"True Blood" Season 4 to Have a Witchy Premiere

"True Blood Season 4" premieres today to answer Season 3's cliffhangers. However, since the first eight minutes of Season 4 were posted online days ago, many viewers might not be surprised at how things resume. In any case, there's a lot more going on after Sookie barely survives her trip to the land of fairies, including witches, love triangle/quadrangle madness, and the usual True Blood mix of sex and social commentary.

Warning: Spoilers follow

Sookie left with her new fairy sisters at the end of Season 3 to get away from Bill and Eric's lies and manipulations. But she comes back to all of that and more, as Bill tries to move on, Eric winds up getting closer to Sookie in the process- despite having amnesia- and witches become the new supernatural threat to Bon Temps.

All of this seems to have been met well so far, as Season 4 has an average score of 77 from critics at Meta Critic. Starting Sunday night, it will be the fans turn to weigh in, and they have always been more fanatical- or perhaps 'fang-atical'- than critics anyway.

Viewers have waited for almost a year for the most graphic vampire series on television to return. Not only will True Blood drinkers get to see the whole gang again in the premiere, they can then log onto HBO Go to see the second episode online. With that offer, and with HBO having already leaked the first eight minutes of the premiere, it won't take much for viewers to get freshly addicted again.

HBO is hoping that's the case, as it tries to keep its recent momentum up. In the post-Sopranos era, True Blood was the closest thing the network had to a big hit, until Game of Thrones unveiled its opening season. Now that Sunday night audiences are recovering from Thrones' brutal final twists- and their hatred for the finale of AMC's The Killing- it is time for Sookie, Bill, Eric and the gang to rule over Sundays again.

Things are looking better for HBO than they have been in some time, now that its highest rated hit is coming back after its newest hit ended its first year. It would appear that True Blood followers are unlikely to be disappointed by the start of Season 4- though of course, it could always be a different story by the time it ends. And at the least, Sookie/Bill fans seem destined to go through a pretty hard time to start off, although it may be a different story for Sookie/Eric shippers.

In any case, all kind of fans, shippers and fanatics are raring to take another drink from their favorite show, starting Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

Sources

IGN.com-"True Blood: 10 Fangbangin' Facts About Season 4"

Meta Critic- "True Blood: Season 4"

Aint It Cool- "Learn What's Ahead For The Vampires, Werewolves, Witches and Fairies Populating HBO's Hugely Popular True Blood!"