There are six more episodes of True Blood. After that, no more Sookie, no more Be-hill, no more shape-shifters, no more true death, no more of this drain-circling nonsense. [Note: Mild plot spoilers up through last night’s episode follow from here on out.] Arlene can be with Terry again. (Shoulda let her die, Sookie!) Pam can finally chill. Sam can go do whatever his thing is now. It will all be over soon. But before it ends, I have one simple requirement: Sookie and Eric need to bone one last time. This is all I ask.
I have given up on all other True Blood hopes, because what’s the point? Lafayette will never find true happiness. Sookie will never leave Bon Temps. I don’t even care if Jessica and Hoyt figure out a way to make things work, nor do I have any wishes left for Jason Stackhouse, world’s dumbest human. These dreams have all disappeared due to a combination of the show’s scattershot plotting and my own diminishing investments in the various characters. But last night’s episode had one moment that for a hot second reminded me of what I used to like about this show; as Sookie and Eric embraced, it all came back in a flash. Oh, yeah! This show used to be super hot! Longtime fans are entitled to one more sex scene between Eric and Sookie. It is only fair. Think of it as a victory lap, or a trip down sex-memory lane. On a show where every love is a forbidden love, Sookie and Eric’s romance was extra forbidden, and thus extra hot, and thus the quintessence of True Blood, and thus an essential part of the show’s endgame.
True Blood is one of TV’s more aggressively erotic series, sometimes relying on its sexiness to cover up an occasional (or frequent, depending on the season) lack of substance. It’s hard to think about strong character motivations when there’s a heap of naked people just rolling around blood-fucking each other. It’s like when there’s a scuffle in Peanuts, and all you see is a cloud of dust with scratch marks on it, and arms and legs sticking out. True Blood is exactly like that, only the cloud is sex, the scratch marks are sex, and the arms and legs are sex, and there are breasts there too and sometimes butts. Gay sex, straight sex, interracial sex, kinky sex, “making love†sex — this is what made True Blood fun and exciting! It’s what made it the anti-Twilight. It’s what made that dumb crap with Maryann the Maenad (remember?) marginally palatable because hey, at least there was an orgy. Sometimes TV sex can be gratingly earnest, and sometimes it can feel needlessly prim, but True Blood never had those problems: Even in its flakiest, least coherent hour, the show could still cobble together some entertaining intercourse.
There was a time when True Blood was almost fully devoted to the Bill/Sookie/Eric love triangle. That was a great time. The best time for the show, in fact, and as the series winds down, I am eager to return to such a time. I guess we’re supposed to root for Sookie and Bill to ride off into the sunset together (or the moonset, since he’s a vampire and can’t be in the sun), and if my true dream of all the characters dying can’t come true, then I can accept the Sookie-Bill pairing. But Eric and Sookie were always the more charged pair, less likely to have a happy ending but more likely to have the other kind of happy ending.
I’ve stuck with this show through werepanthers and Warlow and everyone being the victim of assault at some point, and weird tertiary characters who took up so much screentime for no reason. (Go away forever, Luna.) I’ve heard more about Hep V than I have about actual real hepatitises. For some crazy reason, I still believe True Blood has the capacity to be even semi-decent. I deserve a treat, a farewell gift, a party favor from the meandering supernatural bacchanalia. Sookie and Eric. One last time.