Much like the book on which it is based, The Vampire Lestat series is beautiful and inconsistent and messy. The first season finale is emblematic of this. This is an episode that spends an inordinate amount of time navel-gazing and lost in its own stylishness and cleverness but doesn’t really move the story forward in a meaningful way. It’s a “very special episode” that spins its wheels for an hour likely because they didn’t have the budget to actually do the concert.
We start with Lestat’s death dream and he’s walking through the daytime forest transcribing birdsong. He follows a “murder” of waiters. Hearing songs from the outside as daywalking Daniel carries his head through the Montreal streets in a bowling ball bag. He arrives at the long table of his father seen both earlier in the season and prominently featured in the opening credits. The younger Lestats are all there.
The scene then switches to the same table in Magnus’ tower, where Lestat’s maker sits with (most of) his fledglings. Antoinette from season one is present as is Tough Cookie, his drummer. She enters a number into the timer on his phone and slides it to him, indicating the amount of time he has left to live.
The scene switches to Louis’ head mounted onto a spike in a butcher shop and Armand’s reading his AA amends statement at him, recounting the various terrible things he did during the events of Paris and beyond both great and small. Armand also confirms his stalking and involvement with Daniel between the two interviews. He admits to being “an infinite nothing,” which is a solid interpretation of the character.
At the long table Magnus and the fledglings check in. As they are projections of Lestat’s psyche each is an exaggerated version of the characters we already know. Magnus here is less campy than we have seen him before. They are the “failure finders” there to sit in judgment of Lestat. While he is at the table, he is also in a bowling ball bag and at the same butcher shop as Louis.
Armand reveals Louis has been separated from his head for two hours. Dr. Fareed is also there monitoring Louis’ vitals. Armand reveals Lestat’s body and that his head is with his “companion.” Cut to Daniel Malloy in a bowling alley. Armand then reveals Fraudia as a prisoner.
Lestat confronts the accusations against him and questions Magnus, involvement in the committee, “I knew you for like a week!” He goes onto describe his time with Magnus which, curiously we never got to actually see dramatized in the show. He insisted his other “maker” Gabriella take over and Magnus obliges.
Armand still seeking Louis’ amends, outlines all his behind the scenes maneuvering that lead to his discovery of Regina. The whole Fraudia subplot was his doing, which is some very on-brand Armand fuckery.
Meanwhile Molloy is monologuing his petty grievances to Lestat’s severed head in between bowling rounds, which is bleeding into Lestat’s visions. In a surreal effect Dan’s head literally comes through the ceiling to intrude on the long table. I have to say, I’m not a fan of what they have done with this character this season and I don’t mean this as a book reader thing because Dan was a much less interesting character in the chronicles than in the show. I loved him in the first two seasons and feel like he has been reduced to a whiny petty brat in this season. He certainly has some reason to be mad at his treatment by Lestat but what happened to his lovely connection to Louis last season? I know a lot of fans are pushing the Queen of the Damned Devil’s Minion storyline but it really doesn’t make a lot of sense for these versions of the characters. Aligning these two seems forced and inorganic.
Still trying to get Louis to talk, Armand tells him that he “listened in” on the seance the night before. To be clear, he was observing or getting reports on Louis’ deeply personal and pained interactions with Regina and also eavesdropping on the incredibly difficult and traumatic seance. Classic Armand behavior, he maybe an empty void but he is violently intrusive of others. Armand states he has about one-hundred “followers,” I’m still not clear on what kind of movement is at play here. Presumably to stop the Great Conversion.
Around the long table the Failure Finders are reading off the negative reviews of Lestat’s music. The reviews actually sound like negative reviews of Rice’s work. Another familiar face that appears is Marco, the young opera singer Lestat kills in season one, which leads us to flashback of young Lestat watching the witch burnings. Although the witch burning place is from the book, Lestat never actually watches this as they would have happened long before his birth. Gabriella reveals she exposed him to this to urge him out of their village but laments that he stayed till he was thirty.
Raglan James meets Molloy at the bowling alley and reveals that he wants the bag and the concert to go on. Man, the Talamasca is a mess in the Immortal Universe. That’s not to say that James isn’t acting on his own as he is prone to do, but I don’t see why the Talamasca would want the Great Conversion to happen. Raglan takes Lestat’s head.
To save Fraudia, Louis digs deep and recounts his various lies and crimes to Armand, telepathically. He also makes the connection between his prior work running brothels to Armand’s past as a sex trafficked youth. Louis takes responsibility for his own coldness and denial in their relationship. Armand, touched let’s Regina go and instructs Fareed to replace his head.
The characters at the Long Table at this point have become a Greek Chorus for Lestat retelling the story of his life, peppering him with insults as we see moments from the show play out often in reverse to booming musical accompaniment, while periodically chanting the refrain, “The Soul!” I don’t love all this. It’s seems almost self-consciously theatrical.
In true fashion, Lestat leaps on the table and begins playing to the crowd of people people he killed or traumatized. He begins glitching out as his head and body die. He is visited by Louis’ brother, Paul.
Lestat awakens on the tour bus to find Gabriella, the band, and Raglan James. They are all trying to persuade him to play the show, but he is unwilling. He finds Louis on the bus and gets into a screaming match with Gabriella who is insisting he perform, referring to her as a “fucking monster.”
We then cut to a scene of Lestat in his Montreal home where he is actually recording “The Failures.” This would be therefore set post Akasha but before the auction scene in the first episode. He steps outside to a post apocalyptic landscape with wide swaths of urban destruction. Is this because of the fact that the concert was in Montreal and it was ground zero or is the whole world like this?
*Straight into opening credits from recap
*Nice to see all the elements coming together from credits
*Great head acting from Jacob. The gradual decline, drooping lips, raspy voice and especially the eyes sliding into opposite directions was all very creepy.
*They are wrong for puking nine fingered Antoinette on the typewriter.
*Magnus: ”Consent is a 20th century concern.”Cancelled.
*Armand claims to be live-streaming his interaction with Louis to someone in Budapest. Who could this be?
*Armand threatens to cut off Regina’s head and sew it onto Louis’ body which is actually a reference to a twisted Claudia anecdote that Armand relays in his own eponymous Vampire Chronicle.
*”Lestat’s mom made you, yeah? She give you the Autism Gift?”
*Lestat’s sustained perfect “O” of a moan is directly from the book
*Apparently Lestat was in Vienna in 1953. Maybe he knocked around Europe for a while before returning to New Orleans
*We finally get to meet Black Licorice
*”I let too much spill too often.” Anne Rice would tend to agree with this.
*At the moment of death, Lestat describes “Silver threads” which is how the connections between the vampires and Akasha are described in QOTD.
*Paul apparently talking to god, says “Yes, ma’am.” Remember this is just Lestat’s idea of Paul. Nonetheless who was he speaking to? Akasha?
*Lestat refers to Raglan as “someone I now call a friend.” Guys, Lestat is about to drop a new Failure!
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