TVLINE | How do you explain the fact that some of those infected — Nora, for example — died quickly, yet others are wandering around.

We did say that the virus had mutated, and we get to decide what those mutations are. Perhaps the demand for human blood goes up and that’s the only thing that keeps vampires with Hep V alive. In seasons past – I’m not going to point to any one of them – we took some massive swings, not knowing where we were going. That’s the nature of what we do. In this case, I don’t believe we bit off more than we can chew. I’m not going to give answers to all these things, but the virus has mutated. That’s another reason for the time passage. Just like bacteria mutates and that’s why there are antibiotic-resistant strains. So what applied to Nora doesn’t necessarily apply to this gang. And they’re not zombies.

TVLINE | What are they? Is there a name for them?

In my somewhat limited zombie-genre experience, zombies are not organized. They’re just hunting-killing machines. So what was meant to come across there was that they’re organized, they’re in a formation, they’re hunting, they’re sentient, they can talk. They still have intellect.

TVLINE | There was definitely a Walking Dead vibe in that last scene. Was there any concern that people were going to look at that and go, “Ah, they’re jumping on the zombie bandwagon?”

Sure. Of course, it was a debate in the writers’ room. The logical conclusion to a season about Hep V getting out there in the world has to be there’s Hep V-infected vampires… but we’re not going to do The Walking Dead season of True Blood. Truthfully, all of this is about forcing humans and vampires into relationships. It’s not going to be a plot device the way people are familiar with us introducing a Big Bad at the end of a season.

http://tvline.com/2013/08/20/alexander-skarsgard-leaving-true-blood-eric-death-nude/