True Blood: The First Taste

by Teresa Jusino

And the award for best television couple goes to….Sookie Stackhouse and Bill “The Vampire” Compton!

Episode 2 of True Blood, “The First Taste”, begins with the aftermath of Sookie’s vicious beating.  Bill swoops onto the scene as Sookie is being attacked and brutally flings Mack and Denise Rattray off of her, killing them both.  Then, in a move that must be the vampire equivalent of a BJ, Bill tears some of the skin off his own arm and offers his blood to Sookie in order to heal her.  After asking whether this would turn her into a vampire (Answer: no), she drinks ravenously.  As she heals, he licks the blood from her wounds, and Bill reveals more about vampires – Does blood taste different from person to person? (Yes) – as Sookie reveals more about herself – Can she hear Bill’s thoughts? (No)  When she is completely healed, Bill walks her back to her car, and asks if he would be allowed to “call on her.”  Touched by his gentility, she says yes.

Meanwhile, Jason has been cleared of suspicion in the murder of Maudette Pickens, after her videotape of their sex revealed that after he ran out of her house terrified that he’d accidentally strangled her to death, her head pops up and she laughs at his gullibility.  After his draining encounter with the police, he rushes to Dawn for comfort sex.  Dawn, despite her better judgment, gives in.

At breakfast the next morning, Sookie takes a bite of sausage Gram has made for her, and she is able to taste so many more flavors.  She marvels as she talks about being able to taste grass, and wind, and light in it.  Tara arrives at the Stackhouse residence after having been out late at a party the night before, and Sookie tells her, her grandmother, and Jason that Bill will be coming for a visit that evening.  While Gram is thrilled, Tara and Jason are less so.  On television, the death of the Rattrays is being reported as the result of a freak tornado that demolished their home and killed them.  Sookie knows better, but says nothing.  Later, Sookie smells what is, to her, a strong smell in the livingroom, but turns out to be a piece of cracker under a chair.  Clearly, drinking vampire blood has had a strong effect on her senses.  She goes to examine the scene at the Rattrays and is confronted by the police, who suspect foul play because “tornadoes hop”, but this one seemingly targeted this particular house.

That evening, Bill comes to call, but not before we learn that not only must Bill be invited in to have access to the house, but that the invitation can be revoked, forcing him to leave.  Sookie flirtatiously warns that she’ll “have to keep that in mind.”  The mood becomes less playful in the house as Bill awkwardly tries to make a good impression on the Stackhouse family and Tara.  Gram tries to make polite conversation with him, but as he talks about his past, Tara picks a fight with him over slavery, and Jason takes that as his cue to insult vampires.  Bill asks Gram’s permission to take Sookie for a walk.  When Jason protests, Gram shuts him down, saying “it’s all right with me if it’s all right with Sookie.”  When alone, Tara tries to snuggle up to Jason, but Jason gets distracted by a call from Dawn, who needs him to pick her up from work.

Meanwhile, Sookie and Bill walk and talk, getting to know each other.  We learn via flashback that Sookie has had the ability to read people’s thoughts since she was very young, and that this made her parents extremely uncomfortable.  She was sent to several therapists, and was finally “diagnosed” with ADD, though her mother didn’t allow her to be prescribed drugs, as she knew what was really going on.  Bill talks about the house in which he’s living, and about the Compton family, who used to live in it.  He says that he’s making renovations on the place at night, but can’t get any contractors to return his phone calls.  Sookie offers to make calls for him and bring him information.  We also learn that vampire blood, in addition to heightening her senses will also increase Sookie’s libido as well as make it easy for Bill to find her.  He is able to sense her, and can get to her quickly should she ever be in trouble.  The sexual tension between them is intense as Bill starts smelling her hair and her skin, saying he can smell the sunlight on her, until finally they kiss.  After a while, though, Bill loses control and his fangs pop out, startling Sookie.  He apologizes and offers to take her home.

Later, Jason is back at Dawn’s having crazy sex – seemingly the only thing this guy is good at – but then in the morning she goes to work leaving him tied by the wrists to her headboard.

The episode ends with Sookie going to Bill’s the next night with the home improvement information she promised….but apparently, Bill’s not the only vampire living in that house!

This show is hot! There is just no other way to put it.  Sookie and Bill are a fascinating couple, and watching them together in their demure-yet-sexually-tense courting got me as (if not more) hot and bothered as the crazy sex scenes did.  I mean, watching Sookie drink Bill’s blood, or watching him lick the blood from her forehead, or even watching him do something as simple as smell her hair felt intimate and voyeuristic in a way that all the sex Jason is having with the women in town didn’t.  Not that that wasn’t hot.  Jason seems to have lots of stamina, and isn’t bad to look at either!  But there’s something about the sweet, courtly way they interact that gets my naughty bits tingling.

Aside from causing my naughty bits to tingle, this episode was also great in that it gave us more information about what vampires in this world can and can’t do.  I love the swift, blurry way in which they’re able to travel, as well as the detail of blood tasting different from person to person.  What struck me most, though, was the fact that a mortal’s invitation to a vampire can also be revoked.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that anywhere else before, and it’s really interesting.  Also, it suits the relationship developing between Sookie and Bill – he the gentleman and she the proper, Southern lady.

This show has officially gotten its hooks into me (or its teeth?).  It will be interesting to see how the Maudette Pickens case develops, as well as the relationship between Jason and the ladies who lust/love him.  Oh, and those vampires that circled Sookie at the end of the episode…yeah, they looked hungry…and sadistic.

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TERESA JUSINO was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so.  As a writer, her work has appeared in Elmont Life newspaper, and on the sadly defunct website, CentralBooking.com. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories. As a geek, Teresa loves Star Trek, Lost, comics, and anything Joss Whedon ever touched. She has a fangirl *squee-ing* crush on Brian K. Vaughan, which beat up her Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man crush in a fight proving once again that writing skill trumps gadget skill even when that gadget skill is attached to bulging biceps.  Teresa is also an aspiring fangbanger.

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