only serious in the tags

for now we see through a glass darkly

[cosmic-day]

I posted an episode review for each of the first six episodes of the vampire Lestat. So for the sake of completeness, let me try to sum up how I feel about this episode. Tl;dr, I hated it, so if that bothers you, don’t read.

To start with Lestat’s part of the story, the long table conceit was an effective idea, but I don’t think it was utilised terribly well. Overlong and meandering, honestly most of the time it felt like it was there to save budget. In the end, I don’t think they forced Lestat to confront his failures in any meaningful way. And as for the egregious, tone deaf, racist nonsense of dragging Paul – PAUL – in to say thank you for loving Louis the right way, by which I guess he means dropping him from a mile up in the sky? Who the fuck thought this shit up?

Also, seven episodes of not addressing the trial in any way except more or less confirming that yes Lestat was there voluntarily but no we’re not supposed to care. Nor are we supposed to care about anything Lestat did to Claudia. She should have been at the Table and she should have been allowed to confront Lestat. But no, Claudia’s rage is all for Louis, apparently. If she was cruel to Lestat that might be a bit sad and upsetting for him and we can’t have that.

Speaking of Louis, grotesque cruel gruesome body horror inflicted on Louis AGAIN. Better writers than me have dissected the unbelievable racism of the way black bodies are brutalised in comparison to white bodies. It was so clear and evident in this episode and across all three seasons of this show to the point that it cannot be denied.

Haven’t talked about Daniel much because he’s not my favourite character but in a season in which it felt like every character was flattened and reduced to their worst traits, he was no exception. Disproportionately angry with Lestat (I get he’s a dick, but you wanted him dead?) and apparently OK with whatever Armand did to Louis when last season he seemed to genuinely care about him. Meanwhile his dialogue consisted of nothing but hostility and racist microaggressions. IWTV Daniel was an arsehole, but had at least some depth to him that this version has lost.

And finally, Armand. My favourite character in this show, one of my favourite ever, and utterly destroyed here. Look, before you complain, yes Armand is unstable and violent and cruel. We knew that from 2 x 5 amongst other things. But this was on another level. The OTT extreme body horror cruelty. Targeted at Louis when others have hurt him far more. The long complex scheme that felt entirely out of character and also made no sense (what did Alex, or Larry, or this cult he apparently runs now, or AA, or the revenge porn have to do with anything?). The writers’ intent is clearly to reduce him to a one-dimensional pantomime villain, I'm surprised they didn't have him tie Regina to some train tracks while they were at it. It also feels very deliberate that for three seasons in a row, we have had a finale reveal that surprise! Armand was lying! What this confirms for me is that the writers will never see Armand as anything but a sinister, inscrutable villain lurking in the shadows and plotting evil schemes. And this perception is now so deeply embedded in the audience’s mind I can’t see it being reversed even if we get some further insight into his POV or trauma in future seasons. And to be clear I don’t expect him to ever get that grace. I don’t think they care.

I know his trauma was acknowledged briefly in the scene. And thank you Jacob and Assad for acting it so beautifully. In a different context, it could have been meaningful and moving. It was something Armand clearly desperately needed to hear. But not in this context.

Finally, let’s talk about the Islamophobia in this scene. Two Muslim coded characters live streaming a beheading is already in dubious territory. Choosing to set that scene in a kosher butcher moves things from thoughtless subtext to quite deliberate text. There is a strong case to be made that the show is quite intentional here in framing Armand as an Islamic terrorist.

So, final thoughts – I won’t watch season 4 unless something drastically changes. I really want to stop talking and thinking about this show but I’ve loved it too long and too deeply to just cut it off like that. But I hope at some point to get this all out of my system and move on. It’s heartbreaking. But there it is.

[artfullyplacedsemicolon]

And another thing; can we appreciate how dumb it is to have the SAME GUY as the finale twist villain of ALL THREE SEASONS??

[kookiedeadbutterflies]

Among all the bad things with TVL, there is one good thing.

A. Zell Williams made a fan appreciation post on his substack. It’s both a heart warming and heartbreaking read about his time with IWTV and his exit. He put it best as to what they had done to him and he’s right.

“If you treat people with respect only as long as you need them, that last act of indifference will define your time together and the success of what you’ve made”

All the best to you Mr. Williams. Maybe I’ll write him a letter of thanks for what he brought to the show.

Fan Appreciation Daze

How a show's fans lifted my spirits years after working on the series.

[doomed-romances]

Scream queen Delainey Hayles 😱

[raisinchallah]

you know the insane thing is i feel like the finale is the episode i can feel you know the closest to picturing a maybe good version of if the louis and lestat roles were swapped so many other episodes feel lowkey incomprehensible but like with better claudia writing i think louis meeting all the people from his past that have now been immortalized in a book against his wishes at a table to discuss and reflect on his life would honestly be kind of fascinating as a closing chapter to his rawest claudia grief and all that and then like armand torturing lestat if they you know gave them the marius drama between them that lestat chose marius over him and marius chose lestat and this being armands weird mental breakdown processing of this when he finds out could you know work as both lestat taking some ownership of wrongs in his past and if they still wanted the past abuse lestat revelations thing u know this functioning as a mirror in some ways and also harms he caused in others but like this would require good writing and character motivations and shit and not being horrifically racist

[nortism]

no but why would it be Louis of all people Armand is torturing?? Where is him throwing Lestat off that tower or trying to kill himself in 18th century Paris??? In fact where is lesmand???!!! and why must the writers only write gore for their black characters this season?? wtf

[holewithoutorgans]

Making Louis apologize to Armand for being a pimp when it was just revealed an episode earlier that he is also a victim of incest and csa and was paid to keep quiet..... The writer's dont give a fuck how revealing that fact recontextualizes Loumand's entire bdsm dynamic and Louis's reaction to hearing about Armand's sexual trauma.

But nooo we couldn't have them bond over both being victims because louis has the evil pimp gene

[summer-tomatoes]

That scene really could have been good if it was just the two of them in a room talking. If Armand didn’t torture the apology out of him. Maybe he goes into the conversation with bad intentions. He wants to manipulate Louis into saying sorry. Twist the knife of the divorce a bit. And then Louis actually does apologize to him, genuinely, and it disarms Armand completely. All the illusions of their life together are finally stripped back and they are just two damaged people looking at one another for the very first time.

Can you imagine how good that scene could have been if they were just sitting in a room together? No body horror, no weird fish eye filter, just Jacob and Assad delivering the performances we know they can deliver with the chemistry of the s2e5 fight???

But of course this would require a level of sincerity that the writers seem incapable of this season.

[feedingicetothedog]

the way that loumand absolutely could have had an actual conversation post divorce to be transparent with each other. the book had that scene of them walking near the river, wonderful quotes like "I look into your eyes and my reflection isn't there" because these were two people who genuinely loved each other but louis couldn't fully accept that armand was responsible for killing another person in his heart (claudia). we could have had a version of this in the show, I'm still angry that s2 finale cut away from jassad's acting to show daniel panicking over his laptop who gives a fuck?? such a waste of a complex dynamic and combined talent between two actors of color with great onscreen chemistry, nah let's toss in racist saw trap 2.0! these writers are full of shit.

what’s killing me is that in s1 and s2, the adaptational changes and recontextualizations for the new narratives strengthened the original themes of the novels or challenged problematic ideas in the source material but it felt like almost every time something from the novel the vampire lestat was incorporated into this season it was weak, weird, and narratively ineffective. there are so many parts from the book iwtv, tvl, qotd, tva, etc. that could've been reworked EFFECTIVELY for the show that supposed the new contexts and racial realities of the characters and elevated the original moments but it felt sloppy and bad and like an afterthought. which is crazy bc i have no clue what they were prioritizing this season

[black-market-wd4o]

And they didn't even remember to bring back Miss Lily on top of everything else. A room full of people Lestat is supposed to feel sorry for killing, and he leaves out the woman who helped him meet "the love of his life" and was Louis' one semi-close friend who accepted his queerness. This season is just an endless series of kicks to the face

[hotjewishmess]

So I have not really been talking about this season because I just have not really been enjoying it. However with this last episode I think it’s really important to stress considering the intent of the writers.

In my mind we have gone so far past the point of thinking about why characters act a certain way in universe and instead need to start questioning why characters have been written they way they were.

All this to say, discord about the fictional aspects of the show are way less important right now then real considerations of the writing and authorial intent.

[gaypeople]

[hinasho]

https://www.tumblr.com/hinasho/822424694473080832/i-mean-i-think-the-show-is-just-being-more-open

If this is what we were supposed to take away from a character like Louis why would anyone love/like him? It begs the question what are Louis’ redeeming qualities? Why do these men continue to stay with him and obsess over him?

Original post

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this. Ultimately, I think this is all a response.

I still think Season 1 was fine. I think they knew the story they wanted to tell and approached it with open minds and excitement to adapt it. But then AMC gave them the green light to expand Louis’ arc across two seasons. Surprising but okay! And so, at least in my opinion, they did create S1 out of genuine creativity and love for the material.

But then it released and seeing how popular Loustat was, seeing people actually really like, some even love Jacob’s Louis, it made them approach S2 differently. Nobody behind the scenes was expecting for Loucob to be as loved as he is, whether people like him for himself or like him as an extension of Loustat. Even Jacob seemed to be surprised, having initially viewed his arc as a stepping stone before they’d dive into Lestat later. His shock & confusion in interviews after S2 but before they started shooting S3 was clear. He was surprised to still be brought on for in-depth interviews at all.

I wouldn’t call it lightning in a bottle. That would mean intent. It’s more like they were drinking beers in the backyard just shooting the shit before lightning freaked everybody out by zapping past the lid. While of course they didn’t plan to tell a lackluster story, I think the richness of Louis’ character was a complete accident. I think they all thought it could be perceived as good, not as fucking great.

And this is why Season 2 started us down the path of being controversial among the fanbase. And by “controversial” I genuinely mean “debated”, because people have very different opinions of it. The S2 reunion scene is heavily debated (primarily in Louis spaces) with half saying they hated it and the other half enjoying it. You have half the fanbase happy with Lestat’s apology during the trial, and half saying Santiago was right and that Lestat was too hard on himself.

Season 1 was clearer on how things were to be interpreted. While there’s definitely argument for how fans/crowds/mobs take ideas and run with them regardless of intent, nothing in Season 1 garnered as many different interpretations as the content in Season 2. I think this is because this is when the team behind the show started, seemingly, disagreeing with each other.

This is how you get “wait what was Louis’ apology to Lestat in the finale about? Was that Louis coming to terms with himself, or was that the show engaging in victim blaming?” And everyone has different POVs on it. It’s clear now, that the ambiguity behind the scene, behind quite a few scenes in S2, is because the writers themselves couldn’t agree on what they wanted them to mean.

But with all the people they’ve let go for Season 3, and the new ones they hired on, it’s obvious which side remained on-staff and the kinds of likeminded people they got to take the others’ place.

So now, in Season 3, there is no debate. There is no “hm I can see this interpretation but I can also see this interpretation….” There’s no ambiguity. This side of the team, the side that viewed Louis’ apology in S2 as Louis apologizing for ‘abusing’ Lestat, that seemed to view Louis’ charred, crumbling body apologizing to Armand as deserved punishment instead of horrific abuse, are the ones that have stayed and taken over the show.

And we KNOW debates started happening in the Season 2 writer’s room given the recent interview where Rolin briefly mentioned it, such as whether Louis asked Armand to erase his memories or if he never did. Certain things in Season 2 are controversial among fans, because the writers themselves started disagreeing on characterizations and important story beats.

So with this portion of the team let go vs the ones that were called back + those newly hired to replace the former, this is how we got Season 3. A season that is not as ambiguous as Season 2 where the writers were fist fighting when they put pen to paper. We are back to the single vision of Season 1.

Except this vision wasn’t born from heartfelt creativity and love for the material. It’s out of agreed upon resentment and shared biases. You even have the production designers of all crew members throwing in “I always liked Lestat more” unprompted when their job has NOTHING to do with character preference. Season 3 is the way it is, because these are the people who originally wanted Louis’ arc to only be compiled into a single season, and were irritated when fans kept wanting more. Whether they wanted more of Loucob or simply wanted more of Loustat as a duo.

And Rolin’s “we wrote from the gut” or “the id” and all of his sayings that they wrote instinctively lays it out that this whole mess is emotional retaliation. The writing behind Season 3 is a temper tantrum.

Not just as retaliation to Louis, but to everyone. Assad’s Armand shot through the ROOF and instantly became one of the most popular characters in S2. I’d even argue is Thee second most popular after Lestat (I’d say Daniel is the second most popular among casual viewers whereas among non-casual viewers, it’s Armand.) With DM shooting to the stars as the most popular ship among non-casual viewers. (And DM does beat out Loustat in terms of popularity when looking at the dedicated fanbase.)

But once again, this seems to have pissed That Side™️ of the creative team off after Season 2’s release. With none of them expecting Assad’s Armand to be as beloved or for DM to be as highly desired as they are. And you can see this frustration in all of Armand & DM’s “development” in Season 3.

Why Armand had less than 15 minutes total of screentime across episodes 1-6 before reducing into a maniacal villain in 3x07. Why DM’s eagerly anticipated relationship happened completely off screen, and both characters butchered so it would be intentionally unsatisfying once revealed. (And the excuse that they’re a minor / secondary relationship so they were never going to be as focused on doesn’t make sense when looking at Claudeleine. Who was still emotionally moving and well paced even in the midst of the Loumand-Dreamstat-Loustat triangle.)

The “meta” that they kept talking about in pre-S3 interviews isn’t that the writers just kept the fanbase in mind while making it, it’s that the entirety of Season 3 is a response to the fans themselves. It’s less about the actual characters that were written in Seasons 1 & 2, and comes off more as one long Twitter thread titled “My IWTV Hot Takes”

Because you also can’t say any of this was for Lestat. It’s very reminiscent to Season 2, when Lestat point blank says “I hurt Louis because I wanted to hurt him” and a portion of the fanbase shoved a pacifier in his mouth to shut him up and for years afterwards kept saying “No he didn’t mean it.” Even Samstat was reduced from a character into a figurehead.

Loucob became a punching bag, Claudlainey and Assad’s Armand were weaponized against Loucob while simultaneously reduced to punching bags too, and the writers put Samstat on the same idealized pedestal that the characters Magnus, Marius, and Gabriella are supposed to be condemned for, treating him as a concept rather than a person.

Sorry, my response turned into something else lol. But “Why would the writers write Louis this way? Why would anyone like him?” My personal opinion after really trying to understand what on earth has happened, is that no, they likely were not writing like this since S1. The season just doesn’t make sense from that POV. Everything we’re seeing right now is reactionary.

Season 1 was a story created out of actual interest, Season 2 was when the boat started to rock, and Season 3 isn’t a season at all. It’s a cokerant thread on Twitter. It’s a callout post on Tumblr. A 72-part TikTok story. It’s little more than the writers’ tantrum because fans weren’t playing with their dolls the way they wanted us to.

[heliza24]

One thing I can’t stop thinking about is:

I can follow the line of thinking that says that Armand would feel like he was owed an apology from Louis, and that he wanted to punish him. I don’t agree with it, but I get it.

But you’re telling me that Armand planned this shit for three years? That he used some sort of magical CSI level program to search all the humans in the world to find one who looked like Claudia and then arranged international documents to get her to America to torment Louis repeatedly?

The Armand that flailed as soon as the coven presented him with a choice, the Armand that erased Louis’s memory because how else was he supposed to cope with the events of San Francisco, the Armand that didn’t even notice that Daniel was about to fuck up his whole life because he remembered how hot he was?

He does evil bad things sometimes, but guys. He’s not smart. He’s not a mastermind. He is flying by the seat of his pants at all times.

Assad spent so much time saying “I don’t think he’s a mustache twirling villain, he’s always just fighting to survive” in interviews and then they just went and wrote him as a mustache twirling villain with a years long master plan. Have him spontaneously hurt Louis when Louis wouldn’t listen to his amends. Sure. But don’t try to tell me Armand has been planning this for years!

[doublepriesticide]

so lemme get this straight. this season, armand was masterminding the whole regina thing, stalking alex, getting up to some fishy business as an AA sponsor, sabotaging lestat’s rock career, inadvertently becoming the figurehead for a cult, and involving himself with illicit vampire medical research? there should be a union for television antagonists. putting in this many evil hours has to be against canada’s evil labor laws.

[harbingerofsoup]

i feel like turning the torture scene in the finale into a louis fan vs armand fan thing is a very fandom-focused perspective to take that ultimately trivializes the very real racism of the writers and production behind it. like, the roles of both characters in that scene are obscenely racist. having louis, a black man, be brutalized and forced to take blame and apologize for abuse done to him is horrific. it’s also incredibly offensive to have a south asian, implied muslim, character be cartoonishly evil by spilling the blood of his victims (louis and regina) in a jewish butcher shop

don’t turn this into character vs character fandom war when there are layers to the racism, including pitting the main nonwhite characters against each other

[fay989]

Any TVL cast member being interviewed: yeah so when I first read the script I wanted to murder Rolin with my bare hands :) haha yeah he butchered my character so badly that I threw my laptop across the room :) aha and then I yelled at him for two hours which only resulted in minor tweaks to the script :) yeah I was so shocked and confused :) and he comes up with scenes that don’t make any sense in-universe. :) and I worry for the future of this tv show :) but it’s alright as long as you think about how [5 min in depth analysis of details that the cast member has come up themselves to justify the season despite these justifications not being evident in the actual show at all] aha :)