TRUE BLOOD Season 7 Episode 10
Episode Title: “Thank You”
Writer: Brian Buckner
Director: Scott Winant
Do you remember when “True Blood” was a fun show to watch? As the series has declined in quality, it’s become harder to picture the guilty pleasure that it once was.
Personally, I think that “True Blood” started going off the rails in the fourth season and it never recovered. But there’s plenty of time to examine where “True Blood” went wrong in the future. For now, the focus is on last night’s series finale, “Thank You.”
First, let’s start off with what worked. Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) and Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) quickly dispatched Mr. Gus (Will Yun Lee) and his gangsters within the opening minutes before getting their revenge on Sarah Newlin (Anna Camp). This led to the episode’s only truly funny moment as Eric rocked out in a car full of dead gangsters after doing one last kindness for Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin). He may have endangered Sookie’s life, but at least he cleaned up after himself.
Given the way that Eric and Pam were shoved to the side in this episode, I could have been happy if that had been the last time that we saw Eric. Likewise, Pam’s hilarious reaction to Sarah’s half-hearted seduction attempt would have been a great end for her character. But instead, Eric and Pam reappear in the future as hucksters for their New Blood, which is formulated from the Hep-V cure in the blood of Sarah, whom they keep locked away in Fangtasia as a bloodslave for rent.
That fate doesn’t ring true for either Pam or Eric, and he looks particularly unhappy while back on his throne at Fangtasia. It’s like the “True Blood” creative team decided that they loved the joke of Eric and Pam hosting an infomercial so much that they twisted and contorted their characters in an attempt to justify it. And it just didn’t work for me.
But that pales in comparison to the rest of the soggy mess that is “Thank You.” I think that the big problem that I stopped caring about a lot of these characters a long time ago. Meanwhile, the “True Blood” creative team seems to think that the audience is still so heavily invested in the resolution of Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Sookie’s “epic romance” that we’ll happily sit through a toothless and boring finale that spends most of its time on marrying off Hoyt (Jim Parrack) and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll).
If Hoyt and Jessica were going to be the endgame for each other then perhaps Hoyt shouldn’t have been written out of the show in an attempt to pair up Jessica and Jason (Ryan Kwanten). As it is, Hoyt and Jessica’s impromptu wedding feels unearned and listless. The show tries one more time to have some social relevance by having Andy (Chris Bauer) acknowledge that the state won’t recognize the marriage between a human and a vampire… but it’s too late for that. The gay analogy to vampire rights fell apart a few seasons back.
The last few episodes have been built around Bill’s refusal to cure himself from his fatal Hep-V, which is still weakly argued for in this episode. Bill claims that his impending demise will free Sookie to have a normal life with a real family of her own. Although, Bill could have just taken the cure and moved to another city or another country. If Bill was really that tired of living as a vampire (like Godric was), then his death could have been poignant. It just seemed silly for Bill to give in so easily and ask Sookie to end his life by giving up her faerie powers.
Some of the Bill and Sookie interactions managed to land during their final graveyard scene, and I’ll admit that I enjoyed seeing Bill explode into a puddle of blood after taking the stake from Sookie. That doesn’t excuse the weak setup for their farewell, but it was better than nothing.
If the creative team of “True Blood” had been willing to end it there… well I can’t say that the finale would have been salvaged. However, it would have been a huge improvement over the flash forward ending in which everyone in Bon Temps is fucking happy and paired off. Jason’s got Hoyt’s old girlfriend and a lot of kids, while Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) and Sam (Sam Trammell) are basically extras as they show up for Stackhouse family Thanksgiving celebration with their significant others.
As for Sookie, she ends up pregnant and possibly married to some bearded guy whom we never quite see. After seven seasons of asking the audience to be invested in Sookie’s love life, that was a serious miscalculation. The entire ending felt out of place.
“Thank You” will likely go down as one of the worst series finales of all time and as far as I’m concerned, “True Blood” can join “Dexter” in TV Hell for failing to deliver a worthy episode to close out the series. I will miss the show that “True Blood” used to be… but it died years ago.
