True Blood Watch: Season 5, Episode 8 - Somebody That I Used To Know

Well, tonight's episode of True Blood felt about as scattered as last week's, however "Somebody That I Used to Know" did manage to deliver a number of more entertaining, less draggy scenes than last week's episode, and I think we have a better idea of where things are going for the series on a number of plot-points, most of which seem unrelated to each other.

I think that's one of the bigger issues of this season. It doesn't really feel like a lot of what's going on connects much. In one area, we have the Authority and Lilith. In another, Tara's a vampire. And then there's Terry's smoke-monster drama. Alcide's having wolf issues. Sam's having shifter issues, which is loosely related to Hoyt's issues. But maybe things are coming together, because, after Lafeyette spent an episode with his mouth sewn shut, he's now using his Jesus-acquired powers to help Terry. And as mentioned, Hoyt joining the sup-haters did connect him with Sam and Luna's issues. And their stuff is kind of connected to Alcide's.

Maybe because we're in the middle part of the season, it's harder to see where this mess of a web connects, but those connections do appear to be forming.

Sookie
Sookie and Jason appear to be firmly allied right now, as their sibling status is proving to be pretty relevant for the first time in a while. Jason helped Sookie embrace her gifts enough to stop trying to zap her powers away, and then the two visited with the fairies to see about figuring out who killed their parents. In their efforts to tape into mother nature and connect with her memories, Sookie managed to tap into the mind of a vampire called Warlow, whom Claudine apparently knows, and who killed the Stackhouses. Warlow found an old bandaid in the backseat of their car (gross) so we can assume he knows there's a little girl (now grown) out there with the same blood as her mother's. In other words, sooner or later, Warlow's probably going to be knocking on Sookie's door. Let's hope she has enough lightning in her to fight him off.

Interesting factoid from this arc. Albert Einstein was apparently a halfling like Sookie.

Hoyt
Hoyt's new sup-killing friends managed to trick Jessica and kidnap her, leaving her to be murdered by Hoyt as sort of a "welcome to the club" gift. Of course, he didn't do it. As mad as he is at her for not loving her anymore, he didn't put a wooden bullet in her. Instead, he undid her chain and let her kill one of the other men. Not really a huge twist. I couldn't have picture him killing Jessica even if he does hate her.

Later in the episode, Sam, Luna and Andy showed up and smelled what Luna described as a large woman who smoked menthols. is Hoyt's mother involved in this? I can think of no other large woman in this series with a strong distaste for super-types besides Maxine Fortenberry. Something tells me Jessica would be all too happy to take revenge out on Maxine. And we did see Hoyt on the run for help and stopping when he saw a "friendly face." Was it his mother pointing the gun at him?

Eric and Bill
The authority returned to headquarters still drunk on Lilith's blood and giddy over the recent bloodbath. Only Eric seemed to be brooding over it. He later tried to talk Nora out of it, telling her about seeing Godric and what he said. Nora's convinced that Godric lost his way at the end of his life and that Lilith would've been happy to stake him. That's basically the dividing line between Eric and Nora at this point. And I really hope we don't see Eric swayed away from Godric. His love for his maker is one of the most endearing things about the character.

Bill, on the other hand, seems slightly more flexible. While there did appear to be some remorse or - at the very least - a bit more sobriety when they returned from New Orleans, it seems like he's at least a little bit willing to hear Salome out. This brought us to a flashback of Bill watching his grown daughter dying back in 1910. She begged him to turn her but he refused, stating that immortality was a curse. Back in the present, he let Salome convince him to feed on a young woman. And he was the one to come up with a plan to destroy all of the True Blood factories to force vampires to have to feed off humans. It's a pretty genius strategy, but is Bill really on board with it? Or does he have some other plan in place that we aren't privy to yet? Hard to say. You never really can tell with Bill.

Wolves
The dirty-sexy of the night came in the form of Alcide and his maybe-girlfriend going at it in a bedroom (not sure whose, don't think it matters). Their sexy-time went on long enough for us to get a good eyeful of Alcide's backside. I still don't know the brunette's name. She has no story as far as I know either other than that she's team Alcide and might be interested in dating him. I don't really know the point of her other than that.

J.D. and Alcide came to blows as scheduled, though not entirely as planned. J.D. decided that they'd hunt a human as part of the fight to determine who was pack master. Of course, Alcide refused, which meant he forfeited, and then ended up having to fight J.D. anyway to keep him from going after the college kid he was planning on hunting. Martha seems to be against J.D. right now, at least while he's on V, which I guess puts her on Alcide's team. Kind of.

Lafayette
On his way home from his random trip to visit Jesus' people, Lafayette healed himself with some V he found in Jesus' first aid kit (cute) and was met by Jesus in the car ride home. Maybe this was some kind of closure for Lafayette? By not letting his grandfather take his powers? I'm not entirely sure I followed the storyline or their moment in the car, but it did bring Lafayette back to Bon Temps, and just in time to be a medium-for-hire for Arlene, who wants to break Terry's curse.

The seance was quick and had the Middle Eastern woman inhabiting Lafayette's body to tell Terry and Patrick that she'd break the curse if Terry killed Patrick, though it sounds like she really just wants one of them to die. I'm thinking this will turn Patrick (who was last seen running away) against Terry and the two of them will come to blows. I'm picturing Patrick dying a fiery death. Sorry Scott Foley. Nothing personal (Team Noel forever!!!)

Sam
Luna seemed sort of content with being shot last week, and then this week she was freaking out over it. It was enough to cause her to shift into Sam, after which she was unable to shift back. This brought us a number of very amusing scenes involving two Sams, one normal one and one very effeminate version of the character. It worked on a humorous level and I'll admit I even mistook real Sam for Luna-Sam during the interrogation scene. In the end, after they helped Andy investigate the house where Jessica was being held, Luna shifted back and it seemed like the two were on their way toward a reconciliation. Tara
Finally, my favorite piece of tonight's pie was Tara running into Tracy, an uppity bigot who apparently enjoyed talking down to Tara in high school and hasn't lost the taste for it now. What she was doing in Fangtasia, I have no idea. But upon learning Tara was a vampire, she made sure to comment on the fact that Tara is now "a member of two minorities" and talk down to her once again.

It seemed like Pam was ok with the woman berating her progeny, until later when Pam revealed that she had Tracy tied up downstairs. She glamoured Tracy into being Tara's blood-slave and let Tara feast on her.

Pam's mothering strategy is a mystery to me. Maybe that's how she wants it. Tara never really knows if she's getting the carrot or the stick from her maker. It does make for some fun scenes, and some of the best lines of the night. Those are among the list below…

"You don't want a margarita. You want a flat, half-empty beer." Pam

"My mad face and my happy face are the same." Pam

"For the first time in a decade, I ate a child." Burnt vampire whose name I don't remember.