Tonight’s episode of True Blood was memorable for many reasons but especially for being the directorial debut of Stephen Moyer.  Moyer, who plays Bill and is married to Anna Paquin in real life, directs the Hell out of this episode and I mean that in absolutely the best way.  Whether it’s the way that Moyer allows the camera to prowl restlessly through each scene or the hallucinatory feel that he brought to the staging of some tonight’s best moments, Moyer brought both a sense of mystery and an atmosphere of genuine menace to tonight’s episode.  Those are two qualities that True Blood has occasionally struggled with this season and it was nice to see them so present tonight.  As a result, tonight’s episode was one of the most memorable of the 5th season and I hope that future seasons of True Blood will find Moyer returning to the director’s chair.

Tonight’s episode also gave us what we’ve been waiting for all season: Naked Alcide. 

Yes, apparently Alcide had moved on from his night with Sookie because tonight, we got an extended sequence of him having sex with his new werewolf girlfriend, Rikki.  Rikki and Alcide talked quite a bit while they were doing it and I’m sure that they may have said something important but, to be honest, that scene was all about Naked Alcide.

Some people (though certainly not me — no never!) would argue that all this episode needed to be memorable was for Alicde to show up naked.  However, some other pretty interesting things happened as well…

For instance, Luna turned into Sam!  That’s right.  While Sam and Andy were off interrogating the fat redneck that Sam captured during the previous episode, Luna stumbled over to the mirror in her hospital room and discovered that she had shifted into Sam.  This was one of those great “WTF” moments and Sam Trammell did an excellent job playing both Sam and Luna tonight. 

(And, to be honest, it never feels like a true season of True Blood unless something batshit crazy happens with Sam.)

That said, I do wish that tonight’s episode had done a bit more with Luna transforming into Sam.  For all the possible ways that tonight’s scenario could have played out, the show was content to have Luna sneak out of the hospital and join up with Sam and Andy as they continued to track down the murderous rednecks.  Eventually, Luna nearly collapsed (because, after all, she was in the hospital for a pretty good reason) and transformed back into herself while Sam held her.  It was a sweet moment for the two characters but, at the same time, I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of Luna as Sam.

Speaking of the rednecks, they managed to kidnap Jessica and presented her to Hoyt as a “gift” of sorts.  They handed Hoyt a gun and then, rather conveniently, all but one of them left the house so that Hoyt could murder his ex-girlfriend.  Now, last week, I declared that Hoyt had managed to claim Andy’s former title of being the biggest dumbass in Bon Temps.  However, tonight, Hoyt somewhat redeemed himself by not only refusing to kill Jessica but by helping Jessica kill the one redneck left behind to guard them. 

Since the sun was out, Hoyt left Jessica behind in the house while he went to get help.  However, even though Hoyt may no longer be the biggest dumbass in Bon Temps, he’s still a contender and he promptly managed to get himself lost.  Finally, Hoyt managed to flag down a passing truck just to have the unseen driver pull a gun on him.  I’m going to guess that the driver is also the dragon who was mentioned in last week’s episode.

The rednecks’ attempts to offer up Jessica as a sacrifice were paralleled by not one but two separate vampires on tonight’s episode.  Pam invited Tara to feast on an old high school rival down in her club’s dungeon.  Even more importantly, Bill drank the blood of a human girl who was offered to him by Salome.

This was an especially important scene because, up until this point, Bill has been a very outspoken supporter of mainstreaming.  By his actions on tonight’s show, it would appear that Bill has now come over to the side of Salome, Nora, and Russell.  Indeed, all of the members of the Authority were so impressed by the appearance of Lillith during last week’s episode that they’ve all pretty much abandoned Roman’s precious mainstreaming. 

All of them, that is, except for Eric.  Alexander Skarsgard had some of his best scenes of the season tonight as he brooded over the actions of his fellow vampires and argued with his “sister” Nora.  Judging by tonight’s episode and the preview for next week, we appear to be heading for a major confrontation between the “born again” Bill and the always skeptical Eric and I, for one, can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

Speaking of vampires, Sookie and Jason went to the faeries to try to discover which vampire killed their parents.  With the help of the faeries, Sookie was able to enter her mother’s mind and see the attack that led to the death of her parents.  However, she couldn’t get a clear view of the vampire’s face and, strangely, she also found herself entering into the mind of the vampire.  This sequence, with its frequent jump cuts and distorted camera angles, was perhaps the best evidence offered up tonight that Stephen Moyer should direct more episode of True Blood once season 6 starts production.  

Meanwhile, Lafayette has finally gotten smart enough to start demanding some sort of money for continually allowing himself to be possessed by dead people.  He charges Arlene $300 to perform a séance where they attempt to convince the fire demon to stop chasing after Terry and Patrick.  The ghost of dead Iraqi woman replies that the curse will only be lifted if Terry kills Patrick or Patrick kills Terry.  Patrick responds by running out of the séance.  Seeing as how Scott Foley is only a guest star, I’m going to guess that, one way or another, Patrick is going to be toast. 

And did I mention that tonight’s episode featured Alcide naked?

Because it totally did.

Random observations:

• Largely because of the sequence where Sookie flashes back to her parents being attacked and killed, this episode ended up with an unoffical scene count of 57.
• I really hope that Bill comes to his senses soon.
• How neat was it when Sam turned into that snake?
• Was it just me or was Jason really cute tonight?  This has really been a pretty good season for those of us who love Ryan Kwanten and his performance as the well-meaning but occasionally just a bit dense Jason.
• I totally related to what Sookie was saying about waiting in line at the bank.  Jason’s reaction was adorable and priceless.
• Only 4 more episodes left!