Werewolves bound to make ‘True Blood’ even bloodier. Truly

Image via Wikipedia

True Blood (not to be confused with True/Slant) returns June 13, which is a good thing because The Good Wife is in rerun (and I just want to go on record right up front here that even with all their problems, I’m sure Mr. Big is much happier with Alicia Florrick than with that shoe-obsessed flibbertigibbet Carrie Bradshaw), Breaking Bad is winding down and I can never remember when Mad Men or Curb Your Enthusiasm begin and end.

The greatness of True Blood, of course, is that it is not only about vampires.

There are other creatures as well. Creatures that are loathsome yet somehow sexy. And isn’t that just like real life? I mean look at Angelina Jolie.

This season, as anyone knows who’s parked on HBO for at least an hour lately, werewolves are the new guys in town.

I am enthusiastic, despite having recently witnessed on pay per view The Wolfman, with a depressed Benicio Del Toro wandering around the moors looking to kill his agent for getting him into a movie that bad.

Think about how rare supernatural multiplicity has been in our culture. It almost seems to be an unwritten show-biz rule that if you have a vampire bedeviling the citizenry, you can’t have a zombie too. Like that would strain our credibility. Like the audience would shout, “Hordes of rabid mummies stalking the land, sure, I buy that, it could happen, but an invasion of Martians at the same time? No! It’s too much. I refuse to suspend disbelief!”

It’s good that we’re finally getting rid of such hidebound constraints. I hear that Twilight (which I doubt if I’ll ever see) has some werewolves among its vampires. True Blood has lots of things. Everyone talks about Bill the blood-sucking Civil War veteran and his fangy friends but how often do we hear anyone mention Sam Merlotte, the shape-shifting bar owner who can turn into a dog or a canary any time he feels a little stressed? (For some reason, exotic foreign fauna seem beyond his powers. The occasional wombat or coatimundi would make for a fun change of pace.)

Last season featured the evil Marianne, who was some kind of ancient Greek demigod and could transform the entire populace of Bon Temps, Louisiana and environs into rutting zombies through mass entrancement (and could herself sprout the head of a bull in order to administer an instructive if painful goring now and then).

Then there’s Sookie, who’s a human, of all things. Oh and also can read people’s minds. And takes her clothes off a lot.

And now lycanthropy.

Who among us, I ask you, does not enjoy the sight of a ordinary looking fellow excusing himself from an office picnic or IRS audit to duck into the nearest undergrowth, germinate thick facial hair and begin baying at the full moon?

Can we all just take a moment here to howl? You know you want to.

OK, that was good. Not particularly scary but it’s a start.

I for one have wondered on so many occasions: Who would emerge victorious were a vampire and a werewolf to engage in fisticuffs? Or an angel and a giant squid. Or a dragon and a leprechaun. Or a Satanically possessed cyclops and Lady Gaga.True Blood, it would seem, is prepared to answer these questions.