You know, I would have liked “Life Matters” a lot more if it weren’t such a schizophrenically paced episode. So many fast cuts, so many brief scenes, so little Warlow! I do agree with the level of Terry involvement, but did I need so many scenes of vampires slow-motion cavorting in the sunlight? Meh. Probably not.
But I have to say that I am impressed with the amount of attention the writers are giving to Terry’s death, and I kind of wish he had been given the same treatment in life. All those flashbacks about Terry’s PTSD immediately after he returned from war, and the first days of his friendships with Lafayette and Sam? I would have loved more of that, years ago.
This was still a blood-soaked, largely ridiculous episode, though, so let’s get to my five favorite things. (Obviously, SPOILERS AHEAD.)
1. Vamp Camp is destroyed! Thanks to the one and only Eric Northman, who tore through a bunch of guards, killed the head scientist Overlark, and then set all the vampires free, the place is donezo. I like the emotion Eric brought to this, though—although he is properly smug when he tells the vampires, “Go on, go kill your captors,” he also sounds almost bored too, no? That didn’t take any glee, for me as a viewer, out of Eric’s murder of Steve Newlin (“Every time I’ve lost someone I’ve loved, you’ve been there. … You have no future”) or his capture of the therapist for Pam to kill (I loved her cooing “You take such good care of me”). But now that Nora is dead, and Eric has no relationship with Sookie Stackhouse or the human world, what else does he have to live for? And so I wasn’t surprised when Eric flew off at the end of the episode, although Pam was indignant and angry that he was leaving her. What else is Eric supposed to do? I hope he goes off and fights crime. Extra-handsomely.
2. Also at Vamp Camp! Jason Stackhouse decided to let Sarah Newlin go instead of killing her, which we all kind of realized, right? Jason wasn’t going to lose his soul by killing a human, even though he’s killed a bunch of vampires, and I imagine we’ll see Sarah again. But I did like Jason challenging her on her religious rhetoric (as well as mocking her bad cardio: “You’re too fucking slow, and you’re too fucking evil!” and her bad sex game: “He says to tell you you’re an average fucking lay”), and calling her out with, “How dare you speak for God!” It’s obvious, though, that none of Jason’s anger got through to Sarah, right? So she’ll probably be back sometime, doing more stupid shit, in glorious pantsuits. So glorious!
3. Oh right, and also at Vamp Camp, practically everyone lived, since Bill sacrificed himself to all of his vampire friends who were in that white circular room. Since he couldn’t bring Warlow to them, he let them feed off his own blood, which had Warlow’s in it—but on the brink of death, as Lilith’s three messengers beckoned him, he refused to go with them. What that means for the future, I really don’t know. But Bill lives after feeding off Jessica and James (proving Warlow’s claim to Sookie that if they were both half-vampire, half-faerie, they could just feed off each other for eternity), and is able to see all the other vampires destroying all the Tru-Blood around the world. Yay, I guess? This can’t be good for the human vs. vampire situation, right? And how long does faerie blood last, anyway? Are these vampires going to continue slow-motion skipping in the sunlight forever? Or, at some point, will their immunity run out? Questions, questions.
4. Aside from all the Vamp Camp stuff, this episode was rightfully dominated by the memory of Terry Bellefleur, and I really liked how his funeral was handled. The guiding theme was “Terry Bellefleur believed in family, and for him, everything, everything flowed from that,” and various characters did a good job discussing Terry’s personality; Andy’s memories about trying to connect with Terry after he returned from war were particularly poignant (“You gotta let me know what kind of beer you want!”). Also mentioned were Terry’s dedication to his job (Sam: “I don’t think he ever missed a day”), his desire to do things correctly (“I want to be good at this job. Will you help me?” Lala remembers Terry asking during his first day), and his immediate affection for Arlene (“He loved you since the second you walked into his life,” Sookie shares).
Of all the flashbacks, I think Terry throwing back a catfish during fishing because “Every life matters” was the most obvious, but the one of Lala teaching him how to cook fries and dipping low during the process was clearly the best. Their friendship was one of my favorite things, and I legitimately will miss Terry quite a bit. Rest in peace, dude. And get that life insurance money, Arlene.
5. And lastly, I loved the resigned look on Sookie’s face when Warlow feeds on her after she blasts Bill out of faerie haven with her ball of light. It’s very put-upon wife dealing with her husband’s baggage, which I imagine would be how they would operate if we ever see these two crazy kids get together. However, didn’t Niall say that using her ball of faerie lighte would zap all of her faerie ability? And yet she’s still able to read Arlene’s mind during Terry’s funeral? Hmm. Is that a continuity issue, or did I miss something?
+ And finally, some of my favorite lines:
+ “Jason Stackhouse! Looking good, my friend! … When you dream of me, dream of nice things,” says Eric before he heals Jason with his blood. So please let us have sexy dreams of them together, HBO. PLEASE. Also, would Eric Northman have chemistry with practically anything at this point? A brick wall? A traffic light? Various other inanimate objects? That motherfucker is JUST. SO. CHARMING.
+ We can all agree that Eric tearing off Overlark’s junk was the kind of ridiculousness we keep watching True Blood for, right?
+ “I love you, Jason Stackhouse!” Peace out, Steve Newlin. You raging psychopath.
+ Gotta love to hate Grandma Bellefleur, as racist and sexist as she is. Choice lines from her during Terry’s funeral: “Is that the Stackhouse girl, the weirdo?”; “There’s a lot more Negroes here than I thought there would be”; and “Is that a boy or a girl?” directed to, of course, the one and only Lafayette, who brushed it off with class. And I must say, his false eyelashes last night were amazing, no? So voluminous!
+ Also, an update on Hoyt, who Jessica glamoured into forgetting everything about their relationship and her subsequent dalliance with Jason: According to his mother, he’s doing fine in Alaska and has an ugly-but-nice girlfriend. He’s still one of my most-missed characters, but I don’t imagine him coming back anytime soon—I think the next love triangle with Jessica will be her, Jason, and James, so no need for a return of Hoyt, I don’t think.
+ And finally, I must say that I found Alcide pretty hot last night. As Hoyt’s mother noted, “He smells like a man!”—which I do agree is a quite attractive quality. Sure, the show doesn’t really know what to do with Alcide (he’s a nice guy again now, after all those weeks of useless, over-the-top werewolf storylines), but my heart swells seeing him and Sookie together. In the books, they end up married, which I find quite pleasant. And yes, Alcide, I WILL take your shoulder to cry on! And the rest of your body. To do other stuff on.
And also, did anyone else find “young” Sam in the fishing flashback strangely hot, too? Is it the cutoff West Virginia shirt that’s doing it for me? That’s embarrassing.
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