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Interview with the Vampire: After the Phantoms of Your Former Self

“Fattening me up for the inevitable end?”

After a great start to the series, this first follow up episode sets the stage for what to expect moving forward.

We start just as we left off, with the somewhat embarrassing and silly yet deeply disturbing and macabre consequences of Louis’ transformation into a vampire and disposing of the bodies of the two priests. I found it very much like the book again, as we have Lestat almost casually doling out advice and information as if Louis were going through a small social trial, while he is literally dying but unable to die as a newly turned vampire.

The following scenes are all about the lessons of becoming a vampire. In the present we have Louis and Daniel having dinner together, as Louis escalates his blood consumption from an inconspicuous blood bag, to a restrained gray fox to eventually a man. This is quite a departure from the original novel, but it fits with the changes we see in Louis. In the past he has trouble letting go of his lingering humanity, even while Lestat attempts to break him of that phantom of his former self.

This of course culminates in Louis' first conscious kill, of the Alderman’s lawyer after he spent their entire meeting treating Louis as inferior. I kept thinking he was going to kill him, and was kind of happy when he gave in. However, this does also illustrate another difference, that we are experiencing a different time period. So this series is definitely more of a reimagining than a straightforward adaptation.


Things settle into a kind of domestic montage, and I love their conflicts as lovers. It is two people from completely different worlds that clearly love one another. They also address the elephant in the room head on between Lestat who truly doesn’t give a shit about gender or race, and Louis who has a lifetime of men like Lestat who have belittled and disrespected him as a person on pretty much every level.

One of the fascinating things is Louis’ narration. His calm, soothing voice is a lovely presence, keeping us rooted in the fact that this is a story being told to Daniel, and not a perfect memory that is being related. This is in parallel to what we see on screen, especially with Anderson’s performance in the past, with his completely different vocal cadence and accent. I would be curious to see Sam Reid in the ‘present’ storyline and how Lestat might have changed over the years.


The scene discussing the ‘great conversion’ and the painful ache created by the small pause in the story when Louis was holding his nephew Benjamin was superb storytelling. We hoped he wouldn’t give in, but this is not a tale of moral monsters. This is gothic horror, and no one is safe really, even children. This also establishes Louis’ wants and desires. He keeps himself tethered to his family long after it made sense for him in his new life. He took control of the one business he desired as a mortal, and made it a massive success. The resolution of that scene was like an exhale, and I simply loved Daniel asking about the baby with every exchange.

Lestat and his love of music is interesting, as is the violence that came from that love: killing the poor tenor for a few bad notes. Then it came to the famous line about Louis becoming a killer, and it was heartwrenching. Lestat is a monster, that much is clear. He loves, and can be kind on occasion, but he is removed from whatever human existence he once had. The slow, deliberate bleeding of that poor man showed how vindictive he can be, how petty and cruel. A library of confusion indeed.

At the same time the seduction was starting to work on Louis, yet again the parallel of the present confirmed the truth. Louis is not a killer, and never really was. A failure of a vampire, at least in his own words, having sworn off the hunt for over 22 years. A beautiful failure in a way, because this Louis is not as tortured as he was in the 70’s, nor is he as broken. But there is something in the way he eats a dessert every week, a reminder that while he can act human, he isn’t one. What really showed the difference is when Daniel shared a very human moment with Louis, while the vampire could only understand the aesthetics of it.

Bits:

The gorgeous and disturbing art shown at the beginning of the episode was painted by Marius de Romanus. You might want to remember that name.

I absolutely loved their coffins as character statements. Lestat's is old and ornate, Louis' is polished, high end and new.

I tried to research Azalea Hall to see if there is something of historical significance. There is a student housing building at LSU called Azalea Hall. As a name, Azalea means dry, which is kind of interesting in an ironic kind of way.

Quotes:

Louis: "I wasn’t a man anymore, I was something else. I had powers now and decades of rage to process, and it was both random and unfortunate the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery.”

Lestat: “What did he do?”
Louis: “He disrespected me.”
Lestat: “How did he do that?”
Louis: “He told me I did a good job.”
Lestat: “You are a library of confusion.”

Louis: (gesturing between himself and Lestat) “Colored, white, Creole, French. Queer, half queer, mostly queer... what is it?”
Lestat: “Non-discriminating.”
Louis: “He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover and my maker.”

Another fantastic installment in what is quickly shaping up to be something I had never hoped to see, a great adaptation.

4 out of 4 dinner courses of endangered animals and blood dolls.

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

3 comments:

  1. That long meal was a wow. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that in a movie or television. I used to read the books and Sam Reid is a perfect Lestat -- and that is saying a lot.

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  2. Thanks a lot for your review. Appretiate it.
    I agree with many things mentioned. Yet I am a Libary of confusion myself, when it comes to this episode. As a longtime bookfan I am struggeling a bit - especially with this episode. I liked it, I did not like it at all, I liked it - are basically my feelings on this.

    I think this is not so much due to the characters in this reinterpretation ( for me this is no longer an adaption), I mean I simply love Lestat - he is book Lestat at least and this is high praise. Louis is completely different - especially as depicted in the present. Somehow I had the feelings the showrunners were not sure where to go with their "adaptation". In Interviews with the showrunners they are like - we stayed even more true to the book than the movie - yadayada, yet the reinterpreted 90 percent. If you reinterpretate - commit to it - make it your own.
    My issues are a few:
    Firstly the homey-scenes, the couple scenes - I loved them! I really did, yet they seemed to be a copy right out of tumbr fanfiction. I love the fanfiction - comic pictures - guilty pleasure and such - but somehow - that is what threw me off, at the same time. There are little gold nuggets in the books that could have been used, and for that satisfy all the fangirls and boys out there as much as the strict book fans. So I was disappointed it was not more original in a way - or threw in later books, as they do in other scenes.
    Secondly: Present time - I do not like the present time arc. The dinner scene had me rolling my eyes. Sensitive Louis making a show out of drinking blood - no way in hell. But what annoyed me most was, that I was asking myself - am I still in IWTV or am I whatching True Blood? (fresh from the farm anyone?). Blood and IceCream - now we are in vampire diaries or the Originals where they eat human food? "The great conversion" - mhm Being Human UK - edition anyone - just me? I was disappointed by that. Especially since True Blood, Vampire diaries and all that came after, have their vampire-gifts due to the complete reinvention of the vampire genre by Anne Rice IWTV and the VC after, as well as her other books like Mayfair witches - yes I am looking at you Originals (not so original). The books TB and Series VD even mention Anne Rice. So why are we now referencing ideas from those universes instead of staying within the rich universe, that we are trying to adapt? Libary of confusion here.
    And thirdly - the storytelling itself this time was confused and meta again - and therefore very important dialogue straight from the book and even movie fell simply flat for me.
    Dinner scene - Louis is discussing the killing of the first victim while munching on a fox - quoting the IWTV book but not book Louis - but book Lestat. It felt out of character even for the tv-character - because it was out of character even by their own TV storytelling.
    The TV-Series talks about Louis killing for 5-7 years, they do not show his struggle whith it - it is mentioned in passing - oh I did not like it, but now in 2022 I am in total self control. So the most iconic scene in book and movie - the "you are a killer" scene fell totally flat. It came out of nowhere. I was not emotionally connected to Louis (because the struggle was not shown), nor Lestat in this instant - I was more like "whats your problem now, Lestat - Louis is killing, what more do you want" - Especially when Louis "does not need to enjoy it". So big confusion here - Missed oportunity by the showrunners I think - not due to the actors who are doing so marvelously.

    Still this show has me hooked. Anything VC will always have me wanting more. Something of this world is better than none of it. And Lestat is still Lestat - so who cares.

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  3. Gonna agree that the long meal was definitely a wow. (The fox was very upsetting.) Especially the end when Daniel talked about his first wife and how only half her eyebrow was blonde. I really love the dynamic between him and Louis. There seems to be mutual respect there, but there's also an uneasiness. There's a lot of baggage, not to mention a ridiculous power imbalance, and yet Daniel still continues to be confrontational. It's a very, very interesting dynamic that in any other show would be my favorite.

    But this one also has Louis and Lestat. Is Lestat a good person? No. He's a monster. Petty and vindictive and a sadistic killer who takes great pleasure in what he is. Still, like Louis said, there's something incredibly compelling and enthralling about him. Buying the Azaela, insisting that he would have killed any man who disrespected Louis himself, whisking him away to an opera, listing so many wonderful qualities about how Louis is one of a kind... you can fool yourself into a very happy life there.

    And yet it's so clearly fragile. Or maybe it's only fragile because Louis is presenting it as such. Because there's the lurking suspicion that maybe Lestat isn't being fully honest like when he held back on the fact that Louis could read minds. Are there really less than 100 vampires in the world? I don't know. I can't see there being a lot, but less than 100 feels so, so few. But there's definitely a desperation to him when he insisted to Louis that they could never part from each other.

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