True Blood (HBO): Season Two Holy War is Unleashed

There were moments of real horror in the second season of True Blood.

To my mind, it rendered blasé the tired scenes of vampires lunging for the throat with fangs extended. Those things, no matter how realistically portrayed in shows like this, belong to the realm of fiction. The human inspired cruelties do not.

The sight of happy-clappy Christians preaching genocide with a smile brought goose-bumps to my arms. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, as terms like 'race traitor' were hurled, alongside the exhortation that Jesus wanted you to kill. God above had ordained Holy War against the vampiric spawn of Satan. Not only they, but the humans who sympathized with them, had to die in the glory of the Almighty.

True Blood hit very close to the bone with such things. It reminded you how often preachers and priests appear on the television railing against gay marriage. Some of the speeches appeared almost lifted from the similar fire and brimstone sermons supporting racial segregation in the days of Jim Crow.

In Season Two of True Blood, Christianity suddenly felt very evil. The extremists within it were the real monsters here.  It was left to the more quietly spoken prayers of people like Sookie Stackhouse to redeem the religion, and to remind us that Jesus Christ probably wouldn't have advocated anything like this.

And just in case any Pagans, like myself, felt any modicum of smugness over this portrayal, the second major story arc involved us.  What began as hints of dark witchcraft in the woods exploded into orgies of Bacchanalian proportions.  Sex, violence and sacrifice, all coupled with a very blatant metaphor of brain-washed adherents, hammered the message home.

Religion, at its best, can be family. It can provide a sense of belonging in a world where isolation is rife.  It can produce very clear guidelines for your actions, when society exerts so much pressure to get things right.  But at its worst, religion can harbor deadly intolerance and hatred. It can unleash a murderous mob.

We've already seen, in season one, how vampires punish their own miscreants. We've witnessed trials overseen by the Magister, who was trained during the Spanish Inquisition. Now Eric, as Sheriff of Louisiana, demonstrates his horrific approach to humans, who have wronged his vampire community.

The brutality, both implied and open, will sit almost as uncomfortably as the trouble wrought by religion.

It's not just through law and order wherein True Blood reveals more about its vampires. Season two gives us several flashbacks, spanning the centuries, so we discover where Bill and Eric came from.

I cheered at a most unusual aspect here.  Eric is Scandinavian. He was once a Viking warrior. His making did not happen in the American South. It did not even happen in English. Ordinarily shows like this will by-pass details like that by putting it all in English anyway. To me that breaks the fourth wall, though I've become resigned to it over the years.

My life has been on hold these past couple of days.  I sat and watched twelve episodes of True Blood's second season in two days. As each episode is just short of an hour long, that shows how much this series has a hold of my imagination just now.

Still there were a couple of things which annoyed me about it.  Season two has much more romance in it.  It isn't just about Bill and Sookie anymore. There were people falling in love and pairing off everywhere. Which meant many more scenes with dialogue like, 'I love you!' 'No! I love you more!'

I think I preferred the one night stand sex fests from season one. This was all a little too honey-coated for me. Though if Twilight fans can deal with the sex, violence and cussing, then they might like this aspect of True Blood.

The other thing was that Allan Hyde, who played Godric, seemed too wooden for his immense role. He wasn't in the show a great deal, but his appearances denoted moments of great profundity and emotion. I didn't feel that he carried it off.

Otherwise, True Blood still owns my soul. I'm already watching season three.