Oh, True Blood, if only you could continue to delight and gross us out for a couple more years. The show has long since run its course at this point, but showrunner Mark Hudis and co. seem intent on going out with a bang. And by “bang” we mean lots and lots of blood, of course. We probably don’t need to say this anymore, but don’t read ahead if you haven’t seen the latest episode. EVERYTHING BELOW THIS IS SPOIlERS.

Anna Paquin
Anna Paquin has stuck with her Sookie Stackhouse character throughout seven seasons of ridiculousness.

There’s no light reprieve in this one. As the episode begins, Tara is dead, her boyfriend is dead and Sookie is tasked with giving his father the devastating news. Meanwhile, Jason has a message to deliver too – Hoyt Fortenberry’s mother was killed by a vampire and Jason needs to tell his former best friend. This is how we learn that Hoyt is actually still a character on the show.

Sookie is on damage control – she’s off to the Sheriff’s house to give Arlene’s kids a much needed pep talk, and then heads to Holly to help/soothe/get some information out of the former hostage. Using her fairy mojo, she finds out that Holly was confined to the Fangtasia basement, along with Arlene (Carrie Preston) and Nicole (Jurnee Smollett-Bell).

Sam is about to rush off to do the whole “knight in shining armor” thing, but Jason convinces him to wait until nightfall, when they’ll have some vamp backup. This begs the question… since when is Jason the voice of reason? How very out of character for him. In the meantime, the team are doing some mission prep. So Jessica, kind soul that she is, refuses to feed on Lafayette and recover from her bullet wound, but Sookie convinces her and offers her own blood to Bill. This is nothing new, of course, but the show has gotten altogether too comfortable with its human characters willingly serving as walking blood bags.

In a flashback, the history of Fangtasia is finally explained – and in a surprising twist, it was the brainchild of Ginger (Tara Buck), who did not start out the glamoured mess she would eventually become. Ginger's plan to convert the video store Eric and Pam had been running since the 1980s would unfortunately be stolen by Pam, who finally reveals the true genesis of the idea to Eric as they are midflight to Bon Temps.

More: "True Blood" Finale: Alexander Skarsgard Naked, But Did He Die?

Alexander Skarsgard
Welcome back to our favorite vamp!

This leads us to today, when Eric and Pam are back in town and ready to join the attack. We get a hint of Eric/Sookie romance (finally, the shippers have something. And then it’s time for the raid, led by Pam and Bill, currently the two strongest members of the good crowd. While Pam rescues Nicole, Bill goes to find Arlene, being fed on by the gang of infected vamps. Eric sneaks his way into Fangtasia and the gang are about to launch a surprise attack. And just when you think everything is going to be fine (what show have you been watching for the past six years?), the anti-vamp mob joins in the fun and all hell breaks loose. With Arlene’s life hanging in the balance, is it really possible for our team to come out of this with any sort of victory?