Why “he got that from our daddy,” when Florence is right there, though? In the moment, it feels like a way to place Louis the cliche male role (man who can’t verbalize his feelings), to contrast the I still wish you were a woman, sometimes I do too bit. But we already have clear reasons established in the story for Louis’ difficulty with those words, including them being Paul’s own last words and Florence’s tendency to withhold affection or affirmation as punishment and as self-protection (as a reaction to being hurt and as a way to assert control within their social and family structure). If Paul had said he “got that from our mamma,” it would have made sense, knowing what we, and Lestat, since this is all in his head, know about that relationship. And Lestat, for all his blind spots, knows Louis. He knows the complexity of Louis’ family dynamics. It would have clicked. But they chose not to draw from their own story in favor of what feels like a generic father figure, which sacrifices Louis’s rich backstory and Lestat’s understanding of him in a moment that’s supposed to be about Lestat understanding Louis’ feelings for him.
The why of Louis’ unwillingness to tell Lestat he loves him is a major theme woven throughout the first two seasons. To terminate it with Paul drawing a parallel between Louis and their absent father feels like a miss.
