True Blood Recap: Karma
Anna Camp for President.
I am very happy about last night’s True Blood, even if Ted Cruz isn’t.
Yesterday’s episode opened at the Yakuza-crashed Cruz gala. Armed assailants (so many swords!) chain Pam, and Eric surrenders, still carrying a dismembered jaw in one hand. The vamps are taken to the Yakonomo Corporation, and the republicunt crusaders brace themselves to watch the sunrise together for the first time.
If vampire Before Sunrise wasn’t sad enough, next we see Bill coming to grips with his impending death. Bill gets on his vampire laptop and makes a call on his vampire phone, just in time for Jess to arrive home and overhear him telling a lawyer he’s contracted Hep V. Jess tells her maker about James’ betrayal and attempts to get Bill to admit that he’s sick, but in typically stoic Compton fashion he insists he’s fine.
Lafayette has taken Lettie Mae home with him (bad news). James finds Lafayette waiting for him (good news!) and invites the vampire to spend the night, which of course prompts Lettie Mae to talk about how she needs V to communicate with her dead daughter (way to cramp their style, lady). James offers her his blood and Lafayette agrees with the understanding that “they putting closure on this bitch.” The two lap at James’ wrists and see Tara speaking in tongues on the cross.
Jason arrives home to the lair he shares with Violet, visibly terrified that she’ll know he slept with Jessica. The house is full of candles, flower petals, and aggressively jazzy music. A lingerie-clad Violet apologizes for being too intense sometimes, saying her inherent scariness is from having been a human in the Middle Ages or something, which is actually a totally valid excuse in my books. Violet sucks Jason’s, um, stackhouse and the scene is unsettling and sad in spite of a Miller Lite pillow on the couch.
Bill is driving his vampire car on a vampire mission to Kapneck Law Offices (good one, True Blood!) to get his affairs in order. Apparently the undead haven’t found a way to expedite bureaucracy–Bill joins other disgruntled vamps in a hours-long wait to be served. As Bill waits he begins sprouting new traces of the disease, causing others in the waiting room (including a vampire mailman. He probably has good insurance) to shrink away.
Pam and Eric are preparing for death in, as Pam puts it, “Some place with wall to wall carpet,” when the North American president of the now-bankrupt Yakonomo Corporation arrives to make a wager with them. The Corporation promises to free the vamps provided they give information on the whereabouts of Sarah Newlin. The sun begins to rise as a sizzling Eric bickers with the President over who will have the privilege of slaughtering Sarah. In exchange for Eric’s claim to her death, the vamps reveal that Sarah’s sister is in Dallas. The Yakonomo Corporation reserve the rights to Sarah’s body.
And speak of the devil: Sarah is leaping over the fence into Amber’s backyard after escaping the party that killed their parents. Something about seeing tiny blonde Anna Camp disguised and desperate made me really consider Sarah’s journey on the show–she may have started as just one of Jason’s many conquests, but her character arc is concluding with her as one of True Blood‘s most influential and resourceful humans, perhaps even more integral to the show’s plot than Sookie. Amber discovers Sarah in her house and tackles her before throwing up blood and collapsing. Family!
In equally dysfunctional relationship news, Andy wakes to find Adilyn and Wade in bed together. In what I think is a totally appropriate reaction, Andy kicks his future step-son out of the house despite Holly’s protests. If you’re curious about what Wade’s butt looks like, wonder no longer—he moons the neighborhood in a nice little call-back to the Bellefleur butt seen when Andy and Holly first started dating. Nice to see the series is tying up all its rear loose ends.
A distressed Jessica calls Jason on her vampire phone and asks him to bring Sookie over. Violet wakes to find Jason gone and throws a tantrum. It’s clear that viewers are meant to be worried for Jessica and Jason’s safety, but I hope Violet won’t be demonized. She and Jason might not be a good fit, but her anger over being betrayed is still justified, and at least she’s putting her own hand through a mirror rather than someone else’s head. Jason arrives at Sookie’s to find her asleep in Alcide’s jacket.
And suddenly we’re in Sam’s trailer. Nicole (oh, yeah) tells Sam she’s moving back to her home town because Bon Temps is crazy, Sam is the mayor of crazy, and she doesn’t want to raise her daughter there. Nicole asks Sam to leave with her. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Nicole, you do not even go here.
Jason and Sookie arrive at Compton House and Jessica tells them about Bill’s diagnosis. An obviously overwhelmed Jason comforts two of the most important women in his life by pointing out that Bill is strong (he was a literal God only 6 months ago). Sookie and Jason leave so she can get tested at a clinic.
Meanwhile, Arlene and Holly arrive at Merlotte’s, which apparently has not been cleaned since the last time it hosted a massacre. Andy deliberates with Holly about how best to prevent their children from giving them step-grandchildren. (That’s what Adilyn and Wade’s baby would be, right?)
Sookie and Jason make a visit to the clinic to see if Sookie is a carrier. Intentional similarities to the early days of the AIDS epidemic are especially evident in this episode—as Sookie’s blood is drawn she stares at a tiny pink triangle sticker on the wall. Afterwards, Jason and Sookie sit in the back of his truck and drink out of paper bags. Sookie admits that as much as she loved Eric and Alcide she can still sense Bill in her blood. Sookie encourages Jason to break it off with his terrifying girlfriend. The clinic calls and inform Sookie that she tested positive.
Meanwhile, Lettie Mae, Lafayette, and an angelic Tara are running through a forest in their perfume ad/vampire blood trip. Dream Tara begins digging in the front yard of her childhood home just as Lettie Mae and Tara are woken up by the Reverend. Lafayette agrees with Lettie Mae that it’s important for them to go visit Tara’s old house. The Reverend tells Lettie Mae she must choose him or her addictions, while Lafayette looks on, epically unimpressed.
Bill checks in the mirror at the Kapneck bathroom and realizes the disease has progressed rapidly (for someone so boring, Bill is apparently incapable of doing anything halfway). He finally sees a lawyer about signing his estate over to Jessica, and learns that the State won’t recognize progeny or wills made posthumously. The human lawyer says Bill’s problems could go away for the price of $10 million, but that she has no sympathy for mortally ill creatures who’ve had the luxury of walking the Earth for hundreds of years. And just like that, Bill stabs her! In the throat! Bill, you could have just left a bad Yelp review! What would your Civil War wife think?
Holly and Andy arrive home prepared to give the birds and bees talk, but find out from Rocky that Wade and Adilyn have run away to Fort Bellefleur. Oh, good.
Back in Dallas, Sarah wakes Amber up and tells them their parents are dead. She asks for shelter from the Yakuza, promising that she’s become a different person. Sarah, er, Noomi explains that her guru revealed she was put on the planet to help people. God, I love you, Anna Camp. Amber accurately assess her sister’s bullshit, but Sarah reveals that she literally has the ability to heal people, including her sister–back at the Camp, she drank the entire antidote the scientists designed.
Sookie goes to apologize to Jessica for giving her maker Hep V, while Jason does air punches to psyche himself up to dump Violet. He finds that she’s destroyed their love nest and left him a break up note.
At Fort Bellefleur, Adilyn and Wade enjoy an absorbing tree house make-out session. It’s not like they’ve both had traumatizing recent encounters with vampires or anything, there shouldn’t be any need for them to take extra precautions. Hey, Violet is even spying on them! Oh. That can’t be good. Violet tells the future siblings that she knows a safer place for them to be alone, and they agree to leave their phones behind and follow her. Oh, you sweet summer children.
The Yakuza, Eric and Pam arrive at Amber’s house to discover her healed. Bittersweet music plays.
Bill returns home and sees Jessica and Sookie on his stairs. He looks at them with resignation. Roll credits.
Karma was one of my favorite episodes so far this season, and I’m relieved to see that the renewed emphasis placed on Sarah recently was totally warranted. The Former Mrs. Reverend Newlin will likely be the saving grace of Bill and Eric, and although I can appreciate how that might seem too convenient, I’d rather an overly simplistic solution than the death of two more major characters.
Since Sarah first arrived she’s changed the world of True Blood for good or ill with her self-serving fanaticism, and although she’s used her strength for nothing but hate crimes and manipulation, I’m still glad that one of the show’s main female character has been so influential. Now where in the name of Big Max’s apron strings is Hoyt?
(images via HBO)
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