Welcome back to Bon Temps for a darker, bloodier True Blood season opening than we’ve ever seen. For the final season, the writing team has a fair few loose ends to tie, but with the first episode, they were mostly out to prove that TB still deserves its time slot on HBO. Beware of spoilers below.

Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer
Even the cast must be tired of going in circles at this point

It seems like the infected vampires, who attacked Bellefleur’s (aka Merlotte’s for you oldschool fans) also killed Tara. She will be missed – although maybe not, because her mother later has a vision, which suggests that her daughter – one of the best characters on the show – might not be dead after all.

Meanwhile, Holly and Arlene get kidnapped by the vampire and taken to a cave – for later consumption, presumably. Then some new characters were introduced (a questionable decision at this point in the show), when Bill and Andy encountered a new band of anti-vampire raiders in their search for the ladies.

More: True Blood Will Live On As Musical Producition

Meanwhile, Jessica was standing outside Andy’s house to protect his last daughter. You know, the only one she didn’t eat. She even proved her loyalty when an infected vamp arrived on the property. Finally, as the sun was coming up, Adylin took pity and let her in. In the end, Jessica decided on not killing her for her help.

Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer
The struggles of being a telepathic human-faerie hybrid in the midst of a vampire war.

Pam is apparently in Morrocco looking for any shred of info on Eric, but we probably won’t have to worry about that storyline for a couple of episodes.

Back to the interesting characters, Sookie is once again worried about what people think about her. Given that she’s a telepath, we kind of get the issue, but after six seasons of this, isn’t it time for Bon Temps to get over it?