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Episode: “It Hurts Me Too” (Season 3, Episode 3)

Synopsis: Bill comes around to the King of Mississippi’s offer after rudely drop kicking his creator Lorena through a window into the sunlight.  Meanwhile, Sookie continues her search by heading to a werewolf bar with her new bodyguard Alcide, a werewolf himself.

Review: If you’re a fan of freaky sex, you’re a fan of this episode.  From some very active foley work (slurp slurp) in a scene between two women to some rather aggressive vampire sex (times two!), there’s plenty of the nasty going on – emphasis on the nasty.

In non-sexual news (don’t worry, we’ll come back to the sex), we’ve got new developments on most major storylines.  In the Sookie-verse, after a werewolf attack was intercepted by Eric, the vampire Sheriff assigned her a bodyguard. Newcomer Joe Manganiello is Alcide, a werewolf whose father is indebted to Eric and is paired up with Sookie to make sure no werewolves tear her limb from limb.  The duo head to Lou Pine’s (get it, Lupine? Like wolves) the area’s oldest werewolf bar, full of biker looking dudes with body hair.  Sookie proceeds with the subtlety of a jackhammer, leading to a minor werewolf brawl.

In Bon Temps, Tara is wooed, then fucked, by the apparent vampire detective Franklin, who is no doubt up to no good in his search for Bill Compton.  Sam meanwhile has potentially bitten off more than his doggy mouth can chew with his biological family – they show up to Merlotte’s, get drunk, and things get a bit edgy between them.

I feel like this was a really busy episode – scratch that, this is just a really busy season and I’m not sure I like it.  All of the main characters are scattered around, each with their own story lines, which means we’re spending very little time with any of them and they’re spending even less time with each other.  In an attempt to give everyone more, we’re all stuck getting less.

Now what we do get is pretty good, though I’m still not sold on werewolves being badasses.  Eric says that if a werewolf has had some vampire blood, they’re incredibly strong, but all we’ve seen are them getting torn apart, shot, and beaten up by baseball bats.  Yes, this is third week in a row I’ve brought this up, but it’s not getting better, so I’m going to keep saying it.

With a whole mess of things going on, the most notable and memorable will no doubt be the sex scene with a twist between Bill and Lorena – though I’m not exactly sure why they had sex.  Maybe that’s how vampires express hate?  It seemed out of character for Compton, but the visuals that accompany it make it the greatest sex scene of the year thus far.

This was an interesting and entertaining episode, though as I mentioned, all the scattered storylines are starting to bug me. I’d rather see them come back together.  In a series of books, you can take long breaks from characters or drop in a chapter here or there – in television, giving major characters four minutes of screen time feels cheap.

I still love the show and look forward to every episode, but this season is just a bit off. Everything that’s happening is interesting, there’s just too little of too much.

This Week’s Quote: I’m like a ninja level marksman. I’ve got all the training I need. – Jason Stackhouse

What do you feel about this third season so far?

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