Recap: True Blood Season 1--"Strange Love"

PLEASE NOTE: I tried to make a fancy cut so you don't have to see this whole thing on the front page, but it completely destroyed my blog. *SIGH*



You are going to be hard pressed to impress me, HBO. “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” are some of my favorite books, so if you mess this up SO HELP ME…

So, the first episode opens with some redneck couple driving down some back roads, and Redneck girl starts to give Redneck Guy some hands-on experience when they see a sign that reads WE HAVE TRU BLOOD on a marquee outside a convenience store. “OMG STOP!” the guy screams, and I am sure that his manly bits got ripped off when the girl hit the breaks. Inside the store, a blonde vampire named Nan Flanagan is being interviewed on TV by Bill Maher (HI, BILL MAHER!) about vampire rights. Ho hum, here comes the heavily wrought symbolism. There is an uber-goth behind the counter who practically screams I AM A VAMPIRE and a Billy Bob at the back of the store when the Redneck Couple walks in and is all “AHAHAHA TRU BLOOD?” Uber-goth has an accent, and he lays it on thick and Redneck Couple and Billy Bob are all OMGWTF!?! Then Uber-goth laughs and is all AHAHA GOT YOU, and the Rednecks go PHEW and Billy Bob, who is inconspicuously carrying a case of Tru Blood, busts out his fangs and is all OMG I GOT YOU ALL MWUAHAHA”

Cue opening credits. Genius.

The opening credits are a mess of fish and blood and church and whores and rotting things set to a song called “Bad Things” and makes you really need to take a shower after you hear it, which is pretty much how I feel about the Bayou in general. “OMG get me out of here, I need a shower.”

Now we meet Sookie Stackhouse, resident blonde waitress who can hear people’s thoughts. This is her curse, and it is our joy to listen to the pervs and freaks who live in her hometown of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Bon Temps is French for “Good Time” but there are NO good times in this town. There is a hilarious montage where she listens in to the patrons of the bar where she works, a place called Merlotte’s which is your typical stuck way back in the woods where no one would find it shithole. Anna Paquin’s teeth are really, really big, so the whole time she is talking, all I can do is stare at them and think FALL INTO THE GAP. But somehow she is adorable, and you instantly love her because she is blonde and curvy and admonishes people for saying the “J-word”. Psst. It’s JESUS.

Next, we are introduced to the Black Girl Best Friend named Tara, and though her part was not so huge in the books and she was not black, she is made into a main character on the show and she is FUH-IERCE, GURRRL. She reams some woman in a monstrous purple outfit, calls her boss a racist and quits her job. You love her in 32 seconds of screen time. Her accent is ridiculously thick, and you want to lick her all over. Here is the exchange with her boss after the customer wants to speak to the manager.

Tara: *randomly slaps her boss, Waylon* That’s for patting my ass too much. Ima git my baby daddy who just got out of prison to come and kick yo teef in.
Waylon: Jesus, Tara, don’t do anything like--
Tara: O.O Ohmigod! I’m not serious, you pathetic racist. I don’t HAVE a baby. DAMN. I know you all stupid, but do you have to be that stupid? Shiiiit, fuck this job.

Beautiful.

Now we meet Sam, Sookie’s boss and owner of Shithole Bar and Grill. He is scruffy and delicious, and so completely in love with Sookie it’s gross. And cute. And gross. Tara calls Sookie, her BFF, to tell her she quit her job. Sookie is all OMG SHUT UP! And Tara is all OMG NO YOU SHUT UP! And we are all OMG NEVER SHUT UP!!

Enter Dawn, the Hot One, who in turn, introduces us to Mack and Denise Rattray. What follows is an episode where it is pronounced “RA-tray” and two seconds later “Rat-ray”. What the right pronunciation is, I do not know, but I do know that the Rattrays are white trash, and they make sure we know it because Denise tugs at her shirt to fix her boobs as they walk in, and Mack has a goatee and about four teeth. OH NOES, Sookie says, but she smiles and waits on them, after Sam calls her “cher” which makes my teeth hurt. She is not a gay icon. He is trying to be cute and French, but it just sounds oh so wrong.

Next, we meet Arlene, whose hair is so red it’s obscene and OMG SO COUNTRY. She is going out with Rene, who we meet later, and then the fabulousness that is Lafayette, the Gay One, and he is black, and he is gay. So really, he is the Black Gay One who is sometimes the cook and sometimes a prostitute/drug dealer. All in all, he is wonderful. He horrifies Miss Sookie because OMG he says dirty things, and Dawn and Arlene join in and it is a big WE ARE SO DIRTY!! Arlene actually holds her boobs and says “peaches and cream,” and we are now hate her.

Enter Sookie’s brother, Jason, who is going to town on some girl (Maudette) while they watch some dating show, and Jason is the uber megaslut of the town, and he sounds like he never made it out of third grade, but in real life, he is Australian, and any time someone can hide their real accent so well and get away with it, it is magic. So, we love him. And hate him because he is a ridiculously good looking manwhore. His random date has a vampire bite on her leg and Jason is all :X, and they have a plot point of sex with vampires, and Jason is horrified until Random Date Maudette is all OMG WANNA SEE A TAPE OF IT? And Jason is all HMMMM…

Sookie is being eye-loved by Sam, and then suddenly…there he is..A VAMPIRE. Sookie melts into a puddle, and is all OMG VAMPIRE! And everyone else is like OMG VAMPIRE!?! Sam quits his eye-loving long enough to eye-hate on the vampire. Sookie goes to take the vampire’s order, and then we realize that wait! Isn’t that the cute homeless surfing guy from “The Starter Wife”? IT IS! But he was blonde and tan and delicious, and now he is brunette, and pale, and STILL DELICIOUS. His accent is also ridiculous, and he is British in real life, so we will keep him. But ooh, the Rattrays are getting all o.OO.o at him with NEFARIOUS PURPOSES!

Jason and Maudette watch the_vampire pr0n and OOH it is SCARY. The vampire is bald and tattooed and OMG so scary!!

Back at Shithole Bar and Grill, the Rattrays are scumming up on Bill, and Sookie and Tara are laser beam eyeing them like there is no tomorrow. Sookie admonishes Tara for believing in vampire stereotypes because OMG her vampire would NEVER do things that are bad, since she has known him for exactly a minute, and she can know these things in that time span. Sam smarms in saying that just because they drink synthetic blood doesn’t mean they won’t bite off a person’s face. Sam does have a point, and Sookie does not like this. The Rattrays keep on scumming, and when Sookie comes over to check on the vampire, she reads Denise’s mind and finds out OH NOES, they are going to drain him and sell his blood! She runs off to find Tara, who does not want to help, and then Sam, who REALLY does not want to help. When she turns back around, OH NOES, the Rattrays and the vampire are gone, and Sookie runs out after them, and Sam runs out after her.

Back at Maudette’s, she and Jason are getting busy in a kinky way, and Jason starts to choke Maudette in a kinky way, and Maudette looks like this O.O in not a kinky way.

Back in the way back lot of Shithole Bar and Grill, the Rattrays have the vampire tied up with silver and are draining his blood. Sookie finds a random chain in a truck and proceeds to go postal on the Rattrays. She picks up a knife that Mack drops and is all I WILL CUT YOU. Denise uses the c-word which is always a no-no, and then she proceeds to try to run over Sookie and the vampire with her car after Sookie frees him from his silver chain prison. His wounds miraculously heal after she takes the chains off, and Sookie is all o.O and wants to have his vampire babies all at the same time. She props the vampire up on a tree and proceeds to talk his head off while she has a big pair of googly eyes, and he is sitting there going o.O at her and looks like he wants to run for the hills. Hilarious.

In the middle of their googly eye fest, a random collie runs up and starts barking like mad at the vampire. Sookie is all OH, DOG and it proceeds to lick her face off, and the vampire goes -_- and remarks that the dog is “checking up” on Sookie.

Hey, that reminds me…didn’t Sam run out of the bar right after Sookie? Where the hell is he? *WINKWINK NUDGENUDGE*

So, the vampire is just sitting there, looking at Sookie like she is oh so crazy, and Sookie is sitting there being oh so crazy. She tries to help him get free of the tourniquet that the Rattrays put on him, and he jerks away suddenly, and Sookie shows him her Woman Empowerment Cape that she keeps tucked under her shirt, and it does not impress the vampire. Sookie decides to listen in on the vampire’s thoughts, but OH NOES, she can’t hear anything. This makes her go OH YAYS, and she grabs his face and is all OMG I LUV J00, and the vampire is REALLY wigged out, and Sookie makes sure he knows that she is no fool by wrapping the silver necklace that was used to keep the vampire still around her neck. Note that said silver necklace was, not two minutes ago, covered with the vampire’s goo from the open wounds it caused. Yum, Sookie. Way to accessorize. The vampire points out that there are other places he can bite her like on her SEXY SEXY groin, and Sookie flips out and tells him that she is a lady, and that she will not listen to dirty talk like that!

The vampire IS impressed by this, and possibly finds her just as hilarious as we do, and he tells her that she can have the blood if she wants. The vampire says he has heard that it makes humans healthy and improves their sex lives, and Sookie is OUTRAGED and DISGUSTED and tells him that she is healthy and doesn’t have a sex life, and then realizes that maybe this is TMI for a vampire she just met. When he suggests she can sell it, she says no, and then FWOOM, he is up in her face all o.OO.o in wonderment and awe, and he says, “What are you?” with his raspy, sexy vampo voice.

And that becomes the question for the show. What is Sookie? Is she virtuous and pure? Is she sassy and Southern? Is she just a big faker? In this episode, it’s really hard to tell. She blushes and OMIGOSHES at sex talk, but then runs out into a parking lot and lays the beat down on some skanks. It is a mystery, and it is what makes Sookie so interesting.

So, when the vampire asks, Sookie tells him her name and that she is a waitress, and then asks him what his name is. “Bill,” he answers, and she about busts a gut. HAHAH VAMPIRE BILL? Hilarious, she thinks, and Bill is like OMFG WTF. Sookie asks him about silver, and Bill asks her not to tell anybody because vampires don’t want their weaknesses out. The whole time this is going on, Bill is all up in Sookie’s shit, and she finally realizes this and says OK BAI, and goes back to work. Bill just goes o.O and wonders WTF just happened.

Sookie walks back to Shithole Bar and Grill, and OH, there Sam is, and he’s buttoning his pants? WTH? Sookie flashes her Woman Empowerment Cape and saunters off. Sam is officially a jackass.

Now, it’s closing time at Shithole Bar and Grill, and Tara, who had been filling in for Sam while he…left for no visible reason…talks him into giving her a job. In walks Jason, who Tara is hopelessly in love with, and he gives her the brush off. Jason looks a little unsettled, and Tara flashes her own Black Woman Empowerment Cape, and Jason is a bit startled by this. Dawn the Hot One saunters by, and Jason forgets all about Tara, and then Dawn the Hot One laughs in Jason’s face and blows HIM off. But Jason is lame and so he follows her out anyway.

Sookie goes home and tells her terribly cute Gran all about Bill the Vampire, or VB for Vampire Bill, and Gran is reading a Charlaine Harris book. YAY! Sookie goes up to bed with her cat, Tina, and has a very sexy dream about VB--sexy until he shows her his fangs and she wakes up going O.O.

The next day, she is sunbathing in a weird combination of a top with strawberries on it and some weird black and white polka-dot shorts. I don’t even know. Jason pulls up and asks her about beating up the Rattrays and tries to be chivalrous for a minute, but he sees Sookie prepping her Women Empowerment Cape, so he quickly goes and hugs Gran, all the while wondering how Sookie hid that Cape in her bikini top. The siblings sit down to a meal. Jason chides Sookie about her weight, which is ridiculously skinny, and it’s sort of a creepy moment. Suddenly, Gran runs in and tells them OH NOES! Maudette Pickens got strangled! Jason goes all shifty-eyed and goes very quiet. He then tries to blame a vampire because Maudette was a fangbanger. Thus the brilliance of Charlaine Harris. Fangbangers. Greatness. Gran is all “What is a fangbanger?” and what follows is a discussion about people who like to sleep with vampires and even prostitutes who let vampires suck their blood. Gran looks slightly scandalized, but then asks how much they make for it. Sookie is growly because they make so money doing nothing, and she makes $10 and tips an hour. WHAT WAITRESS MAKES $10 AN HOUR? I MEAN REALLY.

Sookie is not fooled by Jason’s shiftiness and she tries to mind meld him, but he wigs out and runs out of the house after she hears him say things like, “How did this happen? How did I lose control?” OH NOES, Jason is possibly a murderer. We next see him working on a road crew talking to Dawn the Hot One on the phone, begging her to go out with him. While he’s on the phone, Sheriff Bud Dearborn and Detective Andy Bellefleur pull up and start asking him all kinds of questions about Maudette Pickens. He lies through his teeth, and then, after harsh interrogation tactics which include a lot of glaring and…nothing else, he tells them that yes, yes, he did have very rough sex with her. Apparently, Lafayette and Rene and another regular from the bar named Hoyt work on the road crew with Jason. They are all hairy eyeballing the scene. Bud and Andy tell Jason that there is a sex tape of him, so they know exactly what happened, and Jason goes O.O. Oops. They cart him off, and the rest of the road crew goes o.O

Back at Sookie’s she is getting ready for work, and Gran asks her to ask VB how old he is, and if he was in the Civil War, could he come talk to the Descendents of the Glorious Dead? Please? Sookie agrees, even though she looks a little disturbed by this request. At Shithole Bar and Grill, we see Arelene, who is very drunk, and Rene and Hoyt shooting pool. Apparently, they have better things to do than worry about Jason. Tara verbally abuses a customer, and then Lafayette, who we find out is her cousin, comes out and terrifies said customer with sexual advances. He is wearing a denim skirt and a belt buckle that says LAFAYETTE in sparkly diamonds. I love them. I would like to eat them both. Lafayette tells Tara that Jason got arrested, and Lafayette reminds us that Tara is OMG SO IN LURVE with Jason. Yes, we get it.

In the back, Dawn the Hot One is telling Sookie about Jason getting arrested. Lafayette also comes to rub it in her face that everyone knew before her, and Sookie gets very frustrated by this. Dawn the Hot One says, “Well, didn’t you just know?” and Sookie prepares to get out her Cape, but then realizes that it is not needed and simply says “I AM NOT PSYCHIC!”

Sookie goes and gets all up in Rene and Hoyt’s faces about Jason getting arrested. She tells them that her brother is NOT a killer, but that he is everything else under the sun that is terrible, and that is when OMG…Vampire Bill vampires in and Sookie starts walking over to him like he has her in his vampire tractor beam. He’s all sexing it up in a chair, but I really think he needs to brush his hair LIK WO. Everybody in the bar is staring all goggle-eyed at them, and Sookie is just all TEE HEE, I LURVE. But everybody’s thoughts are overwhelming Sookie, and so VB holds out his hand all sweet-like, and Sookie takes it, and then all the noise goes away. Sookie is now lost forever to this dark, mysterious lovely vampire. Sam’s heart breaks into a million pieces. Boo hoo.

Sookie makes an O-face, and tells him that his hand is cold. DUH, Sookie. VB says that it’s not like the other men she’s used to, and Sookie again is all OMG WHAT MEN? DO YOU THINK I’M A WHORE? But she laughs and then takes her hand away. Way to play it cool, Sook.

VB is like o.O and asks her, “What are you?” again, and Sookie, again, says that she is a waitress, and VB is desperate need of a shave. VB is not fooled, and he tells Sookie she is something more than human, and Sookie is all AHAHA, SILLY VAMPIRE. Then VB says “SOOKIE” in his vampo voice, and Sookie has the stomach flutters at that. He asks her if it’s short for something, and she is still acting all half out of her mind and says, no, it’s just plain Sookie. Just plain crazy, if you ask me. The shot is up SO CLOSE that all you can really focus on is that gap between Sookie’s teeth. It’s very distracting, at least for me.

And then, the cutest moment in the show happens, and it’s so cute that I almost can’t stand it. VB gets this scared face for a moment and says, “May I call on you some time?” Sookie gets a big question mark on her forehead and says, “Call on me?” VB gets frustrated and says, “May I come and visit you at your home?” It’s the way you ask out a girl if you were born in say, 1834!! And it’s so adorable that you just want to hug VB until he is a smooshed mess. So, of course, Sookie ruins it by saying, “Sure, my grandmother would love to meet you.” and VB goes O.O, thus completing the utter cuteness of the scene.

Then Sookie asks him to meet her after work because she has something to ask him, and no, that something is not WILL YOU PLEASE BITE ME AND IMPREGNATE ME WITH YOUR VAMPIRE BABIES? It’s about the DGD meeting, and VB says yes, yes, of course, and then notes that everybody in Shithole Bar and Grill is staring at them, and yes, they are all giving them the hairy eyeball and not even trying to hide it. Sookie brushes it off and says it’s because Jason is in trouble, and oh, yes, VB? Did you know Maudette Pickens? VB says no, and then makes his first of many proclamations that he is A VAMPIRE, YO. Sookie says who cares what they think, and VB says, I do because I want to live here, which gives Sookie a bit of the ol’ punched in the stomach look, and then VB is all, “I’ll see you lates” and is out of there. Sookie is all o.O

Everybody in the bar is thinking a million thoughts a minute, and it is TOO MUCH for Sookie, and she makes this face like she’s trying to swallow a bunch of Styrofoam, when suddenly Sam yanks her up out of the chair and practically caveman-drags her back to his office. He is OUTRAGED that she fought the Rattrays, and he is even MORE OUTRAGED that she has a date with Bill. Since, yes, every girl dreams of a first date with a potential boyfriend that includes standing by the dumpster out back of a shitty bar. SO romantic. Sookie whips out her Woman Empowerment Cape and flaps it all over the place, but Sam is having none o’ that shit, and he tells her to come and get him next time someone is getting murdered in the parking lot. So, what does Sookie do? Does she put a boot up his ass for insinuating that she can’t TAKE CARE OF HERSELF, OMG?

Nope. She cries. Way to go, Sook.

This, of course, gives Sam a reason to feel her up in the guise of comforting her. And that is really a mistake, since, of course, Sookie is going to hear his thoughts, and it’s a bunch of “Oh, you smell so good! Oh, I want you! I love you, and I always have!” Sookie steps back and has this look like it’s the first time she has realized this, but thankfully, she is saved by Tara, who apparently got tangled up in her own Black Woman Empowerment Cape, but now comes flying in and screaming at her about VB wanting to have Sookie for lunch. I love you, Tara. Never change.

But while Tara is looking at Sookie, her thoughts go off on a tangent about how much she and Jason have the same eyes, and about how he could never kill anybody, and Sookie is OUTRAGED by this and tells Tara that Jason will never feel about her like she feels about him. Which, of course, makes Tara want to slap a ho, but she just crosses her arms over her chest and tells Sookie to stay out of her head. Then the thoughts are just too much and the Cape comes back out, and Sookie screams that she is a GROWN WOMAN, YA’LL, and she will DO WHAT SHE WANTS OMG! Then she storms out. Tara tries to follow, but Sam holds her back.

So, it’s closing time now, and Sookie is walking out to her car and looking for VB, but there is no sight of him. She starts to get a little sad that she has been stood up, and Sam walks out and tells her that he’ll wait with her if she wants. Sookie sends him home…which is across from the bar, and home is a double wide trailer. I am not shocked by this. Sookie goes to her car, and then starts to hear Scary Noises, and suddenly, I’m glad that the show is obeying at least SOME of the rules of Horror Media. There must be Scary Noises at some point, and now we have them. Sookie looks around all O.O, and she walks away from her car a little to look up the road, and all she sees is a little red convertible, the same one the Rattrays used to try to run over her and VB the night before.

We realize it’s the same car at the same time as Sookie is shoved from behind. She lands hard on the ground, and Mack and Denise Rattray start kicking the holy hell out of her. OH NOES!!

End credits.