True Blood’s seventh and final season continues tonight with the third episode of the season: “Fire In The Hole.”
Death comes to us all, and that’s no empty promise with this series. Reverend Daniels calls it out: “Death is a dark and blinded motherf-cker, whether you see it coming or you don’t,” he tells Sam Merlotte.
This week’s episode is all about love. Sookie’s unequal love for Alcide, Pam’s love for Eric, Sam’s love for his lost fiancee and unborn child, Reverend Daniel’s love for Lettie May, and Andy’s love for his daughter Adilyn. All the characters act out of love and sometimes lust, but even the good guys are going to need more than blind faith in each other to survive.
Spoilers below, so consider yourself warned.
“Fire In The Hole”
Written by: Brian Buckner
Directed by: Lee Rose
Picking up right where episode two left off, “Fire In The Hole” gives us more plot points to consider than we may be ready for.
First off, we get a yoga class, with Sarah Newlin — the vamp-hating, bigoted young woman who used to be married to Reverend Steve Newlin until he became a vampire himself — in the front row, now calling herself “Numi.” The yoga guru drones on about becoming a new you, the you of now, not of yesterday. The two end up in bed together near the end of the episode, and it seems as if Sarah is a new woman. Her guru, however, is killed right outside the wine cellar as she hides within. There’s a new evil on True Blood, and it’s the Yakunomo corporation, the makers of the artificial blood that gives the show it’s name.
Pam finally confronts Eric in the Rhone Valley, where he’s letting himself die from a Hep-V infection.
It’s time for a flashback to 1986 France, the Rhone Valley. Now we know why Eric has ended up in the Rhone villa Pam tracked him to: Sylvie, a young human that Eric fell in love with back in the eighties. Eric loves Sylvie, but he also loves Pam. When confronted by suit-wearing, sword-wielding thugs from the Yakunomo corporation (the company that makes artificial blood), Eric must choose between the two women. He lets Pam live and watches Sylvie die of a sword wound.
This is part of why Eric is giving up – he’s loved and lost one too many times. Pam, in a last-ditch effort to get Eric to stay alive, tells him that hated Sarah Newland is still alive. His anger gets him out of his death-chair, and headed back into the world, set on vengeance.
Sookie loves Alcide, but not as much as he loves her. She tells Bill this as she sets herself as bait in a field somewhere outside of town. Bill still loves Sookie, but it’s more like a friendship now. He’s ready to follow along after the Hep-V vampires take her away to feed on her, so he waits up in a tree. Bill flashes back to his 1862 family, and getting family portraits done before he headed off to the war. Sookie cuts herself to make the smell of fairy blood even stronger.
Andy, Jessica, Jason and Violet head out to search for the vigilantes, finally catching up to them on a road out in the sticks. The angry mob conveniently assembles in front of the lawmen. Hoyt’s mom confronts Jessica, saying that the young red-haired vampire ripped Hoyt’s heart out like it didn’t even matter. The angry old lady shoots Jessica to underline her point, hits Jess in the shoulder, and then has her own heart ripped out by an angry Violet. Cut to heart splatting on the ground. The whole mob runs away in terror, forgetting that they each have a gun filled with wooden bullets.
Lafayette and Jessica’s boyfriend James get to have their own discussion about forgetting the past and ignoring the future. Lala takes one for the team, swallowing a bunch of pills so James can suck it out of a vein. What a peach, that Lafayette. The gay cross dresser and the non-violent vampire get wasted together to a classic soul soundtrack. When their trip ends, James thinks Lala has overdosed, but the man is a professional. Lafayette don’t OD, but he thinks James may be sweet on him, even though the vampire is dating Jessica. Love is complicated, folks.
The reverend offers Willa his blood, knowing she’s hungry. As she feeds, he tells the story about his own love past: estranged from his first wife after the death of their daughter, and how Lettie Mae, holding a bottle of Captain Morgan on the steps of the church, was the first person he met in Bon Temps. He tells Willa that Lettie Mae, a decent woman with addiction issues, will always see the vampire as a bottle of booze, so Willa must move along.
The episode finishes up with Sookie and Bill getting attacked by the infected vampires, only to be saved by Alcide, Sam, and the two lawmen, Jason and Andy. Just as the werewolf is yelling at Bill for letting Sookie hatch this stupid plan, Alcide is shot by a sniper from the bushes. He’s dead, and Sookie refuses to let Jessica turn him. “I’ve been down that road before,” she says, referring to poor, dead Tara. Also, he’s a werewolf, so who knows how that’d turn out.
Everyone loves each other in Bon Temps. All they need is a little faith, to live in the here and now. It’s almost like the writers are asking the same thing of the viewers. Trust us, they seem to say, forget the past, and get ready for a wild ride, punctuated with a lot of love.
Body Count: Vampire Matt, Maxine Fortenberry, Alcide Herveaux, several infected vamps.
