Sookie, Alcide, Jason, Andy and the rest of the Bon Temps gang may as well commandeer a vintage VW van and force Sam to shift into the shape of a goofy German shepherd, because True Blood is nearing sinister, waaay more violent Scooby Doo mystery territory—and it’s totally working.
First things first: Eric Northman is alive and well and boning Jason Stackhouse, or at least he is in Jason’s dreams. We open with a hot and heavy tryst between the two, only to have Jason come to in a church pew. Jason loves sex with anyone with or without a pulse, but where the hell did this come from?! He did have similar sleepy time fantasies about a threesome with Hoyt and Jessica back in the day, but still—hrm. This is bound to lead somewhere, and that somewhere could involve an identity crisis, or at the very least, another makeout session. (Totally looking forward to either.)
In the wake of the massacre at Bellefleur’s, Bon Temps is in the process of figuring out how the hell they’re going to protect and preserve their population against the “rabid beasts” (as so aptly dubbed by Alcide), aka the Hep V-infected vampires. A curfew has been put in place, and Sam encourages the town to set about cleaning up the carnage at Bellefleur’s in Arlene’s absence. The general consensus is that, yes, the people of Bon Temps may be sitting ducks, but law enforcement is out on the prowl trying to keep the vamps at bay, and they may as well make themselves useful as “good citizens.” Some Bon Tempsians don’t agree, and they head to the sheriff’s office to arm themselves with what’s left of their gun supply, despite Adilyn and her golden intentions. In the scuffle that ensues, she accidentally uses her faerie light to Kenya’s detriment in a moment of defense, so now Bon Temps is freaking out over the fact that they’ve got shape shifters, telepaths, vamps, werewolves and more faeries in their mist. In short, everyone present and accounted for in Bon Temps? They’re losing it, and their guns may as well be pitchforks, because this mob mentality amongst the survivors is getting out of control. Adilyn becomes their prisoner, and Jessica wakes up upon sensing her panic, helpless and hoping to get to her as soon as the sun sets.
As for the vampires, things aren’t exactly peachy for the infected: “We share or we starve.” They’re all going to die, and they know that, but they have a plan, and their hunger is affecting their ability to get food and keep the chaos from growing within their own ranks. Betty, a teacher, is dubbed the new “reaper”—she’s the one who has to hit the basement where Arlene, Holly and Nicole are awaiting their fates to drag food up for dinner—because her profession encourages “self-control.” When Betty heads downstairs, Arlene and Holly recognize her as the woman who was a kind and encouraging teacher to their children. Arlene’s reluctant role as the leader of the pack of human meals here is fantastic, and she’s convincing when she says they’re going to get out of there: “I did not survive four lousy husbands, a serial killer boyfriend, and the sorta suicide of my love, Terry, to die in the dungeon basement of a fucking vampire bar!” With Betty comes a glimmer of hope: if Betty has a fraction of the compassion she had for their kids left in her, she could potentially be their way out of the Fangtasia dungeon.
Frenzied and grief-stricken, Lettie Mae gets hooked onto V, and she does pretty much anything to score a fix, even if it means searing her own flesh on the scalding surface of a skillet. The V brings about hallucinations that bring Tara back from the dead, but our favorite, gone-too-soon vampire friend is affixed to a cross and sporting a yellow boa constrictor as a necklace. Hopefully we’ll get some clarity regarding this ghostly apparition of Tara, but in the meantime, Lettie Mae receives no comfort, even if Willa is eager and willing to help.
Remembering the dead woman she encountered on her way home, Sookie brings up a solid point to the guys: the blonde she found in the woods wasn’t from Bon Temps, and was likely brought by the invading vamps. After checking the wallet on the corpse—who, sorry, she still looks an awful lot like Sookie—they come to the conclusion that she was from St. Alice, a town not too far away. “What if they came from a town that was hit just like ours?” The pieces start to fall into place, and Sookie, Jason, Sam, Alcide and Andy head off to St. Alice in search of answers.
What they find is a ghost town with eerily familiar images, and the parallels between a Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and the desolate streets of St. Alice, down to the “SOS” and “FEMA HELP US” pleas scrawled on the pavement, are striking and foreboding. They pass sidewalks lined with abandoned cars and boarded up windows before they stumble upon one of the most gruesome sights in True Blood history, a mass grave of discarded, drained humans. They head to the home of the girl they found in the woods, and two things flabbergast them: an empty crib and a diary. Sookie heads into the woman’s room and finds her diary, which details meeting and falling in love with a vampire (and heading out for dates to Fangtasia) before leaping into a panicked tone as she writes about the situation in St. Alice as her neighbors disappear in growing numbers. The similarities smack us in the face already, and the flashbacks we’re provided that look back on Bill and Sookie’s first encounters and dates seal the deal: this girl and Sookie have way too much in common, and it’s starting to get to our telepathic heroine. When Sookie reaches the part about the woman plotting her eminent suicide and death of her baby, Alcide tells her to put the diary down. In the other room, Sam and Andy look on, dumbstruck, on the baby’s empty nursery. These Hep V-infected vamps couldn’t spare a child. And they’re sure as hell not gonna spare Bon Temps.
Finally: Eric’s alive, and Sookie and Bill see a bit of a reunion. The escape plan with Betty doesn’t go so well for Arlene, Holly and Nicole, as Betty turns to mush the second she bites into Arlene’s thigh for nourishment, thus bringing their way out to a dead end. “I Found You” ends with Pam venturing off to the Rhone Valley in search of her maker, and this can only be a good thing. Despite the fact that it’s cold and unbeating in his chest, Eric’s heart still feels a shred of good will towards Sookie—and the merciless Viking vamp may be what the gang needs. After Sookie and Alcide get home from the haunting trip to St. Alice, she sneaks out and over to Bill’s house in search of protection. More specifically, she wants to know if Bill can still feel her fear, if there’s a drop of his blood left in her. The slow smile to close the episode implies that a reunion’s on the way, even if it’s merely between Bill’s fangs and Sookie’s flesh.
True Blood is wrapping up its final season at a sluggish pace, but there are plenty of plot moves to get excited about in the coming weeks. What’s going on with Jason? Will Bon Temps collapse in on itself before the Hep V vamps can get to them? Does St. Alice hold the key to surviving the coming apocalypse? WHERE THE HELL IS FEMA? Is Adilyn helping or hurting Bon Temps? And now that Eric’s back, what does this mean for the Sookie/Bill/Alcide/Eric love quadrangle? Plenty of questions afoot, so here’s hoping we encounter as many answers as we do bodies as they continue to pile up around Bon Temps.