Well, our hopes for an epic three-episode human/vampire war seem to be getting themselves in a row: Both the ifrit and the Dragon storylines seem pretty wrapped up, the werewolves and faeries are both involved in the vampire plot now, and the Stackhouses are no closer to finding out who killed their parents. Another dodgy transition episode at least managed to get that done with a minimum of downtime, and the introduction of at least two cult-beloved actors (Robert Patrick and Keram Malicki-Sánchez, a personal fave).

The episode starts wonderfully, with a hilarious teamup between Lafayette and Sookie to figure out why she's getting great big ghosty vampire heads in her bathroom. A short Whoopi Goldberg outtake later, Gran's managed to present them with just enough clues to this "Warlow" vampire to put Sookie in, you guessed it, terrible danger.

Sookie heads to Bud Dearborn's to find out more about her parents' death, and is ambushed by the Dragon herself, his gross hot tub girlfriend Sweetie Des Arts from a minute ago. Why she hates the various soup varieties is funny in a classist John Waters way, if not all that interesting -- although the rest of Bon Temps is now just calling her crew The Obamas, which is funny but saps even more meaning from her motivations -- but in the end, Sam and Luna help Andy and Jason take them out. So that's one storyline: Psycho Racist Bud is officially a worse Sherriff than Andy, which makes him happy.

And I guess Hoyt is okay, even getting snacked on by some pigs, and luckily Jessica seems to blame herself for everything that went down, which is dumb. Also dumb: The resolution of the whole dumb ifrit storyline, in which after much posturing and shouting Terry finally murders Patrick. Which is bittersweet: On the one hand, no more bitching and moaning from the Fowler-Bellefleur clan, but on the other hand, it's pretty gross considering Terry shot a woman in the head for no reason a bunch of times and now gets off scot free. Maybe it's not really over, though? That would also be bittersweet.

After his failure to assert anything in particular over JD's Pack, Alcide has an unending memory about being a young Quileute which leads him to look up his own father, a very drunk T-1000. Herveaux Senior is a funny curveball to throw this late in the game, but I still feel like only Martha can possibly end up being The One. The rest of the Werewolf Nazi Cult stuff is interesting -- Giant Fabulous Homo Russell takes Big Gay Catamite Steve Newlin to see his new pets, and ends up giving him Puppy Emmy as a fun faggy present; the whole thing diminishes them both, all of us really -- but headed as we are toward this apocalyptic endgame it just seems like the easiest way to get the two remaining shifters involved in the fight. (Or else next week will give us some kinda Modern Family minstrel show bullshit with Newlin and Edgington fighting over their pretend daughter-puppy or something. Can't you see that happening?)

Eric and Molly team up to escape the Authority compound, betraying Nora in the process, but Bill turns out to be either less or more of an octuple-agent than the show usually demands of him: After some (embarrassing, it goes without saying) drugged-up sex, during which Salome turns into both Sookie and Lilith, Bill has joined the Authority in painful earnest, and ends up selling both our kids down the river. Out in the real world, Pam and Tara learn the ban on public feeding's been lifted, and a new Sherriff's been named for Area V... And he's about as gross and lame as you can be without actually being a werewolf.

Next Week: Our story ends with some fairies showing up at Sookie's house to casually explain that the factory bombings mean vampires are going to take over the world, so I guess that's what's going to happen? But with total wieners like Salome and Bill Compton at the helm -- even after his amazing plan of turning the whole show on its head -- I can't imagine it'll go very far.