TV Review: True Blood 2.04 – Shake and Fingerpop

Review: True Blood 2.04 – “Shake and Fingerpop”

Original Air Date: 12 July 2009

Rating: NR/AO (Not Rated/Adults Only)

This week, the screencaps were done by phoenixothon @ capaholic because these are better than the ones I’ve been making and I’m lazy.

I’m not even joking. Bon Temps is about to explode. Also, there wasn’t at all the appropriate amount of screen time given to Eric this week. I’m just saying. This episode felt really long, for some reason. I’m not sure if it’s because anything that could possibly ever happen in this tiny town is all happening at the same time or what, but talk about a crapload of story lines!

Darkness falls on the Light of Day Camp, the midnight hour being close at hand. Jason Stackhouse nervously walks back to the bunks after a delightful evening with the Newlins, only to discover the door ajar. He slowly and cautiously walks in to find his bunkmates seemingly slaughtered by vampires. A shadowy figure lunges at him from behind, threatening Jason with a sexual assault and a blood sucking! What will our hero do? He lays there and takes it, naturally. Turns out the Lukenator (that’s never going to get old) and Co. were just punking Jason. After giving Luke a face full of knuckles, Jason furiously rips off his clip-on tie and tells them all that “Vampires are NOT a JOKE!” He then proceeds to give the “there’s a war going on out there” speech and puts the rest of the Hate Campers to shame. Roll the title credits that I don’t like and hate having to sit through every week.

Back to Poppa Bear Bill breaking up the make out session. Hoyt thinks Bill’s pissed because it looked like he and Jessica were going to make it on his couch. Turns out, Bill’s not being protective of Jessica; he thinks he’s protecting Hoyt. Hoyt leaves, but on his way out tells Jessica that he doesn’t believe Bill for a minute about her being a crazy maneater. Awww! Those two are so cute! Especially after she tells Bill that meeting Hoyt’s been the only good thing about her new life and that she’d never even kissed a boy until then. She asks if it’s her fault her fangs come out when she’s turned on, realizes her fangs are still out, and runs up the stairs giggling like a schoolgirl. Sookie tells Bill they need to take her to Dallas with them because it would be good for him (she’s right on this one; he really seems to have a hate on for his own kind). Turns out, Bill’s jealous of Jessica because she gets to be “raised” as a vampire in a more humane way than he was.

Good Lord, the nights in Bon Temps are the stuff of legend. They go on forever! Daphne and Sam are still floating around in The Creature from the Black Lagoon’s pond, waxing philosophical about getting back to nature. She is trying her hardest to passive-aggressively seduce him! As Daphne gets out of the pond, Sam takes notice of the gnarly scars on her back. Is she the Bullmanthing or just being controlled by it?

Holy Guacamole, it’s the next day. Tara finally sobers up and decides to move out of Maryann’s Grotto of Groin Rot. Maryann gives her a hippy-dippy line about flourishing that even Tara looks confused by as she’s walking away (is the spell wearing off?), but something tells me that this isn’t going to be a clean break. Mostly, it’s Maryann’s face.

Oh.Em.Gee. It’s a meeting of the minds at the breakfast table at camp as Jason, Lukenator, and Nameless Dude Nbr. 1 debate who the first vampire was. Lazarus, according to Luke, because Jesus brought him back from the dead. Jason retorts that maybe Jesus was the first because not only did he also come back from the dead, he tells people to “drink my blood – it’ll give you special powers!” This is after he claims Dracula to be the first. Nameless says Cain’s the first and vampirism is “the mark of Cain,” God’s punishment for creating the first evil. Luke corrects him with the really old and annoying comeback that Eve was the first evil (when are they going to get over that already?). Jason doesn’t agree, but gets called out of the mess hall to see Rev. Newlin. Luke tells him, all threatening like, that God will make sure all evil is punished. Jason, brilliant tactician at a war of words, tells Luke to explain Europe if that’s true. Debate goes to Jason.

Tara’s moved in with Sookie, where they have the most awkward cry/hug/girl moment over how they both miss Gran (I do too, she was awesome). After that weird moment of physical contact, Tara figures out Sookie is being used by the vamps for her mind reading abilities again. Which leads Sookie to spill that she’s doing this to get Lafayette out of Eric’s dungeon. She needs to learn to keep her big mouth shut.

So, turns out that the dead body from ep 1 was attacked by the Bullmanthing, too. This thing gets around, and I’m also starting to see an obvious connection (Tara). Policeman Officer Andy also gets fired. Sort of. He gets his badge taken away because he can’t seem to stop drinking on the job. At least he’s dead set that he saw the Paul Bunyan Pig, and is semi-suspicious in that drunk way of what’s going on in his town.

War Vet Terry (who I totally love) is not doing so well with the anticipated pressure of running Merlotte’s in Sam’s place. Sookie gets all wah-wah that she’s the last to know Sam’s leaving town. When would he have the chance to tell her?! She’s never at work because someone/thing is constantly trying to kill her when she’s not getting her plumbing reworked by Bill, and when she is there she treats Sam like a welcome mat! I’m surprised she still has a frakking job there. She does get one last jab in there about years of friendship wasted that you can tell hits him.

The Rev and Jason are having some paint balling bonding time. You know, ’cause you want to know how well the dude who’s going to be shacking up with your old lady can handle a paint ball gun. He also tells Jason about using “wooden bullets.” How in the hell does that even work? A wooden bullet. Fired from a gun. Fired. Wooden. This sounds about as plausible as the ice bullet, to me.

After getting all moist over Jason telling him what really happens when a vamp gets staked, the Rev takes him back to the homestead for a show and BBQ. And by show, I mean his wife shaking her white girl sized money maker at Jason while she cooked. I swear she was two clicks away from unhinging her jaw and swallowing that bottle whole in that fantasy sequence. I take it back: Jason is not the dumbest character ever. The Rev Newlin is, if he is in fact that oblivious to his wifey-poo making eyes at Jason. And rubbing him down at the dinner table. It was all very high school.

I knew Maryann wasn’t going to let Tara just walk away! Her, Karl, and Eggs bust in on Tara crying in a box of Captain Crunch. Of course, Maryann’s moved the nightly town rave from her house (it was being disinfected?) to Sookie’s in the guise that it’s a birthday party for Tara. Literally, it ends up looking like the entire town shows up to trash Sookie’s house. That is a major friend foul. You just got invited to live at your friend’s house, so you throw the kegger to end all keggers while said friend is out of town? That house is going to be so wrecked.

Like I said, the entire town is at this party. Except Sam, Arlene, Daphne, War Vet Terry, and Policeman Officer Andy. They’re all at Merlotte’s. Arlene totally talks Sam into closing up early so they can all go to the party. Just then, Tara’s mom walks in looking for her daughter. She has a present for her, wrapped in tinfoil (I was impressed with how smooth it looked because tinfoil gets crinkly in a hurry), and I’m starting to feel really bad for her. In what world does that happen? She gets Sam to promise to give the present to Tara, and it looks like Sam’s going to have to put his big boy pants on and go to the party after all.

Sookie, Bill, and Jessica finally make it to Dallas. If Eric travels that well everywhere, I would so jump the Bill tugboat onto the S.S. Hot Viking in a heartbeat. Let’s face it, Bill is pretty boring so far and he lives in an abandoned house. He does have a Wii, though, and that’s pretty fun. Anyhow, the limo driver tries to abduct Sookie (who is drunk off the travel bottles of booze). Bill saves her (is he ever going to get tired of doing that, because I’m getting tired of seeing it), and he and Jessica work on glamouring him. Turns out, the Fellowship of the Sun hired him to kidnap the human traveling with the two vampires. Jessica masters The Force pretty fast, getting the driver to yell dirty phrases at the top of his lungs in the hotel lobby (which is so beyond posh). They full on Obi Wan the driver and send him on his way, and Bill calls Eric to get some answers about what exactly is going on.

This party is crazy and Tara got over her issues with the “lifestyle” pretty fast apparently. War Vet Terry and Arlene are even dancing up a storm in the front yard (I hope they hook up outside of Maryann’s influence). Everyone even brought presents for Tara! Good old faithful, dependable Sam shows up to give Tara the present and has a run in with Maryann. She verbally punches him square in the denim fruit by saying he’s not very alpha male since the chicks he’s sweet on walk all over him then kick him to the curb. He lets what people say get to him way too much, but Daphne’s there to help him feel better. Maryann makes sure Eggs is working on Tara, throws the present from Tara’s mom in the bushes, and walks off into the woods. You know, to go be creepy without an audience.

The Newlins have decided to make Jason a Soldier of the Sun. Turns out, he wasn’t the only one to get into the club; 14 other campers, including Luke, were promoted too. However, Jason’s the only one being moved into the Newlins’ house. Luke and Nameless figure out what we all saw 10 years ago: Mrs. Newlin found a new toy. Surprisingly, Jason is offended by this, but starts to get suspicious of her intentions when she shows up in her “nightgown” to tuck him in for the evening.

Maryann did go out into the woods to work some kind of “get yo freak on” type of magic. Eggs and Tara finally get their sex scene, which, visually, wasn’t bad at all, but I’m thinking that was the hook Maryann needed to keep Tara in her collection. Meanwhile, Daphne shocks the crap out of Sam (and me) by telling him she knows what he is. This girl is trouble, but Sam follows her out of the kitchen like a dog in heat anyway.

Everyone at the party is going full out batcrap crazy! Maryann’s in the woods, doing that vibrating thing, and I was waiting on the edge of my seat for her to turn into Queen Bavmorda and do that “Pigs! You’re all pigs!” bit. Especially when everyone started stuffing cake, other food stuffs, boobies, and dirt into their face, but she didn’t. What did happen was bugnuttier. Her hands change into the three-clawed Bullmanthing’s hands!! What the hell is this lady?!

Before Eric flies out to have a sit down with Bill, he interrupts Lafayette’s Sinbad (the old Harryhausen effects movie, not the comedian) viewing marathon and offers him the “healing elixir that is [his] 1,000 year old blood.” He’s so hot when he’s dramatic. When someone tells you your leg wound smells like cheese and that you’re about to become Bon Temps’s first peg-legged hooker, you should probably take his cure. Lafayette’s not stupid, though, and despite being in supremely bad shape he questions why Eric wants to keep an eye on him. It’s because whatever Sookie cares about Eric finds interesting. Because he wants to continue to use her or because he wants to shake her peach tree, I don’t know. What I do know is Sookie is turning into a real Mary Sue-type and that’s super boring. Realizing he doesn’t have much of a choice (remember, he’s a survivor first), Lafayette takes Eric’s offer. The effects of Eric’s blood happens fast, as within moments Lafayette is busting moves all over the place. This was the best. I love Lafayette! Plus, Eric was so close to being shirtless! HBO, you tease!

When he finally gets to the hotel, Eric confirms he had suspicions that the Fellowship was behind Godric’s disappearance. He and Bill argue in the hotel bar like a couple of old maids, as Bill tries to figure out why Eric cares so much about Godric (he apparently has no “obligations” to Dallas or Texas, and I guess that means something in the vampire world). Eric says that Godric is twice as old as he and basically the most powerful vamp out there. If the humans can take him, none of them are safe. I think they have a deeper history, myself. Like, he sired Eric or something, but essentially there’s going to be open attacks on humans if the Dallas vamps don’t get Godric back.

Back up in the hotel room, Sookie’s checking out the porn (the titles are always good for a laugh, when they don’t make you gag) and Jessica’s ordering room service. I have to go to this hotel. You can order underwear models there. Jessica is so a girl after my own heart! All of a sudden, we can hear Sookie’s thoughts. Barry the Bellhop can read minds! Holy crap, she’s not the only one who can do that and she reads his mind! He runs off down the hall in a panic as Sookie follows in her robe.