TV Review: True Blood 3.01 – “Bad Blood”

Episode: True Blood 3.01 – “Bad Blood”
Original Air Date: June 13, 2010

It’s back, everyone, and if this opener is any indication this season’s going to be one hilariously filthy, sexy, degenerate, bloody season. Really, would you want your vampires and werewolves any other way? Yeah? Well, there’s always those movies where they all twinkle or whatever.

This ep picks up exactly where S2 left off. In rapid fire succession, we’ve got: Sookie running out of the restaurant screaming for “BEEEEEEEEL!”, Sam on the hunt for his birth family in Arkansas, Jason back at his place about to have a complete mental breakdown over shooting Eggs in the coconut, Tara already beating Jason to the punch in that regard as she huddles over the dead body, Jessica making it back home with the guy she only mostly killed earlier at the truck stop, and Bill turning out to have been vampnapped by the “F You Crew” (I was unawares we had a charter in the Southern states).

Twangy-twang, I wanna do real bad things to you, opening credits roll.

Kenya (“Deputy Jones” if you’re nasty) shows up at the restaurant to take Sookie’s statement about Bill going Houdini on her. Boy, there was enough attitude getting thrown around there to choke an elephant! Kenya tells Sook that Bill was probably just angry she took so long to decide if she wanted to marry him or not and got up and left in a huff. So, sideline on this one:

A vampire just asked a human to marry him and she needed a minute or two to think her answer over, and everyone’s going to hassle her about that? He will forever be exactly the way he is now and she will grow old and die. I mean, it’s hard enough for two regular human beings to get married and stay married, how easy is it going to be when only one of you has the threat of death and old age hovering over you like a fanboy at a Comic Con booth? Was Highlander never released in Louisiana or what? Come on, people!

Okay. Game on.

Kenya isn’t having Sookie all up in her grill, so she tells her she needs to wait 48 hours before she can file a missing persons, says adios to the restaurant lady, and asks Sookie if she wants a lift back into town or not. Sookie accepts the ride because we all remember what happened last time she thought running around in a swamp by herself was a good idea led to.

Meanwhile, Dearborne is taking statements at Merlotte’s about Eggs and how he ended up with the inside of his pumpkin on the outside, starting with Arlene. Terry and Andy take that time to have a nice heart-to-heart, mostly just on Terry’s end. Because while Terry’s trying to convince Andy that he knows what he’s going through and that he’ll eventually get past feeling guilty over his first kill, Andy’s trying to come up with a good way to lie his ass off. It’s a good thing Dearborne started with Arlene, who is trying her best to be super helpful to make up for when she wasn’t helpful at all during the Rene incident. This causes Tara to jump Arlene’s case because Tara has completely lost all semblance of the awesome character she used to be and is slowly but surely becoming her bat crap crazy mother. One of the best lines of the ep came from Arlene before Lafayette and Terry break up the cat fight.

Arlene: “I’m sorry you fell in love with a serial killer, alright? But, honestly, who here hasn’t?”

It’s a rite of passage in Bon Temps, falling for a serial killer.

Flip back over to Jessica, who is freaking out about the Almost Dead, Soon to be Real Dead Dude. I simultaneously felt really bad for her here and like I wanted to smack her and tell her to snap out of it. I’ll get to that in a minute. He tells her to take him to a hospital (which she can’t do), then calls her an “f-ing whore” (which she agreed with, which made me angry). That’s when Sookie barges in. They do the whole, “Is Bill here?” / “No.” / “Are you all right?” / “Fine” thing before Sookie explains to Jessica what happened three minutes ago at dinner. Jessica gets hung up on the proposal and if Sookie rejected it or not before Sookie makes her promise to call if Bill shows up. Sookie leaves, Jessica goes to the vampire hidey-hole where she stashed Almost Dead Guy. Only now he’s Full-On Dead Guy. Panicking, she tries to feed him her blood, thinking that will either heal him or make him a vampire. Actually, I’m not sure what she thought that would do since he’s DEAD.

Okay. I felt bad for her because she’s so new to being a vampire and having independence. You know, Bill is supposed to be looking out for her, teaching her how to be a vampire and how to handle and manage herself in a human world, and he has been doing a poor job of that thus far. So I can understand not knowing how to feed on a human without killing it or how not to follow on that urge to feed on humans. On the other hand, she had supernatural strength and she’s living in the middle of the swamp. All’s I’m saying is that it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out how to dispose of a dead body in this case.

The F You Crew and Bill are busy speeding along a back country road while all this is going on back in Bon Temps. Everyone’s enjoying taking hits of V directly from the source (some more WAY more than the others — I’m looking at you indirectly hairy guy trying to tune in Radio Tokyo). Bill informs them that at the rate they’re draining him, he’s going to be dead before they make it to wherever they’re heading, assuming they snatched him up specifically and for more of a purpose than to drink his blood. I don’t think they really cared at that point what Bill had to say, but he seemed to be equally interested in what I was at that particular moment: The guy holding the silver chain around his neck was wearing gloves. Peculiar.

Andy sneaks into Jason’s house to give what will undoubtedly become legend in the record of inspirational speeches of all time. Jason’s freaking out about killing Eggs and Andy verbally smacks him upside the head to get them both on the same page: Andy killed Eggs because he confessed to murder and came at him with a knife, while Jason was chasing tail. Andy tells Jason they have to stick to the story; it’s got holes you could park a NASA space shuttle with rocket boosters in, but if they don’t stick to it they’ll both end up in the pokey. Jason’s all for staying out of jail, but getting laid all the time is Old Jason and he wants to be New Jason. Andy tells him after all this has blown over he can be New Jason, but until then (and this should be on a motivational poster): “Conscience off. Dick on. And everything’s gonna be alright.”

Back on the trail for Bill with Sookie, we find ourselves at Fangtasia (tell me Kenya isn’t driving her all over town). Pam proves once again to be made of pure 100% awesome. Pam is so awesome, she lets Sookie storm in on Eric making with the fast, weird, painful looking vampire sex with the club’s newest dancer. Holy S indeed, Sook! This sequence is what I like to call the “I’ll be in my bunk” scene. Thank you, Sweden! I’m sure there was talk about how Sookie thinks Eric took Bill, how Eric denies it, how Sookie then thinks it might have been Lorena (Bill’s sire from S2), and how as sheriff Eric should be the one to look into the disappearance, not Sookie, but I honestly couldn’t get past that magically delicious v-shaped area ASkars has got going on in the lower region of his torso. Or his backside.

No, seriously, Sweden? You have anymore like this one, we’ll take ’em.

About the same time, Bill somehow manages to take out all four of the F You Crew and flip his really nice car in the process. He drags himself out of the wreckage and calls to Jessica with that sire/progeny personal phone line vamps have.

Hey, too bad he never bothered to explain that trick to her! Might have come in handy, say, if he were vampnapped by four really hairy and wild guys! Instead, she just wakes up, feels like she ate a bad clam, and checks to see how the baking process with Just Getting More Dead Guy is going. Hint: if he were getting better, I don’t think he’d smell like that.

Over at Sookie’s, Lafayette’s thinking he’s got Tara sedated with drugs and Tequila (that hangover is going to be brutal), but never underestimate The Crazy Factor. Sookie shows up (because she’s really every version of The Flash, Superman, and Quicksilver combined and can be anywhere in Bon Temps in a heartbeat) and they tell her what happened with Eggs. Tara’s still saying that they can’t prove Eggs killed those women even though he was confessing. Sookie admits that Eggs begged her to help him remember earlier that day, so she did. Tara flips her lid, tries throttling Sookie, all while ranting that Sook had no right to do that and that Eggs didn’t need to remember. Lafayette is forced to take Tara to his place. I’m forced to like Tara even less.

Oh, Eric! So devious, your plan was. Too bad you didn’t hire better help! Turns out My Favorite Viking had in fact planned to get Bill out of the picture. He lets his lackey know in no uncertain terms that he had better find Bill before next sundown or it’ll be his last. Pam tactfully informs Eric that he is losing control and that he needs to contact the Queen. He retorts that he can’t just tell the Queen that he lost the one vampire that can tattle on them about selling V. Pam asks him what he think will happen if she finds out from someone else. She’s a little worried here; Eric’s not the only one who could be in deep if this whole V business got out in the open. Eric tells her that he often looks to her for council, but that this is not one of those times.

Sam has a dream. Or as I like to call it, “I’ll be in my bunk, Part II”. Debate still rages on about why exactly this dream occurred (at least it does with the people I talk with), but after he wakes up he gets a pretty solid lead on where to find his bio-family.

A new day means things go back to normal in Bon Temps. Like the entire town hadn’t tried to kill Sam a day or so ago or that he’s missing, like they all probably hadn’t given each other crabs, herps, or the clap, that dead bodies are turning up like road apples at the Kentucky Derby, like… Hoyt and Jason are back at work where Hoyt is back to spilling his guts with Jason only half listening. Hoyt’s sad about Jessica and pissed that his mama lied about how his dad died. Jason thinks that she had the right idea about lying; if you want to really mess someone up, tell them the truth. I think if someone is still trying to convince themselves of something, they should just try repeating their new mantra: “Conscience off. Dick on. And everything’s gonna be alright.” Since he’s homeless at the moment and not fond of sleeping in his car, Hoyt has to subtly ask Jason to stay at his place. Subtlety is lost on Jason.

Tara’s in bad shape and has pretty much ostracized herself, so Lafayette has no choice but to call up Lettie Mae to come over and keep an eye on her daughter. I wouldn’t trust that woman to watch paint dry, but girlfriend has to work and leaving Tara alone isn’t an option because he cares about her and knows she’ll probably try to kill herself if left alone. Like with last season, I can’t put down what all he said, but every time he’s on screen is gold. Best supporting character ever. If he had his own show, I’d totally watch it.

And the Sookie goes in to give Dearborne an earful about the Bon Temps PD not taking Bill’s disappearance seriously enough. She goes on about how you should respect your elders (and Bill’s got an advantage there), how she loves him just as much/like Dearborne loves his family, and whinewhinewhine. Okay. You live in a podunk town. From experience, usually the PD of a podunk town can’t manage scratching their asses and the usual run of the mill type crime at the same time let alone murders every freaking night (seriously, where’s the FBI already?). They have limited resources because they usually don’t need them. I’m pretty sure it’s all been dealing with the local drunks, minor vandalism maybe up until the first season started. Yet, you expect them to find your missing boyfriend vampire? Find a vampire. It’s hard enough to solve regular old human murders and kidnappings (and that town’s lousy with both recently), and you expect them all to jump right on a missing vampire because it’s important to you? I get that she loves him, and, yeah, for sure he was vampnapped and harmed, but I’m guessing it’s a little harder to track down vampire perps/suspects than it is the human variety. That’s why they have their own sheriff and all. Just saying, she was really whiney and irritating here.

Sam meets his brother. Half-brother? Whatever. Nothing’s happening there yet.

Instead of just keeping an eye on Tara, Lettie Mae uses this rare opportunity to try and convert Tara by bringing in her preacher man. Because that’s what Jesus would do. She has no clue who her daughter is or how badly she ruined and broke her, does she? Or she’s actively ignoring it because she’s so completely up her own ass. This is so going to end badly.

Daytime here is boring, so let’s fast forward to night! Look! Bill’s still alive!

And Jessica’s still trying to raise the dead. Hoyt calls her up to say he misses her and all that, and while she’s happy to hear from him she has a mess that isn’t getting any fresher with heat and humidity that she needs to tend to. He does look good with that new haircut, though.

At Fangtasia, Eric has a visit from some gnomes. I mean, the Queen and the Magister show up to talk about how Louisiana is becoming the V capital of the world. Sophie-Ann and Eric are the worst liars on the planet. You’d think given how much time they’ve had to practice, not to mention their respective political roles in the Vampire Nation, they’d be better at it. Not so much. A neon sign spelling it out would have been less obvious.

Arlene’s pregnant. Or she’s turning into Wolverine. Either option has its disadvantages for a lady.

Jason, meanwhile, is busy trying his best to be Old Jason by picking up a couple of out of towners at Merlotte’s. Too bad his wingman is being a Debbie Downer. Suck it up, Hoyt! You’re the one who wanted to be roommates!

After the Magister bids these two adieu for the evening, they get in a little tiff. Apparently, vampires have to pay taxes. This is something that’s never addressed in vampire stories. I just assumed that over the many years of being alive, they would have found ways to accumulate a certain amount of wealth so they could live a certain lifestyle. I guess some of them have impulse shopping issues. Sophie-Ann tells Eric to sell all the V he has left by the next night. Lafayette is going to be busy. I liked how much more fierce the Queen was in this scene than she had been in her previous ones. I actually bought it this time. Correct me if I’m wrong, though: isn’t Eric older than her? I’m still not getting the politics of vampire society, but if he’s older than her couldn’t he take he down if he wanted?

Pam goes out and does her nightly rounds before heading back to Fangtasia to do whatever she does there. First is Sookie, where she drops off the money Eric promised and gives Sook the idea that sires can contact their progeny telepathically. Then to Lafayette to inform him how he needs to sell a boatload of V by the next night. He forgets his place in the arrangement for a minute, and Pam gladly reminds him of where it is exactly. She gave out a juicy hint to her history that I hope is expanded upon in a future ep.

Sam finally finds his bio-family, who apparently own the world’s largest mailbox.

Jason is going to have a really hard time being Old Jason at this rate. He can’t perform, even though he’s got two girls making out in front of him while Billy Squire plays in the background, and because he’s Jason tells them WHY he can’t perform. They, obviously, leave before the situation gets any weirder.

Sookie bullies Jessica into accessing that call Bill gave her mentally the night before and they’re able to find his wrecked car. She orders Jessica to pull the one body in the car (what happened to the other three?) and search it for an ID. Again, here is a human getting out of pocket with a vampire. Either it’s because Jessica is too nice or she’s still too new to what she is, but she just lets Sookie boss her around. The only thing they find on the body is a brand that looks like a rune. Magically, they find it on the Internet as a sign of “Operation Werewolf.” I like how they scroll through two runes before they get to this one, and they’re actually labeled “suchandsuch rune” while this one is ominously titled “Operation Werewolf.” Oh, and apparently, Jessica is just going to see how ripe that dead guy can get in the basement before the smell and stain are an actual part of the house forever.

Lettie Mae is hot for preacher. While she fawns over him, Tara goes and locks herself in the bathroom claiming to need a shower. Yeah, a pet rock would wither and die in this woman’s care. Hours later when Lafayette comes home, Tara is still “in the shower” and Lettie Mae is completely clueless. Tara is busy stuffing every pill Lafayette has in there down her throat. Yep, saw that one coming a mile away.

Bill eventually finds a house with someone in it. Olivia is really old, she doesn’t have a phone, and is all alone. Of course he feeds on her, after which he glamours her and finds out where he is (Mississippi). He puts some kind of story into her head so she won’t remember him before running out of the house. He doesn’t make it very far before he’s surrounded by wolves.

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars