‘True Blood’ Spoiler: Star Rutina Wesley Talks About What Really Happened With Tara

“True Blood” star Rutina Wesley has opened up about that shocking season seven premiere. The 35-year-old actress, who plays the human-turned-vampire Tara, revealed what really happened to her character.

Spoiler ahead. Don’t read further if you haven’t watched the recent episode yet.

Sunday’s episode kicked off with a bang, with the infected vampires attacking the “normal” vampires and their human pairs at the gathering at Bellefleur’s (formerly Merlotte’s). The infected vampires appear to be much stronger than their uninfected counterparts, and have successfully killed some vampires and taken a few humans in the party.

Tara was unfortunately one of the vampires killed.

Unlike other main characters’ death on the show, Tara’s death was done as swiftly and with as little fanfare as possible. Her actual death wasn’t shown on camera, and Sookie (Anna Paquin) did not even put on a display of histrionics, as expected from Tara’s best friend since childhood.

Perhaps Sookie was just still in shock over her death.

Apart from Tara’s mum Lettie Mae (Adina Porter), Sookie’s brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) and perpetual teen vampire Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), the rest of the Bon Temps residents and Tara’s friends did not seem overly emotional over the tragedy.

Then a few moments later after drinking vampire Willa’s (Amelia Rose Blaire) blood to heal, Lettie Mae suddenly had a vision, claiming Tara was still alive and was calling out to her.

So what gives? Is Tara really dead?

“She’s dead. But I can tease that dead doesn’t always mean gone on True Blood,” Wesley coyly told Entertainment Weekly in an interview.

The actress said that she has known about her character’s fate during the hiatus of the show.

“I think it’s great. I think somebody had to go. To have a main character right off the bat go, that’s gonna bring everybody into the show. It’s like, ‘Okay, and the show has started,’” she said.

“It’s kind of like the catalyst for everything else that’s gonna probably happen – I don’t know what’s gonna happen, because I didn’t read anything else because I want to be surprised. I think it’s kinda cool that the last time you see me, it looks like I’m gonna win the fight, and then you cut to Lettie Mae. Me and that vampire went at it, and unfortunately, he wins.”

Wesley has no hard feelings about what happened to Tara, saying she understands why she had to die.

“They’ve given me such an incredible journey on this show that I’ve never had any complaints about what they’ve written for me. So when I found out, I was just like, ‘Okay, great. Let’s get it started. This is the final season. We can’t all make it to the end.’

“You wouldn’t have a show. There wouldn’t be any drama. It wouldn’t be True Blood if somebody didn’t die.”

Series composer Nathan Barr recently revealed that they are considering “True Blood: The Musical” after the series ends.

If the proposal comes to fruition, Wesley already have songs in mind that Tara can sing in the show.

“So there was this song called ‘Runaway Slave’ by Stic.man and Young Noble. It’s a rap song, hardcore. It just reminded me of her, because she has so much fire with people,” she continued to EW.

“Lil Wayne was definitely in my ear a lot because he’s passionate, and I felt like I could get into the zone of Tara when I would listen to him, especially when I had to shoot a scene when she was on fire and angry. [Laughs] And I listened to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie. Like, for example, the hospital scene when Sookie was in the coma, and we were all around her bed – I think it was ‘Your New Twin-Sized Bed.’”

“True Blood” final season contains ten episode.