True Blood Seaon Finale: Season 2 Wrap-up

The True Blood season two finale, Beyond Here Lies Nothing airs tonight on HBO at 9 p.m. so before you tune in read up here for a wrap-up of the second season.

Season two of True Blood opened with a bang, as the fraudulent 'juju' exorcist of Tara's mothers demon (as well as Tara's) is found dead in the parking lot of Merlotte's bar, her heart ripped from her chest. Thus, fans breathed a sigh of relief that Layfayette was not yet dead, and curse over the women of Merlotte's was rekindled.

Layfayette was not yet safe, kept chained with other prisoners in the basement of Fangoria by the vampire Erik for his crime of dealing vampire blood, "V", to humans.

Sam Merlotte encounters the stranger Maryanne, and relives a memory of meeting her in his dog form many years ago. Maryanne becomes central to the plot as she takes Tara firmly under her wing, and begins to have an ill effect on the residents of Bon Temps.

Where is Jason Stackhouse in all this? At the Light of Day leadership conference, getting cozy with the fanatical church leaders Steve and Sarah Newlin. Though Jason is at first pleased with the praise he receives for being a glorious soldier of God, he later comes to his senses that people like vampire Bill, and even the tyrannous Erik, don't deserve to die simply because they are vampires.

Flash forward; Sookie and Bill end up in Dallas on business for Erik, with the newly turned teenage Jessica in their stow. Erik has hired Sookie to read into the thoughts of his contemporaries in order to find the place where his maker, the respected elder vampire Godric, is being held captive. With Sookie and Bill deep in vampire territory, Jessica runs a little wild with beau Hoyt.

With the Stackhouse's out of town, and the local vampires away on business, Bon Temps runs wild under Maryanne's influence. She is eventually revealed as a maynad, a priestess of sorts of the god Dionysus. She transforms at times to run as a half woman, half bull, slashing innocents and thus infecting them with her influence. One of her chief minions is the "shifter" Daphne, a doe-eyed waitress who steals Merlotte's heart, before going the way all of his diners waitresses eventually do; dead, by Maryanne's hand. Meanwhile, one by one the residents begin to run wild, filling the show with gratuitous scenes full of gore, sex, and violence.

Alone in their sanity are Sam Merlotte, Detective Andy Bellefleur, the released (but not entirely sane) Lafayette, Hoyt, and Tara's mother, Lettie Mae. Eventually everything is tied together when Sookie discovers that Godric is being kept by the Fellowship of the Sun, the same place that Jason is now trying to escape after macking on the leader's wife. Godric is freed only to commit suicide the next day, against the pleas and bloody tears of Erik's protesting. Sookie, Bill, and Jessica return to Bon Temps, each teaming up with the other sane citizens to retaliate against Maryanne's revelrous rule.

Tara is saved from Maryanne's influence only to return to it when she goes back to rescue the new love of her life, the incredibly handsome Benedict "X".

All caught up? From here, it's spoiler territory.

So here we are, and what a ride is took to get here. Sookie has been captured and is one finale episode away from becoming the ultimate bestial sacrifice in Maryanne's plot to conjure her god and become consumed by him. Bill has consulted the vampire queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne (played by Evan Rachel Wood) and realized that this ceremony is the only possible way to kill the bitch Maryanne once and for all. Tensions are running high, and it's only a matter of time until "Beyond Here Lies Nothing" airs tonight on HBO.

So there you have it, long-winded-yet-detailed.