Season
6 of “True Blood” ended last night, and like the season overall it was a
bizarre mix of highs and lows. I had serious problems with the show for the
first quarter of the season, but then it seemed to get its act together for the
middle portion before sinking to arguably series lows with the ridiculous
hand-wringing over a not-even-tertiary character (I never want to hear the name
Terry Bellefleur again; enough already). If I had to
assign a grade to S6 overall I don’t know where I would start. As for the finale,
let’s look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The
Good: Alcide got a haircut! Thank god, because that
parched-ass wig that was stapled to his head at the episode’s beginning was
DREADFUL. He also no longer seems to be an asshole. And apparently he’s now
banging Sookie. I am not overly thrilled about that
last development for two reasons. First, Alcide’s relationship
with Sookie means we’ll probably never see Quinn from
the books. And second, I was pushing for Sookie and Alcide after seasons 3 and 4. I don’t really care about
either one of them at this point. Throwing them together after the awkward
six-month jump in this episode seemed like fan service, but service for fans
from like three years ago. That’s when the show was at its peak, so that may
have very well been the idea.

The
Bad: The resolution to the Warlow plotline. It became
increasingly clear that the showrunner this season
was not into that character and his build up, since as soon as SookieID’d him as Ben and his
fairy/vamp nature was revealed, Warlow literally
spent five episodes tied to a tombstone in fairy land. (The ultimate insult: he
was wearing his shirt the entire time. Missed opportunity!)
He went from terrifying fairy-slaughtering maniac to an alpha SNAG (sensitive
new-age guy), and Sookie went from pissing her pants
over him to creaming her shorts in literally like one episode. We know Sookie’s taste in men is terrible, but that was ridiculous.
So this episode, after he’d been off the table for literally half the season,
he went right back to Sookie-beating bad guy until Fairy
Grandpa Colonel Sanders came back from the hell dimension and held Warlow until Jason could stake him. And poof! That was it.
THAT WAS IT?! A stake was all it took? After all that build
up? I feel so bad for Rob Kazinksy, who must
have been reading these scripts and thinking, “…the hell?” I personally volunteer
to make him feel better. Call me, Rob! I also really liked you in “Pacific Rim”!

The
Good: Vamp Camp is over, Billith is over, and the
show seems deliberately to be refocusing on Bon Temps and the slutty weirdos who call it home. That is exactly what the series
has to do right now – drilling down its focus.

The
Bad: The six-month jump was a lazy attempt at pushing the reset button.
Seriously, that is what you do when your writers don’t know how to dig out of
the hole they’ve burrowed for themselves. Of the new status quo, Sookie and Alcide is actually the
least of my complaints. (We should at least get some quality shirtlessness out of it.) Bill has written a best-selling
book about his time as Billith and the origins of Hep V in which he admits to multiple murders, but
apparently he’ll never see trial for any of it. I question the legality of
that. But here’s the worst: Sam is now the MAYOR of Bon Temps?! In six months? You
have to be kidding. He’s been wanted for murder, implicated in god knows how
many crimes, and his own business has been the site of countless homicides. Who
would vote for him? His annoying girlfriend is still around, and still
pregnant. I am hopeful that that story arc will eventually pay off with
shifters being publicly outed because, seriously, it’s
ridiculous at this point. I’m fine with Arlene taking over Merlotte’s
if it means I never have to see her whining over Terry again.

The
Good: We ended the season with Sarah Newlin still
alive. She gets my MVP award for this season – that catfight a few episodes
back was one of the best sequences I’ve seen on this show in years. I would
love for her to come back at some point for one last, brutal attempt to wipe
out the vamps (and sympathizers) who have repeatedly screwed up her plans. She’s
a surprisingly effective Big Bad for this show. Thank you, Jesus!

The
Bad: We ended the season with several new, unneeded characters. Willa worked as
a plot point but I question if we need yet another baby vamp, given that Tara
has been given basically nothing to do for the past two seasons. I’m ambivalent
about Adilyn, Andy’s daughter, who also was there to
move along the plot. At least she’s a fairy, which is still fairly rare. But
Violet survived? Really? She had chaff written all
over her from her first appearance in Vamp Camp. And yet, there is something
beautifully karmic about Jason Stackhouse stuck in a one-way sexual
relationship for eternity, never getting his chance for, um, release.

The
Ugly: We never got the teased Jason/Eric sex dream after Eric gave Jason his
blood last episode. OUTRAGE!

The
Unfathomable: Was that the end of Eric? Seriously? He burns to death in the mountains of Europe after Warlow’s fairy blood wears off? I cannot accept that. I can’t.
Last episode, when Eric flew away, it seemed like he was going on some kind of fateful
mission – possibly even to kill himself. This episode we find out he just went
to go read a book and sunbathe naked on a mountain. Hey, random. While we did
get to see Alexander Skarsgard in his full glory, I
just can’t believe that one of the key characters on this show was snuffed out
in such an idiotic fashion. And ultimately I don’t believe he was. For one, the
camera cut away before we saw him crumble to ash. And second, Pam was deliberately
out looking for him. So I do think we’ll see Eric again. But I don’t think he’ll
be a regular next season. (I even wonder if that was their way of writing out
Pam.) Ratings are down and there’s no way they’re going to keep affording all
of those actors. ASkars likely has no shortage of
offers.

The
Deeply Uncomfortable: The scene between Tara and her mother – who have barely
been seen this season, and I don’t think have interacted since she was turned
in Season 5 – was cringe-inducingly awkward. Intentionally, of course. But as I was watching it I found
myself actually flinching. Thinking about it again – “Let me nourish you” –
SHUDDER!

The
Questionable: So the big cliffhanger and set up for next season is, basically,
vampire zombies. The Hep V plague has led to roving
packs of sick vampires going from town to town to feast on humans. The response
to this, in Bon Temps at least, is an organized symbiotic relationship between
healthy vamps and humans. Humans voluntarily feed healthy vamps, who then act
as their protection from the sick vampires. There are a few logical problems
with this. First, we saw Hep V kill vampires in hours
at Vamp Camp. It wasn’t more than a day or two that they went from infection to
jelly. Now we’re supposed to believe that these vampires have been roaming for
months while infected? But beyond that, I don’t understand why humans are so
worried about sick vampires. They can’t get inside their homes. Why don’t they
all just stay indoors at night for a month or two? Nobody goes out, vampires
can’t get in. Problem solved. But of course, the geniuses of Bon Temps have to
have a town-wide party at night, at a public place, which of course attracts a
horde of infected, slavering zombie vamps. Of course it does. I guess there’s
some comfort in knowing that Sam Merlotte is as good
a mayor as he was a business owner.

Ultimately
I think the Season 6 finale succeeded in getting the show back to its Bon Temps
roots, but it did so at the expense of burning through quite a bit of character
development and making some bizarre decisions. It was certainly better than the
conclusion to the previous two seasons, and I’m eager to see what the new showrunner can do. Because my gut says that Season 7 will
be the final bite for “True Blood.”

This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2013.