The Vampire Lestat FINALE Spoilers!
My thoughts on the episode, obviously spoilers ahead! Don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled or you haven't already watched the episode. Let me preface by saying that I saw Twitter reactions when the episode leaked on Thursday and those people had me unnecessarily scared and disgusted by what they described as happening, and it turns out that they made some wild misinterpretations of what the show actually did. There were some valid critiques, but also some wild reaches that they made. I truly enjoyed the episode, and I think if you've been rocking with the season the whole time, you will enjoy it. If you hated it the whole time, you might not. If you are a stickler for the books, or a person solely here for ships, you might be disappointed. If you like theatre (theatre, not musicals), you will probably love this. This is the end of my non-spoiler section, so read on after the dots if you like.
MUCH TO DISCUSS, so I'll try to go in sections by character. I will, of course, start with the love of my life LDPDL.
I have no idea what people were talking about, regarding him being disrespected or demonized. Louis was a victim in this episode, and narratively, we are supposed to see him as a victim in this episode. NOTHING about what went on in this episode felt like the writers saying "Louis deserves this." Also, WE KNEW what was going on if we've been watching. Powerful vampires can survive for some time without their heads. Louis is Lestat's fledgling and can survive longer than most other vamps without his head. Louis and Lestat got beheaded at the end of last episode. Armand was the culprit of said beheading. So, if we know all of that, I'm not sure how people were offended by Armand being Armand with Louis' alive but severed head.
The thing about Louis apologizing to Armand was WAY overblown on Twitter. The way they described it was as if Louis groveled to Armand without prompting and said that he was only bad only and we should all hate him. People TRULY lack media literacy, and I'm truly concerned that anyone watched that episode and thought "OMG the writers hate Louis and are making him apologize to ARMAND of all people!" Honestly, truly, not trying to be mean, but as I watched the episode unfold and the Louis/Armand stuff unfold, I couldn't help but think some people are really fucking stupid. Truly stupid. And some people truly cannot handle storytelling that does not just give you happy candy, and sometimes makes hard choices. The narrative is SYMPATHETIC to Louis in those scenes. Armand is being a straight up unhinged villain and is CALLED ONE several times in those scenes! I will talk about Armand in his section, but MY GOD, how anyone watched those scenes and thought the writers wanted you to see Armand in the right is BEYOND me.
I think it's also important that, as childish and empty as it was, Armand offers Louis is ammends at last. I was SO CONVINCED that Armand did not apologize to Louis, because those yokels on Twitter talked as if Armand pulled out Louis' head and was like "uwu You hurt my feewings, Louis, I so baby!" and Louis was like "Aww, poor baby! Yes, I was so mean and bad to the baby! You didn't deserve that! I am evil bad person and you are good innocent baby!"
That is ENTIRELY wrong. Like, a TOTAL misinterpretation. Like, your English teacher would be giving you a C on the paper, applauding your effort but asking you to read for comprehension next time.
Louis is framed as a victim. The apology is coerced. Violently. Louis refuses to play Armand's game MOST OF THE EPISODE. When Louis is on the brink of death, he does apologize, half because of Armand's coercion, but also half because it's a deathbed confession. And his apology is essentially "I apologize for not being able to love you the way you needed to be loved, and for using you to get back at Lestat." That was as much for Louis as it was for Armand. That was Louis unpacking those 77 years and the one part of it that was unfair on his part. THE REST OF IT WAS ON ARMAND, and I don't think the episode was quiet about that at all. Armand said that he plotted Louis & Claudia's gruesome death, turned it into a spectacle, and trapped him in a relationship for 77 years. Louis said that he never forgave Armand for Paris. This was not a pro-Armand, anti-Louis storyline. I'm truly perplexed why people thought so.
I may just make a separate post about Armand. But I'll say this here: Armand NEEDED for Louis to acknowledge the abuse that Armand went through as a child, and Louis needed to unpack how he felt about knowing what happened to Armand as a child. IDK how anyone heard that and didn't think, wow, Louis is compassionate even in the face of a monster. (Affectionate. I love Armand).
Everything violent that Armand did to Louis was fully Armand shit. Y'all don't know that freak like I do, I guess. The way people talked about it, I was imagining something OOC. But this was fully gremlin Armand. This is how he is, y'all, sorry if you thought something else. It helps if you remember that he's mentally kinda a teenager. He's immature and impulsive and makes decisions that are unhinged and kinda selfish. The A carved into Louis' chest was gross and weird, but it was very Armand. I understand the instinct to be protective of Louis as a Black character, but... I don't think the writers were wrong for writing it this way. I woulda wrote some shit like this, not gonna lie. You reacted negatively because you're supposed to. Armand is beautiful, but he is full-on evil, guys. A monster. His main ship isn't called "The Devil's Minion" for cutesy pootsie. He's evil. The Devil. He is the Devil. (Not literally.)
Again, a lot of interpretations of what went on here. But I loved it. As a reader of plays, I loved it. It was very theatre. And the reason I said "not musical theatre, but theatre" is because I mean plays. I can't think of a specific comp, but I mean shit like White Noise, like The Aliens, like I Hate Hamlet, like The Maids. Not meant to coddle you, not meant to be comfortable, meant to leave you affected. If you are a theatregoer or a reader of plays or a theatre performer, you probably will enjoy the long table scenes. I wish I could think of a specific play it reminds me of. It's giving theatre so much.
I did think they harped on the "pimp" thing too much with Louis, however... in context with the scene, I understand what was being done. That was not the opinion of any real person in this universe. That was Lestat's psyche attacking him about his life choices, reducing everything to it's most base version. A bone of what was true. Lestat does not see Louis as "a pimp from New Orleans". Louis is everything and so much more than a career he did for a few years after his father passed away. But Lestat's psyche in those scenes is tearing apart everything he did and every choice he made. Nicki is just a "mad violinist". Louis is just a "pimp from New Orleans." Antoinette is so reduced that she's a typist, a secretary. Marius is just there to yell at him about being unworthy of Akasha's blood. TC is just there because he thinks he failed her. They are all of his failures.
We see Lestat unpacking the things he did and experienced. We also get hints to him maybe not being truthful with us in some of the storytelling this season. HINT, we saw Claudia's ghost through his lens tell us that she made up the train scene. Then, we see a dying Lestat acknowledge the conductor from the train, whom he did, in fact, decapitate. So... is he LYING about what happened between him and Claudia on the train? About what Claudia said happened? WE DON'T KNOW! And there you have the wonderful fuckery of this series! We watched an entire season that is Lestat's interpretation of the events of 2025. WE DO NOT KNOW HOW ACCURATE ANY OF IT IS. We don't know what Louis will say happened. We don't know what Armand or Daniel will say happened. Maybe Daniel seems petty and vindictive over something minor because that's how Lestat sees it. Maybe Lestat actually did something more to piss him off. Maybe Daniel wasn't as pissed as Lestat recalls.
Lestat also apologizing to random people he killed was golden television.
And the moment PAUL comes back to talk to Lestat, to tell Lestat the one thing he always needed to hear, which was that Louis does love him... that was beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. And full circle for Lestat. The episode frames Louis as the ONLY fucking thing that ever truly mattered for Lestat. Even as we see flashbacks through his life, nearly every time he looks back, there's a flash of his life with Louis. Remember when Daniel said Louis "is the story"? Well... yeah. Louis is the story, for Lestat.
I have so many thoughts that I can't articulate because I'm tired lol. But Lestat, I think, came out of the other side of his beheading with a better understanding of himself, finally releasing the idea that he's only failed in life, and a better understanding of his love for Louis. Only for, you know, Akasha to rise and make him feel like a failure again, which is why he's recording the albums we're listening to as we watch the season. I feel like people keep forgetting that these episodes are not happening as we watch them, as it were. They are similar to the New Orleans and Paris scenes in seasons 1&2--- the past as told by the protagonist. The whole season is Lestat telling us about 2025 on the Failures albums. And I think that means we need to be prepared for s4 to realign what we thought we knew from this season.
It was also... very exciting, to me, that we ended where we did, with Lestat in his Montreal home, revealing a destroyed Montreal. (The BTS thing after the episode called it the "end of the world" so maybe not just destroyed Montreal). We know that Akasha will rise and that shit will hit the fan, and Louis will lose a leg, and Armand will lose an eye. We didn't get to see how, yet! I think this is what some people were complaining about, that nothing was resolved in that sense.
Nonsense. A LOT was resolved. This was a character study. Lestat DID grow. Louis grew. Armand REGRESSED DELICIOUSLY. This is how character studies work. What they mean by "nothing was resolved" is that we didn't see Akasha rise yet, and we don't know what happened to Louis and Armand at the beginning of episode 1, and we didn't even see the concert. Well. Well, guys... sorry, but I think that was brilliant. This has never been an action-heavy, plot-heavy series anyway. I think there was just more active Loustat in season 1, so people were enthralled by that, but it was a character study, too. Sure, they try to off Lestat at the end of the season, but... uh, well, that's what happened this season, too. Lestat & Louis' near-death. What do you mean nothing happened and nothing was resolved?
I also think people were annoyed with the lack of Loustat kiss and the lack of Devil's Minion, but yeah, y'all are trippin a bit. There's TONS of Loustat. Just not a kiss. And, from a writer's perspective, I can see why a kiss would go in that bus scene, but it's also not where I said to myself that I'd put their first on-screen kiss since the Mardi Gras ball. I said I'd do it after the concert when Louis helps save Lestat and they get outta there (the scene from the books, for my book readers.) As a series with active Loustat, I'd put the kiss somewhere during that chaos. But they didn't show the concert, and it's not clear if they will or if Lestat will even perform it. But I think he likely will in season 4. And yeah, it sucks that that might be two years from now... but I would put my Loustat kiss there. (Who knows if any of that will even occur. I just think it's okay that they didn't kiss here and might kiss later.)
Those of us who (forgive me) aren't Cabbage, let's just hope that they pump season 4 out and maybe we can get a summer 2027 instead of a summer 2028!
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