Outside, Jason's scared because Steve's in a golfcart with a big old gun, which he cocks: "Ain't she a beauty? Let's you and me take a little trip together." He pats the seat and Jason asks if he's in trouble. Something dark behind the brightness. "We're all in trouble, Jason. As long as there are vampires in the world!" Jason hops up beside him, unnerved, and they roar off. Hope somebody brought a condom.

Sookie tells Tara to ignore her stuff and take her room, and when she gets back she'll move all her stuff into Adele's room and celebrate Tara's birthday. As an early/actually punctual gift, she gives her that TERRIFYING picture of the two of them with Gran looking like Leprechaun In Da Hood, and they cry and hug and hug and cry and it basically turns into Tara comforting Sookie for her loss yet one more time.

(Which, fine, because although it's Tara's birthday, Gran died like three weeks ago. I think like Lost or Weeds, this show will be much awesomer on DVD, because the end-to-end joining of the episodes won't stick out so much. I mean, you had people complaining about come on already with the constant orgies when it was only like the third episode, which on DVD is not going to seem like three weeks of orgies, it's going to seem like what it is, which is a 24-hour period in which Bon Temps goes from X to Y, on its way to Total Z. Total, I mean to say, Z. As in, in tonight's performance the role of Kevin Bacon will be played by Maryann Forrester and the part of "dancing" will be played by "the breakdown of consciousness via the return of the bicameral mind." Am I making myself clear? Because ya got trouble, folks! Right here in Renard Parish! With a capital T and that rhymes with ODC and that stands for ORGIASTIC DIONYSUS CULT! Right here in Renard County! On a cultural level!

There's been the same thing in comics for years, it's called "writing for the trade" and it means basically that a standard comic book story-arc is now pieced out to six or eight issues (like this show does arcs for twelve, or most one-season broadcast shows do for thirteen) which only get awesome when collected the next year, so that the company can keep up a production schedule of two $19.95-or-so trade paperbacks a year rather than -- optimistically speaking -- twelve smaller $2.95-or-so, it's been a while, issues that less people buy because they're waiting for the trade. So the buying habits have pushed the development cycle and storytelling itself in this new, often initially unsatisfying format, which only good writers can balance for both -- and it leads to a lot of bullshit filler and/or repetitive stuff.