True Blood: Ep 12, “You’ll Be the Death of Me” (finale)
HBO wraps up the season finale on True Blood and leaves audiences hungry for more. For a show that cut its teeth being sexy, outrageous, controversial and completely insane, the season finale was surprisingly… normal. Almost boring, even. Hey, I was surprised as you.
Read on for a breakdown, and spoilers below.
Jason is in jail, believing himself to somehow be the murderer in Bon Temps, despite a lack of evidence that bothers the local constabulary. Sookie and Sam are convinced they have a lead on the identity of the killer, but can’t get anyone to believe them. Tara finds life under the mysterious Maryann to be quite enjoyable, giving her a taste of a life she never knew she could have. The murderer is revealed and tries to take out Sookie, but soon finds Sam and a sunburned Bill coming to her rescue. With the killer found, Jason is released form jail, but takes with him a new appreciation for an anti-vampire religious sect called the Fellowship of the Sun. Just as things start to calm down in sleepy Bon Temps, a whole bunch of mysteries start up again. Into the Mystery Machine!
Wait, that’s it? That’s all?
For such an outrageously naughty series, True Blood ended on a surprising whimper of mediocrity. There was nothing wrong with the episode per se, but it lacked the spark, the sexiness that keeps viewers coming back week after week for another feeding. Calling it banal might be a bit harsh, but I was underwhelmed. For such a shiny show, “You’ll Be the Death of Me” was awfully dull.
So the faux-Cajun turns out to be the murderer. As twists go, it could have been worse (it could have been zombie-Grandma or something insane like that). And surprise, surprise; he did it because he hates “fang bangers”. Seems a bit extreme to go out and systematically murder half the population of Bon Temps, but that’s just me thinking out loud.
Admittedly, it was pretty neat to see Bill fighting his primal instincts (attention vampires: DO NOT go out in the sun) and try to rescue Sookie, but having him pop back to normal was kind of anti-climactic. If you’re going to make it a big dramatic thing to burn the poor guy alive (well, dead) and cry over his death (well, second death) then don’t just have him show up at the door, fit as a fiddle as if nothing happened.
Sucks to be Sam, though. For a brief, painkiller-induced moment, Sookie was looking at Sam as her savior, her hero, her dog in shining dog armor, and a worthy successor to the charbroiled Bill. Too bad Bill comes right back and sweeps her away, leaving a surly and depressed Sam (which I suppose is exactly how we met him). I guess it wouldn’t be much of a show if Sookie left her vampire suitor and took up with a shape shifter. They’d have to re-christen the show with a new name.
The biggest letdown here was seeing the groundwork for the next season of True Blood laying itself out. Just as we turn the page on one set of mysteries, this final episode breaks its neck trying to lay out as many new mysteries as humanly possible. What happened to Lafayette? Who the heck is Maryann? What’s the Fellowship of the Sun all about? What is Sam doing with a big stack of money? Honestly, none of those plot devices are particularly compelling on their own.
At its core, True Blood is adapted from pulpy page-turning novels of vampire mysteries, sure, but what made the show a cut above its competition is how it worked in melancholy, profound ruminations on life, love and sexuality into its pulpy, cliched narrative. This episode had no spark, no fun. The finale was all about tying up dull narrative strings, and spent zero time being eccentric or perverse or all the other things we love about True Blood. It was disappointingly normal.
Ah well. When you take all twelve episodes as a whole, it’s hard to be too upset. I can’t remember a show I’ve enjoyed watching as much as True Blood in recent memory. It’s trashy, disgusting, whorish, perverse and hilarious, but still manages to be mysterious and sexy all at the same time. Plus, vampires. How can you lose?
The finale for Season One may have been a letdown, but here’s hoping Season Two will reaffirm the faith.
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Did anybody else get serious “Sopranos” finale vibes from this episode? David Chase got the war between Phil and Tony out of the way rather early, the tension loosened and we got a chance to hang around with the “Sopranos” characters for a good long while before the lights were turned off (literally) and the show cut to black.
In “True Blood” last night we got the answer out of the way early about who the serial killer was (but, in true nebulous fashion, we still don’t know why Rene did it or what drove him to hide his past). Once that cat was out of the bag though we settled into the uneasy feel of that Michelle Forbes home where Tara is staying. Leave it up to Ball to make a location so nice, laid back and classy feel so creepy and otherwordly in “True Blood’s” fictional realm. The tension when Rene and Sookie were together (first in the car and then on her house) was unbearable. Best scene of the show by far was when Sam shows at Sookie’s place and, noticing the dirt on the ground, starts running after her taking off his clothes. I was howling and pumping my fists in excitement because, in movie terms, Sam was the cavalry on his way to the rescue (or Clark Kent exposing the ‘S’ in his chest before transforming into Superman).
Then Ball continues to upset our expectations though. Instead of the damsel in distress being rescued by her dashing prince(s) it was a team effort that took down Rene. Sam didn’t rescue Sookie from Rene, and neither did Bill. Neither men… I man, neither supernatural being in Sookie’s life impaled that shovel into Rene’s neck (nice nod to Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator”) but they both contributed to her rescue. Sam by biting Rene and Bill by using what was left of his energy to awaken Sookie in time to defend herself (and save Sam from being beaten to death). Very much like her relationship with both, Sookie owes her life to both of them and doesn’t completely belong to either of them in soul and spirit (although Bill definitely has dibs on Sookie’s body ). I don’t know about you but seeing a naked Sam lifting and then burying Bill to save him was both hilarious and deeply moving. The Sam from early in the season would have shown excitement or relief that he was getting rid of his rival for Sookie’s affection. The new Sam did it because it was both the right thing to do and as a sign of his gratefulness for saving both him and Sookie from Rene.
That’s half the episode, which means we get to spend the rest of “True Blood’s” finale hanging out one last time for a while with ‘the gang’ (minus the presumed-to-be-missing-partying Lafayette). Did anybody get a serious ‘Scooby Doo’ vibe when we saw most of the characters at the bar ‘Two Weeks Later’? This to me is the masterstroke that shows why this show and Alan Ball are more than just gratuitous sex and gore (which I’m thankful for, don’t get me wrong). Ball (as director) and his writer did an episode that had the tricky tightrope to walk of being a finale (if the show didn’t get renewed) and a cliffhanger (the unexplained Michelle Forbes backstory, Lafayette’s disappearance, the dead body at the end, etc.). The main point Ball wanted to drive through in this episode was how normal (in their own way) and decent these characters are. Sookie looked so fragile, innocent and lovable in her post-attack demeanor, body language and beaten-up appearance. It really takes something extraordinary (like Sam shapeshifting naked in front of her) for this southern belle to utter a profanity (as proven by the ‘fudge’ when her car wouldn’t start ). Yet what do Sookie and Tara do? They forgive and treat Andy really well (almost sisterly) even though he’s been the biggest douche in the world to them and to Jason for the longest time.
The post-attack scenes are some of the best acting I’ve seen Anna Paquin do (especially when she has the nasty black eye) in her young career. It really felt like Sookie had gone through hell and had the whole weight of the world in her shoulders. Sookie emerges at the end of this first season even more than before as the heart and soul of “True Blood,” forgiving and smiling in the face of horror and dispair. Jason is now a born-again believer, not a danger to himself now (as before with his constant sleeping around) but to others in a not-subtle jive from Ball to organized religion as relying on the weak-minded to carry out their extremist agenda. He’ll still be annoying next season but in a whole new and different way. You can bet the recent California rulings about same-sex marriage amendments will play a big part in Season 2’s background story arc. Bill’s got his hands full with his new pet. Explaining how she came to be will sure put a dampen on things with Sookie. And whatever it is Tara is doing at that place she’s staying in the two weeks since arriving there (as seen in the last few scenes) can’t be too bad if she’s still working at Sam’s and being herself. Speaking of which, what’s the deal with all that cash? Damn, something’s going down big time next season and the body at the end is the least of my concerns. Can’t wait for next summer.
Yes, I was let down and thought the show went out for the season on a whimper, instead of with a bang. Did they change writers, or something? Was this finale episode really written by the same writer? If they have changed writers, it’ll be the end of the show before it’s even really gotten going good. Next season, I’d like to see more of Eric, Tara and Lafayette, and less of Jason and Jessica, although, I think it’d be a hoot if Jason and Jessica were to hook up somehow. I don’t know where the characters of Maryanne and Benedict are going, but I do know her scenes with pigs are icky. What’s up with those piggies anyway?