Batshit in Bon Temps: “True Blood” recap of episode “Lost Cause” ~ Punch Drunk Critics

I spend a couple of weeks away from Bon Temps, and look what happens—Alcide is gone, Bill now also has Hep-V, and Sookie is finally mourning all the shit she’s gone through during these past seven seasons. Brave choices, True Blood! Continuing to kill off main characters and giving Sookie a dose of self-reflection—impressive.

So let’s jump right into it with “Lost Cause,” which basically was a slap-in-the-face reminder of, “Oh right, True Blood is actually just a really bloody soap opera.” And that’s not a bad thing! An episode that gives us Eric and Pam strolling around Republican fundraisers and Arlene getting hit on by a punky young vampire and Jason and Jessica getting it on in a chair is never a bad thing.

And now, to our five craziest things that happened in “Lost Cause” …

+ “You don’t know us, sweetheart. We can be assholes.” We have to start with Eric and Pam at the Republican fundraiser, don’t we? WE JUST HAVE TO. In the continuing Sarah-Newlin-is-the-worst saga, Eric and Pam track her down through her vampire sister, Amber Mills, whose boyfriend died of Hep-V and who is currently sick herself. For years she accepted Sarah’s hush money, but now that Sarah is Public Enemy No. 1 for basically creating Hep-V, she wants her revenge—so she tells Eric and Pam when they come knocking that Sarah is most probably at a fundraiser for Ted Cruz in Dallas. (I loved Pam’s drawling, “Of all the horrible things I’ve seen in the last 100 years, this could be the most disturbing,” as she walked into the room full of down-home Texas Repubs.) And lo and behold, she is, ambushing her mother in a bathroom and trying to get some help: “Is Laura Bush out there? Well, can you call her?”

But no, Sarah’s mother CANNOT call Laura Bush, because Laura has stopped accepting her calls! And now she’ll never call Laura Bush again, because the Yakuza storm the fundraiser, shooting Sarah’s father in the head and her mother through the heart. Little did they expect to meet Eric, though, and Eric has a larger grudge against Sarah than the Yakuza—so he tears off the gold-toothed leader’s jaw. HE JUST STRAIGHT TEARS THAT SHIT OFF HIS FACE. It is pretty epic.

Did Sarah run away, though? Where’s Pam? And are Eric and Pam going to get caught by the other members of the Yakuza, since, you know, the gang doesn’t consist of only the three people Eric killed? So many questions! Such a great storyline! Oh, Eric and Pam, you guys.

+ “One day he gets the veins; a few months later, he’s dying in my arms.” Although Sookie’s plan to save Arlene & Co. from the Hep-V vampires in Fangtasia worked out—well, expect for that whole Alcide dying thing—Hep-V itself is still running rampant. And we saw how it progresses this week with both of Sookie’s vampire love interests becoming further afflicted: Eric has progressed into stage 2, with black veins spreading throughout his entire torso, and Bill gets out of his bath to realize that he too has sprouted black veins. Which, you know, leads to some questions.

First: Hep-V is essentially being presented as vampire AIDS, right? For a show that so often has been unsubtle about its comparison of vampires with the homosexual community, it’s clear that Hep-V is the equivalent of HIV/AIDS. But the show has done a TERRIBLE job at explaining how Hep-V even works. How did Eric get it? How did Bill get it? If they’re not drinking poisoned Tru Blood and they’re not feeding from infected people or whatever, HOW IS IT SPREADING? Also, has there been research done about Hep-V? How does Pam know that Eric has progressed to stage 2? What are the stages, then? Perhaps some of this was explained last season when Nora was infected, but my bad, I remember nothing.

So yes, it’s terrible that we are now faced with the possibility of BOTH Eric and Bill dying. But can’t we get some explanation of how this all works? THAT WOULD HELP ME BE MORE EMOTIONALLY INVESTED, GUYS.

+ “That big man of yours did take up a lot of space.” You know, I think we can all agree that Sookie did not love Alcide enough, and I don’t mean that in a misogynistic Sookie-hating way, but in a she-takes-for-granted-being-loved way. At this point, practically every male lead on True Blood save her brother Jason and her gay friend Lafayette has been infatuated with Sookie, and she just seems to roll with it. To see her actually grieving Alcide, then, was refreshing, a reminder that even though their relationship was pretty boring—I mean, a six-month time jump that doesn’t give us any of their romancing each other kind of nixes that emotional investment—Sookie still cares about people. Full stop, that’s it. And seeing Sookie put on Alcide’s leather jacket and crawl into bed, caressing his pillow—I felt the pain. Really, I did.

And I liked the roles that Arlene and Alcide’s father Jackson played during the celebrate-life party, too. It was very generous of Jackson to pack up Alcide’s things with the promise that Sookie can go through them whenever she feels ready, and Arlene giving advice to Sookie only months removed after the death of Terry was a nice touch, too. And, props to the True Blood writers for being very on-the-nose with their pro-gun control stance: “It don’t matter how big or strong someone is if someone else has a gun.”

Finally, can we also laugh about the vampire who let Arlene feed from him COMING ONTO HER so hard during that party? Their exchange was the best: “I’ll see her in her dreams,” he said, and then “I have to go tinkle, because, you know, I am a human.” You’re on fire, True Blood writers!

+ “Has it ever fucking occurred to you that Lafayette, that queen who makes all you white heterosexuals laugh and feel good about themselves, has it ever fucking occurred to you that I want a piece of happiness, too?” Oh, Lala! All we want is your happiness. And of course, True Blood being a soap opera, Lala getting it on with Jessica’s vampire boyfriend James sets off a series of events … some of which will surely have repercussions.

Because here’s what goes down: Jessica is so full of self-hate about that whole fairy-eating thing that she keeps ignoring James, calling him a “wet blanket” at Sookie’s party even though it’s Jessica who is refusing to have any fun. James, frustrated with Jessica’s lack of attention, goes to complain to Lala, given the friendship they’ve developed over the past few episodes. Lala, curious about the story of how James was turned, asks James to confirm that he and his best friend were in love before the friend died during the Vietnam War. Lala and James, unable to deny their attraction to each other, start making out and then having sex in the SUV James and Jessica bought together (hilarious touch!), which Jessica sees.

Jessica, freaked out that her boyfriend is not only cheating on her but also happens to be gay, goes crying to Jason, who disinvites James from the StackHouse (yes, I am making a pun with their last name). Lala, annoyed with Jessica’s reaction, tears her a new one, pointing out that he knows far more about James than she does, and that she knows they don’t belong together. And hey, if Jessica doesn’t want to be with James, than Lala will.

But if Jessica doesn’t want to be with James, maybe she wants to be with … Jason Stackhouse, the man she started cheating on first boyfriend Hoyt with, setting off a series of events that had Hoyt glamoured and sent to Alaska to never remember the betrayal he suffered at the hands of his best friend and girlfriend. Jessica and Jason just can’t get enough of each other, though, so they start having sex, which Jason’s very possessive, anciently old vampire girlfriend Violet overhears. And Violet, who is very vocal about marking Jason as her own and wanting to be with him forever, isn’t happy about this in the least. Well, she wasn’t happy about how small Jason’s grandmother’s engagement ring is (“That’s it?!”), but certainly overhearing her boyfriend cheating on her can’t be nice, either.

So what does this all mean? Although James tells Lala he needs some space, I can theoretically see them getting together, especially since it’s pretty clear that James and Jessica shouldn’t be together. Jessica and Jason—that pair has been dancing around each other for seasons now, and they’re never going to give each other up, I don’t think. Violet, though, is a wild card, and I could see her reaching for some vengeance. And who does Jessica care about most right now? Andy’s daughter Adilyn should probably watch her back.

+ “This shit doesn’t happen in other towns!” And finally, your weekly reminder that Sam’s baby momma Nicole (I had totally forgotten her name!) is still bringing some realness to Bon Temps. Although didn’t the destruction of Saint Alice prove that this shit is, in fact, happening in other places? Deal with your trauma from being kidnapped by Hep-V vampires while you’re nine months pregnant on your own time, Nicole.

+ Oh right, some odds and ends!

+ “We can say fuck you to death and hello to life. What would Tara want? What would Alcide want?” If anyone can justify a party, it’s Lala.

+ “I had about 100 boyfriends die on me over the years, but I remember how painful those first ones were!” Poor Violet. She may be terrible, but at least she’s trying to connect with Sookie, I guess? We’ll see how sour that relationship turns after this Jason-cheating development, though.

+ “Life’s too short.” Andy deserves some happiness with Holly, no? Although yeah, their children should probably stop flirting with each other at this point.

+ “You stabbed somebody, Auntie, that’s why people think you crazy!” Presented with no further comments.

+ “I have been your sex slave for 15 years, Eric Northman, and we ain’t never had sex! Blow job, hand job, nothing!” Bless your heart, Ginger. Eric was never going to let you come along for the ride to Dallas, but as Pam pointed out, a sex slave without the sex is basically just a slave? So maybe you should leave Fangtasia behind finally, sister.