20 Random Thoughts While Binging TRUE BLOOD

When it first aired, I watched all but the final season of HBO's series TRUE BLOOD, based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries series written by Charlaine Harris. The television series took extensive liberties with the characters and plot of the books, but I'm guessing since Harris is likely sunbathing on a mountain of gold doubloons thanks to all that HBO money, she didn't really mind.

Now, over the last few months, I binge-watched the series in its entirety, because while vampire-related things aren't really my bag, the show did have some hilariously over-the-top moments, and I wanted to finally see the last season and close out the series. Being able to watch it a second time and muse over other aspects of the show, I had many random thoughts while watching. So, in no particular order:

1. By the end of the series, I felt the same way about Sookie Stackhouse as I did about Jack Bauer - I was so damn tired of people saying her name, that the sound of it made me cringe every time. Especially when Bill said it. "Sookie!" Ugh.
2. Speaking of Bill, he's just such a dick. Despite being one of the main characters throughout the series, I just hate his guts the entire time.
3. Eric, on the other hand, is AMAZING. He is everything awesome which Bill is not.
4. Sam really is that handsome, middle-aged guy who manages to charm the pants off of every single (and not so single) woman in a hundred mile radius. When he gets called "silver fox" by his girlfriend's mom, I just lost it. Howls of laughter.
5. Werewolves really get the shaft in this series. Clearly, Harris/HBO aren't using World of Darkness rules as reference material.
6. At some point in this, we definitely needed a werewolf to go full Crinos and tear a truck in half, then beat a couple of vampires to death with the scrap metal.
7. Why don't these damn vampires use swords? If you move faster than the eye can see, and you're strong as hell, a sword would just be an amazing force-multiplier. Especially since many of these vampires were around before the gunpowder age.
8. Seriously, how can you have a thousand-year old vampire viking who never uses a sword?
9. Okay, he takes a couple of wakizashi from some Yakuza guy and double-stabs him, but that doesn't really count.
10. If I was a vampire, I'd also be rocking some body armor with a ballistic hard plate over my heart front and back. Try getting that broken-off broom handle through a half-inch plate of hardened steel, buddy.
11. I love how vampires, with their preternatural senses, almost never use guns firing wooden bullets to kill each other (which would be the easiest way to close the age power level gap), but some redneck hillbilly dipshit who has no idea how to shoot a handgun can make an offhand shot at a centuries-old vampire and hit the vampire's fist-sized heart without aiming, killing them.
12. I'm not sure if vampires turn into a blood ragout in the Harris novels when they die, but it is hilariously disgusting in the TV show. Especially when the death is dramatic and emotional and someone is embracing said vampire. Gross.
13. The behavior and intelligence of the average Bon Temps resident can be confirmed as realistic by spending five minutes in any political group on Facebook.
14. I don't care if it has magical healing properties, drinking blood is disgusting.
15. The single coolest kill in the show is a shifter turning into a fly, then getting swallowed by a vampire, and shifting back to human inside the vampire, causing the vampire to explode like a blood grenade.
16. Given that vampires aren't really alive, and I'm guessing their hearts don't actually serve a functional purpose, why doesn't someone open up a business implanting vampires with titanium heart-armor inside their body cavities? You could totally make some kind of armored housing that just snaps together around the vampire's heart without severing the arteries.
17. It's really kind of sad how the Harris novels were meant to use vampires as an analogy towards viewing discrimination and society in the South, but HBO just largely turned it into a show about sex and violence...like they do just about everything else.
18. Jason Stackhouse is a moronic dipshit, but man, he's pretty much what every guy wants to have as their pickup-driving, beer-drinking, horsing around best friend. Although he really is the personification of that "you versus the guy she tells you not to worry about" meme.
19. Not killing Lafayette at the end of season 1 was the smartest decision HBO ever made, aside from writing that big goddamn check to George R. R. Martin.
20. And, finally: