The town is attacked by the Hep-V vampires and there’s a shocking death before the opening credits on ‘True Blood’ can even roll….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The final season of True Blood has finally arrived and in these 10 hours, the adventures of Sookie Stackhouse, Bill Compton, Eric Northman and the rest of the Bon Temps band will finally come to an end. There was a point during season five and six where the end would have looked like a mercy killing considering how far off track this show managed to land after starting off as one of the best five shows on television during it’s earliest inception.
I had a friend tell me that he recently went back and watched the first season of ‘True Blood’ and remembered how brilliant this show was when it was all about vampires first coming out of the coffin while the central story was how a small backwoods town in Louisiana dealt with a murder mystery amidst the discovery of supernatural beings. Each season after that kept getting bigger and grander in nature and while it’s not uncommon when it comes to television, it takes a certain kind of show to really push the envelope and engorge their universe while not losing sight of the fundamental things that got them there in the first place.
There’s no doubt True Blood fell off course a while ago, but as I argued at the end of season six, it appeared as if the show find a way to erase the mistakes of the past and start fresh as the final year of the show approached. Let’s say I was cautiously optimistic when this season began that the show runners behind True Blood would now know how to close down the series in a wholly satisfying way that other series such as ‘Dexter’ (which also fell way off course in the last few seasons) just couldn’t manage to get out of its own way when the final frames flashed on our collective screens.
Through one episode, I’ll say so far, so good. For now.
Tara’s Painfully Long Journey Comes to an End
The end of last season of ‘True Blood’ saw a flash forward six months into the future with Sam Merlotte now acting as mayor, Bill Compton as the vampire activist, and Merlotte’s Bar and Grill had been transformed into Bellefleur’s, currently owned and operated by Arlene and named after her late husband, Terry. With the Hep-V virus running rampant throughout the vampire community, Bill and Sam concocted a plan to match up a vampire with a clean human (humans can carry the Hep-V virus) — the deal would offer the human protection and the vampire a clean food source. The Hep-V vamps were not only doomed from the moment they ingested the deadly disease, but they feed constantly as if they were at Burning Man and there was a knocked over Hostess truck outside spilling a constant flow of Twinkies.
So at this outdoor barbecue get together where vampires and humans found their love connections, a group of infected vamps show up and attack out of nowhere causing all kinds of ruckus for the people of Bon Temps. Holly, Arlene and one of Andy’s deputies get grabbed and taken while Sam and Bill try to save as many people as possible. Amidst the chaos, Tara does her best to save her mother Lettie May, but as the mayhem comes to an end, Sookie finds her sitting on the ground with a pile of bloody goo in her lap.
Tara’s dead and we didn’t even get to see how it happened!
Now, I’ve argued that Tara was one of the long standing problems with ‘True Blood’ over the course of the past few seasons. She was a character that had no real place after the first couple of years, yet they kept bringing her back and trying to plug her into storylines or just making entire plots up just so she could stick around. At one point, Tara got shot in the head by a freaking shotgun and yet the producers couldn’t let her go and so she was turned into a vampire. Finally it seems whoever was in charge of bringing ‘True Blood’ to an end decided to rid the show of a dead weight that’s been hanging around the neck for about four seasons too long. Tara’s gone although I have a bad feeling she’s going to come back as a spirit at some point in these last nine episodes.
Maybe the best reaction to the entire Tara ordeal came from her cousin Lafayette, who was sent home with his paired up vampire James — last season he was the vampire in captivity who hooked up with Jessica, and now he’s part of the gang (also now being played by Nathan Parsons). James takes Lafayette home and it’s there that our resident fabulous chef says he’s not feeling hurt or loss with Tara gone. In a strange way he feels relieved.
It’s almost like he’s speaking for all of us!
James then tells the story about how he came to be after he skipped out on serving in Vietnam only to have his best friend from school come home in a body bag. When he went to pay his respects, the boy’s father beat him to death with a baseball bat, presumably because James was still alive while his son was dead. A vampire came along and bit him to save his life, and here we are 50 or so years later. I have to say performance wise, I rather enjoyed the new James compared to the version we got last season. Luke Grimes (old James) might be the greatest actor of this generation, but in ‘True Blood’ it always seemed like he was sleepwalking through scenes and teetering between bored and uninterested. Thankfully, Parsons (new James) looks like he has a passion for the part and even in his bit of storytelling there was more of a connection here than the multiple episodes we got with the previous actor last season.
Also during the madness of the Hep-V raid, Sookie struggled to keep the voices out and she heard the entire town basically blame the vampire mess on her — including some not so friendly thoughts from her boyfriend Alcide — so it sent her walking back home alone, wolfless.
Strange Bedfellows
The vampire attack puts Andy on high alert and he has to leave his home and his fairy daughter Adilyn alone with Jessica left on guard to protect her. Can’t forget Jessica munched through Adilyn’s sisters like Halloween candy and much like eating all of those chocolate goodies in a short span of time, our favorite baby vamp felt nothing but regret the morning after. So now she’s committed to helping to save Adilyn and Andy even if they don’t really want her around. With the Hep-V vampire invasion, however, they don’t have much of a choice.
Jessica is upset hearing about Tara, but it’s time to get her head in the game because there’s one lone Hep-V vamp stalking the Bellefleur residence, drawn to the smell of Adilyn’s fairy flavor. He basically stands there begging to feast and Jessica is the guard dog warding him off. As the sun starts to rise, Adilyn knows both vampires are about to meet the sun so despite her father’s strictest orders she invites Jessica inside as the Hep-V vamp bursts into flames. Jessica is tempted by the scent of Adilyn’s fairy blood, but she’s able to resist and she runs up to the attic to get some sleep.
The same can be said back at Lettie May’s house where she’s wandering around saying she can see Tara (the reason why I think she’ll be back in some capacity this season) before Reverend Daniels can finally calm her down for some sleep. Their vampire protector is Willa Burrell, who was turned by Eric last season, but she’s in a bit of a pickle. Eric’s gone, Pam went looking for Eric and her roommate (Tara) is currently the soupy red stuff the people around Bellefleur’s will cleaning off their shoes. Reverend Daniels offers her a place to sleep in the church basement as we find another love connection in this new world. Cue Chuck Woolery.
Blue Balled
Jason and his lady Violet are still together as the season picks up, but she’s doing the best job in the world of emasculating this once proud alpha male. When the Hep-V vamps come calling, Violet saves the day. When they run into some gun wielding vigilantes hunting for vampires, she intervenes. Finally, Jason’s had enough.
He’s been doing naughty things to her for months without anything in reciprocation, and now he can’t even be the man doing manly things with his job. So he proceeds to tell Violet (in much cleaner language used here) that she’s going to love him right here, right now, on the hood of his car. It wouldn’t be ‘True Blood’ or Jason Stackhouse without some sex or nudity so they filled the quotient with this episode.
Back at Sookie’s house, Alcide gives her the run down for not only walking home on her own in a town filled with deadly infected vampires, but for reading his mind in an angry moment after the attack happened. Sookie just wants to be alone so Alcide retires upstairs, but what’s better than angry, hood of the car sex? Make up sex of course!
So Sookie strips off her 1950’s bathrobe to reveal nothing but skin as she crawls into bed with her wolf lover and they proceed to do naughty things as well. This episode was directed by Stephen Moyer (Bill) who is Anna Paquin’s (Sookie) real life man — talk about awkward as he’s telling his woman and her on screen lover how to do the dirty.
Oh Where Oh Where Has Our Little Eric Gone?
The best part of this episode actually took us far away from Bon Temps as Pam was in Morocco searching for her maker after he was set aflame on a mountain in Sweden at the end of last season. Pam’s playing Russian Roulette with another vampire, and her feelings on religion rank right up there with Rust Cohle, although she prefers a little different approach — namely saying she’ll be having a three-way with the devil after she’s dead. Alright then!
The vampire she’s facing has done this 27 times before and he’s still alive. Well, whatever you do don’t play 28 the next time you’re at the craps tables in Vegas because this guy was going up against a series regular and there’s no chance he was surviving this game. The whole point of this deadly encounter was for Pam to receive information on Eric’s whereabouts.
When she finds the contact given to her after the Russian Roulette match, he reveals a map showing where Eric is hiding out. She can’t believe he would go back there but where is it exactly? I’m assuming we’ll find out soon enough because Eric can’t stay away forever.
We Found Them! (Sort of)
Sam’s pregnant girlfriend was also amongst the people taken during the raid on not-Merlotte’s so he’s out to find her along with Andy and Bill as they search abandoned buildings and other structures where the Hep-V vamps could be hiding out during the daytime hours. Sam’s former opponent in the mayoral race, Vince, sees him shift from dog to man, so that’s not good. Add onto that, Vince is leading the pack of local crazies hell bent on stopping all vampires not just the Hep-V variety. Not to say these folks don’t have a reason to be angry, but haven’t we already walked that story line up, down and sideways at this point?
Anyways, at the abandoned warehouse where Bill and Andy discover a slew of hanging bodies, ripped open and dead for days, they run into Vince’s marauding band of lunatics. Andy is able to talk them off the ledge and then send them on their way while also saving Bill in the process. Needless to say these two won’t be BFF’s any time soon, but there’s a mutual working relationship that needs to survive if this town is even going to make it until dawn.
Finally we see where the Hep-V vamps are keeping their victims — in the basement of Fangtasia, the same place where Lafayette once sat for half a season way back when. Arlene, Holly and Sam’s lady are all there along with Andy’s half-witted deputy who sounds like he just swallowed a southern fried Kermit the Frog. When the ravenous vampire comes looking for a snack, of course he chooses the deputy because the others have to survive for now. Arlene’s convinced no one is going to find them now because the whole town is looking in Bon Temps while the vamps have taken their hostages all the way to Shreveport.
A Meeting of the Minds
At the church the next morning, Reverend Daniels is leading the town in a meeting to help them find a solution to the vampire problem when Sookie shows up to offer her condolences to Lettie May. Well, Tara’s mother wants nothing to do with her ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ stuff and tells Sookie to get stepping. As she walks away, again the entire town can be heard calling her vampire slut, whore and any other bad name you can imagine. Finally, Sookie’s had enough and she unloads on the whole town full of people before closing the episode reminding them that no one knows vampires more than her and they are going to need her help if they want to survive.
Overall, not a bad episode of ‘True Blood’ but still a far cry from the best of the series. I enjoy nudity as much as any red-blooded American male but the scene between Jason and Violet was so contrived it felt forced and kind of stupid given the gravity of the situation. That’s not even mentioned the fact that the hood of a car is really hot after it’s been running for a while so if anything, it’s just not a practical location for sex. Just saying.
The action to start the episode got the blood flowing (literally and figuratively) and the slow burn for the final 35 minutes was a good lead in to the season ahead. There are still plenty of characters that are vapid and hold no real significance to the show’s overall success or failures and more just seem like ways to waste time while getting through an hour long episode (here’s looking at you Adilyn!) but ‘True Blood’ is strongest when there is a central focus and the characters aren’t being pulled in eight different directions. With nine episodes to go, let’s hope it stays that way.
What did you think ‘True Blood’ fans? Did the final season kick off the right way? Leave us your thoughts in the comment second below.
