Interview With the Vampire recap: Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
Our unhappy family just can't stay apart, can they?
Louis (Jacob Anderson) survived last week's high-speed encounter with the pavement, obviously, but it left him with shattered vertebrae, a punctured lung, temporary blindness in one eye, and terrifying dreams of falling. This time Claudia's (Bailey Bass) the one delivering birds to Louis.
Daniel (Eric Bogosian), however, is stuck on Lestat's surprise Superman-like flying skills.
"Not like Superman," Louis corrects him. "Superman is a fictional character."
Daniel's getting his Parkinson's treatment from Dr. Fareed Bhansali (Gopal Divan), Loius' personal physician, who continually insists "I'm not here" when Daniel tries to draw him into the interview.
Louis demonstrates that he's still reading Daniel's mind, asking if he still dreams about their 1973 encounter. Daniel confirms that he does, although he always wakes up before Louis' invitation back to his apartment. (Remember this — it's important later!) Then he pivots to what we're all interested in: what happened after Lestat's (Sam Reid) vicious attack?
Louis waxes philosophical, asking if we're the sum of our worst moments, and if we can be forgiven if we don't forgive others. Daniel has another word for it: Stockholm syndrome.
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
And in fact, the estrangement between the two vampires isn't permanent. A more mature, settled Claudia dedicates all her energy to Louis' rehabilitation, including bringing a goat into the house for Louis to practice chasing. (Listen for the off-camera sounds of the poor thing crashing around the house.) It may be the happiest we've ever seen Louis and Claudia.
Then Lestat turns back up with a wrapped copy of a 15th-century Book of Hours for Louis. Claudia refuses him entrance, and Louis punctuates her decision by tossing Lestat's coffin out the window to shatter on the pavement. As far as answers, that one's pretty clear.
Three years have passed when Lestat rolls up with a 25-horsepower car that he bought for Louis, claiming he's changed. "I'm nothing without you," he says. "I'm nothing without both of you."
Louis is unmoved until Lestat writes him his first composition in 100 years, singing and playing all the instruments himself. In the present, Daniel's understandably intrigued to hear Lestat's actual voice. What delicious evidence to bring to life the towering figure in Louis' story.
But Lestat's still a master manipulator; joining him on the recording is Antoinette (Maura Grace Athari), which sends Louis into a frothing rage. "Write me a song with your lover's voice in it? What the f--- is wrong with you?"
He swims the dang Mississippi River to find Lestat and Antoinette together in bed and orders her to leave. In the funniest exchange of the episode, she protests that it's her house, but Lestat tells her to bounce.
Although Louis tells Lestat that he hates him, in the present he describes the power of the vampire bond, explaining that it makes you believe there's nobody else on the planet. And that's why he and Lestat end up in a violent, passionate reunion while Antoinette listens outside, crying.
Now that Lestat's back home, there are rules: Kill Antoinette. Quit treating Claudia, now almost 33, like a child. And no more lies.
Lestat agrees, and Louis starts their new chapter by asking if Lestat had anything to do with Paul's death. Lestat vehemently denies it. Then Claudia asks about his maker, and Lestat smirks at the way they've forced his hand. Then he launches into his origin story.
The vampire's name was Magnus. He kidnapped Lestat and locked him in a tower with corpses that looked just like him. Magnus fed on him for a week, turned him, and promptly threw himself into a fire.
Lestat received no advice, no training. He struggled with the concept of drinking the blood of others and asked God to take this burden away. "But I have a capacity for enduring," he says in the understatement of the century. "It's why I don't particularly like being abandoned."
It's the most vulnerable we've ever seen him — but is he truly opening up, or is he giving the performance of his life? Knowing Lestat, it's 99.99 percent the latter.
While suspicious residents of the city have started leaving hexes on their doorstep, Louis' trying to get the two people in his life to love one another the way he loves them both. It doesn't go well.
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC Bailey Bass as Claudia, Jacob Anderson as Louis De Point Du Lac and Sam Reid as Lestat De Lioncourt
Claudia has only contempt and sharp words for Lestat, while Lestat bends their conversation toward Claudia's human diet in a bid to drive a wedge between her and Louis. Then one night, Lestat comes home with a finger wrapped in a newspaper reporting on Antoinette's death. Claudia tosses the digit but keeps the ring.
Over chess, she taunts Lestat about his past great love, Nicolas, asking if Nicki killed himself like Magnus did, or if Lestat killed him like Antoinette and (almost) Louis. Lestat explains that Nicki died after they parted, and it took him a century to get over that loss.
The he turns down Loius' offer to hunt with him and steps out alone… to nearby Ponchatoula, where a newly nine-fingered Antoinette's not pleased to be living in hiding. (They didn't have DNA back then! Could Lestat not have taken a finger from one of his victims?)
"You fortify me against them," he tells Antoinette, but when her complaints get on his nerves, he grabs her neck near her prominent bite marks. Oh, girlfriend, you chose poorly.
This time it's Louis standing outside the window listening in, but he's not surprised at what Claudia's shown him. Of course the brat Lestat didn't do what he was told, and Louis' not going to give him the scene that he clearly wants.
This living situation isn't sustainable, so Claudia switches tactics, mind-talking to Louis to get him to leave and travel with her. (This happens in the middle of sex with Lestat, which is utterly perfect.)
Then one night on their favorite bench in Jackson Square, when Lestat's off with Antoinette, Claudia tells Louis it's time. The train leaves in an hour, and she's going to Prague, Bucharest, Varna. But Louis won't go with her.
"Hey sis," he says. "You don't need me. You think you do, but you don't." They hug and reluctantly part, but Claudia can't hide her excitement as she stows away in a train car full of live animals. After all, a Black girl wasn't allowed in first class in 1939.
And this is when, in San Francisco in 1973, Daniel asked Louis to turn him into a vampire. At the time Daniel thought Louis was wasting his gift, although he declines when Louis offers it to him now. Sure, it would cure his Parkinsons, but watching his daughters marry, divorce, die? No thanks. "Save it for the rent boy," he says, pointing to Rashid (Assad Zaman), who simply asks to be excused.
Back in Jackson Square, Lestat considers meeting the sun, but he doesn't want to ruin Claudia's big escape. He returns home, where there's another hex in front of their door, and finds Lestat listening to a radio report about Germany invading Poland. Good thing he stopped Claudia from heading to Europe, right?
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
Yep. Lestat, in playful sociopath mode, carried the conductor's head into Claudia's car, asking for her ticket. He reminds her that he doesn't like to be abandoned, and Louis' too fragile for her to leave.
Further, he can listen to vampire thoughts from a distance and knows exactly what Bruce did to her. "He thinks of you often," Lestat says. "Could you imagine if something like that happened again? Louis would never forgive himself." God, he's a monster — and that's before he threatens to turn her to dust if she doesn't come home to keep Louis happy.
Now that they're reunited, Louis and Claudia mind-plot as she and Lestat play chess and the radio chatters away about war. Eventually she cuts to the chase: "I'm going to kill him." Louis warns her that he'll kill her for trying, but Claudia knows that Louis wants that too. He'd enjoy it, even.
At this point, Lestat realizes Claudia's in a position to win and goes into a screaming, French-laden, board-clearing rage when she refuses to finish the game.
In the present, Louis says, "We were going to kill Lestat." But Daniel's fallen asleep sitting upright, worn out by his treatment. Louis asks Rashid to cover him with a blanket.
And here we get a new flashback. It's 1973! A rakish, dark-haired Daniel (Luke Brandon Field, an astonishingly accurate young Eric Bogosian) saunters in and takes a stool next to Louis, who's in a massive collar and an afro.
Daniel's full of swagger as he explains that his journalistic specialty is people living in the cracks of society. But Louis says Daniel's really after drugs and offers the good stuff back at his place.
"I'm a vampire," Louis announces, and they both laugh as if it's a joke. Daniel asks for the interview, and that's when Rashid joins them. Daniel wakes up with a start.
Blood droplets
Is Rashid… I mean, Louis' been drinking from him, but like… if he was there in 1973, could he be… OH I DON'T KNOW, THE VAMPIRE ARMAND MAYBE? That's been a popular theory online, and it's one I didn't put much stock in until, well, now.
What a joy to see the different shades of Louis that Jacob Anderson gets to play from week to week. This new '70s version is loose, fun, playful, and worlds different from 2022 Louis and 1922 Louis. Likewise, Sam Reid is a flawless Lestat AND he's one of the most beautiful humans in the world AND he can sing the way he does over the closing credits. I guess some people really do have all the gifts.
I'm so glad Lestat didn't kill that dog on the train — almost as glad as I am that the big ol' drama llama calls flying "the cloud gift." But the thing I'm most excited about this week is 20-year-old Daniel ordering a grasshopper at the bar. How perfectly '70s.
The penultimate episode of season 1 has us primed for an explosive finale. See you next week, friends!
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