A plot-packed finale wraps up the season, but leaves us in suspense. Things with Maryann come to a dark climax; Sam, Eggs, and Hoyt each have to face their pasts; Jason and Andy’s vigilante act turns deadly; and Sookie looks again at herself — and at her relationship with Bill.
Gospel or Gorilla Shit
The Philosopher Queen rambles on about how Yahtzee is the perfect antidote to a meritocratic culture; the undead have plenty of time, so they’ll be playing to 5 million. She offers some not-very-convincing sympathy to Eric over the death of his maker, and brings up that maenad. She gave Bill some “hand-me-down folklore†but advises Eric not to get involved — and then gossips disapprovingly about Bill’s monogamy with his human. Sookie’s cousin is pleased to hear he’s in love — and the Queen ventures that Eric must be, too. “Have you tasted her? She’s not human,†notes the Queen (But when did she taste Sookie? How much do the vampires know about her?). She’s more interested in how Bill knows she has humans selling vampire blood. Eric rightly says Bill doesn’t know she’s behind his commercial venture — and he promises he’ll take care of Bill Compton. Happily, she drove Eric to that agreement by pouncing and kissing and threatening him. He’s not her type, and she was just trying to get a rise out of him; once his fangs come out, she’s back to Yahtzee.
Bite Count: Nearly one. Tease!
He’ll Come Running Like a Dog. Maybe As a Dog.
Unlike the bumbling, saucer-eyed townsfolk, Lafayette is one scary acolyte, thanks maybe to Eric’s blood. He’s also great in a bridesmaid’s gown. He makes Sookie strip down and looks like he’s about to ravish her — but no, he just wanted her to slip into another outfit, because she’s going to be Maryann’s maid of honor when Maryann weds the god.
Sookie is pissed: Maryann is in her grandmother’s dress, in her house, and with her friends (“Plus Jane Bodenhouse.†“I’ve always liked you, Sookie. You give me extra pickles!â€). Maryann literally begs her to attack again; she loved that electricity. But Sookie can’t do it — or won’t, because she’d rather insist that she’s human. But the regular human waitress does have to flash back to the time she wrapped that metal around that guy’s throat. Anyway, Maryann is just using her to lure Sam, whom she should’ve sacrificed as a naked virgin in front of that statue long ago.
Oh, and that egg? It’s just from an ostrich. And dabbed with blood that the wedding party licks off.
Heroic duo Jason and Andy make it to the wedding. Jason will protect the house at any cost; Andy has never had to kill before and is nervous. Just as we wonder if the show is ever going to explain why Maryann can’t control Andy, his eyes go black. And just as we hope that maybe Jason is whatever the hell his sister is, his eyes go black, too.
Bill blames Sam for the maenad’s presence. Sam would give himself up to save the town, but doesn’t think it will help. Bill’s not going to give him a choice. Cut to Bill forcibly dragging Sam to the wedding, or so it seems.
Maryann proceeds with the ceremony that re-creates an episode of Greek myth. When the god was a child, the Titans ripped him apart and ate all but his heart. His sister Pallas Athena put his heart into the womb of his mother so he could be reborn. And so Maryann will sacrifice Sam’s heart to the goddess, and Dionysus will return. “You’re lucky, Sam,†she says. “It’s everyone’s wish to have their life mean something.†Sookie, struggling with Bill, begs Sam to use his gift. Bill tells her to use hers. Eggs stabs Sam. As Maryann calls down her god, dying Sam telepathically tells Sookie to destroy the altar. When she does, Maryann grows claws and chases her into the woods. And then the beautiful white bull appears to Maryann — and gores her to death. She’s happy enough to die, until she realizes it’s really the shape-shifting Sam ripping her heart from her chest. She’s touchingly disappointed in her faith and in her meaningless life, then she dies, withering into an ancient-looking corpse.
Once Sam gets his pants back on, Sookie fawns over his courage and self-sacrifice. That Bill is nearly fainting after letting Sam feed off him, and how clever his plot was, doesn’t much interest her; she has a town to get back in order.
Body Count: One maenad!
Never Say Never When There’s the Internet
In case we forgot how much of this show is made up of closet metaphors, Sam announces that you lose more hiding something than facing it; we almost don’t want to point out that the town won’t remember his part in this anyway. He loves the town, but he needs to take a break and see his real family. He visits the adoptive parents who abandoned him when they found out he was a shape-shifter; his mother won’t cooperate and just digs in her heels about having been afraid and broke, but his father, on his deathbed, manages to scrawl an apology and the names of Sam’s real parents.
And that’s Tara’s excuse: Maryann made her feel like she was part of something, a family. Sookie reminds her that she is her family.
There’s an entertaining segment in the bar, where two townswomen rehash some conspiracy theories about the last few weeks (the best one is about LSD in the water supply, which explains why they only drink Mountain Dew). But more important: Lafayette realizes that Sookie’s the only one who really remembers the events of the last few weeks. And Jane is regaling the bar with the tale of a gator biting off her finger. Andy butts in: He saw her pull that finger out of a giant pile of meat. Everyone jokes about wanting a round of what he’s drinking, which is just Diet Coke. With lime. Sheriff Bud gave him his job back (“You may have your faults, Andy, but at least you got pants onâ€) but he’s back to feeling like the town clown. Jason consoles him with his usual faulty logic: Even if they can’t remember it, they must have saved the town.
Eggs does’t share Lafayette’s take on the situation. He thought he’d turned himself around, but he’s worried about how that blood got under his fingernails. Sookie agrees to look into his mind. He recalls all the murders he committed with Maryann. She tries to convince him it wasn’t his fault, but he needs to straighten this out. His sense of sin and redemption finally makes him a likable character. He tries to turn himself in to Andy, with the knife as evidence. Jason spies Eggs waving a knife at his buddy — and shoots him dead. Andy covers it up, telling everyone that the gun was Eggs’s, and that he shot him in self-defense.
Body Count: One muscled boyfriend with a bad goatee.
I’ve Dreamed of This Since I Was a Little Girl
Hoyt grounded his mama, prompting her to do a demented little twist to Claudine Clark’s “Party Lights.†Hoyt has it under control, thanks to a little trick that we’re pretty sure he learned from The Brady Bunch: He rigged a trip wire in the kitchen to wake him if she tries to escape. Once Maryann is dead, the spell breaks and they talk.
Hoyt hasn’t seen Jessica since she bit his mama, but he has to admit that Mama provoked Jessica. He says that he knows it wasn’t her talking and he’ll just forget everything bad she said about him and Jessica and his daddy. Except she ’fesses up: His daddy really did kill himself. Hoyt’s furious that she didn’t tell him the truth long ago, that her fear of this nonexistent burglar who supposedly killed daddy kept him here in this house with her so long. He wishes Jessica had finished her off. Family, indeed.
Bill bids goodnight to Jessica, whom he thinks is on her way to see Hoyt. They suddenly have a cute little family thing going on, telling each other to be home on time; or maybe it’s a creepy little flirty thing. When Hoyt shows up with flowers at Jessica’s place, she’s not there. She’s at a truck stop, straddling a trucker and telling him she’s a virgin. And then she attacks.
Bill bought Sookie a pretty new dress and takes her on a fancy date. He asks her to marry him. She thinks it should be easy to say yes, but she panics: She doesn’t even know if she’s human, and what happens when she gets old and Bill doesn’t? Or, you know, maybe it’s that Bill is the first guy she’s really dated and she’s known him, what, two months? She retreats to the restroom to calm down. We see a pair of hands pull a chain tight around Bill’s throat; Bill and his attacker are gone when Sookie comes back.
Bite Count: One, but it’s probably the first in what will be a series of teenage acts of rebellion.
Body Count: We’re pretty sure Bill will be fine.
So, we can’t wait for season three. Will Sam find his parents? Did Eric abduct Bill? How will this blood-dealing play out? Who or what is Sookie? Will she marry Bill or re-explore Sam or move on to Eric? And will Tara turn to Jason for comfort now that he’s killed her boyfriend?