Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [66]
Sam is similar, but because he’s finally come out as a shifter, he’s more like Eddie than Jason for having carried a secret most of his life, something that becomes invisible again the moment he shifts back into human form, the way a vampire’s fangs retract. In Sam’s case, however, he can lose grip on his secret when he falls asleep, his guard let down at his most vulnerable. As a child, his adopted family refused to see him for who he was, abandoning him rather than kicking him out. As Sookie awakes to find Sam naked on her bed, he’s seen, but immediately mistaken for a pervert. (Poor Sam! Is it any wonder some people find it easier just to stay in the closet?)
After a few episodes of striking out with Sookie, Sam may have found his in. He’s already gone on the record as saying that he wouldn’t change a thing about Sookie. He’s kind, he can eat and go out in daylight, and, like Arlene says about Rene, he’s there. With Bill gone indefinitely, and Sookie scared for her life, could companionship suffice? Sam’s already been a pushover once for Sookie, and again with Tara. It would be a shame to see him go down that road again.
Sookie’s still coming into her own. She may feel betrayed by Sam, but she lost out on the only chance she had to accept him when he needed her to the most. Had she responded to Sam’s vulnerability — as Bill did to hers when he said that Sookie’s tragedy and beauty was in not knowing just how different she really is — Sam would have gotten the affirmation he’s been waiting for his whole life: that he’s not a freak. Just as a gay person is not defined by their sexuality, Sam is not defined solely by his ability to shift, nor is Sookie defined solely by her abilities as a telepath. If anything, she seems hell-bent on defining herself as a human who dates a vampire. Like Terry, back from the war, Sookie’s erratic behavior is in keeping with someone who’s suffered a terrible shock and is looking to burst out of the closet, break it down, and burn it in a heap.
On the flip side, Amy is a human who shares more in common with the worst we’ve come to know in vampires. She’s a full-blown narcissist, a soul-sucking, emotional vampire who drains the positive energy from people around her. You love someone? She loves someone more. You like to eat? She only eats organic. You don’t want to die? She helped Guatemalans build an irrigation system. She’s infuriating!
Jason is malleable, so she shifts her message to whatever will make him most susceptible to her wishes. Like Jessica, the “cow” Bill is forced to turn to repay the life he took to protect Sookie, Amy sees Jason as further down the food chain, and therefore expendable. Below even a cow is Eddie, because he’s not alive. Amy is the character you love to hate. And that’s good. We should want to hate Amy. She stakes Eddie rather than let Jason succeed. R.I.P. Eddie. Like Gran, you left us too soon.
Miss Jeanette, however, is surprisingly hard to hate. “You think knowing the answers will save you,” she tells Tara. This hearkens back to the night Bill begged Sookie to see that just because she understands the mechanics of her body she doesn’t have an explanation as to why she lives and breathes, even as he’s dead and walking among the living. It’s these random bits of philosophy that stick with us long after an episode ends, and the True Blood writers excel in this area. For example, we know Miss Jeanette is a con, there’s no doubt about that. But we can’t underestimate blind faith and the power one has to control their own destiny. While she may not be a healer, she does facilitate change. The Twelve Steps won’t keep an alcoholic sober. It’s the individual’s choice not to drink that will. It may not be hocus pocus, but individual conviction is no less magical, a faith everyone can believe in.
There’s blind faith and there’s blind drunk. As Tara steps off her mother’s wagon, wasted, belligerent,