Not even Sookie Stackhouse's mysterious fairy abilities or Eric Northman's vampire strength are powerful enough to keep HBO's subscriber base from seeping away.

As a feature in today's Hollywood Reporter notes, the cable network is just coming off a hit season of 'True Blood' (which wrapped with a third-season finale last night) and its usual domination of the Emmys, led by its prize-winning marquee mini-series 'The Pacific.' And yet its subscriber base has slipped to 28.6 million, its lowest total in four years, suffering two quarterly periods of back-to-back slippage for the first time in six years.

(S01E06) Samyutta 11:10* The line separating the bad guys and the worse guys gets further obliterated this week. Caffe brother Michael does a favor that taints those involved. Poor brother Tommy, meanwhile, already torn up inside after having to ask his father-in-law for help last week, now has his lovely mother Rose rub his nose in it at the weekly family dinner. Just when was almost beginning to sympathize with her. Never again, she's foul.

(S01E05) Matthew 12:25: But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no town or house divided against itself will stand."

Mike Caffee (Jason Isaacs) appears at times a kind of off-kilter Robin Hood, but more and more it's clear he is really an evil Peter Pan. He won't, probably can't, grow-up, and that's one source of his misery. (Spoilers below the jump.)

(S01E02) Genesis 27:29: "Let peoples serve you, and nations pay you homage; Be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you."

Series creator, Blake Masters, has spoken about the actors he cast as brothers Tom and Mike Caffee as carrying "the idea they're not boys anymore, that they should know better." This idea comes to the forefront tonight as Tommy and wife Eileen (Annabeth Gish) separately grapple with a couple of the more depressing aspects of adulthood: compromise and hypocrisy. Eileen thinks she might have an STD and gets to feel small and cheap at least three times this week: once as usual when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror while rendezvousing with her f-buddy at the motel, once when her doctor tells her not to worry -- Tom "would never cheat on her," and once when she jambs a towel under the door of the bathroom, dorm-room style, so she can smoke weed while Tommy sleeps. Being a politician's wife sucks.

Now, I keep going back and forth over which Caffee brother behaved more despicably this week: