True Blood S1E7 (10/19/08)

After impaling Sookie with his fangs, Bill goes on to more nether regions. This is a heck of a first time for our girl, who seems to be experiencing equal parts pleasure and pain. Afterwards, they take a bath together. When she sees his reflection in the mirror, this leads to a discussion about the various myths vampires perpetrated about themselves: holy water (just water), crucifixes (geometry), garlic (irritating but nothing more harmful than that). Sookie is glowing, thrilled to have found a man to be with whose thoughts are quiet; Bill, for his part, tells her he is honored to have been chosen. Suddenly Sookie flashes back: Uncle Bartlett molested her when she was a little girl and that’s why Gran ran him off. She hates that she just had this incredible experience with Bill and Uncle Bartlett is whom she ends up remembering. Bill pulls her back into him and tells her she’s safe. As the sun comes up, Bill shows her where he rests during the day (in a little hidey-hole under the house) and she kisses him good morning, sad that they can never sleep beside each other.

Lafayette is doing a striptease for his web cam when Jason stops by for more V. Lafayette bitches him out for not being able to handle the stuff and kicks him the hell out. At Tara’s momma’s house, Tara is trying to get her mother’s bills in order. Her mother starts in again on needing $445 to get her demon exorcised. Tara snorts that the demon is nothing but alcoholism.

When Sookie returns to her house, she finds Jason ransacking the place for stuff to sell. He sees that she’s been bitten by Bill and calls her a damn fangbanger. She is horrified that he’s planning on selling their grandmother’s jewelry and silver and chases him off.

Tara swings by Sam’s place (saying, “Hello, dog” to the mutt out front) and finds Sam trying to do some repair work and cussin’ up a storm. He’s cranky and ready for a fight. She apologizes, saying she doesn’t know how to be with somebody – “maybe I’m unboyfriendable” – and he backs down too. They’re having a nice moment when Tara’s phone rings: her momma is down at the bank trying to get a loan for her exorcism. She fetches her mother home and puts her to bed, face desolate. Once her mother lies down, however, Tara pulls out some money that she’s hidden – I think her momma’s going to get that exorcism after all.

At the bar, the place is jumping as usual. The blonde floozy calls Jason from the payphone, hoping for a date; when he tells her he’s going to the vampire bar in Shreveport she hangs up on him, saying she doesn’t hang out with people of low character. Ha. Sookie is in a great mood, however, wearing a scarf to hide Bill’s bite marks. Unable to control her happiness, she tells Arlene about having been with Bill. Arlene is horrified, and tells Rene and Sam what she just heard; Rene says she needs to be supportive of Sookie, now more than ever, but Sam rushes over to Sookie and rips off her scarf, calling her a damn fool. She is outraged. As the whole restaurant watches, she snaps that yes, she did have sex with Bill and, since Sam is too chicken to ask, it was great – she enjoyed every minute of it and if he doesn’t like it, he can just fire her. The bar patrons all go “oooh!” and Lafayette just giggles.

Jason swaggers up to the vampire bar, all nervous and sexy. The lady bouncer questions him closely, working a little glamour on him to get the truth as to why he’s here. “I want some vampire blood,” he stammers, “What time do you get off work?” What a putz. She has recognized his name from his ID and sniffs that he’s nothing like his sister, but lets him into the club anyway, murmuring, “Good luck getting out.”

Back in Bontemps, Uncle Bartlett takes the trash out. Bill stops by, fangs a-blazing, and bites down hard, exacting some vengeance on Sookie’s behalf. The girl in question is talking girl-talk with Lafayette, babbling on about how wonderful sex with Bill was. He tells her to be careful, what with the blood play and all, but she’s all in love. Sam overhears and gets even grumpier.

Meanwhile, Tara and her mom walk down a dirt road. “Miss Jeanette” comes out of the bushes: she takes Tara’s money and promises that the demon will not inhabit her mother after tonight. “Let’s get this shit over with,” mutters Tara. At the vampire bar, Jason is shaking and sweating, jonesing for V. A pretty hippie girl (the actress looks really familiar) grabs him before he can get himself killed, saying she knows what he’s looking for. They go back to her place – her name is Amy.

Uh-oh: those three scary vampires walk into Sam’s bar. They’re thirsty but Sam doesn’t want to serve them. Malcolm sees Sookie and fangs up. Sam and another local try to defend her and get tossed around the room for their trouble. Across town where he’s dumping Uncle Bartlett’s body in the swamp, Bill senses that his girl is in trouble. He explodes into the bar, telling the other vamps to stand down, as it’s him they want. They want him to join their nest (“Mainstreaming’s for pussies.”) and party like they used to; they’ve just bought a house in town and are looking forward to being locals. Bill gets all intense and says, okay let’s go. Sookie is horrified, pleading with him to stay, but he reminds her that he’s a vampire after all. She does realize that he’s doing this to keep the situation from deteriorating into a bloodbath. Or, maybe Uncle Bartlett’s blood went straight to his head.

Miss Jeanette works her voodoo, laying sacred stones on Tara’s mother and beating a drum. There’s a possum in a cage: that’s where the demon is supposed to go when it leaves her body. The drumming and chanting get more and more intense; Tara’s mother jerks and flails; suddenly the possum starts squealing and hissing, and Miss Jeanette plunges its cage into a tub of water, drowning it. Tara sits, terrified, eyes huge.

Back at the bar, the rednecks are getting riled up and want to go after the vampires. When Sookie asks Sam to step in, he says it isn’t his fight, and Arlene chimes in that they should just kill all the bloodsuckers and be done with it. But Bill’s different, cries Sookie.

Amy, a college girl from New England, is very impressed with Jason’s Southern authenticity. She’s a little weird and flaky, and a lot smarter than he is; he’s really anxious to take the V. She mixes the vampire blood with a couple of aspirins, powders them, and they snort it. Things get trippy immediately. And then they get nekkid.

As Miss Jeanette sees her customers out, she says that she can help Tara with her own demon. Disturbed, Tara drags her mother out of there.

Sookie goes out to Bill’s house to warn him about the lynch mob. He’s not there. Meanwhile, the three rednecks get some Molotov cocktails going and attack the vampires’ new house at dawn. As they run away, we can hear unearthly shrieking and wailing from inside the house.

Detective Andy is out fishing with a buddy when they see a naked Sam running through the swamp. They can’t dwell on that for long, however, because Andy gets a call about the house fire. Sookie hears the sirens too: there are four scorched coffins being brought out of the house.

Next time on True Blood / previously on True Blood