I am frankly astonished that I am the only person that I can find on the internet, who has anything to say about True Blood, who is able to discern that the bombing aftermath/bullet sucking sequence was from unreliable narrator Bill's pov.  From start to finish, the scene was completely stripped of drama and eroticism and all of the characters were WILDLY out of character. The dialogue was ridiculously juvenile, including the pompously pious speech given by Bill to the FoTS kid. Even the acting was on par with a high school play staged not by the drama students, but the jocks and cheerleaders. I refuse to believe that every aspect of this excellent fiction all failed at once, for the span of one sequence, then went back to normal for the rest of the episode. Once again, I trust we will soon get a different, more accurate perspective on the bombing aftermath.

Viewed in light of an unreliable narrator attempting to de-sexualize an event involving his lover and his rival, the sequence is BRILLIANT. It gives us an insight into Bill Compton we've not had before and adds to the complexity of his character. BRAVO True Blood and Alan Ball.

Considering the widespread resistance my resolute interpretation has recieved, I thought it fair to try and analyse the scene more in depth. If you have been paying attention to the developement of the characters, if you have even a smallish handle on who these people are, I trust you will at least consider the possibilty of what I am saying.

Let us start at the end of the bombing aftermath sequence, shall we?. We'll leave the conversation Bill and Sookie have in the hotel room about the bullet sucking for later, but I do include that scene in my interpretation of the unreliable narrator.

Eric walks in close to the camera. He stands there posing as prettily as an Abercrombie and Fitch model, head up and shoulders straight. His expression is bland and incurious. All sense of danger and seductiveness is stripped from his demeanor. Godric is on the other side of the room, yet neither of them speak to the other nor do they ackowledge each other with a look or a nod.

Does any of this sound like Eric? Or Godric?

Let's skip back to the part where Bill finds Sookie, with Eric lying on top of her facing up. Eric declares he's "covered her" but has he really? Look at Sookie. Only Erics shoulder and arm are draped across her middriff, well below and above the errogenous zones of breasts and groin.  Her legs are together and safely and chastely away from Eric's body. Her head, neck, and chest are all exposed yet she is uninjured. Does this sound logical in light of the viscera sliding down the wall just beyond them? If the Eric we know meant to cover her and save her life would he have done such a piss poor job of it and left her almost entirely vulnerable to flying shrapnel?

Next we see Sookie rudely shoving the injured Eric off her and insulting him. She calls out for Jason and after she sees he's ok she turns back to Eric and says 'uh oh' in a dumber-than-dirt blonde tone of voice when she realizes he's not healing himself. No teary concern for the man who just saved her life, no pity or grief for the dead and injured people around her, no horror at the viscera sliding down the walls. Does this sound like Sookie?

Eric then declares in the best fake-bad acting I've ever seen that he shielded her, that he can't heal himself because the bullets are silver, and that she must suck them out. Sookie says she can't becuase it's  "gross" and it's "yewww" and not Saint Bill, whose blood she has sucked with gusto and relish on more than one occasion. He then passes out and she growls nastily "son of a mother-..." without finishing the epithet with a hearty '-fucking bitch'. Later she neglects to give us the full "asshole". Such a reluctance to curse! even though she had not five minutes earlier called Lorena a 'fucking bitch'. Sookie sure found her inner Southern Belle all of a sudden.

What follows is strikingly and laughably unlikely:  Sookie squats awkwardly by Eric's side and contorts  her neck around to get at the bullet in his neck. Her sucking is loud and obnoxious. She crudely spits the bullet, and a good sized glob of Erics blood, onto the floor. She complains when she has to do another one and daintily pulls aside his shirt. Despite the viscera flowing down the walls, Eric is only afflicted with a pinhole sized injury in his nipple, which Sookie proceeds to suck, and very reluctantly. When Bill comes back in, Eric is laying there with one arm behind his head and the other lying limply on the floor. He's as smug as the captain of the football team caught kissing the nerds girlfriend. Sookie lobs another mouthful of bullet and blood across the room and tells Bill she saved Erics life even though she "REAAAAAAALLY didn't want to".  Bill mournfully but patiently explains that Eric has deceived her and "forced" her to drink his blood.


Now let me tell you what  I think likely happened during the bullet sucking scene, based on what we know of the characters and the logic of the show: Eric doesn't have to tell Sookie anything. He probably doesn't say a word, or much. The silver bullets, as Rev. Newlin reminded Jason they would in an earlier episode, have incapacitated him.  Sookie's no dummy and she gets exactly what happened. Eric vampired in front of her and took silver bullets to save her life.  His big body covers her small one from head to toe and his body is most probably nestled between her spreadeagled legs. She gently helps the immobile Eric get off her, and after making sure Jason is ok, quickly and efficiently proceeds to do what she can for Eric.  The Practical and non-squeemish Sookie strips off her borrowed trench coat, folds it up and puts it under his head. (I think she's wearing a slip under there) She is crying and distraught, but comforts him as best she can. She straddles his body to get better access and sucks the bullet out of his neck and spits it out.

But now she has gotten a taste of the blood that Lafayette found so intoxicating. She's breathless and aroused. She impatiently yanks the top of his shirt aside and greedily sucks at his nipple. Opportunistic Eric's hands do not remain idle- he brings them up and caresses Sookie's body, further stoking her lust. She retrieves the bullet and spits it out but she can't stop herself from going back for more. To see Sookie willingly and lustfully going back for more of his blood is explosively exciting to Eric and...perhaps...he orgasms, clutching her body tightly to his.

This, or something extremely similar, is what Bill finds when he comes back in-Sookie, nearly naked, straddling the hated Eric with her mouth on his nipple, his hands on her body, and in the throes of an obviously erotic experience.  Like any good Viking caught in this situation, the look on Eric's face is wickedly triumphant, not smugly juvenile. What Bill sees cannot be misinterpreted. This is why almost everything we've seen in the sequence from his pov is nearly the exact opposite of what really happened, what logically could have happened.  Bill cannot tolerate the memory of such a devastating scene. His heart is broken and he must do whatever necessary to protect his sanity.  He has created a delusion. He will deny what was in front of him for as long as possible.

And this is why Sookie is not angry at Eric, even if he did trick her into sucking the bullets. I won't go into the rest of the scene involving the things the three of them said to each other, but keep in mind my 'opposite' interpretation of what happened, and rest assured the scene was in actuality passionately emotional--angry, accusatory, and proabably ultimately conciliatory toward Bill on Sookie's part-which of course would anger Eric. The asinine conversation that took place from Bill's pov after the bullet sucking is not believable in the least.

Some of you may consider this piece a little slice of fanfic, and perhaps it is partly that. But I am standing by it as what I think was the  actual 'reality' of the scene and I know a lot of you hope I am right. And, some of you are convinced I am wrong. So be it.

As a reminder: I am interpreting the characters as I see them on the show. I think Ball has deviated far enough away from the books so that it is completely safe to interpret what we see on the screen based strictly on what we see on the screen. This excellent show deserves to be judged on it's own merits.

Cheers!