Eclipsing even last summer's BBQ bacchanal involving an ancient spirit, the new season feels like one big undead sex party-a kinky alternate lifestyle where vampires and monsters do the nasty (and other violent acts) in roadhouses, backrooms, backwoods and the occasional antebellum mansion.
For all the politics, though, what True Blood reveals most consistently is that Arlene is right: all of them—vampire, human, and were—are enslaved in one way or another, by appetites, gifts, power, and family (or pack) bonds, intimating an uneasy commonality across races.
Many viewers probably come to True Blood for the thrills and the romance but it's the humor that allows the show to rise a step above similar TV fare even as it falls short of HBO's loftier efforts.
That for those of you who love True Blood for its soapy mix of sex and horror--and occasional flashes of humor--nothing important is missing from the three episodes I've seen of the new season.