Way to say “f—k you” instead of “thank you,” True Blood.
In one of the most disappointing series finales ever, sarcastically entitled “Thank You,” True Blood once again found a way to suck the life out of someone — this time it just happened to be the viewers.
While closure was something that was promised for this episode, it appeared to offer anything but that. Loose strings were left untied, character plotlines came to an abrupt stop or ended on a completely uncharacteristic note, and there was way too much boring filler that taking up most of the episode.
Seriously True Blood, this was the last episode, the least you could do was add a little more excitement — like more Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgaard), and less Arlene (Carrie Preston), Holly (Lauren Bowles), and borderline human storylines.
We get it, you wanted to convey that the heart of the show was the humanity…but the viewership of the show came for the complete opposite of that.
As Sookie (Anna Paquin) wallowed around town with the news of the impending death of her former true love Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), it felt as if the writers completely neglected the progress her character was making in prior seasons, and the other love connection she made sometime ago, and just had her regress back to hopeless season one Sookie.
As for the other half of the episode, and the word half is exactly how much of the episode it took, focused on the wedding of Spoiler Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) and Hoy (Jim Parrack).
While this was sweet, it was completely unnecessary to focus half of the episode on this, and just left viewers bored. It felt as if the writers threw this in there to pass time, or more appropriately, waste time.
The episode focused more on the theme of moving on with your life, but barely touched on the subject of actually answering questions for the audience. This made “Thank You” feel more like a filler episode, than an actual series finale, which was disheartening to say the least.
You barely got a look at any other characters, besides the ones listed above, and any scene involving anyone other than the aforementioned character was rushed. So rushed, that the audience was left asking, “If the solution to the problem was that quick, why didn’t it happen episodes ago? Why would they spend so much time with this storyline if in the end the ending would be quick and very unsatisfying?”
Everything felt wrong about this episode, the writing, the character development, and that god-awful ending. Everything just felt flat and empty, leaving even the most hopeful and optimistic, negative and angry.
The source of all the real problems in the episode was the writing, which is a shame since the writing last week was so fantastic. Amongst the many issues in the writing, one that stuck out like a sore thumb was the character development. It felt as if the writers erased all the prior character development and just said “screw it” and wrote what they wanted because the show was ending. It was almost like they were deliberately trying to piss fans off.
With this horrendous character development came that atrocious ending. While the ending before the ending was a nice touch, *Spoiler* resulting in the death of an extremely major character, it wasn’t enough to save the episode from the mediocre ending that was to follow. Sure, it was nice to see everyone happy in a show full of gloom and doom, starting families and moving on with their lives, but why on earth would the only two surviving main characters in the show have such horribly random endings? *Spoiler* It makes no sense having them go back rather exactly how they were in season one, showing absolutely no growth whatsoever in the show, or having such a random ending that we don’t even see the face of the new people they end up with in the end?
Thanks for serving up one last screw you to the audience True Blood; I’m sure that will be missed…
But at least the acting was an upside…the only upside of the episode. Well maybe “upside” is being a bit too generous. Let’s just say the acting was tolerable this episode, much more so than in previous episodes. This includes that of Anna Paquin, who I’ve criticized for weeks on end. She showed off her real acting chops and it helped the episode go more smoothly, but it certainly did not save the finale from the abyss of once loved but now forgotten shows that it will soon find itself in.
All in all, this was a terrible episode, and an appalling series finale. Nothing was answered, everything was rushed, character development did a complete 360, and the writing just ruined this episode completely. Maybe listening to fans before writing this episode might have been a good idea this time, instead of going AWOL and winging it, pissing off every Truebie that has every existed.
So ‘thank you’ True Blood, thank you for wasting an hour, and years of fan obsession, of this critic’s time.
=========================================================================================================================================
Laura Dengrove is the one of youngest members of the Pop-Break staff and is a critic for television/movies of all types on Pop-Break. She’s heading off to college where she will be studying to obtain her bachelors degree at Rutgers University for Journalism/Public Relations. She was the editor for the Arts and Entertainment section of her school newspaper, runs her own blog (Pop Culture Darling), and interns for Design New Jersey. She also has an in-depth knowledge about all things True Blood and an avid Eric and Sookie shipper.
