Last night, Pee-wee Herman was the guest judge on Top Chef. And I don’t mean that “Paul Reubens, the actor who plays Pee-wee Herman” was a guest judge. No. I mean that Paul Reubens in character as Pee-wee Herman showed up for the Quickfire and opined on everyone’s pancakes. Then he told them they’d be riding bicycles to pick up ingredients around San Antonio before serving him lunch at the Alamo. You know, because Pee-wee’s Big Adventure revolves around a lost bicycle and the supposed basement of the Alamo. And that’s really relevant because that movie came out in August of 1985, making this… no kind of anniversary.

But look: I don’t even care about the speciousness of the theme. What bothers me is thatTop Chef degraded itself and its contestants (as well as Reubens) by having everyone pretend that Pee-wee Herman was a real person. Never once did they acknowledge he was playing a character, yet everyone’s pained eyes told us they were straining to act like they enjoyed the charade. Let me break it down like this:

* The contestants suffered because they had to turn their legitimate art into a grotesque sideshow.

* Paul Reubens suffered because unlike other guest judges, he wasn’t given the dignity of legitimately engaging in a discussion of the food. Instead, it seemed like there were producers standing just off-camera with a gun at his head, saying, “Make a joke about loving beef cheeks so much you want to marry them!” Watching his flop-sweaty display made me feel nauseated, particularly because like the chefs, Reubens is a smart, talented person who might have had something more to offer as himself than as his character.

When Charlize Theron came on a few weeks ago, the show developed an entire theme around the fact that she’s playing the wicked queen in that new Snow White movie. The chefs had to cook her something “evil” and the food was served in a Gothic setting. But otherwise, people got to act normal. Charlize was just Charlize. She wasn’t cackling over the forbidden rice and pretending it was going to help her catch that poor young waif in the forest. That freed her up to have legitimate thoughts and interactions, which also freed up the chefs to be creative yet also professional. It was a great episode—one of my favorites in the history of the series, in fact—and its strengths were magnified by this week’s pitiful descent into the world of make believe.

* Top Chef itself suffered because the producers clearly ignored what makes the show work and what makes Pee-wee work. At its best, Top Chef is a savvy celebration of the skill and intensity of professional chefs. That is not an environment for a frantic man-child… or least not a man-child who doesn’t know how to sear a duck breast. And at his best, Pee-wee Herman lives in a world that mirrors his mania. He makes sense in a playhouse where the clock and the floor and the local cow can make jokes. His presence in the Top Chef kitchen is tantamount to going to your senior prom and noticing that one girl’s date is dressed like a clown.

This is exactly what happened on Project Runway: All-Stars a few weeks ago when the designers had to “create a look” for Miss Piggy. They acted like they had thoughts about her and her “style.” The judges had to fucking consult her about her opinions on the dresses. It was just so ludicrous and insulting, and it made me feel like I was watching a children’s show parody of my favorite programming.

And I’m not saying a faux guest can’t work in any context. Top Chef: All-Stars featured a Quickfire where the Muppets judged cookies, and everyone pretended they were real. But you know what? That lasted 5 minutes, and then the show brought in a real judge for the main challenge.

I understand that reality competitions can’t just keep airing the same old challenges, and I understand that the producers have to come up with something every week. They took a gamble here, and it didn’t pay off. But still. I couldn’t just say nothing. I couldn’t just pretend I was okay with that clown at the prom

On today’s installment of the Extra Hot Great podcast, I recount how an episode of Roseanne sparked one of the most embarrassing things that has ever happened to me.

Along with the rest of the team, I also discuss Joyful Noise, Mark Wahlberg, and several other high-octane topics.

Do go listen… and enjoy my shame!

My week at NPR’s Monkey See blog continues with my secret wish for American Horror Story‘s second season. It doesn’t directly involve a scene where Dylan McDermott makes out with Zachary Quinto, but I’m not closing that door.

By Doug Strassler

I really didn’t think there was any reason to remake the Prime Suspect series, that near-perfect septet of episodes in which Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren, giving an ongoing performance that was an embarrassment of nuanced riches) fought criminals and colleagues alike.

After all, not only had the series (whose final episode aired in 2006) been done, Jane had also already been Americanized. In the two decades since Lynda La Plante created Tennison as a flawed, coarse broad whose personal life was often a bigger mess than any of her professional errors, we’ve had descendants like Amy Gray on Judging Amy, Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer and Mary Shannon on In Plain Sight.

And as the television landscape continues to be occupied by more procedurals, character depth grows. Look at Detective Natalia Boa Vista (Eva La Rue) on CSI: Miami or Emily Prentiss on Criminal Minds or even Olivia Dunham on Fringe. All of these characters come armed with personal stories that enhance the front-burner stories even if they aren’t necessarily driving them. So if we have all of these new versions of Tennison, I thought, then there is no reason to bring the original back, right?

Well, in a moment of generosity (and procrastination), I gave it a shot. Turns out I was wrong – and on two counts. First of all, Jane Tennison is still gone. The new NBC reboot of Prime Suspect casts the superb Maria Bello as Jane Timoney. So, new name, new woman.

But on the second, less superficial count, this Prime Suspect has been updated enough to make Timoney a very now, and still a very universal, character. Timoney is an outsider not just because she’s a female cop in what’s still predominantly a man’s world. She’s on the fringe because she doesn’t kowtow to any social graces. She co-opts a rival colleague’s investigation hours after his death, knowing it will piss off his peers. Like Tennison, Timoney is far from sexless (pretty much everyone knows she slept with an old boss of hers), but she is so aggressive the idea that she might have to rely on another party to bring her any pleasure, let alone to ecstasy, seems anathema.

And as civil training in the workplace has emerged, so too has the overt sexist treatment of women and minorities declined. But as anyone who’s ever worked a 9-to-5 knows, the high school mentality hasn’t disappeared; it just finds new ways to lurk in the shadows. Last night’s pilot episode – surefootedly directed by Peter Berg – shows how the subliminal office sexism exists in a way that feels decidedly 2011. Timoney meets resistance at every turn, some of which is her own doing, some of which is entirely unfair, and all of which is completely realistic.

And boy does Bello give it her all in a performance that, so far, begs for no sympathy and takes no shortcuts in carving out a complex female lead. She’s tough, and doesn’t give obvious signs to telegraph where the character is tender just to get audience members to like her. In one of her best scenes from the pilot, Timoney coaxes information out of a victim’s young son by letting him touch her firearm. And in another, after getting the crap beaten out of her by a perp on a sting gone awry, she asks for a cigarette.

Yes, this conflates danger with sex in a rather obvious, and TV dialogue-ish, sort of way. But this is also where the character overlaps with all of the qualities that made Tennison so fascinating: like a character out of Greek tragedy, her hubris is the flaw that could at any moment lead to her undoing. And yet if you look right beneath her proud exterior, you can see that as tough and resourceful as she is, there’s a part of her that’s actually scared shitless. Like all of us would be.

I know. I’m only writing after the first episode, and anything could change. Prime Suspect could give way to all the pitfalls of episodic network TV demands. Nothing could compare to the original, but so far, this Prime Suspect doesn’t insult its memory at all. And there are certainly worse things than having the guarantee of watching a talent like Bello act for an hour every week. I’ll be staying tuned.

Anyone else a fan of the original who also caught last night’s episode?

We need to talk about Revenge, the ABC drama that has quickly joined NBC’s Up All Night as my favorite new show of the season. The pilot is delicious: It’s got the soapy intrigue of Ringer, but with better acting, writing, and production design. It’s got a back-from-obscurity star turn from Madeleine Stowe that will inspire generations of drag queens, and just in case you want it, it’s got a fascinating perspective on America’s economic crisis.

(Watch the entire pilot here.)

Let’s start with thoughtfulness, so we can  savor a bitchy dessert.

The series focuses on Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp), a woman in her 20s who slinks into the Hamptons one summer to get vengeance on the wealthy community that destroyed her father. She plans to murder and/or shame them because of what they did to her pops, and as we see in the first scene, she’s even willing to punish the relatively innocent.

The pilot opens at Emily’s beachside wedding to Daniel Grayson (Joshua Bowman), son of the wealthy and powerful Victoria and Conrad Grayson (Stowe and Henry Czerny.) Only… whoops. Someone drags Daniel down to the shore and shoots him, just as Victoria gives a cattily insincere speech about how much she loves her new daughter-in-law.

We learn that Emily is connected to the shooting, and it seems like local internet billionaire Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann) has been helping her. From there, we flash back five months, so we can see how this snowball started rolling.

This is standard potboiler territory, but there are dashes of contemporary flavor. The Graysons, for instance, didn’t hatch a conspiracy to murder Emily’s father, but to brand him a financial criminal. Instead of dripping poison in his ear, they hung some phony bank fraud around his neck, thereby protecting themselves from being exposed for their own crimes.

Right away, the series is tuned to the economic anxiety in our country and the boiling hostility many feel toward the bulletproof rich. As Alessandra Stanley notes in her sharp review for the New York Times, we’re not supposed to gawk at the privileged with a mixture of envy and horror, a la Dallas or Dynasty. We’re supposed to hope they die.

Stanley notes that new shows like 2 Broke Girls and Charlie’s Angels are also rooted in the aftermath of the financial crisis, but Revenge has the most compelling spin on the issue. It’s manifesting the hostility so many of us feel, yet it’s pushing our hostility through Emily, who is the child of great privilege and has inherited a fortune from her father. We get a fantasy of economic vengeance, yet we root for a rich woman.

I wonder if this “in-the-world-not-of-it” conundrum will create tension later. It certainly could, especially since there’s a hot young dockworker on the show who was Emily’s friend when they both little kids. The dockworker, you see, is actually middle class, and he’s so decent that  he sells his boat to help save his dad’s restaurant. Emily may have a valid grievance, but killing people is still wrong. On this show, it’s the kind of thing that rich people do. The dockworker, meanwhile, does what “poor people” do… meaning he doesn’t kill anyone and call it a good deed.

I don’t think he does, at least. It’s implied that the dockworker is the shooter in the opening scene, but I’m guessing we’ll learn he didn’t really do it, or the gun was filled with blanks, or he slipped his victim a bulletproof vest. For now, I’m trusting the implication that Emily’s good intentions have been warped by money and privilege, while the dockworker’s morality has been protected by his occasional need to shop at Wal-Mart.

But enough of that! Bring on Madeleine Stowe’s hair!

Because seriously, y’all. For all its deep themes, the show is also a lot of fun, and Stowe’s especially delightful. Her hair deserves an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress, since it gets whipped around like the shimmery exclamation point to all of Victoria’s commands.

I fell for Revenge during this glorious Victoria scene, which pays off on several arcs in the episode. We’ve learned, for instance, that Victoria’s best friend Lydia is boffing Victoria’s husband, and because Emily has been following them, she knows it, too. Emily uses trickery to make sure that Victoria learns about the affair, and she correctly trusts Victoria to take it from there.

You see, Victoria is running a charity auction, and to help raise money, she’s auctioning off one of her valuable paintings. Earlier in the episode, we see Lydia joke that if Victoria auctions off the Van Gogh that Lydia bought Victoria as a gift, then Lydia will just die. Victoria says of course she wouldn’t do that, and instead she auctions a Manet.

But that’s before she learns about Lydia’s affair. Then this happens…

BOOM! Right there, y’all. Right there is where Victoria and Emily begin their battle to become Queen Bitch.

I love how complex that scene is. So many things are happening at once, and they all demonstrate Victoria’s power and Emily’s cunning. I bow to the writers for constructing their plot so tightly that can we can feel thirty gears click into place in less than 90 seconds.

And of course, I raise a ruby-handled dagger to Stowe’s ice-queen performance. Add this to the social commentary, and you’ve got me, Revenge. You’ve got me.

Watch the entire pilot here.

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Psst! Are you following me on Twitter?

* Overall, I enjoyed the show. I love upset winners, and these awards provided plenty. It was especially great to see Melissa McCarthy step out from the beauty-pageant line of Best Comedy Actress nominees. She seemed genuinely delighted, and the whole gimmick of that category made all the other women seem like good sports. (Sidebar: Laura Linney’s got amazing legs. That dress was working for her.)

* Speaking of enthusiasm, I need the Kate Winslet haters to step the fuck off. I’ve seen various tweeters slamming her for an “arrogant” acceptance speech, but come ON. As with the Oscars, it seems like people are pissed at her for actually being excited to win a major acting award, but why shouldn’t she be? Just because you’re the frontrunner doesn’t mean you can’t be happy when you win. And besides, everyone who watches these shows—myself included—feeds into the cultural story that awards like the Emmy are a really big deal. It’s unfair to create the beast and the be made at someone for conquering it. And yeah, yeah… we can all nurse our pet crushes on cooler-than-cool winers like Helen Mirren and Emma Thompson, and I love them, too, but Kate Winslet isn’t required to be a Bitchin’ British Dame. It’s okay for her to have the enthusiasm of a Melissa McCarthy, even though she’s not the underdog. If everyone accepted awards with the same air of nonchalance, then the Emmys would be the Grammys, and NOBODY wants that. (Oh, also? Kate Winslet is a phenomenal actress. Phenomenal. So let’s all acknowledge that when she wins, she deserves to win.)

* I’m not sure we needed the show’s announcer to make snappy comments about every winner, especially when we had Jane Lynch hurling barbs the stage. The Emmys have been drifting toward the all-irony, all-the-time approach for years, and we’ve reached a point where the jokes are crashing into obvious slots. Here’s the “two presenters stage a fight” bit, and here’s the bit where we cut backstage and see someone acting like a crazy person. Here’s the Betty White joke, the unnecessary opening number where famous TV people dance and sing, and the bit where somebody slags on reality TV.

* That said, I really enjoyed seeing six television actors form an ad hoc singing group to announce each new section of the show. Add “looks good in a cummerbund” and “can carry a tune” to the reasons I will someday marry Joel McHale.

* It’s been said many times tonight, but it must be said again: Dry ice and “Hallelujah” and singers who really do resemble The Lonely Island are a bad combination for an In Memoriam tribute.

* Even in the half-second of her performance clip, it was clear that Margo Martindale deserved to win, and I don’t even watch that show. I love her. Weirdly, I also don’t watch The Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly, Friday Night Lights, or The Good Wife. Yet I feel like I enjoy lots of quality programming all the same.

By Doug Strassler

This past July, I fully anticipated writing a laundry list of personally beloved – and meritorious – shows and performers that went without Emmy recognition. But when this year’s slate of nominees were announced, in addition the expected war horses (Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Mildred Pierce, Modern Family, Game of Thrones), I found a sizable number of my own favorites in the mix as well. Less sure things like Episodes, Friday Night Lights, Jusitified and Louie all saw some well-deserved love.

Which leaves me with only one omission to carp about, a performances so wonderful, so haunting, that it will still make this Sunday’s Emmys telecast feel slightly lacking: Irrfan Khan of HBO’s late In Treatment.

Khan played Sunil, Dr. Paul Weston’s (Gabriel Byrne) “Monday” patient. Sunil was a 52-year-old Indian patient, having recently emigrated to Brooklyn from Calcutta following the death of his wife. Sunil is at war with everything: the English language, unfamiliar customs, his haughty daughter-in-law, ungrateful grandchildren, and is also severely depressed as a result of his recent loss and uprooting.

Using sometimes only the stillest of gestures and glances, Khan dug deep inward to express Sunil’s inner pain, a task made even more challenging due to the character’s refusal to open up. In small ways, though, he allowed Weston to reach him, to connect to him and give him the respectful outlet the man so desperately needs.

Sunil, too, is manipulating Weston to try and carve out a semblance of the lifestyle he misses, and so all of his therapy exchanges are laced with a doubleness. Sunil gives and withholds, all at once. In his lies are truth, and in his confession remain secrets. Khan artfully communicates a stream of emotions that Sunil likely does not even consciously fathom, all while trying to salvage his own personal pride and dignity. This a complex, nuanced performance. Some might even say it’s perfection.

Are there any other glaring Emmy snubs you want to share?

If you’re wondering why I’ve spent the week vacillating between terror and joy, then I should remind you that the new TV season has begun. Every night brings a new companion to my home, and I never know if our dalliance will end with a passionate embrace or call to the local police.

So far, I’ve watched the pilots of 2 new series, and I’ve liked both of them enough to give them another try. One of those repeat visits will be utterly joyous, and the other will be marked with caution. Read on to find out which is which…

(1) Up All Night on NBC

I’m totally on board with this family sitcom starring Will Arnett and Christina Applegate as new parents who are a little dubious about having baby… yet totally in love with their child and each other. As Linda points out over at NPR’s Monkey See, neither of the characters fit the standard sitcom mold of Chilly Yet Skilled Mother and Hopelessly Adolescent Dad. Instead, they’re both people I recognize: People in their late thirties who have just gotten around to having a baby, who feel bad about cursing all the time, and who still want to have sex with each other. There’s something relaxed and generous about the way these people are written and performed… they’re relatable folks with good and bad points who are trying to be good parents without losing touch with their adult lives.  My personal television landscape is defined by aggressively stylized comedies like 30 Rock, Community, and Raising Hope, so it’s nice to find a show that feels “real.”

“Real”… for the most part. Maya Rudolph plays Christina Applegate’s Oprah-esque, talk show host boss—Arnett left his law firm to stay at home with the baby—and her exaggerated character seems to belong in a show like 30 Rock, what with her loopy narcissism and long tangents about Stevie Nicks. I can deal with that for the moment, though, because Rudolph made me laugh out loud several times. In a scene where Arnett and Applegate force themselves to go out for an “old times” night of drinking and karaoke, Rudolph waltzes into the karaoke bar with two bottles of champagne. With almost no expression on her face, she goes, “Ooh-oooh!” and the Disaffected Pimp delivery just cracks my shit up.

So… yeah. The tonal imbalance could be a problem, but I think it’ll get worked out. I expect gentle humanity to prevail and make this show a bright spot in my week.

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(2) Ringer on the CW

I’ve never watched a CW show before, but something told me that Ringer was going to be trashy fun. It’s reasonably fun, I guess, but it’s six kinds of trashy. Tacky, sudsy, and apparently made for $25, the pilot is almost a parody of soap operas: Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a pair of twin sisters, and one of them is posing as the other while they’re both on the run from their dark secrets.

Honestly, though, the plot is not the reason to watch. Instead, you should come for the shots of SMG trying to serve “hardass bitch” by clenching her mouth into a flat little line, looking over her shoulder just so, and running her finger down the edge of a mirror. I mean… just look at that promo image up there,which the pilot essentially recreates in several scenes. Add some shoulder pads and bangs, and you’ve got Erica Kane’s best subplot from the 1980s.

Oh… and can we talk about the mirrors? They’re in every damn scene. Because the twins reflect each other both inside and out. DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY’RE GOING FOR?

I don’t know if I’ll spend an entire season with this K-Mart weave, but as I’m waiting for the return of The Walking Dead, it’ll do just fine.

The ad is ostensibly about a black woman’s refusal to accept that white jeans go out of season. “I’ll rock white jeans whenever I want,” she declares, rising from a park bench to emphasize her point.

But think about it: She’s saying she’ll wear whiteness. “Not ‘whitish,’ not eggshell, not ecru.” White.

In other words, she will assume a white identity at her leisure. She’ll rock white genes whenever she wants.

For me, “wearing whiteness” means mastering the codes of white culture and performing them in order to access “white privilege.” To prove that privilege can be hers, the woman ends the commercial by saying the word “white” with exaggerated emphasis, hitting the “t” like a professional boxer. It’s like she’s conjuring whiteness, calling it forth from the ether.

And after she says “white,” the woman’s voice changes. Her final line—”That’s my Tide, what’s yours?”—has the chipper affect of a perky Greenwich wife, making her sound so stereotypically white that she could pass for Tipper Gore. In a subtly rebellious touch, she uses the “white voice” to deliver the brand’s tagline.

By flipping on whiteness like a switch, the woman says, “Be careful, white America. Equality’s on the way. The minorities in this country have learned your language and your ways, and we can infiltrate your ranks in ways you’ll never  notice.”

I mean… right? That has to be what Tide intended. Otherwise, this commercial would just be reductive and offensive, and no major brand would release an ad like that.

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

SPOILERS AHEAD

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Oh my God… it’s like this episode was delivered directly to my heart. It’s like Alan Ball and company looked at an X-ray of my desires and said, “Oh, okay. Let’s give Mark everything he wants for the end of the season.” And sure, that’s not what actually happened, but I love this episode no less, no less, no less.

“And When I Die” is a prophetic title since many characters do just that. I’ve been frustrated with the show for weeks because it keeps creating faux-dangerous situations for its lead characters, then rescuing them fifteen seconds later, with no one actually dying or (more importantly) changing. It’s been exhausting.

This week, however, real change visits everyone, and in at least a few cases, real death. I’m not saying I’ve been wanting characters to die, per se, but it’s nice to see the writers commit to the end of several arcs and then suggest how the survivors are going  move on. Rather than getting stuck in the rut of “I died, but then I drank your blood/inhabited your body,” we get some honest-to-god evolution.

Granted, I expect at least one of these deaths to be magically reversed next season, but since so many other changes have been set it motion, I’ll be fine with that. If any of these people survive, then they’ll be returning to a different world.

But let’s get back to the episode:

The finale for Marnie was pretty wonderful, right? Last week I correctly predicted that Jesus would die in order to save Lafayette, yet I wasn’t disappointed by the results.

By taking Jesus’ magic, Marnie sets herself up for the ultimate revenge. We find her in front of Bill’s house, with Bill and Eric (shirtlessly!) chained together over a burning pyre. Holly, Tara, and Sookie roll up to save them, and at first, it seems like it’s going to be the same old, same old, with Sookie’s faerie hands getting everyone out of a jam.

But that’s not what happens. Holly magicks the spirits of ancestors and friends, and the woods fill with ghosts—including Gran! Eventually, we  see Antonia, and she’s the one who snuffs out the fire, saving Eric and Bill. To me, that’s different than having Sookie save them. It teaches us that once and for all, Antonia has relinquished her anger and her desire to be on earth. She’s found peace, just like Gran. By putting out Marnie’s fire, she’s saying, “The next phase of your existence can begin right now.” This gives Fiona Shaw—whom Gran pulls out of Lafayette’s body—one last, brilliant scene, where she rails against the loss of her new power. She finally realizes, though, that unlike vampires, she can leave the earth and find closure. And so Marnie is given dignity as she departs with Antonia and Gran. She leaves as a different person than she was before.

Before the ghosts leave, Sookie goes to Gran, begging for advice. Gran says there’s nothing wrong with being alone, and then she departs for good.

This is major. For one thing, when we see all these characters go to heaven (or wherever), we know they’re gone. This will let everyone (including us) evolve and move on. Plus, Gran’s advice gives Sookie at excuse to finally jump off of this irritating Bill-Eric pendulum she’s been riding. That leads to the stirring moment where she breaks up with Eric and Bill at the same time, after they chomp on her wrists for one last feed. Sookie, girl! You’re finally ready to become a more interesting character!

Anna Paquin really rises to this double-breakup scene and the emotional breakdown she has afterward. Homegirl does have an Oscar, after all, and I’m glad to see her get material that showcases her talent.

Of course, the show clarifies that Sookie can now get with Alcide if she chooses, since he luuuuuvs her. It would be nice to see her just be single for a while, and I’m guessing that will happen. Things will be complicated with Alcide, since Sookie ends the episode shooting Debbie in the head with a shotgun… just seconds after Debbie tries to shoot Sookie and accidentally hits Tara in the head.

WHOA! I suspect Tara’s death won’t take, but then again, Debbie’s bullet visibly takes off Tara’s skull.

If Tara’s really dead, it might be for the best, since she’s been stagnant since season one, and again… that would be some serious change in the world of the show. But honestly, the thought of losing Tara makes me realize how much I like her, so I kind of hope they find a way to bring her back. But if they don’t, I tip my hat to the series. I didn’t think it had the guts to spill such a major character’s guts.

That brings me back to Jesus, Joy of Lafayette’s Desiring. Though his death is predictable, it’s beautifully handled, with Kevin Alejandro and Nelsan Ellis giving typically wonderful performances as Jesus appears to Lafayette for a ghostly goodbye. How will Lafayette react when he finds out his cousin is also dead? I want to jump in the screen and help him myself.

Speaking of empathy: The brilliant acting and writing continue in Pam and Ginger’s little scene in Fangtasia. Pam gets to wink at the show’s own silliness when she complains that Sookie, with her “stupid name” and “magic faerie vagina,” can’t be more important than her own hundred-year history with Eric. She allows Ginger to hug her as she cries, and it’s reminiscent of last season, when Eric’s near-death at the hands of Russell Edgington also made her break down. She’s a tough cookie, that Pam, but she can be lovely.

Let me note that Ginger spends this entire scene dressed like a naughty nurse. The episode takes place on Halloween, which not only justifies the arrival of so many dead souls, but also gives many heartfelt scenes a wickedly campy edge, since they play out while characters are dressed like creatures of the night. My favorite joke of the episode comes when Arlene’s daughter proudly announces that she’s dressed like one of the girls from Teen Mom 2. Pray it’s not a vision of things to come, Arlene.

And speaking of that, Arlene, dressed as a zombie, finally gets that dreaded visit from the ghost of Rene. However, he’s not here to hurt her. Here’s here to warn her that Terry is about to unleash some awfully dark secrets about his past. Surely, that’s got something to do with the old military buddy who wanders into Merlotte’s. Terry thought the guy was dead, and knowing this show, he’s a reanimated corpse or something. Look for Weekend At Terry’s to be a running theme next year.

Meanwhile, to win the prize for sexiest moment of the week, the shirtless-vampires-chained-together scene has to compete with the Jason-naked-for-most-of-the-episode scenes. And Jason is super naked. Like, just a little pillow on his tackle box, y’all. Meanwhile, he’s also having a revelatory conversation with Jessica, who is firmly embracing her vampire self and telling Jason that she just wants to sleep with him. She’s not even willing to drink his blood, since that’s too intimate. (She is willing to act like a hooker, if that’s what he wants, but that’s just because she misinterprets something he says. It’s a lovely touch, because her desire to please reminds us that Jessica’s not quite comfortable in her burgeoning role as a hardcore vampire.)

Jessica jokes that Jason shouldn’t care about being used for sex, but that sounds too much like Hoyt’s cruel words. When Jason reveals that he’s sleeping with Jessica, Hoyt beats him up while screaming that Jason is missing the part that lets people love. When Jason mentions this to Jessica, she sweetly (and genuinely) insists it isn’t the case, but it’s possible Jason will do some soul searching next year.  Jason’s never been shallow, of course: He fell in love with Amy, tried to find redemption at the Fellowship of the Sun, and took care of all those Hotshotters. But this situation with Jessica may make him even more mature. Or it may just be yet another brief distraction from Jason’s typical horndog ways.

And speaking of the Fellowship of the Sun… after Jessica leaves, Reverend Steve Newlin shows up at Jason’s door. There’s a moment where Steve is clearly delighted to see that Jason’s naked—I knew it!—but it quickly gives way to Steve’s  fangs. Yep! The anti-vampire preacher is now a fanger.

I like this revelation because it suggests the big villain from next season is going to be a character we already know. This show’s universe is already enormous, and I’d rather re-explore older characters than get to know a new set of bad guys.

To that end, I’m thrilled to learn that Russell Edgington has broken out of that cement trap. Who busted him loose? Where will he go? I can’t wait to find out, since Russell is my all-time favorite character on this show.

Moving on: A quick hello to Andy and Holly, who are promising to make a cute couple next year, and to Sam, who is getting stalked by a new werewolf as he continues courting Luna. Who could it be?

You know who it won’t be? Nan Flanagan, because my girl pushes Eric and Bill too far this time. She bursts into Bill’s office, saying she’s resigned/been fired from all the vampire organizations, and she’s expecting Eric and Bill to follow her. But she makes the mistake of threatening Sookie’s life if they don’t… and saying the boys are Sookie’s puppy dogs. Like that, Eric kills all of Nan’s bodyguards while Bill stakes Nan herself. Blood-spattered and standing over the gooey pile of her remains, Bill and Eric become a fearsome pair. Where will their partnership lead?

These are exciting questions, right? Granted, last season’s exciting questions led to rather ponderous answers about Hotshot and Mavis and such, but my hope has been renewed.

As for the Sucker Punch of the week? I’m giving the runner-up slot to Steve Newlin’s fangs and first place to the sudden, bloody arrival of the Eric-Bill alliance. I am excited to see where both of those moments take us next year.

That’s it for season 4! As always, thank you so much for joining me on this ride. Your comments and enthusiasm make this all worthwhile.