Throwback Thursday: The Smuttiest Vampire Soap Opera

Because escapism is fun and necessary!

Yeah, yeah, everyone says spooky season is over, but I think a good smutty binge watch is never out of season, which is why this week’s Throwback Thursday pick is True Blood! This horror-fantasy-drama series based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris premiered on HBO in 2008 and ran for 80 episodes until its last episode aired in 2014, a whole decade ago!

The premise of the series is that vampires are now openly a part of human society, partially due to a Japanese-invented synthetic blood beverage called Tru Blood that they can use to have sustenance without killing people. During the show’s run, a blood-orange-flavored soft drink was released in a bottle made to look similar to the ones used in the show. I still have one, of course.

The series revolves around the inhabitants of the small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, specifically a waitress named Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and her family, friends, and co-workers. She works at Merlotte’s Bar and Grill and one evening, Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) as he is known around town, comes in for a Tru Blood, beginning their dramatic romantic relationship. There are hierarchies and rules in the vampire world, and not everyone is a fan of Bill. There are much older and more powerful vampires in the world. The cast of characters in the show includes humans, vampires, werewolves and other weres, a maenad, a shapeshifter, and some decidedly not-Tinkerbell faeries. If you like any of that stuff in your smut, chances are you’ll enjoy this show.

True Blood features many different sexualities and orientations in the cast and storylines. Vampires are usually inextricably tied to sex in most media that features them, because hey, if you’re immortal, the same old ways of fucking probably get a bit stale, so pansexuality and kink among vampires is a trope for a reason. Of course, there is a creepy hypocritical evangelical preacher and his equally creepy wife who run an anti-vampire church called the Fellowship of the Sun involved in everything as well and the story is engaging, enough to keep you watching between the copious sex scenes. If you find yourself wanting to just skip to the smut, grab that remote and check out a list of the best True Blood sex scenes right over here.

Oddly enough, there was also a porn parody of True Blood called Tru, though it seems rather silly to parody something that was basically softcore porn with… more porn, it’s a fun watch as well.

All episodes of True Blood are available (at press time) to stream on Max.