Aside from the highly questionable decision to name Sunday’s “True Blood” episode after an extremely overrated Gotye song, this week’s Stephen Moyer-directed installment of the vampire/werewolf/shifter saga was kind of amazing.

 Since Moyer’s touch helped reinvigorate a season that was – in my opinion, at least – in a little bit of a slump, I started to wonder if Robert Pattinson should

Sookie, Claude, Jason and their crew try to find out who killed the senior Stackhouses.

direct the next Twilight movie, because that franchise needs all the help it can get.  Considering that Kristen Stewart isn’t Team Edward but is Team Married-Forty-something-Director-With-Kids, I’m guessing in the RPatz version Bella would be dead within minutes.

 Fantasies about directorial debuts aside, this episode was awesome for a lot of reasons, but the primary one has to be Sam and Luna’s Freaky Friday moment.  While Sam is shifting into a cobra to scare the hospital redneck he tackled last week into telling them why that pesky hate group wants to kill shifters, Luna accidentally shifts into Sam.  Um, whoops.  Her unprecedented change in appearance brings some equally unprecedented good acting from Sam Trammell, who looks like he’s having a lot of fun playing opposite himself.  And walking how a girl would if a girl somehow got stuck in his body.  Interesting.

 Instead of spending the episode outdoing Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, Sam and Luna-as-Sam actually make themselves helpful – or try to, anyway.  When Hoyt’s newfound group of redneck besties – who thankfully made him ditch the eyeliner and the leather – kidnap Jessica and give Hoyt a wooden bullet to kill her with, Sam, Luna/Sam, and Sheriff Bellefleur show up to save the day.  Of course, their help isn’t really needed, because still-lovesick Hoyt predictably lets Jessica go instead of killing her.  However, before they leave, Luna-in-Sam’s body smells a large human woman who is emanating an odor of disgusting processed cheese snacks.  This suggests that Hoyt’s much-maligned mama might be in some trouble.  

Other people who may be in trouble?  Um, humans everywhere, if Bill is serious about the suggestion he makes at the Council meeting.  Bill seemingly joins Russell, Salome, Nora and the Sanguinistas in their plot to end mainstreaming by saying that the Council should destroy the five factories in the world that make Tru Blood.  In the absence of Tru Blood, all the vegetarian vamps would have to ditch their diets and actually feed on humans.  Either their nightclub rampage last episode turned Bill into a bloodthirsty evil genius, or he’s concocting a really good plan to gain the Council’s trust before bringing them down.

 And it’s pretty easy to see why he would want to bring these villains down.  Earlier in the episode, before Bill becomes so gung-ho about destroying the Tru Blood factories and ending mainstreaming, Salome bullies him into drinking human blood by asking him a question he does not want to think about: “If you really loved your human children, why didn’t you make them vampires?  Keep them with you forever?” 

Even though Bill would rather compromise his vampire morals by feeding on a human (sober) than think about this, a flashback shows us his answer: he believes that immortality is a curse.  And he’s so set in this belief that even when his youthful self shows up at his daughter’s deathbed and sees her rotting, he still doesn’t turn her into a vampire.  Understandably, his daughter is pretty pissed about this, but luckily (maybe?) for her, she doesn’t stay angry long before nature takes its course.

 Thus, Bill’s current proposal to force vampires to feed on humans seriously contradicts his preference for humanity over immortality and confuses Eric, who seems to be the only mainstreamer on the Council at the moment.  As Godric ordered, Eric tries to convince Nora that killing humans is bad, only to discover that Nora’s gone crazy.  I mean, the fact that she once hooked up with her vampire “brother” was pretty indicative of future insanity to come, but whatever.

Back in Bon Temps, Claude and a bunch of British female fairies take Jason and Sookie to the site of their parents’ murder so Sookie can use her magic to try to figure out who killed the senior Stackhouses.  They conduct a séance to revive her late mother’s memory, and they watch the murder scene from Mama Stackhouse’s POV and from the killer’s POV.  Creepy.  Unfortunately, they didn’t see the murderer’s face, so they still can’t be sure who did it – but it did look a little like Russell.  That guy really won’t be winning any humanitarian awards anytime soon.

By the way, as anyone could have predicted, Sookie didn’t use up all her magic.  Jason persuaded her to save her powers, because as we learned in our fourth-grade lessons about self-esteem, being different is cool.  If she were “normal,” he says, she would never have met Bill.  Hmm…is there anyone who doesn’t think they’re going to get back together?  I mean, at least one couple from a popular vampire franchise has to stay intact.

It certainly doesn’t look like the Sookie-and-Alcide thing is happening anymore, because Alcide apparently has hookup ADD and is now sleeping with Rikki, his werewolf trainer, instead.  This is the only good thing happening for Alcide right now, as he ditched his plan to fight JD for the packmaster position once he found out that their battle would require him to hunt a human.  I guess JD just wanted to eat someone, though, because he tried to hunt the human anyway.  In an attempt to save JD’s would-be prey, Alcide got his butt kicked.  Like, really kicked.  If Martha hadn’t intervened, he might have died, which would have been very sad because Joe Manganiello is extremely good looking.  

In other news, Lafayette just can’t catch a break.  After Senora Bartolo saved him from getting his head sliced open last episode, this week Arlene and Holly pester him until he agrees to use his brujo-ness to communicate with the spirit of the dead Iraqi woman who cursed Terry and co.  Unfortunately for him, while he’s doing this, the woman’s spirit possesses him.

Even though it sucks that Lafayette had to share his brain with a dead Middle Eastern woman for a little bit, this development brings me to my next reason why this episode is awesome…the death of the evil smoke monster!!  Well, hopefully, anyway.  The lady says that she’ll lift the smoke monster curse if Terry murders Patrick or vice versa.  Honestly, I’m fine with both of them dying as long as I don’t have to look at that stupid fire thing anymore.

In Pam and Tara's world, all high school bullies must die. Photo courtesy of HBO.

Also, Pam and Tara are becoming besties and may start making each other friendship bracelets soon.  When Tara publicly threatens a high school bully who walks into Fangtasia, Pam tells her to back off.  Later, though, Pam gives this Louisiana version of Regina George to Tara as a “present.”  Having the chance to get major revenge on this girl by, um, killing her thrills Tara.  I mean, I would have been happy sending my high school’s mean girl a strongly worded letter (Dear Rachel Black, I still don’t like you), but Tara clearly has a lot of pent-up angst.

Last reason this episode was phenomenal: a lot of great quotes.

Pam to Tara: “You don’t know me that well.  My mad face and happy face are the same.”

Lafayette to Arlene and Holly, as he initially refuses to be the medium between them and the Iraqi woman: “I’m not in the helping business.  I’m in the f**k off and smoke a blunt business.”

Bill, trying to convince Eric that drinking human blood while drunk on Lilith blood was an otherworldly experience: “We were in the presence of God.”

Eric, not buying Bill’s nonsense: “We were high as f***ing kites.”  

Reach reporter Lindsay Dale here.