23/08/2012
Show: True Blood
Episode: Season 5, Episode 9 – Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Aired: Sunday 8:35pm, August 12th 2012
Channel: Showcase (403)
Recap
*SPOILERS – THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THIS EPISODE AND PREVIOUS EPISODES OF TRUE BLOOD*
Eric seeks out Molly in her lab and Molly is able to turn the security cameras off for thirty seconds. Molly suggests a plan that will probably get him killed and he eagerly agrees. Sookie asks for Lafayette’s help finding out why the creepy spirit thingy is in her bathroom. He isn’t able to connect with the vampire spirit but is able to get a hold of Gran. Gran says she’s glad the “strip-tease fairies” are looking after her and explains Sookie’s sleeping on top of a clue. Sookie pulls out the box underneath her bed. Jessica is at the police station trying to explain that Hoyt isn’t a bad person when Jason turns up. She says she felt Hoyt was in danger and then he went blank. Luna declares she’s going with Sam to hunt the ‘Obamas’.
At the Bellefleurs, Terry makes it clear he’s going to offer Patrick a fair fight and when Arlene objects he explains she’s the only reason he’s fighting at all. Eric, believing Bill is more of a mainstreamer at heart than he is, explains the only way out is with Salome’s blood and asks Bill to get them a sample while he handles Nora. Sookie finds a newspaper article and thinks Gran might have wanted her to find that Bud was the one who found her parents’ bodies and he might know more than he’s said. Andy and Jason find the Obamas’ website that makes it clear they’re modelling themselves after the Klu Klux Klan and if they can find ‘the Dragon’, they’ll find Hoyt. Alcide remembers when his father was Packmaster and Alcide first made the choice to join a pack, as he drives to Jackson. Sookie visits Bud and can hear he’s hiding something but Sweetie, his mistress, hits her over the head with a frying pan before she can discover what.
Andy refuses to let Sam help with the case, so Sam and Luna become flies on the wall. Patrick takes Arlene hostage as she goes to work at Merlotte’s. Sookie wakes in a pig pen and Hoyts also there but he’s been drugged. At the station, Andy is berating himself for being a bad sheriff when he notices the boots one of the Obamas is wearing in the video on their website are the boots they gave Bud when he retired. Andy believes Bud’s the Dragon and the shifter flies leave the station. Sweetie asserts that Sookie is a supe, just like the rest, and Bud should have no qualms about drugging her with ginger ale spiked with OxyContin. Sookie asks what happened to Sweetie to fill her with so much crazy hate and realises her husband left her for a shifter and she became the Dragon in revenge.
Terry turns up at Merlotte’s, leaving his weapons outside as ordered. Patrick throws Arlene to the ground as he comes towards Terry with the gun but Arlene grabs a knife and stabs Patrick in the neck. There’s a tussle and he’s about to kill Terry when Arlene puts his gun to Patrick’s head. Nora is praying when Eric goes to see her, asking her how she found God. She reveals that Salome showed her the way, sneaking her in to taste Lilith’s blood. He asks her to help him believe. Meanwhile, Bill and Salome have sex. He imagines Sookie but halfway through she becomes Lilith. The Obamas make another video: they’re going to feed Hoyt and Sookie to the pigs as a statement that the world has gone to the pigs. They throw Sookie’s body into the pen but Sam morphs back into himself and starts fighting Bud and the others as Sweetie makes a run for it.
Jason and Andy arrive, and when Bud goes to kill Sam with a shovel, Andy shoots him. Jason discovers Sookie and Hoyt but Hoyt won’t wake up. Luna takes down Sweetie and Sweetie’s arrested with the others. Patrick asks Terry to take him to a hospital. Arlene orders Terry to shoot Patrick for their family, while Zaafira appears to him and instructs Terry to do what’s right. He shoots Patrick and the Ifrit claims the body as Zaafira lifts the curse. Pam finds someone new feeding on a human in Eric’s throne, but when she stops him, he informs her that the ban on public feeding has been lifted and he’s the new sheriff. Jason takes Hoyt to the hospital and Andy offers to drive Sookie home.
Russell takes Steve to see the wolves. Martha refuses to drink and Russell takes Emma, giving her to Steve as his first pet. Russell reminds JD that his blood isn’t free and Martha struggles as they leave with her granddaughter. Alcide visits his father, explaining he’s been abjured from the pack but he claims to be nothing like his father. Claude and a couple of his sisters come to nurse Sookie back to health. Eric silvers Nora and Molly is ready to leave when Bill arrives, but when they go to get into the lift, Salome steps out and Eric realises Bill has betrayed them.
Thoughts on the Episode
It’s no secret True Blood has been struggling this season, but even if it was going well, old male full frontal nudity is not a good idea. It was like they wanted to top how scarred I was by Tara in a bikini. But onto actual reviews, we’ve reached the point of the season where True Blood is suddenly aware that it has too many storylines going on to have an effective season finale. Here we start to get stories ending or connecting in order to limit what they have to cover in the last few episodes. Like the end of the Ifrit storyline and Patrick. I was happy it was over but I’m still disappointed that True Blood used Scott Foley so impractically and made me want him dead, it was Christopher Meloni all over again.
Sookie joined the Obamas storyline as it came to a close, and I managed to dislike it more in its final moments than I did before. Adding to territory True Blood should have avoided, to find out the Obamas are modelled after the KKK felt really off. If they were making a political statement it wasn’t clear and if they weren’t why would you put those two ideas together? I have always liked exploration into the motivation of villains but I found Sweetie’s reasoning, that her husband left her for a shifter, really weak. That’s more ‘have a cry and suck it up’ than ‘turn into a psychopath’ territory. Bud’s reasoning made more sense and was understandable until he screamed out, “humans rule”, which didn’t seem to fit with the character or his motivation. If this had been done in a more sympathetic way, portraying them not as the KKK but just humans who wanted justice for all those they knew who had been killed by supes, this story would have been a thousand times more interesting.
Pam is still one of the best things in this season, she’s kept her head in all this chaos and, even as the world is ending, she’s working on keeping Fangtasia afloat. People keep complaining that she’s not letting Tara in quickly enough but I like this slow evolution of their relationship. Pam doesn’t let many people in, the only person we’ve really seen her trust is Eric, and so if their relationship happens too quickly, it will be completely unbelievable. The thing that stood out as not working in this storyline is the introduction of the new, one-dimensional Sheriff, who appears to be a stereotypical baddy put there purely to point out how bad the new regime is and for us to hate. I miss the times of villains that had real motives despite being sickeningly evil.
Moving onto the Authority and the confusion about who is allowed to leave and who isn’t. As far as I can tell chancellors, like Russell (who took Steve on an outing), are permitted to go wandering, while lower beings like Molly, Bill and Eric have to play inside. I was disappointed that Bill’s betrayal didn’t get more of a reaction. Eric and Bill don’t normally like each other, but over this season they’ve bonded. Like Pam, Eric doesn’t trust or help many people, so for him to include Bill in the plan was a big deal and that moment where the elevator doors opened didn’t quite have the bang I’d hoped for. Let down further by the song choice for the closing music, not only was that a terrible version of a good song, it didn’t fit True Blood’s style and was jarring in such an important moment.
As expected, Russell joined up with his wolf pack this episode to prove once again how pathetic JD and the other wolves are. I loved Russell’s Germanic accent when he was speaking to JD, it seems to flare when he’s in a temper. I assume now Steve has his new pet Emma, Luna and Sam will join up with the Authority storyline. Speaking of wolves, Alcide’s trip to his dad’s trailer and his flashback seemed to be there just to waste air time. The whole idea of bringing in a degraded dad with a gambling addiction just seemed so cliché and like Tara’s storyline, with her alcoholic mother, all over again.
On the plus side of the episode, Lafayette is truly back to his old awesome self and everything that comes out of his mouth is awesome and funny. Out of all the ugly costumes we’ve had so far - with the fairies, Hoyt’s fanger costumes and Tara’s bikini - it was nice to see someone looking pretty.
True Blood continues on its downhill trajectory for this season, the only bits that shine are really due to the actors (like Nelsan Ellis and Kristin Bauer van Straten). At least they’re bringing storylines together and ending others so it’s not all over the shot but it’s far from fixed. I don’t believe it has time left in the season to redeem itself. Take the advice of Zaafira, "do what is right" and cancel the show.
What Did We Find Out?
Here are some things I noted that may be important later:
- The only times we’ve seen the Authority members hallucinate about Lilith is after drinking her blood, until now. Bill saw Lilith after biting into Salome and drinking her blood. So does that mean that the blood in the container is Salome’s and not Lilith’s? We’ve seen other supernatural creatures’ blood affect vampires. There is fairy blood that supposedly tastes amazing to them and gives them powers to walk in the sun, etc. and there was Maryann’s blood, which was poisonous to vampires. But as they keep pointing out, vampire blood should not affect other vampires, therefore, is Salome really a vampire or something else?
- Eric has been exposed as a mainstreamer. I don’t think he’ll be sentenced to the True Death, especially considering Bill said he did it for Eric, although Molly may not be so lucky. Will we be forced to watch more silver torture scenes? I seriously hope not.
- If you’re interested, check out Keep America Human, where they’ve actually set up a page to look like the website seen in the episode.
Let us know below if you picked up anything else to hint at what’s to come or just your thoughts on this episode of True Blood (but for those ahead overseas or who have read the books, please no spoilers).
