'True Blood' Season 6 Spoilers: How Did Episode 9, 'Life Matters,' Set Up The Season Finale? [RECAP]

Episode nine of “True Blood’s” sixth season was probably the most moving episode all season. With only two episodes remaining, “Life Matters” picked up with Bill and Sookie finding Warlow nearly drained of blood thanks to Eric.

Warlow’s Revival

Although Warlow's barely “alive,” Bill still wants Sookie to hand him over. But Sookie isn't budging. “Eric took our deal and f-cked it in the a--,” she yells at Bill while cradling Warlow.

Feeding him some of her blood to revive him, Bill doesn’t “give a sh-t” what kind of shape Warlow's in. Grabbing the vampire faerie from Sookie, Bill still plans on taking Warlow to the vampire camp; however, he can’t figure out how to leave the faerie world. Sookie takes advantage of Bill’s ill knowledge and uses her light to blast him back to Earth.

Terry’s Funeral

With Warlow healing and Bill unable to touch him, Sookie makes plans to head back for Terry’s funeral. But before she leaves, Sookie reassures Warlow that she's still prepared to be his. Terry’s funeral invoked more tears than his death earlier this season. Through flashbacks, Terry’s friends and family reminisce about the good times they had with him and how far he came after returning from the war. Andy speaks first, telling the crowd about how the two of them used to spend time in the woods at their handmade “Fort Bellefleur.” When Terry returned from war, he hid at their old hangout, to scared to try and mesh back in with society. It was only after Andy enlisted the help of Sam (and a six-pack of Raging B-tch beer) that Terry started letting people back into his life.

Fishing and throwing back a couple of beers with Andy and Sam, Terry showed his true colors when he caught a catfish. “Every life matters,” he told Andy, making his cousin throw the fish back in the water.

Sam reveals that he offered Terry a job that day, but Terry was afraid that it wouldn’t work out. Sam reassured him that he’d be fine, and that’s how Terry ended up working in the kitchen at Merlotte’s.

Lafayette picked up with the memories, reminiscing about one of Terry’s first days in the kitchen. Turns out that Terry was terrified that day and asked Lafayette for help, telling him that he wanted to be good at this job. “I was looking straight into his soul,” Lafayette told the funeral attendees, explaining how he took Terry under his wings.

With Lafayette done talking, Arlene’s up to pay her last respects, but Sookie overhears her thinking that she’s not ready to say goodbye. Giving Arlene a couple extra moments, Sookie stands up and tells everyone that she’s a telepath, and that her ability allowed her to hear Terry’s first thoughts about Arlene.

When Terry first saw Arlene at work, he thought in his head that she was “the prettiest woman I’ve ever saw” and that it “makes coming out of the woods not so scary.”

“He loved you since the second you walked into his life and not too many people can say they were loved like that,” Sookie tells Arlene. “But you can … you deserve to know that.”

With enough courage to say goodbye, Arlene stands up and talks about how Terry calmed her down after she gave birth to Mikey. The funeral ends with Big John Dixon singing “Life Matters,” and the Marines giving Terry a gun salute. And while Arlene was initially against the guns at Terry’s funeral, in the end she thinks it’s something that her deceased husband would've liked.

Eric And Bill’s Vampire Journey

With a head start on Bill, Eric returns to the vampire camp to wreak some havoc and free Willa and Pam. Slaughtering the guards outside, Eric rips off a couple of their limbs so that he can gain access to the inside. Once inside, his first order of business is seeking revenge for Nora through Dr. Overlark, the man who injected her with Hep V. In probably the goriest moment all season, Eric decides to punish him with a slow painful death (like the one that Nora suffered). The Viking vampire rips off Overlark’s penis and throws it across the room, leaving him to bleed to death.

Moving on, Eric frees the vampires in their cellblocks, allowing them to roam the halls and torture the humans that once tortured them. Going into the female general population room, Eric finds a bloody Jason who became vampire dinner after Violet, Pam, Tara and Jessica were taken away. Asking him if he’s done spouting hateful words toward vampires, and if he knows his way around, Eric heals Jason and they continue their search for Pam and the others.

Meanwhile, Bill's hot on Eric’s trail. Stumbling across a slowly dying Overlark, Bill learns which way Eric went and gets asked a favor of the mutilated doctor – to kill him to put him out of his misery. Bill asks Overlark if he ever tortured Jessica, and when the doctor says "yes" Bill agrees to kill him. “I will be happy to kill you, you f-ckin cockroach,” he says before stepping on Overlark’s head.

Eric and Jason find Pam’s therapist being tortured by some vampires, but Eric gets him alone. “You should have asked how you were going to die so you could prepare yourself,” he tells the doctor. But he tells Eric that he really doesn’t care because he’s “going to die a happy man.” He then reveals that he had se with Pam. Eric rips out the therapist’s protective contacts in order to glamour him and learns that in return for sex, Pam made a deal for her release from solitary. Instead of killing the doctor, Eric tells him that he’s going to allow Pam to do it because she “earned the right.”

Moving towards the circular room, Eric and Jason are stalled one more time … by a scream. “I know that scream,” Eric says, opening up a door. “Hello, Ginger.” Standing in front of him is the poor terrified former Fangtasia worker. “Well if it isn’t my night in shining armor,” she says as she joins Eric and Jason.

With Eric, Bill and the rest of the crazed vampires on the loose, Sarah Newlin finds herself hiding under the dead bodies of her former vampire camp co-workers. Finding a moment to flee, Sarah manages to make it outside where she recited the Bible while climbing the stairs of the circular white room.

Manually cranking the ceiling open, Sarah Newlin yells “DIE F*CKERS!” … but is shocked to find the vampires alive … and not burning. Turns out that Bill finally realized he could save the vampires with the amount of blood he ingested from Warlow. He had found his way into the room to let Jessica and (most) of the others feed – unfortunately one of them didn’t get his blood.

So, who was the unlucky vampire? None other than the little rat Steve Newlin. “Scooch,” he yelled, trying to make his way to Bill as Sarah slowly opened the ceiling. “My turn … please let me in … please ya’ll, I don’t want to die!”

Attempting to escape when the door to the room opens, Eric stops him and brings him towards the daylight. “Why?” Steve asks. “What did I do?” Despite Bill telling Eric to let Steve drink, Eric tells Steve that every time he’s lost someone he’s been there. “I was weak, I won’t be in the future,” Steve pleads, but Eric will have none of it.

Bursting into flames, Steve looks up at his ex-wife Sarah and yells his last words: “I love you … Jason Stackhouse!”

Post-Circular Room

Realizing that none of the vampires are dying, Sarah Newlin goes on the run. Jason chases after her, tackling the religious blonde to the ground. Jason holds a gun to Sarah's head while she pleads for her life. God will punish him if he kills her, she says. But Jason has his own thoughts on killing her, telling her that Jesus told him that she deserves to die. “What’s that big J?” Jason pretends to ask Jesus. “Yeah, I’ll tell her … you’re an average f-ckin’ lay.” But when push comes to shove, Jason sets Sarah free, not wanting to get any more blood on his hands.

As Sarah flees the camp, Eric lets Pam kill the therapist and all the vampires dance in circles in the sunlight. Unfortunately for Bill, the vampires he saved are too high on his blood to realize (or care) that he’s been almost drained of his blood. Lying motionless on the floor, Bill’s visited by multiple naked bloody bodies, all telling him that his time on Earth is over. Refusing to go anywhere, Bill calls for Jessica, who's outside smashing the Hep V poisoned TruBlood bottles with the others.

Realizing that she left Bill behind, she heads back inside to find him near the true death. “They’re coming for me,” Bill tells his progeny. Unsure of what to do, James comes up with the idea to get Bill to try and drink some of their blood since they drank his. Fortunately, James’ plan works and the three of them walk out into the daylight.

Episode nine, “Life Matters,” ends with Eric abandoning Pam and flying off into the sky and vampires in Honolulu unknowingly stealing a whole delivery of poisoned TruBlood.

What did you think of episode nine of “True Blood?” Let us know your thoughts on “Life Matters” in the comments section.