Of all the lousy parental figures populating Bon Temps, the only one who’d give me more pleasure to eulogize than Melinda and Joe Lee Mickens is Lettie Mae, who’s long overdue for some quality time on the big leather sofa in the sky… Personally, I was hoping for Joe Lee’s ending to be a tad more fitting, like Tommy shifting into a rabid beast and tearing Joe Lee apart before eating him while he was still alive and able to watch, but I can see how that’d be both gruesome and problematic, and I digress. The point here is that Joe Lee and Melinda are no longer with us. We will never hear Melinda whine “Don’t hurt him!” while emotionally enabling someone to do just that and not using her extensive physical strength to prevent it. We will never again see Joe Lee’s saggy, disgustingly yellowed underpants. Who’s up for a rousing chorus of “Hallelujus! Hallelujus!”?

Ignorant and desperate, Joe Lee and Melinda could’ve been interesting and complex characters, but they were too cruel and nothing but trouble from the beginning. (Sam would’ve been better off to let those sleeping dogs lie – pun intended.)  Joe Lee was stupid enough to think that he could overpower and control his shifter-son, but Tommy savagely choked him with his own chain before beating him to death. Melinda, who was the classic abuse victim, tried to save her wretched mate, and Tommy accidentally killed her as well. There’s a wee moral tucked in there, I believe, about how one treats animals, as well as their children. And poor Tommy is legitimately distraught over his mother’s death, which just goes to show how powerful mothers can be, even abusive ones.

Their decomposing bodies allowed for some bonding time between brothers (because what’s a better family-trust building exercise than swapping “I killed two people too” stories and getting rid of murdered parents via marshmallow-loving alligators?), and according to Luna, Tommy will now be able to turn into a “skin-walker” (a shifter who possesses the ability to shift into people). It’s quite possible that Joe Lee and Melinda will be far more fascinating in their deaths than they were while living their pathetic lives. Like pervy Uncle B, whose body was dumped to the same alligators off the same little pier, a peaceful hereafter is too good for these two miserable excuses for human beings.

Posted in Rest In Peace