SPOILER ALERT!
For me, it was sad to see Rutina Wesley, Tara Thornton killed off in the first episode of Season 7 of True Blood. Rutina Wesley embodied Tara and did an amazing job playing the part. She also was a good sport for being willing to do all the crazy stuff required of her character. Poor Tara was so abused in the show that we wondered how she hadn’t just checked into the funny farm after season 3. Rutina and her character Tara will be missed; especially by Sookie, and we feel it’s necessary to remember here here.
Below is a listing of Tara’s plot lines in each season along with a few videos to reminisce about her character.
Season 1 -Tara started out the show much in love with Jason, but she soon gave found solace by sleeping with Sam. Actually, this relationship was probably the healthiest Tara ever had, but it didn’t last very long. In season 1 she also had to deal with her alcoholic mother, Lettie Mae by helping her to rid herself of a daemon and then got one exhumed from herself only to realize that it was all a fake. She spiraled into a deep depression and at the end of the season she was in jail for drunkenness.
Season 2 – After her mother had found God, and refused to free Tara from jail, Tara was truly lost, but she felt she had found a new home with Marianne who bailed her out and took her to her beautiful home. Tara felt she had finally found love when she met Eggs, she was unaware that Marianne was controlling her and him completely and the season ended with Egg’s death.
Season 3 – Tara was watching Sookie’s home while Sookie was searching for Bill, but was soon abducted by the vampire Franklin Mott who took her to Mississippi and kept captive at King Russell Edgington’s home until she brutally bludgeoned him to death and escaped. She helped to save Sookie and Bill only to find that Sookie ended up in a coma after Bill, ravenous after torture, drank all of her blood. She was appalled when Sookie took Bill back after the incident and unable to cope with this reality, the brutality she had experienced from Franklin, and her sadness over the death of Eggs, she decided to leave town.
Season 4 – The season starts after a year has elapsed while Sookie is in FaeryLand and Tara has become a fighter in New Orleans, had a lesbian affair; but returns to Bon Temps when she hear that Sookie is back but at the end of the season in the final episode is shot in the head by Debbie Pelt.
Season 5 – To save Tara’s life, and at the request of Sookie and Lafayette, Pam agrees to turn Tara into a vampire. Hating vampires the way she does, Tara first wants to find the “true death” now that she is “the thing she despises”, but Pam stops her and they begin to bond as progeny and maker. Tara embraces being a vampire and starts working in Merlotte’s.
Season 6 – Tara and Pam start a rather “one sided” romantic relationship but, they are both abducted, along with the other vamps by the Governor and Sarah Newlin early in the season and spend most of their time in Vamp camp. Once all the vampires are freed from Vamp camp by Bill, Tara is content until she is forced to cope with another loss, her maker Pam leaves to find Eric. However, she and the Eric’s new vampire Willa and she start living together as friends and we see her doing pretty well at the end of season 6.
Season 7 – Tara, while protecting her mother Lettie Mas is killed by a HepV vampire before the credits in the first episode.
RUTINA WESLEY AND TARA WILL BE MISSED!
WATCH some Tara (Rutina) videos to remember just how awesome Rutina’s performance in the part of Tara was.
Photo credit: HBO and videos: YouTube.com