‘True Blood’ 7.09 Recap: “Get Over Yourself, Bill”

I just don’t understand what the producers of ‘True Blood’ are trying to accomplish this season. Here we are at the second-to-last episode that the series will ever air, and once again almost nothing of any narrative importance happens. Fortunately, if nothing else, this week’s episode contains one of the funniest scenes the show has had in quite a while.

I’m sure that the writers of the show would argue that the point of this episode is to focus on character development. However, the show has been on the air for seven years and almost 80 episodes now. We know who the characters are. They’re as developed as they’re ever going to be. We want to see them do something, dammit.

Instead, Bill refuses the Hep-V cure for reasons that feel totally contrived. He says that he accepts his fate and hopes that his death will set Sookie free from loving him and continually returning to him. He could just, you know, leave town or something. His behaving like a total dick for the past five or so seasons did a pretty good job of making Sookie stop loving him during that time. Maybe he could do that again.

Sookie and Jessica mope about Bill’s decision. Jess asks to be released from him. (What, she can’t just wait until he dies? That’d take care of it.) Sookie falls back into Eric’s arms, as if that wasn’t totally predictable.

Elsewhere, Sam leaves town with his girlfriend Nicole. Is this really the last we’ll see of him? With only one episode left, it may be. What an underwhelming exit for a major character.

As expected, Hoyt breaks up with his girlfriend Brigette. Jessica ‘fesses up to the whole story of their relationship and they have sex. Jason tells Brigette that those two crazy kids were just meant to be together. Then, also as expected, he and Brigette fall into each other’s arms. They don’t have sex yet, but it’s inevitable that they’ll become a couple.

Eric apologizes to Ginger for being such a jerk to her and (now that he’s immune to the Hep-V) offers to fuck her, as she has desperately wanted for so many years. Their awkward, brief sexual encounter on the Fangtasia throne is uproariously funny, and ends with Ginger passing out in ecstasy, leaving Eric amused.

His good mood doesn’t last long, unfortunately. When he goes downstairs to check on Sarah, he finds that Mr. Gus and the Yakuza have chained Pam to a table and threaten to stake her unless Eric tells them the truth about Sookie Stackhouse. He relents, and Mr. Gus demands to know where she is.

I guess that’s meant to be a cliffhanger, but the preview for the finale already shows us that Pam will live. Are we supposed to be worried that the Yakuza will kill Sookie? Mr. Gus is far from one of the show’s most formidable enemies. I’m left perplexed that the writers would attempt to position him as the ultimate Big Bad in the series finale. The whole Yakuza clan could be very easily dispatched by any of the main vampire characters. Hell, Eric had enough opportunity to do it (and save Pam in the process) in this episode if he’d bothered to try.

Next week is the show’s very last episode, and I feel like this season hasn’t built toward anything at all.

8 comments

  1. Ryan

    Everything I’ve heard about this season has made me very glad that I quit a few seasons ago. It just sounds horrible

  2. William Henley

    This show is still on? This show I actually tried to give a chance to several years ago, but after like 3 or 4 episodes I gave up – it just wasn’t my thing. I honestly had no clue it was still on.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      William, I know that you visit this blog every day. I have recapped every episode of this show for the past five seasons. Even if you don’t read the recap posts, surely you must have noticed them being posted?

      • William Henley

        I glance at headlines. Yesterday, this article was just the featured (ie newest) article, so it caught my attention.

        For the most part, I pretty much wait for the Blu-Ray highlights (I pretty much know when they get published and usually hit them within minutes of going live, usually between 7-8AM Central time on Mondays), the polls, the roundtables, and the weekend movie reviews, and skim everything else. I pretty much gloss over anything with “Recap” in the title because I watch like half a season at a time of a show on-demand, and am generally a season or two behind. That’s why, for even shows that I watch, I stay out of the show discussion blogs.

        I think the last recap I remember seeing was back in 5, but as I said, I pretty much gloss over anything with “recap” in the title. Not because I don’t like Josh’s writings, but simply because I don’t want spoilers.

    • Drew

      There’s no possible way that is true. You’re on this site, daily. You couldn’t have missed the headings for Josh’s recap posts.

  3. Daniel

    (SPOILERS AHEAD) I’m feeling like there’s a strong chance they’ll do one of those “time jumps” to TEN YEARS LATER for the last bit of the finale. That way they can progress the characters with simple explanations and make them feel like they’ve come full circle. Since of course now we clearly have to see Jason with his daughter that he is scared but wants to have, Sam with his kid, Sookie with a normal guy and the rest of the town in good shape. If Bill does die I bet Sookie uses all of her fairy power to send him off to true death vamp heaven and then she can become human and not hear voices all the damn time.

  4. I have a feeling Bill will heal himself to save Sookie from the Yakuza.

    It’s a shame this series never focused on the most interesting character. A TRUE BLOOD focusing on Eric, Pam, Jason and Jessica could have saved us so many dull and pointless scenes with Sookie, Bill, Tara, Sam, and countless others.

    Season 3 was the high point for me…everything since then has been pretty bad.

    Just FYI – the Season/Series Finale is 70 minutes.

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