Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Vampire Lestat through episode five as well as what came before in the TV show and the books. Read at your own risk.

Intro

Episode five of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat, New York, blessedly brings better writing back into the picture. I swear to God where is this when we need it? (Looking at you, Detroit and The Devil’s Road.)

I think part of the beauty of New York is that it proves there is a path where you take the books as a loose inspiration and make them your own. This is the thing I’ve been banging on about from the start. I don’t care if you’re not slavishly loyal to the books. I care if you’re telling a story. The weakness of Detroit and Devil’s Road was that they weren’t really telling a story, particularly when it came to the parts about Lestat (I don’t want to slight the Louis, Armand, and Daniel parts of Devil’s Road which were great).

Lestat in the books is a distinctive character. He’s the reason the books became famous. He’s the reason you have a freaking show, and a movie, and another movie, and let’s forget not for nothing but the first actor who played him was Tom fucking Cruise.

None of this means you have to never veer from the text. But if you’re coming in on a not only successful but literally genre defining series of novels going “Oh sure, but I can do better” you need to actually be trying to do something!

(This is where I’ll allow if we’re talking about the later novels, the bar for doing better is in Hell and even a worm can step over it. But we’re still in the early books which were genuinely good.)

Episode five actually does that. And to explain how this works I’m going to draw some comparisons between the book version of this part of the story and what the show did with it. So spoilers for the book. However the key plot points have been given to you by the show, it’s just the execution that differs.

How AMC’s The Vampire Lestat Reinvents Lestat’s Story

I’m going to stick with my go to example here of Tony Stark. Reason being, I figure a lot of people know the whole deal with Tony Stark in a cave with a box of scraps.

As I’ve said before, in the MCU Iron Man movie, it is significant that the bomb that puts shrapnel into Tony’s heart has Tony’s name on it. It says Stark Industries. Tony’s heart is wounded and his life cut short by destruction he personally wrought on the world. He survives by building a new way for his heart to work and trying to fix the wrongs he has done. Hero origin story complete. As Stan Lee himself said, the symbolism of Tony Stark’s story was never subtle.

Now if you take the bomb that said Stark Industries and replace that logo with Hammer Industries you’re telling a new story. Which isn’t bad per se, but like I’ve said you need to be aware of what you’re doing. You shouldn’t do it because you like the Hammer Industries font better. You should be making this change because for the version of Tony’s story you’re telling, you want to focus on what his impact to the world did to other people in encouraging them to violent acts, for instance.

Or any number of things! I’m not saying you’re limited to that, I’m just saying you need to be doing something!

Let’s now bring this back to our boy Lestat.

Lestat the book character is known as The Brat Prince. Much like “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” this summarizes Lestat nicely. (And, I can’t help but imagine, Lestat would point out he managed to do it in fewer words than Tony because unlike some people his amazingness doesn’t require that much explanation.)

The reason why Lestat is the Brat Prince is because, first and foremost, he constantly refuses to do what he’s told. He hates rules and he abhors authority. He wants to be the sole arbiter of his life and the way things work, which is where the “Prince” part of the name comes in. (Also the fact that Lestat’s ego is the size of the sun.)

Lestat meeting Marius, Akasha, and Enkil is the embodiment of that.

To help non-book readers understand, Akasha and Enkil are THE vampires. They, Akasha specifically, are the first. I won’t get into the hows and whys of this because those are spoilers. But, as the show indicated, that makes Akasha and Enkil a Big Fucking Deal.

As Marius explained in tonight’s episode, what happens to Akasha and Enkil affects all vampires everywhere. If they get burned, every vampire gets burned. If they die… well you get the idea. Hence why they are Those Who Must Be Kept. As in we gotta keep them around and we gotta keep them safe.

One way to keep them safe is secrecy. Hard for vampire hunters or even just vampires who don’t like the way things are run to come and hurt Those Who Must Be Kept if they don’t know about Those Who Must Be Kept at all. And then if you do know about them, you have typically only been told because you were let in on the super secret for the love of EVERYTHING keep your god damn mouth shut because no really if anybody fucks this up WE ALL DIE HORRIBLY honor system.

Remember when I told you that it’s significant that up until now most characters, and you the audience, didn’t know who Akasha was? Not that we’ve even got the code name system going here with Those Who Must Be Kept. Even knowing Akasha’s name is a huge fucking deal.

Remember when I said note who Lestat does the name drop to? Armand and the audience. Armand because Lestat knows this is a flex and a slap in Armand’s face. Especially since Armand devoted centuries of his life to observing the rules and rituals which are based in protecting vampire kind. Armand is keenly aware of how important it is to keep Those Who Must Be Kept a secret and Lestat straight up Elle Woods’ed him with “Meet and then drink from Akasha? What, like it’s hard?”

This then gets back to how the book handled it compared to the show, and why I think the show did a genuinely good job with its own take on it. As I say, book spoilers ahead.

Book Lestat hates being told what to do. So when he meets Armand in Paris and finds out about this super old and powerful vampire named Marius who, even if he was still alive, Lestat’s been told baby vampires like himself shouldn’t go anywhere near let alone talk about, what do you think Lestat does?

If you guessed “Graffiti Marius’s name all over fucking Europe in big huge letters saying hey Marius, you super secret vampire I’m not supposed to be talking about, here’s the 18th century version of my number, let’s hook up” you would be a thousand percent right.

There is, as I say, a reason Lestat is called the Brat Prince.

You are also presumably getting why I’ve been frowning at some of the episodes of the show and going ummm, why are we removing Lestat’s agency? Why are we making his only motivations in the world that his mommy is evil and told him to? Because Lestat doing things because he wanted and very often because they are the exact opposite of what an authority figure told him are as key to his book character as Tony Stark getting shrapnel shoved into his chest.

This trend continues with Lestat and Akasha. Like in the show, when Gabrielle leaves Lestat he gets depressed and goes to ground, which is a thing Anne Rice vampires do when they can’t cope with living anymore. Basically they go into stasis until someone digs them up or they get inspired to get up on their own. Sometimes neither happens and, well, whoops.

As in the show, book Marius digs Lestat up. However, it’s because Marius saw this young upstart putting his name everywhere and finally sighed a heavy sigh and went okay, okay, Magnus abandoned this poor kid so I’ll be the vampire grownup here and try to teach him some manners.

Also as in the show, Marius brings Lestat to his super secret lair where Those Who Must Be Kept are and gives him a fairly sizable lore dump about vampires and how this all works. There’s also some other stuff but for our purposes it’s not relevant to the comparison so I’ll leave that untouched for spoiler avoiding purposes.

Now then, since you’ve already been given the lesson in our dear Lestat, can you guess how book Lestat ends up playing the violin for Akasha and Enkil?

Did you guess “Because Marius had to turn his back for like two god damn minutes and he specifically told Lestat not to go anywhere near Those Who Must Be Kept, let alone do anything that might overstimulate them like playing music?” If so, collect your prize!

Yes, once again this key point in Lestat’s life is because he will always do whatever he wants and especially if he’s been told not to. Which again goes to me harping on about his agency and the strange choice to make his mother the source of all his motivations.

Now, that being said, this is when we get into when the show veers from the books but in a good way. Because what happens in the books is that Lestat, who is the most specialist vampire in all the world (aka a flaming Mary Sue of a character. I love him, but let’s not kid ourselves), immediately wakes Aksaha up with his totally awesome violin skills and she drinks from him and he drinks from her. Various spoilery things happen which I won’t give specifics of but after that Lestat does, indeed, have to flee as his AMC version does, which is to say for reasons that in both cases boil down to “You fucked up, go be elsewhere.”

So in terms of Lestat taking an active role in what happens with him and Marius and Akasha, you can hopefully see how there’s a clear difference between the book and the show. Book Lestat started pushing buttons the very second he found out there were buttons to push. Show Lestat is so uninvolved he literally has to be yanked out of the ground by Marius who himself got his motivations elsewhere.

However, unlike last week’s implication that Lestat didn’t want to do music anymore and is only doing it because Gabriella manipulated him to, I actually like these changes.

Reason being we’re still getting a story. Also, in fairness, a somewhat stronger story given that, as I just said, a key plot point here happens because Lestat’s just that awesome. Which you can do. Anne Rice in fact did it. Book was a best seller and went on to spawn more best sellers besides! One of which, as you might guess from its title being Queen of the Damned, hinges on this very plot point!

But, yanno, kinda weaksauce really. It happens because of his awesomeness? Sure Lestat would have no problem with that version of events but what about us here in the audience?

So now we get the show version. Where no, Lestat isn’t as proactive as his book self. But we do see him earning Akasha’s attention. This isn’t her, after a much longer time of being a burnt statue than her TV self, literally taking one look at Lestat with a violin in his hands and deciding she must have him.

No, instead Lestat’s taking care of her and also coming into himself. And while his TV self is much more on the back foot personality wise than his book self at this stage of his life (which I’m defining as “when he meets Marius and Akasha” since we’re measuring life stages in terms of character development, not actual years) I didn’t mind that this whole stretch was used to show Lestat learning and growing. It’s not a coincidence that more direct book quotes start appearing in the script, particularly as Lestat does things like contemplate the nature of good, evil, and God, all of which are also core concepts of his character.

So yeah, on the one hand someone could go “But in the BOOKS Lestat was already proficient in the violin and it was Nicky’s violin besides!” and yes, this all of those things are “Tony Stark got hit with a bomb with his name on it.” But the changes the show made are a Hammer Industries bomb with the resulting implications.

And for that I’m fine with it. Thrrilled! It’s actually interesting! It’s a story! Akasha fell for him! He gave her reasons to fall for him besides being hot and the guy whose name is on the book cover! I even like the implication that this Lestat grew to enjoy having a job where at the end of the day he went somewhere quiet and had tasks he had to perform well. It’s a nice, subtle callback to how when he was a young mortal he adored being in a monastery.

(Gosh, do you think this guy has a thing about wanting to find his place in the world? And wanting to understand what it means to be considered ‘good’? And maybe he keeps tyring to tie all those concepts in to a higher powered being that’s the reason he exists at all? A - I dunno - ‘god’ if you will? Such a mystery.)

(Don’t mind me, I’m not actually snarking at you the audience or the show here. More the people I see online who somehow miss the religious themes of Lestat’s story, both book and TV versions. I actually saw someone saying Lestat wasn’t Catholic and let’s all be amazed I recovered from my subsequent rage blackout in enough time to write this article.)

Anyway, yes. Different. But good different. Different that stands on its own, which is exactly what any story needs to do.

Same with everything going on with Armand and Daniel, and Louis and Regina. Armand and Daniel are a whole thing in the books. Things like Armand turning Daniel is direct from canon. The way it’s unfolding is entirely different, but as someone who was side eyeing the idea that the love story for Armand was Louis back in seasons one and two because of Armand and Daniel, I’m totally fine with this. Much like Lestat drinking from Akasha, it’s different but it’s a story in its own right and it’s perfect.

Same with Louis and Regina, which has been invented out of whole cloth. But like I said last week this is such a Louis thing to do it may as well have come directly from the books. A+, no notes. I even like how multiple characters, Louis included, are calling out that no, actually, Louis is a shitty person. Just because he’s not as seemingly proactive about fucking shit up like Lestat and Armand are doesn’t mean he’s one of the good ones. It’s just that his flavor of danger comes with a lot of denial and passive aggressiveness.

So yeah. Strong episode, loved it, hoping like heck the next two keep up the good work.

Lagniappe

As always, things that don’t fit anywhere else.

• Tonight’s ep is written by Hannah Moscovitch. I find Hannah’s outings to be mixed, but this was for sure one of her good ones.
• Speaking of Hannah, she’s also credited as being showrunner along with Rolin Jones and I don’t want to erase that. Particularly since it’s not like female showrunners are thick on the ground. However, in interview after interview Rolin’s out there taking credit for pretty much everything. Not just as a concept but specifically things like changes from the books. So if he’s the one demanding all the credit I’m not gonna argue with him. But that means he’s the only one I’m pointing to when the stuff he’s saying was all him is shitty as well.
• I feel like Venn diagram overlap of people who play Vampire the Masquerade who don’t already know The Vampire Chronicles like the back of their hand is wafer thin. That being said, I can’t help but wonder if there are people watching this show now going “Wait - that’s where these concepts come from?” Foundational genre text, kids! Welcome aboard! We’re glad to have you!
• Words cannot express how much I clapped like a seal when Louis started talking about investing in high end hotels. I am sparing you the lecture I could give on whether or not what he said makes any sense if you actually know anything about investing in high end hotels, of which yours truly has over 10 years of experience. Instead I’ll just say it’s obvious that this level of specificity was written for me and me alone and also props to Jacob Anderson for pronouncing “RevPAR” correctly. Chef’s kiss, the gift is appreciated.
• Also props to Jacob’s face every time Louis’s heart started breaking around Regina. Gorgeous acting.
• Likewise props to Sam Reid for the run of expressions of Lestat’s heart breaking upon seeing Regina, but then quickly covering it up before she returned.
• One of my many complaints about the treatment of Claudia in seasons one and two was that she wasn’t treated like a treasured child by Louis and Lestat the way her book and movie counterparts were. Which was a problematic look when a significant change was that this Claudia was a Black girl. So I liked that at the very least we got Lestat’s point of view here that he truly loved her in his own way. His way was horrible, let’s not get it twisted. But it means something to show that he tried.
• “You don’t have to do the accent” - no comment.
• Huge, huge props to Sheila Atim for managing to embody Akasha at all, let alone in the extreme situation we saw her in of that breathless, babbling monologue. I absolutely felt like I was looking at a being that is thousands of years old, completely alien to anything human, and fucking terrifying while at the same time having something in there that made her an individual and not a concept. That is such a hard thing to do and I’m applauding. A+
• Or was it babbling? Don’t mind me as I whistle innocently and look towards my bookshelves.
• On the lore and long running narrative scale - which is something this show can do well when it’s firing on all cylinders - I appreciated that they gave you the answer to who is Akasha…. and then slipped in the name Amel. You didn’t think you were getting all the answers, did you?
• Similarly on the topic of things the show does well, I love how we got the info dropped in a previous episode that no matter what Lestat did to bring about something horrific on the world, Armand’s role in it was much worse. And then today we see things like Armand casually making David Rose’s husband walk in front of a train. Never underestimate our Amadeo.

And there we are. Two more eps to go. Fingers crossed they stay this good!

Outro

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