True Blood – Season 5 Episode 10 – Video Recap and Review – Gone, Gone, Gone

Coroner Mike tries to feed on Sookie (Anna Paquin) in the cold open of “Gone, Gone, Gone,” the antepenultimate episode of the fifth season of True Blood, having been turned in all the chaos enveloping the TruBlood crisis. Luckily, Sookie ordered Chinese takeout, and the chopsticks were more than handy enough to give the toe-sucking creeper the true death. Hell of a mess though. And he’s hardly the only vampire to meet the true death tonight.

Molly, the techie for the Authority, gets staked by her own auto-staking invention for her betrayal in aiding Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) last week. Eric, however, is kept alive, as Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Nora (Lucy Griffiths) have talked the other members of the Authority into giving them the opportunity to turn him to their cause. Their seduction of Eric starts forcefully enough, with prying his mouth open so that Bill can force a droplet of Lilith’s blood down his throat so that Eric might see a vision of her. It’s about as subtle a tactic as you’d find in Guantanamo Bay, and probably as effective, as it isn’t Lilith, but Godric who appears instead.

Eric confesses that he’s failed, that Nora is lost, while Nora insists that Godric abandoned her and that she is committed to Lilith now. Godric, for his part, declares that he’s done what his former progeny has failed to do – he’s evolved. At that moment, Lilith appears, embracing Godric from behind. As Eric implores Godric to fight her, Nora begs Lilith to spare her maker. But Godric simply declares that he is not the one who needs to fight her. And with that, Lilith rips Godric’s throat out, coating herself in his blood to the abject horror of Eric and Nora. It’s a powerful scene, though not anywhere near as powerful as Godric’s original death. But it goes a long way in establishing the formidable threat of Lilith, particularly since Godric is among the oldest, wisest, and most powerful vampires we’ve met on True Blood. Bill looks on via security cameras, not seeing the shared visions of Eric and Nora, but knowing, just the same, that he’s won Eric to their cause with Lilith’s evisceration of his maker.

Whether Eric has truly accepted Lilith into his heart, or if he’s simply playing the long con is yet to be seen. Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare), however, renounces Lilith outright when Salome shoots down his idea of synthesizing faerie blood in the same way the Japanese synthesized human blood. He reverts to his native accent, proclaiming that he’s 3000 years old and is capable of killing everyone in the room, vampire strength being relative to one’s age. Before leaving, Russell declares that he will have the sun, making it all the more likely that he will find himself a faerie on which to feed. It’s inconceivable that it won’t be Sookie. But more interesting is how Bill and Eric’s newfound ideology will conflict with their inherent love for her; no matter how much they try to deny it, there will always be a lingering affection for Sookie, and a need to keep her safe.

Those are the primary developments, though there was a lot going on in the periphery of “Gone, Gone, Gone.” The new sheriff of Area 5 orders that the Authority has decreed the need to reproduce to bump up the population. If Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) doesn’t comply, they will repossess Fangtasia…and her progeny. However, knowing Tara (Rutina Wesley), she isn’t likely to take orders, especially orders veiled as threats. And so Tara enacts her own plan, luring the new sheriff to Fangtasia and beheading him with a massive sword. I’ve never liked Tara, finding her whiny and completely overbearing in more instances than not, but this is the best the character has been since the first season, when she was her own independent person and not the constant victim of external forces. Tara is reclaiming her agency in what happens to her in this new life of hers (since it seemed she rarely had agency in her human life), and she is inspiring Pam to do the same. The Pam/Tara relationship has really been among the most interesting to see develop over this past season. Less interesting is the Sam/Luna plot, as the two sleuth their way into Authority headquarters by shifting into rats and hiding in Steve Newlin’s bag. They’ve found their way to Emma, but now there’s no way out. So I suppose we can now add Sam and Luna into the fray. All we need are Terry, Andy, Arlene and Lafayette, and we’ll have the whole cast involved in this vampire conflict. Which would actually be pretty great, since it’s been a while since we’ve seen the entirety of Bon Temps truly engaged in the outcome of a conflict on a given season of True Blood.

Credit: HBO

Meanwhile, Hoyt (Jim Parrack) is moving to Alaska to drill for oil, but he first asks Jason (Ryan Kwanten) and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) to meet with him at Merlotte’s. In probably the most nakedly moving scene this series has had in three years, Hoyt asks Jessica to glamor him into forgetting her. It doesn’t stop there, as he wants Jason gone from his memories too. Jessica is naturally devastated, but Hoyt is desperate at this point, and pleads with her to make his hurt go away. It’s a heartbreaking bit of business, as Jessica tells Hoyt he was her first love, and how she and Jason will miss him very much – though Hoyt won’t miss them. He won’t remember a thing. He’ll move to Alaska and meet a new girl, and she’ll be his first love, and his life will be free from the pain and worry of Bon Temps. Jessica asks Hoyt to close his eyes and count to ten as they leave; when Hoyt opens his eyes, Jessica and Jason are gone, and he suddenly has need of a burger and a beer. Of course, Jason doesn’t want to believe Hoyt is truly lost to him. In a last ditch effort to keep him in Bon Temps, Jason pulls Hoyt’s pickup over and tries to reminisce with him about their childhood. But Hoyt doesn’t appear to remember a thing about Jason, or the friendship they’d shared since children. This is too much for Jason to take, and breaks down in tears in Sookie’s arms.

Sookie hasn’t had the best week herself. Never mind the business with Mike at the top of “Gone, Gone, Gone,” she can’t seem to discover exactly what Gran’s spirit meant about telling her to “sleep on it” if she wants to find clues about her parents. Jason is the one who decides to move the bed and check under the floorboards, and it’s there that they find a scroll with strange, illegible glyphs. A college professor and published author tells them that these writings aren’t human, giving Sookie and Jason the idea to take the writings to faerie world. A 500 year-old faerie named Mirella decodes the glyphs and reveals that a Stackhouse ancestor made a binding pact with a vampire named Warlow to surrender his first female heir of faerie birth. Which would happen to be Sookie. Now we begin our wait to see if Warlow is someone we know, or if he/she is a new vampire who will appear to claim what is owed. Either way, it’s not exactly going to be good for Sookie, what with her impossibly addictive faerie blood.

With two episodes left, there’s still a lot of ground to cover, and it will be interesting to see how True Blood pulls it off. I can only imagine Warlow will be a villain for next season, as we have Russell to deal with, to say nothing of the obtuseness of the faeries and their motivations. If not a great close, we’re at least ramping up for a pretty explosive finale.

Credit: HBO

Inside the Episode Video