust knows what happened that night.

Hoyt and Jessica = Not virgins anymore! These two are the cutest dweebs on the planet.

Looking like she should be in a John Waters film, Sarah chases Jason down and shoots him. In slow motion, to boot! Of course, we all know he can’t be dead yet so this entire scene was pretty useless. Except to show what a complete freak Sarah is.

Daphne gets her comeuppance when Maryann Devil Zombifies Eggs and has him stick a knife right in her diaphragm/lung area. This is not shocking and everyone saw it coming a mile away. Maybe not that Eggs would be the one to do it, but definitely Daphne’s death. But with this act, I think Maryann’s got her three-fingered claws so deep into him Eggs isn’t going to leave her.

While Lorena and Bill are, you guessed it, still in a standoff, we have to have one more flashback. These flashbacks were wasteful, in my opinion. Given a perfectly good chance to explain the gigantic difference between Vampire Bill Then and Vampire Bill Now, we instead get Bill pointing the finger at Lorena for all the horrible stuff he did. At least when Angelus turned into Angel, he took responsibility for his actions. Lorena can’t live through eternity by herself, so it’s only when Bill tries to kill himself that she relents and releases him. Around this time, Barry mans up and delivers Sookie’s message. Too bad Eric’s room was across the hall this whole time and he heard the entire message. He zooms out of there, causing Barry to turn around and try to send a message back to Sookie about not helping her anymore. Instead, he gets grabbed by the shoulder and dragged into Bill’s room.

I don’t think Sookie would have heard Barry’s message anyway since Sarge is beating Hugo’s face in (I bet he’s wishing he’d staying in Mexico hunting Graboids) and trying to rape Sookie. That’s so Christian of him! Before he can get anything done, Godric busts in and saves Sookie. She sure does need to be saved a lot, doesn’t she? Also, I’ve watched this ep three times, and that guy at the end still doesn’t look like the actor who played Godric in Eric’s flashback. At any rate, I find it interesting that Godric is just roaming around down there, clearly not being locked up or chained down with some silver. I wonder if he’s there on purpose?