Interview with the Vampire Episode 6, “Like angels put in Hell by God,” picks up after Lestat bludgeoned Louis viciously at the end of the previous installment. AMC actually put a disclaimer for domestic violence in front of this week’s episode, which is good, I suppose.
Despite being a vampire, Louis still took a significant beating. Unlike other shows and movies in the vampire genre, Interview with the Vampire vamps don’t instantaneously heal and regain the pep in their step, at least not when they get as badly beaten as Louis did. It takes him a long time to recuperate fully. Louis tells Daniel that without Claudia, he might not have recovered. It takes him a few months to get back to his usual self. SPOILERS ahead for Interview with the Vampire Episode 6!
After the fight, Lestat leaves. Claudia and Louis remain on their own for years, growing closer and appreciating each other’s companionship. During that time, Claudia matured into a woman in her 30s and a genuine sister to Louis, despite still looking like a young girl.
Lestat eventually returns and does his best to win back Louis’ affection, plying him with an endless litany of extravagant gifts. When Louis starts to waver, Claudia reminds him of his betrayal, but it’s inevitable that Louis will eventually give Lestat another chance.
Lestat’s origins come to light
To Louis’ credit, he and Claudia devise a list of “rules” to keep Lestat on the straight and narrow should he return home to them in New Orleans: no more secrets, no more lies, and Lestat must kill his other lover, Antoinette. Since he’s been gone, Lestat has spent a significant amount of time with the singer and Claudia thinks it’s only fair he kill her to prove that he is ready to make amends with Louis.
During their discussion, Claudia asks Lestat about his maker. No more secrets or lies, right? She puts that to the test. Lestat isn’t thrilled about recounting this story since he delights in withholding certain things about himself to maintain the upper hand in his relationships (like the fact he can fly — his “cloud gift,” as Louis refers to it).
We learn that Lestat was turned into a vampire against his will by a vampire named Magnus, who was obsessed with finding the perfect heir. After kidnapping Lestat at a young age, Magnus locked him in a room with hundreds of decomposing (and some fresh) corpses, all of which looked exactly like Lestat, with blue eyes and blond hair.
Magnus commits suicide shortly after turning Lestat, leaving him to figure out vampirism alone. What Magnus did to him is a significant part of why Lestat has such an intense fear of abandonment.
The sob story is enough to win Louis back, mostly. As an extra show of good faith, Lestat informs Claudia and Louis that he has murdered Antoinette and delivers her finger to Claudia as a souvenir.
But while Louis might be convinced, Claudia remains suspicious. Throughout the next few years, the companionship between the trio is uneasy at best, as Lestat and Claudia can hardly stand one another. They merely endure the other for Louis’ sake.
One night, Claudia shows Louis that Lestat never killed Antoinette; together, they faked her death, even going so far as to cut off one of her fingers to sell the ruse. Instead of killing her, Lestat just whisked her away downriver to a small town where she could stay out of sight.
Checkmate
Knowing that Lestat will never change, Claudia tries to convince Louis to leave with her again: board a train and go somewhere else, where they can meet other vampires and escape Lestat’s shadow. But Louis thinks he would only hold Claudia back and encourages her to go on her own.
With Louis’ blessing, Claudia sneaks onto a train out of town. Learning of her plans, Lestat hunts her down on the train and tries to bully her into returning home. Lestat might not like Claudia, but he believes she’s essential to Louis’ happiness.
When Louis returns home that night, he finds Lestat watching the news. Germany has just invaded Poland, and World War II is about to erupt. Lestat quips that it’s a good thing he stopped Claudia before she could leave on a European holiday!
But Lestat’s threat isn’t enough to stop Claudia from thinking of ways to get rid of him. Throughout the episode, we see that she and Louis have maintained their psychic connection and continue reading one another’s thoughts, which are hidden from Lestat. She promises Louis that she will free them both.
The episode’s final act has Lestat and Claudia locked in a chess match. Though they’ve played together frequently over the years, Claudia has never managed to beat Lestat. He gloats and mocks her, belittling her intelligence, but all the while Claudia is mentally conveying her plans to kill him to Louis. And more than that, she infers that Louis secretly wants to kill Lestat, too. He just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.
Claudia says that to beat Lestat, they have to think like him and then think five steps ahead of him. She outthinks him in a game of chess, testing her theory that she is capable of out-maneuvering him. Claudia gets checkmate for the first time, and predictably, Lestat throws a tantrum.
The odyssey of recollection
The present-day storyline gets increasingly interesting this week as we got our first flashback to the 1970s when Daniel interviewed Louis for the first time in San Diego. But perhaps the biggest surprise is the arrival of Rashid in the past, looking exactly the same as he does in the present. Is Rashid a vampire too?
Fans are theorizing that Rashid might be the character Armand from the novels, as there are several similarities between their storylines. In the books, Armand is another vampire, the leader of a Parisian coven, and one of Louis’ companions for several decades. The plot thickens.
Episode Grade: A-
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