True Blood episode recap "Hitting the Ground" (S3E7)

Lorena takes a break from sucking on Sookie's neck to pronounce her utterly delicious.  While she is thus distracted, Bill manages to stagger to his feet and wrap a length of silver chain around Lorena's neck.  They fall backwards onto the floor, Lorena face up on top of Bill.  Sookie grabs a big stake and, at Bill's urging, slams it through Lorena's chest as Bill lifts her up and away from his own body.  Lorena explodes into a stringy mess of blood and goo, coating Bill thoroughly.  He's been pushed beyond his limit now, though, and just lies there unconscious as Sookie screams for help.  (She's been doing a LOT of screaming this season.)

Help arrives in the form of Alcide and Tara in Alcide's van.  Tara thinks Bill sure looks dead but Sookie insists that he's not.  She gets the manacles off his wrists and they wrap him up in a tarp.  They're about to load him into the van when Debbie shows up, waving a pistol around like a lunatic.  She is high on V and completely unpredictable.  Alcide tries to calm her down, then Sookie screams (again) to distract her while Tara tackles her, knocking the gun away.  Cooter comes in then, grinning nastily when he sees Alcide.  Alcide grabs the gun and shoots Cooter twice, killing him.  Debbie goes wild.  Alcide holds her off while the girls get Bill in the van.  Debbie swears that she will hunt him down and do for him.  He says that he believes her and locks her in the slave quarters.  Sookie rides in the back with Bill while Alcide and Tara ride up front.  Werewolves give chase and Alcide coldly runs one down which surprises Tara.

Back in Louisiana, Sam is trying to find the dog fights but is chased off by a toothless redneck with a shotguy.  He drives off a little ways, strips down and shifts into an especially cuddly-looking pitbull (if you can imagine such a thing).  He trots up to the barn where they're fighting the dogs and Johnny from Deadwood walks right on up to him and puts a leash on him.  Sam just wags his tail and follows Johnny into the barn.

Jason mopes around his house, thinking about Crystal: "I never thought I was smart enough to get depressed, but here I am!"  Hoyt tries to snap him out of it and suggests that Jason go down to the jail to talk to that meth dealer they arrested several episodes ago - surely he's got some information on her.  Then Summer, that annoyingly perky girl Hoyt went out on a date with, shows up with a plate of homemade biscuits.  She wants to be Hoyt's girlfriend.  On his way out, Jason tries the biscuits and says they're fantastic.  Hoyt just shakes his head.

At the Queen's palace in Shreveport, Eric has put Sophie-Ann in a cage.  He's got her favorite human, Hadley, Sookie's cousin, with him and is threatening to drain her unless Sophie-Ann tells him what's so special about Sookie.  (For some reason, both Eric and the Queen are bleeding from the ears and nose.)  Hadley begs Eric to stop - she'll tell him what she knows about her cousin.  She whispers something in his ear that makes him raise an eyebrow: "I certainly wasn't expecting that."  Sophie-Ann sighs in frustration.

In the back of Alcide's truck, Sookie rips open her forearm with a saw blade (ouch!) and feeds Bill, trying to rouse him.  It works too well and his fangs pop out.  He gnaws on her arm and then flips her onto her back and latches onto her neck, feeding ravenously, like an animal, covering her mouth with his hand so she can't scream.  Soon, she stops struggling.

Jason goes to the jail and asks the meth dealer about Crystal.  The guy says that he'll tell Jason what he wants to now but Jason has to bring him some meth first.  So Jason goes to Merlotte's to ask Lafayette to sell him some.  Lafayette: "I don't deal no fuckin' meth and even if I did, I wouldn't sell any to you."

Alcide pulls the truck over, needing a pee break, and Tara checks on Sookie and Bill.  When she opens the back of the truck, Bill is conscious but Sookie is not.  Tara kicks Bill out of the truck and Alcide drives off, heading to the hospital.  Bill looks dazed but most importantly, he doesn't burst into flame in the sunshine, only smoldering a little bit.  He watches the truck drive away and then dashes into the underbrush.

Johnny takes dog Sam to the cages.  "You look mean but you sure do mind good.  You're going to roll right over in there and take it like a little girl, aren't you?  I'm bettin' against you."  He unlocks a cage and turns back to put the dog in, but Sam, who has shifted back to his nekkid self, clocks Johnny with a pitchfork and steals his overalls.  Out in the ring, Tommy the dog is put in with a nasty looking Rottweiler.  The dogs start to fight, Lindy fanning herself nervously.  Sam lets all the other dogs out of their cages and sounds an alarm bell.  The rednecks running the fights all take off, except for Joe Lee and Lindy who are looking after a bitten Tommy-dog.  Sam steps into the ring and whacks the Rottie:  "Don't you snarl at me!"  The Rottie looks at him, whines and backs down.  Sam: "Good.  Now get the fuck out of here!"  The Rottie obeys.  Tommy shifts back to human and Sam tells Joe Lee to give him his clothes.  Sam chews his no-good parents out and takes Tommy with him when he goes, saying that he can't promise him a perfect life, but it'll be better than this one.

At the hospital, the doctors try to give Sookie a transfusion since she's lost so much blood, but she seizes immediately, reacting badly to the blood.  The doctors tells Tara and Alcide that Sookie somehow doesn't have a blood type.  They're tracking down some O negative (universal donor) but they're not hopeful.  Someone might want to call the next of kin.  Tara calls Jason and Lafayette who come to the hospital immediately.  They try to figure out how she could not have a blood type and Jason muses that Sookie's never been sick, never been in the hospital, not even when she was born.

Sookie, meanwhile, is having a dream or vision or something, and has been transported to a glowing, warmly-lit alternate reality where ridiculously pretty and scantily-clothes people caper and dance in a flowery Bon Temps cemetery, frolicking around a sparkling pond.  A beautiful woman with a British accent introduces herself as Claudine and shows Sookie around.  It's all kind of silly, really.  Claudine asks Sookie to stay here with them, not to go back to her world.  Then the sky grows dark.

It's because Bill has arrived at Sookie's bedside.  Everyone wants to throw him out but he says that his blood can save her.  Jason agrees to it and Bill uses an IV tube to directly connect one of his veins with Sooie's.  In the dream, all the pretty people dive into the sparkling pond and disappear.  Claudine tells Sookie not to "let him steal [her] light" and again asks her to come with them.  No, says Sookie, I don't know you!  Soon enough, she regains consciousness in the hospital.  She opens her eyes, sees Bill there and screams.

At Fangtasia, the Magister has chained Pam to a table with silver chains.  He is enjoying torturing her: he has bought sterling silver earrings from Tiffany's for her, but since her ears are already pierced, wonders if she minds if he pierces her eyelids instead.  Bravely she says it'll go nicely with her chains.  Before things can go any further, Eric, Sophie-Ann and Russell arrive.  Eric tells the Magister that he's guilty of selling V but he did it on the Queen's command.  And he's not committing treason by admitting this, because now his allegiance is to the King of Mississippi.  The Magister tries to arrest Sophie-Ann in the name of the Authority (apparently the ruling body over all vampires, including kings and queens) but Russell announces that he no longer recognizes the Authority's authority.  The Magister blusters and Russell has had enough.  In the blink of an eye, the King whisks Pam off the table and lays the Magister out on it, covered in those silver chains.  He starts torturing the Magister until, panicked and in terrible pain, the Magister agrees to speak the traditional words marrying Sophie-Ann and Russell.  Russell is pleased but not quite finished: with one stroke he decapitates the Magister as Eric, Pam and Sophie-Ann's jaws drop.

Previously on True Blood / next time on True Blood