Some Thoughts on AMC's TVL Episode 3.01
(Major spoilers for the books and the episode. Spoilers all around, really. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.)
Let me preface this by saying that this is my first season after reading the books (IWTV - Blood and Gold). I've personally come so far from the person who was just excited to see Lestat & his concerts -- now I'm an Armand fan, looking for the books I fell in love with to be put on-screen.
I don't think that's what this show ever was.
I remember first seeing the teaser for TVL with the "I am the Vampire Lestat," believing I was getting everything before I had even finished TVL. I remember wanting nothing more than to see Lestat crash out and to see his heart on his sleeve while he tried to hold it all together. Needless to say, this is the part of me I held onto when trying to maintain my excitement leading up to and heading into Episode One. And honestly? That naive part of me enjoyed themselves.
I'm a sucker for a mockumentary, so they immediately won me over on that front. The narration, the surrealism, the dream-like quality, the manic editing, the general insanity -- I loved it. I had a blast with the new "tone" of the show. I can see the influence from Velvet Goldmine and I'm all about that.
I loved Vampire Daniel (Dan! lol). I loved loved loved Baby Jenks, I loved seeing Sam Barclay (I'm actually excited to see what he does this season ngl). I still hold that Sam Reid has the Lestat Tulpa and I can see him make his appearances when he can. All of the performances were stellar, as they always are. I have no doubt in the cast's capabilities and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us.
However --
There's A LOT I strongly object to. Be it because I love and prefer the books now or the show in general has gone off the rails, I can't be certain one way or the other. All I know is I'm legitimately pissed off and taken aback by some of the creative decisions being made this season.
To start, what the fuck do you mean "vampires can urinate"??? They can have sex, they can cum, they can go in the sun, they can piss. What makes them inhuman? Where is the great trauma, the great separation of being made immortal but unable to live a full life? Straight up, what's the downside? Why should vampires crave the company of other vampires if they can easily pass for human?
Consider the ripple effects. Sorry to bring Marimand into everything, but these changes continue to warp their relationship. In Venice, Marius was over double the age that Armand was in Dubai and Armand can stand in the sun there to take a phone call. What the fuck was Marius even doing if he's not hiding his nature?? What about Amadeo's curiosity, his parallel to Daniel and dooming of himself? What about Amadeo spending nights with him, the days without? What about him getting to the bottom of what was going on there? Where does that tension go?
What exactly are these vampires damning each other to? A life of luxury, wealth, and infinite time? One great big Gatsby party? There are far worse fates.
In Rice's works, it's the emotions, the suffering and persistence that makes them "human," not bodily fucking functions.
On top of that, as has already been discussed in the fandom, this "simple, little change" puts characters like Gabrielle and Marius in a different light than they were ever meant to be considered.
Speaking of Gabrielle, what the fuck is that!? I'm not calling her that. Or maybe I will to differentiate this parody from who Gabrielle truly is. I hated reading all the "omg! groomer incest!" cries on here before reading The Vampire Lestat and I hate them even more after having done so. I'm not even going to hear anybody out on this one -- Gabrielle represents the cold suffocation of motherhood. Particularly within her time period. She and Lestat's intimacy arises from shedding society and its roles and transcending the gender envy they held for each other. They were the same blood, now they're the same Blood. The son becomes the mother becomes the son.
Gabrielle is the first "you can be male, you can be female, you can be neither." She is the reader's first look into how positively transformative vampirism can be.
I'm not seeing that and I have little hope for it to be handled properly. I hope and want to be wrong. Maybe I have to steel myself because Gabrielle is in my Fave Five of Ricean Vamps and I already see what they're doing to Marius, who is also on that list. So be it. If Rolin & Co. want to take on these incredibly personable characters, they should respect them. I don't see respect for Gabrielle here, nor do I see a general respect for nonbinary/genderqueer folk.
What the fuck was that "pronouns" bit? I feel like I'm not seeing people be upset enough about this if I'm being honest. They made fun of us right to our faces and we're all pretty cool with it. In my opinion, completely unnecessary and pretty clearly "we're doing the bare minimum to appeal to both sides of our [potential] audience." Really gives perspective to the lack of inclusion in the marketing for this season as well as other questionable behind-the-scenes decisions.
That being said, perhaps it's no coincidence that Lestat ignoring a nonbinary character's pronouns (while complimenting their anatomy) occurs in the same episode his freshly-feminized mother appears. ("I love what you've done with your hair.") If it's supposed to communicate that Lestat selfishly genders Gabrielle/a for himself, not only are there better ways to show that, but it doesn't have to come at the expense of a beloved character, a beloved dynamic, and the show's own LGBT+ audience.
Regardless, and I could be wrong as I've long fallen out of Lestat Fixation, but with my whole heart I don't believe he'd misgender or force a gender onto someone like that. One thing about Ricean vampires is that they are able to utilize their positions outside of society to view societal roles & constructs from that outside lens. Again, "you can be man, you can be woman, you can be neither." He himself has a gender-fluidity.
Show!Stat feels colder. He doesn't seem to have that inherent love of humanity and of others that is so vital to his character. I think it's fun for a show to have the balls to piss us off and make us question what we think we know, but I don't appreciate bastardizing the book's themes and questions, which in some ways the show does translate and in others completely disavows.
Overall, I'm noticing a pattern of sacrificing elements in favor of this Lestat. I've said it as far back as season one (if only within my friend group then): this is Rolin's Lestat Show. If you're here for Rolin's Lestat Show, you just might enjoy yourself. However, I do truly feel that this enjoyment is in ignorance of the source material. You have to completely separate the two or you'll be miserable, and if you're not then I don't think you understood what the books were getting at.
I don't think we were ever going to get a 1:1 book adaptation. I don't want to put unreasonable expectations on something like that. But being given whatever this is, how can anyone be upset at show fans who hate the fuckin' thing? I don't carry that level of resentment (yet) simply because I didn't grow up alongside these novels the way others did, but how can we blame them? I see everything they're saying and agree with the majority of the criticisms. If you have read Rice's works, you know how different this is. You know what we're losing. I've suffered through shoddy adaptations that sacrifice characters and their arcs for little/no reason (Wheel of Time I fucking hate you) and I've felt that betrayal. So far, this hasn't hurt me as much as the others, so I'm still along for the ride, but I don't disagree with those who have long hopped off.
We'll see what happens when they get to Marius. I hate it, I hate it so much that I can't even be excited to see a character anymore. It's in the back of my head, how will they fuck him up? He already doesn't have his long hair which is a literal plot point for the main character of this season. He's already been misrepresented with the painting donation bullshit. How much has yet to be butchered? Seeing that they're framing Gabrielle to be this groomer-abuser that she never was, what else will be tainted? It sucks that something I used to look forward to now gives me dread.
Still, though, there are two wolves inside me. One who is excited to see what happens every week and another who mourns what we'll never have.
Which will evade the Wolfkiller? Will either of them? Looks like I'll have to wait and see.
I'll close out with some "theories"/observations I want to get out there.
-It's obvious Raglan has body-thieved Lestat lol. Justin Kirk has nailed Sam Reid's mannerisms, I love it, props to him. Someone is definitely body-swapped.
-It's obvious they're going to use Lestat's body-double guy as their Get Out Of Body Thief Jail Card. I'm guessing Lestat's body will visibly die or seem irreparable this season, he'll Body Swap, then we'll need to re-house him in the identical double. What if he body swaps to the double, then Lestat goes into Raglan while Raglan takes "Lestat" and leaves the double to die? No matter what, I think the body double is going to be part of this puzzle.
-I also don't see a lot of discussion surrounding the obviously bewitched man/vampire in the bookstore, the one beside the Armand Stan behind the counter. Could he be a spy for another vampire who's looking through him? Akasha? Armand? Fang Gang? I'm sure we'll see this seemingly random background character addressed at some point. He's just too odd.
-"He dies bad" about Daniel. Leave him alone 😭 please I love show!Daniel so much. He's not at the auction, so it's either a red herring or Daniel really dies. Even if it would kill me, killing him off would be interesting. I'd like to see the stakes (ha!) raised with some major character deaths. On the other hand, I think it's more likely that, like Lestat's "death" we'll see in this arc, Daniel suffers a similar fate or injury and we're meant to believe he's dead. For me, this opens the door to him being taken in by or needing to find Marius, tying in to their book arc. Now that gets me excited. Or! He's the one who's body swapped? Who knows.
-Armand and Louis literally give an eye and a leg to Lestat somehow. Or maybe it's burned from them, or taken at the Halloween Concert? The eye makes me think of Maharet & Mekare. They'll also likely use it as foreshadowing to Maharet utilizing human eyes to replace her own, which I also don't agree with because I think it'd be a cool reveal without it, but it's not that huge of a deal compared to other things.
As of now, I'm still hesitantly on this road with them. Let's see where that gets me lol
