True Blood, Episode 5.09: "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"

Over the course of the past five years, the vast majority of True Blood's episodes have ended in absolutely bonkers cliffhangers... and virtually all of those cliffhangers have been resolved in the first 60 seconds of next week's episode. Now, granted, this approach isn't necessarily limited to True Blood - it's a cornerstone of many serialized shows.  But, rare is the cliffhanger that actually sticks to its guns and alters the course of the series (at least, for the next few episodes). With that in mind, you'll recall how last week's episode ended: with an unfathomably evil Bill Compton proposing that the Authority burns down the world's Tru Blood factories. It's the kind of grand-scale vampire anarchy that could make the show entertaining again... but would the show actually go through with it? I was skeptical, sure, but imagine my shock when the very first shot of this episode showed a Houston Tru Blood factory in flames. YES! THEY FRIGGIN' DID IT!

Most of the fallout from this move takes place in the Fangtasia portion of the episode, where Tara uses her newly-acquired vampire strength to stockpile boxes of Tru Blood. Pam's darn well going to make sure that she and Tara keep serving Tru Blood to its customers, in the hopes of preventing their clientele from drinking humans. And when the fake blood runs out? Well, Pam advises the private, discreet feeding of humans, to delay the chaos from spilling out into the real world, as the Authority wishes. But, Oprah and Gayle - I mean, Pam and Tara - are no match for an unexpected visitor: the supposed new Sheriff, who calls upon the bar's vampires to start feeding in public.  Now, it's a bit abrupt to introduce a new low-level antagonist at the end of the season's fourth-to-last episode... but certainly Pam and Tara will give him quite a fight in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, Eric continues to be our vampire of reason this season, as he confronts Bill about his diabolical plan. Bill doesn't fold, natch; he still appears to be convinced of Lilith's power following her appearance in the New Orleans feeding party. And so, when Eric reveals his plan to get Salome and Nora's blood in order to escape the Authority complex, it backfires tremendously: at episode's end, with the help of Authority techhead Molly, Eric zonks out Nora... but in comes Bill, who spilled the beans to Salome... and who ushers in a crap-ton of armed soldiers. Whoops! Hopefully, Bill's seeming defection will have one heck of a payoff in the next three episodes; while it's creating some interesting dynamics between Bill and Eric, this is the sort of personality change that can't be sustained for too long.

Speaking of sustaining, this week's episode is notable for the resolution of not one, but TWO subplots for this season. And overall, even though I appreciate the show's effort to clean up its over-crammed plate, the way in which it resolved these plots wasn't really that great.  For example, in last week's episode, it was already obvious that Patrick would be the one to die... which kind of diffused the tension in this week's hostage-situation-slash-faceoff in Merlotte's.  And no doubt that Terry will be even more messed up in the future, now that he's got the weight of Patrick's death on his hands.  But in the end, this was a trifle of a story that didn't really have too much of an impact on the season's master plot.

And as for the resolution of the Masked Obamas plot, it just seemed really, really abrupt... as if the True Blood writing staff realized, "Crap, we've gotta get this wrapped up ASAP!" So, they've invoked the sudden return of former Sheriff Bud Dearborne, who, with his wife Sweetie, has apparently masterminded all these attacks. Now, I don't mind seeing former True Blood characters back in action, but if this was the plan all along, I wish there had been a bit more of a legitimate build-up to it.  But, in any case, the climactic face-off in the hog farm was worth it just for Sam's reveal as one of the pigs, leading to a hilariously awkward naked fight scene between Sam and the bigots. (Speaking of which: I've gotta wonder how the heck Sam and Luna can turn into flies, of all things. Let me guess: next week, Sam becomes a phone book!)

Speaking of shape-shifters, Robert Patrick joined the show this week! Yes, the T-1000 showed up in flashback form this week as Alcide's father, to help liven up the otherwise boring werewolf portions of the episode.  We got to see Patrick welcome young Alcide and young Debbie into their first werewolf pack... and we even got a present-day father-son meeting at the end of the episode, as Alcide informs his daddy that he got booted out of the pack. Hopefully, we'll see more of Robert Patrick the next few weeks; if True Blood wastes him like they did Gary Cole in the fourth-season premiere, I will be furious!

At this point, we've got three hours left, and a fair amount of ground to cover... and yet, this week's episode has hinted that the season is actively working towards its endgame. Hopefully, next week will keep the momentum going... if so, this season might be able to salvage itself just yet.

Random notes:

• "I ain't Gmail for dead bitches!"
• This week in "Yes, that's a real site": HBO has put up a real www.keepamericahuman.com Web page, complete with the videos shown in the episode.
• It's rare that I make it almost all the way through an episode review without addressing Russell, and to be honest, there wasn't much to talk about this week. But I'd sure like to see a cute, yet bizarre family sitcom made up of Russell, Reverend Steve, and li'l werewolf Emma.
• Next week: "Bill launches a public relations campaign about the rise in vampire violence." That's, umm, exciting. Let's hope it plays a lot better than it reads. :-)