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In a season about revenge and reconciliation, Lestat's revenge on Daniel is maybe the most complete. Daniel's work is the one thing in his life that he feels secure in – and that's something that Louis gave him in San Francisco, one of the only things Daniel does remember about what happened. When he's turned, and his daughters reject him again, and Armand runs off on him, and his book gets panned by the critics, Lestat offers him a life line of a documentary and Daniel accepts, because what else does he know how to do.

And he asks Lestat repeatedly 'why did you ask for me?', wondering if it's because Lestat wants Daniel's reputation and expertise in rehabilitating his image. But no. It's a lot simpler than that. Lestat wants to take the last thing Daniel has from him: his pride in his work.

So Lestat sets him up. He plays hard to get, not answering Daniel's questions, getting cranky, giving bits and pieces. And then he finally springs his trap and gives Daniel what he's been working towards – he breaks down and reveals something of himself – but it's all a fake out. Daniel has been taken in by an illusion inside his own head put there by a more powerful vampire who knew just how to push his buttons.

And then, as the coup de grace, Lestat casually and mockingly asks Daniel why it's never occurred to him that Armand has done the exact same thing to him with the interviews in Dubai. Armand is also a powerful vampire who can read people's minds and maybe it's just like when Daniel was taking pride in breaking Lestat down in front of his whole crew only to discover there's nothing there. It's completely devastating for Daniel. And for Lestat, destroying something in Daniel that Louis had given him must've been part of what he wanted from it.

dancingclownface

@ekho-ekho-ekho tags:

#exaaaaaaactly#I've seen a lot of people wondering why Daniel struggled so much to interview Lestat effectively this season and like—#speaking from a similar profession: you'd be amazed how much the subject's willingness to engage can affect the process#Louis WANTED to talk about his past. Louis WANTED to unpack his memories. Louis WANTED a sounding-board.#likewise with Daniel's past interview subjects. even the evil ones did agree to talk to him—if only for the chance to spin their lies.#Lestat? Wanted a punching bag.#he didn't want to talk about the past or unpack his motives for the whole rock band lark. he wanted someone to bitch at.#(someone other than Louis. he can't bitch at Louis AND give him the silent treatment.)#so Daniel goes in with no real angle to interview someone who doesn't want to talk to him.#not about the past; not about the book; not even about his music.#which is ostensibly the point of the doc. and when we join them they've already been at it for the better part of what? two months?#hence why Daniel starts harping on the stutter thing. Stutters often begin with a childhood trauma.#Daniel knows if he's going to get at how Lestat became Lestat then a core trauma is a good place to start.#and it was. all that reflecting on the stutter led to him accepting that Gabriella was kind of always a monster in the finale.#(and no he didn't already have that epiphany in ep 6—he got close but a revelation like that? often comes in increments.)#(so it makes perfect sense for his anger to only kick in when he feels it on his childhood friend's behalf rather than his own.)

YUUUP – love this :)

dancingclownface

@pastel-apostle's tags:

#love this take and the added tags!!#i completely agree lestat is angry at both louis and daniel for the book#and that anger manifests in different ways towards them both#such a good point about how daniel’s career is his lifeline#and we can see that really start to degrade this season#with daniel going from award winning journalist to clickbait youtuber#and how that lines up with the idea that vamps struggle to create meaningful art#louis interview is sooo different bc he really does WANT to be interviewed#imo any obfuscations or misdirections are genuine errors#louis knows his recollections are imperfect and he WANTS to remember#lestat knows his recollections are imperfect but has no interest in changing them#iwtv

Oh yes – you're so right! Daniel's career going from prestigious to trashy is so interesting. And there's a lot said about Lestat's music/stage persona being derivative in the show. What little we see about Daniel's new work suggests it's also derivative stuff – the tawdry little clickbait video, but also when he says they're shooting the stage shows in black and white and intercutting it with color interview. There may be some other reference there I'm not getting but it reminded me of U2's Rattle & Hum documentary arthouse movie, which documents their Joshua Tree US tour and recording of new songs in a mixture of B&W and color footage. It was generally panned by critics. So I wonder if this was a nod to that. But one way or another, it's an artsy choice that sounds immediately cliched.

And one of the big things that Daniel and Lestat have in common is that they both really really want to win accolades from the establishments in their fields. Lestat wants his album to be in the top 100 on Billboard. Daniel wants to take his documentary to Cannes.

That's why they can goad each other so successfully by pointing out crappy reviews – Lestat from the stage pointing out Vanity Fair trashing Daniel's book and Out Magazine calling it 'a steamy beach read', Daniel throwing up the Pitchfork review at Lestat. And they both compare themselves/resent the biggest names in their fields – Daniel bowling strikes calling out [Ronan] Farrow, [Glenn] Greenwald, Lestat being annoyed about Drake's 50 track drop. So Daniel knows exactly how to needle Lestat by pointing out Mitski's huge arena gig in contrast to his 1000 seater venue.

Because actually by what measure is Lestat's music career 'a failure'?

If, as he claims to Daniel, it's about pure self-expression, then why does it matter that he's bankrolling the whole thing and sometimes papering the house to get an audience? And if he's serious that the album should be produced for vampire ears only, then why does he care that it's not charting high enough on Billboard? Even in commercial terms, the band has only been going for three years and is playing 1000-2500 seater venues and probably selling enough merch and streams for them to be able to make a living – pretty rare these days for rock acts. Florence Welch asks them to open for her!

But none of this is enough for Lestat who has thousands of fans but wants billions. And ironically Daniel is probably the only one who fully understands that sort of megalomaniac ambition. But as he says in the bowling scene in the finale, Daniel grafted his way to the top of his profession, and he deeply resents Lestat's dilettante rich-kid queue-cutting. It'll be funny/terrible to see his reaction if it turns out next season that Armand was behind some of Daniel's career success too.

dancingclownface

@viardevra's tags

#nodding along#but also i sure hope nothing Pure Daniel Gig came from armand in the past#love me some rag to pulitzer story without the overpowerful mindbending vampire#interview with the vampire#armand isnt the cause of daniel recognition in his field - but surely is one of the symptoms that spiced daniel need for his art#btw having a fictional and on screen couple where both of them are interesting even apart from eachother - is incredibile - can you believe#in this economy..#daniel molloy#lestat de lioncourt#tvl#iwtv

and @analligatorinavest's tags

#I don’t understand how people are confused about why Daniel hates Lestat so much so thanks for laying it out#but I believe that Daniel earned his human successes on his own#yes Armand watched him saved him several times#but that led to Daniel being able to hyperfocus on his career imo#like he says in s2 he fucked up two marrriages and two daughters but stayed a journalist#idk maybe it’s because he’s my fave and I’m tired of all of the ‘Armand is behind everything’ stuff#I want Daniel to have earned his successes by his own talent#plus it’d be a contrast to his post-turning stuff

Thinking about it, I actually agree with you both on this. It would undermine something fundamental about the character of Daniel if his success in his work was Armand again. Looking forward to see what they do with the relationship in season four – love me a delicious fucked up mess :)

#iwtv #tvl #daniel molloy #armand

diana-andraste

Edward Gorey's illustration for novella "The Black Spider" by Jeremias Gotthelf, and cover for Nineteenth Century German Tales, 1959

a-peach-in-space

bratboymolloy

soon! 🚬✨

#iwtv fanart #can feel the character in this :)

Hand Stealer Armand

Unholy family portrait 🧑‍🧑‍🧒

Prints here! 💖

#iwtv fanart #louis is still looking at lestat #and claudia looks out past them both at the viewer #so much here #I love it

eab-art

Very underrated "Armends" reveal is that Louis did not actually stop drugging/fucking/killing other men after Daniel lmao

And as for the many boys you drugged, drained, and lay with, I feigned resentment when, in fact, I welcomed your straying because your guilt in their aftermath bound you to me all the more tightly and allowed me my hours of observation with Daniel.

Post Divisadero Street loumand where Armand gets revenge on Louis cheating on him by going to watch Daniel fuck some twink in a car and then coming home and telling a guilty & self-flagellating Louis all about it in excruciating detail 🫪

#iwtv #tvl #yeah I thought the implications of that were interesting too

Interview with the Vampire season 1 gives the audience instructions on how to watch the show.

Think where it begins: Daniel's commercial. He is the audience surrogate and he will guide you through the interview. If you want to follow the "Divine Comedy" metaphor from season 3, Daniel is our Virgil--the wise old poet guiding us through the Inferno, where he isn't one of the tormented (a vampire) but also isn't part of the normal world anymore. Daniel is alone in the pandemic, his only social interaction is with a doctor, he keeps children's toys in his closet but there is no evidence of familial connections on screen.

The show is already telling the audience how to experience this piece of art. Pay attention to visual cues, like the toys in the closet. Daniel will eventually have dialog about his estranged daughters but the show also sets up this info visually with the old toys in storage. Another thing to focus on is Daniel's hands shaking as he attempts to solve a puzzle. His exact diagnosis comes up relatively quickly in dialog later this same episode, but the show has again already set it up visually. The audience is expected to notice these cues--where is the camera pointing? What is happening on screen? What info can we infer just from the language of film, before the dialog comes in later to explain and either confirm or refute these inferences?

Now pay attention to the dialog. Who does Daniel talk to in this pre-interview interlude? Whose voices are heard on screen, and what technology is used to hear those voices? Daniel speaks only to his doctor, using a smart phone and referencing "varients," so we know it's about the present day based on the tech and the use of a term common at the height of the COVID19 pandemic. (This also tells us something about Daniel's health.) Then Daniel has to find a stereo in storage to be able to hear the cassette tapes from Louis. This indicates the first interview took place in an older time with older technology, but just in case you missed that visual cue, the voice-over of Louis's handwritten letter says that the interview on the tapes took place decades ago in San Francisco.

I could go on and do this for almost every scene in season 1. I think a lot of people like the season 1 NOLA era the best because the show is so deliberately accessible in terms of film language and narrative that season. It's telling the most straightforward part of this huge vampire story in the most straightforward way possible. And it's doing this because the story will get much more complicated and demand a lot more from the audience in later seasons. The narrators are going to get more unreliable. One of the main characters, Armand, introduces the power of controlling minds and altering memories, which significantly changes how the audience can interpret and confirm info on the screen. Another main character, Lestat, refuses to let Daniel interview him at all, depriving the audience of the guide we've relied on for 2 seasons.

However, these factors don't mean that "Everyone could be lying at any time!" or "Nothing on screen can be trusted!" The show also used season 1 and Daniel's dialog to show the audience that THIS is what characters will lie about, and THAT is a visual indication that some sort of lie or obfuscation is happening.

Louis lies to make himself seem like a better person. It's things like the recording of the Louis-Armand fight in 1973 that reveal Louis to be far crueler and more selfish than he's willing to admit. So when Louis is onscreen making the decisions that he does, the audience needs to remember that he'll lie about how "good" he thinks he is. Think about the seance line, "What about what you should be thanking me for?" That's the Louis that Louis himself doesn't like to think about--the vicious part, the entitled part, the part that expects praise from his loved ones even though he withholds what they actually need from him.

Louis isn't going to lie to Lestat about what he's been doing with "Fraudia." The show has shown the audience that this is not the sort of thing Louis lies about, so the audience should accept that the Fraudia plot that we see onscreen with is largely true. (There is a big lie at the center of the Fraudia plot, but it's from Armand, not Louis.)

I personally found that the groundwork laid in seasons 1 (and 2) were most helpful when it came to the Gabriella and Lestat plot. Lestat lies about Gabriella in his dialog for the entire season, because the last episode is going to revolve around Lestat finally telling the truth to himself about how Gabriella makes him feel. If you're only paying attention to Lestat's dialog, you might believe him when he says he likes spending time with her and that "they" (together) have a perfectly acceptable sexual relationship. But if you're also paying attention to the visual cues, it's obvious that Lestat feels Bad when he's with Gabriella--that he hates the way she touches him, he hates the way she talks to him, and he hates the way she doesn't care about his music and his band. She plugs her ears at his concerts, she leaves in the middle of one, she's playing on her phone during "Stained Glass Eyes."

Lestat says this is a good (if complicated) relationship. He asks Gabriella to stay with him on tour and he agrees to abandon his own artistic pursuits in order to serve HER agenda for HIS songs. But the audience knows this is all part of the lie, the biggest lie at the center of Lestat's character, because of literally everything else happening on screen for this narrative arc.

Additionally, the audience knows how Lestat feels about Gabriella (and all his other friends and family) because of the SONGS. Season 3 isn't an interview like seasons 1 and 2. Season 3 is "liner notes" for the music, which is the main narrative vehicle. The music takes up so much screen time because it's how we're meant to understand Lestat and his story. The songs contain all the metaphors needed to fill in any gaps or missing info that audiences aren't getting otherwise. The music IS Season 3.

That demands a lot more from the audience than season 1 and season 2. The showrunners said that those seasons were "two old guys in a room trying to figure things out." Season 3 is about a character trying his hardest NOT to reflect on his past, and finding out that the past comes knocking anyway. Because as Daniel pointed out in season 1, "Memory is Monster. We forget, it doesn't."

What is the last line of dialog spoken in season 3? It's Lestat to Gabriella, screaming, "I am not fucking singing, you fucking monster!"

famousinternetcat

@dancingclownface Peer Reviewed Tags

Yes! The unities are GONE gone, and it's an artistic journey that crept up during season 1. First comes the question about the rain, indicating we've moved on from the formal narrative structure of 19th century novels and into the modernist era. The story is now self-consciously recognizing that it exists as a Story. And TVL Ep 1 is a car crash into the post-modernist literature era. It's mixed media, it's non-linear, it's a performance art piece about the art of performing. It takes for granted that the audience knows how a story is supposed to be structured, so that when the show takes that structure apart, the audience can see the destruction AND consider each of the component parts separately.

I was talking with a friend about season 3 and she said it's a miracle Lestat was on the Billboard chart at all, considering he's a tribute band to a supernatural gay lit-fic novel. Technically, Lestat's music is filk.* Any mainstream success is shocking in its own right. Initially, I wondered by the show didn't point this out, and then I realized IT DID. The weird hyper-modern "Internet" dialog Lestat throws out is a reference to the way audiences in a fandom speak to each other in online spaces. The show never uses the word "fandom," but everything about the way Lestat interacts with fame, his popularity, and his industry is infused with tumblr-speak because that's the type of person who would be a fan of a gay Gothic literature filk band!

*https://fanlore.org/wiki/Filk

#iwtv #tvl #yes tvl's postmodernism struck me too #but I hadn't traced the progression through modernism in the earlier seasons and you're so right #it's also kind of a miracle this show got made at all XD

devilsminionbby

#iwtv #lol