TV Review: True Blood 3.10 – “I Smell a Rat”

Episode: True Blood 3.10 – “I Smell a Rat”
Original Air Date: August 22, 2010

Finally! I’m back and connected to the modern world, and this is the episode I get. A whopping pile of “meh” dressed in a Sunday hat. Like with all True Blood episodes, technically, there was a lot that happened in this ep… it just didn’t feel like it while watching it. Some reveals that should have been “OMG!” turned out to be more “SRSLY?”, some characters continued to devolve into 2D versions of what they once were/could be, and everything ended with me wondering how they’re going to wrap this season up in two more episodes.

Sookie’s a faerie. I have to admit, I found this out in S1 when I asked a friend who read the books about her. However, the way this reveal was drug out made it way more anti-climatic than it possibly could have been. Okay, there really wasn’t a way to make her being a faerie not “f-ing lame.” So, once again, that rare moment where Sookie and me agree on something pops up because it really was an f-ing lame reveal.

I swear I thought Jason was going to wet himself here. I feel really bad for him and wonder how many more people is he going to kill while trying to protect someone else. Although, technically, Franklin wasn’t a “person” per se and he was a nasty bastard, I just think Jason is going to belly flop into the deep end any minute here. Tara sure came together for a minute there, though, didn’t she?

I really do love the interaction between Pam and Eric. They both act like these frosty creatures who have no emotion for anything/one, but having Russell as a looming threat kind of forces them to show how much they care for each other in their own special ways. For Eric, it’s making sure that if he were to meet the True Death, Pam would get everything of his.

To make sure that Sam isn’t a murderer, Lafayette gets Jesus and Crystal to let him feed V to Crystal’s dad. It saves him, but he isn’t happy that’s the method they used. He and Crystal have a little stand off, with him telling her that there’s no way Jason would accept her for what she really is (which, by now, I think we all know is a were of some kind), and that her “duty” is to mate with Felton and crap out his babies. She rejects this and runs off to presumably see if Jason really would freak out if he knew what she was.

Back at Sookie’s, Eric shows up. He and Bill have a little “You tell Sookie the truth/No, you tell Sookie the truth” conversation before Sookie actually shows up and bitches out Eric for being a horrible man. Which makes no sense to me. He did more to keep her safe while dealing with Russell than Bill did. Also, Bill is totally still hiding something and I still maintain that Eric actually cares for Sookie since he hasn’t had her blood. He tells them both he showed up to make sure Sookie was safe, but it kind of felt like he was trying to see if he could use her to save himself. He wishes her the best and flies off.

Arlene is really getting on my nerves with her intolerance. I’m just saying, it’s not going to be Rene’s blood that makes that baby evil. It was so nice to see Jessica tell her to have the decency to keep her hate speech to herself, but it did lead to some more creepiness from Tommy. I really wanted Tommy and Sam to turn out to be the only normals in the show, but the more time goes by, the more Tommy comes off like a lecherous creep.

I want to kick whoever wrote this character and gave her my name in the reproductive organs. That’s all I have to say about that.

So, Bill is really super pushy here and I really couldn’t stand the fact that Tara had to explicitly spell it out for Sookie WHY she has a problem with Bill being anywhere near her or any of them at this point. While Tara’s going into detail about how Franklin kidnapped and raped and tried to turn her while Bill did nothing to save her, Bill is telling Jason he needs to protect Sookie at any cost. Like Jason wouldn’t do whatever he had to to protect Sookie.

That morning, Jesus talks Lafayette into doing V with him. I think he should have just stuck with the OJ and breakfast foods.

Back at Merlotte’s, everyone is scared of Sam. He tells them to try and act normal, calls Tommy an idiot for being proud of his brother for almost killing a man, and tells that weirdo new waitress to keep her religion to herself. What the crap is her deal, anyhow? There’s something going on with that one.

The V takes Jesus and Lafayette on a little spirit journey through their bloodlines. Jesus is from a very long line of shamans/healers/magic workers and Lafayette’s thrice-great and twice-great grandmothers were “conjurers.” The trips ends like any crazy trip would end: with a glimpse at Jesus’s grandfather, who turns out to be a very scary man. His mother dragged Jesus all over the world trying to keep him away from her father because he apparently had “big plans” for him. I’m going to just throw it out there, but I think the nosey Wiccan waitress is going to end up somehow connected to this storyline. Just saying.

Well, it was only a matter of time before Jason spilled the truth about Eggs to someone. Of course, Sookie is all adamant that he tell Tara, but Jason is just terrified about what that would do to her at this point. Honestly, she could only degrade even further into being a horrible character to watch or it makes her do a 180 and she all of a sudden goes back to being the character I used to like in S1.

Arlene finally tells Terry that the baby isn’t his, and, because he’s about the best man EVER in the entire history of fictional men, he tells her he will raise the baby as his own and that they will surround it in so much love that there’s no way it could ever turn out to be “evil.” Of course, Arlene is dumb and she still goes to Weirdo Wiccan Waitress for an alternative way to get rid of the baby.

And this is where things go super bad for poor Jason. Not only does he interrupt his sister’s sexy time dream, he makes out a little with Tara, then tells her he shot Eggs, and after she runs off he finds out Sookie ran off too. Belly flop into the deep end in 3, 2, …

Vampire hate crimes have started up following Russell’s fantastic episode closer last week. I guess that’s the downside to being the only two known vamps in Bon Temps. Jessica wants to go after them, but Bill tells her they have to control themselves more than ever now. I kinda don’t like when the parallels between fictional shows and what’s going on in reality are as obvious as this is.

Sam used to be a very bad man. No wonder he keeps such a tight handle on his anger.

“Blah blah blah Vampire emergency blah.” Pam, you’re still the best. Sookie ran off to talk to Eric instead of just staying with Jason and being safe. They make out, and it’s kind of obvious that Sookie doubts whether Bill is being as honest as he claims. Pam breaks it up before Eric gets to Third Base, and chastises him for not using Sookie to save his behind from Russell. He tells her not to get sentimental at this point in their history, and she reminds him that he would have done anything to save Godric. Like I said, these two work so well together as these characters, it’s a pleasure to watch them act off one another.

This is the best. Hoyt is a giant and Tommy was so asking for it!

Hoyt FINALLY dumps She Who Will Not Be Named Here Ever, and tells Jessica that he loves her for everything that she is and that they should be together. She doesn’t answer him right away, so he walks out, has the above run in with Tommy, which causes him to shift into a pit bull and attack Hoyt. Jessica saves him by tossing Tommy into the woods. She tells Hoyt that she loves him, too, and gets him to drink her blood to heal the wound. I really like these two together and I really want it to work out for them, but with the way things are playing out in this show it seems very unlikely it will.

Again, Bill is really a pushy jerk with Jason and I almost stood up and gave the guy a Slow Clap for throwing Bill out of his house, taking back the invite, and then calling him a mf’er through the door. It was just like, finally! Someone besides Eric tells Bill to crawl out of his own backside.

But that leads to the worst shifting scene ever as Crystal turns out to be a were-panther. Why she’s a black panther and not a panther you’d actually find in the wilds down South is kind of confusing, but I’m going to go with the fact that people are usually more impressed with black panthers than pumas. To his credit, he doesn’t exactly freak out, so there might be a future for these two crazy (and I mean that literally) kids.

And, speaking of crazy, Russell is so far beyond any notion of that state of mind we don’t even have a word for it anymore. He hires a human pro and talks to him as if he were Talbot. Then he stakes him and curls up next to the dead body, all while still calling him Talbot and even seeing Talbot instead of the actual kid. I’ll be honest, I am so looking forward to seeing how far down the crazy brick road this dude goes in the next couple episodes. I have a feeling it’s going to be great to watch.

Then to end, Eric locks Sookie down in his little dungeon. Why? I’m not sure. At this point, I can’t tell if he really does want to keep her safe (and knowing her the way we all know her, knows that the only way to do that is to physically restrain her), or if he’s going to try and use her to v himself. I’m Team Eric, for sure, so I’m hoping it’s some kind of combination of the two.

Rating: 3 / 5 Stars