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True Blood: You Smell Like Dinner

Eric: "Why do you smell so good?"

I enjoyed this one as much as the premiere. Some licking and biting, a lot of nudity, a little amnesia, what's not to love?

Sookie and Eric

Eric's exotic cubby in Sookie's house made me laugh out loud. I'll say (or say again) that Sookie has calmed down a lot; she just doesn't seem as upset about it as I thought she'd be. I thought she'd explode at him. Maybe, as Pam pointed out, Sookie has finally realized that she does need protection... after three seasons of being in constant danger.

Of course, Eric may need protection now, too, now that he's a vampire amnesiac. Vulnerability is a good look for Eric, and probably a lot more appealing to Sookie than "You are mine!" Strip away a thousand years of vampire arrogance, and Eric might be a nice guy. He did fix up her house and keep it for her. That's a rather huge romantic gesture. Or maybe I'm just projecting because I like Eric, and I really want Sookie to go for him.

King Bill

After all, Bill moved on, didn't he? Sookie walked right in on him with another woman. And again, she didn't seem all that upset, did she? Dare we hope that it's really, truly over for them? I'm not saying Bill doesn't still care. He didn't tell Nan about Sookie's value to the vampire community, and I bet that will come back to bite him.

My favorite scene this week (after Eric's cubby) was Bill as a punk in 1982 London. Way too funny. (Actually, way too Spike on Buffy; was that deliberate?) Do you see, True Blood writers? Bill as a character works even when he's not Sookie's love interest, doesn't he? And now we know how Bill became King of Louisiana, and what happened to Sophie-Anne. I was rather sorry to see her explode into goo. She was nothing like the character in the books and she certainly wasn't sympathetic, but you gotta love a monarch obsessed with Yahtzee.

Jason, Crystal and Felton

If I ever liked Crystal at all, which I didn't, I sure wouldn't like her now. You don't see Jessica trying to turn Hoyt, or Bill and Eric trying to turn Sookie. I understand her motivation, yes. The infertility and inbreeding in Hotshot is a survival issue (as well as gagworthy). And yes, Felton is keeping Crystal high on V and she can't make a considered decisions. But really, Crystal. Poor Jason. Although I have to say, making him a werepanther would be an interesting way to go. If it works.

Shifting

Sam had a shifter girlfriend before and it didn't work out, but Luna, his new prospective honey, has some interesting depth. I often wondered why a shifter couldn't turn into another human, and that intense little story about Luna shifting into her dead mother must be story set-up. What other shifters do we know who are related, hmm? Maybe Luna was wrong about the Navaho skinwalker legend that the person has to be a relative you killed; what if it's just relatives? I could definitely see Tommy shifting in to Sam in order to fool around with Luna, or to try to turn Sam's new Shifters Anonymous group against him. Probably both. I'm not sure I believe that Tommy truly wants to reconcile with Sam. Too much bad blood under the bridge. (Is that a mixed metaphor?)

Does that "shifting into a family member" apply to weres as well as to pure shifters? Crystal and Fenton are half-siblings. And speaking of shifting, Marnie's face kept changing as she was cursing Eric. Is she a shifter, too? Did she kill a family member? And who is she planning to raise from the dead? Anyone we know? I thought at first that it was Eric, since he's technically dead, but I'm pretty sure he's still a vamp. He didn't know Sookie when she stopped on the road, but he did say, "Why do you smell so good?"

We all know our Lafayette wouldn't voluntarily do black magic, so it was a smart move by the writers to bring Tara back and in danger from Eric. Lafayette has always been afraid of Eric, too.

And yet more biting

Jessica fell off the wagon and picked up a fangbanger. Not a surprise. She's powerful and beautiful, but she's so young and was brought up in such an oppressive household, and her first adult act was to move in with a tree in plaid who had trouble leaving his mama. It was inevitable that she'd rebel. Did Jessica pick a fight with Hoyt deliberately? I bet she did. She had a sexy top on under her flannel, didn't she?

Bits and pieces:

-- I liked Stephen Moyer's accent in the flashback. His own, I assume?

-- Tara came back for Sookie, after all. I forgive her.

-- Louis Pasteur was a vampire.

-- Andy is a disappointment. He'll never put in the effort to find Jason. Let's hope Sookie realizes Jason is missing soon; she'll find him. She found Bill last season.

-- I thought it was fun that Sam and Tommy carried on an entire argument stark naked.

-- I'm starting to think Arlene is wrong about the baby. I bet the stress she's feeling caused that blood vessel in her eye to pop on its own. At least baby Mikey has one sane parent.

-- How do we know Luna is not appearing as her mother right now?

-- I have to say again that Pam's leather outfit is a super wow. Of all of the leather outfits I've seen on vamps (and being a Buffy/Angel fan, I've seen a lot), that one may be the best.

-- I liked Sookie's new ponytail. I wish my hair was long enough to do that.

-- There were a number of comments last week about the inconsistencies with the passage of time when both Bill and Sookie went to the fae dimension last season. Yes, I think the writers blew it. Maybe we'll get some sort of convoluted explanation later. Or not.

Quotes:

Jason: "It's not that I don't appreciate all the licking, 'cause I do. But I'm more of a band-aid kind of guy."

Eric: "Your blood tastes like freedom, Sookie. Like sunshine in a pretty blonde bottle."
That was a bit poetic, wasn't it?

Sookie: "Your snipers didn't mention you had company."

Lafayette: "I've never been accused of being overly light before."

Sookie: (about Eric) "Psychopathic frat boy."
That's one classy cubby. Not very secret, though.

Eric: "I remember the Inquisition. I was around back then."
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! And we had an ex-parrot in the premiere. Is there a Python fan on the writing staff?

Nan: "Now clean yourself up. You're covered in Queen."

Sookie: "I will never be Eric Northman's puppet."
Pam: "Shame for you, then. He pulls good string."
Eric pulls good string.

Jessica: "I can eat who I want."
Love the decorations in the ladies room. Like Alice in Wonderland by way of Tim Burton.

Three out of four snipers. Or should it be three out of four not-so-secret cubbies? Okay, the snipers were about Bill and the cubbies were about Eric, so let's make it cubbies. No, I'm not partial,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

25 comments:

  1. It was one thing when Bill licked the blood off Sookie in the first episode. It was erotic. It's a WHOLE nother thing to watch an inbred hillbilly lick blood off Jason! I am scarred for life.

    Bill and Sookie in the fairy world:
    Maybe they were on two different dimensional fae planes? One where people visit with the intention of returning to Earth, so time passes the same in both. The other where they hold people brought up, with the intention of keeping them there forever, where time passes differently?

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  2. Eric also fled the magic shop at supersonic speeds, so I think it's safe to say he's still a vampire. That "psychopathic frat boy" comment had me laughing hard enough that I had to hit pause.

    I'm sort of glad I enjoyed this episode, because the first one of the season just did not do it for me. Is it wrong of me to want to believe that there is no Evil Baby thing going on, and that Arlene is just losing her marbles? And while I actually rather enjoy Terra's new sweetie, I can't help but feel that her suddenly going lesbian after being raped last season has some Unfortunate Implications.

    /kvetch

    Thank you for continuing to write such wonderful reviews -- this site is always my first stop after I watch a new episode.

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  3. I think to go all the way into fairyland, you had to go into the pool thing, which neither Bill nor Sookie did last season - they stopped at the fairy version of Bon Temps cemetary.

    I'm sad about Sophie Anne, I liked her :( Loving King Bill though, and the tension with Nan should keep that interesting. Eric bowing was hilarious.

    Did I mishear or was the London bartender called 'Cullen'?!

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  4. Sophie Anne's death was both disappointing and completely spectacular. Wow, Bill is now king of Louisiana! Hopefully he and Nan will be our insight into the mysterious Vampire Authority.

    I think the difference in the time skip in Faerie was something to do with Sookie dreaming about it in Season 3, and going into it fully conscious at the end of the Season. Perhaps time only passes differently in Faerie if you're actually physically there?

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  5. I Loved Pam's comment about the protestors exercising their constitutional right to be idiots.

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  6. I actually liked Bill in this episode. When he is not following Sookie like a lost puppy he is interesting... albeit showing a power hungry side. Also love when Eric and Bill have scenes together.. they are so funny.

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  7. I like this season so far, because they're already showing there are connections between the storylines. In past seasons, it took long for them to meet, or they didn't meet at all. But I miss Russel.

    I agree that he's a good looking guy and all, but I have trouble discerning what Eric does to Sookie from stalking and harassment. He outright threatens her. How can so many women have the hots for that behavior? That's one of the reasons that, before he fled the coven at superspeed, I was hoping he'd been revamped. Stripped from his powers, he wouldn't be such a bully. He relies entirely on his powers.

    And who's the mysterious Authority? Have we heard of this before or was it just introduced. It's exciting. Hope we see him/her soon.

    Jesus didn't make sense in his speech about black magic, did he? He said he doesn't believe it exists, yet those with a dark soul practice it. How do they practice it if it doesn't exist? That's insane troll logic.

    I like Jason much better as a character now, but do they have to keep putting him in silly stories? Well, I guess they had to make him supernatural, and it seems the human population in Bon Temps is shrinking day by day. Soon, vampires won't have a choice but to feed exclusively on tru blood!

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  8. One of the commenters on True-Blood.net said that the fae time slip might have happened because Sookie went physically instead of just in her mind, as she did in the hospital and as Bill did.

    The Authority was mentioned last season. They're the ones giving Nan orders, and they decided to let Eric kill Russell Edgington.

    Gus, I sort of don't know what to tell you about liking Eric. I'm getting flashbacks of trying to explain repeatedly why I liked Spike. I just do. Maybe it's his wonderful relationships with Pam and Godric, or his sense of humor, or the fact that Bill lies to Sookie and Eric doesn't. And maybe I'm projecting some of my love of book Eric onto Skarsgard, too, because I love book Eric a lot. Skarsgard feels like book Eric to me. And I won't say more because book spoilers on a True Blood review are bad.

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  9. Gus, I am with you on the Eric thing. I could stare at him for hours, but I don't see how he is less manipulative than Bill (Bill manipulated Sookie by making her fall in love with him, Eric by being all psycho-macho around her). Buying her house so he can freely get into it is just freakish. I think the liking him is just because his character has more depth than Bill's; there are many more layers to Eric. I think he also benefits from the "love will change him" fantasy. I just have a hard time seeing how any of these vampires could truly love Sookie when she "intoxicates" them so much with her blood (is it kind of do people like smoking because they really like smoking or because they are addicted to it).

    Billie, Eric has lied. That's how he got Sookie to taste his blood. And he lied about LaFayette too.

    What did y'all think about the fact that Sookie saw the fairies chasing her when she saw Tara? It was just a brief moment, but will it mean something?

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  10. Wasn't Marney slipping into the Big Bad from season two. She probably wants to raise her.

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  11. Okay, I will admit that Eric has lied to Sookie. :) But not about who he is or what he wants. As far as we know.

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  12. I'm sorry if I offended anybody with my Eric rant. I didn't mean to. I just have a hard time understanding his allure besides his looks. Maybe beacuse you read the books and you know his "destiny", you are more endeared to him. I don't know.

    But I disagree when he's compared to Spike. I tend to think everything Eric says is a lie; but Spike is always sincere. Of course it was hard to side with Spike when he started being an aggressive stalker, but that was a short stage and it happened after we started liking him; and he regrets it right after. Eric has been an unrepentant douche pretty much from the start. But again, you know him longer and better than I do. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but just because it's not *my* house he's bought.

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  13. You didn't offend anyone, Gus. This just seems to be a thing. It happened a lot with Spike, which is why I brought him up. People would post comments about how they didn't "get" why anyone would like Spike. Now it seems to be happening with Eric.

    I don't like Eric because Alexander Skarsgard is a good-looking guy. (Although it doesn't hurt.) Nearly every guy on television is good-looking, after all. And it's not just because of Eric in the books, too, because it appears from comments I've heard from fans who have never read the books that Eric is equally popular with them. There's just something I really like about him -- his love for Pam, his arrogance and sense of humor, his (for the most part) honesty about his motives. Can anyone ever really explain why a character works for them?

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  14. It's not just Eric's looks, but I think Alexander Skarsgard is utterly perfect in the role.

    Spike always felt like an annoying douche to me, and I feel like a large part of that was that James Marsters left me completely cold.

    Charisma and sex appeal (or lack thereof) can go a long way to split people's opinions; take the house buying for example. What to Gus might be seen as an intrusive psycho move on Eric's part, to me seems less disturbing - I let him off with excuse such as 'Awwwww, he is an incorrigible cad, awwwwww'.

    I'm not saying people only like Eric because he's gorgeous, I am saying that with characters like Spike and Eric who are edgy, playful, macho, possessive and assertive, there's a bit of a knife edge where people who fall on one side view the behaviour in a positive light while others just find it a turn off.

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  15. Oh and Cecilia, great comments about Eric and I totally see where you're coming from despite my Eric-tinted specs. I think the fae appearance when Tara appeared was Sookie's lingering fear of being chased and abducted, serving to make the Faerie beginning of the season seem a little less isolated and random. If there'd been no fae in episode two it would have been said by some that the fae plot had been dropped or put aside too quickly I'm guessing?

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  16. Since we saw flashback Bill with a "faux" British accent, have any of you watched ULTRAVIOLET?

    Stephen Moyer was in two episodes and played a vamp.

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  17. I think you're missing a couple things in terms of Eric and Marnie. I'm not entirely sure what happened during the Spanish Inquisition in show-verse, but clearly the implication is that, for whatever reason, witches used necromancy to bind vampires into their service, and that vampires consequently no longer tolerate explorations into necromancy in their jurisdictions. I couldn't follow much of the Latin in Marnie's incantation at the time, but I may go back and try to translate for a clue as to what she exactly did to him.

    I doubt Marnie's face trick had anything to do with shapechanging - it looked a lot more like the changes in Queen Mab's face during the premiere, and we've already seen Marnie channel the dead, so I'm guessing it was more along the lines of there being someone else at home in her skull during that sequence, and maybe Eric picking up on that.

    As far as the dead-raising thing goes, considering that the chief danger of necromancy seems to be the ability to command vampires, I would hazard a guess that a normal human corpse is/was going to be Marnie's next practice step towards vampire-control techniques more sophisticated than inducing amnesia. Or, perhaps c.f. above, whoever is actually running the show inside Marnie's skin, which remains a completely open question.

    @Gus: The Authority, based on what we know so far, is a fairly recent (~200-400 yrs old) international vampire power bloc that orchestrated the development of Tru Blood, the Great Revelation, and associated PR campaigns, among other things. They were the audience when Nan interviewed Eric, and they decided that killing Russell was his responsibility.

    Also not sure what you're getting at RE Jesus and black magic - his point seemed quite straightforward to me. There is no such thing as intrinsically evil magic, there is only magic that is evil by virtue of the moral character of the person wielding it. This is a fairly common ethical trope, is it not?

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  18. I actually really want to like Eric. He has so much screen time these days that I think that it would be easier to like him, but I really can't get over what he did to Lafayette and how he continues to treat him.

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  19. I'm firmly in the love Eric camp. But I definitely understand why some would be turned off by him. Some of the other posters did a great job explaining the allure of Eric. For me, his character is more complex and more fully developed than Bill's. Maybe because he is older and has lived longer as a vamp. Yes, Eric may seem a bit too alpha or dominant at times with Sookie. But his motivation has always been to protect Sookie or simply because he desires her. His passionate pursuit of Sookie has been a constant for 3 seasons. Some women may be turned off by his behavior, but I definitely couldn't withstand that type of attention from such a charismatic and good looking guy! LOL

    The Sookie /Eric love story, if they go through with it, will also be much more interesting for me than the Sookie/Bill love story. For Bill and Sookie, the relationship developed quickly without any real build up. Stories are much more interesting when obstacles are put in the way and we have to wait for a couple to get together. That way we become much more invested in them. There's a fine line, though, between making us wait and waiting too long, to the point we have lost interest in whether a couple will get together. I think this is a perfect time to change things up on True Blood. Let the Sookie/Eric relationship begin!

    I really enjoyed the review. And the comments were interesting and clarified a few things for me. Thanks!

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  20. As for the shifter storyline i bet Tommy overheard the conversation and is already plotting how to kill Sam and gain the ability to change into other humans.

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  21. I think Marnie is possessed by (or channeling) Luna's (Sam's girlfriend) mother.

    Last week, when Marnie was casting the spell, her facial features changed and she looked (to me), briefly, like Luna.

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  22. I think Lynn and Cecilia made some good points about Eric.

    Eric is a much deeper and complex character than what he first seems. He is old and powerful and has had to learn to protect himself and those close to him, and he does so in a violent manner, because it's his nature as a vampire.

    But despite that nature, he shows compassion and love. Even after torturing Lafayette, he goes and heals him, partly because he can use him, but also because Sookie cares for Lafayette.

    In his short appearance in the first episode of this season, he says he's the only one who never gave up. When Jason decided to sell her house, he bought it and prepared it for her return, confirming that statement.

    Also, Eric didn't taste Sookie until after he had established that he would rather die than let Sookie come to fatal harm. Though she may smell good, it must be something more that draws him to her.

    To finish off, at least for me, it isn't so much Eric's looks that make him attractive, it's his expressions and the depth in his eyes, making it seem as though there's more in there than first meets the eye.

    Billie, any chance for a new review? I love reading them :)

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  23. Thanks, Katherine. And my review of last night's will be up this evening. It usually takes me a day.

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  24. Re inconsistencies with the passage of time - I don't think there are any. When Bill came back after talking to Claudine he did say he didn't know what happened and when he came out of it, it was already 23.00 hours. So he did 'loose' some time, maybe less time has passed in this dimension because he's dead. As far as Sookie, she was in the coma - who knows how much 'time' is relative there.

    Eric's curtsey to King Bill was my favorite moment :) with Jason being eaten by panthers close second.

    I'm not sure how I feel about Bill being king, he just isn't royal material (for me), at least for now.

    I hope Eric's amnesia is not going to last long. We love him for who he is - take that away and what is he? I am sure the actor can pull it off but it wouldn't be Eric we know....

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  25. I liked this one but as I said, I´m a little concerned about certain things.

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