It may have taken seven weeks, but I finally know what the fourth season of True Blood is about! “Cold Grey Light of Dawn” was a colossal return to form for the show that has been fairly terrible for weeks now, and it achieved it in the simplest of ways: following one story from multiple perspectives for the entire episode. Okay, so technically there were a few other stories intertwined with the main thing, but for the most part, it was 50 minutes spent explaining what the hell had been going on for the last six weeks. In short, Antonia – the necromancer that has seen fit to possess Marnie – is back with a vengeance. It really is that simple. Sadly for the True Blood team it has taken them at least three episodes of doing absolutely nothing to get to that point and essentially admit that the story really is that shallow, but now that they’ve actually done it, they might just have a chance to do something.
The episode opened with Antonia staging her escape after casting a spell on Sheriff Luis, using him to exact revenge on Bill’s insider in Marnie’s coven as well as deliver the message of her return to the king. The fairly unparalleled bloodiness of the episode began soon after with Antonia’s message coming in the form of a bullet to Bill’s stomach before Luis staked himself under the spell, warning Bill of the coming “resurrection.” Knowing the meaning of the word, Bill then summoned Jessica to his house to both protect her and provide a convenient method of providing the exposition for the entire season thus far, just in case anyone was confused by the mess that came before this week. Essentially, Antonia is pissed that she was viciously raped and murdered and is back to perform the spell that will draw vampires into the sun. While absolutely none of this is new information and it had been fairly obvious that this was coming since we learned about Antonia’s existence, it marked the first time in the season that it was explicitly stated that this is the key focus for the show right now. 
Up until this episode, anything from the witches to the political fight that the AVL are having with the human race could have been the key focus of the season. But having it cleared up once and for all will hopefully allow the writers to craft something coherent out of the remainder of the season, as they did with the remainder of the episode. After one of the better scenes of the entire season between Jessica and Bill, there began an upward spiral with Bill finally beginning to act like the king that he is. Commanding all vampires in Louisiana to either leave the state or go to ground under silver, the king and his subjects braced for the resurrection as night became day.
On the opposite side of the fight, Antonia set about recruiting to form a coven with which she could cast the spell. Running into Tara in the woods – fresh from a confrontation with Pam – Antonia prayed on her emotional weakness and hatred of vampires to get her to agree to help. Tara then took to the job of recruiting further, gathering up members of the former coven as a start. With the coven formed, the spell was cast and vampires that for some reason ignored the king’s order burned, while the rest screamed to be set free from their chains. As Sookie ensured Eric’s safety after informing Jason of the situation, Jason ran to Bill’s house to make sure Jessica was okay.
Unfortunately for both Jason and Jessica, Bill cared for her too much to apply enough silver to restrain her properly and we last see Jessica open the door to the sunlight as Jason struggles with Bill’s guards. While it may not have been the most dramatic thing that has ever happened in cable television, the cliffhanger ending for Jessica served as a reminder that the people that write True Blood do occasionally get things right. It’s been a while since they pulled it off, but the original format for the show was predicated upon there being a cliffhanger at the end of each episode. More importantly, as Jessica is entirely a creation of the show and not the books, her fate is completely uncertain to absolutely everybody who watches.
Save for the vampire-witch war and psychic baby revelations, there were just a few other occurrences in Bon Temps this week as well, namely: Alcide and Debbie are inducted into their new wolf-pack; Tara breaks up with her girlfriend; Pam gets some new skin; Sam discovered that his brother had shifted into him and messed with his life; and Sookie and Eric had a whole lot of sex.