In a stroke of self-awareness, the True Blood powers that be (do they call themselves, “The Authority”?) named this week’s episode, “Hopeless.” I assume this is an commentary on the entire season. 

This week we had Eric, Alcide, Bill and Sookie finding Russell and delivering him to The Authority. Eric glamoured Alcide into being repulsed by Sookie (HA!), Bill fake-glamoured Sookie to say an overwrought and unnecessary good-bye and we revisited the fairy bar. Oh, yeah… and Russell is back. I don’t know about you, but this whole season feels like a collection of scenes building up to something that’s going to be, in the minds of the show-runners, “Big.” But I think that payoff is going to have to be awfully big to make it all worthwhile.

Obviously, the following “analysis” contains spoilers for Sunday’s episode of True Blood. If you haven’t seen it and want to remain free from spoilage, please don’t continue reading. Instead, I suggest checking out my review of Jennifer Echols’ latest, Such a Rush, or Sandra’s reflections on encouraging young people to get excited about reading.

In which I watch, so you don’t have to…