Hitting the Ground

Directed by John Dahl
Written by Brian Buckner

In the slave quarters of Russell's mansion, Lorena drinks deeply from the wound she's opened in Sookie's throat. Lorena is shocked at how delicious the blood tastes, but before she can savor it, a heavily drained Bill wraps his silver chains around her neck, giving Sookie the opening to stake his maker. She drives a piece of wood through Lorena's chest, turning the vampire into a wave of viscera that crashes down onto Bill.

Tara and Alcide burst into the room, warning Sookie that wolves will be on their trail any moment. Sookie refuses to leave without Bill, who's lost any sign of life. As they wrap him in a rug to block the sunlight, Debbie walks through the door, leveling a handgun on the group. After a brief struggle, Alcide manages to take the gun from her, but then Coot appears and rushes toward him. Alcide fires twice, hitting Coot in the chest and then the head. Everyone backs out of the room, leaving Debbie screaming in grief and rage over Coot's corpse, and they run to Alcide's work van and escape with more werewolves on their heels.

Hoyt sits in Jason's living room, listening as his friend explains that he's depressed over Crystal. Hoyt suggests Jason question the meth addict who's locked up down at the police station, and then their conversation is interrupted by Summer, who's come over to profess her feelings for Hoyt -- and ask him to sample her biscuits.

Sam drives up a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, looking for the dogfights that Andy told him about, but a shotgun-toting redneck turns him away. But once Sam drives out of view, he pulls off the road and shifts into a pit bull. Later, when a group of men see Sam wandering around as a loose dog, one of them loops a leash around his neck and leads him to the paddock where the rest of the animals are kept.

Sophie sits trapped in a silver cage at her mansion, while Eric calmly demands to know why she was so interested in Sookie. The queen refuses to talk, but Eric comes up with a creative source of motivation: He bites into the queen's human, Hadley, and threatens to drain her completely. The queen balks but remains silent … but then Hadley herself tells Eric what he wants to hear.

In the back of Alcide's van, Sookie tries to resuscitate Bill by pouring her own blood into his mouth. The attempt works far too well: Bill wakes up in an animal-like state and attacks Sookie. Tara and Alcide don't realize what's going on until it's too late. When Tara opens the back doors to check on her friend, Bill has returned to normal, but Sookie is drained and at the point of death. Enraged, Tara throws Bill into the sunlight before shouting at Alcide to drive to the hospital. Bill stands at the side of the road, staring at his hands, amazed that he's in the sunlight but not getting burned.

Before the man who captured Sam can put him in a cage, Sam shifts back into a human and knocks him out. He releases all the dogs from their cages and sets off an alarm, which quickly scatters the crowd betting on the fights. He finds Melinda and Joe Lee watching Tommy in the ring with a ferocious pit bull, and after Sam stares the other dog down, he turns on his parents. He orders Joe Lee to give his clothes to Tommy and then offers his brother a chance to leave these two behind forever. Tommy agrees and walks away with Sam.

In the dungeon of Fangtasia, the magister tortures Pam on a table until Russell and Eric arrive to put a stop to it. Russell explains that he's decided that the vampire "Authority" is obsolete, and he plans to sublimate humanity himself. He commands the magister to marry him to Sophie, and under the threat of death, the magister complies. But after the brief nuptials are complete, Russell kills the magister anyway, decapitating him.

Jason goes to the station to interrogate T-Dub, but the meth addict refuses to tell him anything about Crystal and her family unless Jason scores him a fix. Jason drives to Merlotte's and tries to get the meth from Lafayette -- who outright refuses -- but then he receives a call from Tara that Sookie is in the hospital.

Sookie has lost a lot of blood and fallen into a coma, and when the doctors try to give her a transfusion, her body rejects it … because she doesn't have a blood type. Jason arrives and urges his sleeping sister to hang on. Sookie is lost in a dream, however, where a mysterious woman named Claudine introduces her to a glen filled with dancing people who drink from a fountain of white light. Claudine urges Sookie to leave her world behind and join them, but before Sookie has time to decide, a darkness descends on everything. Claudine flees, telling Sookie, "Don't let him steal your light."

In the hospital room, Bill arrives and offers to give Sookie his blood to try to save her. Jason thinks for a moment, and despite Tara's objections, allows it. Bill inserts Sookie's IV tube directly into his vein, and as the blood enters her body, she wakes up, takes one look at Bill ... and screams.