Truly, Madly, Deadly_ The Unofficial True Blood Companion - Becca Wilcott [95]
In the meantime, this episode offers more than enough distraction from existential questions. Sookie infiltrates the Fellowship of the Sun with Isabel’s human lover, Hugo, a partnership that does nothing to further the appeal of vampire-human relationships. If anything, it’s the 1:1 ratio of human to vampire that provides the most hope for stimulation in this episode, when, in a flashback to 1926 Chicago, Lorena and Bill pick up a human couple, something that quickly dissolves into the biggest gross-out scene since Eric tore Royce apart. Lorena is one seriously disturbed woman who clearly doesn’t need the aid of a man to get what she wants unless it’s to provide musical accompaniment. (“Hard-Hearted Hannah” is also the song Bill was playing on the piano when Jessica was returned to him by Eric in “Nothing But the Blood.”) Regardless, she still wears a necklace Bill gave her well over 70 years ago. While they may not have been equals, and even if Lorena’s human impulses recede much further than Bill’s, she chose him as her progeny, something she did assuming she’d spend eternity attracted to him. And while her assumptions may have been a stretch, this relationship depicts yet another example of someone much older sexualizing someone much younger to meet their own deprived needs.
Meanwhile, if there was ever any question that Eggs was manipulating Tara, that shell’s been cracked wide open in shattered fragments of terrifying memories he struggles to piece together. Eggs’s flashbacks are an interesting device in duality because they’re what we might imagine being glamoured by a vampire to be like — parts of your life suppressed by another’s will. The difference between his flash and glamouring is that vampires typically glamour to feed or erase details from a woman’s mind to preserve the vampire’s safety, whereas it would appear that Eggs may have actively participated in heinous acts himself.
How much of a relief is it to hear Sam say that Daphne is the most amazing person he’s ever met? No longer pining for Sookie, he lies naked on a pool table in Merlotte’s completely exposed, physically and emotionally, proud of who he is but still struggling with whether or not to advertise it. Daphne counters that we shouldn’t keep secrets from the people we love, and we can hear Alan Ball’s voice of reason shining through, that there’s no point in knowing people if we can’t share who we are with one another. So it’s especially heartbreaking when Daphne not only betrays Sam, but leads him to the one person he’s most afraid of: Maryann.
As we head into the next episode, Eric’s observations stay with us. He’s been around long enough to know the inevitable outcome of most any relationship. Is it a wonder why humans bother? Or is that what makes us so wondrous, that we keeping trying? Hoyt and his mother are a good example of two people who have withheld from one another for so long that it seems almost fruitless to try to connect. When Hoyt reveals to Maxine that Jessica is a vampire, the news is delivered more out of spite rather than the joyous occasion it should have been between a son and his mother.
Then there are those who make choices even though the aftermath will clearly be negative. Sarah Newlin abandons her devotion to God’s gift to her, her husband Steve, by sleeping with Jason. And Tara opens Sookie’s home to Maryann in the name of family (with Maryann’s identity meanwhile revealed as the creature that attacked Sookie, Miss Jeanette, and Daphne), only to have it taken over by another depraved orgy, desecrating the memory of the woman who actually raised her.
Not only is everyone tied to an uncertain future, they’re haunted by their pasts, unable to get away from visions or people. In a twist, Eric wants Lafayette to start selling V-juice again after they tortured him for doing so, showing up in an embodiment of Andy, a nice tie-in to shifting.