True Blood 3x09

After their fierce bout of strangulation sex, Sookie and Bill take a relaxing shower together, with blood dripping from their naked bodies into the drain. Then it’s time to clean up the mess downstairs – including one dead werewolf. Later she gets a call from her cousin Hadley asking to meet at the aquarium in Monroe. Hadley admits that she told Queen Sophie-Ann that Sookie is a telepath, which is why Eric is so interested in her – and which is why Bill has been keeping a file on Sookie’s family. Crystal has convinced her boyfriend Felton that Jason kidnapped and raped her – just to avoid getting beat up again. But when Felton attacks Jason, she beats Felton over the head and ties him up. Later, at Merlotte’s her father Calvin comes barging in looking for her. Sam loses his temper and beats him to a pulp. Jesus and Lafayette have to rush him to the hospital, and Crystal joins them, despite Jason’s protest. Tara is left on the parking lot, shaken all over again from all the bad things happening around her. Suddenly Franklin appears out of nothing his usual psychopathic self. He’s still alive! But not for long, because Jason shoots him with a wooden bullet from his days at the Fellowship of the Sun.

Eric returns to Fangtasia, but finds the club raided by V-Feds. The whole spiel is a tad ridiculous, what with the storm troopers, the interrogation, the black jacket, and the webcams. With his hand forced by Nan Flanigan (the spokesperson for the American Vampire League, lobbyist for equal Vampire rights, and apparently a high-level bureaucrat in the Vampire “Authority”), Eric exposes King Russell’s quest for world domination, to subjugate the human race by employing werewolves. Eric also confesses that his family was killed by Russell’s wolves a thousand years ago in Sweden. Eric has been after Russell ever since, among the Aztecs, at the Sack of Constantinople, in the Wehrmacht. Meanwhile, Russell collects Talbot’s bloody remains in a glass urn – a disgusting sight. He looks on as Flanigan returns to deliver the Authority’s verdict. They will not persecute him or the king, but instead presume the investigation non-existent. They do expect Eric to eliminate Russell – without any official support. Then Flanigan drives off in her limousine, feeding on a naked woman (in spite of her public claim only to drink synthetic blood), while watching the news. Russell breaks into the studio, kills the anchor, and with the man’s bloody spine still in his hand, berates the human race for their spinelessness – proclaiming to the world his desire to feed on humans and their children.

Waking up from his subterranean sleep, Bill is surprised to enter the fairy glen around the bright-shining pool nearby a cemetery. He walks on the rose-petalled water and talks to Claudine. He ensures her Sookie is safe. She tells him he must have had so much of Sookie’s blood that he can visit their realm. We’re left at the point when Bill is about to tell her what her true nature is. But, of course, y’all know. It’s so nice seeing Lafayette and Jesus making sweet-talk. Fortunately, Jessica and Hoyt share a sweet moment, too. Then there’s Holly, the new waitress at Merlotte’s. (We’ll hear more about her next season.) She has a calming effect on Arlene who is distressed about the possibility that she’s pregnant from her diseased boyfriend, serial killer Rene. The many various minor plots do still distract from the main plot, though.