Well, here's my ramble about this episode and the season.
This season showed how beautiful and cruel love and grief can be. Grieving is natural, painful, and unavoidable. Most importantly, though, it showed that there is no "right" way to carry trauma. You can lie about it, laugh it off, make light of it, but it's still there. It will haunt you until you're willing to face it, even if doing so destroys the perception you've built of yourself.
This season is so good at portraying trauma. I've seen these patterns, I know them, I recognize them. The way Louis went after Bruce, believing he was doing it for Claudia... I have so much sympathy for him and for her. It's all so painful. Everything about it hurts. They're all so heartbreakingly pathetic.
How Claudia is used by them for three seasons straight. How vicious she is, and how much sadness lives inside that viciousness. How you can hate your parents and love them at the very same time. She's trapped, and she lost the love of her life.
Lestat's love is just as devastating, yet he can be unbelievably cruel. Then there's his mother, how she molested him in pursuit of her own freedom, how she wields power because she's seen what men with freedom do when no one stops them. She's monstrous, and she's profoundly tragic. And how Lestat hides his trauma in "transformational trauma" (just some therapy-speak he hides behind) like its a given. You can't not have it, you are doomed. Like the world that he described in the first episode. He thinks he is doomed.
Lestat doesn't like taking accountability, but he's also consumed by shame and constantly questions himself. When the first episode aired, I thought it was hilarious that he claimed he was only partly to blame for all the tragedies that followed because it's such a ridiculous thing to say. To have that line reframed by the finale, with him finally accepting responsibility, was something I really needed. I cried when he told the projection of Louis in his own psyche that he loved him, and I could cry about it again now. The burning of the witches was devastating, and that dull, restrained scream... Sam Reid is an extraordinary actor. If you hated this season outright, I genuinely think you're overlooking one of the strongest performances on television.
Another thing that I just want to talk about in relation to how people talked about this season. I'm from a homophobic country, the thing is I've seen people say slurs about this show in my mother tongue and this season in particular. Then I go on twitter and see people arguing that the show "isn't queer enough." Yet those same spaces turn around and mock clips like Lestat on stage, one of the season's most openly gay expressions, laughing at it, ridiculing it, treating it like a joke. And I just... Is it gay enough for you or is it not? Are we disgusting to you? Are we not easy for your consumption?
Now, DM. They're definitely not in a relationship built on trust. Daniel still feels cautious, I think, and understandably so. Armand is unimaginably powerful, unwaveringly devoted, and the kind of person who can consume your entire world. I also think Daniel can feel his love for Armand, even if he can't quite place it. He can't even place himself, 52 years and he is a stranger to himself. That venomously truthful comment about Louis sleeping with men from Armand
I feigned resentrnent 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.
Yeah, he fucked Daniel. Yeah, they were together for years. But how often do you think Armand used Alice's body? How often do you think Daniel wanted it to be Armand's body?
Viewers who don't know their history probably won't catch the full weight of many of their scenes. NOT LIKE THEY DID BEFORE LET'S BE REAL HERE As dense as the writing is, this season was ultimately Lestat's story, so not everything could receive equal attention. And that's okay, we still have part 2 and future seasons ahead of us.
As for my predictions, I think Armand is working with the Talamasca and has been using Daniel as part of that. If that's true, I don't think Daniel will be taking it well. It would almost certainly fracture whatever understanding exists between them, and I actually think that would make their relationship even more compelling by forcing it to evolve.
Assad Zaman's performance is everything. I love Armand so much. He's so cruel and kind... He's also funny as fuck... Like morbidly... I kept noticing little nods to his relationship with Lestat, and I really hope the second part expands on that history. His scene with Louis was one of my favourites, a beautiful moment. They're fascinating together, and their dynamic is breathtaking.
I definitely have my qualms with this season, but I still think it's one of the most moving pieces of television I've seen in a long time. It enriched characters so much, suprisingly. Somehow, with every passing year, I find myself falling in love with this show all over again.
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