The most depraved show on television, HBO’s vampire/fairy/shapeshifter-filled ‘True Blood,’ finished its latest season with a plethora of rather Christian-themed images and ideas about salvation, if presented in a somewhat blasphemous fashion.
The first: Salvation through love. Godric, who is also Eric’s vampire-maker (sire), and who joyfully went to his death after a long, long life (Godric encountered it as a huge relief), appears at the beginning of this season’s finale in angelic fashion. Eric is on the point of death, roasting in the sunlight (literally), and Godric appears to him in a vision, glowing, surrounded by a circle of light, preaching that death brings eternal peace and forgiveness of all sins, and that beyond death is complete love. Even more, Godric tries to convey that revenge is not the answer and that hatred will only bring unhappiness. Forgiveness and love are the only means to redemption.

The second–and this one is not so new: Salvation through blood, but this time, the blood of a pure, supernatural creature. From the very beginning, ‘True Blood’ has played with this very Christian, very Catholic idea of salvation through blood but with a twist–human blood nourishes the life of the vampire, but vampire blood can restore the physical life (and enhance it, too) of a human, as Bill restores Sookie’s in episode two of the series. But since then, there has been curiosity about Sookie’s blood in particular, which everyone now knows is extra-special because she’s a fairy (insert cringe here). Sookie’s blood can allow a vampire to walk in sunlight, at least for a spell, and maybe, maybe, as we learn in this last episode, it can bring a creature back from the dead.
“To drink your love is paradise,” we are told by an evil vampire, seeking Sookie’s blood, “Who even knows what your blood is capable of?”
And while Sookie drank Eric’s blood in an earlier season, now he’s taken a drink of hers, and I’m curious to know where this ongoing (forbidden) relationship between them will go in the next season.
And last: It seems that Sookie, well, she ascended into. . .somewhere. Probably not heaven, though. Fairyland perhaps?