True Blood: You'll Be The Death Of Me Season finale

I just finished watching the season finale of True Blood, and I have to admit I am disappointed. I think some of this is due to the fact that I am a fan of the Sookie Stackhouse novels and that the ending shown on television is far different fro the ending in the book. Yet, even when I turned my mind away from the book ending I still felt the season finale was a bit unsatisfying.

The True Blood series has a lot of sex and violence, but that's not the point of the show nor is it the most interesting part of the story. At it's heart True Blood is about relationships. Now, I'm not talking about the romantic relationship between Bill and Sookie, no I'm talking about the friendships the small town politics. It's pretty clear in "True Blood" vampirism is a thinly veiled metaphor for issues of race and homosexuality. How does the nation, and it's smallest little hick towns deal when some sort of minority group is revealed to the public and suddenly brought to the mainstream. Some are fascinated, some are repulsed, and like my favorite dumb blond Jason Stackhouse some are just plain confused. How do people accept things they don't understand, and how to they cope when they find out that strange things have been happening around them for hundreds of years without anyone really noticing.

In short and without spoilers. I feel like I was disappointed with the season finale because it didn't do enough to explore the major theme, it tied up a few things a little too conveniently, and I felt one of the scenes was completely over the top and unbelievable. And I do mean unbelievable in a world where I am perfectly happy to accept the existence of Vampires, shape shifters, and mind reading waitresses.

There are spoilers below both for the book and for the show. Highlight to read them.

Lets break down the scenarios

In the TV show: Sookie is brought home halfway through a tough day at work by Rene, due to the fact that he rigged her car so it could not possibly run. Sookie is clueless and has no idea he wants to kill her until he starts thinking about killing her grandmother. The chase ensues, violence happens, and Sookie does a lot of running and mind reading. Sam suddenly recognizes that it was Rene's scent he picked up on when he was creepily smelling the sheets at a crime scene and runs off to help Sookie. Bill, feeling Sookie's fear from their psychic link wakes up in the day time and bravely/stupidly marches out into the sunlight to save her. Sookie hides from Rene, is discovered, beat up, and rescued by Sam in collie form. Rene Beats Sam up for a while till Sookie grabs a shovel and manages to kill Rene. Sookie and Sam run off to rescue Bill who is still smoldering in a field from his futile attempt to rescue Sookie.

In the Book: Bill has been called away for secret vampire business in New Orleans. Although he can't be there personally, Bill knows that there is a killer after Sookie and he hires Bubba (who is actually Elvis) to be Sookie's body guard. Sookie is alone in her house at night after a very tough day at work. She has settled down and is washing off her makeup when she hears a noise outside. She calls to Bubba, but there is no response. Poor Bubba, he has been drugged and left unconscious unable to help. Sookie tries to call 911 but there is no dial tone on the phone. Sookie arms herself with a pocket knife and attempts to go out to her car and get away. Rene hears her and Sookie is chased around for a while. Rene catches up with her beats her up a bit and attempts to strangle her, Sookie manages to stab him in the stomach with her pocket knife. Sookie manages to get all the way to Bill's house where she finally calls 911 and passes out. Sookie wakes up in the hospital, with some severe injuries including a broken collarbone.

I guess I'll start with the good news, since there isn't much of it.

I like how the TV series had her use an improvised weapon of a shovel in the graveyard, somehow it makes more sense then being prepared with a pocket knife. I like how they showed Sookie's mind reading ability and how it worked with Rene. You know how Sookie was figuring things out, how Rene was upset that she could see his darkest secrets, how hard he worked to keep her out of his head. Overall the aspects of the chase scene which occurred between Rene and Sookie were well edited.

Now for the things I hated.

A chase through the graveyard at night is so much more frightening then one done in the daytime. Granted lighting at night is difficult, and night shoots are probably more expensive, but I don't care. I thought that the idea of Bill waking up just to fight his way through the sunlight for Sookie to be completely ridiculous. Even if it weren't for many things in the novels which essentially prove it impossible for Bill to have done this, it was over the top. It was sappy, and it was unnecessary. I know they tried to throw it in there to prove just how much Bill loves Sookie, yet I found it sickening. They should have taken all the money they spent on the crumbly Bill Compton, and put them towards a properly lit night time chase scene.

I suppose that point will be better explained here.

Here is where I get real angry. what I love about Sookie is that she is a very typical sort of woman. She comes from a lower class background, isn't very well educated but still smart, she is a waitress, and aside from a few things beyond her control has attempted to stay out of trouble in her life. In the book you see this journey from a very average humble sort of woman into a warrior.

In the book Sookie is left to fend for herself. There is no man to save her, no one to call until she can pass a terrible trial to get to someone else phone. Having Sam and Bill run in to save her makes her feat seem a lot less heroic. In the book it is clear that Sookie manages to outwit and outrun Rene, in the TV show it's clear that Sookie was not strong enough to survive unless there is a man like Sam to swoop in and save her. The character of Sookie Stackhouse deserves more then that, because that is a real turning point for her character. It is never talked about in such terms in the book, but Sookie proves that she can handle herself that she is independent. When she wakes up in the hospital she owes no thanks to anyone but herself for her own survival. In the show she basically calls Sam her hero, and thanks Bill for trying real hard to save her life when she so clearly couldn't have done so alone.

This is a much weaker foundation for this Heroine then I had hoped for. It seems as if they are changing a few other things as well. But I don't know how and when the writers and directors at HBO will back off and let Sookie he the hero in her own story. Sookie is no Bella Swan, her strength does not lay in having a super boyfriend or a super boss. Sookie's powers are completely and utterly her own, she is still a relatively ordinary woman but that doesn't mean she isn't capable of handing herself in most situations.

Side note, I miss Bubba. I can kind of see why they took the character out, but Bubba is one of my favorites. I can only guess they took him out because they wanted the show to be more serious, and Bubba is humorous in his very concept as a character. I still think it would have been great to have him, I mean it's not like Elvis impersonators are that hard to find. Bubba makes a number of appearances in the books, and I really hope they bring him into the TV series.