Read on if you have already seen the final episode of True Blood.
Last night’s True Blood series finale left a lot of questions unanswered. A lot. Like, is it really that easy to stake a vampire? I’ve seen people exert more effort piercing an ear. It also put an awfully hunky-dory button on a show that’s featured mass-hypnotism orgies and people bathing in blood. Most egregious among the finale’s many sins, though, was the utter exclusion of Lafayette. Lafayette was the most compelling character on the show, and he got a grand total of nothing to do on the finale. This is what scientists call “some bullshit.â€
Lafayette represents everything fun about True Blood, like its sense of humor and (long-gone) subversive streak. Sure, his character suffered — my God, did he ever — but so did everyone else. Lafayette at least still expressed skepticism, heartbreak, frustration, and a sense of self. He (and Pam) added a much-needed liveliness to the very mopey vampire and vampire-adjacent worlds. After everything he and we have been through, all of us deserved a more substantial final chapter with maybe a joke or two. Instead, we spent a bunch of time with Tara’s uncle, the preacher, about whom no one cares at all.
“Thank You†is yet more proof of the validity of the Lafayette theory of True Blood, which states that the quality and relevance of Lafayette’s story line indicates the quality and intrigue of the episode on the whole. No Lafayette at all, except in that closing montage? For shame, everyone. So, good-bye to True Blood. There are things I loved about it, things I loathed about it, and things I’ll never quite understand. But I’ll never forgive it for short-shrifting its best damn character.