TV Review: True Blood 4.02 – “You Smell Like Dinner”

Episode: True Blood 4.02 – “You Smell Like Dinner”
Original Air Date: July 3, 2011

Sookie continues to work on her little real-estate issue. Bill has Eric go in and take care of the coven Jesus and Lafayette have joined because it’s suddenly a threat to vampires. Jason finds out where Crystal’s been and who shoved him in the freezer. Sam starts falling for Luna and gets her to open up more in group, for better or worse. Jessica finds herself having an increasingly hard time controlling her need for human blood.

Episode two starts off with Jason waking up tied to one of the nastiest mattresses ever and Timbo licking the wound on his head. I mean, that kid was really going at it. Jason eventually talks him into letting him go, until Felton walks in. Big shocker — he’s the one who shoved Jason into the freezer! Yea! Theme Song time!

Back over at Eric’s new house, he and Sookie are having their usual “I hate you!”/”I’m a Viking — You know you want me” banter. She, of course, doesn’t want to be “owned” by Eric like I guess she was by Bill. He warns her that other vampires will eventually figure out why she smells like sunshine and she’s going to need protection. He makes a good point when he says if all he wanted was her blood he could take it easy peasy and there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it, but he’s asking her permission to let him protect her because he cares about her. Okay, straight talk time. I know she’s been jerked around by Bill and that makes it super hard to trust ANYONE after that. So been there multiple times — who hasn’t? But I guess I’d start thinking a little more practically, and the devil you know is better than twisting in the wind waiting for some undesirable to snatch you up and drain you of your special princess better then the 100% non-diluted fairy blood. Also, he’s a Viking — you know you want him.

Bill’s little double agent is also his new pal to roll in the hay with. I knew he’d have a new fangbanger, I just thought it’d be Portia. Maybe he’ll get saucy and start doing both!

Jessica, Pam, and Hoyt have a run in with the Steve Newlin fanatics outside Fangtasia. In classic Hoyt style, he asks them how they can call themselves Christians when all they have is hate in their hearts and gets one of the best lines ever as a response: “I am a Christian, Goddamnit!” Pam suggests that he and Jessica leave and let this bunch of idiots continue to practice their Constitutional right to be idiots, and Hoyt gets rushed by the group and has the crap beat out of him. Pam and Jessica stand by and watch, not being able to essentially neutralize the fight in a heartbeat because one of the protesters is videoing the whole thing. Because it’s okay to get their group beating the snot out of one dude, but not good for a vampire to be caught on tape breaking up the fight. Hate is a funny thing.

Luna and Sam have a moment. Literally, it lasts a moment before she runs off. He’s so in love with her.

Sookie heads over to Bill’s place, for what I’m not sure, but she gets two shocks: Bill’s king now and he’s also banging someone else’s cowbell. Yeah. Looking real hard for Sookie there, Bill. Pro tip, if I may — she’s most likely NOT at the bottom of Katerina “Member of the Royal Scepter’s Security Detail” Pelham’s vagina. Obviously, this is going to cause confliction in Sookie emotion wise. Despite rescinding Bill’s invitation into her house and finding out that he manipulated her from the beginning (how long into the relationship that lasted, we don’t know yet), but she fell in love with him and that’s not something that goes away as easily as you might want it to. Plus, you gotta wonder how long into Sookie being missing he waited before moving on and with how many other human females — that’s gonna be the thought that sticks and hurts the most.

Lafayette is worried that the coven is stepping into bad juju and won’t be able to get it off their shoes. Jesus assures him that the magic itself can’t be bad; it’s the intention of the practitioner that is good or bad. I know she comes off as a harmless older lady, but I have serious doubts that Marnie’s intentions are pure and light when it comes to necromancing. I’d be worried if I were Lafayette, too. He seems to be the source of real power here. Also, just the rumor of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board having worked once was enough to scare me off mess with forces you shouldn’t. Someone brings a dead bird back to life at a party? Forget it.

Back and Billingham Palace, Sookie asks Bill if he can help her get rid of Eric and get her house back from him. No can do. Despite being King of Louisiana, Eric has connections higher up than Bill. On her way out, Sookie asks King Beel how he became king, but stops him saying that the more she would find out about him while they were together she wished she hadn’t found it out.

But that sets us up for a flashback! Bill as a British Punk in the ’80s. Totally just an excuse to get Stephen Moyer to use his real accent. And I’m perfectly okay with that! I’m also more than okay with the use of the punk scene because it made Bill suddenly interesting to me! Too bad they didn’t give him liberty spikes, but I’ll take what I can get. So he feeds on the bartender, glamours him, the lets him go, all while Nan’s watching. She proposes a deal to Bill about him helping her bring about “mainstreaming” by infiltrating the monarchies and destroying them from within. She’s also rocking the craziest ’80s shoulder pads this side of Dallas.

Next day at Merlotte’s. Arlene is freaking losing it.

Holy guacamole, Andy. Get thee to Betty Ford not Hot Shot to “confiscate evidence”. He’s there for V, he gets the V. Meanwhile Crystal shows up telling Jason she has an idea of how they can be together and how Felton has her hopped up on V, and how if Jason doesn’t keep quiet he’ll ruin everything. Andy leaves with what he came for and nothing else. Dude. This town is cracked out.

Luna shows up to seduce Sam at Merlotte’s. Which isn’t really hard at all. He gets her to promise to try and open up more at group. Tommy, being a shifter, can smell that she’s not human and this makes him curious as to what Sam’s been up to.

And Arlene’s freaking lost it. Thank god that kid has Terry because that man is a treasure and one of three guys on this show who are just good men. Hey, what the crap happened to Arlene’s two other kids?

Tara surprises Sookie at her house. Seriously surprises her (she sees Mab and the fairies running toward her for a second before she sees Tara). They don’t get a real chance to catch up as Sookie finds out that Eric built himself a cubby in her house. Just saying, this would all be working on me by now if I were Sookie. I also get the feeling that Tara isn’t returning to her other life anytime soon.

Hoyt and Jessica have another row that night and she goes off to Fangtasia instead of the drug store to get him Advil like she told him she was doing. Girl. Seriously. You need to pull your business together or let him go. Do not lie and go behind that man’s back. He loves you and doesn’t deserve that.

With Sookie trying to stand up to Eric, Tara heads out to hang with Lafayette and Jesus at the coven meeting. You know that’s going to go tits over teacups in a big hurry. The whole gang back together in the same area? Yup. Right over those teacups.

King Beel calls in Eric and tasks him with taking care of the coven because they’re necromancers. Eric tells Bill he doesn’t need him to tell him how dangerous this could be, but Bill does anyway because we the audience are obviously too stupid to put it together ourselves. Necromancers = someone who can control the dead. Vampires = dead. It’s not like the coven was working on quantum mechanics.

Flashback, Part II!! Bill didn’t kill Sophie-Anne. He had humans with guns and wooden bullets do it for him. Okay, did anyone else wonder why Sophie-Anne just stood there and let the much slower humans kill her? This was all of Nan’s master plan and Bill gets made king. He also lies to her about Sookie being important to him or being important in any way. I get the feeling that this is to protect Sookie, as is his completely different demeanor towards her, but that’s purely speculation. I still think she should shack up with Eric.

Speaking of, that’s who she’s looking for when she rolls up to Fangtasia (where those protesters are still hanging out). She finds Pam instead, who just flat out tells her that if she isn’t someone’s she’s going to be no one real fast. She also tells Sookie that Eric cares for her in his own way which you kinda have to believe because Pam just does not care enough to lie, especially to humans. I want to marry Pam. She’s my role model.

Oh, Jessica. You are about to do exactly what you shouldn’t do.

So. Marnie wants to bring a dead human back. Yeah, nothing bad is EVER gonna happen with THAT. I’ve seen this movie and it was called Pet Sematary. Look it up, Marnie. Even Frankenstein said the dead should stay dead.

At the Shifter’s Campfire, they’re telling stories about the most messed up thing they ever changed into. Luna’s was her mother. Regular shifters can’t turn into people, and we find out that Luna is a skinwalker, not just a shifter. It’s a short sequence, but I found it to be surprisingly emotional because the story of what it was like having had her mother die while giving birth to her, the subsequent stories of skinwalkers and their origins, and then what it was like to be her mother was told in not that many words. It was mostly just physical acting. I think the addition of skinwalkers will be interesting.

Eric shows up at the coven wondering if they were looking for a dead body. Lafayette starts to freak.

Tommy had followed Sam to the group meeting and gets too close to them and is found out. Sam chases him down and they both yell at each other for a bit. He claims that he wants them to be brothers, but Sam sees a problem with that happening. However, before they part ways, they both seem to agree to work on getting back to that.

Back at the coven, Eric basically tells Marnie to shut the coven down or there’s going to be Hell to pay. She refuses because she’s either that dense or that ballsy, I haven’t decided which just yet. So Eric starts feeding on her, the coven sans Lafayette joins hands and starts chanting, Tara tries to stake Eric, Eric catches her, Lafayette isn’t having that and joins the circle, and BAM, Marnie is possessed by a very powerful spirit that does something to Eric that makes him literally run away. Looks like Lafayette is the babe with the power. Again though, when Marnie came out of the possession she seemed not to have any recollection of what happened (and the way Fiona Shaw goes back and forth is brilliant). Makes me not so sure just how “bad” of a baddie she is.

Back over at Hot Shot, Felton and Crystal want to make Jason into a werepanther. So that Jason and Crystal can mate. Yup.

To end, Sookie finds Eric wandering on the side of the road as she heads home. He seems to have completely lost his memory. And his shirt. But not his pants. I’ll take what I can get. Seriously, though, ASkars was amazing here. Everything was different about Eric, from the way he held himself walking and standing, to his voice and facial expressions. Perfect. Sweden, thank you!

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars