True Blood Episode 2.11 Review

Sunday night gave us the penultimate episode of this season’s installment of True Blood, and it was perhaps the weirdest one yet.  We finally got to see a Vampire Queen, Maryann’s reign of terror (or inhibition?) continued to spread amongst the residents of Bon Temps, and it turns out that Sookie isn’t the only supernatural being who will show us abilities we didn’t know existed.  Overall, the episode served as a decent setup for the season finale in two weeks.  Keep reading for the full review of True Blood Episode 2.11.  As always, there will be spoilers.*

*Read last week’s review HERE.

As usual, we start right where we left off – in this case, it’s when Bill goes to the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, played by Evan Rachel Wood.  The Queen (Sophie-Ann) is young (in her appearance only, obviously), pretty sexy, and feasting on the femoral artery of a young girl when Bill arrives.  She offers Bill a taste, but since he’s totally whipped on Sookie, he declines.  Bill the Queen for help in destroying the maenad Maryann, but the Queen ignores his plea for help and instead invites him to spend the day with her.  As if he even had a choice in the matter, Bill accepts and lounges by the “pool” in the Queen’s “day room,” a room designed to look like a beautiful sunny day.  Eventually, after playing some Yahtzee with the Queen and her “friends” (including the cousin of Sookie – WTF?), Bill learns that Maryann simply seeks what she cannot have.  More specifically, she seeks death.  The Queen eventually informs Bill that to kill Maryann, Maryann needs to meet her god, and then and only then will she become vulnerable.

Keeping in tune with this season’s theme of religion, the Queen tells Bill, “Never underestimate the power of blind faith.”  We also get another werewolf mention, which leads me to believe that we’ll be seeing some werewolves in Season 3.  The Queen – in stark contrast to Godric – wasn’t mopey or emo at all.  She seemed to be really enjoying her time on Earth.  But then again, according to the Queen, there is no such thing as time.  And she is clearly bisexual, but I’m guessing she doesn'[t believe in classifying sexuality.  I especially liked her comment about Bill and Eric getting it on.  She was an interesting character, and I wonder if we’ll be seeing more of her next season.  I hope so.

Meanwhile, we get a pretty brief Hoyt & Jessica scene.  Hoyt pulls Jessica off his mother (she had attacked her last week) and yells at her for biting his mom’s neck.  Hoyt and his mother leave, but since his mother is still under Maryann’s influence, she insults him and tells him that his father was a loser, too.  Nothing major going on with Hoyt this week, it seems, but hopefully he’ll work it out with Jessica next week.

After distracting whacked-out Terry and Arlene with a bag of pills (!), Sookie and Lafayette handcuff Tara to a table using Lafayette’s puffy purple handcuffs (hilarious) so that she won’t go and try to find Eggs amongst all the chaos and danger in Bon Temps.  Sure, sometimes characters in True Blood do stupid things, but at least this time one got called out for it – you had to love Sookie calling Tara an idiot (although I think her language was a bit harsher).  Tara’s mom, in an attempt to not only save her daughter but to appease God, frees Tara and holds Sookie and Lafayette at gunpoint.  Lafayette has an “Eric vision” and freaks out, but Sookie is able to hit Tara’s mom in the head with an object, helping her and Lafayette to escape.

Sam explains to Jason and Andy that he’s a shapeshifter, and once again, Jason doesn’t fail to make me laugh.  “That is really f*cking cool!”  At this point, just about everything Jason says and does is funny.  I definitely guffawed when he walked into the tree.  And how about his musings on Sam’s ability?  “Do you think Sam ever turned into a dog and then made it with a female dog?”  “What if Sam turned into a chicken, laid an egg, and then ate it?”  He kills me.

Sam finds Arlene’s kids and watches them (since Arlene is clearly in no shape to do so), which gives Jason and Andy some time together.  They put their differences aside for the upcoming, inevitable battle, and a lot of that had to do with Jason telling Andy about all the crap he’s been through.  And having a body like that takes hard work, man!

Sam brings Arlene’s kids to Fangtasia to find Eric (after Arlene’s son suggested a vampire may be able to help them), who he believes may know how to defeat Maryann.  The highlight of this episode, for me, was the interaction between Eric and the children.  On one hand, he’s charming and seems to like them, but on the other, he loves how children taste.  The kids didn’t seem to be too frightened by him, though.  Eric agrees to help Sam, but it’s because it may impress Sookie.  When he leaves to go to the Queen, Eric literally flies away.  Friggin’ awesome.  Eric and Bill pass each other outside the Queen’s home, and Bill once again tells Eric to stay away from Sookie.  He goes so far as to threaten Eric that he’ll tell the Queen that Eric has been pushing V.

Sookie eventually makes it back to her house, which is now totally destroyed and filled with maniacal residents under Maryann’s control.  The episode ends with Lafayette falling under Maryann’s power (as well as Tara, who was unable to resist) and Tara and Eggs building a nest of sorts on a bed.  In the nest is a large, white egg, the contents of which I have no clue.  Does it have anything to do with “Eggs?”  Probably not, but what on Earth could it be?

And that’s where we are heading into the season finale in two weeks!  What did you guys think of this episode?  What’s gonna happen next week?