True Blood Recap: "Soul of Fire"

So much happened this week on True Blood, and it was pretty spectacular.  Jason (Ryan Kwanten) stops the VAMP team from trying to blow up the witch emporium, and informs them of the killer force field.  Apparently, Bill (Stephen Moyer) actually thought Sookie (Anna Paquin) would stay away because he said so.  Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) knew better. 
 
After Marnie (Fiona Shaw) kills one of her former followers, Antonia’s spirit breaks free, so Marnie has to use a spell to bind them back together.  Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) relates this to the other captives and Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) tells him they’re all screwed.  Using the dead girl’s body and his brujo powers he secretly works with Lafayette to unbind the two witches.  Meanwhile, the others convince Marnie to negotiate with the vampires.

Marnie takes Sookie with her, and says she’ll leave her unharmed if both Bill and Eric kill themselves.  Pam (Kristin Bauer) and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) both scoff, until the boys agree.  Before anything can happen to her maker, Pam goes against orders and fires the bazooka right at Marnie and Sookie.  Because of her protection spell, however, the explosion backfires onto them.  Jason is gravely injured, so Jessica feeds him her blood. After this scare, it looks like these two are going to try and work things out.  Eric is just livid.  He threatens to kill Pam, and sends her away.
 
No longer willing to “negotiate,” Marnie looks at her future and sees herself dead.  She convinces all of the others to join her and finish the vampires.  They compel them to walk into the force field.  Jason tries to hold them back, and pull them away, but he’s no match for the witchcraft and telepathically tells Sookie they’ll all die if she doesn’t stop Marnie.  Sookie responds by beaming everybody with her light.  Marnie is pissed her plan failed, and surrounds Sookie in a ring a fire.  Sookie screams in pain and fear, as Jesus finally unbinds Marnie and Antonia, breaking all of Antonia/Marnie’s magic, and saving Sookie. 
 
Eric and Bill rush inside.  Marnie’s lone, faithful follower says he won’t let them harm her, so Eric immediately rips his heart out.  (Thank GOD, Badass Eric is back!)  Then, Bill goes all Tony Montana on Marnie, and shoots her six times with a big gun.  It was a surprisingly welcome change seeing Eric and Bill work so well together.  They kept giving each other looks of respect and admiration, as they tried to save Sookie and kill the witch.  I was actually really feeling their bromance.  Also, it made me really hope Sookie’s three-way fantasy would (soon) become a reality. 
 
Speaking of bromances… Sam (Sam Trammell) and Alcide (Joe Manganiello) are working together to get justice for Tommy.  After Marcus kidnaps his daughter from Luna, they figure out he’s hiding out at Alcide’s house.  He’s been there trying to convince Debbie to go away with him and make a big werewolf family.  She refuses because she loves Alcide, and says their fling was just to get back at Alcide’s unfaithfulness.  Sam and Alcide barge in and Sam declares to fight Marcus man-to-man, putting his gun down.  Sam defeats him, but Marcus grabs the gun and fires at Sam when his back is turned.  Alcide steps forward and finishes Marcus off, as Debbie screams.  Then, he dumps Debbie, and leaves her crying over yet another dead lover. 
 
This week’s show ends with Lafayette trying to comfort Jesus for his role in Marnie’s death.  He tells him Marnie was crazed and homicidal, and Jesus’ actions saved lives.  Lafayette starts to drift to sleep, and it feels like something bad is coming.  I thought maybe Jesus was going to burst into flames, possibly side effects from his powerful demon magic.  I was wrong.  Marnie’s back, and now she’s possessing Lafayette.  With all the characters who have died on True Blood, why do only some come back?  Could it be a strictly witch thing?  This might be welcome news should anything ever really happen to Jesus—it wouldn’t mean the end of Kevin Alejandro. 
 
I only had some minor squabbles this week.  After Marnie insists they need to all join in a spell so the vamps can’t kill them, they’re all persuaded pretty quickly—even Sookie, when it means death for vampires she supposedly loves!  It just didn’t make sense.  When has believing Marnie and joining her spells ever gotten them anything but grief?  Also, while potentially being swallowed alive by fire is terrifying (and especially horrifying considering she made Antonia help inflict the cause of her death on someone else), the fire looked so fake.  It was hard believing a screaming Anna Paquin was really in mortal danger.  It might have been even scarier if viewers didn’t see the actual fire, just knew about it and heard the screams.
 
Anyway, next week’s finale looks like it’s going to be explosive.  Make sure to come back and read Pop Confidential final Season 4 recap!