A Lost Story from the Universe of We Lowly Gods: The Tale of the Benefactor

THE TALE OF THE BENEFACTOR

By Patrick Garone

    The old beggar cursed and jabbed at the fire with his cane and it hissed and spat at him in response. The boy reconsidered his decision to seek shelter with the man. He glanced at the cave entrance and saw rain falling from the heavens in gleaming, solid sheets of water, which refracted the cold and murky landscape beyond. 

    At least the fire held back the cool dampness. It felt good on his skin. His soaked tunic was starting to dry at last.

    Thunder boomed.

    “Is this your cave,” the boy asked.

    The old man said grimly: “No. I am seeking shelter from the storm.”

    “Oh,” the boy said, at a loss.

    “My home is on Krete. I make my way there.”

    The boy did not know where Krete was exactly, only that it was a big island to the south. 

    “Krete is far,” the boy said finally. “Why are you on Lemnos?”

    “Family,” the old man said without further explanation, gazing out at the wet landscape beyond. 

    The boy nodded, absently.

    “The mountains on this island are sacred and were once gods,” declared the old man, still staring out at the wet landscape..

    “The gods turned to mountains,” the boy asked with skepticism.

    “Only those Kronos has deemed to have committed grave offenses against the Titans, in this case the great Prometios, although many others have fallen afoul of the Lord of Heaven.”

    The boy detected some bitterness in the beggar’s voice.

    “Ah, for Prometios gave fire to mankind,” the boy ventured, waving a hand to the fire between them, “and this was an offense to the gods.” He had learned as much from the village priests.

    The old man huffed. “The Titans accused Prometios of many transgressions. Giving fire to mortals was only a small part of it.”

    “Are you a priest of Prometios that you know so much? Or a poet?”

    “I am merely an old man who has learned much throughout my many years of life, which I fear may soon come to its long-delayed conclusion.”

    The boy acknowledged this with disinterest. To be so old as to be at the end of one’s life was inconceivable to him. Old age was a vaguely embarrassing state, presumably born out of poor choices. It would never happen to him.

    Lightning flashed.

    “I would hear of Prometios, if only to pass the time,” the boy declared, “since I live on this island, which was beloved of the Titan and where you say his remains lie.”

    The boy knew that old men loved to tell stories. They practically bled them from their bald heads. 

    The beggar regarded him over the fire. “I am losing myself. Before long, there will be nothing left."

    "You must have stories to tell. Why not share one before it leaves you?"

    The old man regarded him for a moment. There was a gleam in his eye. Or perhaps it was just the fire. "Yes. I will give you a story while I still possess it.”

    Thunder boomed.

    He looked out beyond the cave entrance; the outside world warped through water. “I will speak until the rain ceases to fall.”

    The old beggar shifted his body and leaned toward the boy and into the fire so that its light animated his ancient, weathered face.

***

    After the overthrow of the All-Father, the Titans began their reign, taking over his old palace and ruling from his heavenly citadel. At that time, only the Children of Gaia populated earth. There were thinking Chimerics-like the nymphs, cyclopes and centaurs-who combined the features of the Titans with animals. These Chimerics were among Gaia’s first fevered creations.

    There were also colossal beasts and monsters born in the early dalliances between Gaia and Ouranos. These creatures were aggressive and ungovernable, and they preyed upon their smaller, weaker kin. In order to defend their Chimeric siblings and to ensure future use of the earth realm, the Titans made war on their monstrous brethren in a legendary war. At the end, the Titans were victorious, killing or driving the beasts to the ends of the earth. So violent and destructive were their battles that they shaped the very land, creating the legendary Mediterranean and the islands that would later become Greece.

    In return for protecting them, the Titans tasked the Chimerics with maintaining this new world, tending to its flora and fauna. The creatures were happy to do this since they were no longer subject to the predations of their monstrous siblings. This was the Titans’ first act of creating order in the world. 

    Gaia was, of course, displeased by the conflict between her children, but at least happy there would now be peace. She had grown old, and with each of her creations she had given up something until she was nearly spent. She was barely more than spirit by this point. However, she was not finished creating life. With her grandson, the Titan Prometios, she planned for her ultimate creation.

    “Grandmother,” he beseeched her, “do you really mean to do this thing?”

    “I must create them,” she said, “even if it means my end.”

    With that, she brought forth iron and metals from deep within her. She raised easily edible plants and docile animals and teeming fish in the realm of Oceanos, lord of the seas. But these acts were nothing to her but preparations for her last act, for she knew her newest creation would have neither sharp teeth nor claws to survive in the world. With the last of her strength, the great creator Gaia brought forth her ultimate work: man.

    “Promise me, my child,” she begged of Prometios with the last of her strength, that you will protect them."

    “I will, Grandmother,” the Titan said, weeping.

    He regarded this new life: dozens of tiny and weak creatures. Those newly created human beings were as men and women fused together in one shambling, two-headed body with an indeterminate number of limbs. Indeed, these new human beings were next to helpless. 

    Prometios sighed. Unfortunately, this was the way of many of Gaia’s creations. For every powerful and beautiful Titan, there were dozens of misshapen Chimerics and other more pitiful creatures. He turned himself to realizing Gaia’s ambitions.

    One by one he worked on them, making them better and stronger. First, he split them apart. He imposed gender on them, male and female, in the manner of the Titans themselves.  He stoked the fire of love and passion in them. This ensured that they would seek one another out to couple and increase their numbers in this new paradise. But Prometios split them artfully, so that in none was a perfect split between male and female and in each some of the opposite existed so that there might be a healthy dynamism and disruption to the otherwise rigid social order that he bestowed upon them and that they might be capable of some of the pleasure and freedom of the Titans.

    On this very island, he hid and raised humanity up. He taught them speech. He taught them hunting, farming, and building. In turn, they loved and worshipped him.

    Their adoration was intoxicating and nourishing. He knew this would be mankind’s salvation. Gaia had created beings whose existence was completely symbiotic with the Titans. And, yes, he introduced them to fire. And it was fire which drew the remaining Titans to him, for they had been searching the world for him, blaming him for the death of their mother. Shocked by humanity, it was only the pleas of Prometios which stayed the great scythe of Kronos from wiping them all out immediately.

    They chained Prometios and brought him before his family in the great hall of the heavenly citadel. Kronos and Rhea looked down upon him from their thrones. He saw familiar faces in the crowd of Titans and their children, such as Crios, lord of the underworld, and his father, Iapetos, spinner of fates.

    “Prometios,” Kronos began, his voice boomed in the open hall.

    “You stand accused of unimaginable crimes, firstly the murder of our mother, Gaia, the Lady of Creation.”

    “l’m guilty of nothing of the sort,” Prometios responded. “It’s a foolish accusation, Uncle.”

    Kronos bristled, perhaps regretting giving the famously clever Titan a forum.

    “We all knew Gaia. We knew her obsessions. I’m guilty of only lacking persuasion. I loved her dearly, and I was closer to her than any, save perhaps good Crios." 

    “This is true,” Crios added, for his realm was literally created from the bones of Gaia's body, long discarded. 

    Kronos frowned.

    “So you allowed my mother to destroy herself before your very eyes, for what? These miserable creatures?”

    “Those ‘miserable creatures’ are the last children of Gaia,” Prometios said. 

    “We are her children too,” Kronos countered. “And, as always, she favored her misshapen beasts and monsters to us, her greatest creations.”

    “What’s stopping us,” Rhea asked, her crown blooming with flowers, “from destroying them outright?”

    “They are a mockery, chattering animals made in our image,” Kronos added, “surely you must have known we would not tolerate them, you who thinks of everything.”

    “You won’t destroy them,” Prometios countered, risking a smirk. “I think you will find them...valuable.”

     Kronos and his queen took their leave of Prometios and ventured to their garden paradise, to this very island but to the men many years had passed, for time in heaven is rarefied compared to time on earth.

    In the years of his absence, men had taken the teachings of Prometios to heart and built great works, cities and culture. They had even built houses of worship to their Titan benefactor. Kronos and Rhea came upon one of these human cities, a pair of glorious giants and men fell at their feet in worship and adoration, knowing them to be of a kind with their lost lord.

    Kronos and Rhea then discovered what clever Prometios had already known. For whatever power and greatness they possessed before that moment, they had not known what it was to be a god, for a god requires lesser beings to provide worship. This was the wisdom of Gaia and Prometios that the love of human beings would forever change and define their kind. Indeed, it was the promise kept by good Prometios which changed the very world. Men multiplied and filled in the lands which the Titans had cleared of monsters and spread their worship of the gods to the furthest corners of the map.

    “What is it about them,” Kronos would later ask his nephew.

    “They are spirit and flesh,” Prometios replied. “Gaia made them to love us. And we cannot resist them. They can build temples and create religions around this love, but it is as simple as that. It’s a kind of lust or obsession which sustains us.”

    For his trouble, however, Kronos imprisoned Prometios. The Lord of Heaven was eternally fearful of his power being stolen from him. And in truth, the clever Titan did little to ingratiate himself to his lord. Poor Prometios endured unimaginable torture for the alleged crime of matricide. But his “crimes” didn’t stop the Titans from taking advantage of the systems he created. From that point on, the Titans actively cultivated mankind and their worship. If the world was their garden, human beings were the exotic flora whose nectar sustained them. They could help themselves no more than bees could resist flowers.

    Some of his most devoted mortal followers eventually located him, worshipping him in a secret singular cult. This worship was unique and more intense than the the other forms of god worship. Indeed, the bleeding, suffering god who had sacrificed himself for mankind had instilled a fervor not present in the adoration of the other Titans. It spoke to a great need in humankind that has yet been unmet.

    Ultimately, man's worship was not enough to sustain him and Prometios' great body turned to stone, the very mountain spine of this island.

***

    Inside the cave, the fire smoldered. Outside, the rain was slowing to a drizzle. The old man stood, his knobby knees prominent under his traveling robes.

    “With that,” he said, ”I leave you. I must head to Krete while I still remember myself.”

    “Wait,” the boy asked, “are you...a god?”

    “I was never properly a god, never worshipped by man, but I was there at the beginning and saw it all before being cursed to this.”

    “Ouranos,” the boy whispered

    The old man sighed wearily.

    “But how can you die,” the boy asked, deeply disturbed by the idea.

    “No one is immortal. Neither gods nor young boys, although both mistakenly think they are.”

    The boy looked on as Ouranos walked off to his fate.

 

Patrick Garone 2026

"The Tale of the Benefactor" is set in the universe of and is a de-facto prequel to my novel We Lowly Gods, which tells the story of the Chimerics at the end of the Greek era.

The Vampire Lestat, Episode 7: The Failures

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 putting 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!

The Vampire Lestat, Episode 6: Montreal

The penultimate episode of TVL is surprising for a number of reasons. There are no flashbacks and very little lore. Instead we get a  Louis and Lestat relationship “open bottle” episode in which the two characters warily circle each other and try to reconcile their vast baggage. That and a completely bonkers ending. 

Personally, I am a huge fan of these kinds of character-focused stories in which we follow characters around for a day and watch them interact. And it works early well here due to the strength of the these two actors and their incredible chemistry together. I can’t even be mad about not getting the kind of novel material I would have wanted. I'm honestly happy to let these actors and this creative team cook.

Failure is a recurring theme in this season and Lestat is stewing in the fact that his album is poorly reviewed and only reached a mediocre number sixty-eight on the Billboard Top 100. This is a distinction from the novel in which (at least as Lestat tells it) the album is a huge success.

We are full circle from the season premiere and Lestat is back in Montreal on Halloween, although now with Louis in person instead of via FaceTime. It has been a month and a half since the “New York” episode and the two have been spending more time together in the wake of Louis’s crash-out over “Fraudia.” Since then, Satan’s Night Out has been turned and guitarist Alex has taken his brother’s apparent suicide hard, seen here lurking around moodily in a Dracula mask. 

Lestat seems to be taking his  death-faking at least somewhat seriously, as we seem him thumbing through some fake passports featuring some of his known aliases from the novels. We see here Sheridan Blackwood and Clarance Oddbody. This does give some context for his apparent “death” in the framing device in episode one. Maybe he’s just leaned into is faked death and has fucked off somewhere.

Although Lestat and Louis are not back together, they are certainly interacting comfortably together. A familiar refrain in this episode is “Should we cancel?” both referring to some dinner plans and mysterious other event. One of the joys of this episode is seeing the two interact and interact in a (for this show anyway) healthy way. “Why you bein’ nice,” Louis asks him.

Lestat (complete in Grim Reaper costume) and Louis meet Daniel to conclude the documentary interview. Dan is a suspiciously Trumpy orange color. The two proceed to fuck with Daniel as they had been all along but one again Lestat gives him an honest and gracious response to his question about Louis and Lestat’s reunion in New Orleans, “It was enough that he showed up.” Dan is not in a place to really appreciate the candidness and intimacy of this answer.

Lestat and Louis then head to a band rehearsal where Louis and Sofia/Gabriella finally meet. At this point Louis doesn’t know who she really is other than that she is an intimate of Lestat. She toys with him, clearly threatened by his hold on her son. When Lestat sings his ballad “Brutal Love” in their direction, it becomes clear he is singing to Louis and Gabriella is not happy about it. At this point a bunch of music has been released and some of them are clearly about Louis (a few are specifically about Gabriella) despite Lestat’s protestations. Although in this episode he does admit that “most of them” are about Louis.

When asked what he though of Sofia, Louis responds “I’ll tell you in the car,” which is never a good sign. Sofia, threatened, is attempting to get Lestat to go with her to Spain to watch the fallout of the Great Conversion but he brushes her off. It seems like he is finally getting sick of her manipulative shit.

Much of this episode takes place in the back of Lestat’s limo and Louis is sent a link to a video that Daniel has posted showing Lestat and Gabriella in bed and an interview with him and Armand outing her as Lestat’s mother. I love that Armand has descended into high school Mean Girls cyber-bullying at the this point. Also, Dan and Armand are seen in the daylight. This is one of those weird deviations from the lore established on the books. While certain vampires are old and powerful enough to survive the daylight, none of them are what might be called “daywalkers” in other lore. Certainly, Daniel would not survive this.

This Gabriella information causes a blow-up with Louis and Lestat. I think the show is making too big of a deal over this. As Lestat says, they are “unnatural beings” and he accuses Louis (rightly so) of whipping out his “half human soul” to win an argument. The problem with Gabriella is less that she is Lestat’s mother but more that she is toxic and manipulative and that he was lying about it.

The make it to their final appointment of the night which is with a witch named Merrick Mayfair, a character who was a protagonist of the eponymous Anne Rice novel. She is a character spun off from The Lives of the Mayfair Witches and is also associated with the Talamasca and the apparently-dead-on-the-show David Talbot. Here she is a New Orleans acquaintance of Lestat, and a voodooine that he brings to Montreal to hold a seance to reach Claudia and provide Louis with the closure that he seeks.

I really wish they had brought the characters back to New Orleans for this episode. Narratively it would make more sense since that is where Merrick lives and also where Claudia was born and lived much of her life. Mostly it would have been nice to get those season one NOLA vibes back.

Much as in the book, the raised ghost of Claudia is pissed and not having it from either of them, especially not from Louis. Delainey Hayles is amazing and powerful in this scene, so much so that I wish they wouldn’t have pooched her appearance in the Fraudia subplot. I think her appearance would have been more impactful if this was the only time we saw her this season. A lot of the people behind this show are from the theater and this scene really has a heightened theatrical feel and Delainey prowls this mystical circle like she is performing in the round. Lots of people associated with this show have and will deserve awards and Hayles is one of them. Hopefully she gets the recognition she deserves for this show-stopping scene.

Among the many terrible things she says to Louis is “I liked him better,” referring to Lestat. Which is basically what she says in the book. One thing I wish we had got this season was some of the events of IWTV from Lestat’s perspective and especially his take on the Claudia relationship. In Louis’ telling, the two were constantly at odds but boom Lestat describes much more closeness and camaraderie between them which we never really see on the show.

Of course, there is no closure for Louis, only more trauma but it must be said he takes it better than his book counterpart. As with the books we are left to wonder was that really Claudia? Was it all of Claudia or just a shadow of her rage? Did she really mean all those very hurtful things that she said? This scene is lifted straight from Rice's writing and is consistent with the way that she approached ghosts throughout her writing which is to say in her cosmology you can never expect to get truth, clarity or "closure" from a ghost. 

As Lestat and Louis discuss their baggage and even carefully broach getting back together they notice Alex skulking in the distance with his Dracula mask. They are then promptly beheaded by Armand and Daniel.

NOTES:

• Lestat refers to the different roles he has fulfilled as “The nesting dolls of identity” and the show is very much about him reconciling all of those  elements of his his personality. I thought that was a lovely way to put it and as far as I know not from Anne Rice.
• Louis’ solutions to his Claudia issues in this episode: seance and blocking on social media.
• Gabriella mentions to Louis that vampires from Dubai, Paris, and Detroit will be attending. All famously the sites of his rampages.
• My goodness Jacob Anderson was serving some face during Brutal Love.
• Lestat about Gabs: “I conduct the chaos, she is one of the many chainsaws I juggle “ 
• During the voodoo ceremony Claudia breaks the barrier ring. Does that mean she is loose in the world? Ghost Claudia does have a VERY memorable scene in Queen of the Damned. It's also one of the most genuinely scary scenes in her writing which despite all the monsters is not really what you would call horror.
• So, Gabriella turned Alex, which I am sure Lestat is going to be totally cool and not possessive about. Did Lestat make any fledglings? I imagine that Gabs, Sam, and Lestat each turned one of them…
• Lestat’s aliases are straight from Tale of the Body Thief and tie into the themes of that book or are literary allusions. Clarence Oddbody is a character from Its a Wonderful Life, tied to the theme of a supernatural vision of what life could have been. Sheridan Blackwood is not related to her novel Blackwood Farm but instead a combination of the Gothic authors Algernon Blackwood and Sheridan le Fanu who wrote Carmilla, an early vampire story which was a big influence on Rice for its Gothic atmosphere and complex, conflicted vampire.
• Louis was Degrassi High fan. These vampires are consuming A LOT of media.
• The uncle in question here is Cortland Mayfair who is a main character of AMC’s Mayfair Witches series, although Merrick has not appeared on that show.
• Justice for Antoinette. Indeed.
• Blood of Akasha count. Here we go again. Does Louis even know who Akasha is?
• Did we ever see Gabriella’s portrait in Interview with the Vampire season one?
• “She spared us the ambiguity.” Indeed.
• “Why do I actively, manically pursue failure?” Although a case can be made that book Lestat is less messy than show Lestat, I think this line is true for both versions. Book Lestat has some cosmic-level failures and wild lapses of judgment.
• Somehow it looks like we are getting more Auvergne and Nicky in the finale.
• Look, they have been teasing decapitaitons…They are both okay. It's fine. We're all fine.

The Vampire Lestat, Episode 5: New York

"New York" is a long, dense episode chronicling Lestat's attempt to make an album out of his three-century "trainwreck" of a life. We get into some serious lore here, introducing VC character like Marius and Akasha. Even Amel, the evil spirit animating the vampires gets a few name drops. As is the case for other elements of the season, there is a bit of deviation and compression of the source material here which is initially distracting and even upsetting to those of use who love The Vampire Lestat novel but once you have gotten over some of the nagging differentness of the story, it is an enjoyable episode with a ton to unpack. The first appearance of Akasha does not disappoint.

We start with the band in studio making the album. At this point, Lestat has faked his death. Christine (apparently having survived her gunshot), Farid, and even Daniel have been sent on their way with the rest of the entourage having been replaced the vampire Sam and Gabriella, who are producing and managing respectively. Lestat, being the consummate demanding musical diva that he is, is starting to come to the conclusion that the band in its current form will not be able to give him what he needs from this album.They are planning one live show, presumably with Lestat. Maybe he is going to pretend to a hologram? Like the novel, it looks as though everything is building up to one massive and chaotic concert event.

Cut with these scenes hots of him being pulled out the group by Marius and taken to the sanctuary of Those Who Must Be Kept located in Greece. In this version of the story he is recruited by Akasha. In the book, during his wanderings he had been actively seeking the Roman vampire, Marius during his travels with Gabrielle and Marius finds him in the ground.

In the show Lestat underground for 80 years and Akasha sends Marius to him. This is (at least for the moment) a different interpretation of Marius than the book version. As the keeper of the Those Who Must Be Kept, he is apparently actively in the shrine the majority of his time and seems to have gone a little mental, as Lestat does later. When we first meet him, Marius has a very Yoda-in-his-early-Empire-Strikes-Back-scenes vibes.

Now Marius is a core Vampire Chronicles character, whose story is told not only in his own book, Blood and Gold but he is a major character in The Vampire Armand and Pandora. The showrunners have indicated that this is just a tease of the character and they have "plans" for him so I can't be too mad we didn't get the long sit-down with Lestat where he tells his life story. Seemingly there are other opportunities to do that. Given the success of the show and the popularity of the Armand character, it seems reasonable that we could get an Armand-focused spinoff in which Marius would be a major character.

Meanwhile, Louis is doing some uncomfortable improv with Fauxdia and a local actress playing Madeline. Is this the most disturbing element of the show? Maybe.

Armand is also in town and hovering on the fringes of things as is his wont.  He finds Daniel shooting interview segments for the documentary and recounts his fifty plus year monitoring of Daniel's life. He offers to help him "finish the job" of the documentary. He also offers to let him "walk in the sun." Armand reveals that Gabriella is Lestat's mother, which it seems Daniel had been working out on his own. "He lies with his mother," the gremlin adds, spicily.

Lestat and Gabriella discuss all the times she has abandoned him. This includes an unseen instance in New Orleans, presumably after Louis and Claudia left. "You were a terrible mother," he concludes. Letat's mommy issues have been a big theme this season and I can only assume this is to set up his seduction by Akasha who will be his new mommy.

In flashbacks, we see that Lestat has been taking care of TWMBK. He is going slightly mad in the same way Marius had been but on some level he seems content to take care of a mother who is incapable of abandoning him. In the book, they are described as looking like marble but are her depicted as having an almost bronze finish and they look fantastic.

Louis and Fauxdia continue their uncomfortable IWTV LARPing. She's writing things down in a book. It's very Claudia but also very sus. Characteristically, Louis seems tortured by the whole situation.

Back in the sanctuary, Lestat hosts a mad imaginary dinner party on New Years Eve, 1900. This would be about a decade before the events of season one. Akasha awakens and drinks his blood.

Back in 2025, Louis reveals his Claudia situation to Lestat. It's so nice to see these two back together and speaking. Despite Lestat being upset that Louis hadn't reached out after the shooting. Louis seems to be confused as to whether or not Fauxdia is actually Claudia on some level. I'm honestly a little confused as to what the show wants me to think about this. This subplot has been presented in a very grounded kind of way but the show seems to be suggesting that something supernatural is afoot. It should be said, that in the Anne Rice cosmology, ghosts can be very physical. So the fact that she is visible to others does not preclude Fauxdia from being a ghost.

Lestat goes in to see Fauxdia in full Low Key Marvel disguise, complete with sunglasses and a hoodie. He is deeply affected by seeing this woman who looks exactly like Claudia, although he tells Louis a different story. He goes on to record a really beautiful song about her which changes his whole approach to the album.

Lestat concludes that the band needs the blood, much to Gabriella"s delight. There are three vampires and three band members. Also, Salamander given the blood basically equals Matt Berry's character in What We Do In The Shadows and I am here for that.

Marius returns to find in Akasha awake and ranting and Lestat floating in the air. He wrangles Akasha and casts Lestat out. Sheila Atim is amazing in this brief scene as Akasha and I cannot wait to see what she does with the character next season.

The show ends with a scene of Armand compelling TVL guitarist Larry to walk unto the subway tracks For Some Reason. The camera then lingers on him looking cvnty and disassociated and already inspiring memes.

NOTES:

• The episode begins with Lestat describing some of his past coffins, including his first one from his days as an orphan vampire in Magnus' lair. I am still bummed we never saw more of this. We have not even seen Magnus go into the fire.
• In his voiceover Lestat says "I, Amel digress." This is very interesting.  Amel is the spirt that animates the vampires and was residing in Akasha for millenia. In the books, it ended up with another vampire at the conclusion of Queen of the Damned. It does not end up in. Lestat until much later. It makes me think they are streaming things here and ending QOTD in a different place.
• TC refers to Gabriella as "Yoko Mirren"
• "I'm finally going to talk about the Queen." Because he has previously been so reticent to bring her up until now.
• "I don't like being alone,"says Lestat when Marius goes off on vacation or wherever he goes. Great line reading by Reid and also just a huge theme of this version of the character. 
• Marius when Armand is mentioned: "Rotten boy." Armand is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Immortal Universe.
• Enkil back of head blown out and missing fingers. Marius seems to suggest this is from his accidental exposure to the sun but...um, wut?
• "There's not enough of us to make it profitable," Louis lamenting about how serving vampires is not economically feasible and offering a financial justification for the Great Conversion.
• Dan's daughter attended "Rice University"
• Armand describes Louis as "calculating to the core. Methodically cruel." Um, project much?
• "You do not need around you what does not need you anymore." Gabriella's justification for abandoning Lestat. It's a little twisted and roundabout but coherent and kind in its own way.
• "You don't have to do the accent. It's hard. The Yat." The irony of these two British actors having this conversation.
• The cheap reproduction Tiffany lamp keeps taking me out. Can we get a better lamp and wig budget next season. Mind you, one of the reasons I used to watch Gotham was because the lamps and light fixtures were so good.
• "Why is her tongue cut out?" This is the only line from Akasha's ramblings that seems directly related to the events of QOTD, famously the witch-turned-vampire Makare has her tongue removed on the orders of Akasha.
• In the next episode Lestat and Louis apparently enlist a witch to help them with their Claudia problem. This is essentially the plot of the vampire chronicle Merrick, featuring Talamasca member and Mayfair witch, Merrick Mayfair who helps them exorcise Claudia's ghost.

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