I certainly hope this isn't "The End of It" for Interview With The Vampire

Interview With The Vampire finishes adapting Anne Rice's book of the same name with its season 2 finale, "And That's the End of It. There's Nothing Else." I dunno how I feel about wordy episode titles usually, but a show firing this hard on this many cylinders can do whatever it likes.

So is this the end of Interview With The Vampire? It may be the end of this show specifically, but I think the story will continue. AMC has greenlit a show about the Talamasca, a secret society that keeps tabs on vampires and witches and all the other spooky stuff in Rice's world. Lestat briefly mentioned Akasha, an important figure from Vampire Chronicles lore. This episode ends with Louis daring other vampires to come and get him. The next two books in Rice's series, The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned, follow up on a lot of these points. I think there will be more.

Or at least I hope there is, because this finale was bloody excellent. Let's get into why:

Review: Interview With the Vampire, Episode 208, "And That's the End of It. There's Nothing Else"

Interview With The Vampire did a wonderful job of stacking conflicts throughout the season (and series) so that they could all be resolved and exploded one after another here at the end. First we wrap up what happened between Louis, Claudia, Lestat and Armand back in Paris in the 1940s, with Armand surreptitiously freeing Louis from his prison; we get some disturbing details about how Louis' mind degraded while trapped in a coffin unable to move for weeks on end.

After that, a crazed Louis goes on the warpath, working through a mental fog to exact revenge against Santiago and the other vampires in the Paris coven who killed Claudia and imprisoned him. Louis gives a heads-up to Armand, although he hasn't forgiven him his role in the trial last week. This is the fun part of the episode, where Louis lights the Theatres des Vampires on fire and then tracks down the few survivors, baiting Santiago into a fight by mocking his pitiful past — apparently immortality doesn't make you immune digs to jokes about your dick size — and then beheading the usurper the second he pops out of a manhole. And all of this is set to a hot jazz soundtrack. I also liked hearing some of the surviving vampires obliviously speculate that "the London coven" is behind the attack before their motorcycles explode courtesy of Louis' sabotage; we didn't get a ton of insight into the other coven members this season, maybe because they were just that thick.

All this is a blast, but it's basically cleanup. The real emotional catharsis came last week with Claudia's death. But Interview With The Vampire knows this and has a couple more emotional climaxes in store for us. Back in the present, Daniel Molloy uses the info he's gotten from the Talamasca to reveal what really happened back during Claudia's trial: Louis has spent decades thinking that Armand's forced into flipping on Louis and Claudia, and that it was Armand who leaned on the audience to get Louis banished rather than executed. But actually he was far more of a willing participant, directing the trial behind the scenes and only claiming he saved Louis after the fact; actually, it was a lovesick Lestat who spared Louis' life.

This doesn't change everything. Armand still sprung Louis from his prison, but he absolutely betrayed Louis' trust. Things get tense as Louis and Armand fight, and Daniel is torn between his concern for Louis and his desire to get the hell out of there with his head attached to his body. He needn't have worried; we know Louis can be brutal when he wants to be, and while we he spares Armand's life, he has no problem cutting him completely out of his life, which underlines that Armand never meant as much to Louis (or to us) as Lestat did. I thought this weakened the first half of the season, since it was hard to get invested in a rebound.

Armand comes off looking awful in this episode, but that's partly because it can't spare the time to examine his conflict from every angle, which is fine; its priorities lie elsewhere. The finale also skips over the plot twist of Armand turning Daniel into a vampire. That's right: our sarcastic journalist is not only a bestselling author thanks to his new book, but an immortal bloodsucker as well. And man, do I want to know how that happened. All of these characters have to come back; promise me, AMC.

Louis and Lestat

After Daniel leaves Dubai, Louis travels to New Orleans to reunite with Lestat, now in possession of the truth of what Lestat did for him during the Paris trial. Lestat is subsisting in a rain-battered shack with a Millennial fledgling, living but not exactly thriving, consumed by regret and still lovesick for Louis.

The two don't get back together, not properly. I think it would be hard for the show to stomach that; despite his apology, despite saving Louis' life, Lestat did batter and break Louis all those years ago, and he's still basically the same man he was then, just less prosperous.

But the show doesn't write off Lestat as an incurable abuser, either. It allows him layers. Yes, he was furious at Claudia for trying to kill him, but he felt for her at the end, when she turned to her father for help. Yes, he hurt Louis emotionally and physically, but he loves him still, and wants what's best for him even as he's incapable of providing it. They hug, they don't kiss, and it's very emotional. It feels like we've walked a million miles in the shoes of these two heartsick monsters, and that they're both changed. Director Levan Akin holds the shot of them embracing as rain beats down outside, holds it while they heal and cry and hate and reconcile. Interview With The Vampire succeeds as a twisted romantic epic.

And there's still more! The final moment belongs to Louis, as he dares the many vampires angry about him exposing their existance to the world contemplate attacking his home in Dubai, where he now lives alone. Is he inviting destruction? Is he calling their bluff? Does he just want a break from the eternally meloncholic life of a vampire? Or is he taking the reins of his own unlife and daming the consequences? "I own the night." I believe in Louis, so I like to think it's the last one. I want to see him again. I want to see the people behind this show reuinite for more, because they've proven themselves talented and inspired. And if there isn't any more, Interview With The Vampire will remain a sumptuous delight of a TV show.

Episode Grade: A

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