True Blood Season 2 Preview: Clawed Thing to Battle Bill for Sookie's Heart

Via Televisionary blog , we bring you a sneak peek at the second season of HBO's True Blood, Alan Ball's vamps-on-the-bayou series that managed to sink its ridiculous fangs into us, despite regularly pushing the boundaries of supernatural-bodice-ripper plausibility.

When last we left our romantic leads, Bill -- a vampire with a soft spot for mind-reading bar wenches -- nearly burned to death trying to save his love Sookie from a serial killer who stalks the monster-groupies of Bon Temps, LA. Bill restores himself to his former, hunky-undead luster in a shallow dirt grave, but the bickering couple don't exactly walk off into the darkness for an afterlife of eternal happiness. Of particular irksomeness to Sookie (pronounced "Sookehhh," at least when Bill says it) is the constant presence of Jessica, an annoying, tween vampire n00b sired by Bill against his will at a junkyard vampire tribunal.

There! All caught up. Now everyone is on equal footing, and can enjoy this clip, in which Sookie and Bill are ... still bickering. After storming away from his little yellow vampiremobile, Sooks soon finds herself chased through a field by a beclawed Child of the Night. Is the creature, as one commenter suggests, the fabled maenad -- aka late-season addition Maryann -- aka "wild women roaming through the woods [who] feeds on dead animals and human emotions such as pride, violence and fear?" Or is it merely shape shifting bar-owner Sam, caught halfway between human and chicken form? You'll just have to wait June 14th to find out.

· First Look: "True Blood" Season Two [Televisionary]

· True Blood [HBO]