True Blood: Finale (recap)

By: Jen Smith
Fancast.com

For those of us who haven’t read the books, tonight’s True Blood was an exciting way to find out the big mystery of the Bon Temps killing spree. Throughout the season, women who were connected to vampires in some way have been picked off one by one, yet no one knows why or who has been doing it. Tonight, someone dies, someone burns, someone goes missing, and someone finds Jesus. Oh yeah, and the pig makes its triumphant return to television.

Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is in jail dictating who gets all his property and prized possessions. Rene, his visitor, gets Jason’s truck. Jason is still under the impression that he’s killed all these girls without realizing it, but Rene says he had to have done it for a good cause. They were fangbangers after all. Sookie (Anna Paquin) shows up and is pissed that Jason confessed to something he didn’t do and that she’s really close to exposing the true killer, Drew Marshall, to the police. Rene wonders why she hasn’t done it already, but she insists she was looking for more proof.

Over at the most luxurious halfway house ever, Tara is feeling like a queen with her soft bed, silk robe, breakfast spread, and butler. Maryanne wants to talk to her about her situation. Tara thinks she’s already doomed because of the fake exorcism and DUI, but Maryanne is determined to help Tara rebuild her life exactly how she wants it to be. Tara’s confused about her motives. She doesn’t have any money to pay for this extravagance, but Maryanne insists she only wants to help. Meanwhile, the butler has stolen Tara’s cell phone, which is being bombarded by messages from Sam. It was probably for her own good anyway. Tara is too distracted by the pool and the hot guy to notice. This guy, named Eggs, claims to also be getting back on his feet. She wonders if Maryanne makes it a habit to collect stray black people all day and thinks this place is too good to be true. Meanwhile, Maryanne is chilling outside with her pig. Yup, the pig is back. And she appears to be vibrating or charging her batteries or something. This chick isn’t human, that’s for sure.

Sookie has shown up for work, even though Sam doesn’tt think she should have. He thinks that having her brother in jail is too stressful for her to work. Rene, meanwhile, is rather enjoying his new truck and stops in for a bite to eat. He watches as Sookie gets overwhelmed by the townsfolk’s constant mental yapping about her family’s problems. She asks Sam if she can go home after all. He’s supposed to be protecting her, but she convinces him that she needs time alone. When she tries to start her car, however, it won’t turn over. Rene comes out to lend a hand, but claims he doesn’t know anything about cars. He offers to drive her home and stay with her until Sam gets off work. She takes him up on that offer and off they go. Then, we see a quick shot of under the hood of Sookie’s car. Some wires have been cut through. Hmm… did Rene just not notice them? Something fishy’s going on.

Back at the jail, Jason gets another visitor. He’s a representative from the church that is so vocal about killing all the vampires. While the church can’t condone what he did, Orry claims that his intentions were pure. In fact, they’ve set up a fund for his defense. In the meantime, Jason gets a nice pamphlet to read about the radical church. Nothing else to do in jail, apparently. Remember in the first episode how Jason and Maudette watched the sex tape she made with a vampire? Well, it’s gotten a few more audience members. Arlene’s kids have apparently found a box of tapes with Rene’s things and this was one of them. The kids didn’t seem to have a problem with watching a human have rough sex with a vampire, but Arlene sure as heck did. She also finds a tape about learning a Cajun dialect. It looks like a few puzzle pieces are falling into place… but I still can’t figure out what all this means. I’ll just scratch my head until it becomes painfully obvious.

Back at the bar, Lafayette is cleaning up when he stumbles upon Rene’s vest in the booth. He tosses it to Sam to put in the lost and found, but Sam notices something doesn’t smell right. Dogs have that acute sense of smell, and Sam appears to have smelled Rene’s scent somewhere else before. Flashback: Sam is rolling around in the sheets of Dawn’s bed right after she was hauled away dead. We all presumed he had necrophilia, but now we find out that he was trying to memorize the scent of the killer. Wait a second… are they implying that Rene is the killer? Nah. Oh wait, yes they are. If you hadn’t figured it out by now (or read the books), Arlene’s fiancé, Jason’s best friend, and all-around good guy Rene is the murderer. Oh yeah, and his real name is Drew Marshall. Go fig.

At Sookie’s house, she’s started to notice that Rene is acting strange. Without him knowing, she slips into his thoughts and sees his vision of killing Gran. Rene was trying to kill Sookie that night, but Gran was there instead. Rene figures out that she’s on to him, and the chase beings. She runs for the rifle, but he has cleverly removed all the bullets. No worries. She knocks him over the head with the butt and runs out the door. As she’s running through the cemetery, she sees his visions of killing all the girls. He didn’t like the fact that they were fangbangers and wanted them to pay for their sins. Meanwhile, Bill (Stephen Moyer) has woken up from his midday sleep and realized that his Sookie is in trouble. He ignores the fact that it’s sunny out and takes off running.

Sookie tries to hide in an open grave, but Rene quickly finds her and promptly begins beating the holy shit out of her, calling her things like “vampire freak” and whatnot. Just then, Sam finally arrives in dog form and attacks Rene. He gets a good bite in, but Rene is stronger than the dog and throws him to the ground. He kicks him until he turns back into a human, which totally freaks out Rene. While his attention is focused on Sam, Sookie grabs a shovel and whacks Rene’s skull in… and proceeds to shove it through the back if his neck. Well done, girl. Sam wakes up right before Sookie sees a pile of smoke from a few dozen feet away. Bill tried his best to make it to her in time, but he couldn’t. She starts bawling and Bill says he’s sorry. Sam points out that they need to get him out of the light, so they throw him into the grave and bury his body. Sookie doesn’t know whether he’ll emerge or not.

Later that night, Sookie is back from the hospital and is loopy from the pain meds. Tara, Sam, and Lafayette are there to lend their support. Arlene shows up, having heard what happened, and is devastated. She’s disgusted by the fact that she let this man into her home with her kids. She never knew he wasn’t who he said he was because he kept all his inner thoughts locked away. She makes Sookie promise that when she finds another man, she’ll look into his head and tell her everything. She asks if Bill is going to be OK, but Sookie doesn’t think he will. Outside, Sam is asking Tara where she’s been. She says that she doesn’t want to talk about it, but that they both deserve to be happy. That’s when Maryanne pulls up in her shiny red car. Tara introduces the two, but when she’s not listening, Sam asks Maryanne what the hell she’s doing here. She replies, “Did you think I wasn’t going to find you? You silly, silly dog.” So it seems the mutants all know each other. Neat.

Meanwhile, Lafayette is taking out the trash at work when he’s suddenly sneaked up on from behind. Someone—or something—got him. Back at Sookie’s, Jason shows up to console her. They get their issues worked out, and Jason raves about being “saved” while in jail. They promise to take care of each other and he leaves. Sookie’s all alone in the house now, but not for long. The doorbell rings. It’s Bill. He’s good as new. He’s pretty pissed about her injuries, but she won’t let him feed her. She’ll heal the old fashioned way. Then they make out pretty heavily. Believe it or not, that’s not the end of the episode. Two weeks later: A new bill has just passed allowing vampires to get married. No one has heard from Lafayette. Arlene seems to have found a new man. Jason is praising Jesus in the anti-vampire church. Andy Bellefleur has turned into an alcoholic. Bill gets his “child” Jessica back from Eric. Sam takes thousands of dollars out of the safe. Sookie and Andy discover a dead body in his car.

HBO has kindly set up a cliff hanger for next season’s True Blood. Too bad it’ll be another year before we’ll get to see it. Also, there’s a rumor going around that in the books, Lafayette dies. Since I haven’t read the books, I don’t know the circumstances in which he dies, but I have to formally plea that Alan Ball tweaks the storyline and allows Lafayette to stay. He’s seriously one of the best characters on television today. I would be devastated if he were gone. Nonetheless, this was the best new show of the fall. Don’t listen to what other critics say. True Blood is addicting.