True Blood Review: Season 4, Episode One: When Faeries Attack

I originally intended to do this once a week, episode by episode, but I'm pretty sure I knew that that wouldn't really happen about ten seconds after I told myself it would.  True Blood is one of my fun shows - some would call it a guilty pleasure, but it's one that I don't feel guilty about.  Like Spartacus (can't wait until 2012!), there's a lot of sex, a lot of blood, and a lot of drama, just what I need after going through a Google Reader full of racism, sexism, and politics.

So, at the end of last season:
Sookie broke up with Bill, ran into the graveyard all distraught-like, and was convinced by her faery godmother to disappear into fairyland.

Jason decided to care for the people of Hot Shot, who apparently are not capable of taking care of themselves.

Tara got the fuck out of Bon Temps.

Lafayette hooked up with Jesus.

Jessica and Hoyt stopped acting like children and moved in together.

Bill and Queen Sophie Ann prepared to face off.

Sam fired a shot at his wayward brother Tommy.

I think that's all of the majors...

Oh.  And Arlene's having a demon baby (or so she thinks).

Jason thrown in with Pam and Jess?  Hmm.

This episode began with Sookie entering the faery world led by her faery godmother.  This ... is just as stupid as it sounds, and I could have done without the entire first 10 minutes of this episode.  We discover that the faeries are basically tricking all humans who have faery blood in them into eating the light fruit, which somehow makes it so that they can never live in the human world again.  This is to keep vampires from drinking their blood, because when Bill nearly drained Sookie last season, he was able to take a trip into the faery realm, which is not good, since faery blood is like crack mixed with LSD to vampires.  Sookie finds her grandfather, who thinks he's been gone from the human world for a couple of hours, but has really been gone for a couple of decades.  Sookie can somehow see the hidden ugliness in the faery world bleed through, and she and granddad make a run for it, bad CGI and all.  Back in the human world, Granddad dies and Sookie cries (again).  Why was Sookie the only one who could see the real faery world bleed through, and for someone who is only half faery, how was she so powerful that she destroyed the rest of the illusion?  Is Sookie not only a special human, but a special faery?  She's the speshulist speshul of them all?  Gag.  When will writers learn that it's more interesting to watch/read about a normal person navigate through extraordinary circumstances, then someone who discovers that they're even more extraordinary than everyone else around them?

Upon returning home, Sookie discovers that she's been gone for over a year, and Jason sold the house that her Gran left her.  I don't get why she's all, "I can't believe you gave up on me" to Jason.  She was gone for a year, and she was mixed up with a bunch of creatures that are known for killing humans before she disappeared without taking any of her personal belongings.  After months of searching for her, it was pretty reasonable for him to assume that she was dead.  I also find it interesting, upon re-watch, that Eric feeds into her narcissism by telling her that he never gave up on her, when all of her friends and loved ones did.  Keep in mind, to a 1,000 year old vampire one year is not that much time, especially if he has knowledge of the fae world that younger vampires like Bill might not.

Sheriff Andy is a V addict.  This can't be good.

Jesus is pushing Laffayette deeper and deeper into magic, now taking him to the meeting of a coven (although he says they're not a coven, they appear to be a group of people who gather to practice magic, which I believe is a coven).  Lafayette, to say the least, is skeptical, and spooked when Marnie, the head witch, channels his dead vampire lover Eddie.

Arlene's baby pulls the head off of dolls, therefore is a future serial killer.

Tara is cage fighting in New Orleans.  Wow, her body is what I'd like mine to be, but I'd order mine with hips.  Are there cage fighting clubs here?  I would like to go to there.

Jessica and Hoyt are having a fight about why Jessica, who does not eat food anymore, never has a hot plate of food ready for him when he gets home from work.  Really Hoyt?  She does not eat food.  Why would she want to cook it?

Pam is a cynical bitch who cannot hide her contempt for humans.  We have something in common.  Eric, however, is very good at playing the media game.  "Who would you rather trust, a vampire, or a politician?"  Touche, blond viking.  Touche.

Bill, surprisingly, is also very ... appealing, when he's not mooning over Sookie and has a taste of power.

Tara looks ridiculously beautiful in this poster.

Tara smokes now.  Boo.  Tara also makes out with girls now.  Yay?  She also seems to have gotten her anger management problem under control (although I always thought she had every reason to be pissed off all of the time).  I don't think that having a girlfriend makes her a lesbian, but I do think that it's been very easy for the audience to assume that this is what the show is saying, since there's been no other explanation.  I don't think that that's where they're going, but if it is, I don't like the suggestion that because she's had some traumatizing relationships with men, she's decided to try women for a while.  It has little to do with her relationships with men.  My guess is that she moved to New Orleans and told herself that she wasn't going to get involved with any men for a while and focus on making friends.  Met Naomi, got close to her, then found herself surprised at feeling more then friendly feelings for her.  I think that sexuality is fluid for most people, and Tara was in a space to explore that attraction, instead of deny it like most people do their whole lives.

Sookie's looking to go back to work at Merlotte's.  Why does Sam keep rehiring her?  She disappears whenever the fuck she feels like it, often without letting him know, and she still has a job?  He has every right to be "prickly" Sookie, you've come back all perky and chirping about "super secret vampire business" and expecting everyone to treat you like they didn't mourn you and the tragedy that is your mostly dead family for a year.  I had to laugh when Terry said that they were going to name the baby after Sookie, but then it ended up being a boy, and there's no boy version of the name Sookie.  There's not a girl version of the name Sookie, either.  It's an absolutely hideous name, and I have cringed inwardly every time I typed it for this post.

Sheriff Andy is a V addict.  This can't be good.  And is now shaking down past and present drug dealers like Lafayette for any drop that he can find.  I didn't like Jason telling Lafayette that nothing happened to him.  He was harassed by a drug addicted cop.  Andy has no right carrying around a gun and a badge in his mental state.

Tommy is under Hoyt's momma's care now... Sam shot his brother in the leg?  Goddamn that's fucked up.  I liked their little exchange though.  Sam:  "How's that physical therapy I'm paying for?"  Tommy:  "Could use a couple more months.  How's that anger management class?"  Sam:  "Might need to go more often."

Sexy time with Tara and Naomi.  When are we going to see Lafayette and Jesus bump and grind?  Tara is apparently Toni from Atlanta to Naomi.  And a text from Lafayette to Tara saying that Sookie is alive turns into a text from her Dad saying that her grandmother died.  This relationship will never work if Tara still thinks that where she came from and the things that she's been through define who she is.  Who she's become, considering her past, just makes her more amazing.

Jessica is tempted by a sack of blood other then Hoyt at Fangtasia.  Pam's hip to waist ratio is fantastic.  I loved her laughing at the ridiculousness of a baby vampire living monogamously with a human.  You can't fight your nature, Jess.  You've been eating the same meal every night for a year, you might need to try someone new.

When I first watched this episode, I thought that Sam's "anger management" involved dinner and a drunken orgy.  Instead, it's dinner and drunken shape-shifting.  I'm not sure which is better.

Jason is taking care of the people of Hot Shot.  I don't understand how they can't feed themselves.  Poor country folk like them would have figured out how to feed themselves ages ago.  The depiction of the Hot Shot people bothers me.  They are just an aggregation of very single "white trash" stereotype ever, from the dirtyness, to the incest, to the poor eating habits, etc.  Are we to believe that all were-panthers are inbred freaks?  They repay his generosity by knocking him into an ice chest.  So, they're not even good people, either.  Why do you not like poor people, True Blood?

A celebration of the life of Marnie's parrot turns into raising it from the dead.  This only works when Lafayette joins the circle, which makes me think that he's much more powerful then even Marnie.  One of the mousy witches is a spy for King(!) Bill, which I'm sure doesn't spell good things for the coven.

Sookie is apparently a hot piece of meat to
be claimed by the man who out-hunks them all.

As for the most talked about scene of the episode, in which Sookie, feeling safe in a house that in her head, still belongs to her, exits the shower, takes off her robe, turns around, and finds Eric in her bedroom ... look, I know he's attractive, but that does not excuse the rapiness of that entire scene.  He's violated her privacy, made her feel unsafe in what used to be her bedroom, and told her that bought her house because owning the house meant that he would own her.  "You're mine, Sookie", he says, right before he pops out his fangs. How is that not rapy?  It disturbs me that so many female fans wet their panties at that scene.  It might be fun in a fantasy, but in real life when men think they own you it is not hot and sexy, it's downright scary, and reading the stuff that I read every day, I can't tell myself that it's just a show.  Eric creeped me the fuck out tonight, and I felt like the hook at the end was "Will Eric rape Sookie?  Tune in next week!"