And then there was none…
After 80 episodes, most of our TVs tuned to HBO for a Sunday night of True Blood for the last time. Which was a tough concept for me for a few reasons. Cause how do I say goodbye? I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the idea of Eric Northman in my life. It was midday Sunday when I realized I didn’t have to. Up until that moment, the weekend was pretty surreal for me. I mean, it was a trek down memory lane remembering the good, the bad… and down right hilarious moments of this fandom. People were popping up on Twitter that I hadn’t talked to in years. It was a virtual party. And for that I am thankful. Which is ironic and fitting since the final episode was title “Thank You”.
Was it the best episode? No. Was it the worst thing I’d ever seen? Nope, I still contend “Radioactive” is the worst episode of TV EVER… since I never got into Dexter and won’t watch the HIMYM series finale so I can’t really compare.
It wasn’t the love letter to fans I expected with episode title like “Thank You” to be. It was an episode that sorta kinda… ok not really… gave folks closure… ish?
And as much as I would love to write my final review by saying “Blah, blah, Eric Northman headbopping in the car after killing the Yakuza mafia, blah”….
BECAUSE IT WAS THE BEST PART OF THE EPISODE
But BuzzSugar beat me to the punch.
I will instead put on put on my thinking cap for the last time for what has been my summer escape for these past several years.
How do I start? Going into this episode I only had one requirement: Eric be happy. I didn’t care about anything else.
So with the episode started with Bill and Sookie talking, I was prepared to roll my eyes. Then I heard what they were saying…. Or what Bill was asking of Sookie. In his “infinite” “wisdom”, he was asking Sookie to kill him by using her light. Which would some how set her free from being vampire bait evermore… since using her light is a one time shot. Thus leaving her free to live, love, and have babies… since that is the only recipe for happiness apparently. My reaction was “Holy shit, those rumors we had been reading about might actually be true” and wincing in sympathy to Sookie as Bill tries to manipulate her again. . Which felt extremely akward to do…. Since I don’t think I can relate to her. Luckily I was distracted by the opening credits playing for the last time.
And I danced for the last time in the twitter stream…
After my dance interlude, I was quickly reminded of Fast and Furious with the Yakuza heading out to the Stackhouse homestead. Cueing up Mr Gus drinking (for FREE )in Fangtasia, with my first bit of Eric for the night. He’s had enough, tired of trusting and sharing… with Mr Gus. So he stages a hostile take over with the aide of Pam. The plan is to set Sarah Newlin free after giving her Pam’s blood for tracking purposes, kill Gus and crew, and take over the New Blood concept. Works like a charm. Sarah scampers to safety via the tunnel, Gus gets stuck in the tunnel thanks to a well timed fire from Eric.
Eric then flies at vamp speed… to Sookie’s house and stops the Yakuza henchmen before they get to her. Sookie, who was in bed in a very familiar T-shirt, hears a car speed off none the wiser to what happened or that ERIC SAVED HER again. Before I could wallow in the fact that he was able to save both her and Pam this time, unlike the 80s flashback to Sylvie, we were treated to the BEST THING SEEN IN THE EPISODE.
Good thing I liked it, cause that is the last time we see Eric on our screens till the end of the episode.
After Eric, the episode became even more predictable and dragged balls. Pam catches Sarah. Jessica and Hoyt get married… albeit the surprising part is how fast they capulated to Bill’s request since he wants to see his “daughter” married before he dies. Hoyt and Jason make up. A flashback, but this one had Gran so it was ok. Bill bequeaths Andy his estate since he’s a human decendant (no mention of Portia… but hey, she is only a woman) before Andy preforms the ceremony. Who knew any civil servant could preform a ceremony, but since it wasn’t legal it doesn’t matter? Any who… during the ceremony Sookie hears Bills thoughts on how he wants her to get married and have a life and blah, blah, blah. Well it convinces her to grant his request to for her to kill him… or at least set it in motion. I was turning cartwheels in the twitter stream by this point waiting for something to happen. But as night fell on Bon Temps, something did happen. Bill met Sookie in the cemetery at nightfall. She had made arangments to have his grave unearthed so he could be buried with his human family. Blah blah, he gets in the grave, blah, Sookie gets her light ready… and not uses it. Sookie finally acknowledges that her faeness is a part of her. Since he wanted to die, Sookie creates a stake and climbs in to stake him. She couldn’t follow through yet again, so Billiam helped push it into his heart. Why he couldn’t do it HIMSELF in the first place, who knows. But dead is dead… and he is most certainly dead and Sookie walks off into the night, with the screen fading to black.
But wait, there is more…
As in a time jump to 1 year later, where we find Eric and Pam filming a cheesy over the top infomercial for “New Blood”. I know not everyone liked it, but I found it hysterical watching an excellent actor like Alex be convincingly bad. But before I could enjoy the fact that Alex was having fun being bad, we had another time jump 3 years later. In this scene Eric and Pam, as partners in New Blood are either ringing the opening or closing bell for the stock market in honor of their very successful venture. Which is weird since these types of events happen during daylight hours. But this is True Blood, so who knows anymore. But this leads us to yet another time jump to Thanksgiving Day a few months down the road. All this jumping is making me tired. But this looks to be the last time jump as we find Sookie is married and pregnant with a random dude, Jason married to Bridgette with 3 kids (one of whom looks way older then 3 years old, so maybe they adopted?), and everyone arriving at the Stackhouse farmhouse for Thanksgiving celebration. Including Sam and Nicole with their kids… out of left field. When the sun sets, we find Eric on the throne (a la season 3 video footage) at Fangtasia and Pam not to far away in the basement managing the Sarah business of letting vampires pay to drink directly from her. Sarah, who has lost her mind, is being visited by ghost of husband past Steve Newlin. He taunts her with “It’s Thanksgiving. What are you thankful for Sarah”. To which she replied with “Nothing”, the last word on the show history. Visually the show ends with pretty much everyone Sookie knows at her out door table … except Eric and Pam.
Willa has a seat at her table, Reverand Daniels and Lettie Mae has a seat at her table…. the very quiet (this episode) Lafayette and James were at her table. But not Eric or Pam.
In a tweet after the show Sunday night, Stephen Moyer speculated
Which makes me slightly uncomfortable since I had the same thought.
And that is all they wrote.
After watching the first time, I was ok for the moment. My requirement for this episode was that Eric needed to be happy… but after thinking about it, I am not sure how with going back to the routine of Fangtasia after the success of New Blood. Especially since since they used some of the season 3 footage of him on the throne with Yvetta dancing for him. There is to much of a mystery. Much like the mystery behind who is Sookie’s husband, Mr No Name. It was a cop out way to end the shipper wars. Buckner wanted to honor the writers who was partial to which ever suitor they wrote for over the years by not picking anyone. Plus any potential blowback on offending the other suitor fans. So it was much easier to offend everyone. Who knew? Maybe the fans who actually have been around the whole series?
The one thing from the final moments of True Blood that was not a mystery was what was happening to Sarah Newlin. This may or may not surprise you, but i have no sympathy for her for one reason only. Genecide. She had committed genocide. Not just of the Vampires with Hep V, but of all the humans who were killed by the Vampires. So as far as I’m concerned, this is Supe justice. And speaking of justice, Bryan Buckner should loose any sense of credibility in Hollywood for how he handled the show creatively. He is obviously more comfortable with portraying male/female relationships in a traditional setting then a male/male or female/female ones. For a show that started off 7 years ago as a show that embraced everyone no matter who they loved, goes off the air spouting traditional values of marriage and babies… maybe he tried to make nice to those who he offended with the “republicunt” comment? *shrugs*
As an episode, it was a whole bunch of nothing. It didn’t excite me as much as being with the fandom online for one last hurrah. So to you guys, I raise my glass one more time.
These past few years have been awesome and thank you for your support and taking us into your hearts. You truly rocked my world.
As for True Blood, how do I say good bye? I’ll find out next Sunday when it hits home that there is no more.
Cause whether you loved it or hated it, True Blood has made a mark on all our lives since we keep talking about it.
