True Blood: We've Seen The Season Premiere - Does It Suck?

Vampire Bill has been kidnapped!

This was the cliffhanger we were left on, at the end of last season of True Blood. And in true form to the show, we pick up mere seconds after the end of the last episode, with Sookie rushing around, desperately trying to find where Bill has gone.

Since we’ve already seen the premiere episode, and it doesn’t broadcast on HBO until Sunday night, we’re going to tread lightly on spoilers here. But let’s talk about what goes right in the season premiere, and what goes wrong.

The good news for fans of True Blood is that Season Three doesn’t miss a beat from seasons one and two. Having rewatched the first two seasons to prep for this third one, it honestly felt like I was just watching the next episode of the show. The bad news for new viewers is that this episode would be nearly impenetrable to watch blind (unless, of course, you had some sort of handy feature to get you all caught up).

There is something impressive and ballsy about a show that just goes with it, assuming you’ve watched every episode before, and intimately know every character relationship and plot point. But at the same time, even having watched the first two seasons recently, I would have appreciated a little bit of a clean slate to start with.

And this, I think, gets to the biggest problem with Season Three, so far, and I’m going to particularly tread lightly with spoilers here. Each season of True Blood, so far, has had an over-arching mystery. Season one opened with the death of Maudette Pickens, a fang-banger, who turned out to be just the first of many murders. The second season opened with the literally heartless body of fake witchy woman Miss Jeanette, and again, followed this thread throughout the season – for better or for worse. Here, we’ve got the mystery of who took Vampire Bill... And it’s kind of solved immediately.

I’m sure there’s going to be more twists and turns here. In the first episode at least, its not 100% clear what the motivation is for Bill’s kidnappers – but given that the “mystery” is focused on a main character, we need to know what happened to him ASAP, and we do find out, and it deflates a lot of the tension.

That said, there’s a few other good things about this episode. The humor is all there, I laughed out loud several times during the premiere. More Eric is always a good thing, and we do get to, let’s say, see a lot more of him in this episode. And Jessica’s storyline, dealing with the ramifications of attacking a trucker at the end of last season continue to explore what it means to be a new vampire in fascinating ways. Deborah Ann Woll continues to knock it out of the park, and I can’t wait to see where they take her over the course of this season.

The biggest surprise, though? Sookie isn’t a dumbie. I don’t know if this will stick, but Sookie has always been painted as good hearted and well meaning, but often using her telepathic powers as an easy crutch to solve mysteries. But after the events of the past two seasons – or perhaps because its her sweetie Bill who has been stolen – Sookie’s wised up. She puts clues together, takes action, and starts kicking some serious butt. Who knows if it will continue – but for now, I like it.

Oh, one last thing: for all the non-stop orgies of last season, True Blood became surprisingly chaste, mostly having scenes that wouldn’t be out of place on network TV. Well, guess what, fangbangers? The butts are back. There’s a ton of nudity, nasty vampire sex, and what I think is best described as “bloodballing.” Look up snowballing, and you’ll probably figure out what I mean. Yeah, it’s pretty gross.

So what do you think, Blood fans – excited for the season premiere?