Bill drops by with silver for Eric's protection tonight, knowing that Sookie will watch out for him as well as they would at the castle, and it's relatively awkward -- Eric has no problem admitting that their reunion was "a happy one," and Sookie for her part can't quite hide her gratitude to Bill for letting him go free -- but everybody's being pretty authentic and trying to avoid the true death of awkwardness, to the best of their ability.

PROM NIGHT II: HELLO TARA MAE

Well, Tara's just walking down the middle of the road drinking, as expected -- just because Jason didn't shoot this one doesn't mean it hurts less -- and nearly gets run over immediately. ("Watch out for giant pigs!") Eventually she hears a rustle in the woods and assumes it's Pam, back to kill her. She sort of impotently tosses her bottle at the sound, but it's Antonia that appears: "Oh, hell no. You're the second-to-the-last person I wanna see."

Antonia tells her not to blame Marnie for everything, and Tara takes a while figuring out why Marnie is talking about herself in the third person, but Antonia hits her with some kind of ghost-witch whammy that tells the whole story of Luis's rape and torture in a handy second. It's as close to Take Back The Night second-wave as the story's going to get, but it's effective: Tara is the only person on Earth that might understand exactly how deep Antonia's wounds go, or how you'd travel 400 years for payback.

One thing that I like about bringing Tara and Antonia together in this way -- although I could happily go my whole life without seeing Antonia's constant raping ever again -- is that it retroactively gives so much more meaning to Tara's OTT victimization last year. I never really got upset or bored by her story last year because it made sense to me, I always love the Tara stuff each year and it's been stated outright that this season is about recompense for all that, but bringing her into Antonia's Circle is a lot more powerful and a lot less glib than it seemed, back when she joined that New Orleans fight club. You know? It's nice to know that this season is willing to tell this story -- how you can only regain your power once you realize it was never really stolen -- in more than one way, because it makes last season even better.

GOING TO GROUND

While the vamps and SWATs make Castle Compton light-tight, the King and Princess are down in the cells silvering themselves. It's heartbreaking, watching him hurt her like this, and even moreso when you see where it leads her: "I used to have a whole box of silver earrings and necklaces. My mom gave 'em to me when I was 13. She said she never wore 'em, but maybe one day I could. Oh, I hope Eden's got 'em now."