Interview With the Vampire’s Finale Nails the Coffin Shut

Here we’re fledglings, nearing the tip of our time along with AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, and I’ve to say, it’s been a trip. I’ve mentioned as a lot elsewhere, however this present continuously shocked me with its intricate storytelling, nuanced characters, and unyielding dedication to the drama of messy queer vampires.

And now, the season one finale, “The Thing Lay Still.”

We open on Daniel Molloy’s pc as he begins a brand new session. Rashid walks by, holding a bowl of blood for Louis. Rashid, if we recall the cliffhanger ending of episode six, appeared in Polynesian Mary’s alongside Louis, wanting a lot the identical as he does now, within the Dubai condominium. It’s no surprise that Daniel is watching him far more fastidiously now.

As Louis explains tips on how to kill a vampire, we slide again into New Orleans. Lestat is consuming blood from a crystal glass. We instantly dive into an existential, paranoia-fueled model of what life was like for the three vampires. A time of putting up with, the place Claudia plots Lestat’s loss of life and Louis waits, a distraction for Lestat.

Lestat drains a touring encyclopedia salesman, pouring blood from a decanter for his progeny. And then, a dying man involves their door and asks for the reward of immortal life. Lestat, true to type, kills him. This is the loss of life knell for our vampire household—letters, Lestat says, change into torches and pitchforks. It’s time to go away New Orleans. Daniel interrupts, however he’s distracted once more by Rashid. Louis solely simply caches it. He continues.

Claudia, Louis, and Lestat journey by tram via New Orleans, the Black vampires nonetheless Black sufficient to be compelled to sit down at the back of the automotive whereas Lestat sits three rows forward of them. As Claudia and Louis scheme, Louis makes an attempt to persuade Claudia that he has the nerves to undergo with it. Claudia says that the plan will solely work if Louis “gives in” to the love he has for Lestat, the overwhelming ardour of their vampire bond.

Louis worries that he’ll lose himself in Lestat, however actually, Louis has by no means been himself for the reason that second he met Lestat. Regardless, he and Lestat plan for a visit to Europe, and as Louis hangs ornaments, Lestat mutters underneath his breath about “those that must be kept” in Greece. He strikes on shortly, and Claudia enters, sniping concerning the Bach that Lestat has chosen to play.

They sit and play collectively, and as Claudia performs a duet with Lestat she lays the seed of her seditious plan. Let the vampires make a killing on their method out of town. A celebration to finish all events, a bloodbath to finish their time in New Orleans. Then they’re in a theater, listening to a information report on the warfare, and Claudia explains the remainder of her imaginative and prescient. It’s like they’re enjoying chess, and Claudia is slowing shifting her pawn to queen, manipulating Lestat into agreeing to her imaginative and prescient, into discovering a technique to make this freakish bloodbath his concept, his plotting, his imaginative and prescient. Bailey Bass has moved Claudia from baby to predator, and her efficiency is completely devastating. Lestat ultimately turns into amenable to the ludicrous plan, they usually transfer ahead with internet hosting a Mardi Gras ball.

One final cease earlier than they will make the ball a actuality; the household goes to see Thomas Anderson, native politician, someday ally, and ask for assist with a Mardi Gras social gathering. Anderson scoffs, says he’s not within the social gathering planning enterprise, they’re late, and—as a little bit of a kicker—pulls out an image of himself, Louis, and Lestat from 1910. Of course the vampires look unchanged, as as Anderson hasn’t seen them in 17 years, he calls their look “suffiecently creepy,” and look, we agree! Maybe! Some self-preservation could be so as!! Mister Anderson!

And then, the vampires identify a worth, and Anderson can’t say no. But he doesn’t accomplish that with no little bit of snark, and he asks, obliquely, about how they’ve stayed younger without end. The entice, for all of New Orleans, has been set. They make their plans, and Louis seduces Lestat yet again.

Back in Dubai, each interruption within the New Orleans narrative comes as Rashid strikes via the condominium. Now, he stands within the daylight, on the balcony, and takes a cellphone name. Daniel stares, Louis notices, however no questions are requested. Back to New Orleans.

The vampires plot the bloodbath. They will starve themselves, select their favorites, and produce them again to the Rue Royale for his or her grim loss of life. As Claudia continues to plot on her personal, Louis slips again into previous emotions. Eventually she reveals the plan: she’s going to poison a human on the evening of the bloodbath, and current him to Lestat. Weakened, they’ll then kill Lestat themselves.

And then, Mardi Gras. In a transparent homage to the unbelievable wedding ceremony robe that Eiko Ishioka created for Lucy Westenra in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Lestat seems as Queen Antoinette on the float for the Krewe of Raj. He is camp incarnate, wearing drag as he picks up a child doll and bites into its neck, ribbons flying up within the air. And then… the ball.

First, Carol Cutshall, Interview With the Vampire’s costume designer, wants an Emmy for this episode alone. The camp! The drama! Louis and Claudia stroll in with matching white costumes and powdered wigs and they’re gorgeous. Louis relates how starvation is affecting him, and we get seems to be in any respect the masks on the occasion; cats, dragons, rams, boars, flowers, all prey for the vampires.

Then, the primary trace that one thing is mistaken. The sound of Antoinette’s voice murmuring as Louis watches Lestat stroll via the social gathering. He’s confused, however he doesn’t query it. And then, Thomas Anderson arrives. He doesn’t mince phrases, and inside seconds calls the vampire a household a “fag, pederast, satanic trio,” which, whereas not mistaken, might be not the neatest factor to say out loud. Louis provides him a boutonniere–the mark of the lifeless.

Louis finds Lestat smoking on the balcony and what we get is an unbelievable second of real emotion from Lestat. He leans over and says, quietly, he’s going to overlook this metropolis. He describes its climate, its gentle, its life. But actually, he’s speaking about Louis. Louis is New Orleans to Lestat, the entire cause he’s by no means moved on from town, the rationale he’s stayed via Louis’ melancholy, his true north at the same time as Louis rejected him over and over. They are planning to go away New Orleans, however each of them know that this can be a totally different form of goodbye.

Louis and Lestat head to the dance flooring they usually start to waltz. It’s a popping out of kinds, an admission of their relationship, and there, in sight of everybody; society, mates, household, they kiss. It’s a romantic gesture, a remaining romantic gesture, and Louis laments that for all that for all of the press lapped up the murders, they didn’t assume to say the 2 queers making out on the dance flooring. Well, Louis, it’s New Orleans.

We’re again on the Rue Royale; the victims are chosen, and Lestat is hamming it up for the viewers, speaking a couple of e book, a draught, the alchemy of everlasting life. It’s all a lie, after all, and as quickly because the cloche is pulled away to disclose no elixir in any respect, the bloody feast begins in earnest. Lestat instantly takes down Anderson, and Louis and Claudia discover their very own victims. With a aptitude for the violent, the present revels on this, the ultimate murders of human prey. Eyeballs roll, jaws are ripped off, blood spatters the partitions. The vampires, for all their pomp and circumstance, are decreased to bloody beasts, fangs and claws tearing at fragile flesh.

And then, the ultimate sacrifice: twins, secretly poisoned earlier within the night. As Lestat inspects his prey, the entrance door opens, and the dynamic shifts once more. Lestat leans ahead, says that there’s one other odor within the blood. He turns and asks, “what is it, my love?” Louis solutions, plaintive. Then, Lestat, in what needs to be one of the crucial supremely bitchy strikes in the whole season, sneers up at Louis: “I wasn’t talking to you.”

Enter Antoinette, in a gold masks, with mirror eyes, a vampire. Lestat reveals she’s been listening in as Claudia and Louis talk telepathically, and the struggle between the 4 of them begins in earnest. But it’s not seconds after Lestat will get Louis in a headlock that he retches, confused. Claudia stabs Antoinette via the center, and she or he reveals that she’s been enjoying 3D chess whereas Lestat has been enjoying checkers. She knew Antoinette had been there the entire time, she knew that Lestat would go for Anderson first; Lestat may need been pondering three strikes forward however Claudia’s on one other degree of conspiracy.

Claudia seems to be up at Louis, tells him to have his goodbye, and as Lestat writhes, Louis fetches the blade hidden in his cane, the identical one he used to threaten Paul in episode one, the very second Lestat first observed him. The object that spawned this horrible 30-year affair. He kneels down and pulls Lestat’s head again, holds him tight, attracts the blade throughout his lover’s throat, and Lestat says his remaining phrases. “ I am happy it was you, here with me. Au revoir.”

The phrases that Claudia data, in Lestat’s personal blood, after all, learn “Mets-moi dans mon cercueil, Louis, Louis” (“Put me in my coffin, Louis, Louis”), and are notably totally different than the final phrases that we hear Lestat communicate. We’re again in Dubai as Daniel reads from Claudia’s diary, only for a second, and it’s Rashid once more. He’s standing subsequent to Louis protectively, watching Daniel fastidiously.

Back on the bloodbath, Louis and Claudia burn the our bodies, beginning with Antoinette. They destroy the human stays, their garments, all of the proof they will burn. But nonetheless, Lestat’s physique stays, cold and bloody, on the ground of their residence. Louis and Claudia appear unable to pull him again to the incinerator. They put him in a trunk and depart him by the facet of the highway, and head to Europe.

What a neat little ending. Daniel Molloy, clearly, hates it. Not to say there are pages of Claudia’s diary which have been excised, as if with a ruler and knife. Louis turns into defensive, quick. It was a traumatic escape, and bear in mind his brother’s suicide, Grace’s abandonment, Lestat’s loss of life? Louis needs Daniel to recollect, he’s been traumatized. Daniel doesn’t fucking purchase it. After all, Lestat’s not lifeless. Daniel leans in, he’s disbelieving, indignant, somewhat pissed off. He asks the place the trash goes. Louis doesn’t reply, however Daniel does. It goes to the dump. Where rats dwell. And Louis, having survived on rats for years, ought to know that Lestat, if he did go to the dump, shouldn’t be lifeless. We get a single body of a hand, slipping out of a coffin to seize a rat.

Louis seems to be pained, upset, and Daniel doesn’t let up. Rashid steps in, demanding that Daniel finish the session, and Daniel seems to be up. He’s not carried out. He’s not carried out! My man, finest boy, Daniel Molloy goes after Rashid. He is aware of one thing’s up, and he interrogates Rashid with out mercy. Louis leaves, and slowly, as Daniel follows, as he latches on like a bloodhound to scent, dragging the messy, sophisticated reality from Louis’ reminiscence. He didn’t enable Lestat to be burned. He prevented Claudia from tossing him within the incinerator, as an alternative relaying a sentimental half-truth to Daniel, defending himself.

As Daniel lays into Louis, as he calls for the reality, Louis goes to a sand-covered zen backyard at the back of the penthouse, digs his ft into the pebbles, focuses forward. Behind him Rashid makes an attempt to cease Daniel, however that is Daniel’s second. He’s so near the reality, to getting Louis to confess that he’s been pretending this complete time, possibly even pretending his total life.

Behind Daniel, blurry, within the background. Rashid takes off his gloves and contacts. And then… Rashid begins to rise into the air.

As Rashid floats as much as the bookshelves hanging from the ceiling, reminiscence is introduced up once more. Rashid drops a e book stuffed with memorabilia at Daniel’s ft and stands subsequent to Louis, taking his hand. The final phrases of the season hang-out me. As Louis introduces Armand, he calls him “the love of my life,” and seconds later the episode ends. Fellow vampire fanatics, blood and gore collectors, and different members of the Daniel Molloy polloi: What the fuck simply occurred? Sure, we knew Rashid was Armand-coded, however that is next-level homosexual drama. Talk about laborious launching your relationship, Louis, what the hell?

This reveals a lot, and I’m nonetheless reeling from what this present has carried out with Louis. He goes from efficiency to efficiency, companion to companion, and he’s by no means been absolutely his personal man, his personal creature, the whole present! Who is Louis de Pointe du Lac? Has he ever been wholly himself?

We know season two will observe Louis and Claudia to Europe, however what is going to occur to Lestat? Will we ever see Sam Reid prance on display once more? Will Armand present up in Paris, rebuilding from the warfare? We know that 30 years after Louis and Claudia make their escape, Louis returns to the United States and meets Daniel Molloy for the primary time, however what occurs in between these two moments?

Memory, we’re reminded, is a fleeting factor. How far more has Daniel forgotten? How far more will Louis reveal? Will Armand ever change into the vampire neighborhood’s newsboy by means of a self-produced podcast? (An precise plot level within the Vampire Chronicles, don’t ask.) I’m undecided what solutions we’ll get in season two, however I’m alongside for the wild, wild trip.

All episodes of Interview With the Vampire at the moment are streaming on AMC+.

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