Eric is finally acting like Eric again, meaning he’s out for blood. After discovering that the bullets used by the police on Tara emit UV light, he tracks down the governor Burrell for a little chat. He plays dress-up and gives his best human impression; watching an intimidating vampire force impersonate a bland, weak human is hilarious. It’s good to know that Eric can still be a source of fun on the show. His attempt to glamour Burrell is foiled by contact lenses that have been developed to avoid such an occasion, revealing that Burrell has more sinister intentions for the vampires.
In fact, Burrell plays the stereotypical villain and lays out plain that vampires have no rights and he will have no issues taking them down. He attempts to place Eric in some sort of camp but he flies away, because of course he would. After his muddled intentions from the premiere, seeing Burrell embrace his human fundamentalism roots him as yet another villain to watch out for this season. I just hope someone smacks those stupid glasses off his face by the end of it all.
Sam gets a few minutes of screen time again, meeting activist Nicole as she tries to convince him to “out” himself at Merlot’s. True Blood‘s civil/gay rights parallels have never been exactly subtle, and this plot line brings the issue to the forefront. Nicole wants all creatures to come out to the world in the hopes of ending their rivalries with humans, although she apparently hasn’t noticed that local feelings towards vamps and shifters is far from amiable. Her reaction time is impeccable as well, saying this all takes place the day after Luna shifted on television.
Once again, Alcide is given barely any time to develop either, showing up long enough to take Emma from Sam against her will. Seriously, when did Alcide become such a raging douchebag? We’re only two episodes in and I’m already waiting for someone to put some silver through his head.
So we’re officially a fifth of the way through the season (weird, right?), and the stories are becoming slightly more focused. Something needs to be done about Andy’s faerie babies, though, and some stories appear for a whopping five minutes before disappearing into the ether. Luckily, Eric and the Stackhouse clan both have enough interesting developments keeping their plots afloat, meaning that a majority of True Blood is still entertaining for diehard fans. Once we get a few of those side stories out of the way or wrapped up, the narrowed focus should help the season end on a high note.