Thursday, September 8, 2011

True Blood episode recap "9 Crimes" (S3E4)

Note: I should mention how much fun the actor who plays Russell Edgington, King of Mississippi, seems to be having.  Denis O'Hare is a Tony Award-winning stage actor who's had steady television work over the last few years.  He is a friggin' hoot, playing the vampire King with relish and gusto.  Also noteworthy is James Frain, who plays Franklin Mott, a former Royal Shakespearean actor who is fearlessly embracing the gory and gothic camp of this ol' vampire show.  Good casting, HBO.


After the bar fight, Sookie and Alcide go back to his apartment WHERE HE TAKES HIS SHIRT OFF OMFG and she cleans his wounds.  She tells him that those weres were hopped up on V, and it was Bill's blood to boot ("So I know it's strong," she flutters.).  Alcide is disgusted by the thought of werewolves drinking vampire blood.  Then Sookie gets a call on her call: it's Bill.  He tells her that he has left Bon Temps and is leaving her.  "Shut the fuck up," she says and reminds him that he just asked her to marry him.  He tells her that he's just fucked Lorena - who sits behind him on the bed, sipping a glass of blood and giggling - and didn't have to hold back like he does with Sookie.  This makes poor Sookie start to cry.  Bill tells her that they were doomed from the start and she needs to stop trying to find him, as he does not wish to be found.  After they hang up, Sookie refuses to accept what she's just heard, although she does take a moment to cry on Alcide's broad, muscular, bare shoulder.

Back in Bon Temps, Sam runs out of the bar and finds the Mickens's van parked out back in the trees: they got evicted from their hovel in Arkansas.  Sam's mama, Lindy, promises that they'll leave as soon as Tommy gets back.

Franklin asks a still-entranced Tara about Sookie.  He tells her to find out where exactly in Jackson she is, so Tara calls Sookie and Franklin provides the words for her to say.  After the phone call, Tara tries to make a run for it.  The vampire pounces on her and chomps down on her neck.  Tara screams.

At the King's mansion, Lorena claims that the broken-neck sex with Bill was the best she's had in decades.  Bill is glad one of them enjoyed it and throws her out of his room.

As he watches the new Fangtasia dancer writhe around on her stripper pole, Eric has a very detailed fantasy about Sookie.  I gotta say, Alexander Skarsgard and Anna Paquin have way more chemistry than she and Stephen Moyer do.

In the morning, Alcide calls Sookie a doormat when she still wants to find Bill, at least so he'll break up with her to her face.  She tells the werewolf that she wants to go to that were engagement party tonight to try to learn more.  Alcide gets mad, telling her that his debt to Eric is paid and he does not want to get messed up in her life.  Some time later, Sookie has called Alcide's big sister, Janice the beautician, to come by the apartment and give her a makeover so she'll fit in at Lou Pine's bar (not LuPine's as previously recapped).  Janice, an Amazon with dreads, tats and fierce eyeliner, proclaims Sookie "cute and sweet!" and just what her baby brother needs to get over that bitch Debbie.  Sookie reads Janice's mind and learns that the "engagement party" is really Debbie's induction into Cooter's crazy Nazi wolfpack.

Oh dear.  Franklin has left Tara in the cheap motel room, gagged, tied up and perched on the toilet.  That night, he brings her flowers, wanting to know if she missed him.  "I can't stop thinking about you," he says earnestly, "...we have so much ahead of us!"  He kisses her.  Tara is terrified and rightly so, because dude is effing crazy.

Because Arlene is freaking out about being the only current Merlotte's employee at the front of the house, Sam hires Jessica to hostess.  She wants to wait tables but he tells her that she has to be eighteen to serve alcohol in Louisiana.  She fumes that's unfair - she'll never be eighteen.  He hands her some menus and asks, nicely enough, if she can handle it.  "I'm a vampire," she snaps, "Not a fuckin' idiot."

When Alcide comes home from work, he is impressed with what Janice has wrought: black pageboy wig, leather halter and pants, fake tattoos and eyeliner all over the place.  She looks good.  Sookie tells him about Debbie's upcoming induction and her addiction to V, knowing that this will convince Alcide to come with her to the party.

King Russell asks Bill how long he worked for Queen Sophie Ann (25 years) and in what capacity (procurer).  Bill asks if, once he fulfills his duties for the King, Lorena will be gone.  Russell's all, hmm, maybe.  Bill then tells the King that Eric has been selling V at Sophie Ann's behest to settle her debts.  Russell finds this tidbit of information all kinds of delightful and announces that they're going to celebrate.

Back in Louisiana, Lafayette visits some local meth dealers to try to convince them to move some V in addition to their regular product.  The head guy is not interested and his cronies start poking around in Lafayette's fancy new car.  When he objects, the thugs start to pound on him until Eric swoops in and, by nearly ripping out the head meth guy's throat, convinces them that they do, in fact, want to sell that V.  The meth dealers scurry away and Eric cocks an eyebrow at Lafayette, "Come on, RuPaul, let's go."  In the car, Eric gets a call from a nervous Pam: Fangtasia is being raided, not by the police but by the Magister.  She says they're looking for the V - the Queen set them up/sold them out.

Franklin now has Tara in his car, driving to Mississippi where his employer is located - Franklin must work for the King, right?  When she objects to being bitten and tied up, he says, "I'm not a bad guy, Tara, I just want us to have a chance."  Untie my hands, says Tara, and I"ll give you a chance.  Franklin is such a freak.  He tells her how lonely he's been, but now that she's with him, all that has changed.  Tara is realizing that she's in really deep shit right now.

Sam finds Tommy out in the woods (after Terry says that he's seen the Mickenses, still in the parking lot but now grilling).  His little brother wants to know why he even looked them up in the first place.  Sam just wanted to know what he lost, family-wise.  He tells Tommy that he's got a chance: if he wants to live with Sam, he can.  Tommy says no, those people are fucked up but he's all they've got.  He won't be free of them until they're dead.  Sam goes with Tommy to see Joe Lee and Lindy.  He tells them that he'll get them a place to live but no more stealin' and no more drinkin'.  They think they can handle that.  I am unconvinced.

I was right: Franklin and Tara go right into the King's mansion.  Talbot doesn't like the British vamp and tells Franklin that Russell is out.  Franklin says they'll wait.  Talbot checks Tara out:  "Is it for me?  It's skinny." and sashays away.  Franklin gives a frightened Tara a wink.  Is she ever going to be anything but a victim on this show?

At Lou Pine's, no one is bothering the disguised Sookie, although one of Cooter's packmates wants her to do a tequila shot.  No, thanks, says Sookie, and the were thinks, "She looks familiar ... did I bang her?"  So Sookie grabs the shot and shouts, "I mean, fuck yeah!"  The pack hoots and hollers and hands her more shots.  A scruffy-looking, big-haired redhead in a leather jacket and bikini top comes up, gives Sookie the once-over and sneers, "Who the fuck are you?"  Alcide steps up: "She's with me, Debbie."

Russell's limo pulls up outside a strip club: the king is in the mood for "something ethnic" and since Bill used to be a procurer, sends him in to procure a girl.  Meanwhile, Russell tells Lorena that he has a quick errand to attend to.  Inside the strip club, Bill picks out a nice dark-haired stripper with real boobs and glamours her quickly.  He checks to see if she's married or has kids or family who will miss her.  She answers no to all of the above, plus has a pretty bleak outlook on life anyway, so he leads her outside.

Eric flies back to Fangtasia to find the Magister torturing poor Pam with silver implements.  He says he was framed.  The Magister wants to know who was selling the V.  Pam screams again and again and finally shouts Bill's name.  Eric: "It's true, he's gone missing and I believe he's behind this."  The Magister gives Eric two days to bring Bill to him or he'll kill Pam.

Debbie is a friggin' trainwreck, white trash and hopped up on V.  She calls Sookie a skank with whom  Alcide is trying to make her jealous.  Sookie looks Deb up and down and says, "Skank?  Well, comin' from you, that's just funny."  Then Cooter sleazes up and says it's time.  The crowd of weres strips Deb to her bra and g-string and hands her up onto the stage.  Then Russell walks out and all the weres fall to their knees as he addresses them in German (?) and bites into his own arm.  He fills a bunch of shot glasses with his own blood and then leaves.  The crowd gets more rowdy.  They brand Debbie with the Nazi mark and as she screams and cries, things get even crazier.  Cooter strips down and shifts into his wolf, and the crowd starts howling and shifting too.  It affects Alcide: he turns and looks at Sookie, eyes all yellow and wolfy, and barks at her to run.

In another part of Jackson, Bill has picked up on Sookie's sudden burst of fear as he leads the stripper to the limo.  He just pauses, however, then follows her in.  Lorena and Russell waste no time biting into the poor screaming girl, and soon, at the King's invitation, Bill joins in the feasting as well.

Previously on True Blood / next time on True Blood

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