Sinking our Teeth into "Interview with the Vampire"--"The Thing Lay Still" (S1, Ep. 7)

The season finale of the AMC series, like a finely-tuned opera, hits all the right notes.

Well, kids, we made it. We’re finally here, at the season finale to Interview with the Vampire. What a strange, sexy, erotic, and sensual trip its been, and it’s all come to this, as Claudia at last puts into motion her plot to murder Lestat and abscond with Louis. Suspecting (incorrectly, as it turns out) that Louis might falter at the worst possible moment and give the whole game away, Claudia instructs him to continue acting as if nothing is amiss, with the result that he once again finds himself utterly enchanted with Lestat, falling back into the same dark pit of love, desire, and tortured abandon that has characterized the Louis/Lestat bond from the very beginning.

In order to perfect her scheme, Claudia proposes that they host a truly magnificent Mardi Gras party, and what follows is a truly decadent sequence. Louis’ and Lestat’s costumes are, quite simply, perfection, and with their gaudiness and their clear allusion to the French court culture of the Ancien Régime, they are, I think, a clear allusion to the latter’s origins in pre-Revolutionary France. Matters continue to escalate as the three of them toy with their chosen victims at the party, before a bloodbath of Grand Guignol proportions. Though I’m still on the fence about the splattering in general, I thought it worked well in this final moment of orgiastic violence, which reaches its climax when Lestat, having thought he outwitted his progeny, realizes that he has, in fact, been poisoned. 

At first, it seems as Claudia is going to simply give Louis and Lestat time to say their goodbyes but, ultimately, Louis does decide to do the deed himself, and Jacob Anderson allows us to feel his anguish as he takes this last, fatal step in his relationship with Lestat. It’s beautiful and operatic and overwrought like so much else in the series, made all the more so by Louis’ profound love for his maker. The two of them have shared so much: how could this moment, this ultimate betrayal, not shatter something inside of him? 

Yet even here, there is more than a note of ambiguity, as Daniel himself is keen to point out. After all, Louis knew better than most just how powerful Lestat was, and he was also familiar enough with the trash-collecting habits of New Orleans to realize that they would simply dump the trunk with Lestat’s body in the swamp where there happen to be…rats. As Louis well knows, rats are quite capable of sustaining a vampire. Whatever he might like to tell himself, the truth is that, when it came right down to it, he had no choice but to choose his maker over his sister/daughter Claudia, and it seems as if there is little doubt that tragedy will ensue.

To my mind, this little twist actually helps clarify one of the things about the novel that has always plagued me. Surely, I’ve always thought, two people like Louis and Claudia should have known that simply exsanguinating Lestat wouldn’t be enough to truly kill him, not when they had seen just how powerful he was. Fortunately, the television series helps to clear this up, while also showing just how deeply Louis loves Lestat. 

From the very beginning, I’ve been struck by the truly potent chemistry between Jacob Reid and Jacob Anderson, and it is very much in evidence throughout this episode, both in Louis’ recollections and in their scenes together. Of particular note is the scene in which the two of them linger on the balcony while the party continues inside. It’s a soft and gentle moment, one in which they are free to simply…love…without the interference of Claudia, or the toxic culture which surrounds them, or any of the other things which have conspired to keep them apart. Yes, I am a Louis/Lestat stan. 

But, of course, things are never this simple in Interview with the Vampire, and as the episode comes to a close in the present, we learn that Louis’ companion Rashid is, in fact, Armand, a half-century old vampire of immense power. As Daniel leaves through relics a place known as the Théâtre des Vampires, we learn that Armand is, according to Loius’ own words, the love of his life. But, as Armand’s possessive attitude and fiery eyes make clear, it seems as if Louis has merely traded one master for another, one whose own powers are very imposing indeed.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to squeal in delight at seeing Armand revealed for the first time. Of course, he has always been one of my favorite of Anne Rice’s many vampiric creations, with his flare for the melodramatic and his tortured mien (to say nothing of his finely-wrought features, like those of a Botticelli angel). He’s often overshadowed by Lestat, but it seems as if Interview is going to finally give him his time to shine. What’s more, fans will appreciate the obvious allusion to the coven Armand led while in Paris, as well as the sly insinuations that he might have had something to do with the missing pages from Claudia’s diaries. 

There has been quite a bit of griping from the fandom that the series takes too many liberties with Rice’s established mythology, but hopefully  some of them felt at least a few of their fears assuaged by the fact that there was a casual mention of “Those Who Must Be Kept” by Lestat as he was musing about the potential perils of going to Europe. Does this mean that we might get to see the Queen of the Damned herself, perhaps in a future third season? 

Overall, I thought this was a truly magnificent conclusion to a staggeringly good season. The episode had just the right number of twists and turns to keep us on the edge of our seats until the very last moment, and I appreciated being drawn in and kept credulous as to what was going to happen next. More importantly, I also loved  the way this episode showed us just how much Louis and Lestat love one another, despite everything. I’ve long appreciated this series’ willingness to really show us this bond, rather than relying on innuendo. 

Now that we’ve got the first half of the story I, like Daniel, have even more questions. I guess I’ll just have to wait for the second season. Time to hurry up and wait!

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