Now that the season has ended, I thought it might be fun to run down what I thought were the best and worst moments of the biggest characters of the season. There’s a bit of internal logic to the list – vamps, humans, shifters, witches and weres, but it’s really the order the characters popped into my head. If I missed anyone it’s because they left zero impression on me. After the 20+  below (and more that I can think of it but chose to not write on such as Antonia, Marcus, Nan, Luna, Maxine, the Coven, etc.)  they clearly didn’t leave enough of an impression.

Sookie

Best moment – Sookie dumping both Bill and Eric. She said it herself – she wants to be able to sit on a porch and play with her grandkids. Bill and Eric can’t and most likely won’t give her that. Really, she’s been needing this break since the end of the last season.

Worst moment – Her time with amnesia!Eric. It wasn’t necessary that she was out of character or anything, but it was just dull. Too lovey-dovey, too sappy, too didn’t go anywhere, and it lead to the single worst sex scene of the season – the V trip in Narnia.

Eric

Best moment – Ripping out Roy’s heart. Hell, that was probably one of the best (if not the best) moment of the entire season.

Worst moment – Amensia!Eric in general. I just don’t think they did anything interesting with it and it definitely dragged on longer than necessary. Had he lost his memory later or gained it back sooner, it wouldn’t have been so bad. It wasn’t a total loss – the scene in the lake was great and there was some good interaction between that Eric and Bill, but less definitely would have been more.

Bill

Best moment – Sparing Eric’s life. It was a foolish move to even request the death warrant in the first place, and it was only that lingering bit of humanity and his love of Sookie that stopped him.

Worst moment – Tie between letting Pam go when he let Eric go and his comment about not caring who was between Sookie’s legs. The former was just a bad decision (he should have kept her locked up for the treason alone, never mind her loose cannon status) and the later was said in a moment of anger. The writers really did a great job with the character this season and there’s very little to fault here.

Pam

Best moment – The commercial from first episode. That dry disdain for the entire process, her interaction with Nan. That was the Pam we wanted to see more of.

Worst moment – Ugh, so many to choose from, but that temper tantrum in Eric’s office. It was so bad, I wanted to stake her to save her from the embarrassment. That wasn’t hurt over the thought of losing someone she cares deeply for, that tantrum was a 16-year old cheerleader feeling threatened because her basketball player-boyfriend flashed a smile at another girl on the squad. Just over the top and ridiculous.

Jessica

Best moment – Not wanting to feeding on Jason and admitting that she wasn’t ready to be in a relationship with Jason yet. It’s a sign she’s starting to grow up.

Worst moment – Going to Jason right after breaking up with Hoyt. To be fair though, Jessica is still 17 – maybe 18 (depending on when her birthday was) physically and emotionally and she never got to really date as a human. She made thekind of mistake that a lot of younger women make (and heck, some older women make) and she paid the price for it, at least for a while.

Jason

Best moment – Stopping Andy from licking up Beulah’s blood (and by extension, his acting as Andy’s sponsor of sorts through the season). Though Jason backslide a lot this season, he grew up during that year break and his trying to keep Andy in some kind of control is a testament to that maturity. Standing up for Sookie at Moon Goddess was a very close second.

Worst moment – Having sex with Jessica in the truck next to Bill’s house. Jason knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew he shouldn’t have gone over to see Jessica, he knew he shouldn’t be sleeping with her and then went and did it anyway! Though the blood certainly made it harder for him to resist, her blood didn’t make him a zombie, he knew what he was doing. It was an extremely piss poor decision and it was the return of stupid Jason that I’d been so happy to wave goodbye to.

Hoyt

Best moment – Hoyt standing up for Jess outside of Fangtasia. That’s love for ya!

Worst moment – His general attitude since dumping Jessica. Yes, all of that only takes place over a few days, but man is Hoyt’s angry side ugly. The comment about Jason never experiencing true love because a part of him is missing? Ouch. Much like Pam hasn’t been acting her age, it’s hard to believe that Hoyt is 30 or so here, because he’s also easily acting the teenager.

Sam

Best moment – kicking the ever living shit out of Marcus – and then letting him live. He got his revenge, but he didn’t cross the line. Given Sam’s anger issues of the past few season, it showed remarkable strength and reaffirmed that he really is a decent guy for all his many flaws.

Worst moment – He…didn’t really have one unless maybe you go with his churlishness at Merlotte’s in the first episode. Like Bill’s line about what’s between her legs, that outburst was said out of anger and concern and not because he was a total douche. Like Bill, the writers did a great job with the character this season and he didn’t really have any truly bad moments!

Tommy

Best moment – martyring himself for Sam. He had to have known that death was a very real possibility when he went over to Marcus’ shop, and when you consider that even for what Sam had done for him, Sam had also been a right ass to him the year before. Sam hadn’t necessarily done anything to really deserve the sacrifice that Tommy gave him.

Worst moment – Skin-walking as Sam and trying to absolutely ruin everything in Sam’s life. For all that Sam wasn’t the nicest guy in the world, Sam was also one of the few (aside from Maxine) that had ever shown him any kind of kindness, and clearly Tommy did care for Sam, he just had no idea how to healthy express his anger towards Sam.

Lafayette

Best moment – Being terrified of Eric when Eric joined that coven meeting and trying to stop the others. As Sponge from “Salute Your Shorts” said, “It’s better to be a live chicken than a dead duck.” Lala is a survivor. And if it’s one thing he learned was that you don’t freaking mess with Eric Northman and did his best to try and convince the others to stay the heck out of it. It didn’t work, but hey, he tried!

Worst moment – Agreeing to go to Mexico. Ah, the idiotic things people will do for love. Granted, staying in town didn’t seem like a good idea either, but when your magic-practicing boyfriend got you into the mess in the first place, why would you think that going deeper with the magic-practicing boyfriend would get you out of it?

Jesus

Best moment – Unbinding Antonia from Marnie. Aside from having the best timing ever, he put the good of the many over his own personal feelings of affection for the Marnie he knew.

Worst moment – Badgering Lala to check out that coven in the first place. Lala clearly wasn’t into the idea of checking that place out and only went to shut up Jesus about it once and for all. Yes, there was clearly was potential there, but what about respect for your lover? Him telling Lala that he totally understood if Lafayette wanted to live a magic-less life only after the damage had been done just wasn’t impressive.

Tara

Best moment – Possibly sacrificing herself for Sookie. All too often it feels like they aren’t really friends, but just friends when the plot wants them to be. This though felt completely real.

Worst moment – Joining up with Marnie and recruiting others. It was definitely a catch-22 kind of decision, but as they say, better the evil you know… And that Tara seemed so surprised that Martonia was trying to kill the vamps? What exactly was she expecting?

Holly

Best moment – Tie between spurring Tara to action in Moon Goddess and asking Andy for a hug in the finale. The former showed her ability to stay calm and get shit done even though she was likely terrified out of her mind, the latter was just one of the best quiet moments of the entire season. There Andy was at his most vulnerable, and there she was when she in many ways was just as weakened – that hug I think was healing for them both.

Worst moment – Joining with the coven in the first place. “I can’t do that! I have two kids to raise!” // “Okay! I’m in!” Really Holly, really? Someone gave her the stupid-ball that scene.

Marnie

Best moment – Finding out that she was driving the crazy train the entire time. Totally unexpected.

Worst moment – All the whining about how people were mean to her and therefore she wanted everyone and everything dead. Irritating.

Andy

Best moment – Going up to Holly with the new bouquet, apologizing to her and being so painfully raw when he was giving his speech. I’m not fully convinced that he’s hit rock bottom, but Andy really is a good guy at heart and that was on full display here.

Worst moment – toss up between trying to suck up the V from the ground and acting like a total ass to Sam to try and cover up his V issues. Both of them were pretty damn pathetic.

Arlene

Best moment -Her moment of compassion for Andy after he came back from the romp in the woods with the faerie. Even though she didn’t believe him (and why should she), she clearly does love her brother-in-law and is trying to do right by him.

Worst moment – Letting her kid dress up as that person from Teen Mom 2. What’s worse, letting her daughter watch it in the first place or emulate it? I wasn’t really fond of Arlene this season as her main job seemed to be to act like a border-line hysteric. She gets a partial pass because the really was something weird going on, even if her son wasn’t the actual cause of it.

Terry

Best moment – The heart-to-heart at Camp Bellefleur. Like I said, I don’t necessarily buy that Andy has hit rock bottom, but I liked the bonding between the brothers and that he’s trying to do right by him.

Worst moment – His obliviousness to Mikey’s strangeness. As I mentioned, Arlene was border-line hysterical for the better part of that arc, but he seemed totally oblivious that something weird was up.

Alcide

Best moment – Stopping the fight with between Marcus, Marcus’ thugs and Tommy…

Worst moment – Stopping the fight between Marcus, Marcus’ thugs and Tommy after Tommy was already more or less fatally wounded. Some people try to argue that pack politics wouldn’t have let him do anything different, but you can’t convince me of that. Alcide knew what was going to happen. Marcus telegraphed what he planned to do. He could have insisted it be a one on one fight. He could have tried to pull off the other wolves sooner. Alcide didn’t care a whit about pack politics – he didn’t even want to join the pack, he did that reluctantly and only because he was trying to make Debbie happy. Between that and more or less spending the rest of the season mooning over Sookie to one degree or another (because all the help he gave her totally he’d given to anyone else. Uh huh) these were not Alcide’s finest moments.

 

 

 

 

 

Debbie

Best moment – Helping Sookie with her plan to infiltrate Moon Goddess Emporium.

Worst moment – Going absolutely ape-shit insane and possibly killing Tara. In a lot of ways, even though the break up scenes between Jess and Hoyt were bad (both the dream and the reality), that scene was the hardest to watch. You could just see her completely snap when Alcide was ritualistically calling it off once and for all. Ouch.

 

Honorable Mentions

1) The Bill/Eric bromance – The play between Bill and Eric has always been one of the most enjoyable aspects of the show. Combine that with Bill taking the One Liner King crown from Pam, and that Eric was always at his most Eric self (with or without memory) and many of the season’s best moments can be traced back to these two in one way, shape or form.

2) Adele ripping Marnie out from Lala – How hardcore was that?

3) Ginger – whether it’s riding Pam’s coffin or comforting her during her meltdown, Ginger was the right kind of levity in some of the heavier/harder to bear scenes.