The darkest hour is just before the dawn in True Blood’s ‘Karma’

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Violet is angry, like usual. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO
Violet is angry, like usual. Photo: John P. Johnson/HBO

It’s time for the various residents of Bon Temps to face the music. Karma’s a bitch, and in the latest episode of the final season of this hit vampire romance TV show from HBO, we’re gonna watch most of the main characters deal with the consequences of their past behavior and poor choices. Andy, Holly, Bill, Sam, Sookie: Each of these True Blood staples have to stand up and own their life choices.

This is a pretty expository episode, so we spend a lot of time watching characters explain their situations in sometimes excruciating detail. Let’s hope that our karma for watching the show will be some more action-packed and hilarious scenes in the upcoming shows left in the season, rather than a payback for following the show for so long. We still have faith, though.

Spoilers abound below, so be warned. Find out what happened on last night’s episode after the jump.

We start in media res with a fight between an obviously tired, sick, yet still kick-ass Eric Northman and the Yakuza that have captured Sarah Newland. They get him to stop kicking their asses by looping a silver chain around Pam’s neck. The Yakuza sit Pam and Eric in front of a large window, a timer clock in front of them, while a Yakuza explains that this is the time left until dawn. He leaves them to their fate.

“Our first sunrise together,” says Eric. Pause. Opening song.

“Karma” – Episode six of season seven
Written & Directed by Angela Robinson

Look, an Apple product! Photo: John P. Johnson/HBO
Look, an Apple product! Photo: John P. Johnson/HBO
Back from the credits, we see Bill Compton typing away on his Macbook Air (first Apple sighting of the season!); he’s looking up a lawyer on the web. As he chats with the lawyer on his (not quite an iPhone) phone, Jessica comes in and hears him tell the lawyer he’s Hep V positive. She doesn’t confront him. Instead, Jess asks “Bill, are you ok?” He fakes that he’s fine, and rushes off to the lawyer’s office.

Bill shows up at the Kapneck Law Offices, along with a ton of other vampires, who must also be getting their affairs in order. The wait is five to seven hours, which will take them into daylight. The novel-reading secretary tells Bill to relax, Anubis Air is running taxis. Bill settles in for a long wait.

Bill sits in the Musack waiting room from hell and watches as the Hep V rushes across his forearms, much faster than it should. When he finally gets called into the lawyer’s office, he finds out that vampires cannot execute a last will and testament once they’ve died, i.e., became a vampire. The lawyer says he can adopt his progeny (Jessica) and then won’t need a will; his assets will pass to her. It will take five months to a year, though, unless he comes up with a ten million dollar bribe to get him to the front of the line. Bill tries to glamour her, fails, and then ends up stabbing her in the throat with a letter opener when she gets all high and mighty.

Commiserating over Bill Compton is a full-time job. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO
Commiserating over Bill Compton is a full-time job. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO

Jason Stackhouse sits in the car outside his house, afraid to go in and confront Violet, his vampire lover. She heard him and Jess going at it last episode (though he doesn’t know that), so she meets him at the door in full-on lingerie, with a living room full of candles. She gives him the soft-sell, telling him that she can change, be a softer, less dangerous woman. And, apparently, give him some great oral sex.

Jessica calls Jason, who really can’t talk about their tryst the night before, especially with Violet lying next to him in bed. Jess asks Jason to go get Sookie and bring her over to Bill’s house. Of course, Violet hears Jason on the phone and goes nuts, breaking mirrors and trashing the bedroom. She leaves him a note saying that they’re through, then stalks Adylin Bellefleur, who’s making out with Holli’s son, Wade in the treehouse that Terry and Andy made when they were kids. Violet tricks the hormonal duo into ditching their phones and following her to parts unknown.

Andy catches Adilyn and Wade getting it on and chases him out of the house, cursing and yelling. Holli is pissed that he’s yelling at her son, and gives him an earful. Andy and Holli are at odds, fighting over the kids having sex. Arlene jumps in and tells the two adults to chill out and realize that of course hormonal teenagers want to get it on, so the grown-ups will need to step in with love and encouragement, not yelling and accusation.

LaLa and Lettie Mae go on a Tara hunting trip. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO
LaLa and Lettie Mae go on a Tara hunting trip. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO

Lettie Mae is still looking for vampire blood so she can have visions of Tara. James, staying at Lafayette’s house, offers up his blood. Lafayette decides to trip with his auntie, just in case Tara is, in fact, trying to contact her mama from beyond the grave.

LaLa and Lettie Mae trip and see Tara up on a cross, speaking in tongues with a yellow snake writhing upon her. They take Tara down from the cross. Tara runs away from the pair for some reason. They follow, and then get distracted by some shiny light. Tara’s in a yard, with Tara digging several holes in the front yard of her old house. Reverend Daniels wakes them up from the trip, and then LaLa tells him that this is real. The Rev isn’t down with Lettie Mae doing the V, and sets her an ultimatum. She tells him she’s got to find out what Tara wants, so he leaves, the door slamming (lovingly) behind him.

Nicole is still pregnant with Sam’s child. She’s had enough of this crazy-ass town. She’s leaving and she wants Sam to go with her. Sam refuses. “This is my home, Nicole,” he says. “Bon Temps is the only place I’ve ever felt safe.”

Jason gets Sookie from her house and takes her to the Compton place, where Jessica is waiting to tell them that Bill is Hep V positive. Sookie flashes back to some blood splashing and Bill biting her neck, and asks Jason to take her to a clinic to get tested for the virus. Doesn’t Sookie own a car?

Sookie gets tested at the clinic and finds our that, yep, she’s infected. She’s the reason Bill is dying. Add his name to the list of dead people she’s spent time around. Jessica forgives her when Sookie admits to giving Bill the virus, proving once again that Jessica is the nicest character on the entire show. Sookie continues to be the one to whom things happen, rather than the one who makes things happen.

The Yakuza confront Eric and Pam. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO
The Yakuza confront Eric and Pam. Photo: John P. Johnson/ HBO

Meanwhile, back at the Yakunomo corporation, Pam cracks wise about dying in an office with wall to wall carpet. Katsuro Ryuchi, the North American president of the Yakunomo Corporation, shows up and exposits. The Yakunomo corp is looking to kill Sarah Newland, too, because of Sarah’s role in infecting the True Blood drink and bankrupting the corporation that makes it. Eric and Ryuchi come to an agreement: Eric can kill Sarah, while Ryuchi gets her dead body.

Sarah Newland is actually at her vampire sister’s house, now that their parents have been gunned down (by the Yakuza). Vampire Amber bites into the sister she hates, and then keels over, choking. She wakes up on the couch later, and refuses to let Sarah stay, since Sarah’s the one behind the invected True Blood. Sarah says she’s changed. “I’m a different person now. My name is Nunni, now,” she says.

Sarah thinks that she is a Boddisatva, able to cure the sick vampires. When she ran from the prison, she drank the antidote to Hep V. When Amber bit Sarah, she got the antidote in her blood, which is why Amber is healing.

Eric, Pam, and the Yakuza show up at Sarah’s sister’s house, and realize that Amber is cured. This is how they find out that Sarah is the key to healing all the Hep V vampires. Dammit, now they can’t just kill her.

Bill arrives home to find Sookie and Jessica commiserating. Time to face the music, Bill. You’re dying.

The camera pulls back and out of the Compton house, fade to black over the neo-Motown strains of “Karma,” by Lady.

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