The Vampire Lestat, Episode 2: Toledo

 

The end of the previous episode, Detroit, introduced us to The Vampire Gabriella, who had been Lestat’s mother in life and his fledgeling in immortality. Episode 2, Toledo, largely focuses on their complex relationship and the show starts to dive into book content from Anne Rice’s 1985 novel, The Vampire Lestat. As someone who loves that book, I will say that some of this important backstory is handled in a perfunctory way due to the limits of adapting a long book to a seven episode season with a limited budget that shows itself here and there whether that means opting to not show certain things that would be expensive to realize or skimping on the hair and make-up budget for secondary characters.

We pick up with Lestat’s hilarious voiceover, referring to last week’s Gabriella incest reveal as an “Oediphany” and spends much of the rest of the episode reconciling it. This is less of an issue in the books due to the fact that the book vampires are decidedly disinterested in penetrative sex. Book Lestat and Gabrielle have an erotically-charged relationship and the same deep connection but not because they are fucking. Anne Rice has the following to say on the subject: “When you have eternity you can work out anything, even an Oedipal complex.” I’m kind of sorry they didn’t work that line in as it would fit right in with the tone of Lestat’s narration.

Lestat recounts his childhood which is told through a very theatrical device where we have a series of vignettes that happen around the table in his family dining hall where we meet his brothers and father, all of whom are decidedly trashy and loud. These scenes are all played pretty broadly and the choice was made to give everyone wild French accents and increasingly bad wigs. 

As in the book, Lestat’s father is a rural French lord with a grand estate and title but little money. His mother was a woman from Naples who was married off at a young age and broods unhappily in the castle, deeply contemptuous of her husband and children, save for her youngest, Lestat, with whom she has as warm a relationship as she can manage.

These scenes recount some of the Lestat’s formative experiences, mostly attempts to escape the dreary confines of his castle and “cabbage” family, first to study at a monastery and then to run off with an acting troupe. All these attempts were thwarted by his father and brothers. Book Lestat finds some purpose in hunting the family lands and it seems to be the case here as well. Later, when the villagers petition their lord to kill a pack of wolves preying on their land it is Lestat who is called upon to hunt them.

This sequence of hunting the wolves is a huge part of the mythology of the Vampire Chronicles and the forging of Lestat’s character but the episode gives us only the briefest glimpse of it. Of the eight wolves we only saw some movement in the bushes and a single shot of one wolf charging the camera. I couldn’t help be disappointed by that but it is not inconceivable that we get more of it in future episodes. That said, I’ve seen enough bad CGI wolves in shows over the years to understand it might be a better option to show less than to show bad. This puts me in mind of the first few seasons of Game of Thrones where battles largely happened off camera, only to be described later, theater-style.

Gabriella dresses his wounds and describes all the unspeakable things she would do if she had the freedom to do them. This element of her character gives Gabriella resonance. She represents any woman who has felt constrained by the trappings of her gender, the inability to go and do whatever she wants. Gabriella represents a desire for pure freedom, which she only ever experiences once she gets the blood. 

She also lets Lestat know that she is dying of consumption. As he describes her in the episode, Gabriella is a “complicated hang.” I think the show largely does a good job realizing this character, despite the needlessly incesty vibe and the sometimes distracting accent (although now we know where Lestat got his Donatella Versace-esque Euro-mumble). We repeatedly see Lestat’s desperate love for his mother and her inability to really reciprocate his feelings. As in the book, the two are fundamentally misaligned in how they look at the world, with Gabriella being far colder and more ruthless than her son. Their coming together happens much differently in Rice's book but here we get to see Lestat at kind of a low point and he is clearly needing something from Gabriella that she is incapable of providing to him. Perhaps there is another character on the horizon who might fulfill his maternal needs...

Lestat awakens and has to contend with the fallout from his skirmish with the Fang Gang last week and his bandmates coming to terms with him being an actual vampire, which raises some awkward and funny questions. As always, the bass player Salamander has some of the funniest asides and business. They specifically have a bunch of Interview with the Vampire-related questions. “When was the last time you saw Armand,” earns a scowl from Lestat. He reminds them that he lived for 54,554 days before meeting Louis.

Speaking of Louis, it turns out he is the owner of the Dracula’s Daughter hotel in which the fight occurred last episode and they attend mediation with their lawyers which spirals into trolling and accusations. Lestat is repped by his manager/lawyer Christine and Louis by a gorgeous vampire lawyer named Lemuel who I do not believe is a character from the books. This whole scene had previously been released and I kind of love it. These vampires—both in the books and on the show—are extremely petty. 

Louis attends Lestat’s show in Toledo and the two share what is almost a lovely moment which Lestat ends by slapping a well-annotated copy of Interview before him. This scene with Lestat floating above the frozen crowd while singing looks gorgeous. Daniel and Louis finally catch up in a restaurant in another previously-released scene. Lestat is not in this scene and his narration acknowledges the point-of-view questions this raises which he waves away much in the same way his book counterpart does in Queen of the Damned. He also bitchily states that his depiction of the two will have “less whining,” a burn that recalls Cruisestat.

Lestat’s night with Gabriella ends on a sour note as she asks him about Louis. Also Lestat seems to realize why they parted ways in the first place. We flash to a montage of scenes depicting Gabriella’s transformation into a vampire which seems to happen almost exactly as in the book. Although the flashback seems to indicate that the two travel back to Auvergne to kill the remaining de Lioncourts, which I am writing off as fantasy. Not only is that not how they die in the books but it is a seemingly impossible trip for two fledgeling vampires to make.

Now, agents from the Talamasca have been floating around in the background this whole episode and Raglan James and (Real) Rashid cut into Daniel’s meeting with Louis asking for his help to clear out the remaining Fang Gang coven members. Apparently the coven has been unusually active and disruptive lately, seemingly related to the Great Conversion event that has been repeatedly referenced in Interview with the Vampire as well as the Talamasca series. Even in this episode Gabriella references it as something she knows about. Louis initially demures until they mention that Bruce—the vampire who had abducted Claudia—is leading the coven.

Notes:

• Gabriella tossing jewelry to the monks so that they would teach Lestat Italian writers is very in line with the book version of the character who had a seemingly endless stash of jewels.
• Could they not get someone who looked more like Sam Reid to play Teen Lestat?
• Do French people when speaking French have what we would call French accents?
• Is Salamander just Donald Ducking it every time he is offstage? This dude is hardly ever wearing pants.
• Man, Lestat is determined to name drop Akasha at every opportunity.
• Gabriella and Lestat have seen each other twice in the last century. Later she mentions she had seen the “aftermath” of Louis and Claudia’s attack. It seems she might have gone to his aid after Louis and Claudia left for Europe. His infusion of her blood likely helped him heal. It makes me wonder if the Lestat described in the Theatre Des Vampires performance was actually more injured that he was depicted in IWTV season two, in which he seemed fully-healed with no visible scars.
• Louis is going by the name Thomas Pitt. Maybe Lestat goes by Bradley Cruise…
• “Santiago I could understand, at least he had presence!” Lestat shitting on Armand will never not be funny.
• “You’re looking younger Daniel.” If the show goes for many more seasons are we setting the stage for replacing Bogosian with the actor who plays young Daniel? Bogosian is in his ‘70’s and you could fudge the lore to say the blood is de-aging him. It’s not in the books but neither is vampire eating and pissing. Although he would likely lose the Low-Hanging Balls Gift.
• Farid Vampire Watch: Definitely still not a vampire.
• This Lestat is going through great pains not to kill people with a “farm” and volunteers donating blood which he transfers into his victims.
• Has The David Talbot Watch Ended? It is implied that Louis killed a Talamasca member referred to as “Agent Talbot.” Book readers have been anxiously awaiting the debut of a character named David Talbot, who during this time was the Secretary General of the Talamasca and a character who becomes a close associate of Lestat and plays a very large role in The Tale of the Body Thief. Here it seems to be indicated that he is killed offscreen and what’s worse Raglan states “None of us really liked him much.” In the after show they address this and show runner Rolon Jones gleefully acknowledged that they killed him offscreen. This seems like trolling to me. I feel like he may in fact show up before the season is over.  It better be. 

Patrick Garone