TRUE BLOOD: Season 7 Episode 1, ‘Jesus Gonna Be Here’

A funny thing happened to me this week. Someone signed me up to recap True Blood! I never really said yes, yet here I am, recapping. I haven’t seen this show in a while, pretty sure I missed the entire last season or maybe I was just perfecting my Candy Crush game while it was on. Anyway, let’s get to it!

After a very helpful ‘previously on’ sequence, True Blood’s seventh and, gasp, final season opens just like the Odyssey, in medias res. As we all learned in high school either in class or while watching My So-Called Life, this means ‘in the middle of things.’ The things were are in the middle of begin with a giant battle between sick vampires, vampires who aren’t sick, and humans at a square dance at Merlotte’s, sorry, Bellfleur’s Bar and Grille. The sick vampires have Hep V. This is a debilitating illness that a vampire catches from Tommy Lee. Wait no! They were puttin’ the Hep V in the Troo Blood drank! Anyway, there is fighting. A vampire that’s had too many bong hits stares at Sookie and drools. “Whut arrrrrre you?” He asks, but he doesn’t get to hear the answer (a waitress) because Sookie’s werewolf boyfriend rips his throat out. Can I just. . .

Ok, thanks. The Hep V tribe absconds with selected humans, much to the distress of the healthy vampires. Mayor Sam Merlotte herds humans into a shed, I mean, a safe place. Tara’s useless mom refuses to try to run to safety and Tara is forced to battle a Hep V vampire to protect her. Tara apparently dies, although we don’t actually see her turn into the puddle of red goo that usually means ‘the true death’ on this show. We all know that dirty trick, don’t we? They’re trying to make an ass out of u and me both, but I’m not falling for it.

In the next scene, Jason Stackhouse calls Andy Bellfleur on the silver flip phone that Andy just got at the vintage store. He informs Andy of the fuckin’ bloodbath that just went down at Merlotte’s, I mean Bellfleur’s, and that the Hep V tribe snatched his girlfriend Holly. Andy’s forced to go down there, leaving his tender young half-faerie daughter Adilyn alone in the house. Jessica’s outside of the house, still remorseful about eating his other two daughters (and clearly punishing herself by wearing ugly clothes) and she promises to protect Adilyn while Andy’s gone. Andy coldly tells her that Tara is dead and directs his daughter not to let Jessica in the house, no matter what. Harsh treatment of daughter-eaters around here.

In the aftermath back at Bellfleur’s, Sookie is listening to everyone’s thoughts and, as usual, everyone is thinking about her. Well, everyone except Lafayette, who’s thinking about brown party liquor and getting the hell out. Nobody has anything nice to think about Sookie Stackhouse. They think she’s a slutty whore slut who sluts around with vampires and that’s why everything bad has ever happened, because of Sookie Stackhouse and her slutty, slutty ways. Even Alcide gets in on the name-calling in his thoughts, and Sookie leaves, making her way home alone despite the “every human needs a vampire” edict.

In other news, Tara’s roommate persuades Lettie Mae to drink her blood in order to heal faster. First time anyone has to ask her to drink something, eh? Alcide and Sam lost the scent of the Hep V vamps, so they’ll find their nesting place: Jason and Violet will check out an abandoned house while Andy and Bill will go to the boarded-up slaughterhouse. Sam Merlotte shifted from dog-form to human-form in front of not only us (we found it hilarious) but also his mayoral running opponent. Awkward. Jessica calls her boyfriend on his flip phone from her flip phone. They must have gotten a deal at the Circle K. She hasn’t eaten, but she’s going to manage to not eat Adilyn. Everyone clears out of Bellfleur’s, every human paired with a vampire, as decreed. Alcide calls Sookie and leaves a voicemail. He’s not using a flip phone, but he’s old fashioned nonetheless. He calls again, and Sookie throws her phone (also not a flip phone) into the woods. Fuck that phone. She trips over a woman’s dead body on her way home but, whatever, just keeps going.

Meanwhile! Pam is in Morocco! She is charming as ever! She’s playing Russian roulette against a man who has played and won 27 times. Pam’s spouting some fairly nihilistic bullshit while they’re playing, but after her opponent dies—29th time’s a charm—it seems that what she had riding on surviving this game was finding out Eric’s whereabouts. She’s going to find him, it seems, or die trying.

Chez Bellfleur, Adilyn decides to open the window for a heart to heart with Jessica. Like you do with people who eat your sisters. Turns out, they both have nightmares about that night. Hey, they also both like boys! Really they have so much in common, they should be best friends. Down the road apiece, an infected vampire gets wind of Adilyn’s sweet, irresistible faerie-smell. “Whut is shee?” he asks. “She’s mine!” Jessica responds. SHOWDOWN.

Chez Stackhouse, Sookie’s at the kitchen table in a robe with a bottle of brown party liquor. Alcide comes in and they have a pretty boring fight about how he’s thinking bad thoughts about her and she has to listen to everyone’s bad thoughts about her. He doesn’t point out that nobody ever thinks anything bad about her hair. He needs to take argument classes. She wants to be alone with her whiskey so she can sit and get drunk and think about her dead friend who’s probably not really dead.

Chez Abandoned House That Might Be A Hep-V Vamp Nest, Jason and Violet are reminiscing about their dear dead friend Tara when they come across a group of vigilantes, led by Sam’s mayoral opponent, Vince. Jason asks them to leave, but it’s Violet’s mean face and inventive threats (she’s going to use a woman’s head as a candy dish) that really does the trick, and they scatter. I must point out that Violet is also wearing an outfit completely improbable for ass-kicking, but Jason is nonetheless emasculated.

Chez Lafayette, Lafayette is getting wasted. His vampire chaperone shares his bong and they have a stoned conversation about responding to the deaths of loved ones. James tells the story of how he was turned—he’d been a draft dodger, a pacifist, while all his friends went to war in Vietnam. After his closest friend died in the war, James went to pay respects to his friend’s family, only to be called a “hippie faggot” and beaten nearly to death in the middle of the street by the boy’s father. Had the town vampire not felt sorry for him, he would have died. There are some flirty vibes if I’m not mistaken. It’s so refreshing to recap a show that has absolutely nothing to do with the books it’s based on so that if I’m wrong no one can correct me in the comments.

Chez Jason’s cop car, Jason has had enough. He is a man! He is a fuckin’ officer of the law! Violet has undermined him and won’t fuck him! He has fuckin’ blue balls! She is going to fuck him! Because he is a man! By God! I didn’t count how many times he said fuck, but it was a lot. Then guess what happens? You’re right! They fuck! There are boobs and butts and all that stuff. Rippling muscles in the moonlight, et cetera. I inserted the phrase “with rock-hard abs” at the end of all of Jason’s sentences. “I’m a man! With rock hard abs! I’m going to fuck you! With rock hard abs!”

Chez Bellfleur, encore! The gross Hep-V vampire is still taunting Jessica from down the road, wanting that sweet sweet faerie-blood. Why doesn’t he just bum rush the house? I’m sure there is a reason. Oh my God this is so boring. There is zero suspense, because we all know that Adilyn is going to let Jessica inside and the infected vamp is going to have to fuck off and die. Just hurry uppppp. Jessica convinces a reluctant Adilyn to drink her blood so that she can always keep track of where she is. Adilyn says she doesn’t trust Jessica, what with having trusted her before and Jessica eating her sisters, and they both reflect on that for approximately half a second before Adilyn just goes ahead and trusts her again and drinks her blood.

Speaking of "reluctant" vampire blood drinkers, Tara’s mom Lettie Mae is off her rocker on vampire blood and having visions of her dead daughter. (Who isn’t dead. Not fooling me!) She's having loud, annoying visions of her (un)undead daughter. Tara’s roommate Willa and the reverend both try to calm her down, why they don’t just smother her with a pillow is beyond me, but whatever. After they finally shut her up, the reverend cautions Willa against ever giving Lettie Mae blood again because of Lettie Mae’s addiction “issues.” What a nice man. Willa doesn’t want to go back to her apartment, so the reverend stashes her in a room below the church and calls her “sweetheart.” Aww. He is so nice.

Back in Marrakech, Pam finds the man she’s looking for at a big open market. She passes him a fat wad of cash, and the man offers her his small daughter to feed on. Clearly it’s been a while since Pam’s eaten, and children are apparently the only reliable source of clean blood in North Africa, but Pam declines and presses on with her bottom line: finding Eric. How about some information please please, please please. The man passes her a map of the wine regions in the Rhone valley. Eric is probably smashing grapes with his feet while she suffers in Morocco. The good news is that he can smash them really fast with his amazing vampire speed so the winemakers will all be pleased. There must be some mistake, Pam says. Eric never drinks. . . wine.

THANK YOU TIP YOUR WAITRESS I'LL BE HERE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE

Back at Sookie’s house Sookie and Alcide love each other very much and then they make a baby. Or try to anyway.

Andy and Vampire Bill arrive at the slaughterhouse to find that it was definitely the nest. There are humans hung upside down on meat hooks. Ewww. Andy agrees and pukes on the spot. The vigilantes make another appearance—this time they’re out for blood. I mean, vampire blood. I mean, they want to kill Bill. They let Andy slide because he didn’t go to the square dance out of protest to the “for every human a vampire” edict. Andy’s free to go, but he insists that he should have the pleasure of killing Bill. The vigilantes agree, handing Andy a gun, but Andy feints at the last second and draws on the one gun-toting vigilante. SHOWDOWN! He does not quote Dirty Harry but I do, extensively. The gun-toting vigilante decides maybe he doesn’t want to use his weapon after all, and Andy shoos them away.

Some ways away in Shreveport, the 90s industrial beats are beating at Club Fangtasia. The captive humans—Arlene, Holly, Nicole, Kevin and I don’t know who those other people are—are chained up in the basement of dear old Fangtasia. A young vampire with dubious taste in fashion and facial hair sniffs around, selecting one of them to eat. No way is it going to be Arlene. She smells weird. Nope, it’s Kevin! “Nao fackin’ way!” says Kevin, but the vampire devours Kevin right in front of the captives.

Andy drops Bill off at home. Bill thanks him for saving him from the vigilantes, but Andy tells him he only did it because he hopes to get Holly back. He’ll never forgive Bill for what Bill did to his family, he says. Bill flashes back to kissing his wife and children goodbye on the porch of his house back in the 1860s. Perhaps someone can tell me what this has to do with the Bellfleurs?

The showdown continues at the Bellfleur estate. Dawn is coming, and both vampires are starting to steam. It all plays out as we knew it would—Adilyn invites Jessica inside, Jessica wants to eat her soooo bad but doesn’t do it, the hungry infected vamp outside burns in the rising sun. Yayyyyyy!

Sookie shows up to church the next morning, slipping in during the sermon with Alcide at her side. She takes a seat behind Lettie Mae and puts a hand on Lettie Mae’s shoulder. Lettie Mae turns around and lets her have it, out loud and in front of everyone: It’s Sookie’s fault that Tara is dead. Everything is Sookie’s fault. The rest of the people in church chime in with their thoughts. They think the c-word, even. Sookie is not welcome. She makes to leave, then whirls around: “I can hear you!” She says. She tells them she loves the town, even loves them even if they hate her, and admits that she played a part in what has happened, but says she wants to help make things better. Please, let me help, she says.

Next week! More shirtlessness! More red goo! It’s on!