At the end of the July 6 episode of “True Blood” — major spoiler alert — fan-favorite character Alcide was killed very abruptly and with little fanfare, when an unnamed, overall unimportant Bon Temps resident shot him, essentially for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was dead within seconds, and while his demise certainly isn’t a huge surprise given the brutal reality of the show’s final season, it was surprising to see such a beloved character meet such a “shrug” fate.
Alcide’s army of fans are undoubtedly hurting, though nobody has had more to say about the character’s death than the actor who played him, Joe Manganiello. Manganiello gave multiple interviews about Alcide’s fate to several outlets, but one particular sentiment kept popping up in all of the conversations. We’ll leave it to you to figure out what that is, but here are some of our favorite recurring themes from Manganiello’s exit interviews:
On Alcide’s Importance (Or Lack Thereof)
From Entertainment Weekly:
“And if you’re looking for characters to kill, it’s not like any other characters are gonna cry for Alcide because nobody knew him. [Laughs] The only one I interacted with in five years was Sam. There was a bunch of werewolf characters that we never got into. He was pack master for, like, a day-and-a-half. [Laughs] So it’s the perfect character to kill off.”
From TVLine:
“I disagree with you [about Alcide being important], but I think it’s very nice of you to say that. I don’t think I had anything to do with the show.”
From E! Online:
“It’s an expendable character; he doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the plot. I didn’t really ever act with anybody in the regular cast for the last few years, so you know, it’s sad, but none of the characters are going to miss me other than Sookie.”
On The Fanfare Surrounding His Death (Or Lack Thereof)
From Entertainment Weekly:
“I’m glad it wasn’t a vampire, ’cause I think that might have been emasculating. He hates vampires so much, then he gets taken out by one of them? Is it better to get taken out by a nameless hillbilly? I don’t know. [Laughs] I don’t know what to say.”
From E! Online:
“Being killed by a character whose name I can’t even remember? I mean, awesome. [Laughs.] I’m trying to be diplomatic here… I don’t know, sad. Sad is probably the safest word I can say.”
From TVLine:
“Yeah, I guess there’s a part of me [that wanted a ‘more epic’ death]. I just died naked in the woods, killed by some random hillbilly. Then again, I’m glad one of the vampires didn’t do it, because you don’t want any of them having bragging rights moving forward. It would have been great if I’d gotten to kill 40 people on the way to my death; that’s how I would have wanted to go. But I understand we were pressed for time.”
On His Regrets
From TVLine:
“I was also sad that Robert Patrick [who played Alcide’s father] and I never got into any kind of depth with our storyline, showing why the two of them didn’t get along. [The producers] had something planned for us, but unfortunately, it was one of the casualties of the showrunner switch of Season 6. My storyline was completely… I mean, there was no storyline. It was just gone. All of a sudden, I was just beating up a bunch of girls. It was weird. I was like, ‘Come on, man, Rocky is going to beat up Adrian now?’ I don’t know what was going on there. There was this really textured, interesting relationship in those last scenes with Robert Patrick that were killed. We even shot some of them, but they were junked in order to make this ‘Alcide is an a—hole’ storyline. It was odd. Comic-Con was weird that year, too. The fans were confused, and I was confused, too. I didn’t know why that was happening either, but obviously there was a situation going on higher up the ladder that we all had to bare with.”
From E! Online:
I think it would’ve been interesting if they stuck to the books where Sookie helps Alcide become packmaster… I think an exploration of his powers would’ve been interesting, smell-tracking, his strength, thinks like that. I don’t know, it’s a vampire show and I’m a werewolf, what are you going to do?
On His Desire To Keep Up With The Rest Of The Series
From Entertainment Weekly:
“They sent [scripts] to me. I’m still on the mailing list. So I read [episodes] nine and 10, out of curiosity.”
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