the other problem with lestat's hateful backlash to louis in tvl and the lack of any kind of proper contrition arc for what he's done to louis and claudia is that even if the show does have him regretting what he's done and apologizing to louis again in s4 or later, after s3 it's just gonna feel like another phase in the cycle of abuse- "lestat the vulnerable becomes lestat the irritable becomes lestat the controlling". lestat was seemingly contrite in s2ep7 when he apologized to louis for dropping him, lestat was seemingly torn up in s2ep8 when he expressed heartbreak at louis hurting himself, but all of those moments are rendered meaningless (or at least only reflecting a kind of fleeting self-pity more than any real change or confrontation with his actions) since we've seen in tvl that lestat is perfectly willing to embark on a planned, multi-month darvo tour where he insults louis repeatedly and makes fun of his suicide attempt in his lyrics (bye any ounce of sincerity in the reunion scene) and bitterly nitpicks minutiae like his hair length while refusing to accept what he's done to his family...and then he and louis are on good terms again without any substantial change or growth on lestat's part. and no "he didn't really mean it, he was just lashing out bc he felt hurt and thought louis didn't love him" doesn't rationalize a multi-month darvo tour when "he felt slighted and was acting emotionally" is the crux of so many abusers' behavior. even if lestat was acting impulsively, that's not an excuse, but writing music, organizing a tour and performing those songs where he mocks his own abuse victim for speaking out requires a kind of planning and intent that makes it clear he wasn't being impulsive. it's a calculated move when you're doing it for that long and that consistently. if there had been some real emotional payoff in s3ep7 i could've said the execution was off but i could respect their commitment to exploring the psychology of an abuser in denial, but there's no payoff- it's clear they thought lestat's behavior on tour was just lestat being bitter and zany and cunty and didn't intend or expect the audience to see any weight behind it.
and with these same anti-survivor writers at the helm, even if they did attempt to show lestat apologizing to louis in s4 or beyond, the audience will have no reason to believe or trust that this apology is more sincere or reflects a more permanent change than the apology in s1ep6 or s2ep7 or his tears for claudia in s2ep8 given all of that fell by the wayside as soon as lestat felt "wronged". (and no, he wasn't wronged by louis when it came to the book, as louis isn't responsible for something that was published against his consent and it's not wrong for abuse survivors to talk about their experiences in a biography. the idea that the book is something louis had to apologize for or that the book justifies lestat mocking his own victims publicly, for months- they can't "oh lestat is a creature of impulse" their way outta that one- in itself exposes a kind of anti-survivor thinking, and we have no reason to believe this team of writers, with their unserious attempts at "comic relief" about incestuous abuse, complete disregard for louis and claudia as victims and voyeuristic, gratuitous framing of racialized black suffering think otherwise.)
claudia (back when there were some black writers with input on her writing and back when she could express herself in her own voice- not the way they depicted her in s3 as a mouthpiece for ooc antiblackness filtered exclusively though her white father's pov and written by nonblack writers) was 100% right and remains validated 80 years after her murder. the unintentional message of s3 is that louis and lestat haven't changed and lestat will always be a mercurial abuser who swings between hurting louis and performative self-serving apologies that lead to no real change, and louis will always take him back despite his cruelty. except even in s1-s2 when lestat was fully a narrative antagonist i believed he loved louis, that we were seeing the nuanced portrait of how love and abuse can exist within the same relationships and love doesn't "cancel out" abuse, but now lestat's love feels like an informed attribute that they have to bring a hallucination of paul onscreen to tell us about since it sure as hell isn't demonstrated in lestat's behavior for the vast majority of s3- the way lestat acts in the front half of the season, followed by complete lack of contrition for either what he did in nola/paris or what he did on tour, makes their reunion feel unearned, rushed and insincere. and beyond the antiblackness and anti-survivor rhetoric, the writers have just gotten lazy- loustat is scripted this season as if the writers thought could take for granted that the entire audience is already invested in them, that everyone already wants them back together, and they don't need to put in the work to get viewers onboard with their relationship and get people invested again. and to be fair, this isn't a problem unique to loustat this season- all romantic relationships in tvl get the "tell, not show" treatment and all their important development beats take place offscreen, which makes me think the s1-s2 writers they fired were pulling the weight of most of the romance writing (just like the black writers they fired were clearly pulling the weight of louis and claudia being framed with any compassion whatsoever).
the only thing remotely compelling thing left about loustat's romance is sam and jacob's chemistry, and it's telling that all moments of genuine intimacy and desire between them this season were unscripted and added by the actors (the comforting hug on the sidewalk, louis savoring lestat's blood in the beer etc). the problem isn't that loustat is a bad or "toxic" romance, the problem is that loustat is a badly-written and unearned romance. and as of the end of tvl the actors are its only saving grace.
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