Who could have guessed that this season wouldn’t end with a bang or a whimper, but with the gross gurgling sound of a zombie vampire? Because that’s what we’re basically getting into next season, right? Zombie vampires. Because the new showrunner of True Blood, Brian Buckner, hates us.
Didn’t everyone feel that way by the end of last night’s season six finale? It felt, quite overall, like a fake-out. Like we got a too-easy resolution of the Warlow story and then a flash-forward because the writers or whoever didn’t want to deal with any more character development, they just wanted to set up the action for next season already. Because why would anyone want to see Sam Merlotte campaigning for mayor or Alcide finally deciding to date Sookie after she threw up on him the last time they almost had sex? I don’t know, guys. Everything about this finale felt more frustrating, more cheap, and more inconsistent than normal.
I suppose there were good things to be had in last night’s episode, but the tone felt off. The storytelling felt off. And as much as I mock True Blood for generally being a mess, I really am not looking forward to an era that will maybe be taking its cues from The Walking Dead. Not. Into. It. (And this is coming from someone who loves The Walking Dead comics, but thinks the TV show is the worst fucking thing.)
So what did I think worked in “Radioactive”? Some stuff. Mainly Eric’s penis. That’s basically it.
1. So Warlow is gone. OK! After making a maypole for their wedding ceremony (where did Warlow get the ribbons and flowers for that? Ugh, whatever), Warlow basically flips a shit when Sookie tells him that things have changed and she doesn’t want to marry him anymore—instead, can’t they just date, and can’t he be a part of her community? Yeah, no. I legitimately gasped when Warlow slapped Sookie across the face, finally breaking his Edward Cullen act, but then when Sookie punked out and didn’t use her ball of faerie light to blast him into nothingness? Lame as fuck. Instead we saw Sookie get saved again by some men: her faerie grandfather Niall, back from the black hole or whatever that Warlow sent him to, and the one and only Bill Compton, now just a regular vampire and guilty over how he treated his former love, and Jason Stackhouse, who stabbed Warlow with a stake infected with Hep V. Look, I love Jason, and I like when he does things right, and I don’t mind Niall, because Rutger Hauer really should have had more to do this season, and I even have a soft spot in my heart for Bill, that pale Southern motherfucker. But I just wish, for once, that Sookie wasn’t so fucking boring; she gets faux-empowered lines like “I do not complete you,” but does she ever follow up with actions? Warlow calls Sookie a “danger whore” again this episode, but is she really into danger? Or is she into being saved? Either way, I am not into it.
2. Speaking of Bill Compton, he is now a best-selling author! Let’s back up: So after saving everyone from Vamp Camp, Bill can no longer feel Lilith, and is having major guilt over basically trading Sookie’s life for Warlow’s blood. At Jessica’s urging (“You said that I had to protect your humanity. Please do not make a failure out of me”), he decides to save Sookie from Warlow—I wasn’t clear, though, if he knew Warlow was going to turn out to be an asshole? Or if he just didn’t want Sookie to end up as a vampire?—by soliciting Jason and his vamp Violet to help get them on the faerie plane, which means that Andy and daughter Adilyn had to come along, too. Although he fights Warlow, Bill is unable to enter Sookie’s house, and so he can’t totally save her—and six months later, it doesn’t seem like they’ve had much contact at all. But Bill looks so fancy on TV, promoting his book “And God Bled: A Story of Death and Redemption,” and he’s become a leader in the movement to deal with Hep V and the infected vamps (1/8th of their population). But I guess we’ll be seeing him and Sookie again together next season, with the heavy foreshadowing: “You need a vampire in your life, Sookie.” Although she says “I could never really trust you,” I would honestly be shocked if this show ended without the two of them together. And I’m guessing that the seventh season will be the last, because I cannot deal with this zombie vamp crap. Can. Not.
3. Speaking of those zombie vamps, I guess they’re going to be Sam’s problem next season? Now that he’s mayor of Bon Temps and all. I resent the flash-forward choice for a number of reasons, mainly because we don’t get to see why Sam decided to run for office, why he decided to sell Merlotte’s (maybe because Sookie never fucking showed up for work?), how he ran his campaign, and how he and Nicole are still together after only having about three conversations before she got pregnant. Plus, how is Sam so tolerant of the vamps? Has he told people he’s a shifter? Is he still shifting? Does he really believe that “if we separate church and state, we are 100 percent fucked”? This political side of Sam is one we’ve never seen before, and I really don’t buy any of this—him working with Bill, the two of them thinking the “monogamous feeding relationship with a healthy vampire in exchange for that healthy vampire’s protection for you and your family” will be successful—as feasible in the long term. And if they’re both smart enough to come up with this plan, why can’t they set up a perimeter around their cookout celebration so the zombie vamps they’re so worried about DON’T GET INTO TOWN? Because that cliffhanger at the end of the episode was just the worst. Plus, a world where Sam Merlotte wears suits and not slim-fit jeans and ruins his sexily tousled old-man hair by combing it IS NOT A WORLD IN WHICH I WANT TO LIVE.
4. If we're going to talk about sex, we need to talk about Jason Stackhouse, and how he isn’t having any. AGAIN, A STORYLINE I CANNOT ACCEPT. So somehow Jason is happy with Violet? Happy enough to build her a really Catholicism- and lavender-heavy basement lair where he gives her oral sex for 178 nights in a row? I don’t buy that shit for a second. But this show has always had a problem with Jason being raped and basically liking it, right? We’ve gotten some throwaway lines about his experience at the hands of the werepanthers, but somehow Jason has gone from being terrified of Violet to being completely sexually attracted to her. Everything about this storyline is wrong. And explaining it with “I’m hers now. Yeah, it’s fucking weird,” isn’t enough. Still, I’ll take small victories in this episode: Lots of Jason shirtless, lots of boasting (I loved his “You all may be vampires, but I am an athlete!” during his volleyball game against James and Jessica), and lots of incredulous Andy (his “That’s some bullshit!” when Violet said she and Jason are “strictly monogamous” was gold).
5. And finally, a quick roundup of what’s going on with the other vampires: Naked Eric (yes, we see what he’s working with) is reading a book on the sunny Alps and bursts into flames when Warlow dies, but I doubt he’s dead, because this show isn’t that stupid; Pam leaves Tara to go look for Eric (Tara: “You guys are the worst fucking makers ever”); and Tara is tasked with looking after Willa, but is probably infected with Hep V because her mother is a crazy bitch and begged her to feed off her, and why else would she do that than to infect and kill the daughter that she resents so much? “Let me feed you” has never been creepier, right?
+ Finally, some of my favorite lines to close out this season:
+ “I do just want to fuck you and own you and use you for your blood. … In 1,000, 2,000 years, you’ll learn to love me,” says Warlow. I really hated how the Warlow storyline dealt with time. If he is so fucking old, Hep V could still kill him? Blerghy blergh blergh. Are we really saying human scientists are that advanced? We can’t cure AIDS or cancer, but we can achieve this?
+ “I’m like two weeks old!” You know, I ragged on Andy’s half-faerie daughters in the beginning, but I have really grown to like the addition of Adilyn. Having a largely innocent but still easily frustrated teenage girl in the cast is always good, I think, especially since Jessica has become so vampy over the years.
+ “Who’s making a Target run?” Rest in peace, vampires who Bill saved from Vamp Camp with Warlow’s blood, only to inevitably kill when Warlow’s blood ran out. I like how that wasn’t addressed at all in the six-month flash-forward; Bill has no remorse over those vampires who might have died while staying out in the sun too long?
+ James has a vampire band now? OK.
+ I loved this exchange between Violet and Jason as they prepare to go find Sookie; she: “You’ll never be alone again,” he: “Yeah, let’s roll!” How has she still not had sex with him yet?!
+ In case you needed more examples of Bill being back to his normal, non-Lilith self, he sets Dr. Takahashi go, glamours him into forgetting everything Bill put him through, and gives him a suitcase full of money. Yay! (Also, it totally blew my mind to realize that actor Keone Young is the same Mr. Wu from Deadwood. I love when HBO casts things within its own family.)
+ Some good Bill lines this week: “Even though we vampires came out of the coffin, we never really came all the way out” when talking about his book, and “You can growl all you want, Bright Eyes, but it doesn’t change the truth” to Alcide when offering Sookie his protection.
+ And, oh, right, Sookie is now with Alcide, even though they haven’t thought about each other romantically in many, many episodes, and Sookie just offered herself up to Sam a couple of episodes ago. Sure, I want some story consistency, but actually, I’ll give that up for shirtless Alcide. Mmm.
Also, their height discrepancy is hilarious to me.
+ “I’m safe. I’m a survivor, too.” Yeah, OK, Sookie. Sure.
+ Finally, did Lafayette have ANY lines this episode? So rude.
+ However, I will acknowledge the deliciousness of Ryan Kwanten this episode. You know the way to my heart, True Blood. And it's through these dudes' abs.
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