The bargain struck, Lafayette is brought up from the basement. He vows not to have anything to do with vampires ever ever again, but Eric seems to have other ideas. Despite the torture, I suspect he rather likes Lafayette, as most folks do. With a caress of Lafayette’s chest and a wink, Eric promises the man he will see him around. Lafayette looks horrified.
Sookie and Bill drive him home, and then talk through their argument, as all good couples must. Sookie tells Bill she’s been shaken in her support for vampires because Eric is just evil. To her astonishment, she realises Bill doesn’t think so. He tells her everyone, human and vampire, can do good and evil things. Sookie is willing to concede the point in regard to Bill, whom she knows has darkness in him but nevertheless she thinks of as kind. But she’s absolutely sure Eric is just bad, bad, bad. Perhaps a touch too sure—these two have electricity when they meet, with a different kind of chemistry than the one she has with Bill, but there nonetheless. And I think she’d be a lot more open to Bill’s suggestion that no one is purely good or evil if she knew what Eric knows about Lafayette. Not only did he get Jason hooked on V, he then gave up Jason’s name to Eric as the one involved in vampire Eddie’s death. I’m not sure Sookie won’t stick Lafayette back in that basement herself when she inevitably finds out.
Jason, meanwhile, is at a retreat for the Fellowship of the Sun and having a hard time of it. Not, as one might expect, with the clean living and lack of sex, but instead with the notion that vampires are not “persons” and therefore evil by definition. I love the way the show (and I gather this is a prominent theme in the books by Harris) plays with the notion of racism and bigotry through the vampires coming out into society. The way cult leaders Sarah and Steve persuade Jason to abandon his reservations about hurting vampires by calling on his grief about losing his grandmother and his girlfriend is chillingly realistic. I’m ready for him to leave the retreat to see where the writers are going with him, but they have successfully established Sarah and Steve as the creepiest characters in the show for me. I’m also pretty sure we’ve had hints that Jason and Sarah will get to know each other much better, whether Steve wants them to or not.
Article comments
1 - Mongo
I agree with your observations about Eric. Eric has been around a long time and while not the boy scout relative to Bill, he exhibits a kind of lawful wisdom.
Great write up, hope you do more of these!
2 - Gerry
Thank you, now that I've found the show, I do intend to keep writing about it. I'm hooked!
Yep, I think Eric will turn out to have a mix of good and evil, because I think the show is undercutting the notion the Newlins have of the choice between light and dark being easy to see and easy to make. I expect we'll see more of their dark side as we see more of Eric's light.
Thanks for stopping by and hope to hear from you again!