The pile of vampire goo began right in the first minute, with Bill swinging by to stake Russell right before he begins his fairie feast. It's a sadly swift resolution to our favorite character on the show… although he, at least, got a "Oh, fuck!" in before his demise. And while it's always nice to see Bloody Vampire Goo on True Blood, the painfully abrupt resolution of all this fairie stuff certainly makes me glad that we spent all this time on something that had very little effect on this season. (Even better is the fact that we didn't get any resolution on the Warlow thread tonight, either: Whether this will be season 6 plot fodder or something that will be forgotten from here on out remains to be seen. I sincerely hope it's not the latter.)
With the fairies out of the way, the finale becomes a very Authority-heavy endeavor, with Sookie, Jason and Tara joining the dozen-or-zo regular cast members that are already underground. But before we get to the Authority carnage, let's drop in on the episode's two cutaway plots. First, let's get the Alcide stuff out of the way, as Daddy T-1000 gave Alcide a dose of his secret stash of V in order to pummel J.D. into a pulp and take reign as Packmaster. For the sake of early-episode tension, we also get a quick scene of Rikki coping from a force-fed dose of V, which ultimately leads Alcide to head down for J.D.'s beatdown. Will anything exciting happen with the werewolves next year, now that Alcide's in charge? I'm more than skeptical… but hey, doesn't it seem like the pack lots have served as little more than cutaway scenes up to this point?
The other cutaway plot tonight was a bizarre one: Andy and Maurella swing by Merlotte's so that Andy can tell Holly about his little fairy-impregnation situation. But, after an epic guzzling of salt, Maurella's light breaks, and before you know it, Maurella's giving birth in front of Andy… while Holly, Arlene and Lafayette watch with their Cajun margaritas in hand. Ultimately, Andy has himself not one, but four little fairy babies! If that weren't enough, Maurella then immediately ditches Andy, with only the instructions that at least half the babies must make it into adulthood. You know, it's a long-held rule of television that when babies are added into the mix, it's a sure sign that a show is long in the tooth. And even though Andy Dufresne's reliable comic relief is here to help us out, I'm not sure what this little development means for the show as we head into next season. If anything, I'm only slightly more excited for this than the pack stuff from the previous paragraph.
But aside from those two plots, it's basically a massacre at the Authority, with Jason Stackhouse leading the charge in completely inconspicuous mission gear. (Throughout the episode, a walnut-sized concussion leads Jason to hallucinate visions of his parents, who fully support him in his quest to kill as many vamps as possible.) There's a lot of red to go around… and heck, even Sam gets in the action, as he flies into the old councilor lady's mouth and shifts back inside of her, causing a bodily explosion… and a blood-drenched Sam. (The scenes leading up to this, with Luna assuming Rev. Steve's form in order to get Emma out of her cell, are amusing… although it is important to know that the real Rev. Steve is still out on the loose, waiting to strike next season… or so, I'd hope.)
But it's The Quest for Bill's Humanity that ends up taking over the episode's plot momentum. All throughout this season, we've been left to wonder exactly what Bill's endgame is with his increasing shift towards Lilith's side. And for a minute there tonight, it seemed that perhaps Bill was attempting to destroy the Authority from the inside, what with him putting silver in the vial of Lilith's blood, waiting for somebody to drink it up… like Salome. But then, as soon as that was resolved, Bill whips out the real vial of Lilith's blood and chugs, chugs, chugs. Suddenly, Bill himself dissolves into a puddle of blood… but then, True Blood whipped out the T-1000 special effects (that's why they brought on Robert Patrick!) and had Bill rise from the blood to become… BILLITH!!! (Duh, duh, duh!!!!!) Cue end credits!
So how will the show proceed with Billith? More specifically, will his super-villianry actually stick? This is True Blood, after all, where pretty much any cliffhanger can (and usually will) be resolved within the first 30 seconds of the next episode. But this is pretty darn major, mind you… and this has the ability to shake up the very foundation of the series as we know it. The question is: Will the show take advantage of this golden opportunity? I'm almost betting on a reset by the end of the Season 6 premiere… but if, say, HBO were to announce that next summer is the final season of True Blood, I could honestly seem them making Billith the true Season 6 Big Bad, to help bring things home. Besides, we've still got a bunch of real-world humans-versus-vampires chaos to resolve, which hasn't really even been touched upon during the tail end of this season. If Billith is the one who can turn this into full-blown war, we could have an epic final season on our hands… but again, this depends solely on whether HBO is ready to part with one of its few drama franchises. Given that HBO's only tentpoles are this, Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire - the latter of which resumes in a few weeks - HBO will probably find a way to cling to it for at least two more years, making the series even more tired than it already is.
So, in the end, was Season 5 worth it? As much as I hate to say it, I can't say it was: Based on my recollections, only 2 out of the 12 episodes this season were top-to-bottom entertaining, which is pretty darn low for this series. The entire Authority-heavy first half of this season was misguided and lacking momentum, and while bringing Russell Edgington back into play for the second half was much appreciated, it only spoke to the misguidings of this season when even Russell himself stated how bored he was with the show's political material. In fact, it's almost disheartening to see how the lethargic nature of this season has essentially turned this season into a setup for next year: Sure, there's a lot of juicy stuff to work with… but think of what could've been done if we dumped the first half of season 5 and molded all this cliffhanger plot material into the second half of this season. It just seems like it would've been a more valuable use of our time.
So, we'll see what happens. We're due to start hearing some casting decisions for Season 6 shortly, and I'm curious to see who they'll bring on, in the hopes that they'll cull together some exciting actors. But, I can only hope that next year won't be as much of a near-total waste of my time as this year. And my apologies if I've seemed too harsh on this show this summer, but I've tried to approach it as a longtime fan of the show who loves it when the show indulges in the craziness of its premise and its various characters. But even from the fan base, I doubt you'll hear anyone say, "Yeah, Season 5 was really good!" When a season underwhelms, it hurts, and it doesn't bode much confidence for the future.
But hey, at least the finale was good, right? Right? :-D
Random notes:
- Prior to tonight's episode, HBO provided a very brief tease for Alan Ball's next series, Banshee, which premieres next year on sister station Cinemax. Here's a version of tonight's trailer, although the YouTube clip doesn't have the few seconds of actual pilot footage that the HBO preview did.
- HBO GO has a bonus deleted scene from tonight's episode available, in which our vampire-killing crew are waiting in the elevator.
- For those of you who want to take the gamble, you can see Alexander Skarsgard in feature-film action when Battleship hits Blu-ray this Tuesday!
- "Bloodbag." "Leech." "Breather." "Dead fuck." "Meatsack."
- "Just think how many vampires you can kill in there, champ!"
- "If I wanna be a fool, then I will be a fool. That is my God-given right as an American!"
- "The blonde smells amazing."
- "I can't believe I am midwifing for your pregnant girlfriend… that I just found out about!"
- Merlotte's is going to need some more tight T-shirts after giving them all to those babies tonight.
- "When did Andy Bellefleur get to be so fucking hot?"
- How about a Tara/Pam kiss for the win tonight, eh? It's a fun conclusion to what's been one of the season's most surprisingly endearing relationship.
- The True Blood crew really laid on the fly POV shots tonight… a little too trippy for my tastes, but still kind of cool.
- "I aced my statistics exam!"
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