Lettie Mae tells her it”s cool, we all make mistakes, and Tara departs this earthly plane, with the words “You go on living. Tara reappears and apologies to her mother for not having blown a hole in Dad all those years ago. It”s crashed by Tara”s sorry, drunken, woman-slapping excuse for a daddy, who angrily declares that the centerpiece “don”t look like no 99-cent cake to me!” Then he delivers that every child dreams of hearing a parent deliver on their birthday: “Where the f**k is my gun!?” His gun, it turns out, is what Tara buried all those years ago, and it hasn”t moved the Rev digs it up and holds it in the palm of his hand, real meaningful-like. Once they”re all hopped up, the three of them share a flashback vision of the time Lettie Mae tried to throw Li”l Tara a birthday party, with Li”l Sookie and Li”l Lafayette in attendance. (I hope his sermons have more kick than his life advice.) Lettie Mae and Lafayette manage to shame him into having a little faith in the woman he”s vowed to love and honor, and he joins the two of them into having a taste of vampire blood courtesy of New James, who has been waiting just off-screen, crouching in the bushes, waiting for his cue. After finding Lettie Mae and Lafayette digging up the yard in the spot that Tara”s spirit led them to, the Rev apologizes to the current owners of the house and tells Lettie Mae, yet again, how terribly, terribly disappointed he is in her.

The no-news: We”re finally let in on the big message that Tara has been trying to deliver since she was killed, and it”s… not much of anything, really. Not a cure.” He doesn”t actually throw his head back and laugh “Mwah-hah-ha,” but that”s clearly implied. “We don”t want it to work too well,” he says, sounding all Montgomery Burns as he lays out his plans for New Blood. What they have must be tinkered with, for maximum exploitability. explains that the work of synthesizing Sarah”s blood has been done, but he”s not going to be rushing out to market just yet.

and his yakuza minions repair to Fangtasia, where they chain Sarah up in the basement, which is turning out to be the single most overworked set on this final season of “True Blood.” Mr. But there”s no time for celebrating: there”s business to be conducted. The big news: Eric is cured, praise Godric! There”s not a lot of wasted time building up suspense about it, either: in the opening minutes, he grabs ahold of Sarah Newlin, who begs him to kill her so that she can “return as the Princess of Peace, the Messiah!” Instead of killing her, Eric chomps on her, and lo and behold, the map of blighted veins spread across his body like deadly tattoos clear right up.

Almost Home by Kevin M. Ryan