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"True Blood" Recap: "I Choose Myself"

Before I get to bemoaning the fact that this show is officially dead, undead, and True Dead to me, let's at least go through the motions of  detailing its failures, beat by beat. For olde timey Bill's sake!

Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) and Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) shake down Sarah's sister - Ancient Grains? Amber Waves? - and Gus offers her money, which gets her to talk. But then Eric loses his temper and stakes her right after she tells them that her sister is the walking cure now. NYYYEXT! Wait, though - didn't they establish via last week's lesson in #vampirescience that simply drinking the antidote can cure you? So why aren't Eric and Pam on their hands and knees lapping up Amber Waves of Grain's blood-spatter?

Andy (Chris Bauer) and Holly (Lauren Bowles) pretend that they are on a show that cares about them and then decide to drive to Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain and where young siblings go to bang when the corn is as high as an elephant's eye. Oklahoma? OK!

Sookie (Anna Paquin) wonders if Bill's (Stephen Moyer) Hep V is advancing faster than usual because she's Fae, because we somehow need to make this all about Sookie. Bill answers Jess's (Deborah Ann Woll) phone for no real reason and then gives it to her, and Andy asks her to keep vampire-tabs on his daughter, who is missing despite Jess's repeated promises to protect her. Well at least she didn't eat this one!

Meanwhile, Violet (Karolina Wydra) takes Adilyn (Bailey Chase) and Wade (Noah Matthews) home to her Gothic mansion, which has apparently been sitting empty since she started sleeping in Jason's tract-house basement. Hell, why not. (Do vampires Airbnb?) She assures the kids, "When I was your age, I used to fuck my brother, too - a lot." This is... not funny. She shows them her sex den, which is a cross between a Madonna video from the '90s and an episode of Penny Dreadful. Then she kisses Addy for no apparent reason and heads off to bed, calling out, "Have fun fucking!" over her shoulder.

Keith (Riley Smith) surprises Arlene (Carrie Preston) at the bar, and says he wants to protect her. He's 515 years young and lookin' for love! She says that a human laying with a vamp is wrong, but he kisses her and she changes her mind. They then have crazy sex on the pool table, which is not a first for the pool table but I think might be a first for Arlene, no? Congrats, lady - you did not escape this show unbanged. Arlene wakes up and it was all just a v-induced dream, except that it wasn't for us because we just watched it and cannot unwatch it. (Also, nice work Riley Smith! Thanks for coming to work today.)

Pam tries to talk some sense into Eric re: Sarah, and Gus pitches Nublood to them, which Pam kind of likes when she realizes that they want Eric to be the spokesmodel for "vampire Jenny Craig commercials."

Sookie convinces Jess to get into bed with Bill, for some reason, while she runs off to find a miracle. Bill, meanwhile, flashes back - in his sleep - to Olden Tymes, where his father forced him to marry Caroline and wear yet another soul-crushing wig.

Hoyt! He (Jim Parrack) arrives at Bellefleur's-nee-Merlotte's with Bridget, his girlfriend, who is a microbiologist when she's not busy being a plot device. Arlene realizes that Hoyt doesn't remember Jason (Ryan Kwanten) so she calls him, and he's vacuuming in his boxers because of course he is.

Adilyn reads Wade's mind and realizes that he's just as into all these prehistoric wooden dildos as she is, which is not at all. They are both each other's first! Well thank god for that, or else this entire storyline about horny teens might feel like a total waste of time with only four episodes of the show remaining. That goddamned portrait of Violet looms over them like the ghost of Hamlet's father.

Jason meets Bridget and they of course flirt, because the alternative would be for Jason to evolve as a character.

Sookie calls the demon doctor, Dr. Ludwig, who is kind of awesome upon arrival in a storm of black metal and sarcasm. But not even she can overshadow yet another shitty Bill flashback, this one to a garden party where Bill first met Caroline. Good Godric, who cares?! Not Ludwig, who wakes Bill up and tells him that it's not just the Fae thing that's speeding up his Hep V, because she has another patient whose BF is full Fae and he's doing way better than Bill is. She realizes that Sookie is related to Niall and she hits the road.

Jason explains to Hoyt how Maxine died - conveniently lying about all the bad parts, which is all of it - and the three of them hug.

Sookie visits Bill's grave and calls for Niall (Rutger Hauer), but he doesn't show up. Though he does appear minutes later in her kitchen, raiding her pantry for Classico pasta sauce. He says he'll try to help Bill in exchange for spaghetti. (Lots of oregano!)

Sarah (Anna Camp) pulls up to the Light of Day Institute - no, not a facility devoted to the study of the 1987 film starring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett, but the Fellowship of the Sun camp. She hallucinates that Jason is there (shirtless, of course) and he tells her that she's going to hell - TONIGHT. Meanwhile, the Yakuza spot Sarah on their satellites and home in on her hoodied ass.

Sam (Sam Trammell) drinks at the bar, and asks Arlene the question that has been in all longtime viewers' minds for the last several seasons: "At what point does the guy whose house keeps getting hit by a tornado call it a day?" You tell me, Sam Merlotte. You tell me.

Arlene says she's not happy but she fakes it pretty damned well.

Holly and Andy don't find their kids banging at the lake house, but Andy does find inner peace. Holly promises that even though she is the Worst Witch, they will have a happy ending. I expect a house to fall on them in 3...2...

Niall wants to channel "nature's memory," which sounds like a line of organic dog food. He flashes back to the birth of Bill's baby for no reason whatsoever, and even Sookie calls him out on being totally off-topic at a kind of urgent time. He basically tells her that he can't help Bill and she had better get over it soon: "Love is a miracle" - just not this kind of miracle that actually does anything meaningful.

A little girl goes into her bedroom and notices Lala (Nelsan Ellis) and Lettie Mae (Adina Porter) digging holes outside her window. Moooommmmmmm! And yes, that concludes this week's installment of Lala and Auntie's Yard Crashers.

Arlene is alone and wasted - Kyle appears as Roy Orbison sings about dreams and he dances with her. She tells him that she has Hep V and they can't bang, and he replies, "Then let's just dance." Oh! That was almost cute.

Violet wakes up, throws Wade - in his boxers - across the room, and handcuffs Adilyn to the bed. Ugh. Jess will arrive to save the day in 3...2...

Eric wakes up Pam and they think they've been left behind, but Gus Jr. is waiting for them, and they pull up on Sarah's hiding spot just as she's being haunted by the ghost of her dead gay vampire husband (Michael McMillian), her dead guru, and the unconvincing severed head of the Governor. There's a skirmish between Christianity and Buddhism, but then Eric, Pam and The Fast and the Furious: Texas Yakuza show up. Sarah says, "I choose myself."

Sookie and Bill do it in front of the fireplace in a scene that is probably meant to be moving but is really just kind of gross.

SCENE.

Notably Dead: Amber Mills of Grain,

Notably Absent: James, Nicole, Willa, Ginger, Tara, Rev. Daniels

Sarah Newlin chooses herself, and I reserve the same right: I'm choosing to take a walk around the block and enjoy the sunshine rather than spend any more time discussing one of the worst hours of television I've seen in years. And I used to watch Under the Dome!!!

I give it one WTF, for Riley Smith's billiard skills:

And I'm out! [opens hand, drops antique wooden dildo]

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