Anna Paquin Movie:

		List Price: $79.98		Label: HBO Home Video Salesrank: 1713
		Our Price: $55.99
		MPAA Rating: Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
Welcome back to Bon Temps, home to mystery, Southern sensuality and dark secrets. For Sookie Stackhouse, life is more dangerous than ever after she and Bill become more deeply involved. Meanwhile, Tara finds herself under a lover’s spell; Sam puts his trust in an unlikely ally; Jason becomes involved with an anti-vampire sect; Eric becomes interested in Sookie after he recruits her to investigate the disappearance of his 2,000-year-old maker; and Maryann is revealed to possess a power that can control almost everyone in town. Then, after making a shocking discovery, Sookie, Bill and Sam must form the last line of defense against a diabolical plan that raises this award-winning series to bloody new heights.

True Blood: The Complete Second Season includes all 12 episodes of this critically acclaimed series from Alan Ball, writer of the Academy Award®-winning Best Picture American Beauty and creator of Six Feet Under. Loaded with special features, this essential 5-disc set is certain to quench the curiosity of True Blood fans everywhere.

True Blood: The Complete Second Season (HBO Series) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
I now envy people with a southern accent
2009-10-28 - Now, when i rate DVDs/Blu-rays/Movies, I'm often confused on what I'm rating. Am I rating the show (since i clearly do not own the DVD yet), or am I expected to rate the DVD with commentaries, extras, etc?

But,
This series is definitely one of the better shows on TV.

I personally thought the show would fizzle after the first season, but the show only got better, took more risk, and became edgier. It basically took the volume of the first season and turned it up a couple of notches. Everything about this show fits well.
Character interactions, Soundtrack, Great actors, 'stage props'.... it doesnt feel too far fetched

The only issue i think i really have is the edginess seemed to be a lil extreme... Like, the sex scenes where elongated, several nude shots could been avoided, etc... but I loved it either way.


This series is AWESOME
2009-10-13 - I love this series! I watched it on HBO and fell in love. I immediately bought all the books and pre-ordered the next. It helps to have watched Season 1, but you can follow along well enough without it. You don't have to have read the books for it to make sense, either. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone! Oh, and Blu-ray is the only way to watch it! It is grainy and dark on DVD.

Another fine season for one of TV's more entertaining shows
2009-10-06 - In its second season TRUE BLOOD remained something of a phenomenon, one of the highest rated shows ever on HBO and widely discussed across the Internet by critics and fans. As in Season Two, the show more or less followed the storylines laid down by the Sookie Stackhouse novels, but Alan Ball and his team of writers felt free to make significant alterations. For instance, Season One ended with the impression that Lafayette, who does indeed die in the book, had been murdered. Happily, Lafayette, who was a minor character in the books, lives to sin another day in the TV series. And the maenad of the book, who was a minor though important character in the second novel, was elevated to the level of Season Two big bad. Sookie's brother Jason, who is a moderately important character in the books, continued to function as a major character on the series (though in a more clothed state).

In my opinion TRUE BLOOD might be the finest guilty pleasure show ever made. The very best shows are characterized by the richness and multiplicity of their subtexts. One of the marks of a guilty pleasure show is the relative absence of subtexts. One of the reasons that academics have embraced shows like BUFFY and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is the extraordinary number of themes and texts running through them. BUFFY alone has produced a prodigious body of literature. TRUE BLOOD possesses subtexts, but not many and none of much sophistication. The show deals with prejudice, of course, with vampires and shape shifters standing in for any kind of

Season Two focused primarily on two arcs, one dealing with the Fellowship of the Sun, a virulent anti-vampire church (pretty transparently a parody of anti-gay Christian activism, and the other with the appearance of the maenad, an immortal being who takes on the identity of Maryann (played by Michelle Forbes, one of the finest actors on TV whose work I normally love a lot, but who sort of irritated me here - her work as Admiral Cain on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is one of the finest guest roles I've seen in recent years). Intertwined with this are a host of other stories, such as Andy Lefleur's descent into alcoholism, Lafayette's torture for selling V and then his recruitment to do the very same thing, and the tough transition of Bill's ward Jessica to being a teenaged vampire. And through all of this the entire town of Bon Temps, suffering under the spell of Maryann, engage in one bacchanal after another.

There were a couple of nice Arkansas (my home state) connections in the season. Several scenes were shot in a church, which was supposed to be the home congregation for the anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun, involved in one of the season's major plotlines. I wasn't familiar with the church, but I instantly recognized it as the work of Arkansas's foremost architect, Faye Jones. He is widely celebrated as the architect for the famed Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, a building that routinely is named as among the most beautiful structures in the United States. If you know Jones work, the church in TRUE BLOOD was instantly recognizable. My brother's late father-in-law was an architect. He was a student of Faye Jones at the University of Arkansas, where Jones founded the architecture department, against the recommendation of his employer Frank Lloyd Wright. The second Arkansas tie in was Sam's being told by his foster father the whereabouts of someone Sam was looking for. Where? Magnolia, Arkansas. What makes that interesting is that Magnolia is the small Arkansas town in which Charlaine Harris lives and where she created the world of Sookie Stackhouse.

Blood will run
2009-09-22 - The second season of HBO's smash hit True Blood picks up with a new murder mystery in the Bon Temps, as mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and her vampire boyfriend Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) take their relationship to a higher level, and no sooner find themselves tasked by Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) on a mission of great importance to the vampire community, all the while Bill has to deal with caring for and teaching his recently turned protege Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll). On the flipside of things, Tara (Rutina Wesley) gets drawn deeper into the web that the demonic Maryann (Michelle Forbes) who is continuing to spin her plot to trap Sam (Sam Trammell), Jason (Ryan Kwanten) joins the quasi-Christian-fascist organization known as the Order of Light, and Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) finds himself in a very grave situation that he may not recover from. Having never read any of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, I cannot account for how faithful True Blood is to the source material, but what I can say is that Alan Ball's adaptation is loads of addictive fun. Between the smoldering chemistry between Paquin and Moyer, and no lack of genuine surprises (who knew a vamp could fly?) and dark laughs to boot("teacup humans" indeed, Eric is fine form throughout the season), the second season of True Blood is definitely the best thing to come along on HBO in a while. If there's any drawbacks, it's that the season finale proves kind of anticlimactic, but it sets the stage for some major developments to come in the future. All in all, if you've been missing True Blood at all since its inception, saying you've been missing out is quite the understatement.

HBO's True Blood breaks free and stands on its own
2009-09-14 - If you're a fan of Charlene Harris' Southern Vampire series, you were probably a little disappointed by the first season's adaptation. The problem with season 1 was that it tried to follow too closely to the actual written word, but the translation from page to screen is always hard to do successfully. With Season Two, the True Blood cast took a well needed step apart from the written cannon and struck out on its own, while still remaining faithful to the spirit of the novel series.

Season Two takes its time to step away from the main characters of Sookie and Bill and really starts to focus on the other cast members. Deciding whether to bill Jason or Tara or Sookie as the lead would be a hard choice in this season if you were to judge on screen time alone.

There are three main plots in Season Two: Sam's past and the true nature of Maryann Forrester; Jason and the Fellowship of the Sun Church; Eric and the disappearance of Godric (Sookie's trip to Dallas). Minor subplots include Hoyt and his vampire girlfriend (the newly-turned-by-Bill, Jessica Hamby), Sam and Daphne's "similarities", Andy Bellefleur's fall from grace, Lafayette's "business" catching up with him, and Tara/"Eggs"/Lettie Mae (Mom) relationship issues.

Where Season One had a bad habit of lagging along in the storyline, leaving quite a few "ho-hum" moments, Season Two maintains a fleet-footed pace and maintains it through the entire season. You'll love having this season on DVD since you won't have to wait week-by-week for new episodes. Needless to say, the cliffhanger at the end of the final episode will probably elicit a few choice words directed at HBO for taking a year in order to air new episodes.

Having watched True Blood in it's native HD resolution as well as in non-HD, the Blu-Ray investment is worth every penny. The HD quality truly allows the dank, bog-ridden feel of the swamp really shine through, and the music from the series adds a lot to the overall atmosphere.

If you weren't able to watch True Blood live on HBO and were on the fence about buying this set, go for it! You won't be disappointed.