"True Blood" season finale recap: "Evil is Going On"

Spoilers for this week's episode of "True Blood" below. Don't click through if you don't want to know.

Eh.
That was really not so much, huh?
I mean, don't get me wrong -- this season of "True Blood" has had its moments. There was the explosively bloody death of Lorena; the increased exploration of the relationship between Eric and Pam and, of course, there was Russell's marvelous, spine-ripping intrusion into that newscast.
But, overall, I felt the season three finale of "True Blood" epitomized much of what I didn't like about this season. There was simply too much going on. It would have been enough to simply focus on Russell's fate, and the Eric-Sookie-Bill dynamic. Instead, a bunch of other plot threads were shoe-horned into the finale episode, giving it a fairly messy feel.
We had the continued implosion of Sam Merlotte, who, in the last few episodes, has gone from good guy to complete jerk. I'm really hoping that he didn't shoot Tommy in his final scene. Sam was the one character we could count on to truly be nice and decent. It's fine to give him issues, but I don't want him randomly turning into a villain.
Meanwhile, Tara throws one of her now-famous hissy fits when she learns Sam is a shape-shifter. Sigh. Does it seem to anyone else that Tara just travels around, looking for reasons to be mad? Because shortly after Sam makes this revelation, she goes to see her mother. I repeat -- her MOTHER! The one person who has caused her more pain than anyone else. Sigh. Oh, Tara, I hope your new haircut and your quest to make a new life for yourself are successful. But, mostly, I hope you're in next season as little as possible until this show figures out what to do with you.
Other stories introduced in the finale include Maxine and Summer's attempts to pull Hoyt from Jessica and Lafayette's realization that he's some sort of witch or something. I didn't mind either of these stories, actually, but did we need them?
Wouldn't you have rather seen exactly how Eric managed to get out of the concrete grave Bill left him in? Or how Pam managed to defeat the ill-fated Reuben? Wouldn't you have liked to have seen more cat and mouse between Sookie and Russell? Or seen the revelation about Bill's betrayal of Sookie get a little more weight? Wouldn't you have preferred a little more on Eric's struggle between obeying his maker, who wants Russell to live, and appeasing his own need for revenge?
To me, all that is immensely more interesting than watching another Sam freak-out or being treated to a prolonged scene of Tara bobbing her hair.
And fleshing all that out might have given more emotional heft to the episode's final scene, in which Sookie decides to embrace her fairy brethren, and reaches out to Claudine, as light explodes around them. Wait until Sookie realizes that her new life entails guarding that light from an evil smoke monster, who wishes to extinguish it and destroy humanity and -- wait. It's possible I've confused "True Blood" with another show.
Anyway, here are some more of my thoughts on "Evil is Going On:"
* Oh, I forgot to mention Jason and his new role as leader of the Hotshot inbreds. That was pretty dull, too -- though I do love that he included "serious dental problems" among the many issues faced by the Hotshot community.
* OK, there was one thing about this episode I truly loved -- CinderRussell. Having Russell spend his final scenes this season as a walking, talking pile of ash was both a disgusting idea, and an inspired one. In fact, I loved that whole sequence between Russell and Sookie, in which she realizes that he has some sort of half-baked plan for reviving Talbot. Her maniacal glee when she dumped the bowl of Talbot down the sink was unexpected, but very convincing.
* Wow -- for the ghostly spirit of a powerful vampire, Godric is awfully judge-y, no? Isn't it a little late for him to NOW be worrying about Eric's need for revenge? Where was he when Talbot was killed? In fact, where was he when Eric was formulating this whole plan? Ghosts have, like, the worst timing, right?
* When Sookie saw that fairyland chandelier bursting with light mid-episode, my husband yelled out "ET, phone home!" Couldn't have said it better myself.
* Man, I hope Bill beats the hell out of Sophie-Anne in their vampiric battle to the death. That woman is really getting on my nerves. But I did kind of love her outfit, though it's something only a vamp could pull off.
What did everyone else think of this episode?