True Blood – 7×10: “Thank You”

After watching the series finale of True Blood, all I have to say is the title of the episode should have been “No Thanks” or “Thanks For Nothing” instead of “Thank You.” I was late hopping on the True Blood chain, becoming a fan closer to the season two finale during that whole Maryann the Maenad nonsense.

I think after seven years of fang-banging, bloodsucking, and the horrible sight of seeing Lilith’s disgusting merkin in seasons five and six, that this finale was a huge disservice to all of the “Trubies” out there. I know I was pissed as all hell and I wasn’t nearly as devout as other viewers. Truth be told, only a handful of characters really retained my interest… Eric Northman, Pamela “Just Pam” Swynford de Beaufort, Jessica Hamby, and Lafayette Reynolds. That’s why this finale was so disappointing for me, we got about five minutes total of Pam and Eric, which felt like a slap in the face as the entire show seemed to revolve around the dying wishes of Bill Compton.

Even while dying, Bill is still a selfish asshole, asking Sookie Stackhouse – the keeper of the “Precious Fairy Vagina” – to sacrifice her own fae abilities in order to help Bill meet the true death. Apparently, Bill wants to die because he can’t give Sookie children, because life is not worth living unless you’re barefoot and pregnant. I didn’t think Sookie was interested in having kids considering she kept spreading her legs for the undead at every chance she got. But whatevs.

Sookie thinks about it, meanwhile Eric and Pam kill all of the nameless Asians and the annoying Mr. Gus, whose southern accent and Asian appearance are a crime against nature, and I say that as an Asian. Seriously, Jackie-Chan-Texas-Ranger was so off-putting in every scene he was in that it would pull me out of the moment and I thought I was in a grindhouse movie or something. I was glad to see him go, although what was the point of building him up to matter as an antagonist, only to have him die in a mere matter of seconds? The best part about the entire incident – and probably the whole episode – was watching Eric dance in the car after slaughtering the Asian henchmen.

After that, as you can imagine, it goes downhill drastically. Hoyt Fortenberry (who I always had a huge crush on when I began watching the show) sort-of proposes to Jessica, and they get married the next day so Bill can witness it. BECAUSE IT’S ALL ABOUT BEEEL.

The wedding makes a lot of sense because, you know, Hoyt just broke up with his girlfriend Bridgette yesterday and has no recollection of Jessica at all. Bridgette, conveniently enough, is now smitten with Sookie’s brother Jason, because everyone is going to get some sort of happy ending, because happy endings only exist when you’re in a relationship… I guess (don’t mind me as I reach for the pint of Ben & Jerry’s off to my right).

Sarah Newlin also asks Pam to turn her into a vampire, but Pam is not having any of that, even when Sarah – in ridiculous fashion – tries to suggest that she could be Pam’s new lesbian lover.

Then, of course, the rest of the goddamn episode focuses on Bill’s long, drawn-out death. Sookie decides she’s not going to use her X-Men-like fairy ball of doom to kill Bill and lose all her fae-ness, but instead, straddles him and slowly stakes Bill (with help from said vampire) with a stake made out of a makeshift shovel. Instead of just exploding right away, the dude lingers before bursting into a blood bubble. Really? You just gotta draw it out, don’t you, Beel? I used to be Team Bill but in the last couple of seasons he’s just caused a lot of unnecessary drama, so when he died all I felt was, “Finally! Bye, Felicia!”

The show jumps a year into the future with a hilarious infomercial from Pam and Eric about their new product, New Blood, emblazoned with the hilarious visage of Sarah, in the same style as the Gerber Baby. They make lots of money, naturally, then we jump three years into the future again and return to Bon Temps where Sookie is barefoot and pregnant, preparing Thanksgiving dinner with her nameless, faceless husband we never get to see. All of the couples are still together, because that’s realistic in Bon Temps after four years, am I right? We see Lafayette for two seconds, Sam’s still with that bitchy Nicole chick, Jason has three kids with Bridgette, it’s all just too nicely put together and kind of drives me mental. What pisses me off even more is the fact that since Sookie didn’t wind up with Eric or Bill (or,  you know, THE TRUE DEATH), the death of the hunky Alcide earlier this season seems like a fucking waste.

In the end, Fangtasia is popping, Eric sits on his throne, and Pam charges people $100,000 a minute to suck the blood out of Sarah, giving her a punishment worse than death (as she gets haunted by the spirit of her dead ex-husband, gay vampire Steve Newlin).

There were multiple things wrong with the finale and multiple different ways it could have been made more interesting. Did Tara Thornton – Sookie’s best friend and Pam’s progeny – really need to die in the first episode? Wouldn’t the finale had been more memorable if they had a giant showdown with the Yakuza and Alcide, Tara, and a few other side characters were killed in the battle to make it more dramatic? What was the point of having Violet go apeshit only to kill her so swiftly when she could have been the big bad in the final episode as well? What about the rest of the H-Vamps, did they just move on to a new town… after making it clear how dangerous they were, they just kind of got swept under the rug. Also, why did we spend part of the season getting Jessica and Jason back together, only for them to wind up with different people? There was just a lot of unnecessary build-up with no adequate results, which made the neat-and-tidy finale even more annoying.

The only bright side I can see through all of this is, “Thank God Kristen Bauer van Straten is now out of her contract as Pam and can resume her role as Maleficent on ‘Once Upon a Time.'”