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True Blood recap: Fairies, Rats and Thieves

By April MacIntyre Aug 23, 2010, 4:46 GMT

06/08/2010 - Stephen Moyer, Anna Paquin and Alexander Skarsgard - HBO\'s "True Blood" Season 3 Los Angeles Premiere - Arrivals - ArcLight Cinerama Dome - Hollywood, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

Sookie the beacon of light is the descendant of an alien, a Phaedra if I heard Bill correctly, which coupled with one of her kin. "My people are rapists?" Sookie asks Bill. Not quite, but her blood is a Cherry Coke-tasting elixir to vamps who were the ones who also wiped out the fairy people.

So what makes Bill so special?

True love apparently, and Eric is in proper Alpha male form competing with the lesser vamp for a closer crack at Miss Stackhouse, infected with his blood and who is drawn to him in perverse ways.

Loose ends are tying in “True Blood” and tonight's (August 22) “I Smell A Rat” was less crazed and more story dense as we put the Sam Merlotte puzzle pieces together, root for Hoyt and Jessica, keep an eye on Tommy Mickens, worry a bit for day trippers Lafayette and Jesus, wonder where Tara will take her latest rage bender and only guess where Russell will strike at Eric, who has made arrangements for his expected murder at the hands of the King.

The Shape shifters are starting to outnumber the Werewolves too.

Sookie Stackhouse is not impressed at the news she is a fairy. Bill sweet talks and reassures but a niggling voice (Eric's) tells her do not trust him. By the end of the episode however, Eric has chained Sookie like a dog in his nasty club basement.

Jason made inroads with his childhood friend Tara, dispatching Franklin the vampire with some handy wooden bullets, but the sweet moment and respite afterwards is ruined by Jason's guilty conscience. He spills it and Tara is yet again enflamed and ready to explode. Poor girl has not had a break all season.

Sam has hit the bottle hard, and after he went nuts on Crystal's mean and lean shape shifter dad at the bar, we learn Sam is no angel, and was a cat burglar (literally) and made off with some nice gems (seed money for Merlotte's solved), until his no good girlfriend double-crossed him with a male accomplice, and it all ends badly, with Sam tracking the couple and killing them in the end.

Jesus and Lafayette were racing Crystal’s dad - beaten half dead by Sam - to the hospital when Lafayette detours them to his home, doses him with V blood, and Poppa springs up disgusted he was saved by it.  Crystal and he have a falling out and he subsequently disowns her.

Now, squeaky clean nurse man Jesus is tempted by the V blood. The two take an ecstasy/acid fueled day trip and they learn each other's familial deep dark secrets. The camera work and the art department were exceptional for this montage of spinning hazy hyper colorized funhouse effects that mimic what under the influence eyes would see not that I know anything about that, keep walking, keep walking.

Okay Jesus had a bit too much fun doing this and I fear our Lafayette is going to be the nurse-maid in this burgeoning relationship.

Then after a face-off with Jessica, vamp-phobic Arlene finally tells Terry he 'ain't the daddy," but Terry to his credit stands tall and says he will marry her and raise the child as his own. Except Arlene really doesn't want the kid and enlists the new Wiccan waitress at Merlotte's to help her abort the child with some herbal potions or whatnot.

And Russell shows up like that bad penny we have all been waiting for, and finds a streetside male hooker who resembles poor dead Jello-ized Talbot. It doesn't end well.

So the big Russell, Eric, Bill showdown is brewing for the finale.

What say you all, did this season meet your expectations and more? Talk back.