'True Blood' Premiere Brings Shocking Death of Major Character

What just happened on the "True Blood" season seven premiere? Did we just lose a major character?

Spoilers ahead!

The first episode of the final season of "True Blood" wasted no time getting to the action. The little human/vampire mixer turned south fast when the Hep-V infected vampires showed up and started attacking humans and vampires alike.

When the dust settled, it turned out that Arlene, Holly and Nicole were all taken away. But then, the big shocker: Sookie walks through the aftermath of the carnage and finds Lettie Mae, Tara's mom, holding Tara's remains and wailing that her daughter was dead.

So is Tara really gone this time? She's died on us once before, but came back as a vampire, so the show has a history of messing with us as far as Tara goes. Plus, we never actually saw Tara explode into a puddle of blood, so for all we know she could've killed the vampire she was fighting with and then run off, and Lettie Mae only thinks she saw what she saw.

But, Tara's character doesn't serve much of a purpose, or really have much of a place, with Pam gone. And, as it turns out, her death further alienates Sookie from the rest of the town, especially Lettie Mae, so perhaps Tara's death was a necessary evil.

However, if Tara, who was with us since the very first episode of the very first season, was to meet her True Death, you would think that we would have seen it happen. Right? That's a major character we're talking about!

The rest of the episode didn't feature many clues either way: Pam's in Morocco and there's still no sign of Eric; Jessica was left to defend Adilyn and seems to have her urges under control for now; and Sookie and Alcide had a small fight after she read his thoughts, but they seem okay now.

The good thing is, this episode seems to set up a solid season of "True Blood." The action is almost entirely focused on Bon Temps, and there's a very manageable number of characters and storylines. Gone, it seems, are the muddled seasons of off-the-rail plots. Just in time for the end.