Look, I don’t mean to be overly critical, or unnecessarily snarky about this episode. I really don’t. But when a show I once actually liked suddenly stops doing the things that made me like it, I just can’t help but get a bit annoyed. One thing the series has become incredibly bad at is killing off characters. We’ve already seen several major deaths this season, and they all failed to resonate even a little. The show has stopped caring about its characters or paying its series regulars any modicum of respect, making it exceptionally difficult to feel anything when they die.
I’m talking, of course, about the sudden death of Alcide. He’s a character I never really cared about, because he felt like nothing more than the wobbly fourth wheel on the Sookie/Bill/Eric love triangle, but he deserved more than he was given. It’s certainly not as bad as Tara’s off-screen death in the premiere, but it’s still pretty bad. Yes, he dies protecting Sookie, but getting shot by some arbitrary angry townsperson, after a big shootout? Come on.
Is his death supposed to hold any sort of weight for the audience? We were never really invested in his and Sookie’s relationship, because he always felt like her last choice. She’s only really with him because he’s a decent enough guy and the other two she really wanted failed to turn into anything serious. Sookie herself laments the fact that she doesn’t really love Alcide the way he loves her. Then, an hour later, he’s gone. How convenient.
