Saturday 11 October 2014

Review: True Blood Finale (2014) *SPOILER ALERT*

This is kind of a review and kind of not.  It's more like a recap of my thoughts on the whole seven seasons of this awesome show.  


I first started watching it when there was already 3 seasons out, so I binged watched all three and couldn't get enough.  My eagerness for the next episode immediately didn't die down until season 6 which I felt was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to the others.  Anyway, when I started watching this it was a refreshing change from the Vampire Diaries and Twilights of the world.  With its 18 rating, it had a lot more swearing, a lot more sex and a lot more blood and guts! Therefore it held a lot more of my interest.

The series follows Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) in her little quiet town of Bon Temps and the ways in which her life is turned upside down after falling in love with vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer).  Over the course of 7 seasons we encounter Vampires, infected vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, fairies, witches, murderers, fangbangers and much more.  Adding more and more mythical creatures throughout the season stopped it from becoming repetitive and made the threats to Sookie's life more interesting each time (although the fact that Sookie's life was in danger every time did become a little repetitive).



I got very excited about the final season, there was so much hype about it and after being a little disappointed with the way season 6 went, I was really hoping for a better season 7.  Maybe I shouldn't have got my hopes up so high, the whole season felt rushed, like they were trying to tie up all the loose ends too quickly.  I don't think at the end of Season 6 they had quite prepared for finishing the whole thing in one season.  They could have rounded up some of the stories in Season 6 instead of dragging them into season 7 and some that could have been avoided all together. However, they obviously wanted to keep certain actors/actresses in so they had to make a story fit around them. 



The final episode though did what all finales should and rounded everything up, everyone was happy, all the danger had magically disappeared and everyone was still friends and still living in Bon Temps all because Bill killed himself? or Sookie killed him? or both?.  I should have loved this, when I was younger if I didn't know what happened 'in 5 years time' at the end of a  series I would expect (hopefully) for more to round it up.  However, as I have gotten older, I prefer the less predictable endings, something with a twist, maybe the protagonist who you have been rooting for, for 5 years dies.  I just expect these '5 years from now' endings and it always disappoints because it's like all of a sudden everything that was an issue throughout the seasons disappears and no one questions it.

It was nice to see all the characters happy and settled but as True Blood has pushed so many boundaries throughout it's years on the TV, I expected better and more shock value than what the final season and the finale provided. 

A special mention does have to go to Eric and Pam though, they were by far the highlight of the final season (particularly the flashback video store scenes) and their ending in the Finale was brilliant (and purposely cringeworthy) and saved the whole thing for me.


All in all, it wasn't as disastrous as the 'Lost' ending but it certainly wasn't good by any means.  Too rushed and false to have any kind of impact on the viewers who have stood by for 7 years through all the shock value and controversy to be given a happy ending was just disappointing.

Did anyone else think the same? or did you love it?

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