True Blood’ Season 4, episode 5: Glamour shots

• John P. Johnson
• Tara, lyin’s only mean when other people do it.

Fact!
Joe Lee and Melinda needed to be put out of their misery. One lazy subplot down, three to go.

Fact!
Google and Fox News are run by vampires.

Fact!
Gators love marshmallows.

Last night’s episode opened with the immensely satisfying downfall of Joe Lee and Melinda Mickens. Tommy ensures his freedom from the ring with some blunt force trauma to Joe Lee’s noggin. Melinda meets her end similarly, albeit unintentionally, and Tommy throws the pair in the back of his van and heads to Sam’s trailer so he can fix it. Which, surprisingly, he does. Rather than giving Tommy some speech about the right thing to do, Sam tosses a couple of tarps over the bodies and heads deep into the swamp with his little bro. Sam seems open to a relationship with Tommy now that Joe Lee and Melinda are out of the picture. And boy are they, chomped to bits by gators so quickly and efficiently it may cause Dexter to rethink his approach.

Elsewhere in the Bon Temps backwoods, Tara, Lafayette and Jesus express frustration with Marnie’s tendency to upset vampires: “Hooker, you pissed off another goddamn vampire and then took a nap,” explains Lafayette to the conduit before the three ditch the witch. Back home, Jesus explains why they need to enlist the help of his shaman grandpa by recounting the tale of his ninth birthday, when he was gifted a pet goat and then forced by his grandpa to slit its throat and lick the knife, an act that filled him with power.

You know, just regular kids birthday stuff.