Here’s what I think about Louis and Armand’s butcher room scene in the TVL season finale:
It’s a lot more complex than anyone can ever think it to be.
Armand is someone who appears calm on the surface most times, but he’s a constant clusterfuck of psychological issues underneath. And that’s the thing I think a lot of people forget. He’s isn’t a one dimensional mustache twirling antagonistic villain (although the writers this season have made him look like one). He’s a deeply complex and tragic character who does horribly antagonistic things when he believes he deserves to do it. And book readers especially know what kind of things Armand will do when he feels that someone deserves his wrath.
When Armand is in a certain mode, he doesn’t stop. He holds grudges as viciously as a crow and executes it with the ferocity of one. What he did to Lestat was to destroy him as he “enjoyed ruining for the sake of ruining”. Stopping the Great Conversion was now a secondary concern. He ruined him emotionally and physically, then gave the scraps to his companion to deal with as a consolation prize for his own grievances. With Louis, possibly because it’s more recent and raw, he plotted his vengeance for the last three years in a complex and almost deranged plot to hurt him back.
Given that he had all but given up any possibility of making “Armends” with his adversaries since Lestat’s public humiliation stunt, his letter to Louis was handled completely different from the others. Any patience and grace he had before is completely gone and there’s great resentment in his tone. He’s angry. He wants his pound of flesh as if he hadn’t gotten it already. And of all things, he wants a proper apology.
Any person looking at what Armand had done over the course of his and Louis would think it ludicrous to think Armand should get an apology. Who was at fault and why it happened and everything in between could be debated to ad nauseam. The point is Armand believes that he deserves an apology. But the core reason for this sense of insane entitlement may seem more familiar than the audience believes.
The issues Armand had with Louis in their relationship is not dissimilar to Lestat in S1 before the big drop. Yes, one relationship was filled with lies to maintain a very fragile fantasy while another was filled with lies to protect very dark secrets, but the core conflict is still the same. Louis would not give his companion what they wanted most; love.
“I have waited, Louis. I have patiently waited, in vain, for you to love me, as I love you. Just say it. Say it, Lestat I am never going to love you. You would help me a great deal, to hear that from your lips.” -1x5
“Many times I told myself the lie did not matter, because what we had built, a love that served as a bunker against time, was weightier and more consequential than the lie, but it wasn’t true. The lie did matter, because the corpse was there, calling forth the facts”- 3x7
A lot of the dialogue between Louis and Armand in this episode also mirrors Louis and Lestat’s dialogue from episode 2 when they had a confrontation with their lawyers. Louis and Lestat showing off their respective lawyers/flings and Louis and Armand shoving it in about the “love of their life” and their “companions”. And of course all the things they won’t forgive each other for no matter how hard they try.
Now I personally don’t think Armand trapped and tortured Louis and Regina with the intention of getting a proper apology. For one, Armand’s plans always have a beginning and middle, but the end is always poorly thought out. And second, I don’t think Armand even knows what his end goal is other than his adversaries getting the hurt that he believes they deserve for hurting him. As the old saying goes, hurt people hurt.
Regardless of his intentions, if any existed at all, Louis did the unthinkable by providing an “apology” based on what he knows about Armand. He may not know everything about him, but they’ve had enough fights to know what really hurts the other. And for Armand, a lot of that goes back to his days as Arun. What Louis did may have very well been just telling Armand what he wanted to hear, but there is a kernel of truth to what he said. That is that Armand deserves to be loved, but the person to love him isn’t and wasn’t ever going to be him. And maybe he is sorry for just that and nothing else. And that’s enough.
