True Blood ‘Cold Grey Light of Dawn’ Recap

Previously on True Blood:

The players of Bon Temps ran around in the woods on the most magical night of the month. Antonia returns from the dead inside Marnie, Lala is officially her rival and Tommy skinwalked and totally fucked over Sam. Bill threw a hissy fit only fitting for a King then in all his guilt set his prisoners free and was left to brood alone once again. Jason and Jessica bonded over their mutual past of abuse and general teenage issues. Debbie convinced Alcide to join the pack, Pam attacked Tara, and Eric and Sookie got it on in the woods.

“The Cold Grey Light of Dawn”

I adored “Cold Grey Light”; I love the tension, the violence, sex, confusion, and the jarring juxtaposition of the occasional reality check. True Blood tends to reuse certain devices and I’m okay with that because it doesn’t feel overwrought, perhaps because it’s only that they’ve stayed true to their aim. We revisit themes of misunderstanding, fear of “the other” and the moral dilemma of when it’s okay to act, when is it war, and when is it self defense. I think I expected more action this week, but we did get quite a bit of forward movement in other ways.  I really have Tara’s too long sequences to blame for the lag in pacing, maybe a bit of Sam but he got a great little beat towards the middle which I’ll get to.

Fort Bill. Bill’s former fuckbuddy and SWAT agent Kate is slacking off playing Plants vs. Zombies on her ipad while on duty when she hears a commotion going down in the prisoner’s quarters and unfortunately encounters an empowered Marnie (now Antonia) and her new pet Luis. You know what we do with traitors…and that’s the end of her story. My, she was beautiful.

Antonia tasks Luis with delivering a message to his King:

“It is Antonia Gavilán de Logroño, and I have returned.”

With that a chill runs through the cold veins of vamps everywhere. This is the resurrection.

Pam. Picking up from one of our cliffhangers from last week Pam is attacking Tara and Naomi, unfortunately we don’t open to a bloody mess and Pam licking her lips. Instead the cage fighters try to take on the unholy force of a pissed of Vampire to no avail. Pam’s got Tara by the throat and Naomi runs.

Just about to put us…err Tara, out of her misery Pam realizes she’s being caught on camera. In today’s society there’s always someone around with a smartphone no matter how backwater a town you’re terrorizing in. She acted rashly and attacked the ladies right outside Merlottes. The crowd seems more stupid and excited than scared or concerned for Tara’s safety, shouting out curiosities and calling a Pam a zombie, girl must be so far beyond the end of her rope.

“Crap, now there’s zombies”
“I AM NOT A ZOMBIE”
“That’s exactly what a zombie would say”

Either way Pam backs off, but promises Tara that she will never, ever forget, and will return to finish the job. I wonder what happens when this footage gets back to King Bill.

Mexico. Lala is a medium and can control and commune with the dead, like Marnie (and possibly Baby Mikey). So he’s officially stuck in the role of the reluctant hero of this season.

The Pack. Creepy McAlphawolf is leading the pack is some kind of ritual sacrifice in which he smears blood on the foreheads of Alcide and Debbie as part of an initiation ritual. Oh Bon Temps, have we learned nothing from your past, anything involving ritual sacrifice never ends well in these parts (or any parts really). I’m pretty sure the freaky spirit of Maryann is haunting this episode, more on that later.

Alcide seems less than impressed to be included in the group howl and Debbie knows his mind is elsewhere, mainly with Sookie. She frowns, pouts, and then indulges him deciding that a few minutes isn’t too much to spare for a damsel so frequently in distress.

Alcide and Debbie do find Sook, possibly concerned by all the moaning they heard around the bend, they happen upon Sookie and Eric getting busy in the clearing, and watch for almost an uncomfortable length of time, but I guess that’s mostly for our benefit, and so there’s enough time for Alcide’s face to produce the right amount of not-so-veiled jealousy, and Debbie to notice.

I love how this scene of Alcide looking over Sookie with another man while he is so obviously in love with her cuts directly to Bill, who is in a much similar situation, with the good fortune I suppose, of just knowing it is happening without having to witness it himself.

King Bill’s Office. Luis comes to deliver Antonia’s message to his King armed with a gun loaded with silver bullets. Luis shoots and Bill grabs the stake, the two tango and end up with Bill on top with a stake positioned to hit Luis, this is where he delivers the message then pushes himself into the stake leaving Bill covered in Sheriff.

Jason is working out his V-infused lust by performing a whole lot of push-ups and generally being very good looking when he hears a knock on his door that seems to rattle the poor PTSD’d fella to his core.

Luckily (?) it’s Hoyt, he’s there to check on Jason since he was all raped by a gang of werepanthers and possible turned into one of them because that’s what friends are for. Jason is extremely uncomfortable being alone with Hoyt, it’s either the guilt over his forbidden time in the woods with Jess, or feeling weird about Hoyt’s starring role in that sex dream a couple episodes back. I’m guessing a cool combo of the two.

Anyway Hoyt’s more there for himself, he can feel Jess drifting away:

“I can’t lose her, it’ll kill me if I lose her”

Daddy Bill & Lil’ Jess.  Now that Jessica has arrived in the protection of the Kings Castle, Bill takes the time to hand out some of the same exposition, just the important bits about who Antonia is, how she was abused by the Vampires in the church, and the revenge she plans to seek on not just Bill, but all vampires, she wants them all to “meet the sun”.

Bill instructs the Sheriffs to evacuate their areas, any remaining vamps, Sheriffs, Bill, and Jessica included must silver themselves into their coffins to prevent the power of the necromancer from pulling them into the daylight, preparing for the resurrection.

Cold grey silver in the light of dawn is their only hope to survive the day against the necromancer.

Sookie & Eric. Are still going at it as they tumble back into their home for an extended HBO special Eric & Sookie tender loving sex montage.

Pillow talk reveals that they were so swept up by that magical moonlit frenzy that they actually forgot their clothes in the woods, it’s like there was a spell on them or something…Maryann? Are you there?

They revisit the evil!Eric memory issue. Sookie says she wants him to regain his memory, but can’t promise that she’ll still want him then, knowing everything that man was capable of, and everything he did to her & her loved ones. New cuddly Eric doesn’t want it back, he wants this precious moment to last forever, we all know playing house can’t last, it’s just a matter of time ‘till it all falls apart.

Fangtasia Nightspa. Pam is undergoing a cosmetic treatment that will stop her outer rotting and make her beautiful again. It seems to consist of a peel, several shots of botox and even more colourful strings of curses screamed aloud to the jaded nurse administrating this whole affair.

I’m thrilled, as exciting as a rotting disgusting Pam can be, it’s hardly fair to anyone hiding Kristen Bauer under all that make-up and beekeeping get-ups.

The Hospital. Tommy is alive, apparently having suffered from severe food poisoning … I guess that boring bit of exposition Luna delivered a few weeks ago is important now, perhaps I should have been paying better attention. Anyway, he’s alive and Sam is glad, let’s see how long this lasts.

Eric/Sookie’s. Bill arrives to deliver the news of the resurrection to Eric, and the plan to save themselves. There is an absolutely perfect beat where Bill notices the living room chair knocked on its side then looks away because he’s thinking exactly what we know.

Eric, having scavenged a sexier set of duds than his little sleeveless hoodie and basketball shorts joins Sookie and Bill in the living room and they all have a sit-down and discuss what’s going down. Thank goodness for us all the writers trust us enough to cut the exposition this time around and go straight to the logistics of where Eric will spend the day, he refuses to go with Bill, justifiably, and Bill leaves a bag of silver chains, and Sookie in charge of keeping him down through the day.

Tara. I’m not saying the girl hasn’t been through hell and back, but even before then she complained that people were expecting her to be a crazy alcoholic just like her mom. I’m just saying it would seriously help her case if she stopped drinking all the time and ranting like a lunatic… as she walks down a rural highway chugging down a bottle of booze screaming at the bushes.

Because Tara is weak and terrible and susceptible to every kind of cult and addiction there is, Antonia approaches her on the roadside, feeding on all these things, her fear and hatred, reaching into her soul and projecting into her mind the rape and murder Antonia had faced so Tara could feel them too. Antonia convinces Tara to be her right-hand, rallying the troops to build the coven up for the war against the undead.

I dig what Antonia is doing, she’s fierce and scary and totally selling the whole thing, but in this scene I couldn’t help but think her accent had a bit of Dracula flare to it.

Now it begins, sunrise is not far off and the vamps are hunkering down for the night, it’s scary and exciting and it feels like something big is happening now. True Blood has managed to get the momentum going just right pulling a quick switch from a mystical night in the woods straight to the battle stations.

Fort Bill. The humans are putting the estate into lock-down mode, blacking out all the windows and other general preparations for the storm to come.

In the basement Bill gently places the silver over his baby as she winces, and cries in pain while lamenting her lost humanity, the set of silver jewelry passed down from her mother that she will never wear.

Fangtasia. I’m so sad for Pam all alone with only Ginger by her side. She’s strong and fantastic but she’s been missing Eric, her maker and her world. In this scene where ginger lifts a silver veil over Pam’s healing face in her Barbie pink coffin, she screams. I can feel her loneliness here, Ginger is barely a person, especially at a time like this.

Eric/Sookie. Sookie is laying the silver over Eric, length after length; he assumes he must be quite strong, “the strongest vampire I know”. She promises to stay be his side, as she lies next to him, watching him sizzle and smoke under the silver chains.

Mexico. Long story short, and Lafayette wonders why all the dramatics, why couldn’t they just tell him what’s what. He’s a very powerful medium able to channel and control the dead. He is the answer to Marnie.

Lala responds in the way that only he can: “Oh Hell”

Luna’s School. Sam pays Luna a visit at her place of employment only to be met by disgust. He figures he would have remembered sleeping with her and then it hits them both. They have a fantastic moment where they are each on the far edge of the screen facing out. The looks on their face change the moment they both realize what happened and they sit. It’s not so much a funny situation sleeping with your boyfriend’s skinwalking little brother, but this scene is just… funny.

Merlottes. Tara and the ragtag Moon Goddess crew are recruiting Holly. She is reluctant at first because she’s half a reasonable person until Tara does her fear mongering thing and Holly remembers she’s a waitress at Merlottes and that means always making the dumb choices that dramatically increase the likelihood of murder or other supernatural attack, so she’s in.

Fort Bill. Jess reveals to Daddy Bill that she doesn’t love Hoyt the way he loves her, she says it’s because she’s lost her human heart. Bill, whose heart is breaking more and more as the moments pass, corrects her. Just because she doesn’t love Hoyt it doesn’t mean she can’t love it all.

Jess understands they need to kill Antonia before she can do further harm to the vampires.

Bill talks about how Antonia’s anger is justified; Vampires abused their power, and convinced themselves that killing is their nature. He so full of self-hate that he forgets what he eats. He forgets that humans are food for vampires and they need food to survive.

“When we survive the day I’m going to eat that witch, starting with her face”

Sweet young Jessica, such a hot head, a kind heart and full of all kinds of exciting and fun vampire feelings.

Eric/Sookie. He sizzles in the basement, not wanting his memory to ever return. His words are so close to hilariously cheesy but so sweet and nearly poetic. His delicious old timey Viking nature seems to have taken over in his time of amnesia and cuddliness.

He doesn’t like Sookie seeing him in this state, and she confesses that she’s seen him silvered before. He had sacrificed himself to save her and Godric. He hardly understands how she still didn’t love him after that, but he’s missing the picture of everything else he did, but for now it’s okay.

Merlottes. Arlene teases Holly about her date with Andy, a date that Holly had all but forgotten about. She figures why the hell not, primps her hair and her boobs and heads out to meet him. Andy showed up in a suit and with flowers, but also totally strung out on V itching for his next hit. Needless to say that was a bust.

In the kitchen Jesus and Lala must have used some of that witchy magic because they managed to get back home and to work mighty quick. The woman Mikey saw last week appears again in the kitchen, but this time Lafayette can see her too. She sings to Mikey in French, trying to reach him it seems until Lafayette slams down the spatula.

Alcide’s Abode. Debbie and Alcide go at it for a while until he realizes something is wrong. Debbie has been thinking that Alcide is still in love with Sookie, and she’s right. Alcide denies it and promises that Debbie is the only woman he loves. Lies!

Moon Goddess.  Antonia speechifies to her mostly confused coven made of up Marnie’s small time witches and the friends they could drag along. They are there to purge the world of the evils of Vampires, save the innocent from their violent ways. Anyone not prepared to commit can leave now.

“Vampires are not immortal; they are just harder to kill”

Merlotte Bros. Sam is furious with Tommy, this is where we recall his serious anger issues as he refuses to let Tommy explain. After nearly chocking him to death he tells Tommy to get lost. So… we’re doing this again.

Moon Goddess. The coven has formed their circle and begun to chant. Antonia levitates in the middle, conjuring all the power she can muster. Winds begin to blow. That’s how we know the witchcraft is working.

Sookie’s. Jason shows up looking all hot in uniform to check on his sister. Sookie, covered in Eric’s blood is frantic, she manages to explain the situation, how she can’t leave Eric alone in a time like this, he won’t make it.

Jason, who isn’t famous for putting two and two together even when it’s right in front of his nose, gets this one. Hoyt told him that Jess was at Bill’s but he knows that she needs him; they share more than that blood connection now, since their meeting in the woods. He turns and runs towards her as fast as he can. Jason always wants to do well; he’s dumb but never selfish. She came to his rescue and he wants to be there for her. It’s not even a thought for him, it’s a gut reaction.

Fangtasia. Pam’s screams emanate from her perfect pink coffin as the winds sweep through Fangtasia’s dungeon. Ginger knows she needs to protect Pam, frightened she lays on top of the coffin, as if to comfort and protect through the silver and wood.

Bon Temps. A woman compelled by Antonia’s spell wanders out into her front yard in housecoat and curlers devoured by the sun as her neighbour watches watering her hedges.

King Bill’s Fort. Remember when Bill couldn’t bear to watch his baby girl in pain, and he lessened the amount of silver on top of her. Well here is something to add to his ever growing burden of guilt. Baby Jess escapes from her chains, and manages to get the attention of a SWAT man while burning her hand on the silver bars keeping them in a cage. She steals the key and walks away, compelled.

“As your maker I command you” We almost think he’ll beg her to stay put… “Unchain me”. Even King Bill is weakened by the spell. He can’t stop her as she ascends the stairs, closer to the light.

As Jason is running across town terrified, he can sense her danger; Jess is getting closer, fighting against the tides of the wind up from the basement and towards the front door. A SWAT guy tackles Jason in the front yard just as Jessica finds the lock and opens the double doors and meets the day.

Our poor sweet Jess, we should have seen this coming. As much as I admire True Blood’s ability to kill off characters, Jessica is far too precious to lose. A brilliant character that has grown so much, she is a unique perspective of vampires, the youngest we know, who hardly had a life before this, she wasn’t meant to be on the show past her first appearance but made such an impression then became so integral.

I don’t think that we’ll lose Jess, we’ve seen Bill survive worse. I cringe to think about how heavy her death would weigh on poor Jason’s conscious, and the guilt piling up for Bill. The show just might be cruel enough to do it, but I sincerely hope that they don’t. I don’t want a True Blood where pointless Tara runs free and Jessica is a pile of ashes. Do you think Jessica will pull through?

Also, how will Lafayette use his new understanding of his power to combat Antonia’s strong hold over the vampires and the Moonspell Coven?

After that we’re still left with figuring out how Mikey/Voodoo Lady/Creepy Doll, the werewolves, the panthers, and Luna all fit into this mess? Are we going the way of massive magical orgy again? I certainly hope not.

Next Week on True Blood: “Spellbound”. I’ll be on vacation so no recap but I’ll be posting a fun True Blood goodie.

Until then: Nick Lowe – Cold Grey light of Dawn