Loaded Couch Potatoes

“Timebomb,” the latest episode of True Blood, once again features approximately 100% of your recommended daily dose of Jason Stackhouse-related humor.

My first question about that is: How can I possibly have been ign’ant enough to think Jason might have actually been killed?  The answer: I don’t know anything about guns or paintball.  If I did, I assume I would probably have been immediately cognizant of the fact that Sarah was obviously wielding a paintball gun, and that the worst Jason might suffer was a nasty ball-whackin’.  Which, this week, he did.  I laughed out loud when Sarah told Jason he was worse than Judas, and Jason innocently and with no sarcasm replied, “Why?  What’d he do to you?”  Ah, the glory.

Jason gets more good moments throughout, including: clueing Steve in that he’s explored Mrs. Newlin’s meat cave; posing as a Rambo-esque vampire hunter; not quite knowing how to take Godric’s benevolence toward him; and being threatened by Eric with severe reprisals if he should fall off the v-wagon.  Ryan Kwanten is customarily brilliant in all of these scenes.

Speaking of Eric, and of customary brilliance, Alexander Skarsgård is also pretty awesome in a number of scenes, not the least of which is that threatening of Jason; it’s clear that he’s basically just kinda fucking with poor Jason, and that makes me chuckle.  Skarsgård also gets some big laughs during a scene in which he pretends to be human, adopting a whiny redneck accent.

Most of all, Skarsgård shines during his scenes with Godric.  It can’t be easy to play imperiousness and subservience at the same time, but Skarsgård pulls it off.  It makes sense for the character, too, since it’s obvious that Eric draws great strength from his fealty to Godric.  However, this does beg a question: If Eric is that subservient to Godric, why is he in Louisiana instead of by his master’s side?

Until I get an answer, I’m not going to worry about it too much, and to whatever extent my brain needs to fill in that blank, it’s going to do so by assuming that Godric has sent Eric to Lousiana so that he has someone he can trust in that state.  Godric certainly does seem to be a fellow with a plan.  He comes off here as a sort of vampire Gandhi, which, frankly, is a fascinating idea.  Godric consistently seems to be trying to build bridges between vampires and humans.  He tells Lorena that she “is still a savage, and I fear for all of us — humans and vampires — if this behavior persists.”

It is at this point in time, of course, that another savage shows up, strapped with a silver-protected bomb, and blows up the whole house.  Well, who knows, maybe this week, they did kill Jason, and Sookie and Bill and Eric and Stan and Godric and whoever else was in the vicinity.  That’d be pretty wild; you’d never see it coming, that’s for sure.

Elsewhere in the episode, we see Sam and Tara suffering thanks to their elationships with Maryann.  She has dumped Daphne’s body in the freezer at Merlotte’s, and framed Sam for the murder; as for Tara, she’s cooked Daphne’s heart into a big old nasty meat pie and served it up to Tara and Eggs, who choke it right on down without a hitch and then promptly begin slapping the shit out of each other as foreplay.

There are also a nice couple of scenes between Jessica and Hoyt.  Hmm … how to put this …  Well, you see, as it turns out, thanks to vampire regeneration abilities, Jessica regrows her hymen after every time Hoyt pops it.  Now, I guess from Hoyt’s point of view, it’d be kinda cool for your girlfriend to remain forever a virgin, but Jessica doesn’t seem to be too pleased at all, and I can’t say I blame her.  This particular relationship continues to be one of the best things about the show.

Continuing to be one of the worst things about the show?  Bill.  Sorry, ladies who are fans of Bill, but this guy is a bit of a stick in the mud.  Which, I guess, makes me Team Eric.  So sue me.  The fact is, Stephen Moyer is just not all that great an actor; he seems to be especially bad at indignance, and Bill spends a LOT of time being indignant.  I don’t dread seeing him, or anything like that, but I don’t think he adds a great deal to the show.

I’m also not yet entirely sold on Allan Hyde, who plays Godric.  I definitely like the character, and he’s been quite effectively used so far, but I haven’t made up my mind yet as to whether that’s entirely due to quality writing/directing or not.  If so, then I fear Hyde may turn out to be another stick in the mud.  But really, I haven’t seen enough yet to make a call on that one way or another.

Other notable moments:

*     Gabe’s line to Godric immediately before having his neck snapped: “Godric, it’s me.”  Okay, now what does that mean?  Godric spends the rest of the episode going out of his way not to kill people, and it seems out of character for Gabe to appeal to Godric by playing up their relationship as (supposed) captor and captive … so what exactly is going on here?  I have a feeling there’s more to this business than meets the eye.

*     Here’s a great exchange between Sookie and Eric.  S: “[Godric's] your maker, isn’t he?”  E: “Don’t use words you don’t understand.”  S: “You have a lot of love for him.”  E: (pauses for a moment, then says “Don’t use words I don’t understand.”  There is more chemistry by far between Sookie and Eric than there is between Sookie and Bill.  Can I start some sort of petition for Skarsgård to be cast as Captain America?  Marvel missed the boat already on casting him as Thor, but they might yet be able to compensate for it.

*     Lorena starts to feed on Barry, but then stops and asks, “What are you?”  So, what is Barry?  I assume readers of the novels already know this, and I assume it’ll come back into play in the series, so for now, I’m not too concerned.

*     Mostly-nekkid Hoyt to Bill, who has discovered him doing some spelunking with Jessica: “I don’t know what you heard, but those were screams of pleasure,” he says, almost confidently.  Ah, Hoyt.

*     Lorena’s confrontation with Sookie is sorta like something you’d see on General Hospital, only with more interventions from vampires over 2000 years old.  A terrible scene, but in a delicious sort of way.

*     Lafayette was horribly underutilized in this scene.  Why do I suddenly get the feeling that his storyline from the earlier part of the season was some sort of setup for season three?