The morality of 'True Blood'

Good and evil in HBO's vampire drama

HBO's vampire drama series True Blood, said Heather Havrilesky in Salon, forces viewers to "question what makes a person (or vampire) morally upright or fundamentally depraved." The show, which kicked off its second season Sunday night, flaunts its "moral confusion and ambiguity," and creates a world in which "vampires use good manners to restrain their underlying temperamental, impulsive natures," while "Christians use them to veil their rage." (watch a trailer for season two of True Blood)

True Blood "questions black and white morality," said Chelsea Doyle in Starpulse, while relishing fantasies about "gruesome murder, rampant sexuality, and blood blood blood." In the True Blood universe, a vampire seems "justified in some way" for, say, killing a person who once sexually abused a little girl. But who's the "good guy" and who's the "bad guy"? You never really know.

And that's fine, said Maureen Ryan in the Chicago Tribune, because it would be a mistake to over-think True Blood. The show's "exploration" of morality "isn't so much nuanced and thought-provoking as it is muddled and indecisive." True Blood isn't trying to make some grand statement—it's really just "well-acted, classy trashy escapism."