True Blood: Scratches

"It's always a pleasure doing business with you, Dr. Ludwig."

"Fuck off!"

We begin, after last week's unpleasantness, with a blazing row between Sookie and Bill leading to her running off into the woods... and being attacked and nearly killed by some mysterious creature that's clearly going to loom large this season. She can only be saved by the intervention of Eric; Sookie and Bill now owe him an awful lot, much to Bill's annoyance.

Eric, incidentally, is more than 1,000 years old, and therefore a Viking. He's Swedish, mind, so he can't be in America because of Vinland... what's his background, I wonder?

Maryann, meanwhile, continues to disturb- Sam warns Tara against her, and Karl seems simply to be a slave. She and all around her seem to smoke an awful lot of weed, too. 

Jason is still being steadily indoctrinated by this Fellowship of the Sun cult in spite of his doubts; he's so easy to manipulate, especially by the flirty and attractive Sarah. She also seems more intelligent than her husband; is it she, rather than Steve, who is in charge? 

Behind all this... the Fellowship may be evangelical fanatics full of all sorts of bigotries but, while there are exceptions, the evidence we've seen so far indicates that most vampires are indeed evil. Yes, that's in spite of Bill's big speech about everyone, human and vampire, having agency. Vampires are still, on average, evil.

Sookie and Bill are off to Dallas for Eric, in return for Lafayette's freedom; this is intriguing, and no doubt will show us much more vampire lore in due course. Who is this mysterious, missing Godric?

Jessica and Hoyt getting together is, of course, the sweetest thing ever, and I hope the start of something beautiful. Less nice is Tara's situation with Maryann and her tribe; she's beginning to notice, and be disgusted by, what look to be Bacchanalian excesses.

Meanwhile, Sam and Daphne seem to be getting on well during a midnight swim... but those scratches look awfully like Sookie's. Curiouser and curiouser.

This is already an extraordinarily complex and compelling season, full of contrasts and questions. I suspect, behind it, there are themes; it's going to be a fascinating ride.