Sundown, and there's a cross burning on Jessica's yard, and a brick through the window; Bill appears instantly at her side and she nods, scared, that she's okay. She wants to track them, but he reminds her now isn't the time. And something else: "Even if it is against our nature." He's holding her hand when he says it, but it's almost sweeter than that to hear.

Back in aught-three, Sam drunkenly remembers, a cute little dog showed up at the campsite where the trashy randoms were counting all his stolen money and jewelry. And then before they knew what was happening, naked Sam Merlotte was holding the gun and taking the boyfriend's pants. Sam's whole life is putting on pants. There was much yelling and trashy drama -- motivated by the guy pushing Sam's buttons about barking in his sleep and being a "freak," which is what he thought he was back then -- and the girlfriend pulled a gun, and Sam accidentally shot her, and he felt super bad about that, because he loved her. But then she died, so he shot the boyfriend a few more times, and stole back the stolen stuff from the people who stole it from him, the original stealer.

Then he drove to Bon Temps, washed the gunk out of his hair, bought a bar, and became wonderful. And the only thing that was missing from his life was a girlfriend, because the first girl he slept with was a demigoddess who did weird stuff in bed, and then the last girl he slept with was a white trash femme fatale, and in the meantime his only prospect was the town retard, who eventually started dating vampires anyway, and possibly his employees, which hardly counts. And so by the time broken Tara Mae Thornton -- with whom he had more in common than she'd ever realize -- proposed a no strings attached, friends with benefits situation, he was ready for that exact thing. But now he's just drunk and staring at things in the woods and feeling crazy.

Eric and Pam commiserate about how Sookie is totally rude and stomps around yelling at vampires all the time because she is bonkers, and then Sookie parks her ass in his office and starts yelling. "What did you mean you're not gonna be around much longer?" He tells her to stop pretending she cares, which only works on boys, and once again he starts in about how she shouldn't trust Bill Compton. Will he tell her why? No, he'd rather dangle that dongle yet again, and go off on his weirdest tangent yet: