Blogger’s Note: If I have to tell you there are SPOILERS ahead, just go. I mean it. Get the fuck off my blog. Right now.
As my Mom used to say, “It’s better than a poke in the eye” and I have to agree. Getting poked in the eye fucking hurts. I don’t care what object was actually used to do the poking, it still hurts and it still sucks.
That’s about all I can come away with after watching the series finale of True Blood. I don’t want this to be a long post and I won’t edit it too much. I just want to get this over with.
Just a quick recap: I read all the books but the last one (see my blog linked below for the reasons on that). If you read the books, you went into this HBO series with completely different expectations and desires than the average viewer. Flipping actual pages of a book, bending the corners of those pages to mark your place (which I do and it drives my children crazy), actually sobbing at the end of a book, it puts you in a different category as a fan. It just does. So if my opinions sound harsh or not what you came away with as just a viewer of the show and not a reader of the books also, it is what it is. I can’t unlink my book knowledge of the characters from my opinion of the show characters. That is impossible for me.
I wasn’t expecting much. Charlaine Harris had already fucked up the books for me and although the series wasn’t even remotely following the books after a couple seasons in, I feared that HBO would do the same. And they did. Yet they didn’t. I’ll break it down in bullet points so we can all move on with our lives without the 1,000 year old Viking warrior that was Eric Northman.
• Bill was a selfish bastard to the very end even if HBO did try their best to make him look like a hero. I’m glad he died, unlike his fate in the book series. I’m especially glad that Sookie staked him. He asked her to give up her “light”, the very thing that made her special, in order for him to no longer suffer and to meet the True Death. Oh, and as a side benefit to Sookie (my ass), by expending all her “light” on him and becoming normal, she would draw no other vampires to her in the future after he was gone. What a fucking ass hole of a vampire. Sure, I guess if he hadn’t been such an ass hole to Sookie for the entire book series and most of the TV series his “intentions” might have been honorable and all that other Southern shit that HBO made us try to believe. You know what I heard the whole time Bill was going on about “love” and “honor” and all his other tiresome deathbed yammering? Charlie Brown’s fucking teacher, wonking away in the background, completely unintelligible. Do not forget that this same “Southern Gentleman Vampire” brutally raped and nearly drained Sookie in the trunk of a car in the third book of the series “Club Dead.” Tortured and crazed for blood, yes he was, but you cannot tell me Eric Northman would ever have done that in the exact same circumstance. In the end, Sookie had the most amount of common sense she has ever had, put herself first, saved her light and just staked Bill’s sorry ass. Bravo, Sookie.
• I’m glad Hoyt and Jessica ended up together. Jessica was a TV series character, she was never in the books. I cried like a baby when Hoyt asked Jessica to glamour him to forget all about her and Jason’s betrayal a few seasons back. I like the way Bill tied up his estate with Andy and made it so Jessica would get the house, even if it wasn’t legal.
• Sheriff Andy was kind of a one dimensional character in the books. The TV series made him much more than that and I immensely enjoyed just about all his screen time over the years. He was the quintessential extremely simple Southern man, easily flabbergasted by women, short on words and patience with just about everyone, yet absolutely delightful when love overwhelmed him and he let the words spill out. I like that he ended up with Holly, a practicing Wiccan, and probably the only woman who could possibly live with him and his stubborn nature.
• Jason settled down and married eventually in the books but as a werepanther. Yeah, don’t ask. He basically got the same treatment in the TV series, except he didn’t have to worry about turning into a panther once a month. I loved Jason’s scenes because he was always Jason and never something he wasn’t. Simple, easy, basic and yet so endearing.
• I’m glad Vampire Keith and Arlene ended up together. I remember a few episodes ago, though, that I wished they wouldn’t make Arlene look and act like such a caricature all the time. Why couldn’t she and Keith have some truly sexy scenes? Yes, Arlene was a carrier of Hep V so they couldn’t have sex before the cure was produced but I would have loved to see Arlene stop sputtering like a sixteen year old virgin and just be the sexy woman I know she was capable of being. She wasn’t such a lovable character in the books and actually tried to kill Sookie and did prison time for it. I’m glad she was a friend and confidante to Sookie in the TV series.
• Sookie ended up with Sam at the end of the book series, which I absolutely hated. They had never once been together throughout the whole series and then they ride off into the sunset together. Granted, I know love can change quickly, from one kind to another and friends fall in love all the time but I thought it was a cop out to end the book series that way. It was way too easy. I actually thought that was still an option for the TV series. Nicole would die during childbirth and Sam would hightail it back to Bon Temps, baby in hand and boom! A ready made family for Sookie. HBO did not do that and I’m happy about it. I always liked Sam as a book character and as a TV character but I never felt chemistry between him and Sookie in either book or TV form. They were really good friends who loved each other. Yes, Sam could have and probably did love her as more than a friend but it was never there on Sookie’s part, past the friendship aspect.
• Tara was never a very big part of the books. She most certainly was never a vampire. I’m glad she died. That is all.
• Lafayette lived. I cannot be happier about this. He was killed off way too early in the books, even though he was already a treasured character. He and Vampire James ended up together and that makes me happy also. I feel like I’ve lost a friend and I’ll miss seeing Lafayette but will honor him by attempting to wear purple eyeshadow half as gracefully as he did and never, ever taking bullshit from anyone.
• Pam had the most and best one liners in this entire series. She was mostly the exact Pam from the books, with her sharp tongue and wit, except she actually kind of became friends with Sookie in the books and I liked that. I will miss Pam’s fashion sense and especially her own special terms like “Republicunt” and then there’s this one outburst: “I’m so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name!” Pam and I could have been great friends.
• I have never liked blonde men (and still don’t) but made an exception for Eric Northman. Eric went out as Eric. I had a feeling last week’s scene between Eric and Sookie would be their last but at least HBO made it special. He flew Sookie home, as in literally flew her home since he had the ability to fly, as only Eric could do. The last words we as fans heard from his lips to Sookie was a very pained, restrained “Goodnight, Miss Stackhouse.” I cried. As big of a jerk as he could be at times, as shitty as Charlaine Harris wrote him in the books, he was the only vampire who could have possibly deserved Sookie, although I don’t think Sookie deserved him. I could write chapters about Eric Northman. In the end, he was back on his throne in Shreveport at Fangtasia, ruling the world with New Blood and giving Sarah Newlin what she deserved with Pam as his ever loyal sidekick. I’m grateful for at least that.
• Sookie ended up very pregnant and with some mystery bearded stud. It wasn’t the ending I wanted but I suppose it was the best they could have done for me without getting Eric and Sookie together finally. Sookie kept her light and is still fae. Eric is just an hour down the road in Shreveport. Men in Bon Temps die all the time. In my head, Eric still has a chance. 🙂
I will miss you, True Blood, despite your crazy plot turns and twists that didn’t make any sense, despite the fact that Sookie Stackhouse was quite possibly the stupidest heroine of all time, despite the fact that Bill should have died a merciless death seasons ago, despite the fact that Eric deserved more. The series finale was titled “Thank You” and I do thank you, if only for this:
What did you love or hate about this last season of True Blood? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Steph On The Rocks 