"True Blood" Episode 402 Recap: Finger Lickin' Jason

After flash-forwarding more than a year, True Blood has now settled into its more typical, semi-real time pacing. In fact, half of this week's episode takes place on the same night as last week's events, and the other half is the following day.

And what a day that proves to be for Eric and Jason, both of whom wind up changed men in ways they (and we) could never have imagined. Let's break it down, storyline by "What the Fang?" storyline …

SOOKIE'S NOSY LANDLORD PROBLEM

After outing himself as her new landlord and baring his fangs (how rude!), Eric follows Sookie around the house claiming he did it all for her own good. She doesn't realize, he argues, how tantalizing she is to vampires. In fact, she smells like "sunshine in a pretty blonde bottle" – which is funny because the blonde part also comes from a bottle.

If he wanted to, Eric could have happily drained her dry. But he didn’t! He's been as gentlemanly as a YouTube pop star dating a Disney Channel tweener just for paparazzi evidence of his heterosexuality. This proves, Eric argues, that his intentions are honorable and he only wants to protect her. And the best way to do that is by claiming her as his property. Then he leaves her alone to think over his considerate offer.

So, naturally, she goes running across the graveyard to Bill's house, because who better to tell you've just received a proposal to become a hot Scandinavian's concubine than your brokenhearted ex, right? But to her great surprise and annoyance, Sookie is stopped by armed guards who, after checking in with the big boss, tell her she can go in to see the King.

Inside Bill's now-royally-pimped out home, Sookie marches right in to find him zipping his fly, alongside a blushing Katarina. We all know Katarina as the sexy-librarian type who is part of Marnie's coven, but Bill introduces her as a member of his security team. Sookie can't help overlook that Katarina's got JBF hair and a massive vampire hickey. Awkward! It's only natural that Sookie's a bit miffed over this. Like everyone feels about their exes, she expected the guy she dumped to retreat to a monastery and spend his celibate days self-flagellating before her portrait.

After Katarina leaves, Sookie snarks about Bill now being "King Bill," which the way she says it is indeed a dopey sounding title. But to be fair, he couldn't go with the more regal "King William" on account of Prince William called dibs on it and everybody knows that vampires, like the entire nation of Great Britain and the people of Easter Island, live in terror of pissing off Queen Elizabeth.

Moving on, she asks him if he could command Eric to sell her back her house. He reluctantly admits he can't, even though he's technically Eric's superior, because there are forces even higher than him calling the shots. And nobody wants to mess with Alan Ball. But Bill does agree to see if he can find some sort of "workaround."

Satisfied, she turns to leave, but not before asking how he got to be king. Before he can answer, she stops him, claiming she just remembered that, aside from his tongue down her throat during their marathon make-out sessions, everything that's come out of his mouth has been vile.

The next day, Sookie gets a surprise visit from Tara. Other than a brief call home when Tara continues lying to her, we don't get to see much interaction between Tara and her new GF Toni, which is too bad. Tara finally seems to be in a happy, stable relationship, and we're getting cheated out of seeing her enjoy it. But I'm thinking Toni's bound to show up in Bon Temps at some point herself and that will certainly be interesting.

We also get very little Sookie-Tara happy time, but at least this time their joy at being together doesn't devolve into some ridiculous spat like the last 400 times they've been together.

What does set Sookie off, though, are the home improvements that Eric's made to the house. Why she's so upset over this baffles me, given her house is now a thousand times more tasteful than when Granny "decorated" it. True, Eric installed a hidden vampire cubby, but at least he did it behind an elegant armoire that's just stunning.

But Sookie is pissed about Eric's intrusions into her space and her life, so she ditches Tara to rush to Fangtasia to confront him. He's not there, and Pam tells Sookie's she's free to wait. But not before giving Sookie a little piece of advice … that she might very well want to take Eric up on his offer, given he does genuinely care about her, plus he's rich, plus he's about the only one who can keep her alive.

WTF Rating: 1. A sexy landlord who lords over tenants sexily? Has Eric been hanging out with Amanda Woodward?

THE BALLAD OF HOW BILL BECAME KING

So how did Bill become King anyway? Sookie's question to him sends him reeling … into a flashback! Yay!

Unlike Eric's fun Viking and/or Nazi flashbacks, Bill's flashbacks have always come across like something you'd see at one of those fake colonial villages during a school field trip. But this flashback is different! It's in the 80s, the greatest decade ever invented! Specifically, it's 1982, back when a young Joe Piscopo had just arrived at SNL and was teaching an anxious nation how to laugh again (h/t Marge Simpson).

We're in rockin' punk rock England. Bill comes storming into a bar like Sid looking for Nancy, all decked out in leather and mascara and spiked hair. He can't pull this look off in the slightest but he gets points for trying.

Before you know it, he's successfully hit on a pierced punky bartender, taken him out to the back alley, and sucked him dry. Hey, we've all been there, right? Only Bill sucks away at the poor guy's neck. But he does stop himself just shy of sucking him dead and glamours the guy to forget all about it.

Then Nan Flanagan steps from the shadows, where she's been watching the whole thing. Perv! She's been watching Bill for some time and notices that he doesn't kill those he sucks. She tells him there are other kinder vampires like him who want to live openly with the humans. In fact, they've got top scientists, including Louis Pasteur, working on creating synthetic blood. True blood, if you will.

Bill scoffs that the vampire monarchy would never go for this. Nan responds that that's why her group is looking for a few good vampires to infiltrate the monarchy and bring it down from the inside. Bill looks intrigued.

Later, after a visit from Eric (more on that later), Bill resumes flashbacking, now remembering more recent events. We're back to his Matrix-off against Sophie-Ann last season. She's not at all worried about going head to head with him, because as she points out, she's older, more powerful, and she's got more insurance.

But the joke's on her! Because Bill has brought in armed back-up (wuss). These Swat guys run in and aim laser sights at the Queen, as Bill lets her know the bullets are wooden with a silver core. Sophie-Ann gets out one last "F you," before she's sprayed by gunfire and turns into a blood geyser all over Bill's face.

Nan comes in and immediately deputizes him, by power of the one true Vampire Authority, as King. Then she tells him, "Go clean up. You're covered in Queen." Which coincidentally is also the punchline to a joke I know that goes, "What did the senator's wife say to him when he got back from the airport restroom?"

WTF Rating: 3. I never thought I'd admit this, but I'm actually finding Bill's character completely intriguing this season. It's like he's gone from Bobby Ewing to J.R. in a single episode.