"True Blood" Episode 409 Recap: Whose Turn Is It to Be Mavis Tonight?

Did you know that True Blood is just like Gossip Girl? It's true! One has deathly pale, sexually voracious, soulless bloodsuckers. And the other one has vampires.

Also, as this week's episode demonstrates, both shows like to build to some big social event that intertwines various characters' fates. Every Gossip Girl episode leads up to some museum gala, or fashion show, or cotillion, or Bat Mitzvah. In a similar vein, this week's True Blood culminates in Bon Temps' premier social gathering, the totally A-list, super-classy Festival of Tolerance.

Sookie naturally crashes the big soiree. Does she wind up with Dan, or Chuck, or maybe even Blair? Let's find out …

EENY, MEENY, MINY, MOE

Picking up right where we left off, we see Alcide running through the foggy forest with a just-been-shot Sookie draped in his arms. Suddenly Bill – like Homer Simpson with the last pork chop – snatches her right out from under him, all, “Yoink! Dibs!”

Pissed, Alcide looks after him, his eyes all wolfy and glowy. Get used to this effect, because they repeat it about 18 times this episode. It’s like the special effects guys got a new toy and they can’t help but keep showing it off.

Bill brings Sookie to her place and places her on the couch, all, “Sookie, can you hear me?” Alcide comes in behind him, and snits that Bill should have kept Sookie out of his business. Bill is all, “STFU, werewolf,” but then they both observe Sookie is in a bad way, given she won’t even take Bill’s blood to heal.

Bill suggests they pray, and Alcide wonders, what with a vampire and werewolf in the room, “Who would listen?” Bill replies, “That I do not know … Also, I am completely unable to use contractions and this is irritating to those of you recapping this show.”

Post credits (so the more brain dead among the TV audience might think for a few minutes more that she’s actually going to kick the bucket), Sookie flutters her eyes open to see Bill and Alcide hovering above her.

She’s all, “I had the strangest dream! And you were there, and you … and you were both naked and doing unspeakable things to each other.” And Bill’s all, “Um, yeah, a dream, right,” as Alcide zips his fly up and says, “Yep, nothing but a dream. How ya feeling?”

All Sookie cares about is how Eric’s doing and she wants Bill to send somebody to find him. Alcide is pissed at this, because fangers nearly got Sookie killed and yet vamps are still all she can worry about. He announces he’s done with her and storms out.

Bill, obviously realizing that the best way to win Sookie back is by sucking up to her every urge until she realizes how bad a boyfriend Eric is and comes running back to him, tells her he’ll help find Eric. She thanks him for the blood infusion.

The next day, Sookie is napping on the couch, but we all know by now it’s going to be a dream sequence, what with her having just had Bill’s V. This dream seems to have a whole swinging 60s sex kittenish vibe to it, with Sookie looking totally hot in this red negligee ensemble from Bon Temp’s answer to Victoria’s Secret – “Big Bertha’s House of Purdy Undergarmets and Bait Shop.”

She goes to answer the door and it’s dream-Eric, standing in sunlight, and he comes in and they start making out on the dining table. (Goodness, what would Gran say about that?). Then Bill pops up next to them, and Eric’s all, “Hey, what’s his chocolate bar doing in your peanut butter? … I mean, what’s he doing in our dream sequence?” Bill answers that he’s in the dream because Sookie still loves him.

So Bill and Eric get into an alpha-male glare-off, sitting at opposite ends of the table, with Sookie lying between then, snarling, “She’s mine!” “No mine!” “I’m 10 times older than you!” “Well, I love her 20 times more than you!” “Well my Eric Jr. is a thousand times more potent than—"

And Sookie’s all, “You can stop with that. Let’s just say neither of you are winning any prizes in that department.”

She then announces to the two of them that this is her dream and she wants to have a little chat with them on the couch. Seriously? Who has a racy dream sequence and decides to spend it on some boring old conversation? What’s next? A game of dream Boggle?

Sookie tells the two of them that she’s been thinking about how she has to make a choice. And she chooses … both of them. They’re strangely unenthusiastic about this, and Sookie elaborates that everybody thinks she’s this good girl who does what’s expected, but she wants to defy expectations. Also, it’s an annoying double standard that society thinks two women with a guy is totally hot but still has issues if a woman chooses to be with two guys.

Then she takes off her negligee, all the better to seduce them with. They quickly come to terms with her indecent proposal, and lean in and both start kissing her neck. Then she grabs their heads and starts moving them closer together, and it totally looks like she’s going to get them to make out with each other, a la Y Tu Mama Tambien (I love that movie.) But instead they move in and bite her neck and then she wakes up. Boooo!

WTF Rating: 1. If Sookie actually proposes this threesome arrangement for real at some point, I’ll upgrade this to a 5. But for teasing all of us with this in a mere dream sequence and then cutting out before we even get to the bedroom, I’m punishing this storyline with a 1.

TOUCHED BY AN ANGELIC DEVIL-BABY

Lafayette, still possessed by Cajun Ghost Lady (who we learn is named “Mavis,” so when Lafayette channels her, he’s obviously “Mavette”) and still holding baby Mikey enters this house all, “We home, bebe,” as she sings her haunting ghostly Cajun lullaby, “Rockabye crawfish on the bayou.”

The only trouble is that the house Mavette thinks is hers is actually poor Hoyt’s. Who is at home that very minute. Not wearing pants. He’s surprised by the visit, to say the least, and is all, “Lafayette? Why do you have Arlene’s baby?”

Mavette points the gun at him, all, “This my home! This my bebe!”

So Hoyt runs outside in terror and calls in reinforcements. Reinforcements being the Bon Temps Keystone Cops, meaning Jason and Andy.

Andy is totally hopped up on V. This makes him especially inept and hilarious, as he bangs away on the door only to have Mavette say, “Go away white man,” to which he takes great offense calling Lafayette a racist and a she-male.

So then he storms the house only to have Mavette take a few shots at him before Jason can drag him back to safety. That’s when Arlene and Terry show up, Arlene crying out, “Why are you doing this Lafayette?” and met with the bewildering (to them) response, “My name is Mavis.”

Arlene has also called in Jesus, thinking maybe he can talk some sense into his boyfriend. But first Jesus has to answer to Jason’s crackpot theory, as Jason wonders, “When you guys, er, roleplay, does Lafayette ever turn into a woman named Mavis?” And Jesus rolls his eyes and snarks back, “No. When we roleplay, he’s Alcide and I’m Bill, and now we’re looking for an Eric. You want in?”

So then all these numbskulls put their heads together and try to come up with a strategy. Andy’s all, “I’m a police officer, let’s go in guns a blazing!” And Terry all, “I’m a combat veteran, let’s use these Navy SEAL maneuvers to raid the place.” But then Jesus is all, “I’m a nurse! Let me handle this,” and they’re all, “Sure, makes sense.”