Well, that happened. I'd give this episode a "C" if I'm being generous.
I thought, except for a couple of flashes of the surreal awesomeness the show once had with Eric and Pam, that the finale was a completely dull and unsatisfactory ending that mistreated (not unusual for this show) or shortchanged many of the characters.
The good:
- Eric and Pam finally remembering that they were superpowered vampires and tearing the Fakeuza to shreds in seconds, though it makes the last several episodes where they were captured or in peril from them look idiotic.
- Eric and Pam as late night infomercial hosts. Brilliant. I could watch an entire show of them being rich New Blood merchants and celebrities.
- Eric recalling his inner
Zoolander and going all Night at the Fangtasiabury to the techno in the Hackuza's
Tokyo Drift car.
- Bill actually dying. I'm amazed they actually went though with it, though all the angst and dragging on to get there in the back-half of this season and this episode was interminable. I thought he was supposed to be rapidly dying, yet somehow they managed to make it seem like an eternity.
As soon as Sookie started hearing his thoughts, I was positive they were going to have her stupid fairy lightburst change him into a human in his weakened state, so they could live happily ever after. Uggh, that would have been awful.
At least Bill didn't rise out of the blood like the T-1000 only to reveal in the flash-forward that he was living in the mountains as a lonely vampire lumberjack because he could never be with the one he loved.
The bad:
- Bill emotionally blackmailing everyone around him in a final act of paternalistic dickishness.
Sookayyy, I'm a self-loathing emo vampire, so I want you to have a fulfilling life and children without me because adoption or sperm donors don't exist in this universe. But instead of just walking into the Sun or waiting for my disease to kill me in five minutes, I want to burden you with lifelong guilt and emotional trauma by having you kill me yourself. Also please do it by simultaneously giving up a hugely important part of your identity even though just getting rid of your Fairy Force Lightning powers should not in any way prevent vampires from still smelling your fairy blood. Or, failing that, stake me though the heart and disgustingly straddle my pool of goo in a coffin, since that won't add to your massive case of Bon Temps PTSD or reputation for necrophilia at all. Seriously, if you just bury me I'll be dead in hours, but screw that, I have to be a drama queen about it.
Jessica, remember everything I just said to Sookayyy? Forget it and marry a human who from his perspective just met you yesterday (in addition to finding out his mom died, breaking up with his girlfriend, realizing everyone he loved in life betrayed him and erased his memories, and killing someone), because I thought the first day marriage proposal in
Frozen was adorable even though it's even called crazy there. Even though things didn't work out with Hoyt before, and all the same personality quirks and defects still exist but now are also coupled with massive deception, I'm gonna use my impending death to ransom a silver bullet shotgun wedding out of you that you are clearly not comfortable with.
- No love for Lafayette, huh? I guess his story ended with the shitty Tara storyline and he's not even allowed some of his trademark clever quips in the finale, or even a single line of dialogue for that matter. Because we know he wouldn't have anything funny to say at that wedding he wasn't even invited to. At least he got to sit at Thanksgiving dinner with his boyfriend.
- No followup on how the aftermath of the Hep-V crisis changed the country. In the front-half of the season it seemed like an apocalyptic crisis with whole towns being wiped out and cities/corporations losing power (like in Dallas), the US government abandoning whole areas to ruin, and humans and vampires dying in droves, but I guess that didn't warrant any kind of followup after Bon Temps defeated their sick vampire nest.
- Sarah Newlin was originally an evil Hitlerish dirtbag who could have died by Eric's hand and I would be fine, but having her basically be depicted as an insane pathetic idiot in this season rather than a genocidal schemer kind of switched the hatred to pity. Which is why the revelation that she's stuck in the Fangtasia sex dungeon being fed upon for the rest of her life and hallucinating Steve Newlin (seriously, he gets lines but not Lafayette?) did not have the "she got her just deserts" effect I'm sure the producers intended.
- No Ginger on the infomercial or in Fangtasia? Did she explode in orgasm from recalling her two seconds of glory with Eric?
- Sam was barely part of the finale either except for showing up at dinner, but at least they had him leave town first to explain his absence, unlike Lafayette.
It could have been so much worse given this show's history, like having werekoalas and unicorns show up or something, but the fixation on Sookie and Bill's boring emotionally abusive love-hate relationship, and the short-shrift given to others (seriously, Arlene got lines but not Lafayette?) made it ultimately disappointing, and took away from what was otherwise a nice Led Zeppelin fade away montage.
.
