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new promo, wow! Eric is getting hilights? lol.
also LTBID has a lot of news on s2, as well as behind the scenes photos that are very interesting. Seems Mr Ball is using bits from the books and adding to it to make it very unique.
http://lovingtruebloodindallas.blogspot.com/
stills from s2, that Maenad dancing is soooo far from the book, it's funny too.
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A scene from S2,
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spoilies from Ausiello, http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/05/ask-ausiello--3.html
Question: Since you've seen the first four True Blood episodes of season 2, is there anything you can share? --Sanna
Ausiello: They're bloody fangtastic! (Never. Gets. Old.) Seriously, season 2 -- premiering June 14 -- gets off to a thrilling, gory, scary, sexy, disgusting, funny, suspenseful start. Alan Ball would drive a wooden stake through my heart if I spoiled any of the big twists (i.e. my lips are sealed about the fate of a certain flamboyant vampire blood dealer), but here are a few juicy morsels to whet your appetite:
• There are three orgies, all of them powered by Maryann's (Michelle Forbes) aphrodisiac fairy dust.
• Alexander Skarsgard's Nordic vamp has an extremely homoerotic encounter with a character who shall remain nameless. In related news, there are about two dozen gratuitous shirtless shots in the first four episodes, all of them belonging to either Mechad Brooks (Tara's new BF, Eggs) or Ryan Kwanten (Jason).
• Sookie has a very revealing conversation with a new character in episode 4.
• If you're wondering what secret Merlotte's newest waitress (played by Ashley Jones) is harboring, a clue can be found on her skin.
Lafayette news, sort of, but it's the word on the street too, lol.
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b126763_spoiler_chat_lafayette_dead_on_true.html?u tm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_topstories
Diana in Bend, Ore.: What can you tell us about True Blood? I'm so excited for season two!
We just chatted up True Blood star Stephen Moyer and asked him about the future of Nelsan Ellis' brilliant Lafayette, and Moyer said, "Lafayette, I can't talk about. Nelsan is an amazing dude, and, uh, I hope he does come back...but I, you know...who knows." There's no decisive statement in there, but "I hope he does come back" seems to suggest that Lafayette's gone somewhere, and for that matter, Nelsan's Lafayette also does not appear in any of the season two promo photos, the press releases or the books after Dead Until Dark. Long story short, we're starting to feel pretty naive for having believed/hoped the show was just toying with us and would find a way to keep Lafayette around for season two and beyond. We are going to need a lot of naked vampires to make up for this disaster. Post your Lafayette lamentations in the comments, and don't forget to check back soon for more from Stephen Moyer about True Blood season two.
Elana in Warsaw: Do you have any new True Blood news?
Lesbians! You heard about the lesbians, right? Vampire queen Sophie and Sookie's cousin Lois Lane Hadley Hale end up sucking face. Now we just need to resolve this question: What's the most HoYay show on TV: Glee or True Blood? Call it in the comments
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-true-blood7-2009jun07,0,6634338,full.story
From the Los Angeles Times
'True Blood' devotees are thirsty for more
HBO's lusty vampires series begins its second season next week, and not a minute too soon for the largely female fan base that has made it one of the most popular shows on cable.
By Jessica Gelt
June 7, 2009
The bomb that shattered the living room left carnage in its wake. The floor is slick with blood, tattered bodies litter the room, entrails dangle from the ceiling and an unrecognizable mass of goo stuck to the wall erratically spurts jets of mauve blood.
"I'm gonna ask everyone to clear the set who is not actually dying on it," yells Scottie Gissel, a first assistant director for HBO's hit vampire series " True Blood," which launches into its second season of sensational Gothic gore and lusty, undead romance next Sunday. (Viewers will see the scene of explosive destruction that Gissel is stage-managing late in the season.)
On this sunny afternoon, the cast and crew work in overdrive on a gloomy, fog-soaked soundstage at the Lot on Santa Monica and Formosa. They labor with the assuredness of a project vindicated. After getting off to a rocky start critically last fall, "True Blood," based on the books by Charlaine Harris and created by Alan Ball, who created "Six Feet Under" and wrote "American Beauty," steadily built its audience to emerge as HBO's most popular show in recent years, with an average of 7.8 million viewers watching each episode by the end of Season 1.
With a fervent fan base, including nearly half a dozen fan-run websites that HBO -- in a forward-thinking approach to managing public opinion -- actively fosters, "True Blood" is hoping to prove with its sophomore season that even in the "Twilight" age of vampire overkill, it can maintain its success.
Unrest hits undead
"True Blood" takes place in a world where vampires have come out of the coffin , so to speak, aided by the invention of a synthetic blood substitute called Tru Blood that helps keep their primal appetites at bay. Still, prejudice against the undead abounds, with many of the show's human characters motivated by a hate and fear that is as gruesomely destructive as that of even the most unrepentant bloodsucker.
Season 1 established the main action: "True Blood" is set in the fictional backwater town of Bon Temps, La., where a telepathic good girl named Sookie Stackhouse ( Anna Paquin) works as a waitress in a raucous bar called Merlotte's. When a mysterious vampire named Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) comes to town, Sookie falls in love with him. A high body count and muddy graveside sex ensue.
Ball initially read "Dead Until Dark," the first in Harris' "Southern Vampire" series, five years ago. By the time "Six Feet Under" was filming its final season he was interested in doing something with the books on television. Sitting on a couch in his bungalow office on the Lot, Ball says the cultural clout of his broodingly dark funeral-parlor drama left critics and the public unsure of what to think of the zany, Saturday matinee movie serial that is "True Blood."
"When people approach me about 'Six Feet Under' they say, 'Oh my God, that show meant so much to me, I lost my mother last year,' " says Ball, putting one shorts-clad knee up on the couch. "With 'True Blood,' it's more like, 'Dude, I love your show. It rocks!' "
Ball tries to ignore the prattle of the Web. (He used to Google himself before realizing, "I could just be enjoying life and I'm trolling the Internet to see what strangers think of me.") But he says he's learning more about, and coming to appreciate, the fevered devotion and lively debate among genre fans.
Ladies choice
"One of my assistant directors is from Texas, and during hiatus she was there with some of her girlfriends. One of their husbands came up and said, 'Thank you for that show, because every Sunday night we all have the best sex we've had in years,' " Ball says, laughing. "I feel like, although the show appeals to all kinds of people, the real die-hard fans are not teenage boy sci-fi geeks, they're women."
Tosha Shelton, Kasandra Rose and Ollie Chong, the women behind the fan site truebloodnet.com (which HBO helps secure interviews for -- Rose was even taken on a guided tour of the show's set), agree, saying they rarely interact with male fans. The trio, who all have master's degrees and a healthy awareness of the enterprise's goofiness, met online through an HBO forum but have never met in person; they live, respectively, in Georgia, Michigan and Ontario, Canada. When asked what attracted them most to the show, they giggled over thousands of miles of phone lines.
"OK, should we all say our favorite character together ladies?" asked Rose. Then Chong started counting, "One, two, three," before the women yelled in unison, "BILL COMPTON!"
Bill: handsome, manly gait, antebellum-era manners and age and a self-tormenting appetite for human blood. As played by Moyer, a charismatic British actor, Bill is an honorable man imbued with an untouchable darkness.
Given that at its very core the vampire genre is about forbidden romance and the thrill and appeal of the unknown, it is little wonder that misunderstood Bill has come to dominate the hearts of fans with, as Moyer blithely puts it, "a healthy feminine side."
Real chemistry
As he leads an on-set tour of Bill's cryptic, mossy mansion, Moyer says that he and Paquin were in England when Season 1 first aired, so they never got the chance to watch it.
In the real world, the pair are dating and live together. They kept their romance a secret for 10 months before coming out with it on set; its inception was aided by the fact that during filming for the pilot "HBO very stupidly put us in the same hotel," says Moyer, adding that he knew "True Blood" was building a fan base but didn't realize the scope of it until someone sent Paquin a shirt emblazoned with the words, "Bill's Babes."
"She was like, 'I'm the original Bill's babe,' and she would occasionally wear the shirt around the house," says Moyer. Shortly after that he was tickled to discover another group of devotees called Moyerettes.
Clans of character-obsessed viewers aren't the only windows into the restless soul of eternal vampire love. Chat rooms, forums, podcasts, Twitter feeds created by fanatics masquerading as personalities from the show, Facebook pages, show recaps, detailed factoids and general, shared-interest camaraderie are all part of the parallel universe that breathes life into "True Blood" itself.
Within the world of the show there is plenty to latch onto. "The show is really heavy-duty," says Rose. "It's good and evil and confusing the two, and then looking at the important topics of today, like the gay issue, and women being promiscuous or not. It looks at everyday things, but through a very dark lens."
Riding the zeitgeist
"True Blood" premiered just two months before Barack Obama was elected president and Proposition 8 passed in California, effectively banning gay marriage in the state. Since the show contains plenty of references to outsider groups kept down, it is easy to conclude that it represents one of those moments in history when a piece of pop-culture ephemera taps into something greater than itself.
Maybe, Ball says, adding that some fans were likely drawn to the series as the country was coming out of the Bush era because it was a time that was "about institutionalized demonization of all kinds of groups." But really, he says, although those deeper topics are definitely present, the show, its fans and its creator are primarily concerned with campy glee.
"I needed fun," he says. " 'Six Feet Under' was a really gratifying emotional and artistic experience, but it's hard to spend five years peering into that existential abyss. This one is just fun. It's so much fun."
Paquin thinks so too. Walking around the set in a dirt-and-blood-stained white coat and high heels, her shiny blond hair matted and fake glass sticking out of her slender calves, Paquin asks the crew and visitors for hugs and jokes about how fabulous she looks.
"People fear what they don't understand, and are quick to judge what's not like themselves," she says, relaxing between takes as tiny bits of fake ash from the explosion settle on her clothes. "But I don't think there's ever been a time when tolerance and acceptance hasn't been relevant."
What fans are responding to, says Paquin, is the fact that "True Blood" is an "exciting, big-concept, plot-driven, really high-class soap opera."
And like in any good soap opera, Moyer knows that no matter how you chew on the show's politics, it all really comes back to sex. Biting, specifically. His dark eyes glittering with mischief, he says: "There wasn't a hole there before and there's a hole there now. It's sexy. There's no getting away from it. If you want to scrape away at it, scrape away, but it's really sexy stuff."
jessica.gelt@latimes.com
from E,
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b126472_true_blood_shes_given_him_reason_live.html
Is it possible that Twilight is only the second-most-romantic vampire saga of the moment?
Being on premium cable as they are, True Blood's Sookie and Bill certainly give virginal Edward and Bella a run for their money when it comes to blood-hot sex, but what about love?
We just spoke exclusively with True Blood's leading man, Stephen Moyer, aka Bill Compton himself, to find out what's in store for the vampires of the dirty, dirty South in season two. He told us that while there will be just as many near-pornographic sex scenes, his character is still primarily driven by an overriding morality and an abiding passion for Sookie Stackhouse.
Read on to find out what he told us about sex scenes, his "hideous" vampire daughter and falling in love with Anna Paquin, onscreen and off...
Is True Blood going to stay as explicitly sexual this season or will you dial that back a bit?
The show is ridiculously f--king sexy…I think Alan Ball and the writers do very well in pushing the envelope. I think one of the things that drives me nuts about society is that you can watch hours about terrorists but you can't look at a human nipple. What the f--k is that about? Sex is part of our lives. It's part of our existence. So I kind of embrace the fact that we hit it full on the head.
What you think of Bill as a person, are you more interested in him as a vampire or as a personality?
There's no getting away from the fact that Bill is a vampire. He can't wish to be anything else, because he's a vampire, but he's a vampire who wants to live a human life. Actually, in fact, he wishes not for a human life, but for a moral life. It's not that he doesn't want to feed on blood, it's that he doesn't want it to involve killing—but in his first season he kills as many people as the murderer. That was something that was very present in our minds. He has that blood lust, he has that very strong sense of right and wrong. If somebody f--ks him off, he's going to take them out. He's torn. He's not going to do it just for the sake of it. But if somebody hurts him or hurts his family or hurts his loved one…they're history. [Chuckles]. I like that.
Jaimie Trueblood / HBO
What kind of arc can we expect for Bill and Sookie this season?
I think that they love each other more than they have loved anything ever. Speaking from Bill's point of view, she's given him reason to live again.
Does your relationship with Anna [Paquin] make it more or less difficult to do emotionally awkward scenes between Sookie and Bill, like when she and Sam got together last season and Bill walked in on them?
Anna and I met on this show. We met doing the job. And so the crew has seen us grow together. They have seen our relationship grow by watching us on set. Now, you know, we kept it from them to begin with. You know, it was very…we wanted to keep it private. We didn't want people to think we were f--king with their lives with something fickle. But honestly, there's no one I'd rather work with. I really mean it. I love working with her, and that's how it all started, by falling in love on camera…So last year, Sam had his stuff coming up with Anna and at that point nobody knew we were a couple. So Sam's a close friend, and I had to go to Sam and say, 'Look. I need to tell you something. I need you to know. I don't want you to find out later and feel like a heel.' So I told him; that was the first time I told him about me and Anna. And he couldn't believe it! It's about trust, you know. And that trust is a very important part of a relationship.
From your perspective as an actor, how would you characterize Bill and Eric's relationship—are they friends, enemies, coworkers or what?
Bill just knows that's how Eric is, and that he's not going to be changing him anytime soon. Certainly in this season there is a moral hierarchy. And you understand that in the vampire world there's a very strong sense of right and wrong. There are things you do and things you don't and if you do something within the vampire world that is f--ked up and against your fellow vamp, you are going to suffer for that. I kind of like that idea that, you know, anything goes, but if you cross a line, you're going to suffer for it. Whether Eric is adhering to those vampire morals is important.
.What about your vampire daughter, Jessica—does that continue to be a fractured fairy tale?
If Bill imagined a daughter, he imagined a beautiful little well-mannered Victorian beauty. And Jessica comes along, and she is this hideous, sex-and-blood-hungry 17-year-old. And we don't think she's going to be that. We think she's going to be this home-schooled innocent, and that's not where she is at all. The actress, Deborah Ann Woll, who plays Jessica, she's f--king brilliant. And I love her. She goes about creating her part through a very pure, you know, method way. And I don't mean she's a Method actress, I just mean she really, she really goes at it with incredible, incredible industry. She's fantastic to work with!
What can you tell us about season two?
I think the second season is beyond amazing…more than anybody imagined. Honestly, I came out of the screening the other day with my jaw on the floor. And I've read it, you know.
True Blood season two premieres June 14 at 9 p.m. on HBO. But between now and then, let's kill a little time by discussing the merits of Team Bill. Tell us why this Southern vampire makes you so hot and bothered!
Plus, check out our True Blood and Kissing Costars galleries for more snaps of Stephen and Anna.
from Buddy tv
True Blood: Previewing Season 2 Premiere "Nothing But The Blood"
Sunday, June 14, 2009
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/true-blood/true-blood-previewing-season-2-29290.aspx
Here's probably the last time I'm looking at my (ironically, silver) watch, just to let you know that we're roughly, say, eighteen hours to the second season premiere of True Blood. Roughly twelve more episodes of the romance between Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill (Stephen Moyer)--provided that it doesn't get pushed by secondary plots and everything else. I admit I wasn't paying that much attention in the first, but at least I somehow got it. As far as things go, well, we'll have the distractions.
Now that the whole story of who's killing Jason's (Ryan Kwanten) girlfriends is over, we can perhaps look at other things, right? Like, say, the relationship itself? Bill suddenly has a kid, and her name is Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), and it's not necessarily a good thing, considering Sookie's yet to figure that out. Oh, not after all the will-she-do-it-or-will-she-not drama, not this, a let down? You've probably seen the spoilers, the one bit about the two girls not getting very comfortable with each other, and I believe that'll be a take-off point.
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Or, as always, Jason will get himself into some trouble, even if he's now part of the Fellowship and has weaned himself off V-juice.
And I told you I haven't read the books, right?
One more thing to watch out this season: Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) will lose his spotting when this Sophie girl (Rachel Evan Wood) comes in. I'll bluff here by expecting some sort of struggle that'll drag the rest of the vampires.
All of that, of course, has to begin somewhere, and in tonight's season premiere, we'll be reeling from the stuff that happened at the end of the last season. Yep, that body found at the very end, everybody (me included) believes it's Lafayette... and then there's the issues between Sookie, Bill, and Jessica, and it'll turn things around--and then some. Sam (Sam Trammell) remembers a few things, and Jason continued being anti-vampire and all. We'll get back to it from 9pm on HBO.
either this is the biggest spoiler yet or it's BS. Beware.
http://tvblog.ugo.com/tv/true-blood-season-2-premiere-review
By the swampy opening licks of Jace Everett's "Bad Things," I am comforted and excited. True Blood is back - back to the bayous and rotting churches of Bon Temps, Louisiana with its very special denizens.
Alan Ball's adaptation of the popular Southern Vampire series of Sookie Stackhouse and company was an ambitious take on the roiling controversies inherent in sexuality, sin, tolerance and all that good n' evil stuff. Here we jump into Season 2, right were the Season One finale left off.
If you remember, we found out the mysterious murders last season were perpetrated by the Cajun Rene Lenier, Arlene's fiancé and best friend to Jason Stackhouse.
Lafayette has been attacked (we'll find out by whom later) and Sookie and Tara have discovered another body in the parking lot of Merlot's. And it's exactly at this point we rejoin the action of our heroes.
The body in the car is the fake-voodoo priestess who gave Tara and her mother "exorcisms." Her hearts been ripped out of her chest. Just another night in Bon Temps.
The early money on the culprit has to be the coldly nefarious, Maryann Forester, who showed up last season naked and standing in the middle of a road with a giant pig. Maryann has a focused interest on Tara, and she knows Sam from his past. And you know rich ladies with big ass cornucopia-feasts in their kitchens are just up to no good.
What has become of Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis)? We're not allowed to tell you, but it's worth tuning in for.
Rounding out the principle cast, Sookie's brother Jason is still reeling from his trauma of last season. In the words of my Zen-like roommate: "His hot-ass girlfriend is dead, right?"
Yes, Amy (Lizzy Caplan) was one of Rene's victims, and the experience has left Jason with the kind of emotional hole often filled by the reassuring and life affirming tenets of organized religion. Jason is getting his Church on. Unfortunately, he's chosen the creepy and often-hinted at, Fellowship of the Sun. The Dallas-based anti-vampire church is Ball's critique of the shiny-faced sleek and conservative mega-churches popular in the south. Think Joel Osteen, but violent. And less gay.
Which leaves us with Sookie. Most of this episode deals with Sookie finding out about Bill's new charge, the annoying teenaged vampire, Jessica Hamby, played by Deborah Ann Woll. Bill was forced to "make" Jessica last season to replace the vampire he was forced to kill in defense of Sookie. She's only 17, and as annoying as you'd expect a teenager to be, but now she's a deadly animal Bill must spend a lot of time controlling.
The big reveal at the end of the episode is the nature of Lafayette's disappearance. Needless to say, it is a heart-stopping and bloody-good scene.
We're getting the feeling that Alan Ball has just begun to play in this humid and visceral world created for Sookie and her friends. True Blood may be one of those rare shows that gets more watchable and artistically satisfying as it matures instead of everything going downhill after a stellar first season.
This season will focus a lot on The Fellowship of the Sun, as we know Sookie and Eric will be traveling to Dallas to investigate a vampire problem. The mystery of Maryann continues to have importance, and we still have no idea who/what she is, although we have seen her do that vibrate/buzzy thing. My guess? Devil.
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