Slay Belle:
On the previously on, stuff happens, Sookie plots doing something stupid, and we are re-ensaddened by the revelation that Eric is infected.
We’re in LA, at yoga class. Everything is serene, which means everything is going to go to shit.
Mini:
Why is the girl from Pitch Perfect here? Is she planning a spirited acapella tribute? Is she gonna eat everyone? (Aca-AWKWARD. ~ed.)
Slay Belle:
Ah, good question.
Mini:
“We’re all gonna die doo wop.”
Slay Belle:
That’s Anna Newlin, one of our major antagonists from the past several seasons. Last year, she was the one who orchestrated the True Blood hep-V poisoning, murdered a woman with her high heel, and orchestrated a vampire internment camp.
She was caught by Jason (who had banged her previously, natch) but he let her go, and clearly she’s been doing yoga to get over the lack of guilt she feels about fucking up the world.
Oh, snap. Pam just confirmed Tara was actually killed.
Mini:
“I travelled through Russia for you! I hate vodka! And snow!” says Pamela, to her chronically ill, strangely sensually posed sire.
Slay Belle:
He’s consumptive! On a fainting couch! It’s very Victorian.
Oh my god, look at Eric’s terrible ’80s hair.
Mini:
I still don’t think Tara’s dead. I have seen too many angry tags on the Internet (in caps lock!) to believe that this show wouldn’t want to capitalize on our heart strings and drag it out into a surprise resurrection or something.
Slay Belle:
I think we’ll get her as a ghost.
Mini:
Why do no ladies on this show ever wear bras?
Slay Belle:
Oh, it’s tits and fucking. Awkward.
IT’S NAN. You don’t know who she is, but she’s awesome. And dead, sadly. Like dead-dead.
Mini:
Spike’s dead and he’s still your TV boyfriend
Slay Belle:
Spike 4vr.
Spike > Angel > Bill Compton
Spike = Eric
Mini:
Bill Compton still > Riley?
Slay Belle:
Hrm.
Bill Compton /= Riley
Pam’s ’80s hair is glorious, by the way.
Mini:
What do you think she’d look like with a perm?
Slay Belle:
Amazing. It is impossible for Pam not to look amazing.
In the books she wears Laura Ashley sweater sets, which I actually kind of miss in the show. (Ed note: Why would they leave out this delightful character quirk in the show?)
Mini:
That guy (Sookie’s bf?) looks like an older version of that other guy from Teen Wolf.
Slay Belle:
Yes, that is Sookie’s current boyfriend, Alcide.
Mini:
(I don’t watch Teen Wolf either, in case you can’t tell.)
Slay Belle:
And he does look like that also handsome dude from Teen Wolf.
OH, BILL’S NOT THE SAME VAMPIRE, HUH? CONVENIENT TWIST WRITERS SO THAT WE CAN’T BE MAD WHEN THEY GET BACK TOGETHER LATER ON. THIS IS SOME FUCKING BULLSHIT.
Mini:
I can’t really get on this “vampires tortured by their actions” train. None of them seem nearly tortured enough.
Slay Belle:
Bill used to be very tortured.
By being found out.
Mostly. Not really about his actual deeds.
Mini:
The contouring on Adilyn’s face is intense.
Slay Belle:
She magically aged from an infant to a teenager in the course of a couple of weeks, but magical fairy growth hormones apparently know when to turn off as the culturally appropriate sexual interest age.
Mini:
Mayor get out of the pews! You can’t bring pets into church!
Slay Belle:
So, Sam, who’s sitting in the church not looking particularly distraught? That’s his pregnant wife in the basement of Fangtasia. He strangely doesn’t seem bothered by her being missing.
Also, he’s a shifter, and in previous seasons has tracked missing people by scent. Except for his wife, who one might think would be a high priority for tracking.
Random goon squad on a random road in the middle of the night!
Mini:
Is this entire show built on the Smallville Problem?
Slay Belle:
Red-shirt vampire killing.
Mini:
Yes Gibson is the best non-prejudiced voice to this issue. You did not tell me he could turn into other animals.
Slay Belle:
Oh. Yes. He’s a shifter, not a were. He can turn into any animal he wants with enough prep work.
Mini:
I have missed so many jokes because I thought he could only turn into a dog. I have so much ground to make up.
Slay Belle:
There’s an entire season in front of you!
Violet is such a gender essentialist.
Mini:
Where is Violet’s ambiguous accent supposed to be from?
Slay Belle:
I’m not sure. French, maybe?
I feel like her accent was more pronounced last year.
Mini:
Jason sounds like a freshman polisci major. “I’m a modern warrior, man! Also have sex with me please.”
Slay Belle:
I have feelings!
Mini:
Why do Jessica and Violet have a problem?
Slay Belle:
Jessica left her very first boyfriend, Hoyt, for Jason. Hoyt was Jason’s BFF. Eventually they broke up, but they still had feelings for each other, which now seemed to be resolved by the random partners they each acquired during the Camp Vamp section of last season.
We haven’t even seen Jessica with her actual boyfriend yet, right? He’s spending all his time at La-La’s house.
(Mini says to me “That doesn’t explain Violet…”)
Violet, and most vamps, are very possessive of their humans. There’s a tradition that if they claim a human by sharing blood with them, the human can’t be harmed by another vampire without it being an insult to the possessing vampire. So Violet clearly thinks that Jessica has interest in Jason.
Mini:
Lafayette and Jess’s boyfriend are totally flirting.
Slay Belle:
Totes.
Mini:
“Oh no I’m having girl problems. Who could possibly console me??”
*wink wink nudge nudge*
Slay Belle:
This scene is basically a fan-fiction writing prompt.
Mini:
“I’ll do the swallowing.”
This isn’t even me making fun of the dialogue anymore; that’s literally just the line.
Slay Belle:
Oh, hey, Holly remembered she’s a witch.
“I — and I mean I, not in the context that I meant ‘I’ in the car, in which I informed you that I am not I, and so can’t be held accountable for the bad things I’ve done — did not mean it in that way.”
Mini:
I can say this about Sookie: She has fabulous taste in lipstick. If not dudes, apparently.
Slay Belle:
Definitely not dudes.
P.S. Will be breaking up with current boyfriend soon, available for renewed Bill Compton relationship toot-sweet.
Seriously? This is just the mob’s plan? Hide by the side of the woods at night?
THEY’RE PAINFULLY STUPID.
That’s Hoyt’s mom. As you might tell since she just said she was Hoyt’s mom.
Mini:
HOLY SHIT.
Slay Belle:
This is literally the only thing Violet is good for.
Mini:
That’s not a very good police officer. She should already be well-acquainted with vampires and she just bolted.
Slay Belle:
So they’re gonna kiss, right?
Mini:
I will be so disappointed if they don’t. Like 22 Jump Street disappointed.
Slay Belle:
Who the hell were those two random people in the woods the pack found? I mean, I guess Sookie is also randomly sitting in the middle of the woods, so maybe that’s a thing in Louisiana.
Mini:
Are these Bill flashbacks supposed to make me feel bad for him? They just remind me how creepy the age/maturity difference between he and Sookie is.
Slay Belle:
They are supposed to make you sympathetic to him because the show hasn’t made him very sympathetic in a long time.
Oh, see, Foytenberry like the woman who was just disemboweled. COINCIDENCE.
Mini:
Under what pretense? He used to own a really nice coat and now doesn’t?
Slay Belle:
That he was the romantic lead. Basically that was it.
This is the most time we’ve ever spent with the Reverend in seven seasons.
Mini:
That’s a shame. I like him.
Slay Belle:
One assumes that something terrible is about to happen to him.
I strongly disagree with the Reverend that Lettie Mae is a good person at heart with a bad disease. She’s always seemed like a pretty shit person.
Mini:
FLIRTING
Slay Belle:
LALA AND JAMES BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.
(Dear reader, Mini’s face is priceless during this exchange.)
Mini:
Wow Pam actually does look good with a perm.
Slay Belle:
I told you. Pam looks good always.
Mini:
There is so much nudity in this episode. This is why my mom wouldn’t let me watch GoT.
Slay Belle:
GoT is worse.
Mini:
That was the slowest and most torturous way they could have chosen to stab her.
Slay Belle:
Well, the AIDS analogy here was a little heavy-handed.
Don’t you dare leave, Pam.
Well, nothing motivates like revenge. And this is strangely in-character for the show. Eric spent 900 years plotting revenge against the vampire who killed his father, so at least “being pulled back from the brink of suicidal death to get revenge on the woman who infected his sister with Hep-V” is actually logical. Eric likes nothing more than a good side of stone-cold vengeance.
Mini:
Pitch Perfect is alive?! Fear not Erik, there are still duets you can sing!
In the main plot, Sookie’s ridiculous plan to mutilate herself in the woods in the hopes of luring dying, sociopathic vampires to her side works, because of course it does, because it’s a terrible plan. If this was a just world, she and Bill would have been killed but instead Alcide, Sam, Jason, Andy, Violet, and Jessica show up to save them. As Alcide is righteously ripping into Bill for allowing Sookie to put herself in danger, he’s shot clean in the head by Random Townsperson Never Seen Before This Season.
Mini:
Man, I thought they were just going to break up, but they’re shoving Sookie back into Bill’s arms.
Slay Belle:
Well, hollee shit, they are just cutting down the cast on this show.
RIP Alcide’s abs.
RIP Alcide’s salt and pepper temples.
Mini:
I am only happy with one relationship development in this episode, and if that relationship doesn’t at least escalate to making out, then I won’t be happy with any of them. Lafayette/that other one 5evr.
All images are courtesy of HBO.
3 replies on “New Show Recap: True Blood 7×3, “Fire in the Hole””
a) of all:
Spike 4vr.
Spike > Angel > Bill Compton
Spike = Eric
is exactly right. EXACTLY. Excellent display of vampire mathleticism.
I would add: Riley = Alcide. It makes sense, you kinda want it, but really, you kinda don’t want it. And Bill = a boring, stinky turd. Never been a fan of “come a’courtin’ ya” style vampirism. Also, Spike = Eric = raw sex magnetism.
b) Moretta is totally right about forcing the Sookie-Bill endgame and I am peowsed about it! Eliminating Alcide was cheap (in the same way that eliminating Hoyt was cheap). But then, it’s just the symptom of a bigger problem, True Blood’s worst habit has always been getting rid of anyone even remotely interesting (I miss you Terry!) and letting boring planks — Willa, Sam’s lady friend, Adeline — kick around indefinitely. And as for Eric, I’m so tired of knowing and caring more about a show’s continuity than the people who write it! Suddenly Eric’s a love schmoop who falls in love with personality-free French college girls? No. They already made it perfectly clear, via Pam’s tearful office hug/comforting from a nurse’s outfit-clad Ginger that Eric had never chosen a human over himself or let one get in the way of his relationship with Pam prior to Sookie. NEVAR. Before Sook, he used to “chew up princesses and spit them out.” They can’t just write in some frivolous 80s softcore to undo what was previously made perfectly clear. Eric has only ever loved Sookie. Plus, he has an entirely different personality in the 80s flashback, like he’d change so significantly in what amounts to the blink of an eye over the course of his thousand year vampire life. The whole thing is completely dumballz.
c) Why has Hep V managed to travel as far as Marrakesh, which it has apparently completely destroyed, but hasn’t made it to LA where folks are just doing yoga and drinking wine? Is there a pandemic going on or not?
d) Bottom line, True Blood has been crap since the third season, and somehow they’re still blowing it way worse than I thought they could in their final hour. I tweeted HBO a list of characters I don’t care about: Lettie Mae and Rev. Daniels, Violet, Holly’s boys, Sarah Compton, Sarah Newlin’s guru, etc., etc., etc., all of whom they’ve spend more time on this season than any character we actually know and care about, in the hopes that they’ll heed my tweets and get their shit together. I’ve heard nothing. NOTHIING. Rebuffed. I’ll watch until the end, but frankly, this show is true dead to me.
OH, FFS. That picture is of Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates, Eric’s hair inspiration, I strongly suspect
I thought Violet was Eastern European. The Sookie/Bill endgame is really being forced on us here. Get rid of boyfriend? Check. Negate all past behavior via contrivance? Check. Playful banter? Check. Make it clear that despite the fact that Eric had supposedly never felt this way about a human, he obviously had, thus reducing the specialness of the Eric/Sookie relationship? Check. Have Bill be there for Sookie and make Big Sacrifices? Coming soon.