It honestly feels like they gave the Lesmand plot to Loumand because they realized how unsatisfying Loumand's conclusion in 2x08 was.
They could've easily given Louis and Armand a quieter, more emotionally honest heart-to-heart after the trial reveal, something much closer to the books, instead of having Louis shrug it off after the wall slam and then immediately leave. But I guess the comedic and badass moment mattered more. Plus the good old "subverting expectations" thing they love so much, even when it feels cheap, anticlimactic, and makes no sense.
So they didn't give them a proper ending, and now it feels like they're making Armand's search for that closure an entire season-long plot, except now it's violent, when it wasn't like that in the books at all. It honestly feels like a waste of both the character and Assad's screentime when he could've been doing something far more interesting instead of trying to conclude a plot that should've had its satisfying ending in Season 2. It also turned Armand into the scheming cartoon villain they kept insisting he wasn't behind the scenes.
What's even left for Lesmand? Armand doesn't appear anywhere in Lestat's muses or failures. Do they even care about each other at all?
Loumand was already compelling enough on its own without becoming an echo of what Lesmand was supposed to be. I also wonder if part of this comes down to the writers realizing how incredible Jacob and Assad's chemistry is and wanting to keep them sharing the screen, which, fair enough, I get it, but can you stop and think for a moment about what you're doing?
And yes, I've wanted to see Armand finally "gremlin out" too. But it mattered who he was gremling out at. His grievances and violent lashing out made much more sense directed at Lestat than at Louis. Not because he and Louis had a good relationship. They absolutely didn't. But everything that happened between Armand and Lestat better explains that level of obsession, resentment, and vitriol. I can absolutely buy Armand being angry with Louis, but that angry? Especially if we're also supposed to believe he never truly loved him? It just doesn't land for me.
Plus, I do think the writers should consider the optics for once. Are they really going to have a brown man direct all of that violence toward a Black man instead of the white man he's supposed to resent even more? It ends up feeling unfair and racist to both characters.
Also, doesn't moving key emotional beats from one relationship to another just make Loumand more convoluted while stripping the other relationships of what made them unique? The emotional arcs in the books worked because they belonged to specific characters, in specific contexts, for specific reasons. Just transplanting those beats elsewhere without preserving the context that gave them meaning feels so dumb to me.
Everything just feels like the writers are constantly trying to outsmart and subvert book readers, sometimes to the detriment of the material itself. You can't move things around that much without fundamentally changing them, and if you're going to make changes that big, they have to justify themselves. For me, these ones just don't.
The irony is that I don't even think this gives Loumand the proper closure they were looking for. If Louis has become this central to Armand's emotional arc, then you kind of have to keep bringing them back together. Otherwise, it feels like we spent three seasons building this dynamic only for it to be abandoned halfway through the show if Louis and Armand are never important to each other again while the series keeps going.
Are they really going to make Louis forgive Armand or stop caring about what went down after this? Don't they realize how unredeemable they've made Armand? His actions were always unhinged, but they were rarely irrational. Louis obviously hurt him in some ways, but Armand also knew he had hurt Louis far more and that he had no right to demand much from him. Before, at least, his heinous actions followed some sort of internal logic. Now he just comes across as completely deranged for no good reason. You can write a character like that, I guess, but I'm going to call it one-dimensional.
And whatever sympathy Louis expressed, I don't even know if it was sincere given the circumstances. But if it was, it doesn't feel earned at all. Why would he suddenly care? It feels like the writers intended it to be a genuine moment of connection, but for me it falls completely flat. Suddenly giving weight to those 77 years together when before we were asked to dismiss them.
Also, it's kind of funny that this is supposedly the Lestat season, yet they completely nerfed one of his most important relationships. Lestat and Armand are foils and mirrors in so many ways. At some point, they should've been the focus, and they just never were. No wonder Lestat's relationship with Marius also feels so diminished. It was an important part of the Lesmand dynamic, and now I don't even know if they'll ever make Armand and Lestat important to each other again at this point.
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