He started out as the gentleman vampire who managed to woo the residents of Bon Temps with his too-good-to-be-believed ways. But now, Bill Compton is a changed man -- and it's not a change for the better.
Last season, Bill chugged the last drops of Lilith's blood -- otherwise known as the holy juice that made all of those Authority-seizing Sanguinistas loopy -- and it transformed the 175-year-old vamp. First he turned into a puddle of goo, then he turned into Billith.
If previews for the new season are anything to go by, he's about to turn into a something else too: a massive jerk with even more superpowers than he had before.
That's why it's time to kill Bill -- or Billith. Whatever.
The truth is Bill's been a jerk for a while. The evolution of "True Blood's" leading man started long before he ever imbibed the ancient proto-vampire. Sure, back in the first season he was charmer, and it was easy to see why Sookie Stackhouse fell for him. And in the second season, he was still a protector and a more-or-less loyal BF.
It was in season three when Bill's glamour first started to wear off. After his proposal to Bon Temps best bad waitress went awry (granted, through no fault of his own), Bill lost his dark-knight-in-shining-armor vibe. Maybe it was that brutal bit of cheating he did with his maker, Lorena. Or maybe it was the way he -- oops! -- nearly drained Sookie to death. Or just maybe it had something to do with the fact that he had a big bad ulterior motive behind why he ever got together with her in the first place. (Mmm, fairy blood.)
Whatever it was, no one could blame Sookie for breaking it off and turning to the Viking-vamp arms of Eric Northman in season four. Besides, by then Bill had offed the Queen of Louisiana and turned into a politician who worried about public image more than personal relationships.
So by the time he started his slip into the dark side of vampire fundamentalism in season five, the idea of killing Bill just didn't seem so bad.
Now? As season six approaches, it seems necessary.
But the question is: Would the "True Blood" powers-that-be actually consider killing Bill? After all, this isn't HBO's other dark and deadly hit, "Game of Thrones," where no major character is safe.
And, yet, the answer is "maybe."
"One of our principal characters will not make it all the way through the season," new showrunner Brian Buckner recently told Rolling Stone without divulging more about the doomed character's identity.
So take heart, Truebies. And watch out, Billith!