'True Blood' is back

The bomb that shattered the living room left carnage in its wake. The floor is slick with blood, tattered bodies litter the room, entrails dangle from the ceiling and an unrecognizable mass of goo stuck to the wall erratically spurts jets of mauve blood.

"I'm gonna ask everyone to clear the set who is not actually dying on it," yells Scottie Gissel, a first assistant director for HBO's hit vampire series " True Blood," which launches into its second season of sensational Gothic gore and lusty, undead romance next Sunday. (Viewers will see the scene of explosive destruction that Gissel is stage-managing late in the season.)

On this sunny afternoon, the cast and crew work in overdrive on a gloomy, fog-soaked soundstage at the Lot on Santa Monica and Formosa. They labor with the assuredness of a project vindicated. After getting off to a rocky start critically last fall, "True Blood," based on the books by Charlaine Harris and created by Alan Ball, who created "Six Feet Under" and wrote "American Beauty," steadily built its audience to emerge as HBO's most popular show in recent years, with an average of 7.8 million viewers watching each episode by the end of Season 1.

With a fervent fan base, including nearly half a dozen fan-run websites that HBO -- in a forward-thinking approach to managing public opinion -- actively fosters, "True Blood" is hoping to prove with its sophomore season that even in the "Twilight" age of vampire overkill, it can maintain its success.

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(Photo courtesy HBO)