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Recap: ‘True Blood’ Season 2 finale

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Last night in a fantastical flurry of blood, lust and redemption, ‘True Blood’ wrapped up its second season. Fans across the country watched wide-eyed in anticipation of Maryann’s death. Some wished her demise had taken place earlier in the season, but many of us enjoyed it just the way it was. No matter which side of the fence you landed on, there was no question that the show ascended to new heights of uncharted, off-kilter weirdness.

The episode began with a black-eyed Lafayette cornering Sookie and making her strip and don a white ‘maid of honor’ toga. When he forces her downstairs Sookie finds Maryann wearing Gran’s wedding dress. Maryann takes the opportunity to talk to Sookie alone, and asks her once again what she is. Sookie has no answer for her, nor can she conjure up her magical electricity-producing powers. No matter, Maryann rightly says that Sookie’s presence is all she really needs to bring Sam to her.

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Meanwhile, Eric is at Sophie-Anne’s house playing Yahtzee. He is hoping to gain knowledge about how to kill the maenad, but Sophie-Anne is more concerned with finding out how Bill knows that Eric has been forcing Lafayette to sell vampire blood. The dirty truth is that Eric is just obeying her orders and she wants to make sure that Bill never finds that out. Eric swears that he’ll keep the secret after she jumps on top of him and bares her fangs (she is long in the tooth, as they say. Cougar!).

Back at Sookie’s house, Maryann’s grotesque wedding ceremony continues as Jason and Andy show up dressed in full guerrilla-warfare regalia. When they sneak up onto the lawn, Andy’s eyes turn black. Jason can’t believe it, but then Andy punches him in the face and Jason’s eyes go black too. He relishes the moment like a crack addict taking his first puff of the day.

Inside the house Maryann is forcing everybody to lick the bloody ostrich egg that she is using as a symbol of fertility. (Everybody acts like it’s all gross, but I don’t know why. I’ve totally licked bloody ostrich eggs at, like, every wedding I’ve been a part of.) Soon Jason forces Sookie outside with the rest of the wedding party, where there stands a giant totem pole that will serve as the place of sacrifice for a hapless Sam.

Speaking of Sam, Bill confronts him at Merlotte’s and tells him that he must go to Maryann in order to save Sookie. When Bill and Sam appear on Gran’s lawn, an elated Maryann orders poor Sam tied up in front of the totem pole. Shirtless, gagged and terrified, Sam awaits his cruel fate. After a black-eyed Eggs approaches him and thrusts a knife into his stomach, Sam goes limp. Maryann takes the bloody knife and wipes a line of blood on her neck, tasting it first.

A horrified Sookie runs to Sam, crying and begging him to be OK. Sam takes advantage of her telepathy and tells her -- with his mind -- to distract Maryann. Sookie runs to the ostrich egg and smashes it, then she pushes down the totem pole and runs into the woods with an enraged Maryann hot on her heels. When Sookie falls, Maryann plunges her fists into the ground. When she pulls them out they are hideous claws. Maryann turns to Sookie, but suddenly out of the mist a giant white bull appears. Maryann believes it is her god, come as a result of her sacrifice of Sam.

She lovingly approaches the bull, which plunges one of its horns right through her chest. ‘Am I the one to be sacrificed?’ Maryann asks, giving her life in willing ecstasy to this strangely erotic turn of events. Just as she sighs with the pained passion of a true believer, the bull transforms into a naked Sam, his fist and arm where the bull’s horn once was. He withdraws his fist with Maryann’s black heart in his grasp. Her face cracks and she falls dead to the ground.

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Bill appears and tells Sookie that the plan had been a trap all along. He let Sam drink his blood and it healed his knife wound. Sookie is relieved -- she never would have forgiven Bill otherwise. As soon as Maryann dies all the black-eyed townspeople come to their senses and experience what appears to be the worst collective hangover ever. Especially Eggs, who desperately wonders why he has blood on his hands. Bill and Sookie collapse on her bed and sleep until dawn.

The following morning all of Bon Temps speculates as to the nature of the town-wide blackout. Sam blames it on a batch of vodka that was all ethanol. (That’ll do it every time. I should know.) Eggs knows that it was much more than that, so he finds Sookie at Merlotte’s (right after Bill has just had a gorgeous dress delivered to her for the purposes of a future date) and begs her to help him discover the truth. Sookie obliges him, warning him that what he will see does not define him -- he was under Maryann’s spell after all. Still, after seeing himself murder Miss Jeanette and Daphne and attempt to murder Sam, he totally freaks out.

Later Eggs confronts Andy outside of Merlotte’s, brandishing the sacrificial knife and begging Andy to arrest him. When he pushes Andy into the dirt and hovers over him with the knife, Jason sees his threatening behavior and shoots him in the head, killing him instantly. Poor Tara runs out of Merlotte’s and weeps beside her dead lover’s body.

Back at Bill’s mansion he and Jessica run across each other in the foyer, both dressed for a date. Bill is taking Sookie to a French restaurant and Jessica says she is trying to go make up with Hoyt. In actuality Jessica heads to a truck stop and hooks up with a driver, whose blood she promptly sucks right after he reaches for a condom. Poor Hoyt is simultaneously looking for her with a dozen roses, which he leaves on Bill’s doorstep.

Things aren’t going much better for Bill, who has just proposed to Sookie at the restaurant he has rented out for their date. Sookie, flabbergasted, doesn’t know what to say. She’s too confused about the nature of her powers and the complicated relationship she shares with Bill to say yes. Instead she goes to the bathroom to wipe her tears and think it over. Suddenly she decides that she wants to marry him (in Burlington, Vermont, where vampire-human marriages are legal) and rushes back to the table.

Unfortunately someone has just kidnapped Bill by subduing him with a silver chain around the neck and he’s gone, leaving only signs of a struggle. That’s what you get if you don’t say yes right away, ladies! Nobody said I didn’t warn you.

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Roll credits.

-- Jessica Gelt

Photo: Michelle Forbes (left) and Anna Paquin. Credit: Prashant Gupta

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