The Madge starts in -- "I realize your ears are already pierced. Would you object to my piercing your eyelids?" -- but Eric immediately shows up, cold as death. It's time to deal. Did he bring Bill? No he did not. But he did bring the Queen of Louisiana, who is all slinky and whatnot. Eric immediately admits everything, the V, doing it for Sophie. Madge reminds him of the original issue, which is that, either way, the V is going to fuck him over in part because he either turns on Sophie or the Authority itself. He picks Sophie, but come on, it's Eric. He's only telling you the truth to further his agenda.

Also, though, Sophie's not his Queen anymore, so it's not technically treachery. (Impute the usual hilarity about how these "kingdoms" are teeny-tiny and dumb.) And who is? Russell, who comes down the stairs with an even more regal air. So then the Magister offers to arrest Sophie, by "the powers vested in me by the Authority," and Russell makes fun of him about that for a while, which maybe makes sense maybe not.

The key is this Authority went from being not a thing to being very much a thing. If you do the viral stuff, videos and stuff -- which I don't, but now have -- you know that the Authority is where Nan Flanagan and the Magister come from. It's sort of a High Council that has nothing to do with royalty: Royalty earned it, Authority has been there since the beginning. Like Russell Time or pre-Russell Time. The Kings and Queens earned their role by being totally awesome, and always there's this other thing that is what's selling the PR of vampires. We don't know about it in the same way that Tara didn't know Franklin needed to explode, but it's about to become very important. I always explain the Madge as the Attorney General, but maybe it's better at this point to refer to them collectively as the Vatican. (Sorry.)

The Magister greets Russell with his given name, and he corrects him, and Madge offers to arrest him as well. Russell goes right back into his V For Vendetta stuff about how the Authority can go ahead and shove themselves up their collective, and meanwhile Eric is taking care of Pam, or at least cooing at her. (There's an awesome moment where the Madge interrupts himself to scream at Eric to leave her tied to the table, as he feels his authority draining out of the room.) Anyway, now Russell has put the Magister into a pickle not unlike the one Eric was in, because of all the "blasphemy" going on, and how the three of them (four including Pam) are a Conspiracy at this point, and Madge has responsibilities w/r/t that. I feel him. But also the four of them, the King and Queen and Sheriff and Pam are about the least interested-in-that-idea people you've ever met whose last names are not Stackhouse.