The season finale of Interview With The Vampire, “The Thing Lay Still,” aired this past weekend, and it brought some major twists to bear. Go no further if you wish to avoid SPOILERS!
There were quite a few major moments from the season finale, but let’s start with the “death” of Lestat (Sam Reid), the abusive vampire who’s been locked in a love-hate relationship with Louis (Jacob Anderson) since the start of the season. In Anne Rice’s original book, Louis and Lestat’s “daughter” Claudia plots his death, and is the one to slit his throat at the end. On the show, Claudia is still the chief schemer, but it’s Louis who ultimately draws the knife. “For Lestat, his love language is murder,” showrunner Rolin Jones told Variety. “So who else should it be than ?”
According to Anderson, Lestat’s death scene was extremely emotional to play. “I was a mess,” he said. “I cried my eyes out… I’m not a method actor, I want to be conscious of what I’m doing. But I kind of lost myself in those scenes. I got very freaked out by the idea of it all ending, and also doing this to Sam — because it means this dynamic is going to change next year. It’s going to be different. It kind of had to be done at my hand, and that was heartbreaking.”
For his part, Lestat at least got some small comfort out of the idea that Louis was the one to end his life. “I think he accepts that Louis is going to kill him, and understands, very much in that last moment, that he needs to do this,” Reid said. “Where he is right now is a very dark, fucked-up place, and you sort of need this iteration of him to die.”
Lestat will return, and he’ll still have “a flair for the dramatics”
But of course, the next twist is that Lestat isn’t really dead. Bleeding out won’t kill a vampire; we’re told that at the top of the episode. And after Louis narrates his tale to Daniel Molloy, the journalist points out some inconsistencies.
Eventually it comes out that Louis pulled his punch a bit with Lestat. He and Claudia dump his body in a landfill, where Lestat slowly regains strength by eating rats, which Louis would know is possible since he dined on them frequently throughout the season. “To kill him would be to kill a part of himself, and a significant part of who he has become,” Anderson said.
As Reid sees it, people wouldn’t buy it if the show pretended like Lestat was really dead; he’s the main character of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, after all. “It would be sort of a boring cliffhanger to leave the show on, because you know Lestat is coming back,” Reid said.
But how soon will he be back, and will he want vengeance? “I will say, he’s still Lestat,” Reid said. “He still has a flair for the dramatics. Whether or not he will be as violent, he’s still about the drama and for making things feel very intense. But I think it is only the beginning of his suffering.”
We’ll learn more about Louis and Armand’s relationship in Interview With The Vampire season 2
And the twists keep coming! At the very end of the episode, when we’re back in modern times, it’s revealed that Louis’ attendant Rashid is actually the vampire Armand, an important character from Rice’s books. Louis even calls Armand “the love of my life.” Rolin Jones promises that we’ll get more of that story in season 2.
“They’ve been in a relationship for a long time, these two,” Anderson said. “You have to assume the way Louis is now has a lot to do with his relationship with Armand, probably even more than his relationship with Lestat.”
Jones confirmed that season 2 will adapt the rest of Interview With the Vampire. It will last for eight episodes, but we don’t yet know when it will premiere.
What happens in Interview With The Vampire season 2?
With Lestat out of the picture (for now), season 2 will see Louis and Claudia travel to Paris in search of other vampires, preferably ones who aren’t awful people. They will arrive in the thick of World War II, a change from the book. “That sets up what Paris is all about,” Jones said. “Remaking yourself, and a second — or, in this case — a third act for our vampires. Can you put behind you questionable decisions and start anew, and become the person that you want to be? They go through something in Eastern Europe that could — for vampires that aren’t as strong — have been the end.”
"Going forward, we are going to do things that are wildly loyal, and really try to squeeze out every beautiful piece of prose in that second half of the book — and we are going to do some other things the book didn’t do, mostly based on where the books go from here. Books 2, 3 and 6 really inform all the decisions we made in Season 1, and a lot of the decisions we are making in Season 2."
While we wait for that, another Anne Rice show — Mayfair Witches — premiere on AMC on January 8.
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