Alan Ball, the genius behind HBO‘s True Blood keeps a tight reign on spoilers leaking out before the new season – unless of course he’s the one giving us the little hints. In this latest interview Ball, using his perfected method of giving small teasers without giving too much away, provides us with a glimpse of what we can expect to see in Season 4.
In the interview Ball says that once a season is over he closes that chapter and doesn’t look back. Last season there were a number of storylines to keep up with and several revelations as well. In the season finale Sookie walked into the light with Claudine, Tara got in her car and left town, Russell Edgington was encased in concrete, Sam shot at his brother and fans were left counting down until Season 4. This season we will find out that the faeries have a dark side, the witches will play a big role and our favorite viking vampire Eric Northman will get amnesia. To summarize Season 4 Ball says:
“For the first time, our vampires are facing a real enemy who is not another [more powerful] vampire. For the first time, our vampires have had their weapons taken away from them. There’s a really funny moment later in the season where they have to resort to conventional weapons because their powers are very effectively taken from them… The season may be a little touch more romantic than other seasons have been… It’s a real love story.”
Eric/Sookie fans are no doubt excited at the prospect that the duo is the love story Ball is talking about. Whether it is them are not, Ball says hopes that fans become emotionally invested in the characters and what happens to them with the supernatural stuff coming in second. It is pretty safe to say he has accomplished that, with True Blood garnering a huge fan following. Team Bill versus Team Eric debates can get quite heated with both sides arguing strongly.
The article lists 9 Things To Know About Season 4 and we have them here for you.
1. Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) – Sookie is surrounded by men who have an interest in her in one way or another. With Bill, Eric, Alcide all romantically interested in her how does a girl choose. So what is up for Sookie this year?
“At the end of last season, Sookie shut the door on Bill, and I think, at least at the beginning of the season, that door is still very tightly shut. She cannot forgive him for his lie, for him never being honest about why he was sent to meet her. Even though he clearly did fall in love with her and all of the things that he said and felt were every genuine and a lot of the things he did were to protect her, she just can’t get past that.”
2. Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) – Fans of the Sookie Stackhouse novels know that Eric gets amnesia in the fourth book and during his time in hiding his relationship with Sookie deepens. It has already been confirmed that True Blood will be following this storyline and of this storyline Ball says:
“He’s kind of ‘emo Eric’ and soft and romantic and gentle and tender. That’s just what Sookie needs right now. And, of course, you have Alcide lurking around, like, “I’m here, hello! I won’t bite you!” But we basically explore the Sookie/Eric arc. We’re very true to the books in that sense.”
3. Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley) – When we last saw Tara she was leaving town after having yet another life crisis. Fans of Tara will be happy to hear that times are a changing for her.
“Her journey this year is that she’s not a victim anymore. She is not going to be a fucking victim. All of that rage that she feels at having been victimized is going to get channeled towards the vampires, so you’ll end up with a basic witches/necromancers versus vampires. Tara’s going to be on one side and Sookie is going to be on the other. We wanted to explore maybe how the desire for empowerment can lead you to do stupid things. I didn’t want to bring another love interest in for her, although there is, but I didn’t want her story to be, like, oh, she’s falling in love, because we did that… We didn’t want to see her weepy… We wanted to see her really fighting back… And it’s going to go to really interesting places in Season 5, but I can’t tell you any of that.”
4. Jessica and Hoyt (Deborah Ann Woll and Jim Parrack) – Jessica and Hoyt have had a rough go of it. The two was apart for most of last season while Jessica came to terms with her vampire urges. Hoyt meanwhile spent some time with the super chipper Summer much to his mother’s approval. At the end of last season Hoyt had purchased a house for him and Jessica and the two were happy. As we know happiness doesn’t last long on that show. So are Hoyt and Jessica destined to live happily ever after?
“They’re both really young. They’ve never been in a relationship. They were both virgins. She didn’t go to public schools; she was home-schooled. So, they don’t really have a lot of perspective and a lot of training in what a relationship is and what it requires. Plus, she’s a vampire so her needs are different. Relationships are hard and they’re finding out that it’s hard and they’re both going to be tested in some pretty severe ways. The honeymoon’s definitely over. It doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. It doesn’t mean that they’re both not good people, but how interesting is it to watch a couple be happy for a season?”
5. Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) – Pam has been Eric’s loyal second in command and last season we got a closer look at the relationship between the two during their emotional scenes. This season on top of a new storyline that will have Pam and Tara interacting Ball says we will be seeing a different side of Pam:
“We will even see a very vulnerable side of Pam and we’ll get a sense of what truly, truly matters to her and she cares about, even though she pretends she doesn’t care about anything. I know she’s one of everybody’s favorite characters to write, but she is the one who will say she has no filter. She’ll say whatever she thinks and she’ll say it in a way that is really hilarious. And then Kristin will take that line and deliver it in this way that is only her. Yeah, there’s a really fun ride for her this season, as well.”
6. The Post-Russell Edgington World – Last season Russell Edgington set the vampire rights movement back immeasurably when he ripped the heart and spine out of an on-air television broadcaster. While Ball says we will not see Russell this season he does confirm that he is definitely not dead.
“The vampires can’t really say, ‘Hey, you have nothing to fear,’ because one of them viciously murdered a guy in full view of the entire world. The approach of ‘we’re going to assimilate, we’re going to get the vampire rights amendment passed,’ that ship has sailed… Any vampire who is caught on film doing anything untoward to a human, that vampire is gone. They’re taken out. They’re executed. Because the vampires feel like they can’t afford that. I think next season there will be a real reveal of perhaps different factions within the vampire power organization that really are just like, ‘Why are we even bothering to win hearts and minds? We have this power.’ I see it as a little metaphor for the Koch brothers.”
He also confirms that in Season 5 we will get the answer to another big question – who or what is the Authority.
7. Witches – HBO has been promoting Season 4 as the Season of the Witch and Ball has confirmed that the witches will have a big impact on the vampires.
“There are different kinds of witches. There are Wiccans. There are necromancers. There are Brujeria, which is a Mexican witch tradition. And then there are also disembodied spirits. I hesitate to call them ghosts, but there are spirits without bodies… And witches aren’t necessarily supernaturals because genetically they’re humans… who are able to access a kind of magic through practice and/or just an innate aptitude.”
For those who may be worried that the show will portray Wiccans in a negative light, Ball says that is not the case:
“Wicca is basically the doorway into the darker stuff,. I’m not saying Wicca is a gateway drug for evil witchcraft, I’m saying for our characters, they join a Wicca circle for all the right reasons, to practice nature magic and goddess worship… Marnie, who is leading that group… [her] lust for power takes her and her group in a different direction than what actual Wicca is. I have a lot of respect for Wicca. We are not in any way portraying Wicca as something… malevolent.”
8. Breakout Characters – Fans can expect several new faces this season with newcomers Janina Gavankar, Fiona Shaw and Courtney Ford joining and keeping track of all these new characters can be a challenge for the writing staff. Ball reveals that they have a chart in the writers room to keep track of everyone and how long they are around. Which characters does Ball think we should keep an eye on this season?
“[Kevin Alejandro’s] Jesus is amazing this season. He gets some really, really good stuff. Sam Trammell, it’s a quandary how to describe this: Sam Trammell gets to act some amazing stuff. And, of course, Fiona [Shaw]. She’s amazing.”
9. Faeries – As we found out in Season 3, Sookie is part faerie and she wasn’t very excited about that revelation. At the end of the season Sookie goes into the light with Claudine her faerie god mother and as we have seen in the first 8 minutes of Season 4, things are not as they seem there.
“In my mind, the fairies occupy the same place in our collective mythology as aliens do. They come from somewhere else. They’re mysterious and kind of alluring, but also dangerous. If you believe stories of abduction and those kinds of things, they like to have their way with humans. If you get into the really esoteric stuff and the belief that humans are the result of genetic manipulation by alien people from thousands of years ago, they occupy the same space.”
“Obviously, we wanted to give a nod to the tradition of fairies as we think of them, as benevolent woodland creatures but, of course, you don’t want to just have that. The fact that they’re kind of venal and horrible at their core is what makes them interesting.”
Wow with all of this to look forward to it sounds like it is going to be a jam packed season. Let us know what you think of these revelations in the comment section below. 6 days to go Truebies!
Source: TheDailyBeast.com – Inside ‘True Blood’s’ Fourth Season
Photo Credit: HBO, Inc.
