The Vampire Lestat: Detroit

“I lost myself on stage for a moment.”

As a rebrand and sequel to Interview With The Vampire, this feels like something completely new. Structurally, thematically, atmospherically, sonically, everything about this first episode screams new direction. It is spoken aloud that we’re no longer in Louis’s version of the story. We are now in Lestat’s world and it is already one hell of a ride.

I think it would take me a year to dissect all the bits and pieces interspersed throughout this fever dream and drug soaked glitterfest. It feels like someone has opened Lestat’s skull and poured its contents on screen, fractured and self-depricating. The best word to describe Lestat is something he almost admitted: struggling. He didn’t jump into this new situation giving full thought to his actions. He reacted, and reacted and reacted again without knowing exactly why.

He’s hurt, he’s rebelling, he’s angry and it all comes through in Sam Reid’s riveting performance. He throws himself quite literally into the fray of every situation which always seems a bit off balance. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s start with the cold open, with Louis and Armand at some point in the future at an auction selling Lestat’s recorded legacy. We don’t know exactly what is going on, we aren’t told Lestat’s fate. We only see some of the fallout of his actions in 2025. Louis is limping. Armand has lost an eye. The Talamasca wants Lestat’s recordings. Yet he is quite ready to burn his past in front of everyone. His handwritten notes, the original recordings and vinyl all consumed in a clear message that he views the future as more important than the past.

There were several interesting bits of foreshadowing during the auction sequence. Beyond Armand’s eyepatch and Louis’s limp, Lestat’s narration also mentions something about a Y chromosome catastrophe which likely points to a plot point from book three, which I will not spoil here. They also left Lestat’s fate in that time period intentionally vague. Raglan James is still representing the Talamasca, too, which again I will not spoil but his presence here is interesting. We also do not see who wins the auction so I bet we’ll come back to this scene at some later time.

The main point of the auction here is to introduce a series of recordings made during his infamous tour that tell his story in his own words. The “Failures” are a literal record of the events, and probably act (along with Daniel Malloy’s documentary) as one of the framing devices this season. Nothing is sacred, and the events of the last two seasons are lambasted and decried as the ravings of a psychopath and liar. Continuity issues like the rain, Lestat’s hair length, and the fact Lestat has notable scars on his chest were all mentioned in passing. The idea of that train scene in season one where Lestat threatens Claudia is called a pure fabrication.

So let's talk about those stage performances, because they're some actual live shows featuring music from the series. However, either staged or real, they felt like small venue shows where the energy is all consuming and full of very eager and obsessed fans. Lestat's stage presence is a cross between David Bowie and Jim Morrison with a voice that feels both silky and rough especially when he adds vocal gravel. I loved the vampires sitting in the crowd with deadpan expressions, and the guys in horrible Lestat wigs holding up phones to record.

The Fang Gang (which Lestat dubs the Tooth Team) were actually kind of fun, despite the fact that they tried to kill Lestat. The actor playing Tim had good delivery and Russ had some good lines, especially when Russ says "We are the children of the darkness reborn!" and Lestat laughs at them. The fight was brutal and bloody, with Lestat holding his own for well over half of it, but being drugged had some disadvantages and he eventually lost. So when Danny and Sam Barclay (who is indeed a masked DJ now) came to rescue him it was both surprising and fun, although some of the lines felt oddly out of place. Lestat is yet another unreliable narrator, after all.

The flashback sequence involving Lestat finding out about Daniel’s book and Louis’s betrayal of the secrets is played a bit for laughs, but Lestat is so clearly upset and thrown by what was said about him that he cannot contain himself. Yelling at children and breaking the guitar were outbursts, but something in what he played and said in that moment was enough for the lead guitarist of Satan’s Night Out to reach out to him, allowing Lestat to give into his impulses and reform behind him. Also, the fact that Lestat had a bowl of candy to hand out was kind of fascinating, because it is such a normal human thing and he is so very inhuman.

The final scene of Lestat in pain and injured, leaning over a toilet as his texting partner shows up unexpectedly was misleading. They intentionally left the name of the person he was speaking to unmentioned, built up to make us think it was Louis. So when a woman shows up we aren’t sure who it is at first, but it is in fact Gabriella, whom he describes in that last line as: "Fledgling, lover, Mother." Are we to assume this is his actual biological mother? A mother figure? Or just someone he calls Mother? No matter which one it is, it is pretty twisted, even for Lestat.

Bits:

Ella Ballentine (Baby Jenks) is a well known and celebrated Canadian actress.

Lestat’s double is hilariously bad (of course played by Sam Reid), but it does make sense to create the illusion of Lestat as a normal person pretending to be supernatural.

Gabriella is played by Jennifer Ehle, whom you may recognize from her most famous role as Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (1995). I’m really looking forward to what she brings to this role.

Returning characters: Lestat, Louis, Armand, Daniel, Samuel Barkley and a previous bit player from season one, Dr. Fareed Bhansali.

The trick or treaters are dressed up as Louis, Lestat and Armand.

Vampires pee, which I suppose makes sense if you consider they only use some of the blood they consume for nutrition.

Original Songs: Long Face, Black Licorice

Quotes:

Lestat: "If you take nothing else away from your exorbitant purchase, heed this advice. Never play two nights in Detroit. You'll wind up in Windsor with a broken orbital bone listening to transactional sex through the adjoining walls."

Lestat: "MDMA and LSD, the Torvill and Dean of hallucinogenics."

So far this is incredibly disjointed, like an out of order stream of consciousness that feels a bit like a music video, combined with softer moments of reflection and depression. It gives this first episode a visceral and emotional punch, which is often a bit overwhelming with sensory overload. I think all of that is a facade, hiding Lestat behind his guise when in fact he is struggling and not facing reality, angry with Louis and the fact his world is crumbling around him.

This one is hard to rate because it is so different from last season that I need to see more before I can put a number on it. Is this the best episode of the series? Probably not, but we’ll see moving forward.

3 or 3.5 Small Venue Performances

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.

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