Silly, Sultry, Emotionally Damaging: ‘The Vampire Lestat’ Is Doing It All [Recap]
If you had an impression of Interview with the Vampire the TV show as a melodramatic, blood-soaked, toxic love story — more brazen in showcasing these elements than the 1994 movie with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise — then the season 3 premiere probably knocked your socks off. Rolin Jones struck a strange, beautifully delicious chord as a showrunner with this new season: He managed to maintain the yearning heart of the first two seasons, while cranking the intrigue, violence, and sexual deviancy up to 10, and we love Jones for it.
The sheer number of memes in anticipation of The Vampire Lestat and in reaction to it bodes well for a show that could have easily flopped if it hadn’t lived up to previous seasons’ euphoria (speaking of highly anticipated third seasons and Euphoria…). What truly makes this third season enjoyable is how silly it is, leaning into the vampire lore in a completely campy way.
The Vampire Lestat follows the titular vampire (Sam Reid) in his rockstar era, but the storyline is somehow miles more relatable than it sounds on paper. Bloodsucking and fire-starting and immortality bedamned: Lestat is just a guy navigating an ugly, public breakup in his particular scene, which brought fresh embarrassment as well as old insecurities to the surface. And what’s a guy who’s been canceled to do? Now, instead of doing something wise like going to therapy, like many people, Lestat is crashing out and having an arguably cringe identity crisis.
Like many men of a certain age, Lestat said “fuck it” and is starting a band. But also, like many men of a certain age, he has to deal with knowing he’s good at many things but a beginner in others. You’d think after prowling the Earth for centuries, a vampire would run out of new experiences. But because intrepid Daniel Molloy aired all of the dirty laundry of Lestat, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), and Armand (Assad Zaman), now the first rule of vampire fight club has been broken. Vampires are finally out in the open as mortals, and Lestat has to deal with the very human learning curve of being perceived by the world.
Of course, there’s plenty of humor in seeing someone who looks no older than 32 affecting the very stilted approach to tech that you’d expect from someone of the Silent Generation. For example, in the first episode, “Detroit,” you see Lestat earnestly wielding his iPad to FaceTime Louis — and there’s a charm in that, even though you see Lestat tearing open throats and ripping other vampires to pieces in the same episode.
The silliness abounded. I never expected to hear the words “Jelly Roll,” “Post Malone,” and “Joey Chestnut” in an Interview with the Vampire episode. The measures that Lestat’s personal team takes to muddy the waters around the authenticity of his vampire nature — including hiring a sad little body double in a burnt-out wig to eat at Applebee’s — were completely unserious. It’s also been a minute since a piece of horror media gave me a giggle the way seeing the nighttime “POV” of Lestat, post-overdose victim imbibe, did.
Lestat’s slick mouth is also the bloody icing on the cake. For me, it’s the way Lestat either eviscerates or gently manipulates everyone around him, putting you in the mind of Hugh Laurie on House, M.D. We hate to love a lovable asshole. But Lestat’s voiceovers, in their almost manic quality, also make the show. Just like with Louis in the first two seasons, we get to watch Lestat take a stab at writing and rewriting the history of his life.
As always, the way Rolin Jones handles memory, truth, and trauma are my favorite part of his Anne Rice adaptation — not the bloody vampire threesomes or supernatural ass-whoppings. (Okay, wait, I love that, too.) Remixing some elements of Rice’s literature, Jones weaves the fabric of Louis and Lestat and Armand and Daniel’s lives and then picks at the tapestry until it unravels. Both “Detroit” and the second episode, “Toledo,” feature Lestat telling us a version of events about his origins.
We meet Lestat’s mom, Gabrielle de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle), whom Lestat turned into a vampire and whom Lestat is unfortunately fucking. So from episode one, you’re already wondering, “Wait, how the hell did we get here?” We get a glimpse of his unforgiving father and how he ran the household. You start to understand where Lestat got his cold beauty and unending savagery from. You hear him tell a different version of events regarding his first love, Nicholas, and you find that Gabrielle has been in the shadows of the Paris storyline this whole time — making you wonder why, for the past two seasons, Louis decided to leave that part out.
Time doesn’t actually heal all wounds, but it can make the edges of your memory fuzzy and soften your recollection of those wounds. This trope is truly pushed to the max in the third episode, “Toronto,” when we get to the devastating truth about the circumstances of Lestat being turned into a vampire. Just as Louis omitted Gabrielle from his stories during the last season, Lestat gets out of talking about killing his first love on the record this season. But we find out that there’s a secret no one knows: That Magnus sexually assaulted Lestat when he turned him. As viewers, we start to think that perhaps the experience, combined with the general self-loathing that seems to come with being a vampire, is why Lestat is the way he is.
The sheer gravity of this fact bowls you over as you’re watching the truth unfold, because you have to grapple with another stomach-turning truth: his daughter Claudia, too, was sexually assaulted by another vampire. We got hints of this last season, with that part of the diaries that survived her being ripped out and hidden by Louis and Armand. But when Louis is tasked by the Talamasca to take out a vampire on their watchlist, Louis finds out it’s Claudia’s rapist and decides to make his revenge as slow and painful as possible.
In the end, Louis’ killing of Bruce is doubly satisfying. We at least get the catharsis of one person’s rapist being killed, even if we can’t kill every person who does the unthinkable. And it’s in moments like these that you realize a show that’s unendingly silly manages to be philosophically touching too. Survivors have complicated relationships with their abusers, which continues to be a theme throughout this adaptation of Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles book series.
Moreover, as always, vampire stories raise complicated questions about life and death — all the supernatural mechanics aside. Vampirism and, by extension, immortality being referred to as “the gift” always feels tongue-in-cheek. This most recent episode of The Vampire Lestat reminds viewers that, apart from the pain of outliving your mortal loved ones, the trauma you experience whilst living or undead may be enough to make you long for the end. Maybe we, as humans, should be grateful for a definitive expiration date.
This is a recap of the first three episodes. The Vampire Lestat airs Sunday on AMC and AMC+.
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