Finding salvation, redemption, forgiveness–HBO’s second season of the vampire-centric “True Blood” seems to be dripping with these themes in its premiere episode last Sunday, “Nothing But the Blood.” Of course, the forms of salvation, etc., may vary.
Jason Stackhouse, Sookie’s brother and resident philanderer of Bon Temps, is reforming his ways and he’s turned to the lord. Last season, while in prison (wrongfully accused of murdering all those women he hops into bed with) he was visited by a vampire-hating, Christian preacher. Jason, already predisposed to dislike vampires, was quite taken by the Fellowship of the Sun’s message. The premier had Jason studying the bible, reading up on church materials, hanging out with the reverend, and signing up for a Christian bible/leadership-vampire-hating seminar of sorts. Whether Jason Stackhouse, himself, will end up preaching the gospel of Christ alongside vampire hate remains to be seen–though I think that is where the storyline may be headed.

As for other versions of these same themes, there is of course, Sookie and her ongoing tense relationship with Vampire Bill. They are in love, sure, but Bill has some explaining to do–he killed Sookie’s pedophile uncle last season and she finds out. While she hated the uncle, she worries that Bill is too much a murderer for her sweet southern taste. Then there’s the other part about how Bill turned a teenage girl into a vampire as atonement for killing another vampire who threatened Sookie. Bill’s role this season seems pleading for Sookie’s forgiveness, and proving to her that he can truly live a reformed, upstanding life.
Last one: Tara’s story is about salvation too–mainly her ex-drunk mother who underwent an exorcism last season and was “saved” from her demons as a result. The first episode has the exorcist revealed as a fraud and this threatens Tara’s mother’s resolve that her demons are indeed gone. Tara seems to rise and fall depending on her mother’s relationship to alcohol, so Tara is hanging in limbo at this point.
As far as faith goes, season two promises something interesting. But then there’s that whole out-of-control depravity business, that the show can’t seem to stay away from and I find that to be a huge turnoff. I may get to the point, like last season, where I have to fast forward through the storylines I don’t like, to get to the ones that I do.