It seems like marketing a goofy, puberty-drenched take on vampires and the supernatural is a foolproof way to snatch money away from teenagers, just the same as purity rings, singing mod douchebag triplets, and glorified prostitots barking out psuedo-country hooks is a surefire way to snatch cash from the parents of tweens. Thank God the adults who can’t get laid, have too many feelings, or just savor the ridiculous have a show like True Blood.

I swear to God, I needed this show like five years ago. Hell, five months ago would’ve been satisfactory enough.

One by one I’ve found my IRL friends and those I seem to only know and kinda sorta respect online fall victim to this show’s charms. Sometimes it’s via Facebook status updates or the tweets of twits. Sometimes it’s on tumblr. Once in a an email a friend of mine explained to me that her life wasn’t a divide between TEAM JACOB and TEAM EDWARD but between TEAM BILL and TEAM ERIC. “I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about and I don’t care to quantify it with a response,” I curtly said.

Then, like three months ago, I watched the pilot to True Blood on Surf The Channel. Ehhhh, you know? Not horrible, just… unspectacular. I wasn’t quite sure what the fuss was.

Then something like two weeks ago, the most shocking thing ever happened: Benjamin Light told me he was dabbling in the show and enjoying it quite a bit. I was flabbergasted. My mind was blown. There were cerebral puddles in my palace of weird and I couldn’t believe. You’ve seen Light’s reaction to things here on this site and let me just sum it up for you, if you haven’t: If Benjamin Light doesn’t like something… that’s fine. In fact, it’s normal. But if he does like something, take note. And more often than not, he’s dead on in his take of pop culture. Well, sometimes.

But for him to say this show had a certain kind of merit, I just knew I had to check it out. I mentioned this to Conrad Noir probably the next day and the conversation went like this…

Marco: I think I’m going to check out True Blood and, you know, see if it’s worth a damn.

Conrad Noir: Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t you be writing that in your moleskin next to some Bright Eyes lyrics, or maybe passing it along to your guild in a WoW sex dungeon?

Marco: FUCK YOU!

Fast forward to now. Thanks to the beauty of the internet (and God Bless You, Surf The Channel, I hope that Ye Shall Inherit The Earth), I’m just shy of being halfway through season two. The season two finale airs tonight on HBO. I wont’ be caught up in time (there’s always Mad Men for those of us who are apostles of basic cable and hoi polloi entertainment), but I tremble with excitement.

For those of you who don’t even have a passing knowledge of the show, I’ll give you a brief primer: The show is set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, not far out of Shreveport. It’s just two years after the Japanese have concocted a synthetic blood drink called TruBlood (that comes in a wide variety of flavors, just as O positive, B positive, B negative, etc.), which has allowed vampires “come out of the coffin” and reveal themselves to the world not as creatures of myth, but real things that do indeed go bump in the night.

The show primarily follows young Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress at Merlotte’s bar and grill, and who’s just a wee bit telepathic. In fact, life is hard for Sookie, constantly having to force out the very humanly disgusting thoughts of and images she gets from the minds of those around her. And then comes to town and into her world one Mr. Bill Compton, former resident of the town from long ago and a Civil War veteran. Also, he’s a vampire. And for Sookie, it’s practically love at first stake sight. Especially since she can’t hear his thoughts. Bill, you see, is the first man she can actually relax and be herself around.

And, infused into the show thanks to it being based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries book series by Charlaine Harris, there’s mystery at every turn. There’s a serial killer on the loose in Bon Temps, and he/she/it is killing every fangbanger, or woman/man who has engaged in a little undead loving.

That’s the show on the surface. And on the surface, it rightfully so doesn’t sound that great, I know. But as Bret Easton Ellis and U2 always did say, We’ll slide down the surface of things!

Within the premise listed above the show gives us both high dramedy and juicy soap opera-ness, but also a striking study of just the fictional vampire culture in general. And the how the humans relate to this brave new world with darkness all around them. Especially as the first season survives it’s first half when the quest for Sookie to enter womanhood and find and both become a lover slows down a little.

A few days ago I was talking to Light about the end of season 1, and how easily the identity of the killer can be guessed (sample slightly spoilerific clues: 1. He pretends to be Cajun, which, sorry Gambit and Acadian fans, but ehhhh, and 2. Even when he’s being nice and gentlemanly, he’s a littel too forceful, too angry, and 3. He fakes a flat tire to stage a proposal to his girlfriend, which just turns out creepy, and 4. his fiance later tells her girlfriends that he’s “really good to the kids,” which on any other show would just scream out AMBER ALERT! AMBER ALERT!), and we touched upon very much this show is almost like a spiritual successor to Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Initially Buffy had a simple premise: One girl in all the world, a natural brunette turned blonde, imbued with special powers and chose to take on the menace of vampires and demons and supernatural evil in the world. But as the girl grew up into that world, she discovered that there was both humanity in the darkness, and darkness within her own humanity. She wasn’t just fighting the bad supernatural forces out there, she was also integrating the good aspects of it (and also the bad) into her and her friend’s lives. But more importantly, what made Buffy better than it’s title or it’s premise was a torch that Alan Ball (of Six Feet Under and American Beauty fame) has nicely picked up from Joss Whedon’s storytelling: that special combination of the spectacular with the banal.

Eric, Sookie, and Bill.

But True Blood is like the alternate world version of Buffy, or, if you will, the fan fiction sequel. Imagine if Buffy Summers had given up the duties of being a “vampire slayer” when synthetic blood beverages came out, and retired to a quiet life of being a waitress, having hot raunchy sex, and solving the occasional mystery. And then more hot raunchy sex. True Blood is essentially that and the very adult path that Buffy was slowly morphing into as it neared it’s end, just melted down into a silver bullet and fired into the heart of the television viewer.

And let’s face it, the hot blonde girl who can hear the thoughts of others dating the undead vampiric bad boy whose thoughts don’t ring out through her skull? It’s “Earshot” from Buffy all the way. Hacks just steal, but as True Blood and Alan Ball know perfectly, real artists steal from the best.

Some particular items of interest…

The setting. Bon Temps, Louisiana is, as all of us non-Southerners (and proud) already think, a microcosm for how things are done in the South. And, if you live in the South, let me let you in on what non-Southerners think of your playground: You all have domesticated retard accents and live in a part of the world that thinks it’s still 50 years ago. Also, you’re all dumb as bricks and isn’t Jamie Lynn Spears the vampire Queen of Louisiana? Now, let the intelligent discourse with the rest of America begin!

But seriously, all of that and more is why the setting of True Blood works so brilliantly. This show couldn’t survive in a New York setting and while it probably could survive in a place like California, it’d be a different beast all together. And the surface of things it’d slide down would probably be a Bret Easton Ellis vehicle (starring Amber Heard!).

Sookie Stackhouse. Someone once told me that your ultimate main protagonist for a multi-character piece should be primarily a cipher with only the occasional flashes of personality. Anna Paquin accomplishes such a task both gracefully and, at times, elegantly. Also with quite a bit of nudity. In fact, the whole show is just filthy with dirty sex, a point I can’t stress nearly enough.

Bill Compton. Sookie’s undead lover and neighbor, and Paquin’s real life fiance. Even though Bill, played Stephen Moyer, has a very creepy and mean look on his face most of the time, in reality, he’s actually fantastically emo. And not even in a brooding David Boreanaz/Angel kind of way, but more in a mopey and dopey and kind of way. If Sookie could hear Bill’s thoughts, it’d probably be him muttering, “I do not know what I’m doing” and “Boy, I feel stupid right now” over and over again, just in a silly accent.

Eric Northman, played by Stellan Skarsgard’s son, and Vampire Sheriff of “Area Five” and the owner/manager of the vampire bar Fangtasia in Shreveport (and sooner or later, bound to reveal an affection for Sookie a la Spike from Buffy). I’ll say that again: Fangtasia. The place looks like a Disneyfied Vampire McMuseum crossbred with a S&M parlor. As Bill tells us early in season 1, when referring to the bar’s name, in vampire culture, puns are considered the highest form of sophisticated humor. I told you that vampire culture was amazing! Speaking of which…

Music. The show’s musical selections work nicely, mixing the typical bar band bullshit that’s appropriate setting with an effective score (I really like the misguided love theme/Let’s Get High! score for Jason and Amy). Each episode typically gets it’s title from whatever song is playing towards the end of it, but more importantly, when it comes to the vampires, I love that they all seem to have the worst taste in music. Bill, especially, who seems to listen to weird world music, including one scene where his driving music with Sookie is bad Norwegian throat gargle pop. And Eric likes to take baths while listening to old Swedish love songs.

Vampire blood, or V-Juice. When a human is injured, drinking the blood of a vampire can provide nearly instantaneous healing properties. It’ll also drastically increase your senses, your libido, and send you briefly sailing into a fantasy world of hallucinations. So, of course, it makes a wonderful drug.

Sam Merlotte, owner of Merlotte’s, and Sookie’s boss and the holder of a mostly unrequited crush on our heroine. Sam has a secret he only reluctantly reveals to Sookie towards the end of the first season: He’s a shapeshifter, capable of copying just about any animal he can see, but he prefers dogs, mostly because “everyone likes dogs.” Personally, I don’t think you can trust a guy named Sam because they’re typically shifty geeks, but this one’s alright. He’s also briefly secretly fucking…

Tara Thornton, Sookie’s best friend since they were kids. Tara’s the kind of girl that’d rather not let anyone get close and in doing that, she tends to let her mouth run away from her. She bounces from relationship to relationship and job to job, the only constant in her life being her friendship with Sookie and the idea that she’s fucked up and always will. Briefly finds a little bit of inner peace when she undergoes an exorcism involving ipecac and peyote and knifes a fantasty version of herself as a little girl to death. Then finds another brief bout of inner peace when hooking up with the mysterious Maryann.

Lafayette. Lafayette is easily one of my top favorite characters on this show, a man who’s into everything and almost everyone and too often seems too smart for the rest of this show. Lafayette works at Merlotte’s at night as a short order cook, works on a maintenance crew during the day, and is also Bon Temp’s primary V-juice dealer and male prostitute. And Tara’s cousin. In a lot of ways, Lafayette kind of reminds me of Sayid on Lost. If people listened to him more often then perhaps shit would run just a little smoother.

Jason Stackhouse, Sookie’s brother, and the town’s number one male bimbo. His primary talents appear to be drinking, putting his dick in any woman that moves across his field of vision, and being a bit on the stupid side. In season one, he’s the focus of the investigation into the murders since all the dead girls are related to him (usually because he was fucking them). He then goes on to become a V-addict and possibly find love with the gorgeous and sociopathic Lizzy Caplan. Ah, Janice Ian is all grown up. Unfortunately, despite her carbon footprint being minuscule, she’s killed off both here and in Cloverfield, and will hopefully stay alive into the second season of Party Down, where she’s fantastic.

Jason falls into something like slot 5 or 6 of my favorite characters on this show just because of how amazing dumb he is. It makes perfect fodder for idiot adventures! Trying to make something good of his life after the fuck ups he lives through in season 1, as of season 2, he’s trying to find enlightenment (as of where I am so far) in Texas with the anti-vampire church called The Fellowship Of The Sun. He comes off as pretty much every other dumb Christian jock you’ve ever been forced to talk to, and where I am in the episode order now, he’s also about to fuck the minister’s wife too. It’s good to have you back, Jason.

Jessica, the girl Bill was forced to turn into a vampire by his elders. She’s his “daughter,” or “progeny.” He’s her “maker” or “sire.” There’s an interesting exploration into what’s it like for a human to experience the turning into a creature of the night, the explosion of hormones and sensations and confusion that comes with it. But mostly, when I look at Jessica, I think: Hot, evil ginger. Is she seeing anyone?

Michelle Forbes. There needs to be some kind of rule of understanding that any semi-decent genre show or show that people can get seriously hardcore nerdy about will someday be blessed with the presence of Michelle Forbes. And would be lucky to have such presence. In fact, the only holdout to this rule is The X-Files, which could have seriously benefited from Ensign Ro putting in an appearance, you know what I mean?

“When someone offers you an entrance where you are standing naked with a pig, you don’t say no.”