Chapter 5 of The Vampire Lestat is the protagonist’s true undoing — and rebirth. Sam Reid regales the audience with yet more musical versatility as Lestat, recording (and obsessively re-recording) his album, courtesy of composer Daniel Hart’s genius, as the vampire finds himself within the music. The past and the present fall together like perfect pieces this episode, informing each other seamlessly and truthfully outside the constraints of an interview.
Lestat is restless, working the band to the bone in his quest to achieve perfection and somehow, music is like a balm for his soul. The episode opens with Lestat musing about the various coffins that have provided a home for him, and the recording studio he locks the band in for months is just a bigger version of a sarcophagus, a safe resting place for him. The world believes Lestat to be dead after the shooting in episode 4, so he’s creating the album to be posthumous, to serve as his eulogy.
Sofia (Jennifer Ehle) goes full on Momager, conducting business for Lestat and keeping him focused on the task at hand, her agenda she’s convinced him to serve. “Make more,” goes the anthem for the Great Conversion that Lestat wrote to appease Gabriella. As the band records it, Lestat once again asks his mother that dreaded question that has haunted him for two centuries: why does she keep leaving him time and time again? As always, Gabriella japes about Lestat’s neediness, until he concedes he was happy she left and she is forced to give him an answer, lest he gets ideas about not wanting her around. Gabriella admits she had outgrown her need for him and his need for her. The implication that she chose to come back this time because she needs Lestat now is possibly the happiest she’s ever made him. This is the first time we see Lestat initiate a kiss with Gabriella.
Enter Marius and Akasha
In the 1800s, ancient vampire Marius (Christopher Heyerdahl) plucks Lestat out of the earthly grave he had buried himself into. Lestat slept underground for eight decades, seeking absolution from his pain about his part in Nicki’s horrible death, about Gabriella abandoning him, and the terrible loneliness plaguing him. Marius introduces Lestat to the sleeping statuesque figures of Akasha and Enkil, Those Who Must Be Kept, the mother and father to all vampires. The Queen had requested Lestat specifically as her new guardian and told Marius where to find him. It is with eerie truthfulness that Lestat admits, “I don’t want a job, I want to die,” as Marius instructs the younger vampire about his duties as the Queen’s new keeper. He is to bring Akasha presents, talk to her, describe worldly objects from the modern era, play music for her, and only ever feed her corpse ashes, never blood. Marius’s last command, spoken as he’s already on his way out, is the most important: “Find yourself, Lestat.”
As the audience knows too well by now, Lestat dreads being alone, but he is rewarded immediately, when Akasha (Sheila Atim) briefly speaks to him as soon as Marius is gone. So Lestat teaches himself the violin, in a painful reminder of Nicki, so he can play for the Queen. Years go by, and Lestat seems to have grown fond of his role as Akasha’s keeper: for once he was chosen, indispensable. It’s everything he desires: to be wanted and needed. There is sweetness in the way Lestat plays for Akasha, talks to her to no end, like a mother tending to her child, teaching her how to speak, and Lestat shows just how he enjoys humanity as he explains their new inventions to Akasha. Sometimes she’ll reward him by speaking back, but mostly Lestat keeps the loneliness at bay by staging dinners and pretending other people from his past are there: his family, Armand, Nicolas. Lestat’s monk education makes an appearance, along with the repeated Biblical questions: “If you were the first, who made you? Why do we exist? Why do we endure at all? Why did she leave me? Am I evil? Is my evil sanctioned by nature or divine error?”
At the last question, “Where is God?," Akasha stirs. On New Year’s Eve in 1900, Lestat gifts Akasha a drop of his blood and it wakes her. “Come to me,” she beckons — and it feels wrong to hear that invitation coming out of anyone's mouth but Lestat's — then drinks her fill of his blood and lets him drink hers.
Reuniting with Louis (and Fraudia)
In the present day, Lestat is consumed by the album. He comes closer to processing the pain and guilt of losing Claudia as he tirelessly records “Big Boss,” the song in which he insults Armand for being Claudia’s judge, jury and executioner and sentenced her to burn in the sun. No matter how many takes he does, Lestat is not satisfied. In the name of self-harm, Lestat insists on recording outside the studio, in broad daylight, as the sun scorches his face. Tellingly, it’s the hallucination of Nicki, another one of Armand’s victims who died by fire, fomenting Lestat.
Next comes a song that contains all of his primordial questions, “Why are we here? Is it for nothing?” when the hallucination of child Lestat stutters his way through a poignant quote from Thomas Aquinas, “How is it that they live in such harmony, the—“ “Billions of stars,” adult Lestat continues, mesmerized, “When most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their own minds?” And to each other, he seems to mentally add.
In fact, it’s time to fly the peace banner, because his phone lights up with texts from “Thomas Pitty he’s a whore” — Louis (Jacob Anderson) is begging him for help. It would be an understatement to say that Lestat still feels betrayed by Louis omitting the existence of his interview with Daniel, and the book’s publication, and the way he portrayed Lestat and their love story in it; Lestat is mad about many other things, like how Louis didn’t pick up the phone when Lestat was publicly shot in the streets. But that’s the thing about them: no matter how strained their relationship may be, how much distance separates them, Lestat cannot refuse Louis, and he can’t ever deny him help in a moment of distress.
Throughout the episode, Louis has been paying Regina (Delainey Hayles) a fortune to spend time with him, in a sick charade in which she roleplays Claudia. Louis loses himself and the ability to discern what’s real and what’s pretend in this twisted game of his own making. Louis confesses all this to Lestat, admits his guilt with a tone that leaves no room to question his shame, and he begs Lestat to go see Regina, because he’s the only person who can put Louis out of his misery and confirm whether Claudia is really there. And Lestat knows it’s a deranged ask, and he’s frustrated by Louis’s selfishness, but there’s no point in arguing. He loves Louis beyond right and wrong, beyond the need to retaliate, so he stops himself, for once not seeking the last word, and simply does as Louis asks.
Their acting is superb in this scene: Anderson bares his soul, and it’s probably the longest we’ve seen Lestat be silent when he’s aching to speak, but Reid’s eyes, his facial muscles, are eloquent enough for Lestat as he realizes that the distance between himself and Louis has hurt both of them.
And Lestat, too, shatters completely when he comes face to face with Regina, because he hasn’t seen his daughter in 80 years when she burned to a crisp in front of him, and the resemblance is uncanny. Regina knows right away who Lestat is, who he is to Louis and what he was to the character she’s playing. Is it just from reading IWTV, I wonder, or did Louis also talk to Regina about Lestat, about their family, the way he would if she were really their daughter, the same way we’ve seen her ask about Louis’s new fling Lemuel? And the truth is, Lestat is also on the precipice of tears at the sight of this girl pretending to be his daughter, so he focuses on being strong for Louis, admonishing Regina to stop torturing him. Even Lestat can’t take it for too long, he who has gone through immeasurable suffering throughout his long existence. He walks out on their conversation, lies to Louis about the resemblance and begs him not to see Regina again.
Claudia inspires Lestat's rawest song
Lestat goes home to the recording studio, and shreds all his defenses, losing all superfluity, letting go of his untouchable persona. In a plain hoodie, devoid of color and makeup, no rock and roll to hide behind, Lestat relinquishes all except his biggest regret and unleashes all his pain. It’s just himself and the piano, the instrument he once taught Claudia to play, and he at last lets himself be haunted by her, his last muse, the one he couldn’t bring himself to confront. When the hallucination of Claudia appears, she progressively burns and sheds ashes onto him.
For Claudia, Lestat composes “Stained Glass Eyes,” his rawest song yet, as he recalls his love for his daughter, her betrayal, his own, all the things left unspoken between them amid the hate, the secrecy. The song is devoid of artifice, just Lestat’s pain and piano.
He’s so taken by the intensity of the task, his feelings, the music, that for the first time Lestat does not even realize Gabriella is gone. The authenticity of the song prompts Lestat to want to re-record the entire album again, for vampire ears, not human ones. Larry (Noah Reid) quits the band, tired of being Lestat’s punching bag, while Alex, TC and Salamander demand to be turned into vampires so they can finally be up to the task of recording the album the way Lestat wants.
Lestat refuses to share his blood, tainted as it is. To the band, these humans he’s come to care for sincerely, he reveals the last piece of the puzzle of his story that the audience is missing. When Lestat drank from Akasha, he inherited the curse of her ancient blood, a hell that can’t be controlled or restrained, to blame for Lestat’s temper in his darkest moments. When Marius found out, he called Lestat a failure and kicked him out.
Keeping up with the Devil's Minion
Armand (Assad Zaman), scheming gremlin that he is, brings Daniel (Eric Bogosian) fully to his side — not through another apology, or another love declaration, nor through a promise of revenge on Lestat (although he tries that approach), but with the promise of granting Daniel the ability to walk in the sun. As Anne Rice wrote in Queen of the Damned, “I am the Devil’s minion, and he grants my every wish.”
It wouldn’t be an episode 5 of Interview With The Vampire if it didn’t have a shocking ending. In the last minute before the credits roll, Armand appears next to Larry on the subway and, very calmly, compels Larry to kill himself. The last shot of the episode is Armand’s apocalyptic gaze, promising no good.
Kudos to writers Hannah Moscovitch and Daniel Hart who was on double duty this episode. With every chapter, we’ve seen the season transform along with Lestat. Episode 5 is the most linear of them all so far, wrapping up the most crucial moments of Lestat’s past that the audience needs to see to fully grapple with his present, which will be explored more in episode 6. Next week he will face his last muse, his greatest love, his greatest shame: his Louis.
Episode rating: A
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