The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

An article about True Blood on Variety.com sums up what we can expect from the new season.

‘The second season of “True Blood” goes down smooth, representing a perfect summer concoction — long on soapy romance, macabre intrigue, and graphic bursts of sex and violence. HBO’s stab at playing to a cult audience has turned out to be perfectly timed for the pay channel, offering a lighter counterweight to the emotionally darker dramas airing elsewhere. And while the vampires-as-downtrodden-minority gay metaphor continues to resonate throughout these early episodes, exec producer Alan Ball and company have firmly established their alternate universe as its own engrossing (and occasionally gross) little world.

Cast additions that came onboard as season one progressed have also shot adrenaline through “Blood’s” veins, though the central story remains the same: The different-worlds romance between Sookie (Anna Paquin), who has the psychic ability to hear people’s thoughts; and Bill (Stephen Moyer), the vampire born during the Civil War era for whom she has madly fallen, and vice versa.

Their relationship is complicated, however — and that qualifies as an enormous understatement — by sundry outside forces, including the regional vampire leader Eric (Alexander Skarsgard), who covets Sookie’s powers; and the teenage Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), who Bill was compelled to transform into a vampire. The latter yields darkly comic results, inasmuch as petulant youth and a thirst for blood are a potentially combustible mix.

Meanwhile (and there are a lot of meanwhiles), Sookie’s friend Tara (Rutina Wesley) continues to fall under the spell of the mysterious Maryann (Michelle Forbes), adding a spooky “Rosemary’s Baby”-type undercurrent to the proceedings; and Sookie’s dimwitted brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) experiences a religious awakening, enlisting in the vampire-hating Light of Day Institute.

In short, there’s a helluva lot going on, and the assorted subplots feel more compelling this season, including the constant sense of menace surrounding both Eric and Maryann. Moreover, the religious overtones of the Jason storyline should irritate the religious right (just to drive home the parallel, a sign in the credits says “God Hates Fangs”), whose intolerance toward gays has been superimposed onto the undead. “They live forever, but we were here first!” the group’s acolytes cheerfully sing on the bus to their religious retreat.

Without spoiling anything, there is also a scene in the second hour (four were made available) that might be as grotesque as anything ever produced for television. In fact, I’m feeling a little nauseous now just thinking about it, which I realize, for some, will in and of itself provide a strong inducement to watch.’

The part that is really interesting is of course the scene in the second episode that is described as “grotesque”. The teeth pulling episode last year made my stomach cringe (in a good way, that’s why I watch a vampire show), I wonder oh I wonder what this could be?

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