Alan Ball clues Time Out KL in about what to expect in ‘True Blood’ season four.

How faithful are you to the books?
So far, we have used each book in the series for each season. I don’t know how long that is going to last. Our writing process is very fluid and we’ve started working on season five already. One of the things is, how do we shake it up? How do we make it fresh? At the start of season four, Sookie was gone for a year. That allowed her to come back with all the characters in their different places. But I can’t do that again, so now we’re going to have to figure out something new to do for season five.

Are there strong metaphors – vampire sex, werewolves the beast within – in each season?
Having a supernatural element allows you to open doors, as a storyteller. But I’ve tried to approach the supernatural as not something that exists outside of nature but that is a deeper manifestation of nature. That’s why we’ve tried to keep all of our creatures as rooted in nature as possible. And that’s why we make sure that the vampires have fangs that actually mimic rattlesnake fangs, and we don’t give them crazy contact lenses or big head prosthetics. One of the reasons, in my humble opinion, the show resonates for so many people because it addresses those primal instincts and urges we all have. We are animals, we’re creatures of nature.

It also seems socio-political in a way… Vampire Bill doing PR for bloodsuckers this season.
Yes, that is one of the things that I loved about Charlaine Harris’ books – they walked this tightrope between farce and tragedy, horror and romance, and there was a social commentary but it wasn’t banging you over the head. We live in such a manufactured world and our opinions of the world are spoon-fed to us. There are people who look at the vampires and see gays and lesbians, and there are people who look at the vampires and see immigrants. But then there are people who look at the vampires and they see blood thirsty power, Rupert Murdoch. I love that mix because I don’t want to have, like, here’s the bad guys, here’s the good guys.

So Sookie comes over to the dark side this season?
She already likes dirty vampire sex. But we definitely see her coming to terms of, like, ‘Wait a minute, I’m not sure I wanna be yours, or yours, how about you two being mine?’ Which I love because part of the whole romance paradigm is that there’s this heroine who’s taken by this brooding creature but she’s still always, kind of, satyrian. So I like the twist that our beloved little Sookie is actually getting a little, ‘I’m in charge here fellas. I’ve got power. I know what my blood does to you guys and I’m gonna own it.’

Are there things coming up in season four that you think we should watch out for?
I’ve always loved book four because of the Eric storyline, where he loses his memory and he becomes very vulnerable. This cocky vampire who’s always revelled in his power and being so gorgeous – to see him, all of a sudden, be vulnerable and need Sookie, almost like a child needs its mother… I think that fulfils a lot of people’s fantasies – ‘I can change the bad boy’. The flashbacks to the Spanish Inquisition have been fun. In episode four, Marnie has a vision, where the witch, Antonia, is being burned at the stake in the public square. That’s during the Spanish Inquisition. And we do three or four of those so it’s really fun.

In some of your past interviews, you’ve talked a bit about moments in your life where, for instance, death has loomed large, and you’ve then felt that dealing with those topics in your work has been important. Do you think it’s been cathartic?
I do. I think, certainly ‘Six Feet Under’ allowed me to articulate to myself my own relationship with grief and to get to a point where I really, fundamentally understand that grief is part of life and you do come out of it. I was in a car accident when I was 13 years old and my sister was killed in front of me. In a way, death became a constant presence in my life from that day forward. I think, in a way, once I got over the trauma of that, now I can make fun of it. Because there’s such a huge body count in ‘True Blood’ and then you have creatures who defy death.

There’s a scene in the very beginning of this season where Sookie meets her grandfather again in Fairyland and she almost gets the chance to say the things she should have said but actually, it doesn’t quite work out and then he dies. Is that in the books or is that personal?
No, that is not in the books. I think, once he realises, ‘I’ve lost 20 years of my life, and I just thought I’d been here for a few hours’, I think then, it’s difficult for them to have a conversation without it being about that. You know, Sookie and Jason are both orphans and I think, being an orphan myself, you always yearn for those things that you’ve lost. I know that both my parents and my sister appear in my dreams and in my subconscious. I’m not sure what that scene was about.

You’re definitely continuing ‘True Blood’ with season five?
I definitely am continuing through season five. I’m not sure how many years I have left in me. I do believe the show has a lot of years left and I don’t think I necessarily have. I do believe there is a scenario in which I could move on and somebody else would take the reins.

‘True Blood S4’  airs every Thursday, 10pm on HBO (Ch 411) & HBO HD (Ch 431).