"We brace for the Resurrection," he says, which leads right into...

ROOKIE FUCKFEST

Yeah, I'm calling them "Rookie," for about a million reasons. I hope it catches on. They say some ridiculous blood-bondy stuff to each other as they slowly fuck their way home through the swamp and onto the porch and into her foyer, and I guess it's good that Sookie doesn't really have any neighbors, because how embarrassing: "I'm listening to your heart beat. I can feel it, every pulse. Through your skin, into mine. If I lay still and think about nothing else, it feels like my own heart is beating" is not a monologue that looks good on anybody, even the eight feet of sex that used to be Eric Northman.

But it's also about healing, step-by-step unraveling and rewriting the broken story of Sookie and Bill, just as her affair with Bill rewrote the various parts of her history that helped her to heal from childhood. It's a resurrection of its own. And in any life, but especially an Alan Ball life, each resurrection immediately begins to rot around you and you must go looking for the next one. But for this episode at least, it's enough that sex with Eric is the best way for her to heal.

Up for discussion, once they've worn themselves out by actually fucking their way up the stairs, there is discussion of how Eric is kind of jealous of himself because he used to know her better, and desperately needs confirmation that she wants to be with him, regardless of who he becomes, so it's like this love triangle between New and Old Eric and Sookie, who actually takes quite a mature and disclosing approach to the situation: Basically that she never would have fallen for the old Eric because he was a tool that fucked with her and everybody she cares about, but that New Eric is still recognizably a part of him.

Eric, for his part, keeps quiet about the raging monster inside him that Godric was talking about before, but I think maybe it's because that goes without saying. When his feral nature starts to poke through, Sookie will probably be able to deal with it. I mean, if it weren't for the Faerie File they found at Bill's, she would have eventually forgiven him for the assault/rape/torture on the way back from Mississippi. Of all her faults, "underestimating the bullshit vampires will do to you on the slightest pretext" has really become the least of them. Part of her/our world getting bigger was/is always about recognizing the beast in men, and negotiating around it. Sweetly, she promises him at least this: That when he turns back into a monster, she will at least try to feel the way she's feeling now.