True Blood Review/Recap: "Life Matters"

Alexis Bradley ’17/ Emertainment Monthly Staff
True Blood is back to give one final good bye to a beloved character.
Sookie (Anna Paquin) holds a nearly bloodless Warlow (Robert Kazinsky) in her arms. Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) has almost sucked Warlow dry, and Sookie tells Bill (Stephen Moyer) that the plan is off.
“You’re the god of all vampires. Deal with your vampire,” Sookie tells Bill. Using her tinkerbell powers Sookie blasts Bill out of the fae realm, bearing her arm out for Warlow to sink his fangs into.
Warlow asks Sookie if she will still keep with their agreement and be his. She tells him a promise is a promise and then goes off to the funeral.
Arlene (Carrie Preston) arrives at Terry’s (Todd Lowe) funeral. It begins and Reverend Daniels speaks on how important family was to Terry. “Terry Bellefuler believed in family, and for him everything, everything, flows from that,” he says to those gathered.
As the funeral goes on Terry’s friends come up to speak about him. This consists of several  flashbacks through which we Terry progress from the war scarred veteran to the lovable cook he died as. Andy (Chris Bauer) talks of finding Terry a job, Sam (Sam Trammell) speaks of when he first hired Terry. Even Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) takes the podium, saying that when he first met the man it felt like he could see into his soul, and he wanted to help him.
“Every life matters,” Terry says as we are taken from one flashback to another.

When it’s Arlene’s turn to speak on behalf of her now-deceased husband, she panics. Picking up on her thoughts, Sookie stands. She tells them that she’s telepathic and recounts the story of when Terry first laid eyes on Arlene. “He loved you since the second you walked into his life,” Sookie tells her.
Arlene finally goes up to speak. For her, we see a flashback of Arlene and Terry in post child labor. The baby won’t take her milk and she’s panicking.  Terry goes to calm and reassure her, and the baby finally starts to feed. She says the reason why they worked is because they stabilized each other.
Before the marines salute Terry’s life, Big John Dixon asks to address the gathering. He says he loved Terry and sings a song called “Life Matters”. it fits so perfectly for Terry and everything he stood for. As the marines hand her the folded flag in honor of her husband, she thinks that Terry would have been okay with this, despite the guns.

A trail of dismembered bodies leads Bill to Eric, who has infiltrated the camps facilities. He finds the Overlark, the doctor that injected Hep-V into Nora, and reaches down and rips off his genitals. Eric tells him he’ll be back to make sure he has bled to death. Eric then goes to release the male Gen Pop.
“Go on. Go kill your captures,” Erik tells them.
Bill finds a now bleeding Overlark. He tells him Eric is responsible. Bill asks if he ever met or harmed a redhead vampire name Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll). Overlark says yes, so Bill kills him by stomping down on his face. As he walks through the vampire camp he sees vampires taking revenge on the staff.
Eric frees the female gen pop and sees a weakened Jason (Ryan Kwanten) sprawled out on one of the now vacant tables.
“Jason Stackhouse, looking good my friend,” Eric tells him.
Eric finds out that Jason knows the camp well, and asks him if he has ever been healed by him. Jason shakes his head no. “Well you are in for a treat, and when you dream of me, dream of nice things.”
Sara Newlin (Anna Camp) hides underneath the dead carcass of one of the employees of the camps.
Eric finds the therapist and tells him he’s going to die.
“I’m going to die a happy man. Would you like to know why that is?” The therapist asks Eric. “I f**ed your progeny.”
“You did not just go there. That’s gonna cost ya doc,” Jason tells him as he watches on.
“We’re going to go find Pam, and then she’s going to kill you.” Eric tells the therapist as he grips him along. He finds Ginger and some of the vampire-friendly humans being held and releases them.

Bill has one of the guards tell him where the white room is located. While that is happening Sara is climbing up one of the cylinders outside that will open to the sun and kill the vampires in the circular room.  However, by the time she gets it open Bill is already there with all the vampires, except for Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian), drinking his blood.  Eric walks in and forces Newlin to face the sun. He brings Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) the therapist.
The vampires go outside, drunk on Bill’s blood, and enjoy the sun. They begin to destroy the Tru Blood. Other cases of Tru Blood are hijacked over the world. Bill however, is left behind. Derived of his blood, Bill slips into unconsciousness and sees three of Lilith’s followers, naked and covered in blood. “Come, your time on Earth is over,” Lilith’s disciples tell him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Bill says. Jessica gets summoned by him.

Jason goes after Sarah before she can escape. He grabs her gun and points it at her. Jason tells Sara that killing her would be doing Jesus’ work.
“What will become of your soul Jason?” Sara asks him.
“I don’t know, but at least I got one,” he says. But he can’t pull the trigger. He sets the gun down, letting her go.
Eric begins to have flashbacks of Nora’s death.
Jessica rushes back inside to help Bill.

“They’re coming from me,” Bill tells Jessica. James tries to force Bill to drink from him in order to save his life. He walks out in the sun with the other vampires who are happy to see him alive. Violet and Jason are reunited and the vampires begin to leave. Pam hesitates though, and stops to see Eric staring at her. “Don’t you dare leave me,” she tells him as Eric takes to the sky.
Okay, I have a few gripes with this episode. As it plays it takes us back and forth between the funeral and what’s going on in the camps. It’s a bit jarring, to be taken from the softer and more touching funeral scenes to then being dumped into the massacre that was occurring at the camps. And then there’s Bill; it’s nice to see such a sacrifice from him, but it feels like a pointless one. How did he get into the room, and if he had gotten in couldn’t they all easily just have escaped without sucking him dry? Terry’s funeral was my favorite part about this episode. Usually during this point of a True Blood season something big would be going on, but for the most part everything seems pretty resolved. It looks like this season finale will be focused on Eric and Sookie’s sacrifice. With most of the conflict already resolved I’m interested to see where else they can take this. Check out the season finale of True Blood on HBO, Sunday at 9 p.m.
Watch the promo for True Blood‘s season 6 finale “Radioactive” now:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk5CuD3g3YQ&w=560&h=315]