True Blood Season 8 Episode 3 Recap: You're No Good Lives Up to Its Billing

By Damon Martin – Editor/Lead Writer

(With all recaps spoilers lie ahead so be warned!)

Let me first start by saying that I understand every TV series in history has a few filler episodes. You know those episodes stuck throughout a season that just don’t seem to fit, or almost like a way to pass the time until the real stuff starts happening.

It does anger me, however, when shows that only feature 12 or 13 episodes per season seem to take a week off from a good episode. The Walking Dead was accused of this numerous times over the past couple of seasons (although personally I only felt one or two actually qualified as filler because zombies don’t have to die in massive herds every, single week). True Blood unfortunately has falling into the trap more and more ever since original showrunner Alan Ball left the show two seasons ago.

The job of the showrunner isn’t an easy one (which is why to bring this back to The Walking Dead, I’m worried that they are on showrunner No. 3 already). Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter has spoken about this often. Without a general to lead the ship effectively, the crew isn’t sure which way to steer.

True Blood is guilty of this quite a bit, and Sunday’s episode titled “You’re No Good” offered up very little in terms of compelling storytelling or moments to remember. Still we give our recap as best we can, even if there’s not that much to tell.

Billith Isn’t Exactly Prophetic Yet

It’s obvious that Bill Compton is much more than Bill Compton these days. Ever since drinking the blood from the original vampire Lillith, he’s taken on more and more messiah qualities with each passing day. He can now snap, crackle and pop a human body to extract blood to feed himself, and he also apparently has telekinesis judging by his ability to stop a drink from falling off a table and putting it right back in its place.

Last week, Bill even discovered through a series of dreams that he can see the future. In that dream, Bill was walking hand in hand with Lillith in the daylight. So like any prophet would do, it was time for Bill to put his faith to the test—by taking a walk while the sun was rising.

The bright crest of the sun glistened over the treetops as Bill smiled as the heat met his face—and then he burst into flames. Luckily, Jessica was there to stamp out her fiery maker. Apparently wooden stakes are batting a big, fat zero against Billith, but the good old sun is still the reigning and defending champion against vampires.

Following time to heal, Bill decides to seek out the professor who is credited with creating the first ever synthetic blood, but after some serious insistence on helping he sends Jessica to curtail the good doctor instead. Bill decides to pay a visit to Sookie during this time, and proves that he no longer needs an invitation to walk into a human’s house.

He asks Sookie for her blood one more time—I’m assuming so the doctor can synthesize fairy blood so vampires can drink till they’re drunk and walk in the light impervious to the sun for at least a little while. She politely declines before calling Bill an asshole, and tries chucking a couple of plates at him although he’s having none of that. Bill in turn tells Sookie that she is now dead to him, once and for all.

He turns and leaves in search of some other fairy blood….(stay tuned for this one)

Eric Makes an Acquaintance with the Governor’s Daughter

While that intro probably sounds like the tagline to a bad late night Cinemax flick, in reality Eric picks up this week right where he left off last episode in the bedroom of the Governor of Louisiana’s daughter’s room. Young Willa is enchanted by Eric (beyond the whole glamouring thing), and proclaims that she’s happy to give him information in exchange for her life.

She proceeds to tell Eric that her father has a camp where they are experimenting and learning more and more about vampires than they’ve ever known before. Eric decides to keep the girl alive, exiting Fangtasia one final time and holding up camp at Ginger’s house. You remember Ginger—the human biting post that’s worked at Fangtasia for the last few seasons who also shot Lafayette at one point? When Eric arrives, Ginger is quite excited thinking that she’s finally earned a roll in the hay with the former sheriff of her area. Unfortunately, horny Ginger soon finds the entire Fangtasia gang along with the Governor’s daughter in tow.

“Does this mean we’re not going to f—k?” asks Ginger (second best line of the episode).

There’s a rather boring and tedious scene between Eric and Willa while sleeping in his coffin, which should be protected from light, but because we need to see what’s going on it’s lit up like a Christmas tree in there. Nothing much comes out of it, thus why it’s a boring and tedious scene.

In the end, Ginger proves worthless as she answers Eric’s phone when the Governor is calling. Eric says it’s untraceable, but a few seconds later he realizes that his assumption is wrong so he and the Scooby gang have to high tail it out of there with the hostage in tow.

Sarah Newlin is Back, Ya’ll

One of the high points this episode (and trust me there weren’t many) was the reappearance of Sarah Newlin, the preacher’s wife who showed Jason Stackhouse how to properly take a bath once upon a time. She pops up in an interrogation room at the Governor’s secret compound where they just so happen to have her ex-hubby Steve under lock and key. She pokes and prods at him and reveals she’s now involved in politics where the real Lord’s work is done (sadly this is actually true in the American political system). Not much is revealed, but Sarah’s bubbly over the top blonde-ness was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dull episode.

The Wolfpack Goes Hunting

After outwitting two of Louisiana’s finest (using that term very lightly for any of the cops they’ve ever had on this show) looking for Luna’s daughter Emma, Alcide and his pack are out drinking together in a camp setting because that’s apparently what all werewolves do. The vampire unity squad shows up to confront them and see if they can get one of the wolves to transform on camera so they can use this as leverage to make them come out of the closet (so to speak). Needless to say this goes about as well as Justin Bieber being dropped into the pit at a Metallica concert.

The wolves freak out when they find out they are being recorded, and all shift, attack and kill the unity crew. Luckily, Sam was perched nearby as an owl and quickly swooped in to rescue Emma from the dog pound.

Andy Is Father Knows Best, the Fairies are Mounting (Kinda)

The best part of this week’s episode was the comic relief of Sheriff Andy Bellefleur, who is trying to figure out how exactly to raise four rapidly growing children. They are growing up so fast he hasn’t even named them yet, he just gave them numeric assignments (charming right?).

He decides to teach his lady love Holly how to shoot a gun to protect her children, when one of his daughters drops a light bomb down on their target practice. Andy erupts and yells at her, “hand lasers off!” (and there’s your line of the week).

Meanwhile back in fairyland, Niall is searching the hidden funhouse where the fairies from last season resided, but what he finds is a bloodbath. All of the fairies have been slaughtered by Warlow, but as he exits he runs into Ben Flynn (remember Ben for his random run in with Sookie in the debut). Ben realizing that he’s talking to the king of the fairies, bows and pledges his allegiance in the fight against Warlow. He heads back to Sookie’s house where Jason is struggling with a series of crippling headaches, so much so that’s he’s passing out in agonizing pain.

It’s then that Niall senses a presence outside and runs to attack, believing Warlow is hovering close by. No luck finding the age-old vampire, but Niall does discover Eric’s sister Nora lurking in the woods. She professes that she’s also looking for Warlow, but before he can question her further she escapes with great haste.

As for Andy, his night ends on patrol where he runs into his great, great, great, great grandfather (or however far back that relationship goes), Bill Compton, who is quietly strolling through the cemetery on his way home. Andy informs him that because of the curfew he has to ask Bill to get off the streets.

Just then Bill spots the stuffed animals in the back of Andy’s car, and smells a familiar scent. The scent of fairies is in the air, and he now knows where he can get the blood he needs to help his vampire family walk into the light.

So there you have it folks the latest recap for True Blood season 6, episode 3. What did you think? Good, bad, indifferent? Leave your comments below!