"True Blood" Episode 404 Recap: "Breed Ghost, Daddy! Breed!"

Last week I was a very bad recapper. I was so busy viewing the world through my rose-colored glasses, clutching my pearls, and hugging my Care Bears that I naively didn't appreciate the implications of what was about to happen with Jason and that line-up of Hot Shot freaks.

Then you good people went ahead and pointed it out to me. Um, thanks, I guess? So I got to spend the week Purelling my eyeballs and bleaching my brain all in an effort to try to forget any of that ever happened.

But now comes this week's episode and confirmation that what you all suspected was indeed what went down with poor Jason. And I don't think we've got enough cutesy WTF fang icons around here to communicate just how fanged up this whole storyline has become. So let's first turn to more pleasing storylines …

ERIC GETS TOTALLY FIT-SHACED

Having chugged Claudine down as avidly as a fratboy at a kegger, Eric looks to follow it up with a Sookie chaser. She screams he'd better stop or he's going to kill her. Grievously offended, he retracts his fangs and responds, "I could never hurt you." Then he pinches her ass.

It quickly becomes apparent (both to Sookie and to us) that Eric is completely hammered.

And it's the sloppy, pervy kind of plastered too, like Hasselhoff-burger levels of falling-down, slurry drunkenness. As opposed to me, who only becomes even more witty and urbane, sort of like Dorothy Parker or that couple in The Thin Man. [Editorial note from Steven's partner: "No, no he doesn't … Last night he tried to drunk-dial Ron Weasley."]

Throughout this episode, the more Eric acts out, the more Sookie tries to mother him, and it's just adorable. Like she tells him the sun's about to come up, which means it's curfew time so he'd better march himself off to bed. And he's all, "Don't care. Tag, you're it!" and takes off into the woods.

Later that morning, Sookie asks Alcide to come over to her place to help track Eric. This is an ingenious move on her part. Because even if they don't find Eric, at least she'll get to see Alcide naked.

If I were her, I'd ask Alcide over for "help" all the time, like, "Oh my God, Alcide, come quick! I need help tracking a missing sock!" Or, "Alcide, I need you to come by so I can compare your torso to the one on your Entertainment Weekly cover and see if you've gotten any bigger."

Alcide's not happy to hear Sookie's been harboring Eric, but he agrees to help her because that’s what friends are for. So he takes off his shirt, unzips his pants, and poof! He's a wolf.

It was here that my wise, wonderful partner Mark pointed out something about the way the whole shifting thing works on this show … All the shifters take their time taking off their shirts — giving us plenty of time to drool over their physiques (not that I'm complaining!) — but then lose all patience when it gets to their pants. Like they unzip just enough for us to see they're going commando (shifters seem to hate underwear) and then they're like, "Oh screw it, I'm just gonna shift right now and let the pants fall where they may." It's like they're all following some weird standard that was set by the Incredible Hulk.

Where was I? Oh, right. So Sookie and wolf-Alcide go on an Eric hunt, and it's fairly hilarious seeing Sookie just carrying on her conversation even though she's talking to a doggie. But then again, when you're Anna Paquin and you cut your acting teeth chattering away opposite a mute Holly Hunter, this sort of thing is a piece of cake.

Alcide leads her to water, where Eric is happily skinnydipping. She keeps cautioning him that he'd better come out quickly, because either the sun is going to singe his skin OR shrinkage is going to set in, and none of us wants to see that.

Eric refuses to leave the pond, and then Alcide morphs into human form, leading to this pretty hilarious alpha-dog confrontation with Eric showing fang and hissing while Alcide literally growls back. Woof indeed. Unfortunately it’s all just posturing and they don’t actually start in on the naked wrestling (this isn’t Spartacus).

Then Eric’s skin starts steaming like a dim sum dumpling cart, as the magical fairy-blood sunscreen wears off. Sookie puts a blanket over him and gets him home.

Sookie tenderly tucks Eric in bed, presumably after having him floss his fangs, given him a warm glass of blood, and had him change into his Star Wars jammies.

Upstairs, she hugs Alcide goodbye. He’s not happy she’s harboring such a dangerous, potentially unstable entity in her home, and she’s all, “Um, you’re one to talk.” They agree they’ll remain friends and have each other’s backs.

Alcide goes home to find his devoted significant other, Debbie Pelt, waiting for him, lounging around reading the Marquis de Sade's autobiography for her Psychopath Book Club.

She takes a good sniff of Alcide (hey, if I lived with him I'd sniff him at any given opportunity too) and asks if he shifted today. He comes clean and admits he did it to help Sookie. "Sookie?" Debbie asks, while a vein starts throbbing behind her left eye and her arm starts making stabby motions. "How is dear old Sookie?"

Sadly, Debbie doesn't blow a gasket just yet and takes this news rather well. But I just adore this actress who plays her because even with the most innocuous lines of dialogue you can see the searing rage and lunacy that's just waiting to burst out. She's awesome.

Meanwhile, Sookie goes to check on Eric after his nap. He's all wistful about how he'll never get to see the sun – or see her in the sun. She observes that the new Eric is kind of mopey, and he suggests she kiss him to cheer him up. “No,” she says, totally meaning, “Sure, why not?” They put their heads into pre-kissing position and start moving in.

Then he tells her there's someone at her door … It's Bill. And he's searching for Eric (more on that in a second).

WTF Rating: 2. I am just love, love, loving Eric the out-of-control teen and his inappropriate crush on Sookie his babysitter. And also enjoying how unsure I am where this all going – the way of all-out Eric-Sookie coupledom? Or Eric deciding he needs a midnight Sookie snack?

IT'S NOT SO GOOD TO BE THE KING

Sookie and Alcide aren't the only ones spending this episode on an Eric hunt. It turns out Bill is desperate to find him as well.

First, we see him at Fangtasia questioning Pam. He's all pissed that she didn't report Eric missing the second she realized it. She responds that she figured it was hardly necessary, given she thought Bill had set him up to be killed in the first place.

Bill commands that she'd better pass on any news of Eric as soon as she gets it. She says, “Yes, Sire.” But in true Pam fashion she can barely mask her contempt for him, basically pointing out that Bill is so into his newfound power trip he’s practically getting off on it.

Next Bill receives a visit from Nan Flanagan, who's no happier with him than Pam was. (Am I the only one who thinks a Pam-Nan union would be the greatest power couple this show's ever seen?).

Nan is worried that with all the negative PR surrounding Edgington they hardly need news to leak out to the public that Bill sent Eric, a vampire, after a bunch of humans, meaning the Wiccans. I'd tell her that, unless it involves a Kardashian or contestants on The Bachelor, I'd venture the majority of the American public could care less about this sort of news.

Bill tells her he had no choice but to sic Eric on the witches, what with them being necromancers and all. But she pooh-poohs the threat saying he over-reacted.

Then she's all, "Oh, wait. I have to throw in this crucial backstory here … there was that time during the Spanish Massacre with that one powerful witch who had a serious ax to grind against vampires, I'll give you that." But since then, she argues, all worries over witches have been over nothing, like that whole Salem thing. And also that time they possessed the cast of The Facts of Life – you know, as documented in The Blair Witch Project. [God that was a terrible joke. Yeeesh. Who writes this stuff?]

Bill says he's not going to ignore the local coven, and Nan cautions that if a single drop of human blood is shed she'll have his heart on a stake.