eric and sookie real first kiss

With so much intensity, so many characters, so many plot lines (and so much sex!) running through the latest season of True Blood -- the best season yet -- we could spend days trying to figure out what major cliffhanger will mark the Season 3 finale on Sunday night. I could simply read and watch all the spoiler clips (oh, yes, they are out there), but that wouldn't be any fun. And since we have exactly four days until the beginning of what starts a long, dry, bloodless, Eric-less gap in my entertainment schedule, let's come up with some theories to feed the pending misery, shall we?

One thing I've noticed, producer Alan Ball likes to end each season on a quieter, less obvious note -- all the building battles, confrontations, and discoveries are pretty well resolved well before the show's final minutes. 

Ball likes to begin each new season on a semi-new slate, choosing to use the final final scene to set up the entirely new plot twist that will drive the entire next season. Consider the major cliffhangers of the previous two:

Season 1 Cliffhanger:

Drunk Detective Andy Bellefleur stumbles outside Merlotte's with Tara and Sookie to find his car, only to discover a dead woman’s body inside, leaving viewers to wonder if it was at the hands of a vampire or human. This led to the Marianne the Maenad plot.

Season 2 Cliffhanger:

The last episode leaves off with Bill and Sookie having dinner in a restaurant, before Bill whips out a ring and pops the big question. A shocked Sookie runs to the bathroom to think it over, all the while Bill is kidnapped by a shadowy figure using a silver chain as weapon. The scene ends with Sookie standing outside of the restaurant screaming her boyfriend's name. This led to the werewolves/Russell Edgington/Sookie Is Supernatural revelations.

So what big mystery can we expect Ball to wrap us in next?

The title of the season finale is named "Evil's Going On," after the song collaboration between Jace Everett and C.C. Adcock, which makes me think that Ball will leave us not with the typical vampire greed bloodlust angle, although that theme will continue to simmer underneath, but with a hanger directly linked to the black magic and faery powers that have woven their way into the lives of the characters in the last few episodes.

The most recent set-up:

  • Lafayette and Jesus got a psychedelic glimpse at what might be voodoo, or black magic, or evil shaman business while hanging around getting high on V.
  • Arlene hooked up with Holly the Wiccan for a bizarre abortion ritual in the middle of the woods that failed in the end, which makes me really suspicious about that baby of Renee's she's carrying. Is this going to be Rosemary's Baby or the Omen all over again?
  • Sookie's faery powers are quickly becoming central to the Eric-Sookie-Bill love triangle. My prediction is that Eric will not die (of course he won't), and that Sookie will really start to question whether Bill's (and Eric's) desirability for her is solely due to her supernatural abilities.
  • Something creepy is going on with Hoyt Fortenberry's mother and that mousey chick Summer. I can't imagine what their "plan" will be for prying Hoyt away from Jessica.

Honestly, for me, the biggest cliffhanger of all already happened in the last episode with that fantastic Sookie-Eric make-out scene that I still haven't recovered from. What does she really feel for him? Does he love her for her faery blood or for herself? 

In the middle of all this intense, heart-pumping drama, isn't that the one thing we all really want to know?

Tell me how you predict Season 3 will end ...