Batshit in Bon Temps: “True Blood” recap of episode “Fuck the Pain Away”

Guys, “Fuck the Pain Away” was a really good episode of True Blood! It had solid character background for Sookie and Warlow. It had Lafayette being important to the storyline. And it had, as always, excellent flashback wigs, even if the flashbacks themselves weren’t so excellent! This is the True Blood I’ve missed this season, and I’m happy “Fuck the Pain Away” seemed like a return to days of True Blood past.

But is it blowing anyone else’s mind that we’re already halfway through this season? Because that’s a little crazy to me. Just saying.

Still! This episode had a lot of good things going for it, and I’m not just talking about shirtless Eric Northman. Or maybe I am. Whatever. For this week’s five best “Of course I’m watching True Blood right now” moments, click through! (And, of course, SPOILERS AHEAD!)

1. Of course we should first talk about Sookie’s situation, which is that the parents she thought loved her tried to kill her when she was a child. The backstory is that Warlow was an ancient faerie turned by Lilith in 3500 B.C. (aside: I love that all it takes to get him ready for sex is Lilith tearing his manskirt off, and then they just go at it), and when he tried to return home to visit his family a few years later, he was overcome with faerie bloodlust and killed everyone, except for toddler Niall (whose mother protects him by telling him to hide). Consumed with guilt and shame, Warlow tried to kill Lilith, basically severing himself from her; but when he comes to collect Sookie thousands of years later (“I’m a prince; I’ll make Sookie a princess”), Sookie’s parents refuse to believe that he could give her a better life—so Sookie’s dad decides to kill her, forcing Warlow to kill them to save his beloved. Because, according to Warlow, “You are my intended. … It’s our destiny to be together.” Sookie doesn’t believe it at first, but after going to Lafayette for love life advice, she realizes she does have feelings for Warlow that she can’t really explain—except, whoops, their séance with Sookie’s parents goes horribly wrong, and Sookie’s dad possesses Lafayette and tries to kill her, and the episode ends with Sookie being drowned. And on the Warlow side of things, he’s captured by Bill, who thinks synthesizing Warlow’s hybrid faerie-vampire blood will be the key to saving all the vamps. Honestly, to be fair, I am way more into Warlow’s sensitive vampire routine than Bill’s holier-than-thou act; hearing Bill say shit like “I am a prophet in her name” was only exciting for so long. Warlow’s “I wish the vampire race extinction. I wish you extinction” is certainly more interesting, wouldn’t you say?

2. Because Bill is all busy sparring with Warlow in his basement, he doesn’t realize that Andy has arrived at his house, taken in the scene of his eaten-by-Jessica half-faerie daughters, and left with the one girl that is still alive. The only way to save her, Andy thinks, is to revive her with vampire blood, and then he takes her to hide out at Holly’s place. This father arc with Andy has developed pretty well, I think, and I legitimately felt for him when he sobs to Holly, “I can’t just do nothing.” Also interesting here is that although we like Jessica quite a bit, she did just kill three helpless teenagers for no reason, and I understand Andy’s rage at Holly’s observation, “She’s such a nice vampire.” Do we think Andy’s anger can be kept in check? Should it? Will Jason (who decides to go undercover with the LATVF to save Jessica) end up fighting Andy to protect her? WHO KNOWS. SO MANY QUESTIONS.

3. But yes, Jessica is now at Vamp Camp, along with Pam, Eric, Tara, and Willa (and, I imagine, Nora, but we didn’t see her in last night’s episode), as Bill saw all those episodes ago. And since interesting fissures are breaking out between the group, I’m going to tackle Vamp Camp in two separate bulletpoints; here we’ll talk about Eric and Pam and in the next one we’ll talk about Tara, Jessica, and Willa. So Eric and Pam are going through very different experiences: Eric is forced into some Hunger Games-style competition to prove his dominance, skill, and ingenuity among other vampires, which awards him a No. 1 on his chest, demonstrating that the camp’s interest in him is “more intellectual.” But Eric doesn’t have any success finding his progeny, even after politely asking a room full of other vamps, “Has anyone seen my friend Pam?” But Pam is too busy watching the scientists at Vamp Camp prod vampires in a number of different ways: they’re extracting their fangs, they’re watching them have sex, they’re seeing how fast they run on a human-size hamster wheel. And, with Pam, they’re putting her in therapy, asking her about how she views humans, how vampires socialize and communicate, and the relationship between makers and their creations. This gave us the very excellent shot of Pam smugly telling the guy interviewing her, “Your insignificance to me cannot be underestimated. You are food,” but also talking a big game about not caring that her maker has released her, because “Pain is a worthless emotion. … But now I’m over it. He’s nobody to me.” Pam also adds in a dig about humans in general—“You just love being in [pain]. You even consider it a virtue”—but the Guv and the others at Vamp Camp test her resolve when they force her, stake in hand, to face off against Eric, stake in hand. “Haven’t you seen Gladiator? Fucking fight!” yells Sarah Newlin, and so we have Vamp Camp Thunderdome. Cliffhanger!

4. And also in Vamp Camp (which, really, I think should be called Vamprison) are Tara, Jessica, and Willa, the former two of whom are together and the latter who gets her own cell, VIP-style, because of her daddy. Interesting developments for everyone: Tara and Jessica are protected by some random European model-looking vampire who then tells them, “I guess now you girls owe me” (it’s all very prison bitch adjacent), and also, Tara’s hair looks really clean and soft, somehow, for someone who is basically in jail. And then there’s Willa, who the Guv personally delivers to her imprisonment and who is solicited by a gross guard who tells her, “I could be your friend, too. Kind of like I scratch your back, you lick my balls.” That shot of Willa, sadly staring around her cell, is particularly heartbreaking. Do we think Eric will feel as indebted to her as he feels to Pam? Will he feel a similar need to protect her? He did look shocked when the Guv told him he had sent his own daughter here, so I wonder if that is setting up an Eric/Willa partnership later on down the line.

5. And finally, let’s check in with Sam and Alcide, because their storylines remain linked. Sam and Nicole did in fact sleep together, and her morning-after face is one of sadness and regret (and, however, excellent hair). She tries to call her parents to tell them she’s alive but Sam nixes the idea, telling her that if the werewolves know she’s still alive and know about her family they’ll kill them, too. Probably not inaccurate words from Mr. Merlotte. But this conversation is all witnessed by Alcide’s father Jackson (Robert Patrick finally gets some lines this episode!), who recently fought with Alcide because he thinks his son’s quest to find Emma is driven by a need to impress Rikki and save face as packmaster rather than a legitimate desire of his own. So will Jackson narc out Sam and Nicole, even though Alcide snarled at him, “I’m my own man and I’m my own wolf!” and threw money in his face, Don Draper to Peggy Olson style? It would be more interesting if Jackson actually helped Sam, Nicole, and Emma escape instead, no? (Also, what kind of episode is this to not even have a LITTLE shirtless Alcide? Rude.)

+ And, really quickly, some of my favorite lines and stray thoughts:

+ OK, so, I get that Terry is really conflicted about having killed Patrick. But his military friend took very little convincing to give in and agree to eventually kill Terry at his own behest, didn’t he? That seems shady.

+ “I feel like I want to have sex, or die, or die while having sex!” was one of Jessica’s best moments, ever. Especially because that seemed like a very tragic line from an old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode or something, no? That had shades of Angel and Buffy thrown in, I think. And overall, I liked that this episode really treated Jessica like the permanent teenager she is: “While I was eating them, I got turned on” was a nice panicked admission, and so her was high musings of, “What if Bill isn’t God? What if Bill is the devil? What if I’ve been serving the devil?” However, my fondness doesn’t extend to Jessica’s throwaway line to Jason, “I’ll rape you or something,” which just seemed kind of callous and unnecessary. Maybe it was a reminder to us of that time all those werepanther women raped Jason? But I don’t know if this show is that consistent in its memory of itself.

+ On our Punch Drunk Critics podcast we’ve often talked about how Eric is really the protagonist of this show now, not Sookie, but she made a good case for herself this week, getting all empowered and take-charge and shit. I particularly liked this little Warlow tell-off: “You all come in here and say you love me … but you just want to fuck me and own me and use my blood. … None of you know shit about love.”

+ But on the other side of that coin is Sarah Newlin, who was all about forward strides this episode—I just can’t figure out her endgame. She’s trying to convince the Guv into marrying her and having a baby with her, but she’s also working with ex-husband Steve Newlin to bring down Eric, and she’s also coming to Jason Stackhouse’s for a very vigorous booty call? I don’t know if all of these pieces are supposed to fit together or what. Nevertheless, I like Anna Camp’s weird energy; she seems like a church camp kid ready to explode with lust. That’s the only way I can explain her saying, in the space of a few hours, as lines as different as, “Do not take me for granted. When a woman comes to you in black lingerie, you unwrap her,” and “I was very much hoping that I could save your soul,” and “I truly believe God wants me to fuck you,” and finally, “I am not Steve Newlin’s ex-wife. I am my own person” and “My body is a fucking temple and you have defiled it with your vampire-loving pecker.” But are we ever going to figure out how she was able to rescind Jessica’s invitation from Jason’s house?

+ Did anyone else notice that the hooker Alcide asks for information in the werewolf bar is the actress Stacy Haiduk, who starred in dual roles on The Young and the Restless recently (both as Jack Abbot’s crazy stalker Patty Williams and as the therapist treating her)? No one else is watching daytime soaps like I am? Jerks. I’m sure you’ll remember this hilarious line from her, though: She’ll do everything “except for that shifting shit during sex. I can’t take it from a wolf unless I am one, too.” UGH/giggle.

+ “What are you doing here at your place of work? Because I know it’s not work,” says Lafayette to Sookie before helping her communicate with her dead parents. Oh, Lala! How are you simultaneously so sassy, and so good at eyeliner?