I think that was two zombie references this season and, of course, zombies are hot now and they're the only modern mythical monster not represented on the show since we've had vampires, werewolves, other shapeshifters, fairies, witches, and ghosts (did I miss any?). So I wouldn't be suprised (but I would be disappointed).

For some reason, I'm in the minority. No matter how annoying she can be, I've always liked Tara. In some ways, she's the only sane and rational person on the show. I wouldn't be surprised if she's saved, but that she's lost so much blood that she is turned into a vampire. Or, she could just move into poor Lafayette's increasingly crowded head...

Reaching back to the first season (and the books), they seem to have lost the point that Sookie was originally attracted to Bill because she couldn't read his mind. She'd always been unable to be intimate with anyone because she can't control her mind-reading when she's distracted (like when she's having, or about to have, sex) and it's just too creepy to hear what the guy she's with is really thinking.

Bear with my faultly memory, but there was a SNL skit a long time ago where a guy and a girl were coming home after a date and all of their thoughts were voiced over (something like "Would you like to come in for a drink? [If she comes in for a drink, we'll totally have sex]"). Everything they said was betrayed by their voiced over thoughts. Then his dumb roommate comes in (the guest star, who I'm pretty sure was a pro athlete) and everything he says was exactly what he was thinking ("It's really nice to meet you! [It's really nice to meet her!]"). I think Sookie should meet someone like that, who is dumb and innocent and has no secrets, but then get bored with him...

And finally, while Jason serves his dramatic purpose, I'd just as soon he had died because he annoys me so much. It was funny for a while, now its just annoying.

Love the finales, because they so set up next season, but a couple of things I want to know. What the hell did that fairy do to Andy other than giving him the best time of his life I suspect. And what was that terrible scene of acting when Terry met his long lost army buddy? You could see the "how could you marry her after all we've shared" look in the guy's eyes. I still can't believe Tara's dead, but I didn't believe Tommy was dead either, and he was just as wasteful a character. One thing I would love to see is Russell "outing" Sookie that she's a fairy on national tv...that would top his last performance, but if they really put zombies in this show I might be a little pissed off. Last thing , I thought the whole fucking Sookie rant between Jason and the vampires was the best scene of the season but I think the "fairy vagina" got that one beat

HOKAY, time to actually download the finale. Will be back with thoughts once I've watched it.

Well, at least one of the "dead" characters just announced they will be back for next season in some unknown capacity...

That worker guy at Russel's parking lot grave has been glamoured, so it's a pretty safe bet that he didn't free himself but had some vampiric help. But who would know where he was?

I'm also wondering if he was the one that made Steve Newlin into a vampire? He sure is fond of fucking things up...

@2 - perfect summary of that terry moment. the guy looked hurt and shocked, and terry suddenly looked shellshocked.

you know my thoughts on this, td. i did not want tara dead and am holding out hope for some vampire intervention just moments away.

i wonder if lafayette still has jesus' family demon in him. lafayette became a lot less forceful this season and really gave in to his terror of the supernatural. i want my saucy, enterprising man-with-three-jobs back. (and commit to a hairstyle already.)

alcide is a man, not a boy. you know how i feel about his 'just for men' beard. i think what all these men are attracted to in sookie is her wide-eyed naivete. she's so 'innocent' they all want to grab some of what they've long since lost, including sam. did you see that heart covered sweater the other week? stop shopping in the juniors department, girl.

you're the second person to bet newlin is in with russell. i'm not buying it. a guy like russell has got to have some other progeny somewhere. maybe they needed to be near to feel his summons and they only recently came calling.

what were your thoughts on sam being attacked by a wolf on samhain, just as luna leaves? i say it's ghost-marcus.

erik will reconcile with pam. he was furious in the moment, but from what we've seen it takes a whole lot to break this vamp blood ties. bill struggled awful hard to leave lorena and she just couldn't get over him.

it was nice they left the door open for jesus.

My bets for next season-

Russell and Newlin will definitely be the 'A' plot villains We might even get to know more about the authority, and this (and the love triangle) will occupy most of bill, eric, and sookie's time.

As for the 'B' plot - Here's what I'm putting together-
-Lafayette has now been introduced to a world of Magic, spells, powers, whathaveyou, and the force is strong with him
-Lafayette has now lost his boyfriend and his close cousin to gruesome, violent deaths. traumatic and all that.
-Zombies have been hinted at, forshadowed, etc. a lot this season (twice, once blatantly)

I think we might end up with a situation where Lafayette goes off the deep end and tries to bring Tara and Jesus back, bringing zombies down on everyone's heads. I just hope it works better than Buffy season 6 (Lafayette taking on the role of Willow here)

Andy and the faeries? Terry's Iraq buddy? no idea. some kind of C and D plots, perhaps.

Jason might end up in the B plot, bringing Jessica and Hoyt with him by default. Sam and his crowd could end up in literally any of the plots. Alcide might go in the A plot with sookie, if the writers try to make that relationship work.

I was disappointed with the season finale, that is until the last ten minutes when all the action happened. Now I am only mildly disappointed.
The Marnie/Lafayette combo lacked luster. I expected more. That said, I thought Nelson did a pretty good job channeling Fiona's Marnie mannerisms.
Although most knew Jesus's days were numbered, I must admit surprise at Tara's demise. I always liked Tara, but as with most, wondered where her character would go.
Even though Jason's been one of my favorite characters this season, Hoyt kicking the shit out of him was so deserved. Damn!
I saw Russell coming back, but Steve ... now that one was a complete surprise. Thought the fangs may have been a Halloween gag until I rewatched and noticed there were no fangs in sight when he first spoke to Jason and then *click* FANGS!
Alcide. Dude's got a body that begs for sin, but cannot act to save a life. Shame. Maybe next season...
Favorite line - Eric to Bill after Bill staked Nan: "What a bitch!" So true and good riddance Nan.
Not my most favorite of seasons so I'm not too troubled with the almost 10 month hiatus. Honestly, I need the break as I'm really sick to death of Sookie and her cute/sweet/ethereal nature. I'd like to see her do some serious ass-kicking next season, show a bit more of her twisted side (akin to when she poured Talbot's guts down the drain in front of Russell and gleefully turned on the garbage disposal). Very unSookie-like behavior. More please!

Enjoyed myself for the most part. Especially with Jessica. Yes, I'm a perv, shut up. Besides that, the most satisfying moment of the episode was Debbie getting her brains blownout. God that felt good. I wanted to like Debbie and see her change but that wasn't gonna happen. Kaboom. Yay.

I too suspect Bill or Eric to show up and do Sookie a favor by making Tara not dead. Or maybe undead. Undead Tara would be pretty cool actually, then maybe we could have some fun with her again.

Steve's back! And undead! This could be fun as hell! Especially if he's involved with Russell. Russell will be back and that alone is guaranteeing I will be back next season.

Zombies? Okay but only if the writers will do two things.
1) MORE CONCISE SUB-PLOTS! I know this can be hard with ensembles but c'mon, guys!
2) Make the zombies eat everyone in Hot Shot. And make it a 10 minute scene just so we can all have a nice gore-wank and feel better that they will never, ever, ever bother us again.

I'm all for the fairies showin up again too if they pull out the bullshit and make "fairies" more sinister but without the mountain of cheese and silly. In a show covered in cheese and silly, that was just too much. Too much, I say!

Alcide. More A-plot for Alcide, please. He's good people, I like him, he needs some fleshing out (character wise, ladies, calm down).

I don't have tons to say this time. I was entertained and it wrapped some of the stuff up nice enough and off we go.

Oh and I sincerely hope Terry doesn't turn into a villain of some kind. I like Terry just the way he is; PTSDed and weird.

I did pretty well with my predictions from last week: Jesus died, Fiona Shaw showed up again as Ghost Marnie, Sookie killed Debbie with a shotgun, and Tara died (or DID SHE?) trying to save Sookie, and it looks like Russell is coming back as next season's Big Bad (I didn't guess Reverend Newlin, although my wife did).

It's been rumored elsewhere that the actress who played Tara has been signed for Season Five, and if that's true, as I suspect it is, the only question is, HOW will they save her? The most straightforward way would be to have Bill (who seemed to feel that he owned some sort of debt to Tara anyway) rush in and give her vampire blood and save her. It's been suggested elsewhere that the only way to save her will be to turn her into a vampire, which I kind of hope they don't, but which would be interestingly twisted--it would make her the most intensely self-hating character on TV, and the character is already pretty self-hating. Another suggestion elsewhere is that Lafayette will try to save her with his magic and inadvertantly turn her into a zombie, and I REALLY hope that doesn't turn out to be true. I really don't want zombies on the show, although all the hinting and foreshadowing indicates that, alas, there probably will be. (If Sookie had had the presence of mind to blast Debbie with her fairy light before Tara rushed in, she wouldn't have needed to be saved in the first place.)

I've seen it suggested that it was Pam who released Russell (she did know where he was buried, afterall) to get back at Eric, but I'm not sure she's mad enough at him to sentence him to almost certain death (although she has been known to act impulsively). It may be a bad sign that she's still rotting, perhaps an indication that she'll sacrifice herself next season to save Eric. I also wondered why Russell didn't just kill the human foreman instead of glammoring him--surely he must have been hungry after being stuck down there in the concrete for a year.

Hard to say who the next occupant of Sookie's fairy vagina is going to be. They've spoiled Sam for her by having him be in love with Luna, until she gets killed anyway (unless Sam gets killed by the wolf, which I doubt). When she made her little speech about being afraid to admit that they were happy for fear of heavenly retribution, tantamount to admiting that she knows she's a character in a TV show, I expected a big foot to come down out of the sky and crush her, Monty Python-style. (Actually, I expected her truck to blow up because Debbie had put a bomb in it.) They've pretty clearly demonstrated that Sookie has no interest in Alcide, and you'd think that blowing his girlfriend's head off with a shotgun would make a relationship between them a bit awkward anyway. So before the season is over, she's almost certainly going to reconcile with either Bill or Eric. (As has been pointed out, it would be difficult for her to have an affair with a regular human anyway.)

I wondered how they explained all the dead bodies, and wondered what they did with them all. Sam must have admited that Tommy was dead, since they had a funeral for him. Was there some kind of inquest? How did Sam explain how he died. What about Jesus dead in the living room with a knife stuck through his chest? Debbie and maybe Tara dead in Sookie's kitchen with their heads blown off? Marcus? Does the law have anything to say about any of this? Do they investigate any of it? Nan turned into a puddle of goo (and I was happy to see her go), but the three "gay stormtroopers" left bodies behind. Does somebody just round up all the dead bodies in town the next morning and dump all of them in the swamp? Is this a regular service there? The local alligators must be fat and happy.

Terry's friend is almost certainly either a supernatural creature of some sort or a serial killer, at any rate, something bad and scary enough that even Rene is scared to have Arlene around him (and why did Ghost Rene still have his fake Cajun accent, when he was putting it on in the first place?) Perhaps he's a zombie, although it would have to be a different kind of zombie than the regular kind--after all, Terry does say, "I heard you were dead!" Let's hope they do better by Terry than the Trash Baby subplot next season.

Let's hope they do better in general next season. This was definitely the weakest of the four seasons so far, only partially redeemed by the last couple of episodes. I agree that Sookie needs to get tougher and actively kick some ass, and so does Lafayette. The show in general needs to get tougher, and meaner, and stop trying to be so much like TWILIGHT with all the misty, blurred-focus "romantic" stuff. Christ, they even spoiled the long-awaited Eric/Sookie hookup for many fans with all the misty, blurred-focus and sappy music "romantic" stuff. This season was a mess, with major storylines started and then abruptly abandoned, like the Fairy War and the Hotshot meth-snorting were-panthers and turning Jason into a were-panther, and I still believe that they abandoned these plotlines because of poor fan reaction and had to make the rest of the season as they went along, basically spinning their wheels waiting for the Russell arc to resume next season. Fiona Shaw did a good acting job with Marnie, but she wasn't really a big enough menace to function as a season's Big Bad, a rather ineffectualy one, actually, even at her most potent, and one for whom the solution--just shoot her--was clear from practically her first appearance. (Pam still seems to be rotting, by the way, even with Marnie dead, which hardly seems fair.)

The writing and the direction were off this season, with many of the characters acting uncharacteristically, and the potential of characters like Tommy thrown away, to say nothing of pointless subplots like the Trash Baby cluttering things up. They need to sharpen up the writing and the direction next season, because without good writing and sharp direction, this series is nothing.

@AsheSaoirse - I like the idea of Bill or Eric turning Tara to the dark side as I really hate to see her character go. Rutina's a damn fine actress.

Terry! I forgot all about Terry. That was some odd eye conversation going on between Terry, the old war buddy and then Arlene. Very odd.

Oh and the scene between Pam and Ginger. Awwwww! Why doesn't someone just turn poor Ginger? That girl's brain has got to be mush-like with all the glammering she's been through. And those horrible bite marks up and down her arms like little vamp needle tracks. Sad.

It's moments like Ginger awkwardly comforting a sobbing Pam, or the loathsome Mrs. Fortenberry actually showing a moment of human decency at Tommy's funeral that give me hope for this show. That's why Jason has always been one of my favorite characters, horndog that he is, dumb as he is--he has a good heart, and usually tries to do the right thing, when he can figure out what that is and doesn't fuck it up. Tommy had a good heart underneath it all somewhere too, which is why I think the potential of the character was wasted. A reviewer elsewhere hated the idea that the season's Big Bad was defeated by an old lady in a nightgown, but it's actually touches like that, non-sterotypical touches keeping you off-balance, that I've always liked about TRUE BLOOD.

@Gardner: I'm all for the odd touches like you're talking about. My biggest problem is more on the wasted potential side. Tommy became a skinwalker. He could turn into anyone. And then instead of character growth, he gets worse and then dies trying to be better because the writers were lazy with him. Old lady in a nightgown was also a fellow dead soul, it works. Wasting a skinwalker, not so much.

I agree with you that Tommy was a wasted character. He was also an example of the weird turn-arounds and abruptly dropped plotlines that were a characteristic of this season. After going to all the trouble to set up at great length that Tommy was now a skinwalker who could make himself look just like anyone, a formula for lots of potential mischief ahead, they then abruptly turn around and kill him, for no benefit to the show I could understand--if it was to give Sam a reason to go after Marcus, they didn't need it; such a reason had already been set up with the conflict over Luna. It seemed abrupt and hurried and ill-thought-out, and once again this year I could only assume that they'd had some other plotline altogether in mind (and in progress) and then abruptly changed their minds in the middle of it. These kinds of things can all be taken as indications of problems with the basic show-running itself, which is worrysome. Let's hope they straighten this out by next season. Maybe they need a new story editor.

I really hope they don't add zombies to the mix. There are already too many supernatural creatures and zombies will just add to the confused mess that True Blood has become. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy this confused mess but more and more I long for a little coherence and character growth.

I would have loved to see Tara be more than just a prop for Sookie. Her sole purpose has been to save Sookie, be saved and share a few unconvincing scenes with her "best friend". I cheered when Tara left for "N'Awlins" and carved out a life of her own, in a happy relationship. That magnificent speech she made to the creep who propositioned her and her girlfriend drew a delighted "Yes!" from me. That was comparable to season 1's "burger with AIDS". But of course that couldn't last. She had to chuck away her new life for...what exactly?

I remember in the early episodes of season 1, there were a few occasions where we saw Tara engrossed in a book. What the hell happened to that Tara?

I was sad about Jesus. I liked him and I liked his relationship with Lafayette. Is it a rule on this show that no one is allowed to be happy? And now it looks like they're going to mess with Terry and Arlene. Dang.

Sookie Stackhouse is the Jessica Fletcher of Bon Temps (minus Angela Lansbury's acting talent). Death follows her everywhere, with the added bonuses of relationships falling apart and general mayhem in the streets. Wake up people of Bon Temps! A certain crappy waitress is at the root of all your troubles! *grumble grumble*fucking Sookie*grumble grumble*

Ah, but don't forget her enchanted fairy vagina! That makes it all worthwhile for a lucky few.

I too liked the first-season Tara, who was smarter than everybody else, read all the time, and solved problems by BEING smarter than everybody else--but they've gotten further and further away from that Tara with every subsequent season. If she becomes a zombie next season, I suspect she'll never pick up a book at all!

I'd forgotten that Tara was a reader. Good job, Alan Ball! I still hope she ends up as a vampire. She will either be, as someone else put it, "the most self-loathing person on television," or she will MELLOW THE FUCK OUT and go back to being a reader-smartass. I for one welcome our reader-smartass overlords.

Whoops, double post.

I'm glad I'm not the only one confused by this season. It's gone so far off the track from the books, that I don't know what to expect. I don't expect Tara to stay dead, and I'm really disappointed that Pam is turning into a Sookie enemy, as they were friends in the books.

BTW, is Gardner Dozois a penname or the former editor of IASFM? If the latter, then glad to see you on the boards. I met you at a kaffeklasche at LA WorldCon in 1996(?). Hope you're doing well.

No, I'm afraid that I'm just the former editor of IASFM, not Brad Pitt posting under a different name.

to Gardner@20 - I'd rather hear from you than Brad Pitt. I'm still laughing about Sookie's enchanted fairy vagina. I wonder if that's where Summer's Eve got their latest ad campaign from.

I sincerely hope that next season of TB is more focused. They are so far off from the books right now, that I have no clue where it's going to go.

Commentary around the internet seems to be almost universally agreed that this was the worst season to date. They'd better do better next season, or they're going to lose their audience.

Tara was (maybe is) the best character on the whole show. I loved watching every scene she was in. She was also the most attractive female cast member by a long, long way - and a big part of that was her personality. I hope she isn't gone for good.

I was disappointed in this season all in all. I really like the books but that plot-line ship has long since sailed.... I really have no idea what to expect next year. I did think Russell got entertaining when he lost his mind after his little fella died (can't remember his name). I was just starting to like Jesus and they killed him :-( A totally nutso Lafayette might be entertaining for a season. Have no opinion on Tara staying or going. The FOS guy being a vamp should be very interesting if they write it correctly. This season the writing has been really off and bounced around WAY too much for my taste. I perfer cohesion and continuity of some sort, this season really to me had neither. I will however, tune in next season just to see how they are gonna screw with the books next time.

If I was a fan of the books, I would just forget about True Blood being any kind of actual adaptation. Ball's stated many times that the novels are just a springboard. Like you said @24, by now, the show's gone in its own direction, however misguided. It's not like Game of Thrones, where they're really trying to remain faithful. I'd imagine if I liked the books, I'd be curious to see where the show goes, but if they ever messed with Martin's story in such a way, I'd be fuming.

I don't think this was the worst season. Or at least Marnie was so compelling at first, she pulled me through the bad early episodes. Hot Shot. Anything relating to Crystal this season or last was just terrible. Maryann is still my least favorite Big Bad. Those latter second season episodes were too repetitive, at least until the finale, when Sam actually did something of note for the story at large. And Eggs was in the second season. I thought the pacing of last season was way off. And again with the wasted potential.

This season was really bad for character development. I'll definitely never defend it. Spinning wheels instead of webs.

At least Maryann was a CREDIBLE Big Bad, in that nobody knew how to defeat her, and they couldn't stop her until somebody figured it out. It was all too obvious from the start, to me, anyway, how to defeat Marnie, and they had to jump through hoops to keep somebody from just doing it until the penultimate episode of the season.

First and third seasons were the best, with the third season being my favorite. I still liked the second season better than this one, though.

I liked this season better than the Maryann season.

I also don't think Tara is dead dead. That was sure a lot of stuff to cram into one episode. (And Jesus was way better this season than last season, it will be sad to see him go.)

I thought Nelsan Ellis did a good job playing possessed, too.

A review elsewhere is saying that TRUE BLOOD is now worse than CHARMED, and while I wouldn't go that far (CHARMED got very bad and very silly in its late seasons), it's an indication that they're in danger of losing their core audience demographic if things don't improve. Let's hope they do.

That's probably WHY they're bringing Russell back so soon.

I liked Marnie as a villain, but I don't like the way they ended it. I'm not a big fan of anybody telling anybody they're going to hell, but for someone who did bad things after she died to just go on to what sounds like heaven, with no mention of having to make any kind of atonement for what she did just doesn't sit well with me.

Also, wth is up with Sookie breaking up with everybody? Why is this even a choice? Bill's kind of annoying, and I just can't get past the fact that his whole reason for getting to know her in the beginning was so he could hand her over to be eaten by the vampire queen. Choosing between him and the guy who bought her house and did $50,000 worth of renovations, when her own brother had given Sookie up for dead would be pretty easy for me. Sure, Erik is kind of evil, but it works for him.

Next season, bring back the crazy! That's why I watch this show.

There is the fact that Eric was the only one (including Bill, who'd moved on with his un-life) who didn't give up on the idea that Sookie was still alive. You'd think that would cut him some degree of slack.

I think that Sookie will get back with Eric eventually, although they'll probably drag it out all next season until they do. For what it's worth (not all that much), that's what happens in the books, anyway.

"Bring back the crazy!" would be a good slogan for next season. The show needs to be crazier, meaner, tighter, funnier. I wonder if the producers are paying any attention to the torrent of fan dissatisfaction? I hope they are, but fear they aren't.

Clearly they are since they scrapped Hot Shot and the fairies like they did. Now, how much they'll actually listen will remain to be seen.

I keep wondering if Hot Shot and the fairies are going to come back to haunt us in season five. Jason raped by all those women--there have to be a lot of little werepanthers due to be born soon; Andy seduced by the fairy, well, that also could be construed as the groundwork for a storyline in season five, as well.

I'm sure the fairies will be back next season, especially as the fairy woman made Andy mystic pinky-swear to protect her (from what? and couldn't she find a better prospect for the job?). This is clearly going to play out next season. I'm hoping that the Hot Shot Panthers (not a bad name for a football team) just fade away into obscurity, but it wouldn't entirely surprise me, alas, to see them back next season too.

Let's hope Jason turns out to be sterile thereby negating the show's need to revisit the occupants of Hot Shot.

Here's hoping next season gets back to the basics that drew in so many viewers. Honestly, can the show have jumped the shark already?

Yes, it can have, and it might have. Next season will tell the story.

Yes, back to basics. People are interested in the triangle between Sookie and the vampires, and the effect that there really being vampires would have on a world not otherwise unlike our own. The rest is gravy. Or a serious distraction, depending on how they play it; this season there were too many subplots, too many of them useless or stupid.

Arlene should never be used for an actual plot. Just sayin. Keep her as a satellite unless you've got something really good.

@37 AsheSaoirse

I totally agree with you about the Arlene plot. That whole ghost/possessed doll plotline was ridiculous. The HotShot plot had a sort of basis in the books, but Jason wasn't called on to "sire" with anyone. It was a twisted jealousy reason to make him a werepanther. Erik's amnesia, Debbie's death and the witches were also in the books, but not anything like portrayed here. Also, I really hate Bill as king. In the books, he's a computer nerd/gentleman vampire. Erik has his good points, but he's not right for Sookie. He can do bad all by himself.