  New teen vampire Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) chokes down some yucky synthetic blood at the insistence of her 2/3's-dad Bill (Stephen Moyer) in the darkly excellent series True Blood. |
Damn teenagers. Rebellious, ungrateful, moody, manipulative little cretins.
And if they're vampires, too? Well, that really sucks.
This is what new vampire "dad" Bill Compton, played by Stephen Moyer, faces as the second season of True Blood gets under way.
We definitely are big fans of this series, but having seen the first episode of the new campaign -- which airs tonight on HBO Canada -- we would offer this piece of advice to other devotees: Don't go in cold, so to speak.
What we mean by that is, a lot had happened, and there still was a lot happening, when the first season wrapped up last November. You'll enjoy the Season 2 debut more if you re-familiarize yourself with those earlier goings-on.
The second season does not waste any time jumping right into things. We actually had to watch the first episode of the new season twice, as the occurrences of the first season clicked back into our head.
Now, this isn't to say that if you haven't watched True Blood before you'll never be able to pick it up mid-stream.
A couple that we know relayed the tale of how the wife had been watching the first season of True Blood, but the husband -- who doesn't tend to like "that sort of thing" -- was not. But at one point the husband sat down and watched an episode, and at the end of it he said to his wife, "You've been watching this all season and you never told me about it? This has sex in it!"
Indeed it does. And lots of other stuff, too.
So you'll enjoy the ride regardless of your True Blood prowess, but we're just saying, if you can get up to speed before diving into the second season, then do it.
True Blood, which is based on a series of novels by Charlaine Harris, stars Canadian-born Anna Paquin as telepathic Southern waitress Sookie Stackhouse. True Blood exists in a world where vampires have been "outed" and are co-existing with humans in an arrangement that largely is uncomfortable for both sides.
Sookie is one of the humans who is open-minded about vampires, to the point that she has taken one for a boyfriend. That would be the aforementioned Bill, 173 years young.
Late in the first season, as an act of atonement for destroying a fellow vampire who was threatening Sookie, Bill was forced to "create" a new vampire. Enter the dangerously bratty Jessica, age 17, played deliciously by Deborah Ann Woll.The Jessica storyline is one of the main things we're looking forward to as the second season of True Blood progresses. By no means is True Blood a comedy in the wider sense, but Jessica's relationship with her "dad" clearly has endless comedic possibilities.
For example, Bill observes Jessica's attire and says he doesn't want her dressing like a "lady of the evening." Jessica -- clearly thrilled by the comparison -- exclaims, "Awesome!"
Oh, those lippy, promiscuous, out-of-control, underage teens. If they aren't drinking beer, they're drinking blood.
