The last two episodes of the season surprised me because I didn’t expect certain storylines to end the way they did or certain characters to meet their end the way they did. And more than that, these episodes reminded me of a big gripe I have with True Blood that I keep forgetting to mention in my virgin diaries.
To Love is to Bury
“I can’t listen to politicians no more. I get a seizure.” — Terry
Oh Lafayette, you’re such a rascal! In a show filled with mopey, flip-flopping love interests, you have to admire the guy that has the balls to just walk up to his bigoted lover during an election campaign event and quietly threaten him. And all with a smile on his face!
While Bill can sure be unlikable in his … Bill-ness, he does seem to be the only vampire that isn’t completely awful. The gripe I alluded to at the top is simply that vampires are assholes. They eat us, call us garbage and then get mad at us for judging them. Why are we supposed to feel bad for them? More so, why are we using vicious man-eating monsters that are organizing in secret to tear down humanity as an metaphor for gay people and minorities? This is a bad metaphor, people!
So while Bill is mostly unlikable, seeing him not focusing on Sookie (focusing on Jessica instead) for even a few minutes of screen time made him that much more likable. Jessica is just a reminder to why parents should never put that much pressure (religious or otherwise) on their children. Her reaction to freedom from her soul-crushing parents is almost identical to Kristen Wiig‘s character in Paul — an explosion of exuberant profanity.
Now, even if I had never seen an episode of this trope-loving show and even if she didn’t look like the naked woman from the last episode, Maryann wouldn’t have fooled me for a half-second. A mysterious wealthy stranger who takes Tara in just out of the goodness of her heart? Yeah, she couldn’t possibly have sinister intentions! Also, I call bullshit on Lettie Mae. Considering the life of crap she put her daughter through — crap that helped lead Tara to make the bad choices she’s made — she shouldn’t be turning away.
Amy’s departure from the show felt extremely anti-climatic. With all the references to both her past and her narcissistic inner demons, I expected her to go full-on rage on Jason and/or kill herself when he left her. Instead, we get a brighter version of one of the frolicking scenes from Twilight (meadows, anyone?), and her flying backwards into druggie heaven.
I guess Sookie and Sam’s investigation was interesting, but it’s too little too late for me. You can’t start putting in the major clues to the mystery one episode before the big reveal! I haven’t cared about who the murderer is for the last four episodes or so, especially since I know enough about the just started fourth season to know most of our leads are still in the show (but let’s face it, even if this was just premiering, we wouldn’t have to worry about Sookie dying any time soon). Maybe if they had dropped some clues throughout the season instead of waiting until the end, I would have been interested.
You’ll be the Death of Me
“I’ve known killers and Jason ain’t one.” — Terry
Before I get into anything else, Terry is my favorite character of the show. It’s not a coincidence that I quoted him twice in this post. He’s right, people should listen to him!
Who of you out there didn’t realize the picture of Drew Marshall from the last episode was also a picture of Rene? It couldn’t have just been me that missed it, right? So I was pretty surprised when the evil music cues started playing whenever Rene was on screen. Then I remembered the photo. But now that I think about it, this is another rather anti-climatic moment in the show. Wouldn’t it have been better to reveal the photo in the police station during the collage of Arlene, Sam and finally Sookie figuring it out?
Besides the above, two things went into my head after it hit me that Rene was the killer. First, since I’ve been calling Rene “Gambit” to myself for the entirety of the first season, that I couldn’t believe Gambit was the killer all along. Second, that Arlene has the absolute worst taste in men. Little did I know that Arlene herself would say that exact piece of truth later in the episode.
I think I’m finally starting to “get” Jason. He’s still a complete idiot, but he’s an idiot who is sadly easily manipulated. My heart broke a little when he was lured in by the anti-vampire group just when he was finally starting to think for himself.
The oddest thing about this season finale is how it ended somewhere in the middle of what should have been the next episode. There was a distinct ending point to the season, and that’s when Sookie and Bill embraced. To cut a few weeks later and start more storylines threw the pacing of this episode right out the window. It’s like the writers couldn’t bear to end an episode without a crazy cliffhanger, so they pushed us up to the point with the corpse in the car. See, now they’re making us wait in terrible anticipation for the next season. Who is the woman in the car? Who took Lafayette? How does Sam know Maryann? All these questions, and I have to wait months to find out! … Oh wait, it’s 2011.
See you next week.
Clacked by Katie Schenkel 
on Jul 01, 2011 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Hmm. I think if you rewatch the whole first season again, very carefully, you’ll see that there were in fact, very subtle hints that Rene was the killer. They are understated though so they only become obvious when you already know what you’re looking for.
Interesting. I will say, I did think the proposal scene was very strangely directed when I first watched that particular episode. With their car apparently breaking down in the middle of nowhere, I really thought it was going to be the horror clique of Rene going to check it out and getting slaughtered. So when he went on one knee, I was still thinking, “OK, when is the killer going to pop out…”