If I stared into your eyes for a million years, if she sunk her teeth into your flesh, if he fucked you for the rest of your lifetime, you would still be alone in there. Sam could follow me around all day long like a dog with a bone and while that would be almost optimally hot, it wouldn't solve the existential equation any more than drugs do. Neurologically speaking, love is just a flying leap under the assumption that what's inside your sack of guts is close enough to mine that we will be less alone.

And of us all, Sookie's the only one with personal experience enough to know how little that means, because only Sookie has been trained by life to understand how ugly those unspoken thoughts can get, when we keep them in the echo chamber and never let them out. It's what brings her and Tara into loving each other: she loves Tara because Tara knows all this and doesn't give a fuck, while Sookie looks at it and knows that if there's no rules inside your head then all that matters is being firm about the rules. But what neither of them know yet -- and Jason does -- is that we could spend a lifetime talking and never really get anyway, because the words are preferable but they're still just advertising. But no matter what, it's not going to stop us, and the world turns on that: we spend every second of every day trying to climb inside each other and disprove that futility, and that is terribly dumb and it is wonderfully brave.

The empty house, Gran's clean floor. Sookie stares at the place; there's a dripping sound. She steels herself and walks inside. She takes the pie out of the fridge and sits calmly, removing the plastic. She takes up a fork and pauses, then the first bit from the center. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, that shit is as true as gold. Put some love in your food and the folks will taste it. Smell this: you can smell the love and sweetness coming out of that pie. It tastes like home. It tastes like sadness and it tastes like absence, but she chokes it down around her sobs. It smells like Gran; it tastes like love. Like she's still here, every bite a word or a peck on the cheek or the strongest hug on the worst day. It tastes like life. And by the time she's done, all that's left of Gran will be hers, smell and taste. She weeps and takes it in; it is a duty no less profound and no more insane than sopping up the blood. It is a funeral; we attend alone.

Sam and Tara pull up to her motel room. All around them is life, unbounded, joyous, silly. An obese couple waves to her over their fried chicken as the children bitch and squabble. It's life. Tara lets Sam in as a woman nearby threatens somebody with death, breaking a bottle. She laughs: "Don't worry. She says that all the time." The discuss how sad it is as Tara offers him a warm beer from the shopping bag near the door, and sits on the bed. Sam's amazed at the relative squalor, making her uncomfortable: "I thought you were staying with Lafayette?" Yeah, until she discovered the webcam in his bathroom, she laughs. "No way I'll let a bunch of pervs watch me pee." It never occurred to me to wonder where my line is. I'm going to have to think about that some more.