EPISODE ELEVEN — BEYOND HERE LIES NOTHIN'

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER   ALAN BALL   |   DIRECTED BY   MICHAEL CUESTA   |   WRITTEN BY   ALEXANDER WOO

As Tara and Eggs prepare for Maryann's wedding to Dionysus, Lafayette forces Sookie to dress in a gown to be the maenad's maid of honor at the ritual union as the Season Two finale begins.

Sookie's refusal to cooperate prompts Maryann to dismiss her bridesmaids along with Eggs and Lafayette to have a one-on-one confrontation.  Maryann dares Sookie to attack her again with whatever power she demonstrated before, a new sensation described as "nature shooting out from your fingertips."   Sookie tries to zap her but with no effect, insisting she's only human, but Maryann proves otherwise by invoking her best shaking spell with no effect on Sook.  If Sookie isn't human, or in some way supernaturally gifted beyond mere humans, then what exactly is she?   For now, neither Sookie nor Maryann know the answer to that important question.

Maxine Fortenberry attempts to escape her son's guard, but awakens Hoyt who vows to keep her away from Maryann's ritual and safe at home.  Meanwhile Maryann can sense something special about  Sookie, who flashes back to her unlikely defeat of the V dealers who attempted to drain Bill the night they met.   Some power — call it God, or supernatural ability, or exterior force — has indeed assisted Sookie without her conscious knowledge in the past, including her electrifying repulsion of Maryann.  The maenad insists Sookie cannot be human since she feeds off human energy yet she cannot channel Sookie's at all.  When Maryann notes that supernaturals are normally rare but not so in Bon Temps, Sookie realizes that Sam is the maenad's target for sacrifice.  Indeed, Maryann intends to use Sookie as bait to entrap Sam on the night of her wedding with Sam as the gift to the god.

FOLLOW FILMEDGE ON TWITTER

Eric sits patiently at the Queen's feet while she fritters away time with another insipid round of Yahtzee, showing little sympathy and less respect for Godric's demise.  Eric stifles his reaction, only to be interrupted as she tells of the maenad running amok in his parish.  Sophie Anne admits that the folklore tales she shared with Bill may be true or worthless, and advises Eric to stay out of the confrontation at hand.  More surprisingly, Sophie expresses distaste but no lack of surprise that Bill has fallen in love with Sookie, confirming that Sookie is more than human to some supernatural degree.  Intriguingly, the Queen warns Eric not to taste her blood — though clearly he wants to — because one vampire falling in love with Sookie is quite enough.  As Eric presses to gain more influence on Sookie, does this recognition by Sophie Anne imply that Eric is in danger of falling prey to his own desires for Sookie?   Certainly Bill can testify that no other woman is quite like Sookie, and apparently Sophie Anne sees the same distinction, especially where vampire interests are concerned.

Eric continues to flirt with danger when Sophie Ann confronts him about Bill's knowledge that Eric is selling vampire blood, now revealed that it's on the Queen's bidding.  She swiftly pushes Eric to the floor, fangs bared and threatening unspoken punishment if Bill finds out she is supplying the V for Eric to sell.  Yet Sophie Anne's attack turns into a vampire makeout session with Eric, as anger and lust blur as indistinguishable passions.  The Queen promises she'll have Eric's fangs for earrings if he fails her, but he vows to take of Bill personally.  This new threat to Bill seems oddly manufactured at this late date, since for now he knows nothing which Sophie Anne and Eric don't already know, and even less than that.   Chalk this one up to an off-topic Season Three set up somewhat shoehorned into this season's finale.

Back to Jason and Andy, armed to the teeth and marching through the woods toward their assault on Maryann — an earnest mission but exposing them as dangerously ill-prepared to face their actual foe.  As usual, Jason is doing the right thing for all his dimwitted wrong reasons.   Sure enough, and disappointingly so, Andy and Jason are quickly overtaken by the orgy mob and possessed upon entry. After all their high-minded build up to redeeming themselves as men and citizens of their community, they fumble on the kick off... a huge let down.

In Merlotte's, Bill impresses on Sam his duty to act against Maryann and save both Bon Temps and Sookie, though Sam ensures him that even his own sacrifice will not stop Maryann (especially since the ritual is unlikely to summon Dionysus as she expects).   Sam is convinced that his death is no solution or he'd have given himself up long before now.  A larger plan to defeat Maryann's destructive obsession is required to save Sookie, themselves and the town.

The revelry continues outside while Maryann forces Sookie to lick blood onto the ostrich egg in Dionysus' honor, but Sookie is far more horrified to see Jason and Andy burst in, eyes black in possession, announcing that Maryann's vessel has arrived for the ceremony.  Sookie only agrees to cooperate with Maryann's wedding when the maenad threatens to kill Jason.  Sookie is further horrified to see Bill leading Sam to the sacrifice, exchanging Sookie for Sam.   Bill restrains Sookie, insisting she trust him as the bull-horned monument is prepared for the final ritual.    Sam is tied to a rack and leaned against the monument, Sookie screaming in protest as Maryann condemns Sam's life to her god.   Sookie urges Sam to use his gift, to change shape and flee, but Bill urges Sookie to use her gift instead.  Eggs plunges the sacrificial knife into Sam's body, offering Maryann the blood-soaked knife.  She weeps with evil joy at her apparent union.  Sookie hears Sam beg her to smash the egg and destroy the bull altar, which she knocks to the ground with her electrified powers. 

Maryann screams with rage, vowing to sacrifice all her minions to appease her god, then vows to punish Sookie for her transgression.  Maryann stabs her hands into the earth, pulling out the three-fingered claws she had when she attacked Sookie.  Sookie runs into the night, chased by Maryann until a while bull emerges from the shadows.  Maryann is assured the beast is her husband, Dionysus, materializing at last to join with his bride.    The bull swiftly impales Maryann on one of its horns, and though she writhes in agony, she gladly sacrifices herself to unite with her god at last.  Suddenly the bull shudders, quickly dissolving into Sam standing before her, naked, his arm impaled through her abdomen.   He rips out maryann's black heart, and a look of empty betrayal flashes across Maryann's face as she asks, "Is there no god?"  Sam crushes her heart in his hand, and Maryann's body instantly withers into black, decaying corpse, dropping to the ground in Gran's white wedding dress as Sookie looks on in shock.

At the house, Tara and the townsfolk all emerge from their possessed spell, eyes clearing and minds clouded by dumb wonderment at their surroundings.  Sookie embraces Sam, assured she saw Eggs kill Sam, until Bill staggers out of the night, clutching his arm.  Sam had to drink more of Bill's blood than expected to heal his fatal knife wound, leaving the vampire very weakened.  Sam reveals his plan with Bill, though he admits that he would have died to save Sookie and the town had Bill's ploy to heal him failed.   Tara and Jason arrive at the scene, astonished to see Maryann's shriveled corpse but utterly unaware how it happened.  Sookie urges Sam and Jason to get all their friends back home safely, comforting Tara who is haunted by all the terrible events she cannot consciously recall.

Maxine's possession is also lifted, much to Hoyt's relief though not necessarily hers as she realizes Jessica bit her after being provoked.  When Hoyt recalls all the crazy things his mama said while possessed, Maxine finally admits her son should know the truth about his father's suicide.  Hoyt is outraged that his mother admits to manipulating him all his life, keeping him at home for her own comfort while he languished in lonely solitude from his peers.  The cost of Maxine's betrayal comes due when Hoyt confesses he wished Jessica had finished off his mama when she bit Maxine.

On Sookie's lawn, Arlene leaves a third message for her children, assuring them she'll be home right away, worried sick why they're not answering the phone.  Jason offers to take Arlene and Terry home to the kids, with a stop at the ER so Jane Bodehouse can get her severed finger reattached.  Sheriff Dearborne tells Andy to report to the station in the morning where he'll be reinstated to duty.   Bill thanks Sam for sacrificing himself to save Sookie and all the others, and for his willingness to reveal his gift to them.  Sam admits it can hurt more to hide a secret than it does to confront others with it.   Frankly, these scenes play a bit forced overall, trying to so hard to wrap up loose ends and character threads that this season-long dilemma gets wrapped up quicker than a Scooby-Doo finale.   Maryann having been neatly dispatched, the pacing has shifted dramatically as if to hastily wipe the stage clean and make room for next season's setup — a surprisingly unsatisfying choice.

Eggs attempts to wash Sam's blood from his hands, traumatized as much by not knowing how it go there than he might be if aware of his actions.  Sookie comforts Tara, assuring her friend that she need never have looked to Maryann for family acceptance when she was and is a part of Sookie's family, and always has been.  Sookie promises Tara that tomorrow they will clean away any remnant of Maryann's destructive presence and start their lives fresh again.   Sookie heads upstairs to meet Bill in her bedroom, asking him to hold her until he must leave at dawn... and fadeout on their rushed resolution as well.

Daylight restores some normality to Bon Temps, as does Sam opening Merlotte's to give the townsfolk a place to gather and piece their lives back together.  Arlene tearfully makes up with her little boy and girl, promising to be a better mother, and Terry arrives to make a deal with the kids that he'll care for Arlene at work if they watch out for her at home.  A family unit may be restored out of this nightmare after all, as the kids deliver a final punchline on the fate of Rene who continues on his "vacation with Jesus."

Two town gossips exchange wildly ridiculous theories about their recent blackouts, blaming Maryann for every conspiracy from alien abduction to government mind control.   Sam plays along with a silly story about the local distillery serving tainted vodka the night before, while Lafayette revels in his ignorance of the night's events, begging Sookie never to tell him the truth, a burden he admits she must be brave to carry alone.  Andy attempts to tell Jane and the others the truth about Maryann's orgies but they refuse to believe his wild story, accurate as it may be.  It's all part of Andy's frustration that they don't remember how Maryann was killed and no one knows they tried to stop her, but Jason remains convinced their intent to save the town and today's result of its salvation must mean they are heroes, even if they don't know how they triumphed over evil.   Is this the forging of the most unlikely pairing of supernatural detectives since The X-Files as Season Three unfolds?

Sam asks Sookie if she'll watch the diner for a few days while he takes a break after the previous night's horrors.  She thanks Sam, wishing the whole town knew what a selfless hero he was on all their behalf.  A messenger interrupts, delivering a package for Sookie: it's a lovely gown and card from Bill, arranging a special date with her for that night.  Eggs surprises Sookie, begging to know what he did and can't remember, insisting that he's paid for his past before and he must wipe the slate clean again to live with himself.  Sookie reluctantly agrees to read Eggs' thoughts since Maryann arrived, releasing a flood of images including his murder of Miss Jeanette, Daphne and nearly Sam.  Eggs recoils in horror, unable to accept the excuse that Maryann held total control over his actions, and he runs off in a panic.

Nightfall and Jessica meets Bill coming downstairs, admitting she's headed over to Hoyt's to apologize for her actions.  Instead of being scolded by Bill as usual, he's supportive of her gesture, genuinely trying to support what's best for her even if he doesn't always comprehend such youth of her generation.  Though clearly he's in a good mood about his special evening with Sookie, this signals some growth in Bill's attitude toward his newly minted vampire ward, and some actual connection to Jessica as an individual with conflicted emotions and not just his vampiric burden.  They both leave on their respective dates.

Sam knocks on the door of some suburban house, met at the door by Mrs. Merlotte, his adopted mother who weeps in surprise on seeing him again.  She offers no excuse for her or her husband's abandonment of Sam as a boy, they just couldn't handle or understand his shapeshifting nature.  Sam insists he doesn't want her apology, only information on where he can find his biological parents.  She refuses, having promised she'd never reveal their identity, but her husband from his sickbed hands Sam a note with their name and last location, along with his scrawled apology.   Presumably Sam closes the circle on that painful part of his life, only to open a new link to his past in a search for who or what his real parents are.

Hoyt rings the doorbell at Bill's house, flowers in hand, expecting Jessica to be home.   Instead she's at a truck stop, making out with a driver in the cab of his big rig.  She confesses to the creep that she's a virgin, and while he admits to liking it, she doesn't  and swiftly buries her fangs in his bloodied throat.  Back at Bill's, unknowing Hoyt leaves his flowers on the porch and walks off dejected.

Bill guides Sookie on his arm through a restaurant he's rented out for their privacy.  While he can't eat, he asks his love to dance and the couple rejoice in their moment together, the horrors of recent events far away now.  Yet troubles remain as Eggs corners Andy, the ritual knife in his hand as he confesses to the recent murders.  Andy insists that Maryann was responsible for those deaths, but Eggs can't free himself from the figurative blood still on his hands.  Suddenly a shot rings out in the night, blood splattering from Eggs' head and Jason approaches, pistol in hand.   Caught up momentarily in hero mode, Jason's violent act quickly overpowers his adrenaline and he cowers at the sight of Egg's lifeless body.  Andy takes the pistol from Jason, wiping his prints off the gun and telling him to forget what just happened.   Arlene and the diner crowd spill out into the parking lot as Andy tells the tale that Eggs confessed to the recent killings with murder weapon in hand, attacking the officer before Andy shot him.  Tara wails at the site of her love dead on the ground.

As Sookie finishes her sumptuous dessert, Bill hands her plane tickets to Vermont... and an engagement ring.  Sookie is stunned by his proposal, unsure how to answer knowing that he's immortal and not knowing how to reconcile that conflict between them.  Worse, she doesn't even know who she is now, a human, a supernatural freak, what?  She asks for a moment to think about it and retreats to the ladies room, leaving Bill crestfallen at the table.  Sookie dries her tears and tries the ring on her finger.  The more she stares at it, the happier it makes her feel.  Just before she returns to accept his proposal, a pair of black gloved hands wrap a silver chain around Bill's neck, choking him and pulling him back from the table.  Sookie returns, shouting her acceptance only to find their dinner table left in a mess, Bill's chair empty and turned over on the floor, and the restaurant door left open on the night.  She utters his name into the empty scene, and Season Two ends to the sounds of Bob Dylan's title tune.

SUMMARY:  As alluded to above, the season-ending episode was certainly conclusive in its defeat of Maryann, the maenad set to destroy Bon Temps, but it may well have come off as a bit rushed and anti-climactic in its full execution.  In effect, only half of the hour was spent resolving this season's main plot conflict, and even portions of that (between Sophie Anne and Eric) were devoted exclusively to setting up Season Three's dilemma, as thinly sketched and hazy as that is.  Expanding on that point, while Sophie Anne's arrival in the series was of marginal, anecdotal help to Bill in defeating Maryann, as a Season Two character she acted mainly as an expositional and blocking figure, holding back Bill from his duty while she lounged with her mindless subordinates in her luxuriant mansion.  Evan Rachel Wood possessed charm and sex appeal in the role, but as a character the Queen monarch was and acted strangely detached for the pressing dramatic issues at hand.   One can't help but wonder: beyond her title and loosely drawn history, exactly why are vampires so obedient of this apparently local but uninvolved ruler?  This seems illogical unless her presence is to prove that the upper echelon of vampiredom regards human events and totally inconsequential, which seems contradictory since vampires indeed require a symbiotic relationship with humans for sustenance. 

This question aside, the actual undoing of Maryann was juicy and satisfying, but would have been more so had it not been crammed into half of the finale.  Viewers, at least this one, barely got to enjoy her grisly goring before she was a pile of corrupted flesh in a gown on the roadside.  Old business being addressed, the finale script hastily turned its attention to Season Three's unseen concerns without ending the Second with a full-force crescendo.  The dynamic duo of Jason and Andy, presented and built up as knowing insiders who actually saw Maryann's threat for what it was, were instantly reduced to an intruding punchline in their mission to save the town.  Granted, their guns and ignorance of the supernatural lore in work may have rendered their plan a failure, but the script and episode never even gave the men a valiant, noble attempt.  They failed and were consumed by the mob's altered mentality at the first, harmless encounter — and since when did a punch on the jaw from a minion immediately render a human spellbound without Maryann even observing the transaction?  Jason and Andy's hasty conversion doesn't even seem to fit the recent lore of this season, let alone general dramatic structure.  

Perhaps the weakest element fell on Sookie's character, who was set up with her 'electrical touch' as the only actual threat to Maryann, yet left to watch the denouement unfold as a passive viewer.  Bill and Sam took action off screen, leaving Sookie (our franchise heroine) left to sit on the sidelines, using her gift to read Sam's mind, push over a tree and break a meaningless symbolic egg.   After that, Sookie watched and screamed a lot in horror and surprise, taking a backseat to the action as the series' protagonist.  Couldn't a more clever, intricate plan involving Sookie to some extent have been written which would lead the audience, with her, in one direction without knowing the full surprising solution until it unfolded?   That certainly seems better than taking our lead character out of the climax's main action up to which this entire season has pointed.  In short, our heroine reacted instead of taking action, which was the opposite of my expectation, at least. 

As noted, Bill's abduction is a serviceable cliffhanger to tantalize viewers about Season Three, but aside from either his safety or whereabouts, and Sam's vague search for his birth parents, the finale's set up gives us little to go on.  There is mystery and then there are unanswered questions, and I believe we were left with many more of the latter than the former.  What we do know from the season finale is: Tara remains utterly screwed by fate, unhappy and heartbroken (just about where we started, only worse); Sookie is unsure of her own powers and what future (if any) she has with Bill (sounds familiar); and Sam has a dark, denied past forged largely on his nature as a shapeshifter (check, again).  If anything, once again Jessica showed the only true jump in character evolution amid this closing chapter, having fully bared her fangs as a fledgling vampire — and she's proved her dramatic value time and again this season.  Eric and Bill continue not to get along, though is Eric actually behind Bill's silver chain abduction?   Gloved hands of an unseen culprit often hide the gender of the suspect, so immediately I suspect Pam is at work since she's linked to Eric, who would retain deniability.  All interesting questions, but not necessarily compelling ones to inspire fans' obsessive hunger for answers over the ensuing hiatus.   Don't get me wrong:  I'll certainly look forward to Season Three of TRUEBLOOD, but I expected more bang for my season-ending buck from this finale.

RETURN TO TRUE BLOOD MAIN PAGE

REVIEW THE FILMEDGE BLOG OF EPISODE ELEVEN

BLOGGING CONTINUES ON FILMEDGE.NET IN SEASON THREE