True Blood recap: We take wardrobe cues from Arlene’s baby exorcism, Jesus and Lafayette’s Mexican roadtrip, and Pam’s rotting face
The last we saw of Sook and the gang, Pam had just been given a case of The Rots from Marnie, Sookie had fended off Bill’s desire to search her house for Eric, and Jason had been given wrist-to-mouth by Jessica.
Family Ties
-Last week, Joe Lee cut short Tommy’s mama-son bonding session by wrapping a chain around his neck, and now we pick up with him viciously beating Tommy until he passes out—or pretends to.
-Tommy’s trick works, but by the time the dust settles he’s murdered Joe Lee and accidently given his furious mama a hard enough whack to kill her.
-He goes crying to Sam, and the two take off with the bodies in the back of the kind of van your parents always warned you to avoid.
-The pedo van raises Sheriff Bellefleur’s V-enhanced suspicions, and he pulls Sam over and demands to see what’s in the back. He gets a surprise when an alligator (aka a quick-thinking shifted Tommy) snaps out at him and he lets Sam go. Tommy, proudly: “I didn’t kill him.” Sam, dryly: “And Jesus wept.”
-They ditch the bodies in the swamp and have a heart-to-heart: Sam assures Tommy he isn’t going to hell, and admits he’s killed before too. Brothers who sink bodies together stay together—let’s hope, since they’re all each other has now.
Exorcism Variety Hour
-Arlene and Terry are still reeling from baby Mikey’s evil graffiti, and Arlene’s camo tracksuit is girding her for war on Rene’s spirit, so they decide to bring in the big evangelical guns.
-Who shows up for a little afternoon of demon cleansing but Reverend Daniels and his new wife, Tara’s mother Lettie Mae? They do some singing and tambourine swinging for the first act, a few prayers for the second, and some sage burning for the encore.
-Arlene thinks the sage smells like pot, but Terry assures her that that is not what pot smells like. In his Western sport coat he looks like Willie Nelson’s manager, so we believe him.
-Later, Arlene and Terry have a roll in the hay (that is, on their white satin sheets), and even though it’s HBO they keep their tops on. Mikey is quiet for once, which gives them hope, but just like that, a book of matches spontaneously ignite in the background.
Arlene’s guide to what to wear to your baby’s exorcism
Think a christening dress–meets–funeral attire in the form of a flowered frock on a background of black, like this one from Topshop ($152, topshop.com). Knowing Arlene, a few of those buttons would be left undone, Lord have mercy.
A Tricky Witch-uation
-Marnie comes to from her faint in the woods, and Lafayette and Tara are pissed that this hooker has screwed them, again. Jesus’ cooler head prevails—he wants to know what happened to her.
-They don’t buy her “dog ate my homework excuse” that she was merely a conduit for someone else and bail, not wanting to be vampire pot pie, leaving Marnie to carry all those candles home alone.
-Jesus and Lafayette pack—not so lightly in LaLa’s case—to run off to Mexico, where they’ll shack up with Jesus’ shaman granddad. Lafayette still has his centre-parted braid and beads, making us wonder if he knew all along that he’d be taking a trip down south.
-Just to drive home what a badass Jesus’ granddad is, we get a flashback to him wearing more jewellery than Johnny Depp and forcing a nine-year-old Jesus to stab a cute baby goat and lick its blood off the knife in the name of feeling the spirit. We’re not sure how goat sacrifices make him qualified in the field of vampire protection, but we’ll go along for the road trip just to see what Lafayette does to his hair next.
-They make it to Mexico and Granddad, who looks like an extra from a Quentin Tarantino film, has been expecting them—no goats though.
Jesus’ guide to road-trip accessories
Thought Lafayette was the only one in this relationship with headgear on lock? Our boy Jesus dons a striped fedora that channels a kitschy feel similar to those ponchos you see south of the border. This True Religion straw fedora ($43, revolveclothing.com) will keep you cool on the run.
Pyjama Party
-Eric sneaks into a sleeping Sookie’s room, where Godric appears, feels up Sook’s leg and gives her a smell, and tells Eric that he’s damned and incapable of love and that they should just drink Sookie right up together.
-They sink their teeth in and Sookie wakes up screaming, but of course it’s just a dream and a scared Eric sits up in his cubby cot, shaken.
-He goes in and wakes the real sleeping Sookie up, who’s startled and somehow doesn’t notice how low—like, really low—his shorts are riding.
-She’s not dressed in a little nightie like in his dream, but has on an awesome oversized sleep T-shirt printed with two angels kissing (a painting from 1873 that’s commonly referred to as The First Kiss). Does Shreveport have a fine-art museum gift shop?
-Like a kid wanting to sleep with mom after a nightmare, Eric climbs into bed sniffling and cries bloody tears. He doesn’t know who the guy in his dream was, and rests his head in Sookie’s lap as she explains that Godric—his maker—was actually the most human vampire she’s ever known, and that he would’ve loved this new lobotomized Eric.
-She lets him stay in bed, and he turns over and reaches back for her hand, making the big spoon and making our hearts melt.
Meanwhile…
-Portia bursts in on Bill, trying to seduce him in her lawyer power suit while quoting incest laws and getting ready to list all the happily married cousins of Bon Temps. It looks like they’re going to do the cat and mouse around his desk but he glamours her out of wanting him, with the added caveat that she’ll uncontrollably scream in fear when she sees him. Seems a bit extreme to turn a respected career woman into, essentially, Arlene.
-Alcide gets a visit from the Shreveport pack master, who looks like a roadie for Marilyn Manson, and they butt heads over Alcide’s antisocial behaviour toward the pack.
-Jessica puts Jason to bed, but doesn’t want Hoyt’s thank-you cuddles.
-The next day over pancakes, Hoyt listens to Jason’s story about being repeatedly violated in a Hotshot shack. Hoyt lends him a shoulder and offers his own traumatic experience: Jessica’s acting distant. Jason retorts that what happened to him was a bit more, uh, major.
-That night, Jason has his own dream sequence and a roll in the satin sheets, except his are black and the object of his nocturnal lust is Jessica. Jason knows it’s not real and tries to just enjoy the fantasy, but Hoyt pops up and ruins the fun.
Jason’s guide to what your best friend’s girlfriend should wear in a naughty dream
A men’s denim work shirt to start, with something black and lacy underneath. Snap buttons make for an excellent strip tease according to Jason’s subconscious—this Zara shirt ($30, zara.com) should be easy to doff.
Skeletons in the Armoire
-After listening in on Holly’s thoughts at Merlotte’s, Sookie heads to the Moon Goddess Emporium and rambles on to Marnie about her love of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Charmed—what about Practical Magic, Sook?
-They sit down for a reading and Marnie channels Sookie’s Gran, who warns her not to give her heart to the guy she’s sweet on at the moment, and tells her to get the hell out of there, much to Marnie’s confusion.
-Back at home, over ice cream and beer, Tara tells Sookie about Naomi, and how she’s worried that telling her girlfriend the truth about her past will spell the end of their relationship.
– Sookie tries to hustle her friend out when the sun goes down, but Tara’s hoping for a slumber party.
-Tara freaks when Eric appears, and while he protectively stands in front of Sookie, Tara brandishes a fireplace poker that he easily takes away.
-She won’t listen to Sookie’s explanations and lists every awful thing Eric has done to Sook before running out the door.
-Eric asks Sookie why she’d let him stay with her if he’s done all these horrible things to hurt her? He’s real bummed that he used to be so cruel.
-He goes to take a walk with his sad feelings, and Sookie runs out the door after him, calling him back into her outstretched arms. In her pretty yellow dress she couldn’t look more angelic.
-Finally! To an overwrought Pachelbel’s Canon–like soundtrack, there on the front porch, they kiss! And make out!
Sookie’s guide to what to wear to do witch recon
Go southern sorority airhead and wear a sunny sweetheart-neckline frock, like this Asos Summer Dress ($38, asos.com)—not even a necromancer can say no to blonde and bubbly.
Veiled Threat
-Pam visits Bill in head-to-toe mourning black, including gloves and a veiled hat to hide her rotting flesh. She looks like Samantha from Sex and the City that time she got a chemical peel for Carrie’s book launch.
-Pam wants to kill that “uppity Wiccan [rhymes-with-blunt]” but Bill warns her that killing a human will lead to being condemned to the true death by the Authority and encourages her to try some extra lipstick. Her response: She peels off part of her lips.
-Katerina (Bill’s security guard with benefits) captures Marnie, who’s got on a very Medieval fair dress with flared sleeves and low-slung belt, sort of Lady of Shalott goes to the farmer’s market.
-In the jail that Bill’s had installed in the basement of his Kingly plantation (we’re really finding it hard to believe that these renos were completed in under 13 months—we’ve seen the Bon Temps road crew and no one moves fast in this town), Marnie sits and waits.
-With no spoon to dig a hole, she has another one of her visions. She’s in a jail cell with the Spanish witch—who gives Marnie a look—and her coven when a group of priests come in. The ladies cower in the corner. The priests turn out to be vampires looking for a snack. Marnie snaps back to the present.
Pam’s guide to hiding a bad-face day
A Philip Treacy fascinator just won’t do—you need something with a brim—so go to another milliner to the stars, Maison Michel, for a top hat ($400, colette.fr) that will pair nicely with a lace veil.
The Vamp’s Out Of The Bag
-Bill interrogates Marnie through the intercom as Pam looks on. Getting nowhere, he goes down to glamour her into telling the truth—she still says she has no idea how to undo the spells. There’s no mention of her Spanish spirit friend.
-Bill gathers his sheriffs in the living room, where we finally hear the story of Antonia. She was a Spanish sorceress whose ability to raise the dead allowed her to pull all the local vamps out of their sleeping holes and into the daylight to die while she was burning at the stake.
-Pam, in her rage over Bill’s decision not to kill Marnie, lets slip that the witch erased Eric’s memory.
-Bill forces Pam to admit that Eric’s hiding over at Sookie’s.
-Bill makes a sad face—guess when he was over at Sook’s place before, he really did believe her when she promised Eric wasn’t there and that she’d never lie to him—and swoosh, he’s out the door.
