Combining dark humour with the supernatural and a mystery to boot, not to mention a whole lot of naked women and sex going on, True Blood was a runaway success from day 1. The HBO series is a huge success around the world. Detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional, small town in the state of Louisiana. The series revolves around a telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and her lover Bill Compton who is a vampire. In the world on True Blood, vampires live alongside but mostly separate from humans.

Sookie works at Sam Merlott’s bar and her brother Jason is the town’s womanizer and a bit of a doofus. When women he has sex with keep dying, Jason comes under suspicion from the town’s sheriif’s office. However the women being killed have another thing in common – they all have had intercourse with vampires, with the exception of grandma Stackhouse who was killed in her own home possibly because she treated vampires like Bill with respect and also because the real killer came to kill Sookie but was surprised by her grandma.

Bill is different from other vampires in that he likes humans and wants to spend his time with them. He also falls in love with Sookie which amuses the other vampires and she start a romance with him. Jason meanwhile starts a romance with Amy who is an addict of ‘v’ (vampire blood) which behave like an aphrodisiac and hallucinatory drug to humans who take it. When she is also killed while in bed with Jason, he gives himself up thinking that he could be the killer. Adding to the fun is Tara, who is Sookie’s best friend and the daughter of a religious nutcase & alcoholic, Sam Merlott who is a shapeshifter who has a crush on Sookie, which causes some tensions with Bill and some awkwardness with Sookie when his shape shifting abilities are revealed to Sookie.

There are way too many characters and stuff happening for me to rehash them all here but some stand out like the mysterious Maryanne Forrester, a seemingly rich social helper who takes Tara under her wing after she got arrested for a DUI and crash and after she gets disowned by her ungrateful mother. But what is her relationship & history with Sam and is she a shapeshifter from his past? The killer is finally revealed to be Rene, a co-worker of Jason, and who’s real name is Drew Marshall, killing women who associate themselves with vampire, starting off with his sister. When Sookie comes close to finding out his true self, he sets her up to kill her but she is rescued by Sam and Bill who gets burned being out in the sun.

I’m a late entry into the series as I had watched a bit on HBO when it was shown here in India (heavily censored ofcourse) but never followed it. With the fourth season completed I have a lot of catching up to do but with only 12 episodes per season I will get there soon. Good show.

Season 3 sees the start of the Gormagon story arc and introduces Dr. Lance Sweets, played by John Francis Daley, to the group. An FBI hired psychologist, Sweets is assigned to assess the working partnership of Agent Booth & Brennan after Booth arrested Temperance’s estranged father. While the two maintain that they have a rational understand of the reasons to arrest Max, Sweets knows that there is a hidden tension. A lot of humour is added to the show when Booth makes fun of Sweets youngish appearance & age. The more serious Gormagon arc which will end a little tragically for the team, starts off with the skull belonging to a highly talented violinist who disappeared after a concert.

As Zack is away Brennan searches for a new assistant. Angela and Hodgins hire a private investigator to track down Angela’s ex-husband, who is identified with the nickname “Berimbau”. Brennan starts a slow process of getting to know her father, visiting him reluctantly at the prison. One of the weirdest things I have heard is highlighted in an episode that involved pony play – role playing where men & women ride people who behave like horses for the duration of their stay in a large mansion with adjacent grounds. The ‘horses’ are cleaned, ridden and feed as if they were in fact animals but there is sex involved! Sheesh! Meanwhile, the FBI forces Booth and Brennan to undergo psychiatric counseling with Dr. Lance Sweets. Zack returns and takes up his former position within the team but it is obvious that he has changed.

Employees of the Jeffersonian Institute become murder suspects when the remains of a Jeffersonian intern is found in the building’s incinerator. Booth, Brennan and their team set about to investigate her death and find she had been working on the Gormogon case, which is still open. They acquire further motives for her death when they discover she had been in a romantic relationship with a Jeffersonian employee. Booth will also agree to pretend to still be Cam’s boyfriend for a family dinner but later is hit on by her younger sister when she finds out that they had broken up long ago. One of my fav episodes is one  in which the body of a teenage boy is found by his former high school classmates to have been hidden inside a time capsule that was buried 20 years ago. As the team investigates the class of 1987 to find the boy’s killer, they find a disk among his belongings, containing a game which would have been a landmark title in 1987 if released. They also discover he was the father of a classmate’s son. The death of a priest leads them back on the case of the Gormogon serial killer when the priest’s kneecaps were discovered to have been surgically removed. They realize the killer has a pattern for choosing victims after Angela finds a victim tree in the evidence vault.

Then there is the case of the dead Santa Claus – funny episode! But nothing is funnier or sweeter when Booth & Brennan have to take in a baby bot whose mother was killed in a car accident. The baby survived without a scratch and I laughed at Brennan’s uncomfortableness at holding and taking care of a baby, while Booth who is a father is a natural at it. However Temperance soon bonds with the baby, feeding him milk from a bottle and gets emotionally attached to him. After that Brennan’s father Max Keenan is on trial for the alleged murder of FBI Deputy Director Kirby. Everyone on the team, except for Brennan, is called as a witness for the prosecution during the trial. Brennan on the other hand is the forensics advisor for the defense, and she must rely on both her dedication to her family and her skill as an anthropologist to help free her father. Zack who never makes mistakes is caught on a mistake by Brenna’s new intern Dr. Clark Edison.

However the shock & twist will continue to be from  the Gormagon case. With everyone throwing theories with analysis as to how Sweets or Hodgins could be Gormagon, Dr. Brennan receives a mandible from the Gormogon in a package, and while trying to discover the origins of the tooth markings, Zack Addy is severely injured in an explosion. In the commotion, the widow’s son skeleton is stolen from the Gormogon vault within the Jeffersonian. Could Gormogon be in fact one of the Jeffersonian’s staff? The crew begins their investigation to find out who among them is working with the Gormogon, an apprentice, and more bones could be hidden. The shocking discovery is that Zack was the apprentice working for Gormogon, tearing a hole in the hearts of his colleagues & friends, their lives changed forever. Zack’s weaker personality was easily manipulated by Gormogon so he believed his belief system irrefutable, even going as far as to divide the bones of a lobbyist killed by Gormogon’s other apprentice among limbo. However, Zack still maintained a loyalty to his friends. As pointed out by Bones, he was willing to injure himself to keep Hodgins safe. He gives up the location of Gormogon’s house after Bones makes him realize his logic is faulty. Gorgmogon is killed in an FBI sting operation. At the end of the episode, prosecutor Caroline Julian cuts Zack a deal; he agrees to pled guilty to killing the lobbyist and cooperates; and the law will have him declared “Non compos mentis“; a decision committing him into a mental asylum rather than to prison.