Right out of the gate, True Blood takes off running and shows viewers that they are in for a wild ride this summer! As the opening scene flashes quickly from one character to the next, we realize just how many storylines are in motion. We see Sookie running out of the French restaurant shouting for Bill; Sam looking at the piece of paper with his parents' names and last known location as he drives off in search of them; Jason stumbling into his house and freaking out over what he has just done; Tara crying over Eggs' dead body outside Merlotte's; Jessica dragging home the truck driver she bit; and, finally, Bill chained in his car by a gang of thugs. They are the "F*** You Crew," Coot (newcomer Grant Bowler) says, before flipping out a knife and stabbing him in the arm. After the opening credits, Sookie starts the search for Bill. She tries to file a missing person's report with the police, but they seem to think they have better things to do with their time. Kenya suggests that maybe Bill wasn't kidnapped at all but instead got angry at being rejected and ran off while Sookie was in the bathroom. Merci beaucoup for nothin', Kenya. Next Sookie goes to Fangtasia to accuse Eric. She finds him in a compromising position with Yvetta, the new dancer from Estonia (introduced in minisodes). He casually (and nakedly) walks over to Sookie. She thinks he took Bill, but he has been with Yvetta all night. "Doing this? For the last six hours?" You seem surprised," he responds. "Is Bill's stamina not up to snuff." Sookie's next suspect is Lorena, and Eric assures her that he will investigate the matter further because it's his duty as Sheriff to learn what happened to Bill, "even if I do want what is his." Sookie drops in on Jessica next to tell her to call if she sees Bill. Baby vamp has a problem of her own, though. She accidentally drained the trucker and now she doesn't know what to do with him. She pours some of her blood in his mouth and puts him down in her cubby hole in hopes that he will become a vampire. In between the lesson on mixing her TruBlood cocktail and where the recycling goes, maybe Bill should've taught her some of this stuff... Andy sits nervously in a booth at Merlotte's while he waits for Bud to take his statement. Terry comes over to comfort his cousin and remind him that he is still a good man. Suddenly, Tara blows up at Arlene for not caring what happened to Eggs. "I'm sorry you fell in love with a serial killer, but honestly, who here hasn't?" Tara looks like she might attack Arlene until Lafayette drags her home with a bottle of tequila. When Sookie has exhausted every option for the night, she walks in the door and still doesn't know about Eggs. Tara is crying and Lafayette explains about Eggs going at Andy with a knife and confessing to killing the women. Sookie looks dismayed and admits that Eggs came to her for help in remembering what he had done under Maryann's spell. Tara explodes again and starts beating on Sookie until Lafayette pulls her away and takes her back to his house. Meanwhile, back with those who really did capture Bill, the biker thugs have been drinking his blood to get high. As they speed down the road to who knows where, they're feeling pretty invincible, until Bill leans over and snaps the neck of the driver, sending the car rolling down a hill. Bill crawls out, weak and bloody from the ordeal. He stumbles off into the woods and calls out for Jessica, who is instantly jarred from sleep in her cubby hole. Andy sneaks into Jason's house for a secret chat (these two as buddies is possibly my favorite new thing on the show). He insists that Jason needs to pull himself together. If they don't stick to their stories, they'll both get thrown in jail for the rest of their lives: "I need to see a lot less conscience and a lot more cajones, and I need to see 'em pronto." They have to act normal, and for Jason, that means chasing women. He says he doesn't want to be the old Jason anymore, he's trying to be a new person. "When this thing blows over, you can go out and not get laid all you want to, but for right now you gotta be the Jason Stackhouse everybody knows." Eric, now clothed (much to the dismay of viewers), is yelling on the phone at someone who was supposed to retrieve Bill for him. "HOW COULD YOU FAIL ME?!" Now Eric has no idea where Bill is, and he is scared of what the Queen will do if she finds out that he has lost the only vampire who knows of their arrangement to sell V. Sam gets a knock at the door in his Arkansas motel room. It's Bill. He asks if he can take a shower. Then he suggests that Sam join him: "We're gonna have a nice time. I hear the water in Arkansas is…very hard." As they move in to kiss, a phone call wakes Sam up from his dream. A woman from the Magnolia, AR Chamber of Commerce tells him that she doesn't know where the Mickens have moved since their last eviction, but she knows the tire shop where their son works. Hoyt is working with Jason on the road crew, telling him about leaving his Mama's house after finding out that she was lying about how his Daddy died. Jason asks if he wasn't happier before he knew, but Hoyt says the truth has set him free. In a rare moment of thoughtfulness, Jason replies, "People are always trying to f*** up people's lives by tellin' lies about 'em. You wanna really f*** somebody's life up? Tell the truth about 'em. They ain't never gonna be the same." Hoyt subtly tries to get Jason to invite him to stay over, but it's like talking to a fence post: "Jason! Can I crash at your place for a little while or not?!" "Of course, man. It's kind of a nasty way to ask..." Lafayette knows that Tara can't be left alone, so he calls her mom over to his house to watch her so he can go to work. Lettie Mae brings her minister to come talk to Tara and explain that Maryann was just a devil woman trying to pull Tara down into the fires of Hell. Tara uses her mother's infatuation with Reverend Daniels to escape to the bathroom and lock herself in. At Merlotte's, Arlene smells the tiny amount of cinnamon that Lafayette put in the chili and realizes with a shock that she's pregnant again. Jason pulls Hoyt over to his table where he is flirting with a couple of pretty girls on their way to California for veterinary school. Jason charms them into coming back to his place for some fun. As he gets up to leave, he signals to Andy who, instead of grumbling with jealousy like he used to, gives a nod of approval: "Attaboy, Stackhouse." Unfortunately, Jason seems to have trouble...performing. Even when the girls start kissing each other, he keeps imagining bullet holes in their heads. Eric is sitting on his platform at Fangtasia watching Yvetta dance when he gets a couple of unexpected visitors: Queen Sophie-Anne (Evan Rachel Wood) and the Magister (Zeljko Ivanek). It's clear where the true power lies with this trio when the Magister assumes Eric's fur-covered throne and begins expressing his concerns about the amount of illegal dealing of vamp blood in Louisiana. "The blood is sacred. Wasting it on anything other than procreation is blasphemy." He suspects that a vampire is responsible. Eric shifts uncomfortably but accepts the task of finding out who's to blame. After the Magister leaves, the Queen rants, "Isn't moral anarchy kind of the point? I can't think of anything more depressing than living by the law forever." We learn that her motive for having Eric distribute V is no more complicated than that she needs a lot of money to pay off the IRS. He confesses that Bill has gone missing, but instead of seeing the danger in that, she says to let him rot, wherever he is. Pam drops by Sookie's house to give her the check for her services in Dallas. Suddenly, she shivers and says that Eric is calling her and she needs to check in. She then goes to Merlotte's with more V for Lafayette to sell by the next night. He explains that he'll never be able to get rid of it all so quickly, plus he has to take care of Tara. Pam quickly puts a stop to his explanation and pins him to the wall: "I don't know what it is about me that makes people think I want to hear their problems. Maybe I smile too much. Maybe I wear too much pink. But please remember, I can rip your throat out if I need to, and also know, that I am not a hooker. That was a long, long time ago." Jessica wakes up with the trucker, still dead and now smelling really bad, lying beside her. Sookie drops in again and asks if Bill has called her mentally like she saw happen with Pam. Jessica admits that it happened while she was sleeping, and Sookie makes her come for a drive and try to figure out the place where Bill had been. Jessica gets a feeling when they're close, and Sookie sees Bill's car crashed down the hill. Jessica pulls out the body of the driver and they notice a brand on the neck. They look up the symbol online and find that it has something to do with "Operation Werewolf." Bill climbs out of the ground at night and goes to the nearest house. The old lady who lives there says he looks hungry and invites him in. We know what's coming, and how badly Bill needs to heal, but it still seems cruel when he feeds on someone so helpless and kind. He doesn't forget his gentlemanly manners when speaking with the old woman and asking to use the phone to which she doesn't have one. In another demonstration that he is not cruel after feeding off the old woman, he glamors her into forgetting he was there and places a memory of the son that she longs to see coming to visit her and giving her a wad of money to which Bill places in her hand and then leaves. Outside, he can hear howling. He starts running through the woods and then becomes surrounded on all sides by a pack of wolves. "I should warn you...I've fed." His fangs come out, and thus the end of the episode. What an exciting beginning to the season! There is so much going on, but we are already so invested in these people's lives that it wasn't hard to follow. We still have many more new characters to meet. What were your impressions of the premiere? Favorite moments? That hiatus seemed to go on forever--it's hard to believe that we only have to wait a week for the next episode! (Photo credit: HBO Inc.) http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums
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