Call to Action - Reporting Anti-Blackness in The Vampire Lestat (2026)
I'm not tagging this as "tvlcritical" because this issue goes beyond audience or critic opinions of AMC's The Vampire Lestat (TVL) also known as Season 3 of Interview with the Vampire. This isn’t a difference of character perspective, tone, “immoral characters”, “gothic fiction”—the writing in the "Montreal" episode is blatant hatred for Black people.
What happened?
The episode titled "Montreal" aired on Sunday, July 12, 2026 with Kevin Hanna and Ryan Kattner credited as writers; the rest of the writer's room consists of Rolin Jones, Hannah Moscovitch, Jonathan Ceniceroz, Anusree Roy, and Daniel Hart. There are zero Black writers on TVL.
3x06 is violently and proudly anti-Black, full stop. The language written and greenlit by AMC was racist, full stop. The Black actors—Jacob Anderson, Delainey Hayles, and Sarah Afful—are not responsible for the script written by a non-Black writer's room. These actors work in a deeply anti-Black industry and have to navigate the ever-present threat of being fired and/or blacklisted for any "flaw" in their performance and conduct on set/in promotional materials or events.
There is zero excuse or justification for the anti-Black language used in TVL to date. We cannot allow this hatred to be met with silence.
What can I do?
Report this episode to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Hollywood Bureau which specializes in anti-Blackness in television and film. Important details to include is the writers, episode release date, and the racist material in question. All of this information is available under the cut.
Emails to the NAACP should be addressed as "ATTENTION: Report, Hollywood Bureau" and sent to [email protected]
Emails to AMC can be sent to three TVL-specific Public Relations contacts:
The choice is yours, but I will personally be copying the AMC contacts on my email to the NAACP. This is a serious matter and it needs to be treated as such.
Many thanks to another concerned fan for pulling contact info together for the NAACP and AMC <3
AMC Network’s “The Vampire Lestat” (2026) episode titled “Montreal” aired on Sunday, July 12, 2026.
Credited writers are Kevin Hanna and Ryan Kattner. There are zero Black writers on staff for "The Vampire Lestat".
The "Montreal" episode included the following language:
00:44:24 - "'Cause there's a little etching on your ribcage says you're a 'slave'."
00:45:10 - "Get this into your nappy little head."
00:46:08 - "How I ginned up the train for the slave, here."
00:47:27 - "The one good thing in my bleak, Black life."
Do you think we'll see other black writers getting hired or the ones from the past hired back for the new season? I genuinely hope so
Anon, that’s tricky for me to know or to even guess. I hope so. I’m a bit frustrated with this whole conversation about lack of diversity in the writers’ room at the moment, though, because while I very much want to see future seasons bring Black writers onto the writing team like they did during Seasons 1 and 2, it seems to me that the fandom is also persistently erasing the contributions of other writers of color (Anusree Roy, Jonathan Ceniceroz, and Ryan Kattner [quite a few people don’t seem know he’s Filipino]) to Season 3. If I were leading that writing team, I’d aim for hiring a group of writers of color that includes Black writers—but not necessarily at the expense of giving writers of other ethnicities a chance. This season gave writers of other ethnicities that we hadn’t seen in the writers’ room before a shot (or kept them ongoing like in the case of Ceniceroz). I was glad to see this happen. Do I think it’s unfortunate that at least one Black writer from former seasons wasn’t retained? Also yes. I’d like to caution the fandom against this “either/or” mindset that keeps cropping up. The prevailing thought seems to be that diversity in this writers’ room means focusing on Black writers only, and then any other kind of diversity is just an afterthought—but when other kinds of diversity do show up for once, all people do is complain. Intersectionality is important; please don’t lose sight of that.
I kept asking myself why Rolin didn't write the finale himself. He only wrote 3x01 and that with Hannah Moscovitch. I get they were giving Hannah more responsibility, but she fucked it up badly. And her reasoning for Loumand made zero sense. Maybe she high of the praises she got for 2x05 with Loumand and DM however that episode was written by her and Jonathan Ceniceroz. She cannot be left on her own and normally isn't except for 2x01.
Having Armand force Louis to apologize for the failing of their relationship which was built on a lie, told by Armand. Why would he think he was wronged? I could see if he was jealous that Louis and Lestat were getting back together and wanted to keep them apart.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if AMC ends on being on Rolin and Mark Johnson's neck for season 4. Because there's a lot of outrage, disappointment, criticism, and confusion after this season mainly on 3x07. If they were setting Hannah up to take the helm, they'll probably end up only letting her co-write only.
Hey! 👋🏾
*deep breaths ... because I'm trying to control my anger about all of this*
...
So, in my opinion, Hannah should never write another episode solo again. Period.
And if she wants to try and prove herself as a solo writer again, it should not be by writing a Season Finale.
And if Rolin has been positioning her to succeed him as showrunner, as I long have been thinking he was?
At the moment, I don't think that should happen either.
Not after this, and especially not after her comments in the After Dark episode regarding the Louis and Armand situation.
Because all that told me is that she had a fundamental misunderstanding of their characters and their situation/relationship.
Unless, of course, she was just saying what she did to try and retcon Armand's motivations for what he was doing and Louis' motivations for apologizing to make sense. Which is worse.
Not "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" worse, but ... worse.
And like, mea culpa, I actually, mistakenly, thought Hannah wrote EP205 on her own, but she didn't. Jonathan Ceniceroz shared writing credit for it, as you said. So the episode that she actually got so much praise for, and that I think is the best episode of the series to date, wasn't even solo-written by her, even though fandom did give her the majority of the praise for it.
When, at the very least, Jonathan should have received just as much praise as Hannah got for that episode.
And look, I don't want to be unfair about any of this, because I don't know anything for certain. I don't know for sure that Hannah wrote this episode alone, or if this was just her pulling together a hodgepodge of ideas and scenes that the whole writers' room of the show pulled together to get this episode done.
But honestly, after watching that After Dark ep for EP307? I doubt it. I think the episode was all her.
And I think Rolin had nothing to do with it and didn't just write it himself, likely because he was busy elsewhere. Maybe with that Grapes of Wrath adaptation he's doing or something. 🤷🏾♀️
But yes, if Rolin wasn't going to write the finale, Hannah shouldn't have been left to do so on her own. But, and this is just my theory, the fact that she was given the feeling that it was because it was a test run of her possibly taking over the reins as showrunner one day. Likely after Season 5, since that is what Rolin has kind of been indicating he wanted to leave, but that AMC wanted more seasons.
So, if this is still set to happen, someone has to take over showrunning from Rolin at some point. Because AMC is going to do more seasons, no matter if Rolin sticks around or not. And quite frankly, Hannah always seemed like the clear successor to that position to me after Season 2, given how active in interviews and such she's been since that time.
But after some of the reception to the finale? That could now be up in the air, in my opinion.
As for Armand and Louis, I gave my opinion about it all based on what all three of those apologies Armand gave told us about his feelings towards each character here:
💬 1 🔁 3 ❤️ 29 · Reblog by @cbrownjc · 2 links · hello ❤️
i love your blog and i have respect for your judgement. i was wondering if you a
And within that, I don't think Armand thought he alone was wronged when it came to Louis. At least, that is not at all how it came off to me. To me, it felt like Armand just wanted Louis to acknowledge his own part in why things were the way they were, because of the mutual deceptions of both of them.
For me, sifting through the clutter of that whole thing (and whole episode really) is the impression I got of it all.
So yeah, what Hannah said was so nonsensical to me when I heard it; it's kind of no wonder she's getting called out by some for trying to woobify Armand. Because any idea that Armand was somehow owed an apology from Louis is doing that.
And honestly, it is only because the episode is so muddled and cluttered in its writing that that is not a reading of it that seems to have come off to many viewers before she said it -- or even the actors! 😑
So yeah, right now, Hannah really gives off the impression that she knows nothing about the characters when it comes to things she said not only here, but in the past, too. Many people were saying so after Season 1 and her comments about the 1x05 fight, but I have tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.
After the season finale, however? Yeah, her comments did not leave me in a pleasant mood -- to go along with the mess that was that episode. And more than wary to think what the show would be like if it were left in her hands as the new solo showrunner if Rolin really does leave after Season 5.
Jonathan Ceniceroz, co-writer (with Hannah Moscovitch) of "Don't be Afraid, Just Start the Tape" receiving the Best Drama Episode Award from Gold Derby Awards 2025
Do you think there’s a chance RJ is stepping down because he’s going to be the showrunner for one of the spin offs?
I saw someone theorize he’d be doing Night Island instead and…idk it feels so wrong for him to abandon the show and work on the spin off instead.
Also is the Grapes or Wrath a sure thing that’s happening?
Hey! 👋🏾
So no, I don't think Rolin is going to be showrunner of anything except that Grapes of Wrath adaptation he'll be doing for AMC. And yes, at the moment, I think that is a thing that is still going to happen.
If there is a Night Island show being planned, it's still probably just in talks, discussions, and pre-planning. And that is only assuming that it has already been quietly greenlit. It may not be yet.
But I think, just like with Talamasca, they'll hire someone else to showrun it. I couldn't say who, however, not at this point.
Personally, however, I'm hoping they pull from the IWTVL writers' room and give the showrunner job for Night Island to Jonathan Ceniceroz. Because, along with having co-written "Don't Be Afraid, Just Start The Tape," EP205 (with Hannah), which I think was the best episode of the entire series and was such a brilliant setup/adpataion of Daniel and Armand meeting for the first time, he also solo-wrote "The Devil's Road," EP304, which was the episode that revealed Daniel and Armand's vampire bond.
As I said in answer to another ask I got, I think Hannah got too much solo credit for EP205. Jonathan co-wrote that ep with Hannah. So he deserved just as much credit as she got for it, IMO.
And then Jonathan wrote EP304 himself, solo. And I don't think Devil's Minion fandom would disagree with me that EP304 had the best Armand/Daniel scenes in the whole season.
And yes, this is not a huge sample to pull from (nor a clean one because, yes, again, he co-wrote EP205 with Hannah), but from EP304 at least I do get the feeling that Jonathan does understand both Armand and Daniel's characters and writes them wonderfully together. I, so far, haven't gotten the feeling he favors one of their characters over the other, either.
He was also the story editor for the show in Season 2 and the executive story editor for Season 3. And except for the Season 3 finale (which I don't think was his fault, given what looks to have been going on with that episode on other levels, including the re-editing of it by Rolin), I think he did a great job doing so for both seasons.
IMO, you can always tell when a TV show has a great story editor. The first time I noticed it was when Bryan Fuller became story editor for Star Trek: Voyager for Season 4. There was a more cohesive feeling to the show, tone-wise, that season than there had been in the seasons before that. It was something a lot of us noticed about the show back then.
And then I noticed that same thing again -- a more cohesive tone to the show -- when Bryan Q. Miller became story editor for Smallville in Season 9. Which, again, many fans consider to be the best of the late seasons when it comes to that show.
So yeah, Season 2 and Season 3 had consistent tones throughout, which speaks to great story editing and Jonathan having a great skill at it, which means being a very good writer IMO.
And Jonathan is a POC as well. There aren't too many showrunners who are also POC out there in general, and he'd be the first for an Immortal Universe show.
So yeah, if I had my druthers, I'd pick Jonathan Ceniceroz to be showrunner of a Night Island TV show. He's who I want at the moment, anyway.
But yeah, I don't think or see it being Rolin at all, especially given that Grapes of Wrath commitment he has going on right now.
wasn't jonathan ceniceroz one of the iwtv/tvl production and acting team overall that you and the other organizers of the iwtv 'blood-drinker's draw' tarot deck project sent a gift deck to? i have been meaning to thank you for that. people overlook him so often!
Yes! In fact, here's a full list of actors, writers, and other show team-members to whom we were able to send a copy of The Blood-Drinker's Draw: An IWTV Fan Tarot Deck. Some of the decks sent were gift-decks available as reward tiers in the now-completed Kickstarter, and some of these decks were sent out because private individuals chose to send decks they had purchased after the fact, i.e. to team members we had not set as specific recipients of reward-tier decks (alphabetical by last name, not in any order of specific priority):
Levan Akin, Jacob Anderson, Sheila Atim, Bailey Bass, Eric Bogosian, Jonathan Ceniceroz, Chris Geary, Bally Gill, Daniel Hart, Delainey Hayles, Rolin Jones, Hannah Moscovitch, Joseph Potter, Sam Reid, & Assad Zaman
(That's 15 show creatives, which is far more individuals than we initially thought would be able to receive copies of the deck! Thanks once again to everyone who made this project a reality, from our creative team members [writers & artists] to our pledgers.)
