Lots of holy shit moments in last night’s True Blood, “I Smell a Rat,” largely associated with confessions rather than dramatic actions: Tara comes clean about what happened to her, Jason comes clean about Eggs, Crystal comes clean about what she is, Arlene comes clean about the baby’s father, Jesus and Lafayette take a spiritual journey through their past. Also: Sookie is a fairy.

Sookie is a Fairy, and Eric is a Farmer

Bill’s in the midst of telling her this, while Sookie’s all, “Shut the front door,” but the minute he invokes Claudine’s name, Sookie’s ready to listen. Bill instantly recognized Sunshine Town as Bon Temps Cemetery and found out from Claudine that Sookie is a fairy. Every vampire who knows the truth wants a piece of Sookie because 1) the fay were wiped out years ago by vampires as 2) their blood is so intoxicating. Indeed, Bill finds Sookie’s blood the most delicious he has ever tasted.  So, she’s la tua cantante but for every vampire. Anyway, Bill’s happy to foreswear her blood forever just to prove his love for her (also: self-denial is his second favourite thing after self-loathing). Sookie just looks wide-eyed and misty at all of this.

In the meantime, Eric is having a will drawn up (coincidentally, I asked my viewing companion if vampires have wills shortly before this scene), leaving everything to Pam. Yvetta witnesses the thing and gets pissed that everything is going to Pam when Eric promised to take care of Yvetta. According to Eric, though, all he promised her was a job and good sex. He then calls her a gold-digging whore, which makes me like Eric a little less. Pam is suitably unimpressed that Eric is preparing to die.

So Eric flies off to Jason’s. Bill: How’d you find us? Eric: It wasn’t hard. Bill makes a great “I should have thought of that” face. Their rivalry is kind of too bad because their relationship has always been drawn and acted in a way that suggests respect, perhaps even warmth. At any rate, Bill and Eric take a walk. Eric just wants to put their cards on the table (well, some of them), and Bill tries to deny (his “ancestral home” gets invoked again), but Eric’s just like, “Bill, I know,” and Bill drops the pretence. See, that’s what I love Bill and Eric. Bill tried to play Russell, of all vampires, but Eric just has to be like, “That’s a lie, start again,” and Bill does. So anyway, Eric wants to know if it’s true that Sookie’s blood makes vampires impervious to daylight, and Bill tells the truth: the effects wear off too quickly to be worth the effort. Eric mildly remarks that Sophie-Anne will be disappointed, obviously meaning that whatever plan he had in mind just blew up again, though I suspect she will be disappointed as well. She did renovate her palace as a day at the beach after all. Sookie comes out, and everyone pretty much just makes faces at each other until Eric flies off.

Bill puts Jason in charge of looking after Sookie during the daytime while he goes to ground nearby. In the meantime, Sookie wakes up in her dream to find Eric perched on the other end of Jason’s couch. Sookie wants to know when Eric’s blood will be out of her system, so she can stop dreaming about him, but Dream Eric insists that it isn’t just the blood. If you subscribe to the notion that everyone in your dreams is really just an aspect of you, that’s pretty significant stuff. Anyway, he reminds her that she can’t trust Bill and that she likes kissing him, but she wakes up just as he’s about to sink his fangs in. Apparently that’s all the encouragement she needed to drive on down to Shreveport.  

Sookie barges into the office at Fangtasia, as she does. They basically repeat what happened in Sookie’s dream (that she’s there because she knows she can’t trust Bill, and isn’t it interesting that her dreams/his fantasies inform their real life interactions?), but it’s quickly clear that Eric’s trying to say goodbye to Sookie. She wants to know what’s going on there, but Eric’s just goes, “My only regret will be never kissing you.” Because it’s Eric, that line totally works. They kiss, and it’s hotter than any of their dreams/fantasies (except maybe Sookie’s first dream). Also, Eric is making serious in-love faces, which makes me sad for him. Sookie breaks it off, all yeah, yeah, I’m intoxicating, and Eric’s face is all, “Buh?” that’s when Pam busts in with a faux-vampire emergency. Honestly: “Blah blah, vampire emergency, blah.” When I grow up, I want to be Pam.

Out in Fangtasia proper, Pam would like Eric to stop being such a ridiculous, humanly wimp and trade Sookie to save himself, and Eric’s like, “I value your lack of sentiment” so can it with the emotional outbursts. Pam, awesomely, is like, “I don’t want your stupid farm in Sweden” (HA!), and, also, Eric would have done anything to save Godric, so why shouldn’t she do whatever she has to to save her Maker? That last one finally gets through to him, and, after some time spent thinking, he busts into his office, throws Sookie over his shoulder, and carts her down to the torture wheel in the basement. He fastens the collar around her neck and stomps back up the stairs, ignoring Sookie’s pleas. Attaboy! I mean, it’s horrible to see the continued violence against women on this show. Mostly, though, it’s good to see Eric act like a vampire again. Of course, Bill’s Sookie sense just tingled, so we’ll see what happens when he shows up at Fangtasia next week.

Although, really, I’m sure that a) Eric only plans to use Sookie as a last resort, b) she’d probably try to help him if he had a plan that he shared with her, and c) Eric’s missing the obvious here. All he has to do is locate Russell. The entire country is apparently up in arms after Russell’s anchor attack (Bill blames Eric for Russell going “medieval” and setting the vampire cause back 1000 years). Find Russell’s whereabouts when he goes to ground, tip off some particularly angry rednecks, and let them burn Russell, à la “Burning House of Love.” Heck, ask Sookie to do it. I bet she, Alcide, Tara, Hadley, and a host of others would be glad to take care of the Vampire King. Plus then other vampires won’t suspect a thing.

 V: The Time Traveller’s Drug of Choice

Realizing that Calvin (that’s Crystal’s dad’s name!) will die before they ever reach the hospital, Lafayette pulls over at his place, and they give Calvin one teeny drop of V. I guess everyone else is just greedy? Anyway, Calvin comes to, and Crystal and Jesus are like, “Wow, it’s a miracle!” The next day, Jesus wants to go on a V trip together because they are both magical and shaman/guides. I still think there is more to Jesus’ story, but this is a good start. They each have one little drop (seriously! No wonder Sookie is bonkers). The Virgin Marys in Lafayette’s shrine are dancing, and pretty soon all the idols get in on it. The next room turns into Jesus’ grandmother’s place in Mexico where she would “save people from darkness” with her oils and was also known as a fertility specialist. Next up is Lafayette’s great grandmother and grandmother (I think), slaves who also worked the witchcraft. Specifically, we see them laying down a barrier that prevented them from getting raped by their masters. Lafayette is especially impressed since he never knew any of this. I am especially impressed with Nelsan Ellis’ stoned acting. Unfortunately we’re transported back to some cave where Jesus’ sorcerer grandfather’s at work, and, since he’s a practitioner of black magic and therefore evil, he tries to kill Lafayette. Fortunately they both wake up. Man, that was a hell of a trip.

Jason’s House of Truth

Tara and Jason stand there and shudder for a minute, but then Jason goes all PTSD about blowing up Franklin and shooting Eggs and that time Amy staked Stephen Root right in front of him (I forgot about that!), so Tara has to pull it together and be like, “Let’s get rid of this mess.” They show up at Jason’s covered in blood, at which Bill and Sookie don’t even bat an eye. Bill calls Jason out on the porch, and I hope for half a second that they are going to hug again like that time outside of Godric’s, but it’s all “protect Sookie” and male posturing. Poor guys! They could both really do with some hugs! Anyway, Tara finally tells Sookie the truth about what happened to her, and Sookie is appropriately horrified/sympathetic (it wasn’t that long ago that she was kidnapped and almost raped, after all), but Tara still blames/will never forgive Bill for not lifting a finger to help her. And while she’s right, Bill should have done something, I am apparently the only person who sees that Bill was putting protecting Sookie above saving the life of her friend. A lot of people read the episode bookends of Bill not going when Sookie was scared, chowing down on that stripper, then refusing to help Tara as Bill’s return to the dark side, but, if you follow the story up to that point, he was doing whatever he had to to keep Russell away from Sookie. It’s not right, but he had a reason, is what I’m saying.

Anyway, Jason comes clean with Sookie that he killed Eggs, and she insists that he come clean with Tara. Dearest Sookie, that is a terrible idea. Love, April. Jason points out that that is easy for her to say, as no one can keep a secret from her (vampires can, she argues, which is the moment she realizes that she’s not getting the full truth from either Eric or Bill). Even so, when Tara wakes up, and she’s crying about Jason saving her again, and then they’re kissing, then she’s freaking, so Jason tells Tara the truth. Not the whole truth about the knife and Andy and how he got scared about losing another pseudo-dad, but enough that Tara runs out without another word. Bill shows up, so they have a little tiff about protecting Sookie. Jason uninvites Bill from his place, but then he hears glass break. He finds a panther in his room, which shifts into Crystal. “Oh, mama” is all Jason’s got for that.

In other news truth:

• Arlene tells Terry that the baby is René’s, and he reacts exactly as you might expect: he doesn’t care. They will get married and “surround this baby with so much love.” Arlene cries, then asks Holly for one of her Wiccan natural remedies to terminate her pregnancy. Arlene, I don’t know that I will ever get over you hurting Terry this way. Not wanting to have the baby is your choice, but not telling him that is a dirty trick.
• Tommy makes a play for Jessica while Summer offers herself up to Hoyt (she “knows he’s a sexual being,” as opposed to a 28 year-old who just lost his virginity last month). Hoyt breaks up with Summer and, the next night at Merlotte’s, tells Jessica that he’s in love with her, and the only thing that could keep them apart is her not loving him. She doesn’t respond, which Hoyt reads as too polite to say it to his face, so he takes off. Outside, Tommy turns into a pit bull and attacks Hoyt after Hoyt awesomely punches human form Tommy in the face (Hoyt barely has to lift his arm away from his side to reach high enough). Jessica changes her mind and goes after Hoyt in time to chuck Dog Tommy into the woods. She resists Hoyt’s badly bleeding arm and offers him her blood, but he refuses until she admits that she loves him, too. It’s pretty hot and looks crazy voyeuristic when naked Tommy spies from the trees.
• Calvin thinks his bloodline is now tainted from drinking “vamper juice,” so Crystal must carry on their bloodline with Felton. Wait, what? Can vampire juice stop him from being a werepanther? No, that’s not right. Werewolves drink V all the time! Calvin’s just ridiculous and trashy. Anyway, Crystal refuses and runs back to Jason, so she’s dead to Calvin now.
• Anti-vampire sentiment is at an all time high. Bill’s place is covered in graffiti, someone throws a brick through the window, and there’s a burning cross on the lawn. Jessica wants to track these mothers down, but Bill only hugs her and tells her than right now it’s more important than ever to show these people that they are not all monsters.
• Steve Newlin shows up on TV to say, “Told ya!” re: vampires and their evil. I hope Sarah is not far behind.
• Russell engages in a goodbye with Talbot via a rent boy that bears only a cursory resemblance to his departed consort and then he stakes the guy. Wow.
• After Holly suggests that Sam as a rage problem, we find out via flashback that Sam not only stole MaryAnn’s money to start up Merlotte’s but also used his shifter powers as a jewel thief to get some capital. He worked with some blonde girl who screwed him over for some far less attractive brown-haired guy. Sam tracked them down to get his money back, but he ended up killing both. I would like just one of Sam’s plotlines to be about something in the present or perhaps even his future instead of his past all the damn time.