The problem is, Saint Alice appears to have already fallen to the Hep-V infected. Things like “FEMA Help Us,” “SOS,” and “Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen” are painted on the boarded up doors and windows of the various shops along the main street, and it doesn’t take long for our heroes to discover a mass grave filled with the rotting corpses of Saint Hellen’s citizens.
After some exploration, they find the woman’s house and search it for clues about the attacks. Sookie discovers a heartbreaking diary outlining the woman’s personal struggle after falling in love with a vampire, losing him to Hep-V, and dying beside her child. Jason uses his “pizza forensics” skills to deduce that the town fell only two and a half days ago. Apparently, the infected go from town to town, attacking night after night until all of the blood has been drained from their victims. Then, they set their sights on the next town, which in this case is Bon Temps.
I found the sequences in Saint Alice incredibly haunting and well paced, as these quickly became my favorite moments of the episode – serving as a great visual example of what could happen if Sookie and co. don’t find a way to stop the infected vampires before they and everyone they know is dead. I also really liked the car scene between Sookie and Alcide, where he tells her that all of the vampire craziness plaguing their lives isn’t her fault. The entire world fell in love with vampires, and her being part of that merely proves that she’s human. It was a really sweet, touching moment between the two of them, and something I think she really needed to hear.
Back in Bon Temps, those tasked with cleaning up Bellefleur’s to keep busy (and distracted) during the daylight hours form a mob and head to the police station to raid the armory. They don’t feel safe now that Sheriff Andy is out of town and Mayor Sam Merlot is outed as a “Dog Bear.” I like that the Hep-V vampires aren’t the only threat this season, and that Bon Temps is tearing itself apart from the inside out as well. Andy and Sam have the town’s best intentions in mind, but their pasts are apparently coming back to haunt them, and laying seeds of doubt in the minds of those they are sworn to protect.
Okay, so… Tara. She’s really dead then, right? I mean, Lettie seems like she really is seeing visions of her, though that could still wind up being nothing more than incredibly strong V hallucinations. I found her running to Lafayette for V a nice call back to the first season, and found their different struggles to come to terms with Tara’s death interesting. Lafayette said last week that he isn’t really grieving for her, as she already died once, but Lettie just can’t let her go. Now that she’s had a taste of her, she needs more. She needs her next fix.
The scene where she burned her hand on the cast iron skillet was hard to watch, and I mean that in the best possible way. I spill a little bit of coffee on my hand and I whine about it for the rest of the day. I can’t imagine the pain of what she did. She must really believe that she can communicate with Tara.
And communicate she does. Most of it is gibberish, of course, but she definitely saw something. Tara appears on a cross, draped in white and wearing a pretty big snake around her neck. What it all means is beyond me, but I’m excited to see where it goes.
The episode ends with Pam walking into a house and finding Eric, alive and well. Okay, not well, as he’s apparently been infected with Hepatitis V. I like that the episode is book-ended by Eric saying “You found me,” first to Jason and then to Pam. How did he survive his big sunbathing session from last season? How did he get infected? What happens now? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.
All in all, this was a big improvement over last week’s decent but not stellar premiere. I like how the show is setting the Hep-V vamps as a serious threat, and causing a bit of chaos within the human community of Bon Temps as well. The chilling walk through Saint Alice was a great touch, and the best cinematic achievement the show has offered in a while. Let’s hope that things continue at this pace on True Blood from here on out.