**SPOILERS AHEAD!! YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!**
Wonderbot is back with an all new TV review/summary of the first episode of this season of True Blood! I’m a huge fan of both the book, and TV series, so that is why I begged Swank-mo-tron to be the True Blood correspondent. The way I do this is by watching the show and writing as I watch. Some people may think I’m giving too many things away so to those people I would like to say, if you have a problem with the way I do this and you’re worried about spoilers, watch the show and then read this post. This is a review/summary/recap of what I’m watching and my feelings on it as I’m doing so. There will be spoilers, and if you’re not cool with that watch it, then come back and read. This first week is probably going to be a bit more detailed than posts will be in the future, but that’s just so we can catch up with what’s been going on since last season. Thanks!
We begin our journey in fairyland. Barry is there as well as many others, and they’re all intrigued by a glowing fruit. Claudine explains to Sookie that she is her fairy godmother, and Sookie explains to Claudine that if her job is to watch out for her and protect her, that she sucks at her job. I will agree with that completely. Having your parents die, your grandmother be murdered, and the whole telepathy thing and no one to talk to about it would piss me off too. Especially when some chick shows up with glowing fruit and expects you to thank her for not being dead.
Everybody is eating their glowing fruit (except Sookie, ’cause she’s smarter than that) when she recognizes a familiar face. It’s Sookies grandaddy! She introduces herself to him, and he doesn’t believe it because he’s only been in fairyland for a few hours. In fact, he just saw her last week for her birthday. Sookie explains that it’s been 20 years for her. Fairyland = time warp.
Suddenly, Sookie sees the walls turning all gross and grey, some not-so-fresh looking fairies and rotting fruit and realizes that she (and the other fairy-humans) have been trapped. The leader fairy gives Sookie a stern talking to, and lets her know that the fairy realm is in danger and that it’s Sookie’s fault because she allowed a vampire to drink her blood. The fairies have brought humans carrying fairy blood into their world to be harvested, so they won’t be drank into extinction by vampires. Head fairy tries to force Sooks to eat some fruit, and Sooks uses her “spirit fingers” to blast that bitch. As soon as Sookie uses her spirit fingers, it is revealed that fairyland is not such a nice place, and the fairies are actually quite grotesque. A war breaks out as one of the fairies (Claudine’s brother, Claude) tries to get Sookie back to the human realm. Only catch is that she has to jump off of a cliff. In typical Sookie fashion, she totally does. Grandpappy tags along too, even though Claude SPECIFICALLY says not to. This is going to end well…
Thank god. We’re out of fairy world and back in the cemetery. Grandpappy isn’t doing so hot in the human world, he’s all flickery, and asks to see where Sookie’s mom and dad and gran are buried. He apologizes for leaving them, gives a watch to Sookie to give to Jason, tells Sookie he loves her, then disappears into dust.
So far, I’m mostly unimpressed. The whole fairy thing is dumb, and I just want to get back to Lafayette’s fabulousness and see what’s cooking between Jason and the Were-panther. Things are going to need to get sexy or violent quickly.
Back at Sookie’s house things are getting put back together after that whole Maryanne bull-orgy thing. When Sookie approaches the house, one of the workers tells her if she goes in, he’s going to call the cops. Sookie goes in anyway, and promptly sits down for a good cry. Jason shows up in his police uniform and judging by his reaction, she’s been gone much longer than she thinks she was.
Yup, she’s been missing for 12.5 months.
While Sookie was gone, Jason sold the house, and Sookie gives him a guilt trip for “giving up on her”. Yeah, because every other time someone in the family has been missing, it’s turned out real well. Jason tries to explain that they even put a website together to help find her. My goodness Jason, how I have missed you, you sexy dimwit. Jason and Sookie try and sort out the whole fairyland time-warp thing and the kids have a nice moment as Sookie realizes that it’s getting late and the vamps will soon be out.
Here’s Bill Compton, right on cue.
Oh snap. As Sookie and Bill are conversing, Eric shows up. Bill tells Eric to leave and Eric gets to be the white night as he tells how he’s the only one who held out hope that she was alive, and he never gave up on her. Andy Bellfluer shows up, and it becomes clear that Bill had been suspected of her disappearance. Bill takes one for the team and tells Andy that Sookie was on official vampire business for him. Andy is pissed.
Sookie and Bill have a nice heart to heart where Sookie explains that even though it’s been over a year for Bill, it’s only been a couple of hours since Bill broke her heart.
We find out in a brief scene that Andy is still on V, then we move to what everyone has been waiting for: LAFAYETTE!
Lafayette is sporting a sassy new mohawk and vest. I am loving it. Jesus takes Lafayette to hang out with his witches’ coven, and Lafayette says that they’re only staying for five minutes. Ten if there are drinks.
The head witch beckons Lafayette over and judging by her reaction, there is something special about Lafayette. The head witch expresses that Eddie (the dead vampire) has a rose for him. The head witch channels Eddie’s spirit and totally freaks out Lafayette. This woman looks certifiable.
Things are going well at Terry and Arlene’s house as Arlene discovers the baby ripping the heads off Barbie dolls. Terry tries to ease her woes by saying that is a normal thing for boys to do. In fact, when Terry was little he used to put squirrel heads on lizard bodies and try to invent new animals. Yeah Terry, that’s TOTALLY normal.
Meanwhile, in New Orleans, Tara has become an MMA fighter. Yup, an MMA figher.
Jessica and Hoyt are settling into coupledom the way most people do… By fighting! They have an argument about food which has Hoyt eating gross raw eggs. I don’t like watching these two fight, but luckily, it’s short lived.
Over at Fangtasia, Pam is her usually bubbly self. She’s being interviewed by Nan Flanagan to try and prove that vampires aren’t bad, as they are living in a post Russell Edgington world and the humans are still apprehensive about vampires. Nan kicks out Pam, and puts Eric in. It doesn’t matter what Eric says, I’ll listen to anything that comes out of his mouth.
Back in New Orleans, Tara has a cigarette, then makes out with her sparring partner. What? Tara is a lesbian? Didn’t see that one coming… *dramatic eye roll*
Group hug at Merlotte’s! Good for Sam for sticking it to Sookie for disappearing for a year without so much as a word. In the kitchen, Lafayette is cooking as Jesus shows up, apologizes for the craziness with the witches, and tries to get Lafayette to come back again. Andy busts in the back door and kicks Jesus out, because he needs to talk to him about official business. The official business is that Andy needs V. Lafayette has none.
…obligatory HBO sexy scene between Tara and her sparring partner…
Sookie meets with Andy’s sister Portia, to discuss stopping the sale of the house. I already know I’m not going to like Portia because the actress who plays her was in “Dexter”, and she’s the worst.
Over at Fangtasia, Jessica and Pam have a heart to heart. It becomes clear that there is trouble in paradise between Jess and Hoyt.
Jason brings food out to Hot Shot, and the kids come running for it. Jason gets tricked into looking at the meat storage freezer, and they knock him out and lock him inside.
Back at the witches’ coven, the head witch’s parakeet has died, and the parakeet is brought back to life as Lafayette joins the circle, but as soon as the circle is broken, the parakeet dies again. The head witch appears to have found what she was looking for in Lafayette.
We end the episode with Eric sneaking up on Sookie post-shower and telling her that he was the one who bought the house. He knew that if he owned the house he owned her. She. Is. his. The end.
I give this episode a solid C+. Like I said, I love the show and I love the books, but this episode just didn’t do it for me. From the ridiculousness of the fairyland to the silliness of the coven, I just wasn’t that impressed. That being said, this episode was really more of a catch up episode than it was a plot line episode. We got to see the characters we love and what they’ve been up to over the past year, but they didn’t really overwhelm us with the overall story right away. If this season follows the books (which they have been-to a point) we’re in for an awesome ride.We haven’t even seen the Queen of Louisiana or caught up with Alcide yet, so you know they’ve got some good stuff in the chamber for the season.