True Blood: You Smell Like Dinner

Posted by: Andrew Burns  •  July 5, 2011 @ 2:46pm

Filed under: Recaps & Reviews

The once quiet small Louisiana town of Bon Temps use to be a simple place. Nothing too complicated. Mostly just a dozen or so of some plain old fashion vampires with maybe a telepath for a waitress and shifter for a bartender. Now a days Bon Temps' population has gotten much more diverse, more supernatural. The town has gone from werewolves to werepanthers, from deities to skinwalkers, and from brujo to witches. This may sound like Christmas for Sam and Dean Winchester but rather is just True Blood's natural supernatural progression.

In "You Smell Like Dinner" Sookie is not happy about Eric being the new owner of her house, even less when she finds the cubby he built into the living room armoire. The episode reiterates Hoyt and Jessica's honeymoon phase seeming to be over after last episode as she struggles between her animal instinct and home-life domestication. Bill gets an 80's flashback explaining his path to becoming King of Louisiana. Sam's midnight sharing circle member Luna hints at adding to the True Blood ever expanding supernatural mythology. But most importantly Bon Temps' new coven of necromancers has their first encounter with a vampire.

This episode seems to pick up most of the missing pieces from last week's premiere. It was kind weird seeing Sookie back in her Merlotte's uniform seeing how she hasn't worked a shift in over 2 years. That wasn't too much of a stretch given this show history but having Sookie almost running back to Bill after only one day back from fairy land was too soon for me. Tara didn't take long to come home to Bon Temp and get caught up in the latest craziness. Since Tara has only mentioned that she is a lesbian with girlfriend (Naomi) now to Lafayette & Jesus, as well as keeping her new girlfriend in the dark, its just a matter of time before Naomi comes to town and screws with Tara trying to live two lives. Can't quite decide what to make of the whole Jason, Crystal, and the werepanther (that's right, a supernatural panther only shifter) story-line. Ryan Kwanten is always great as Jason Stackhouse but just don't see how this story arc fits in with the rest of the show.

Now on to the best parts of the episode. I loved the whole 1982, London, flashback with Bill. Stephen Moyer as a punk rocken brit was spot on. A little eye liner, some Clash style spiked hair, and Moyer using his actual British accent may have been an odd choice for this season's first flashback but it worked out perfectly. It was a great way to show Bill and Nan's history to help give this season some context. Jessica Tuck's Nan Flanagan always seemed like nothing more than just a bitch to the other vampires whenever she popped up in the first couple of seasons but giving her some actual backstory is good; seeing how she is now a series regular. Also this new dynamic between Eric and Bill switching positions of authority now that Bill is King is absolutely priceless to watch. Eric is 1,000 years the elder to Bill, and could snap him like a twig, yet he acts like a snotty teenager and decides to just mock Bill's new higher ranked political status rather than fight it. Skarsgard's Eric makes this show and his switch to series regular as of the start of season 2 was one of the best move True Blood ever did.

Some of the other side stories are starting to look promising. From the sounds of things one of Sam's new shifter-share group members, Luna, might be more than just a shifter; being also part skinwalker. Having a hybrid shifter/skinwalker could go either way for the show. On one hand it could open up some possibilities (humans changing into other humans), but done too much it might start to look like an X-Men rip off. My theory is Luna is still in her mother's form and is conning everyone by not revealing her real appearance.

I was hoping for some more answers in this episode to fill in the missing blanks from last season. Like where is Alcide and the rest of his werewolf characters introduce in season 3? I am excited though for how this series' newest supernatural element is being done. Since vampires are technically considered the un-dead, and Marnie and her coven are practising necromancy, this enables almost endless possibilities for not only this season but the series as a whole. "You Smell Like Dinner" just gave audiences a small taste of things to come from this new conflict between witches and vampires, and its only going to get better.

This episode had some great quotes again, but the best one both in and out of the scene's context had to be from bitchy vampire Pam:

"Did I miss something? Are we girls now? Did we join a book club and read some queer Chiclet memoirs and now we are bonded together by estragon or sisterhood or some other feminist drivel?"

Tags: True Blood, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard, Sam Trammell, Rutina Wesley, Nelsan Ellis, Ryan Kwaten, Jessica Tuck, Supernatural

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Andrew Burns loves film and comics, and can be found writing about when those worlds converge. You can follow him on Twitter at @myAndrewBurns.

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