What actually happens
A suspiciously helpful ride home
Two years after a synthetic drink called TruBlood lets vampires go public, Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress at Merlotte's in Bon Temps, Louisiana, starts seeing a vampire named Bill Compton. Bill kills the Rattrays when they attack her, heals her with his own blood, and later tells a group of other vampires that she belongs to him so they will leave her alone. Women in town keep turning up dead. Sookie finds Dawn's body, her brother Jason gets blamed and ends up in jail, and Sookie's grandmother Adele dies too. Sam, Sookie's boss, turns out to be a shapeshifter. In the season finale Sookie reads Rene's mind, discovers his real name is Drew Marshall, and realizes he is the killer. He chases her into a cemetery. Bill steps into sunlight to help and gets badly burned. Sam attacks Rene in dog form, and Sookie finishes him off with a shovel. Jason is released, and Bill turns up healed on her doorstep.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
Party planning for a bull-headed host
In the second season a woman named Maryann befriends Tara, and the town gradually falls into chaos around her. Andy stumbles on one of her orgies and Terry breaks his arm while under her influence. Elsewhere, Bill and Sookie deal with the new vampire Jessica, a trip to Dallas, and a Fellowship of the Sun compound. In the finale Maryann makes Sookie her Maid of Honor at a sacrificial ritual. This is the scene to brace for, and it comes at the very end of the season. Maryann chases Sookie and is stopped by a bull she takes for her god. The bull gores her in the chest, then turns out to be Sam in animal form, and he rips out her heart. That is the whole scene. Afterward Eggs, a young man Maryann had taken under her wing, is revealed as the killer of Miss Jeanette and Daphne, and Jason shoots him. Bill proposes to Sookie, then disappears.
A king of Mississippi with a basement and a grudge
In the third season Sookie goes looking for the abducted Bill. Eric gives her a werewolf bodyguard named Alcide, and she heads to Mississippi. Bill is held by Russell Edgington, the vampire King of Mississippi, who wants to take over Louisiana. Sookie stakes Lorena with Bill's help, and Bill tells her she is part faerie. Sam finds his shapeshifter birth family in Arkansas, and Jason becomes a police officer. By the season finale Sookie ties Russell up at Fangtasia, and Bill and Eric bury him in concrete. Then Eric tells Sookie that Bill was sent to Bon Temps to deliver her to the vampire queen Sophie-Anne, and that he let the Rattrays beat her so he could feed her his blood. Sookie throws both vampires out of her house. Bill vows to kill anyone who knows about her faerie side, and Sookie accepts Claudine's invitation to visit the faerie world.
A Halloween party with actual ghosts
In the fourth season Sookie finds out the fairies have lied to her. When she returns, Bill has become King of Louisiana, Eric has lost his memory, and Pam asks Sookie to hide him from a coven of witches. Jason is kept by Crystal as a possible werepanther breeder, and Tommy kills his own father and accidentally kills his mother. Bill considers sentencing Eric to the true death, then changes his mind. The witches, led by Marnie, cause trouble at the Festival of Tolerance, and Sookie breaks the spell and restores Eric's memory with her faerie powers. In the finale on Halloween, Marnie takes over Lafayette's body and ties Bill and Eric to stakes to burn them. Antonia and other ghosts, including Adele, convince her to stop. Sookie tells both vampires she cannot choose, so she chooses to be alone. Then Debbie breaks into Sookie's house with a shotgun, shoots Tara, and Sookie turns the gun on her.
The Vampire Authority and a very large puddle
The fifth season moves to the Vampire Authority in New Orleans, which holds Eric and Bill and spares them in exchange for hunting down Russell again. Salome admits she dug Russell out of his grave. Bombings of Tru Blood factories cause a shortage, and Bill gets visions from Lilith telling him to drink her blood. In the finale Sookie and her friends storm the Authority and kill the guards, and Bill drinks the vial, melts into a pool of blood, and reforms as a powerful Lilith-like vampire. The sixth season brings Warlow, whom Niall helps Jason stake, and the daywalking power disappears with him. Six months later hepatitis V has spread and infected vampires run amok. In the final season they attack Bon Temps with many casualties, Alcide dies, and Eric gets sick with it. He is cured when he drinks from Sarah Newlin, but Bill refuses the antidote.
The ending, explained
In the finale Eric and Pam kill the Yakanomo members and Mr. Gus, which saves Sookie one last time, and then take Sarah Newlin as their hostage. Bill has decided to die and asks Sookie to use her faerie powers to kill him, which would make her human. She refuses to give up her powers, so he arranges to give Jessica away at her wedding to Hoyt, then leaves his house and land to Andy, with the condition that Jessica and Hoyt can live there for a dollar a month. Sookie approves of Jason's connection with Brigette. She meets Bill in the Bon Temps cemetery, tells him she loves him, helps him stake himself in a coffin in his own Civil War grave, and fills it in with dirt before walking home crying. After a four-year jump, Eric and Pam run a company called New Blood, which has synthesized a hepatitis V cure along with a fresh meal plan for the undead. Pam secretly keeps Sarah locked in the basement of Fangtasia, charging vampires to feed on her. Sookie, who is expecting a child, and Jason, a father of three, throw a Thanksgiving gathering back in Bon Temps.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: not fine, and we're sorry.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is True Blood scary?
Somewhat. True Blood is a 3.5 out of 10 with low dread, because most of it is vampire romance and small-town drama. The scares come in sudden, gory bursts.
How does True Blood end?
Bill decides to die, and Sookie helps him stake himself in his own grave. Four years later Eric and Pam run a corporation, and Sookie hosts a Thanksgiving party in Bon Temps.
Does the dog die in True Blood?
Yes, a dog dies in True Blood, in a dog fight scene in the third season. A pet cat is also found dead in the series. Sam, who is a shapeshifter, sometimes becomes a dog and is fine.
Is there a post-credits scene in True Blood?
No. True Blood has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is the killer in the first season of True Blood?
Rene, a Bon Temps local whose real name is Drew Marshall, is behind the murders of the women in the first season. Sookie reads his mind in the finale and kills him with a shovel.
