(TiVo has tonight's episode listed as "Run" but my information says it's called "Let's Get Out of Here.")
The words “Festival of Tolerance” induce a movie-flashback of Michael Rapaport’s creepiest character climbing the stairs of a college campus building, about to shoot a bunch of people in a fit of misplaced rage. Tonight’s True Blood ended a bit differently than Higher Learning did, but the irony was still there.
Haunted
Let’s kick off tonight’s recap by celebrating True Blood quite possibly being the first show to use a Taylor Swift song as background music for a lusty sex scene. The song was fitting, not only by the title, but also because we learned tonight that Jessica is a fan of the blonde crooner.
While we’re on the subject, while Jason may have put up a decent fight to do the right thing by not having sex with Jessica. He lost the fight against his own nature tonight when Hoyt asked him to bring the break-up box (a.k.a. the “Monster box”) of Jessica’s things to her. Jason hesitated to perform the task, knowing it wouldn’t take much to give in to temptation. Sure enough, he and Jessica ended up going at it in the back of his pick-up truck.
In Tents Sex
Speaking of sexy scenes, Sam and Luna finally consummated their relationship (officially - We're not counting shifter sex with Tommy-Sam). This took place while making an effort to get away from Marcus for a little while, by heading off into the woods for a bit of camping. The camping allowed Sam to bond more with Emma, which included shifting into an adorable bunny. This won Emma over and apparently Luna as well. After Emma went to sleep, Luna visited Sam in his tent and they went at it (surprisingly loudly considering there was a little girl sleeping one tent over).
Off the Wagon
Debbie was hanging on by a thread with her V-addiction recovery and tonight, she fell off the wagon. After helping rescue Sookie, Alcide returned to Debbie and curled up in bed with her, believing she was asleep. Normally, I’d say that Debbie should have talked to Alcide about the situation and expressed her frustration over him rushing to Sookie’s side when she so obviously has other people (vampires) to rescue her, but she’s already had that conversation with him more than once. He made his choice knowing Debbie wouldn't approve. This, of course, doesn’t excuse Debbie later running off to score some V. That’s her choice. The point is, Debbie’s not entirely unsympathetic… yet.
She visited with Sookie and offered to help her out, in what seemed to be an “If you can’t beat’em, join’em” approach to the whole situation. She loves Alcide and if she can’t stop Alcide from coming to Sookie’s aid, perhaps participating in his attempts to help Sookie is the next best thing. In an effort to find Eric, Sookie snuck into the witch’s headquarters, which I want to point out, looks like a more spacious version of “The Magic Box,” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference).
Debbie did her part in distracting Antonia while Sookie found Eric, but when things started to fall apart, she threw Sookie under the bus and took off, leaving Sookie to fend for herself. She seemed nervous and maybe a little disappointed that Sookie made it out ok, but she still gets points for trying to help in the first place.
Festival of Guts
As mentioned, Sookie survived, thanks to Bill’s blood. Though, I had to laugh when Alcide and Bill peered down at a mostly-dead Sookie at the start of the episode and declared that all they could do was pray. Um, how about try a hospital? Granted, I’m sure vampire blood is more powerful than anything a hospital can offer, but you’d think they’d factor in a medical facility as a plan B, right? Wrong. They rested her on her couch, dripped some V into her mouth and hoped for the best. Fortunately, it worked. Sookie’s just fine.
Sookie had a sexy dream that featured her declaring her love to Eric and Bill equally. Rather than being their’s, she wants them to be hers. It seems like a fair proposition and one I could almost see Bill and Eric agreeing to, if only for an episode or two. One steamy scene and an epic battle later, I foresee the threesom crumbling fast, if ever it becomes a reality.
The big cliffhanger in tonight’s episode came in the form of the Festival of Tolerance gathering that was set to be attended by press and bloggers, which made it the perfect setting for Antonia to send a message. Despite the sincere hesitation and/or protest of most of her followers (save the overenthusiastic Roy), Antonia used her powers to manipulate three vampires into gutting three human guards at the festival and holding them up for everyone to see. Given the fact that the sight of Russell clutching the bloody spine of a news anchor is still likely to be fresh in everyone’s mind, Antonia’s display of mock vamp rage will surely do the trick in undoing all of Nan’s recent efforts to clean up the vampire name.
Kill Bill
Eric was not only used by Antonia to bait the three vampires used to gut the guards, but he’s also set up to attack and kill Bill. Considering how much older, and thus, stronger Eric is, Bill may not be able to outrun or outfight Eric.
Resolved?
In almost completely unrelated to everything else news, the woman haunting Arlene’s baby continued to use Lafayette’s body tonight, but thanks to Jesus, she evacuated Lafayette's body after getting to hold her baby again. Giving her peace of mind involved digging up her and her baby’s body and handing her the skeleton of the infant. Gross. It did the trick though and after she cradled the baby bones, Jesus got her to leave Lafayette’s body and drift off into the afterlife (presumably).
The story might end there, or not. It seems like such a complete tangent, and I don’t feel certain that we got the full story on what happened to the baby or the woman. Did I miss something, or did we not learn how she died?
Oh Brother
The baby drama falls in line with the Tommy drama in that I find myself having to force myself to care about it at all. Of course Tommy's still around. He’s such a mess of problems that even writing a goodbye note leads to trouble for him. When Marcus came by Merlotte's looking for Sam, Tommy couldn’t leave well enough alone and for some reason that wasn’t entirely clear to me, decided to shift into Sam’s body and meet up with Marcus and his people to receive the beat-down Sam had coming to him. Maybe he thought he was helping his brother. Maybe he’s just a glutton for punishment. I can’t get a good read on Tommy at all. Either way, he mouthed off to Marcus, posing as Sam, and earned himself a beating from some of Marcus’ werewolves. It wasn’t until Alcide forced them to stop that Tommy shifted back into himself and Marcus realized what happened.
I can’t get a good read on Marcus either. He doesn’t strike me as entirely evil. He seems to want to be a good leader, but his fuse is typically short for a werewolf. We don’t know the full extent of his problems with Luna, but we know she’s at the very least, nervous around him, if not scared for her safety.
Family Problems
It should be worth noting that Andy's V-addiction is out of control and causing him to lash out at his cousin Terry. Where this is heading, who knows? Sooner or later I expect the issue to come to a head.
To close it out, let’s revisit one of the most amusing scenes of the episode…
