I slept on it, so now I think I can finally give my thoughts on the finale & the whole season.
I feel very conflicted. I have very, very mixed feelings about the season. Part of me is like what did I just watch? And another part actually liked (parts of) it. But the more I think about it the sadder I get because I was really hoping to love this season as much as I loved the first two, but it just doesn't compare at all imo.
I think for the most part it boils down to mistakes during promo. They hyped it up so much, said things out of context about the characters that made us think it was going in a certain direction when it didn't. (E.g. Sam saying Loustat's dynamic is that they fight and have sex, sometimes at the same time. It was said in the context of season 3, so idk where that came from). Then, promising us The Loustat Show. Idk about you, but if you say this is the Loustat show, I'm going to assume there's going to be a good amount of Loustat in it. And yes, in the end they get back together and their scenes are intimate af without being physical necessarily, which is all thanks to the outstanding work by Jacob and Sam, and Loustat is, towards the end, at the core of it. But still, it was lacking. The pacing felt off, and the screentime was, imo, not fairly distributed. If they'd changed some minor things that wouldn't have impacted the plot and/or understanding of the characters (fewer scenes of Gabrielle abusing Lestat for example), they could've used that for Loustat instead. It's really a shame they share a scene in episode 2 and then don't see each other again until ep 5 & 6. There's very little development in their relationship that we get to see, it all happens off-screen.
Another huge issue: There are no Black writers. This show features not one but two Black main characters, so I wish there'd been Black writers involved in this show. Then we wouldn't have to deal with the racist shit in the scripts.
You can't blame the fans for expecting the same level of brilliance the first two seasons gave us. I know RJ prides himself on risking failure and going in a different direction, but at some point you have to think to yourself, what was it that made seasons 1 & 2 work for the audience? What was it that made it stand out and why do people love it so much? To me, what made seasons 1 & 2 so good boils down to three things, in no particular order:
the complexity of the characters. Every scene feels incredibly layered and you can rewatch it over and over again and it never gets boring because you always catch something new, an emotional beat you missed, a line because there's so much happening, etc etc. The characters this season were still layered and complex, and they had to squeeze in A LOT into just 7 episodes, but they don't feel as multi-faceted to the same degree as they did in seasons 1 & 2. The good vs bad aspects were more balanced, where you could still argue that one character is either good or bad, depending on your personal view and opinion. This season, I feel like the characters are a lot less morally ambiguous. Some characters, to me at least, have little to no redeeming or relatable qualities left, and with every time they show up on screen I hated them more and more. In the first two seasons, the characters you hated were still interesting to watch. With Armand, despite him being Armand, I saw myself in how he dealt with his trauma. This season, I just don't wanna see them at all. It could be a me problem, but this entire thing is my own opinion, so. I feel like it gets to a point where the things they commit are so evil you can't justify having sympathy for them anymore, which for some characters I understand (Gabrielle, Magnus,...) but for others I'm sad they took away that relatability and the way they represented the worst within us, because I truly felt like that was a huge aspect of what made the show work, even for a broader audience.
the dynamic and chemistry between Louis & Lestat / Jacob & Sam. It's such a shame it wasn't used more this season, but it also gave us some amazing Loustat moments that wouldn't have happened without the two. The blood sharing at the bar, and the hug. How were they going to do this scene without the hug? Thank you Jam Reiderson for coming through. What I'm getting from this though is that this season originally had even less Loustat in it. This is like one of the things I don't understand. Even back in season 1, I believe it was Sam who said the interesting part is watching them interact instead of doing a will they won't they. They're at the core of this show (allegedly), so where are they? They could've interacted more, and I don't even necessarily mean in a romantic way, but show us their journey back together. But no, there's a time jump at the start of ep 6 and suddenly Louis is staying over at Lestat's. Not to mention there's not a single kiss between them (or between Nickistat for that matter). They had a goldmine and they wasted it.
the unapologetic queerness of the show. Lestat is still very unapologetically queer, and I love him for it. Nothing that happens in the show or is shown more or less explicitly takes away from his queerness. I wanna have said this before I start this paragraph. But it's clear they wanted to attract a broader audience. Sure, you can chalk up a lot of the writing choices to the plot too, like the lack of intimacy between Lestat & his consensual relationships (Louis & Nicki in particular), but it's not far-fetched to point out that there is a tendency to censor queer scenes in media, and meanwhile rape scenes between a man and his mother are allowed to be shown explicitly. And this isn't just an assumption either, they literally had to sneak the bellboy into the foursome scene in the first episode or AMC wouldn't have okayed it. Seasons 1 & 2 were allowed to show more explicit queer scenes, so I'm wondering what happened? And I understand the contrast between the abuse being shown explicitly and everything else not being shown plot-wise, but we have to look at the bigger picture and acknowledge that this is a problem in queer media still and the plot wasn't the only reason for it.
Well, now that I've vented about all the things I didn't like, let's look at some I did like (again, in no particular order).
I liked that despite the explicit depiction of the abuse it became very very clear pretty much right from the start that Gabrielle was abusing Lestat. This was one of my biggest worries going into the show and I'm happy they made that clear to the audience. Lestat's little moments of realization only for Gabrielle to pull him back under were so heartbreaking to watch.
I loved that in the end, Lestat finally tells her what she deserved to hear. He finally realizes what she really is and stands up for himself.
Most of episode 6. I'm very partial towards Loustat, so any episode that features them this heavily is a good episode to me. This episode was my favorite, along with episode 3. Episode 3 to me felt the most like seasons 1 & 2, and I wished all episodes were on a similar level to those two.
Speaking of episode 3, I think Lestat's turning scene was handled with the sensitivity it needed. It was one of (or the?) most heartbreaking scenes to watch this season.
Joseph Potter's performance when Nicki has a breakdown.
Lestat meeting Regina and writing Stained Glass Eyes. Had me sobbing. Such an insane performance from everyone.
The séance and Claudia getting to say everything she needed to say (minus the racist part). This scene would've been so good if it wasn't racist. I don't understand why she needed to call Louis a slave, be it out of pain or however it was justified, but there was no need for it. There were so many other words they could've used instead that would've brought a similar point across without being racist. But to get to the rest of the scene, I loved finally meeting "the real Claudia". We only see an infantilized version of her recounted by Louis, and this Claudia felt a lot more adult, which I loved. Delainey is my age so she doesn't look like a teen to me, but it still felt like you were watching an adult vampire in a younger person's body, and she was angry, and she had a lot to say. I'm glad she got the chance to say it to their faces because yes, in the end they failed her because they were way too entwined with each other. They couldn't put her first if they always put each other first, and the way they seemingly quickly move on breaks my heart for her too because when they're together, they only have room for each other. That's always been their thing and that will always be their thing.
Louis & Lestat in episode 7. It was brief at the end, but it was cute, the way they whispered promises to each other that they'd go into the desert when all this would be over. I love that they're back together at this point, and I love that we got to hear Louis say Lestat is the love of his life. I also liked Paul telling Lestat that Louis loves him. He needed to hear it, and of course I would've preferred Louis telling him himself, but having Paul say it was special in its own way. I also loved Louis saying he's still thinking about him now, as he's essentially being tortured.
So to conclude, I would've loved more Loustat this season. I hope we get more next season, but who knows at this point. I'm trying to keep my expectations low. I'm sad we didn't get a kiss when there was even one in the book, written in the 80s. I thought this was for sure a given and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.
But overall, I would say I liked the season. I didn't love it like I did 1 & 2, but it was alright. Some parts left me disappointed while I really enjoyed other parts. Maybe I made up a story in my head of what I wanted it to be. But the story in my head seems more cohesive with the characters we got to meet in seasons 1 & 2. Anyways, here's my rating of the episodes to end this post with.
