HBO’s sexy supernatural series True Blood will be ending after next season — and not a moment too soon. But as bad as the show is, it’s still given us plenty to enjoy over its soon-to-be six-year run.
Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård)
Remember when True Blood was a romance between Sookie and Bill? Remember when everyone realized what a mistake that was and put Eric front and center? The blond bad boy vampire has always been the highlight of the series, from his long-haired origins to his wacky amnesia to his full-frontal nudity. Long after it's gone, True Blood will be remembered as the show that gave us Alexander Skarsgård, and for that, we will always be grateful.
HBO
Gratuitous sex
So many boobs. So many butts. So many fangtastic O-faces. HBO series have always pushed the envelope in terms of sexual content, but True Blood took things to a new level. It hardly ever serves the plot, and half the time it's too gross to be sexy, but the best episodes of True Blood always offer an abundance of supernatural trysts. Vampire-on-vampire, human-on-vampire, werewolf-on-human: It doesn't really matter, as long as everyone is getting naked. It's not TV — it's smutty, salacious HBO.
HBO
Rampant bisexuality
Barring a stake to the heart or an ill-advised daytime excursion, vampires live forever. It stands to reason they would be interested in sexual exploration — and for many of the characters on True Blood, that means delving into same-sex coupling. While the show could have pushed things even further in terms of its homoerotic content, it does a good job overall of depicting the fluidity of sexual orientation. And of giving us slash pairings other shows would force us to explore via fan fic.
HBO
Faerie nonsense
At first, it was annoying. But once we learned to stop worrying and start loving Sookie's fae silliness and jaunts to the faerie world, it was easy to appreciate True Blood's absurdity. Faeries are inherently ridiculous, and as hard as the series has tried to make us take them seriously, they always come across as laughably over-the-top. And we wouldn't have it any other way. If you're watching the show for nuance, you're watching it wrong.
HBO
