Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Vampire Lestat through episode three as well as what came before in the TV show and the books. Trigger warning for discussions of sexual assault. Read at your own risk.

Intro

AMC’s The Vampire Lestat has managed to do something which far too many shows find impossible: convey someone struggling with delusions who isn’t a “Look at me being wacky!” delivery service. Likewise we get one of the first episodes of this show which treats rape with something approaching respect and not as a cheap plot device, if we can even call the show’s previous treatments as elevated as a plot device.

All of which means we can forgive some bad wigs in exchange for a good show Plus, yanno, I’ve watched flashbacks on Angel. Bad wigs are practically my favored terrain.

Let’s get into it.

AMC’s The Vampire Lestat and the Story of Nicky

I was talking with a friend who hasn’t read the books and explained that so far Lestat’s flashbacks are like if you did the origin story of Tony Stark and skipped past the whole “cave with a box of scraps” part. Like yeah, you mention it but quickly move on and only show Tony walking around with the arc reactor in his chest already. Maybe even show the “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart” but never mention why Pepper felt the need to make that.

Put in those terms you get why I’ve been here like hmmm, okay maybe they’re telling a different story? And I’m okay if they are! But if the movie or show mentions the cave at all and you do know Tony’s origin story, you’re more inclined to suspect they’re going to return to the topic of the cave instead of ignore it.

Does that make sense? I’m not trying to judge AMC’s The Vampire Lestat by the criteria of “Meh, but the BOOKS did it THIS way.” However, I’m being given enough evidence to show they’re not leaving the books behind for Lestat as much as they did Louis. Which means in turn I suspect the story they’re slowly building to and I'm basing my opinions accordingly.

Which is a good thing! I want to hasten to add that. You know I don’t pull my punches when an episode is weak so I’d say so if I felt it. But, much like the slow reveal of what they were doing with the first two seasons of Interview With the Vampire, I think we’re getting the slow reveal of what they’re doing with The Vampire Lestat and I like it.

I do have to get into book spoilers a little bit to talk about this. But I’m going to do my best to keep it as tightly as I can to what the show has already shown. Again in Iron Man terms I’m not about to reveal who put Tony in the cave with the box of scraps.

So! Based on the known key moments of Lestat’s origin story plus the pieces we’re getting so far, I really like what the show is doing with the concepts of trauma and mental illness.

Let’s start with the obvious of Nicky. Yes, there are key changes from the books (when and how Lestat and Nicky meet, for example) but these are changes that I wouldn’t have made them but they’re not make or break either. I’m holding out hope for one of Nicky’s best lines to still exist (suffice it to say you understood why book Lestat immediately wanted to fuck him) but again sometimes these things get lost in media translation, it’s fine.

One of the key things about Nicky’s character, and the tragedy of him, was his mental health. As this episode demonstrated, Nicky wasn’t exactly stable as a mortal and being turned into a vampire made that infinitely worse.

Here I want to give all the praise to Joseph Potter for doing a freaking amazing job at the various facets of Nicky. First up let’s appreciate the challenge he had at having to portray a key figure in Lestat’s life (that’s not a spoiler, right? You got that Lestat was clearly lying and trying to downplay Nicky’s importance to him, right?) We briefly saw him last season but that shot of him and Lestat meeting and connecting in Paris had to instantly sell us on why Lestat would feel a connection to this man (and do it without Nicky’s key line which no I am NOT letting go even though I just mentioned it, SUE ME.)

Then you have the challenge that Nicky loses his mind. And as I’ve talked about to death, including in that review of The Nevers I linked above and am not linking again because I love you all too much to inflict that on you, far too many actors portray delusional insane as “La la la! Look how crazy I am! I’m saying things that don’t make sense! Ha ha!”

Joseph Potter, on the other hand, avoided that entirely. No matter what Nicky said I believed it made sense to him. Which is perfect. It’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. Nicky’s world has shattered, including actual real world things he thought he could count on (like, yanno, vampires aren’t real), and on top of that he’s got insanity to deal with. He’s trying so hard to get a handle on it and his mind refuses to let him. And he doesn’t even know his mind is refusing to let him.

All of this plus the fact that it became a chaos whirlwind in his brain the longer he was alive. Which was captured beautifully in the scene with him, Lestat, Armand, and Gabriella. Props too to Sam Reid for managing to capture Lestat’s equal parts love and sorrow at watching what was happening (plus I’m willing to wager another layer of this not being Lestat’s full and true reaction. Suffice it to say we’ve got a few cave with a box of scraps moments happening in this particular flashback.)

But Nicky is the obvious example of mental illness. Not an easy example by any means but there’s no need for interpretation. Lestat flat out tells us Nicky was bipolar and that’s true.

But as I’ve mentioned before: so’s Lestat. Or at least book Lestat is. And how what we’re seeing is the show setting that up as well. But not quite as obvious. Yes, we see Lestat’s self destructive behavior in the hugely obvious ways - challenging a coven while intoxicated, wildly driving a car, etc. But there’s themes and - since this is music, rather literal - leitmotifs as well.

Look at what we saw of Nicky’s story and then use that as your decoder ring for everything about Lestat. “Guy who loved music but was only good at it if you didn’t know better, guy becomes increasingly obsessed with music to the point he can’t control himself, guy can’t handle the world or making music anymore, things don’t end well for that guy.”

Yeah, you see where Lestat’s been on that particular timeline. Longer than Nicky’s flashbacks so far, but still happening all the same. It’s not for nothing that the rock music fades and the strings come back on the soundtrack in Lestat’s more emotional moments. Like I said: leitmotifs.

I also want to give props to the handling of sexual assault. Now I’ve already talked about how Claudia’s rape never needed to happen. Likewise about how in gothic horror, which the Vampire Chronicles are, the horror is supposed to be rooted in metaphors of the thing, not the thing. That being said, yeah, the way Magnus turned Lestat was rape. The only key change from book to show was making it involve penetration with more than Magnus’s fangs.

And while I still maintain Claudia actually being raped could be retconned just fine - keep the body horror, leave the sexual assault out of it! - I did like how it was handled in this episode. I liked that it was giving Claudia a voice, albeit one channeled through Louis, and tied to what Lestat went through when he was attacked. This also provided a way to center the victims and not make the assault sensational for Claudia or Lestat, which again let’s be frank is not something the show managed the first time around. I suspect it’s not for nothing that tonight’s episode was written by a woman, Anusree Roy.

Showing Lestat as having been a victim of rape also adds layers to Claudia’s story. We know Lestat’s reaction to reading it was that it never happened and he never sent Killer to rape Claudia. On the one hand, we could look at him as a rape victim himself and conclude that perhaps yes, he wouldn’t do that to someone else.

On the other hand… Lestat’s a vampire. He does a lot of horrible things. Is rape where he draws the line?

(If you’ve read the books, you know the answer. I’ll stay mum to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven’t. Suffice it to say I appreciate that the show is keeping the complexity of the answer not being obvious.)

So yeah. It seems to me that the show is doing things differently from the books. But here in episode three I feel like we’re getting both enough signposts from the books to see what they’re building off of plus enough reveals of story technique and style that I like what they’re doing. I’m much more optimistic than I was after the first ep this season.

The one thing I’m still kind of side eyeing are the changes to Gabriella, and again not just the stupid A. I read comments from someone who wasn’t familiar with the books who said that Gabriella to them was not only manipulative of Lestat but the cause of his worst actions. And while I think there’s a misogynistic interpretation going on there - Lestat’s a grown man and can make his own decisions - I do think there’s a fair point that Gabriella is being shown to be… nastier? Than her book self? Meaner to Lestat specifically?

This gets into book spoilers a little but I’ve already covered this: Book Gabrielle is distant. Her biggest crime as a mortal mother could be argued to be a form of neglect, because she hid herself away with her books instead of reading Lestat to sleep every night with a bedtime story. However, she was as much of a victim of abuse in that home as Lestat was. As adults we can see how she was trying to protect herself and Lestat as best she could with the limited avenues she had for it.

Then, once she was turned, Gabrielle’s story was of someone who did love her son, yes, but she loved independence more. Which sucks if you’re Lestat who wants his mommy around but yanno, Gabrielle’s her own person too. She’s allowed to say you’re a grown ass adult and I’m over being stuck in a castle because I had the misfortune to be born with a working uterus. Laters gators!

In the show we’re seeing her be much more undercutting of Lestat. Also cruel in general. Book Gabrielle is absolutely cruel from a mortal’s perspective but from a vampire’s perspective it’s just that she doesn’t give a shit. I’m making up the example here but if Gabrielle killed that honeymooning couple it would’ve been because she needed to feed and they were there. It’s not like Gabriella who seems to consider the cruelty of it extra spice to her dinner.

Which is fine! I mean one can make the argument that this is where the name change even makes sense to remind people this is not the book character. But I am still wondering how much of this is the show’s misogyny. Particularly when this episode is giving us things Gabriella is doing and has done which are downright psychopathic in nature. We do seem to be seeing signs that Lestat not only was a victim of abuse by his mother but still is and… I mean that’s a story you can write, sure. But given this show’s history with female characters I’m side eyeing the choice to amp up Lestat’s mother as a horrible person when, no really, there’s no lack of people who treated Lestat like shit both in his mortal and immortal life. There’s basically a line of men out the door kind of going “Am I chopped liver here?”

Frankly the only argument I can make is that you go with Gabs because she’s still around. But since they’ve added in Lestat being haunted by visions of Magnus, Nicky, etc that doesn’t hold water either. Likewise Gabs being around this much is a TV invention too, so it’s not like you’re attempting to deal with a bad hand the book gave you.

Not that I object to more Jennifer Ehle by any means! I just hope in the same way we’re getting more clues that Lestat’s story is dealing with bigger concepts and themes, we’ll find out Gabriella is more than nasty even to her son. We'll have to wait and see.

Langiappe

As always, things that didn’t fit everywhere else:

• Again full caveat that if this got introduced post Vittorio I’m unaware of it. But the more the whole “Did you have a stutter????” thing is held up as The! Key! Thing! of Lestat’s life the more my eyes roll out of my head and I want to say calm the fuck down about your god damn headcanon. I don’t mind the concept of introducing a new thing if you feel the symbolism works for the story you’re telling, but when you’re making it the be all and end all of a character who has a rich tapestry of a trauma backstory to work with it comes off more as your own ego plus not wanting to do the homework of reading the books.
• Speaking of the books, it’s worth noting that Lestat’s books are all in first person. Which means that there are a plethora of us fanfic authors who cracked our knuckles and figured out not only how to write stories but do them in Lestat’s voice, narration included. I won a god damn official contest which proves I know how to imitate his voice. I will also point out there are a metric buttload of novels so you don’t exactly lack for examples of what Lestat sounds like. I will also add that if you even have Lestat himself pointing out he’s got a distinctive way of speaking - which he does - you have zero excuse for him not sounding like that. I get that the literal death of the author means we’re lacking for examples about how Lestat might refer to TikTok but extrapolation ain’t that hard. Purple! Prose! I know a TV show is on a time limit but you can throw more poetic turns of phrases in there, I promise you!
• Another pet peeve: the peeing thing. This is not in the books. This is so much not in the books that - spoiler alert - a scene of Lestat and the concept of peeing is actually significant in one of them. I say this so you can understand why it’s standing out so much that not only are we being told about how vampires pee but we’re seeing it a LOT. I think we’ve crossed the line into the author’s barely disguised fetish at this point. (And for the author in this case I’m suspecting Rolin Jones.)
• Things I loved: the subtle touch that when Louis is on his own he sure as hell isn’t listening to music that sounds like Lestat.
• Another thing I loved: the dueling forms of manipulation as Armand and Gabriella tried to get and/or keep their hooks in Lestat. Beautifully understated touch that Armand would clock this dynamic and know he had to go for the soft and supportive angle if he wanted to try to get anywhere.
• I saw someone say Armand was autistic because of his love of rituals and - look, I’m not going to fault anybody making a headcanon that makes their heart happy. But in terms of actual reading of the text it’s worth noting that Armand is a master manipulator who makes himself into whatever the situation needs in order to survive. If he’s looking like he’s into rituals it’s because he knows he has to appear to be into rituals. Just saying.
• Worth noting this is also book Armand, who needs to blend in and manipulate like this because he was turned at 14. Aka the age AMC’s Claudia is supposed to have been.
• This also makes the “Armand told the truth” in universe thing kind of funny b/c even Armand didn’t fully buy that bullshit. When Lestat came along and said vampires didn’t have to live like that Armand was fucking thrilled to have a new option, trust me.
• I’m deliberately not watching aftershows or reading interviews this time around because I want to see what it’s like when I let shows stand entirely on their own. So perhaps this has been answered, but I’m curious if Gabriella’s love of long, loose hair is because in that time it was a sign of unmarried girlhood. In the book she cut her hair short pretty quick - going for that traditional “disguise yourself as a boy to travel safely” look. But long, loose hair could be another way for this character to convey she wanted nothing to do with marriage.
• I liked Lestat admitting he’s deliberately coming off shallow. I also liked his literal power play with Daniel. If I read the script I would’ve pointed out there’s enough folks there who could’ve said “Uh, we just thought you were talking telepathically?” instead of “We thought it was weird you were staring at each other.” but whatever. Not make or break.
• I liked the nice setup of it being pointed out that a vampire could survive as just a head for a while, which then paid off with Louis later.
• “I love you, Lestat.” “Christ.” cracked me up.
• Speaking of which: if the show is, as I suspect, presenting the audience with puzzle pieces for them to put together, you did catch that Lestat in season one talked about religion being beaten out of him, right? And how that moment was hinted at in the scene of Gabriella using her jewelry for child Lestat to have an education at a monastery which ended up not lasting long? And how in this ep we see that the thing Lestat does when Magnus attacks him is beg for God’s help? You caught all that, right?
• CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
• I’m tempted to get into the changes from Lestat and Nicky from book to show. But it’s early enough that we may find out Lestat was lying about a lot of things here so I’m holding off in case of spoilers. I’m only not doing this with Gabrielle vs Gabriella because I think it’s valid to point out that the show’s possibly doing a misogynistic take on what for the time was a feminist character.
• Lestat saying Pandora instead of Spotify could’ve been an actual brand deal. Could also have been him winkingly making a reference to a character from the books. The timeline’s a little muddled for me but I think by this time in his life he at least knew of her? So wouldn’t put it past him or the show writers to be doing that name drop on purpose.
• Speaking of name drops, it didn’t happen in tonight’s ep but I wanted to mention I saw a meme making fun of how Lestat keeps saying “I have the blood of Akasha in me” like anybody knows what the fuck he’s talking about. I won’t get into book spoilers but suffice it to say it’s worth noting who Lestat says that to. Because yeah: who or what is an Akasha? But for example, in a flashback last season Lestat was dropping that name to Armand, not Louis, even though Louis was standing right there. So it’s an on purpose, in universe thing that not everybody knows that name.
• The fact that Lestat keeps name dropping it to us, the audience, is also a hint that he is not super into the idea of being told he’s supposed to keep the oh so sacred vampire knowledge he’s been trusted with secret. Which, yanno, is a personality trait of his you might’ve picked up on by now.
• I appreciate that the text is increasingly reinforcing that Lestat’s music sucks and not in the fun way. I’m fine for it being bad if it’s supposed to be bad. I’m just saying it’s mixed messages when AMC is encouraging people to buy it wherever streaming music is sold, is all.

And I think that covers it for now. Again a positive trend that has me feeling hopeful for next week. See you then!