True Blood season 7 showrunner Brian Buckner spoke to the media on Monday to address all of viewers’ concerns, including that big question at the very end.
Last night’s True Blood series finale was not well received by fans. In the comments of our recap you’ll find almost nothing but negative feedback about the vampire drama’s farewell.
Addressing the mystery man that Sookie Stackhouse ended up with during the Thanksgiving scene at the very end of the episode, Buckner said to TV Line, “The idea was that we wanted Bill to be correct when he said that Sookie could have a normal life — the twist, of course, being that she chose to keep her powers and persevere. [Author Charlaine Harris] took a lot of abuse for choosing Sam [in the books]; we felt like it was irrelevant who Sookie wound up with. What we wanted to know was that she was happy and living the life that she wanted to lead. To introduce a stranger in the last five minutes of the finale wouldn’t have made any sense. …We basically cast the man with the best arms from our stunt crew.”
It’s fair that they didn’t want to introduce Sookie’s new man in the last five minutes. So why not put her with an established character like Eric? Said Buckner, “When Eric and Sookie [reunited] this season, I was really impressed with the romantic undertones. But we didn’t go back there because it would have been sloppier, story-telling-wise.”
Additionally, Buckner explained why Bill had to die at his and Sookie’s own hands. “It was all meant to tell the story of a natural course of a human life,” he said. “What Bill came around to was similar to what Godric came around to. A human life is extraordinary too. …Niall told [Sookie], Bill told her, Gran told her — via flashback in the finale — that you can have any kind of life you want. …The natural cycle of life is beautiful… and death gives life meaning.”
Speaking to Zap2it, Buckner addressed the lack of Lafayette in the second half of season 7. “I don’t know what the scenes would be” if they pointed the camera on James and Lafayette during the finale, he said. “I’m thrilled that we got Lafeyette true love, but it sort of peaked by episode 5 and 6.”
Amongst all of these comments, we’re mostly disappointed that the best answer we have to “Who did Sookie end up with?” is “Someone on the True Blood production crew.” Even if they didn’t want to put Sookie with an established character like Eric, they could’ve inserted a new man into the show way earlier than five minutes before the curtain closed.
In related news, HBO released a nice behind-the-scenes featurette today which looks at what happened while the cast and crew were filming the Thanksgiving dinner sequence, the very last scene many of the actors had to shoot:
