See what I’m saying? Even buried among the time-wasters, there were golden moments.There's no mistaking the uneven nature of this season as a whole, particularly in the middle episodes, but surviving the Ifrit, Jesús' severed head and some of the duller Authority story lines were all a small price to pay for the glory that was that completely batshit finale. Despite his well-meaning villainy, his silent wish that Sookie have a wedding of her own someday was undeniably moving, if only for Anna Paquin’s watery-eyed reaction shots. But, again, if I’d had my way, that should’ve been her first clue that he was not, in fact, cured.
And Jessica and Hoyt’s wedding scene: Such a nice touch that Sookie could suddenly hear Bill’s thoughts. I also appreciated that Bill’s ludicrous request for Sookie to stop being a faerie was ultimately denied, thus retaining Sookie’s agency while Bill lay in that coffin looking like a confused goon. For example, I loved the bracingly moving scene between Sookie and the reverend, in which they discussed whether God made monsters on purpose or whether they were merely mistakes. “Thank You” wasn’t without its redeeming qualities, however, and that even includes aspects of the two plotlines I just got finished hating on. (And am I crazy, or is this version of Hoyt way more hardened and unpleasant than he used to be?) Anyway, yeah, the longer this wedding scene went on, the madder I got that Lafayette and Tara had been brushed aside so hard this season. If True Blood wanted to wring pathos from Jessica and Hoyt’s reunion, why not just close the episode with Jessica showing up at his oil rig and hinting that they might be able to start over? Instead, “Thank You” asked us to get excited about a wedding between two characters we’d long since stopped rooting for, and then proceeded to subject us to several interminable scenes about it. Again, I’m trying to imagine a version of this that could have worked, but staging a shotgun wedding with an amnesiac is not the one. A wedding between two people without a (remembered) history isn’t romantic, it’s stressful. The only thing worse than using suicide as a source of melodrama is the love-at-first-sight narrative. Yes, those two provided True Blood’s heartbeat for several seasons, but that particular arc ended with such poetic and heartbreaking closure that the resurrection of their love felt rushed, unearned, and perfunctory. One reason “Thank You” doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt was because of how badly it miscalculated our interest in Jessica and Hoyt’s relationship. But again, could that have been the point? I honestly doubt it. Despite this season’s flirtations with redemption, Bill’s final salvo was so unforgivable that it’s hard to view him as anything other than a total villain in hindsight. That would have been a hero move, but Bill was no hero. You know, like pretend to take the antidote, make sure all his affairs were in order and that everyone was going to be okay, and then slink off and lay down in a grave. Did Bill really have to enlist Sookie to kill him? Wasn’t he bound to dissolve into black goo at any moment? Why was he showing up at her house and giving Tennessee Williams–esque speeches about how he needed to die so that Sookie could finally stop loving him and move on with her life? (Uh, don’t flatter yourself?) It was bad enough that he refused to live on as a friend and supporter to his loved ones, but he also wanted to make sure Sookie participated in his death, too? I’m honestly trying to imagine a way for this narrative beat to have made better sense, but all I can come up with is that if Bill really did feel the need to die, he should have probably done it in secret.
The problem was the journey that brought us to that point.
TRUE BLOOD SEASON 3 FINALE SERIES
On the positive side, it was a suitably powerful moment on which to end the series, and it darkly dovetailed with how the series began (as an ostensible romance between the two). Sookie staking Bill was both the best and worst thing about this episode.
Lafayette Deserved Better From True Blood’s Series Finale