This post will contain spoilers for both the books (Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris) and the show True Blood on HBO. You have been warned.

Season 4 of True Blood will premiere on Sunday, June 26th.

For a recap of the television show, here you go:

True Blood is about the world where vampires are real, and because of a synthetic blood created by the Japanese called Tru Blood, vampires now no longer need to consume human blood for sustenance. They have “come out of the coffin” and now trying to become citizens of normal society.

“Mainstreaming”, as they call it, is where vampires now live among the humans and live together, day by day. They get married to humans, pay taxes, possibly vote. Even though they are vampires.

In the town of Bon Temps lives young Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress at a restaurant called Merlottes. One day, a vampire comes walking in the door, and her life changes. Oh, there was perhaps one thing about Sookie, I forgot to mention. She’s a mind reader. She can hear everyone’s thoughts. Except Vampire Bill’s.

From here on, life in Bon Temps is never going to be the same. Life with supernatural beings is crazy. There is never a dull moment. I will go ahead and break the post, please continue to read if you have read the books and seen the show. If you don’t plan on reading the books or don’t care about spoilers in general, please feel free to continue reading.

The show hasn’t significantly deviated from the books too much, however I have to admit that it has changed a couple storylines quite a bit after season 3.

First of all, Calvin Norris is dead? Um OK I can live with that. He’s not a major character and he’s not significantly important. However, I did think that he was kinda instrumental in the story of the werepanthers when Jason was turned. Enough about that. The storyline can change in the show. It can’t exactly like the book.

The story of Lafayette is great. I love it. Book readers will know that the body that is found at the end of season 1 is indeed Lafayette in the books and I’m sure this is the way to show that the show is not the book.

Making Lafayette a part of the witches story is great. I love it. I just hope they don’t screw the witches story like they did with the fairy story.

The fairies. I know I am saying “WTF?” to this. I mean I never thought they would introduce the story so early. And I certainly never thought they’d give Sookie powers. Seriously? I don’t recall Sookie having any powers beyond being wily and the ability to read minds.

She certainly didn’t have the ability to fling vampires around like puppets. Although it’s been a while since I’ve read the earlier books.

I just hope they don’t Really ruin any other story because they’ve lost me on the fairy story of the legend that if you drink fairy blood you can walk in the sun. Maybe that was in the books but honestly I had no idea about that.

Then there’s the matter of Sookie’s grandfather. I guess they just decided to change that too. I guess the producers of the show or whoever decided that it was too hard to put in the story of a fairy being infatuated with young Adele Stackhouse (Gran) and turning into her husband in order to make love to her. I can accept that. But the way they introduced Sookie’s grandfather and Mab on top of that? Wait, wait, I don’t remember Mab even being in the original story at all, although she could have taken up a few pages and I just forgot.

No, I don’t like the cheesiness of how they did the fairy thing. To me it looks too much like an episode of Hercules or Xena and it’s going Really, Really bad.

I realize of course, that the show is never going to be like books. But there are some storylines that just don’t need to be embellished. The fairy story was pretty simple and I Really don’t remember Vampire Bill ever going over to the fairy realm. Sookie going to the fairy realm for that matter is news to me. Don’t get me started on Claudine. Although I do believe that she’s pretty similar to the book, I just forgot what she looked like.

I do have to say that it just seems wrong that they’ve concentrated on vampire blood as some super drug that people everyone seems to be doing. I don’t remember this being such a big thing in the books, but I guess on TV, sex and drugs sell. It’s a shame Really. No wonder Vampire Diaries ratings were better than True Blood ratings for season 3.

All in all, season 4 better prove to be interesting or I might lose interest in the show. Let’s not kill off any characters that aren’t supposed to die and please be sure to kill off Debbie Pelt. I Really hope they don’t mess that one up, since that’s a big part of the relationship between Alcide and Sookie, good and bad.