Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [53]
The shift board at Merlotte’s. Notice how Sookie requests days only. (Jodi Ross, courtesy of The Vault www.trueblood-online.com)
1.05 ~ Sparks Fly Out
Original air date: October 5, 2008; Written by: Alexander Woo; Directed by: Daniel Minahan
Sam: Sookie, you have no future with a vampire!
Sookie: They don’t die. I’ve got nothing but a future with one.
Bill speaks to the Descendents of the Glorious Dead. Meanwhile, Sam tries to get closer to Sookie, who makes a horrifying discovery.
With such a departure from “Escape from Dragon House,” it’s a wonder these episodes follow one after the other. And yet it works. The pace is much slower in “Sparks Fly Out,” and the tone is more contemplative. At first, the episode appears to be about moderation: Bill tells Sookie he would have fed on, but not killed, the police officer he glamoured; Jason goes back to the V, but in smaller doses; Sookie agrees to a date with Sam, but in a public place; and Tara, acting for once in her best interest, tells Jason she wants to wait until he’s sober before they act on his advances.
Ultimately, though, this show is about sad departures. The look of “Sparks Fly Out” is quite different from the others — plenty of tight frames, characters off on their own, the eerie candlelight of Lorena’s cottage — allowing it to stand alone as the episode that will be remembered for the moment we saw the mortality of both Bill and Gran come to violent ends, their sparks flying out. If we had to see Gran die — and let’s take a moment to exclaim how brilliant Lois Smith was in this role — better that it should be in the episode in which we also see Bill’s past, something that would have been of great value to Gran. These two felt united, an immediate warmth apparent from the first time Bill visited, with Gran’s support of him never waning. Early in the episode both Bill and Gran tell Sookie that she can’t be afraid of what she doesn’t understand. They are kindred folk. It’s hard to imagine what Sookie, and we, will do without Gran’s check-ins and comic quips, or how Bill, for that matter, will fare now that his most sincere fan is gone.
Of all people, it’s a high Jason who arrives at the sage conclusion that it’s “bullshit that keeps people apart.” If Sam’s unchecked rage makes him a guard dog, in Jason we see a penned-up puppy; he doesn’t mean to get into trouble, it’s just that no one’s taken the time to train him. Lafayette appears to be willing, but a pusher isn’t the role model Jason needs. While finding joy in earthly delights has been a good distraction, Jason is looking for deeper meaning, which is ironic in one as shallow as him. It is, however, through the transcendence of V that Jason receives meaning from Bill’s speech to the DGD, that in war soldiers sought a destiny “handed down from above.” Could this be a foreshadowing of Jason’s path to come? In this episode, Jason reminds us of young men with directionless futures who are recruited into the military in the hope that they’ll provide for their families, find a greater purpose, or simply learn a skill that will make them valuable upon re-entry into civilian society. As Jason leans forward seeing the world anew, just behind him is Terry Bellefleur, back from the Iraq War, damaged and clearly haunted by what he’s seen and done.
Bill’s speech and the resulting flashbacks of how he was turned provide the episode’s pulse. During his talk, he breaks a number of preconceived notions of what it means to be a vampire, placing himself in the history of Bon Temps to emerge as both orator and comrade, sharing stories of their ancestors, and as such offering the townspeople the gift of closure. With each anecdote, more of Bill’s human condition reveals itself, if not in a rosy glow then in his ability to connect with humans,