True Blood season 6 casts Arliss Howard as governor of Louisiana

True Blood will return for its abridged sixth season (ten episodes instead of the usual twelve) in June, and some new casting is starting to shape up. It was announced on Thursday that Arliss Howard has been cast in a new role as the governor of the state of Louisiana. No, that's not a vampire title, as you might expect from the HBO series. Howard will be playing the occupant of the job that is in real life held by Bobby Jindal: the actual governor. 

According to TVLine, the character, named Truman Burrell, is "a good ol’ boy politician who has a major beef with vampires ever since his wife ran off with one, leaving him as a single father to their only daughter. Politically savvy and perhaps overly ambitious, Truman tends to let his personal aspirations overshadow his humanity."

Looks like we're headed for another season of thinly veiled allegory, I suppose. 

In any case, the casting of Howard is a definite plus. The actor's last major TV role was a regular slot on the AMC conspiracy thriller Rubicon, in which he played the delightfully ambiguous Kale Ingram. Though the show was cancelled (and too soon, I'll never stop attesting), Howard's performance was one of the best on television that year. Though he'll undoubtedly be dealing with campier material here, it might be worth tuning into True Blood just to see what he does with the role. 

What do you think of Howard's casting? Let us know in the comments section below. 

True Blood will return for its sixth season on June 9, 2013.