‘True Blood’ season 7, episode 3 reaction: Joe Manganiello saw shocking story coming

Maybe when you are an actor on a TV show, especially one that deals with death as often as “True Blood,” you develop some sort of sixth sense over time that allows you to figure out when some changes are coming your way.

Regardless of whatever the reasoning may have been, Joe Manganiello was seemingly able to figure out the fact that his character of Alcide was going to be meeting his end reasonably early on during season 7. Speaking to TVLine after the episode aired last night, the actor explained that Alcide’s end is something that he has seen coming down the pipe for a rather long time:

“Honestly, I called it as soon as I read the finale last season. [Laughs] There was no way they could keep him around. Sookie has to settle things with the vampire guys, and you can’t have Sookie break Alcide’s heart because then the audience isn’t going to side with her or identify with her. … On a show like this, where you’re looking for vital characters to kill off, you’ve got to take out Alcide. There’s no one that’s going to be upset that he’s dead, except Sookie — and maybe Sam. Those are the only people he’s interacted with ever. He got separated from the herd.”

Manganiello was surprisingly honest, and at times brutally so, throughout this interview. He explained that he didn’t feel part of the show during part of season 6, which makes some sense given that he was separated from most of the cast. We can understand if he feels a little bit marginalized thanks to that, and we even said in our own post-mortem on the character last night that Alcide never quite lived up to the hype as a character, mostly because the writers spent a good two years unsure of what to do with him. They mostly just kept him around because of Manganiello’s name and fan following.

Do you wish that Alcide at least got a more interesting death, or lasted longer in the season? Share your thoughts below.