True Blood Recap: “Let’s Boot and Rally”

by Sarabeth Pollock:

True Blood Recap: “Let’s Boot and Rally”
Original Air Date (HBO): Sunday July 8, 2012
Season 5 Episode 5

Hello Fang Nation!  Before we get started with this week’s recap, let me begin by telling you that I’ll be covering everything True Blood at the San Diego Comic Con next week.  It’s a short fifteen minute drive to the convention center from my house, but it seriously feels like I’m going away for a week even though I’ll be sleeping in my own bed each night.  Well, except for Friday night.  The entire True Blood cast will be at a panel on Saturday afternoon and I plan to camp out overnight to make sure I have a spot so I can bring all of the inside information to you, the readers.  I’ll also be tweeting about everything I see and will do a nightly summary that will be available at www.DarkMedia.com.  HBO is also sponsoring the blood drive and I plan to donate a pint while wearing last year’s blood bank shirt that confirms that “I was drained responsibly.”  Be sure to follow along for all of the True Blood Comic Con action!

Okay, back to the task at hand.  Tonight’s episode, “Let’s Boot and Rally,” was awesome.  It was nonstop action from the start, and it featured a motley crew of accidental allies teaming up to help each other.  A girl couldn’t ask for a better birthday present with such a great episode.  (Incidentally, I received a birthday Tweet from “Eric Northman” (@Eric_ofArea5) and it was kind of like meeting your favorite Disney character and getting an autograph when you’re seven, only I’m not seven but I was just as excited….)

We start off at Sookie’s house.  She and Alcide are getting hot and heavy on the couch, and he picks her up and carries her upstairs.  As she tries to get his shirt off, their height difference is so obvious that it’s comical.  Alcide kisses Sookie, telling her how long he has waited for this moment.  Sookie opens her mouth to reply…and promptly vomits all over his shoes.  “Alcide, you sure know how to treat a lady,” comes Eric’s sardonic voice from the doorway.  He and Bill are standing there, watching it all.  To clear up any confusion on the matter, Eric still owns Sookie’s house and so he can come and go as he pleases.  Sookie was able to banish vampires from her house at the end of Season 3, but she can’t do anything to control them now.

Lafayette gets back to his house in a panic.  He realizes that the demon almost killed Sookie and he wants it all to stop.  He’s sick of “the brujo shit” and curses the demon.  He offers prayers to the statues on his altar, telling any deities listening that he’s tired of all of the BS and the whole town is evil.  Suddenly he hears the statues taunting him, so he throws them on the ground and starts stomping on them.  Lafayette calls out to Jesus in desperation, asking for a sign.  He needs help, and Jesus is the only one who can help him.

Remember Terry’s trip to South Dakota?  Last week Patrick and Terry made it to Eller’s hidden underground lair, but then Eller showed up and boy was he pissed.  Now Patrick and Terry are tied to their chairs and Eller has a gun in their faces, and he wants to know if they were followed.  Terry knows this trip was a bad idea.

Jason awakens in his living room, only he’s dressed in a He-Man shirt (my inner seven year-old was thrilled to see that!) and his family is gathered at the kitchen table having breakfast.  Jason joins them, grinning at young Sookie, but then he notices that his father’s neck is bleeding from what looks to be a vampire bite.  He tries to point it out when he sees that his mother has the same puncture wounds on her neck.  His mother laughs and says that sex will make it better (a reference to his crisis of conscience from the past few episodes) and then he wakes up.  He’s naked and confused, but before he can spend too much time reflecting on his vision, his phone rings.  It’s Rosie at the station.  After she confirms the year for him (classic Jason question—I’m sure Rosie didn’t even bat an eye at it), Jason tells her he’s on his way.

The ringing phone wakens Arlene, who comes across an equally naked Andy sleeping on the couch.  She tells him to answer the phone before it wakes the baby, but Mikey wakes up so Arlene leaves while Andy takes the call.  He has been summoned as well.

Back at Sookie’s house, Bill and Eric are seated in her kitchen while Alcide fumes in the background.  She asks where they were and tells them she was concerned…but neither Bill nor Eric find this plausible given how she was carrying on with Alcide.  They ask Sookie to help them find Russell Edgington.  Alcide doesn’t want to be caught up in the mess, and he certainly doesn’t want his employee, Doug, to be involved either.  Sookie covers her face with her hands while they argue, and at first it sounds like she’s sobbing until she pulls her hands away and we see she’s laughing.  She’s still drunk, and she’s laughing because despite her intentions to keep Bill and Eric out of her life, they’re still there.  They’re still there, and there’s a three thousand-year-old vampire trying to kill her.  It must be Thursday, she laughs, standing up.  She pulls her coat on and tells the men to “boot ‘n rally.”

Tara walks through Fangtasia with her head held high, dressed in a shiny leather corset.  Pam watches her progeny with satisfaction.  Pam hands Tara an apron and tells her to take the first shift at the bar.  Fangtasia belongs to Pam and they’re short-staffed, so Tara must help her.  Tara flippantly asks if she’s Pam’s slave, which Pam confirms with a grin.  Tara shakes her head and mutters that after all of the changes in the world, nothing changes.  She goes to the bar and serves up her patented Tara ‘tude to the first customer who comes up.  She’s many things, she tells him, but sweet isn’t one of them.  When a young woman approaches, however, Tara pops her fangs and Pam is there in an instant.  She saved Tara’s life, she reminds her, as well as loaned her some kick-ass clothes.  Tara cannot do anything to endanger the bar, and that means not feeding on humans.

Sookie and the gang meet Alcide’s employee, Doug, at the garage.  His memory has been wiped out, but he was working the night that Russell disappeared.  Sookie goes into his memories and sees a woman digging Russell from the cement grave.  She is wearing a pendant with a spider on it.  Bill notes that the Authority chancellors wear pendants with spiders on them.  He challenges Eric, suggesting that Nora was the one who freed Russell.  Eric denies the possibility, but it’s clear that Bill isn’t ready to let the idea go.

In New Orleans, Nora is in her cell, arms raised as she offers prayers to Lilith.  Her cellmate, the one we met back in the first episode of the season, is taunting her about Drew’s death.  “Drew is goo,” he taunts.  Nora remains focused and she looks up to the camera, telling those watching that the warriors of Lilith are coming.  The UV lights come on and both vampires scream in agony, but Nora continues to pray.  In another room, Dieter and Salome talk about Bill and Eric.  Dieter is able to list every stop they have made and what they have done on their way from New Orleans to Shreveport.  Salome is losing patience and she commands that they finish their job or they’ll face the True Death.  She finds Roman contemplating the vial that holds Lilith’s blood.  He talks about what a great man Drew was, and how he helped Roman draft the Vampire Rights bill.  How did he lose his way?  Roman gestures to the vial, saying that some vampires actually believe that it contains Lilith’s blood and they believe in all of the ceremony that goes into the rituals that Roman performs.  (As he was talking, I couldn’t help but notice that Salome was wearing the same pendant as Nora; we know that all Authority members wear them, but what if it was Salome that resurrected Russell?  Just saying….)  Salome points out that the Sanguinistas are closing in (“No shit,” Roman replies.  Classic), and she suggests that Roman throw them a bone by offering them a message, but a closely controlled message.  Hmm.

Back in South Dakota, Patrick confirms what seems to be the obvious, that Eller is clearly the firebug.  But Eller has a different idea.  He’s searching for redemption and forgiveness, he explains, pointing the gun at Terry’s head.  He tells his prisoners that he had been staying with their now-dead buddy when his house burned down.  He’d been on the couch when the fire started, and the fire started moving after Kessler and his wife as the fled.  The fire was like a living creature, moving after them until it caught and killed them.  Eller went to the Internet as he sought answers, and there he found entries on the Ifrit, a fire monster.  Terry has a flashback to Iraq, right after they killed the villagers.  He’d found an old woman who was still alive, but the Sargent doesn’t want to help her.  He tells Terry to kill her.  Terry resists, and they argue, and when Terry points his gun at her again the old woman places a curse on the men.  Terry pulls the trigger.

Jason and Andy meet at the crime scene.  It’s the house of the two murdered shifters, Emory and Suzanne.  As Jason looks at them he sees the same puncture wounds on their necks.  Shaken, Jason tells Andy that the club they were at was full of fairies.  Neither man can recall exactly what had happened, but both woke up naked and fuzzy.  Andy doesn’t want the fact that he “fucked a fairy” to mess with his blossoming relationship with Holly, so he suggests that they both forget all about it.  Andy questions Sam, who explains that he found Emory and Suzanne on the porch, dead.  He tells Andy that they were also shifters, that they often met as a group to go running.  Andy takes it all in, but you can see that all of the supernatural talk is getting to him.

Jessica shows up at Fangtasia and goes to the bar to talk to Tara.  Tara asks if they can “trade makers,” which is funny if you consider how much Tara hated Bill in previous seasons.  Jessica offers sympathy to Tara if she was made into a vampire against her will, but she insists that “it gets better” even though it seems like no one understands what it’s like, especially given how much older Bill, Pam and Eric are.  Tara admits she’s out of friends, and Jessica offers to be her friend.  She sounds hopeful that they can be girlfriends…and before you know it the two are carrying on about vampire habits like two teenage humans would carry on about boys and sex.  Jessica says that things got easier when she let go of everything and admitted that instead of being “fucked up,” being a vampire could be awesome.  And the feelings they experience are just a part of what they are.  The two new friends start comparing notes about feeding on humans, and Jessica promises that feeding and fucking at the same time is more amazing than Tara can imagine.  They’re going to be young forever, Jessica proclaims, and the world is waiting for them.

Somewhere between the garage and their next destination, Sookie asks Alcide if they should talk about her puking on his shoes.  Before they can get far with the conversation, Alcide notes that he’s never driven this road before.  Sookie suddenly tells him to turn left.  Bill and Eric sit in the back of Alcide’s van and contemplate their situation.  Bill wants to know if Nora set them up—did she free Russell and then turn them into the Authority?  Eric points out that she tried to help them escape…but Bill points out that all she ever did was talk.  She’s still alive, after all.  Perhaps, he suggests, Nora is a traitor and liar just like her brother.  Eric becomes enraged, but the phone interrupts them.  It’s Molly, who is calling with the news that their iStakes have been activated (see, the little red light is glowing) and they have until dawn to find Russell or they will be killed.  She hopes it doesn’t come to that, but in case it does she offers “It’s been rad serving you.  Peace out.”  Rad.  First a He-Man shirt, and now a vampire says rad.  Awesome.

The van arrives at an abandoned asylum/hospital in the middle of nowhere.  Again I ask where all of these abandoned warehouses/asylums/hospitals come from.  But that’s another story.  Eric and Bill suggest that they split up to cover more ground.  Sookie steps up and insists that they all go together.  She can read Doug’s mind, which will make things go faster, and beside that she’s the only one who can protect the whole group—humans and vampires alike—with her “microwave fingers.”  Besides that, she has to pee and she has a headache, which means she won’t tolerate any arguing.  Amazingly/Ironically, there is no argument from the group on this.

Back at the crime scene, Andy finds wooden bullets embedded in the wall.  He asks Sam if wood bullets kill shifters, and Sam points out that wooden bullets will kill anything, including vampires.  After Sam leaves, Jason and Andy are left thinking about the evidence. Andy points to tire tracks and suggests that someone pulled up in a car, shot them, and then left the scene.  Jason thinks it’s royally messed up that all of these supernatural creatures have been around forever, committing murders and then making it look like it was other humans.  I think it’s interesting that Jason is back to the same frame of mind he was in when he joined the Fellowship of the Sun, and all it took for the reversal was Hadley’s revelation that vampires killed his parents.  Given Jessica’s attempts to develop a non-sexual relationship with Jason, it seems strange that he’s back on the anti-vampire bandwagon.

At the mysterious asylum, Alcide notes that he smells wolves.  That suggests that Russell is nearby, given his relationship with wolves.  Sookie is still focusing on Doug’s visions, but Doug is wigging out.  He’s babbling about all of the things he has never done before, like go to New York.  “New York smells like pee and the people are rude,” Eric deadpans.  Only Eric could deliver that line.  A severed hand and a pile of dead bodies being consumed by rats would suggest that they’re on the right track.

Tara steps out for a cigarette break and Hoyt walks by on his way to Fangtasia.  He’s back in his Goth attire—“the look,” as he calls it.  Tara says she never pegged him for a fang banger, and he says he never thought she’d be one to become a vampire.  “People change,” he points out.  Then he offers himself up to her.  Tara rejects his offer and tells him to go home to his mother.  Hoyt’s face is immediately crestfallen—isn’t his blood good enough?

In South Dakota, Terry is still trapped in his vision.  The team is burning the bodies of the dead villagers, and as he allows himself to remember that night, Terry realizes that he saw Ifrit too.  Eller assures them that his bunker is safely covered in flame-retardant materials, and Terry suggests that the Ifrit was waiting for them all to come together.  As Eller unties them, Patrick hits him with a shovel and praises Terry’s acting skills.  But Terry wasn’t acting.  Patrick joins Terry outside after tying Eller up, and Terry tries to tell him that he wasn’t acting.  He saw the Ifrit.  While Patrick dismisses him, the Ifrit materializes through the ventilation shaft and wraps Eller in its fiery embrace.

Lafayette awakens on his couch in time to see Jesus’s severed head trying to talk to him, only his mouth is sewn shut.  In another room, Lafayette’s mother wakes up and sees the head.  “Where have you been?” she asks Jesus.  When he mumbles a response, she nods sagely and tells him she will fetch Lafayette.

The situation in the asylum finally takes its toll on Doug, who takes off running.  He ends up in a room full of men who have been tied up.  One of the men begs to be released and says people disappear once they leave.  This explains the dead bodies in the hallway, and it also explains how Russell can make a recovery without having help—someone took care of his food supply before leaving him to his convalescence.  But who?

Sam hurries to Luna’s house to warn her about Emory and Suzanne.  Luna reluctantly lets him in, and though she’s distraught about their dead friends, she seems on edge.  Sam asks if she knew of anyone who would want to hurt Emory or Suzanne, but Luna doesn’t know anyone who would do such a thing.  Sam can see she’s upset and wants to know what he can do to be there for her.  He hears a noise, which Luna quickly dismisses as Emma tossing in her sleep.  She tells Sam that he should go, and he leaves.  As soon as he’s outside a group of men start yelling for shifters to die.  They fire a shot that hits Sam and knocks him to the ground.  Luna rushes out and takes two bullets, one squarely in the stomach.  Emma hears the noise, but before the men can shoot her she shifts into a wolf and runs away.  The truck takes off, leaving Sam and Luna bleeding to death on the lawn.

Roman starts talking about the traitors in their midst.  Vampires have come so far, and they are willing to share the world though they must atone for their sins.  The Sanguinista movement, he says, is taking all of their progress and sending it back to the beginning.  As he talks, we see Jason kneeling at his parent’s graves at the cemetery.  We see the Gang walking through the asylum, knowing that Russell is lurking ahead of them.  We see Jessica and Tara feeding on humans in the bathroom at Fangtasia…but when Hoyt makes a noise and Jessica realizes that he’s there, she attacks Tara.  Roman finishes his soliloquy by saying that they must cleanse themselves of the traitors.

Speaking of which, the Gang at the asylum finally come upon Russell Edgington in his hospital bed.  Russell is looking much better than he did the last time we saw him.  It’s about time they got there, he laughs.  Eric’s fangs pop and he approaches the bed.  He greets his “old friend” and tells Russell that they’re there to finish what they started.  Russell smiles, full of his old charm, and he recalls something that Talbot used to say: “give it your best shot.”  Just as his message sinks in, something pops up behind the group and takes Alcide down.  But what was it?

What an episode!  I love seeing this new, updated version of the Scooby Gang working together.  I think we’re in for a twist when we finally learn who freed Russell Edgington.  And it’s great seeing Tara take advantage of her new power and abilities.  I hope she can continue to develop a relationship with Jessica, and I think it’s awesome that Jessica tells Tara that “it gets better.”  “It gets better” is the slogan of the True Blood cast’s public service announcements.  Did anyone wonder why Bill and Eric bought coffee and Nutter Butters at the convenience store?

So much to ponder.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts…and make sure to watch for all of the True Blood news from Comic Con!  Until next week, Fang Nation!

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DarkMedia contributor Sarabeth Pollock is an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan.  Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com.