'True Blood' Season 4, Episode 4 'I'm Alive and On Fire' Recap

So, this is one of those episodes where pretty much no one gets what they want and everyone ends up in some kind of trouble.

Eric is completely wasted on fairy godmother, slurring his words and playing grab ass with Sookie before stumble-vamping off into the woods, unfazed by the coming sunrise. I guess in addition to smelling like sunshine and freedom, fairy blood is to vampires as Red Bull cocktails are to skinny sorority girls.

Sookie enlists Alcide to help her track Eric in the woods before the fairy wears off and bursts into flames. They find him skinny-dipping in the swamp, sun-drunk and yelling about wrestling gators.  It still hilarious to see Eric Northman in a full-on frolic but soon his skin starts smoking. He is heartbroken, telling Sookie “I don’t wanna go back to the dark.” She starts to console him with a kiss when they are interrupted by King Bill who is politely requesting to search the house. Sookie surprises even herself by lying to Bill’s face to protect Eric.

Speaking of burning, Marnie is having a flashback nightmare about the witch that keeps possessing her. She is being burned at the stake by some creepy Spanish Inquisition dudes. Every time a vampire on this show starts to flip out about the necromancing witches in town, they reference the Inquisition. It seems there was one specific witch that did a lot of damage to vampires back then. I’m not sure what her beef with the undead is but it’s looking like this season is her chance for a rematch.

Over in Hotshot Jason is (still) being gang raped by all the werepanther womenfolk. For a tense minute or so it looks like he is going to be forced to have sex with one of the twelve year-olds he’s essentially been parenting for the last year. Happily, he convinces her to set him free instead. Felton shifts and comes after him and Jason kills him with a sharp stick. Crystal catches up with them and is delighted to find her brother-husband dead. She comes at Jason, still babbling a bunch of nonsense about their love and destiny. Jason is not having it and threatens to kill her too. Crystal lets him go for now, promising she’ll be waiting for him at the full moon.

Tara, Lafayette and Jesus are trying like hell to get Marnie to reverse the spell she put on Eric before Pam murders them all to death. It’s not going too well but when Pam gets all smartass with Marnie, the Inquisition witch takes over and blasts Pam with a nasty skin-rotting curse. You guys, I really hate it when anything bad happens to Pam.

Portia Bellefleur brings Bill to meet her grandma and he is using his 150 plus years of southern manners to charm the pants off this difficult matriarch. It’s all fun and sweet tea until she busts out the family bible and they realize Portia is Bill’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter.  Awkward.

Tommy Mickens reunites with his dog-fightin’ momma and is happy for about ten whole minutes before gross old Joe Lee shows up and puts a choke chain on him. The family reunion was a set up and Tommy’s back in the literal doghouse.

Hoyt and Jessica find Jason passed out and near death on the side of the road. Jessica feeds Jason her blood and saves his life. So Jason should start having intense sex dreams about his best friend’s girlfriend any minute now.