Alan Ball was known for his masterful use of music in Six Feet Under. He's lost none of his touch when it comes to his current HBO series, True Blood - which happens to be set in the Louisiana swamps, not terribly far from Houston.

The title of this week's column maybe one of the grossest things we've ever typed, and we work the word hymen-smashing into as many articles as we possibly can. Still, we can safely say that after some jerky starts in the series' fourth season, things are back on track in Bon Temps on HBO's True Blood.

We could recap last episode, but we'd rather dwell on the good than the bad. Here's the important bit of information. In addition to the vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, faeries, and demigods we've been introduced to throughout the series, we now can add witches to the mix (If they add a Loch Ness Monster we'll get a bingo). Lafayette and his boyfriend Jesus have begun meeting with a local coven of said witches led by a woman named Marnie.

By the by, Marnie is played by Fiona Shaw, who you may recognize as playing the magic-phobic Aunt Petunia from the Harry Potter films. Nice little bit of irony, there.

The coven manages to resurrect a pet bird that dies a few moments later, but hey, even Lazarus only makes it to the next chapter of John before we find out he died again and he had the power of God zombifying him. Why this is important is that if the witches can control the dead, then they can control vampires.

Bill, newly crowned vampire king of Louisiana, sends Eric down to the coven to swagger and intimidate the group into ceasing their activities. Tempers flare, and before you know it Marnie has the group calling down the pain from some goddess or other and Eric flees the meeting like there's a two-for-one sale on Sookie's vagina he's about to miss out on.

Turns out that Marnie basically wiped Eric like a bad hard drive, and Sookie finds him wandering the roads of Louisiana with zero clue as to who she is, he is, where he is, or why Sookie smells so good.