True Blood’ Season 4, episode 3: Pancestors protect us

• John P. Johnson
• Just what this show needed - another demon baby.

By the flickering glow of hillbilly firelight last night we learned of Ghost Mama and Ghost Daddy, and the age-old tale of inappropriate panther-human relations (or Pancest as I like to call it) that gave rise to Crystal and her dumb-as-rocks, Hills Have Eyes brethren. We listened, while noshing on sinewy bits of rotting flesh, as Ol’ Grampa Gnarly Teeth recounted how Ghost Daddy made the first human/panther hybrids after he “Ate ‘em and then puked ‘em up.” Like most creation myths, it sounds like complete BS. Timbo’s just stupid enough to point out the story’s loopholes to the frustration of Crystal and Gramps: “Nature’s bigger ‘en us Timbo!” But like all of the other Bon Temps subgroups with “one foot in another world,” the Pancestors need a backstory. And perhaps more so than any of the others, since Pancestor mythos seems to go largely unexplored in college liberal arts programs. Or anywhere for that matter.

Last week, Panther Crystal and Panther Felton used Jason as a chew toy, gnawing him within an inch of his life in order to “turn” him into the new Ghost Daddy. Crystal wan do some baby makin’ y’all, and since Felton ain’t performing in the sack and Grampa Gnarly Teeth is, well, Grampa Gnarly Teeth, that leaves Jason. Poor dumb ol’ Jason who couldn’t just stick with banging hot waitresses. (Let this be a lesson people.) With the help of some Mexican Viagra, Crystal, uh, mounts an effort to make Jason the progenitor of a new line of Pancestors. With the whole nappy family watching — and waiting for a go.