‘True Blood’ Recap ‘Almost Home’: Saved by the Blood

Eric finds the cure to Hep-V while Hoyt has to save the day when Jason and Jessica get into some serious trouble all in the latest True Blood recap…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

The latest and third to last episode of ‘True Blood’ wasted no time getting to the nitty gritty of what didn’t happen last week, although the entire hour wasn’t exactly a tour de force especially with the big ‘revelation’ about Tara’s spirit journey that much like her character over the last three or four seasons went nowhere. Still there were some big moments this week that will certainly play into the final two hours and the last story lines are starting to come together.

Without further ado let’s get right into it.

Saved By the Blood

No, this ‘True Blood’ recap didn’t suddenly become a revival ministry — although the kick off of the show did begin at Steve and Sarah Newlin’s religious vampire killing camp. With visions of Jason still dancing in her head, Sarah turns herself over to the hunting party before Eric nearly kills her. Thankfully, Pam threatened to kill herself if Eric went ahead and snapped Ms. Newlin’s pretty little neck so he refrained and instead took a big juicy bite out of her neck to see if she really did carry the life saving elixir pumping in her blood.

Sure enough, a few seconds later and the plum colored veins began to disappear and as Eric let out a howl into the night, it was clear that he’s been cured of the bad stuff that ailed him.

Back at Fangtasia with Sarah locked up in the basement, Mr. Gus Jr. reveals the true nature of his plan to mass produce ‘Nu-Blood’. Like virtually all pharmaceutical companies, Mr. Gus isn’t worried as much about handing out the cure as he is giving something to vampires that can help them live with the disease. He points out that Energizer could easily build a battery that would last forever, but once every person owns one, where is their profit? Like a drug dealer, the point is to give them a taste and keep them coming back for more and more. So Mr. Gus devices a strategy where they will take Sarah’s synthesized blood and muck it up, switch it and change it around just enough that it will stop the effects of Hep-V but not actually cure the disease. This entire plan will take about a year to put into action, but once it’s in effect oh lord how the money will start rolling in.

In his state of euphoria over having a second chance at life, Eric decides to share the good news with Sookie (because that’s always a good idea) and after discovering that he’s disease free, she shares the fact that Bill is sick and dying very quickly after getting a dose of Hep-V infused with her fairy blood. Fairy blood is very special to vampires because not only does it taste so good that Queen Sophie Anne once employed Bill to procure Sookie and eventually bring her to the queen so that she could be used to breed more fairies, but apparently it’s also like Red Bull for Hep-V because once the two meet, it runs lightning fast through a vampire’s body.

Despite Eric’s pleas to give him a day to figure out a way to save Bill, Sookie takes it upon herself to drive to Fangtasia to confront him and find out about this magical cure. Well she runs into Mr. Gus’ hit squad and after she’s brought inside, Eric has to cover for her by telling the Yakanomo Corporation that she’s a fang banger he banged once and now she just won’t go away. Instead of killing her, Eric offers to ‘glamour’ her so that she doesn’t go missing and her cop brother isn’t out searching for her within a couple of days. Sookie fakes being glamoured so she can escape but not before listening into Mr. Gus’ thoughts and hearing him reveal that the big secret is hidden down in the basement.

Sookie’s plans always go awry so stay tuned to see what happens with this latest one a little bit later in the episode.

The Perfect Ending to Tara’s Story

Ever since Tara died in episode one this season, there’s been an underlying story that she’s reaching out to Lettie May and eventually her cousin Lafayette through a series of spirit dreams where she’s been tied to a cross, wrapped up in an albino python and speaking in tongues. This all led to Tara pointing to the ground at the house where she grew up with Lettie May, and her mother and cousin decided to start digging to find whatever it was she left behind.

The efforts even ended up dragging in Reverend Daniels after Lettie May begs him to take a leap of faith with her to find out why Tara was seemingly stuck between this world and the next passing her messages. Well the result of the yard hunt was just about as pointless as Tara’s character ever since season three.

Years ago back when Lettie May was still a picture perfect mother (despite dozens of other flashbacks saying the exact opposite) she was trying to throw a birthday party for Tara and her friends complete with presents for the happy day. Unfortunately, her drunk daddy shows up and he demands to know where Lettie May got all the money to buy these presents and to make little Tara a cake. He slaps Lettie May around a little before demanding to know where his gun is at in the house.

Tara finds it in a sock drawer and in the middle of her dad tossing her mom around the house like a soccer ball, she aims the weapon directly at his head. Fright overcame her at the last second and she decided to forgo murdering her father and instead ran to the front yard where she buried the gun so he couldn’t find it. When the trio wakes up from the drug induced haze, Reverend Daniels has the gun in his hand after finding it in the ground and he apologizes for not believing Lettie May all this time.

Tara finally drops the Episcopalian routine and tells her mother she’s sorry she didn’t shoot her father that day. It seems in the after effects of daddy dearest leaving them, Lettie May starting drinking and became the worst mother since every parent ever on ’16 and Pregnant’. Tara tells her mother to go on living and then she fades into the mist.

Now, I’ve been really hard on Tara these past couple of seasons because the moment she got her head blown off with a shotgun, it seemed like the character had really run its course and the writers figured out a heroic way for her to leave the show while saving Sookie’s life. Instead she kept coming back and coming back like John Travolta’s hairline and each time it was just more frightening. Finally when she got staked to start the season, it seemed Tara’s run had come to an end. But no, wait she still has to pass along a super important spiritual message. And then she does and there was a gigantic thud when it was delivered.

‘True Blood’ spent the better part of seven years talking about how shitty Lettie May was as a mother and now all of a sudden she was throwing birthday parties and it was daddy’s fault all along? Sorry, this is just one of those do-overs that not only doesn’t make sense but really feels like a waste of time as so much of this season has done thus far.

Chamber of Secrets

Jason is still hanging out with Hoyt and his girlfriend Bridget as he packs up his mother’s house when he gets a slew of text messages and pictures from Violet showing that she’s kidnapped Jessica, Adilyn and Wade and if he wants to see any of them alive again, he better hightail it to Monroe and visit her house of horrors. In the middle of this, Bridget and Hoyt get into a pointless conversation about having kids or not having kids and she storms out and insists on going with Jason during his life saving mission.

Once Jason arrives, he hands a gun filled with wooden bullets over to Bridget to protect herself before heading inside to find Violet. Well, she finds him first and a few seconds later he’s tied up to one of House Bolton’s spare torture devices alongside the two kids and Jessica, stripped down to her bra and panties because why the hell not.

Violet’s plans are to kill all of them but not before a whole lot of torture like popping Wade’s head like a grape in a vice and ripping off Adilyn’s breasts with a device actually meant to tear off titties. Think Madame LaLaurie’s torture attic from ‘American Horror Story’ except all of Violet’s devices have some kind of sexual connotation attached to them.

Before she can get to plucking, pruning, twisting and torturing, a gun shot rings out and Violet melts into a big pile of good and the big hero of the day — Hoyt Fortenberry!

Hoyt showed up just in the nick of time, got the gun from Bridget and shot Violet before she could enact any of her horrible acts on the victims she captured. Andy and Holly show up to take Adilyn and Wade home, and Hoyt locks eyes with Jessica as the two former lovers reconnect for the first time since she glamoured out every memory he had of her before bolting town for Alaska a season ago. It doesn’t take long for sparks to fly and even Jason and Bridget can see there’s more to this than just a passing fancy.

Jason and Jessica part ways as ‘great friends’ before Hoyt shows up at her house with a bag full of his blood as a present to Vampire Bill (because him he does remember) and since he’s not Hep-V positive this would be a clean snack to feast on. Jessica makes eyes at Hoyt and he returns the favor.

This story ended up being one of my favorites of the entire season. I wasn’t sure if Hoyt coming back to town was just a great way to reintroduce that character before ‘True Blood’ came to an end, but instead they reconnected him to Jessica, the first and only real love of his life. In his time away from Bon Temps, Hoyt also grew up a lot and instead of seeming like the 14-year old boy trapped in a man’s body, he finally became a man. Now as he looks at Jessica he’s not the frightened teenager wondering if he should go under the bra or not — he’s got some confidence and swagger and Jessica is picking up on it as well. With only two episodes left, it would seem a perfect ending that these two end up back together after heaven and Earth moved at one point to keep them apart. Well done, True Blood, well done indeed.

If there was one rather pointless part of this entire scenario it’s the introduction of Bridge as she starts to make eyes with Jason. It appears Bon Temps favorite lothario can’t end the show without a dime piece on his arm and she’s the next candidate because there’s nobody else left in town for him to screw unless he’s going after Jane Boathouse and I’m just guessing that’s not going to happen. Some sick part of me kind of wants to see him end up with Sarah Newlin, but I doubt things will go in that direction.

Off the Sauce

Back at Fangtasia, Sookie’s plan goes into action as she takes Bill and Jessica through the secret tunnel to get to ‘the cure’ which is of course Sarah Newlin. Eric and Pam also arrive just in time to tell Bill to drink up so he can be cured before Mr. Gus’ people find out what’s going on. Bill’s ‘visions’ flash forward to a time where Sookie is sitting in a rocking chair with a baby in her arms, but when he gazes down upon the little bundle of joy there’s nothing there.

A not so subtle hint that so long as Bill is alive, Sookie will never move on from vampires to a creature that can actually give her a child. So after a moment of contemplation, Bill declines to drink from Sarah thus denying himself a cure for the rapidly spreading Hep-V. It appears Bill is ready to meet the true death because death is what vampires do best int his world.

A much stronger effort than last week although the entire Tara story was not only pointless but really just stupid and no payoff for the buildup for all the weeks this played out. Hoyt and Jessica finding their way back to each other was very sweet, and even Bill’s sacrifice was necessary if he really wants Sookie to move on without him. Only two more episodes to go ‘True Blood’ fans — how is it all going to end???