“I want you more than anything in the world,” episode 4 of Interview with the Vampire brings up a whole lot of questions. But before we pick this episode apart, be sure to read our previous reviews of episodes one, two, and three.
If you have not yet watched the new episode airing on AMC every Sunday at 9 PM EST or on AMC+, where the new episodes release at midnight every Sunday, do that first.
Spoiler Warning: This review contains spoilers for Episode 4. Turn back now if you wish to avoid them.
Synopsis: Companions
Claudia is the newest sensation to grace the stage of Theatre de Vampires. Her performance is beloved throughout Paris. But after a string of lackluster performances, Claudia comes under Armand’s scrutiny. Her punishment is to wear the baby doll dress at all hours of the day. Santiago rejects this and reminds Armand that while Claudia’s performance is lacking, the fans love her. To punish her when he does not punish Louis for refusing to join the coven is ridiculous.
This exchange leads to the coven questioning if Louis and Armand are companions. Armand says yes, Louis says no.
They discuss the matter further alone after a tryst where Louis makes it clear that Armand can call it whatever he wants even though they know so little of each other. The image of Dream-Lestat cackles and taunts Louis who struggles to make sense of what is going on.
Daniel Malloy interjects here to ask if Louis is schizophrenic. To which Louis says no, but he does tell Daniel – and Armand, apparently – that anytime Lestat appeared, Louis could feel him. Daniel opens a line of questioning about the fire at the theatre, this spurs Armand to remind Daniel that he was not allowed access to the records on that of their archive. Daniel evades the scrutiny and moves on.
Claudia meets with the dressmaker Madeleine, the same one who had made her a lilac dress. Claudia gives her an invitation to her show.
At dinner with Armand’s coven, Louis talks excitedly with Claudia about his love of photography. Santiago mocks him, copying the tone and cadence of his voice, and asking where Louis actually came from. Louis gives him a chance to stop, but Santiago keeps going. The dinner ends after a confrontation. Louis leaves and Armand demands he returns, but Louis does not.
Louis loves photography. However, he is not good enough to keep selling his pieces to those with an eye for the artform. It makes him angry.
Daniel picks through the photos in modern times and finds photos in Louis’ portfolio that belong to Fred Stein. This causes a small meltdown on Louis’ end as he finds more photos from other artists, angrily asking Armand why they were mixed in. Daniel is accosted once again by half-memories of his time in the seventies with Armand’s angelic face talking to him.
Dream-Lestat listens while Louis rants about photography. Armand appears with Shakespeare, flowers, and an invitation to learn more about his past.
Claudia learns that Madeleine is not a Nazi nor is she a traitor. She had a one night stand with a 19-year-old German soldier. She has no idea what happened to the soldier after. She did it, barely enjoyed it, and now Paris hates her.
Meanwhile, Louis, Armand, and Dream-Lestat visit a museum. Here, Armand tells Louis his origin story. Armand was once Arun and Amadeo, a boy his family sold into a life of labor on a merchant boat. Only, Armand was actually sold into a brothel, abused for years, then found by his maker Marius. During his retelling, a member of the coven tells Armand that Claudia is making friends with the dressmaker.
This causes Armand to confront her about Lestat’s demise at her and Louis’s hands.
In the midst of Louis’ fitful desire to tear apart his own art, Claudia storms in. Beyond angry that he has chosen Armand’s side when he does not believe that Armand threatened her life. Claudia leaves after reminding Louis he is stupid when it comes to love, which earns a comment from Dream-Lestat, “The wilderness that is our daughter.”
Louis takes the illusion of Lestat out to “hunt.” And when he does, it allows Santiago and a few other vampires the chance to break in and snoop out damning evidence.
Date-night with Lestat is really a chance for Louis to sit down, and bid the dependence he has on Lestat’s presence goodbye. And as the rain washes Lestat away, Armand appears to hold an umbrella over his head and blocks out the rain.
The last remaining minutes reveal cracks in Armand and Louis’ relationship as they argue over the misplaced photographs in Louis’ portfolio. As they fight, Daniel sifts through the files the Talamasca sent over. Inside are the recordings of his tapes from the ‘seventies ’70s he never heard and cannot remember. Daniel hits play, and the episode ends.
Analysis
Can I just say that I find the writers of Interview with the Vampire to be so incredibly good at their craft?
As we get closer to unraveling what happened to Daniel in San Francisco, we begin to see the fine cracks of the relationship Louis and Armand continue to sell. Every time Daniel hovers over the illicit information he has, or brings it up, Louis and Armand are not so tightly pressed together as usual.
Before, they were a united front against Daniel’s probing questions.
Now, Louis speaks of the way Lestat haunted him, and there is a chair between them. Daniel looks through photographs that Lestat once critiqued, and Louis stands up, separated from Armand entirely. The fire at the theatre is tossed like a grenade, and it is Armand who takes an issue with the question, as if it were his problem to answer.
And as Daniel finally sits down to listen to the archives of their forgotten interview in the ’70s, Armand and Louis argue loudly just on the other side of the wall.
If Armand did not put those photographs into the portfolio, who did? Louis says it is not him, but Armand pokes at that, alluding to an erratic Louis who may require more handholding than one thinks.
Bits and pieces of the fabrication Armand and Louis is starting to falter. The memories Louis holds, ones that Armand may have put there, are unraveling. And speaking of memory, there’s so many unreliable recounts of a vampiric life, it is difficult to know what’s real and what is not.
Daniel is unaware of a large chunk of his life that left him with fang marks on his neck. He has no reference in time to the days he spent with Louis so many years ago. The memories that keep flashing in his mind of Armand, torture, a news story, and blurred walls are coming back to him. What did Louis really tell him all those years ago and what happened to make Daniel ditch the entire story of vampire lovers and murder?
And then there is Lestat.
The Dream-Lestat that seems to shower Louis in patient love with jokes and teasing thrown throughout. We know Lestat is not an innocent angel. He has killed thousands. But when it comes to the relationship he had with Louis and Claudia, there are facets to him that make for a puzzling image of a vampire lord.
In the depths of Louis’s mind, he sees Lestat as a beautiful ex-lover who threatens him in one breath and writes letters of devotion in the next. In Claudia’s journal we read about a manipulative monster who nearly beat Louis to death. In Armand’s recollection, we hear about a flighty Lestat who declared love and then left once he got what he wanted.
This complicated picture leaves room for the audience and Daniel to question what it is exactly Louis still feels for Lestat. If he and Armand have been together for over 70 years, then why does Lestat still feature in Louis’ life?
And if the interview with Louis failed to get off the ground in the ’70s, what chance does it have to be revealed in 2022?
Louis sits with the image of Lestat on a park bench, and his love spills as readily as the rain. But Louis decides to let that go. As Lestat fades from his mind, Louis lowers the umbrella. The rain hits Louis, providing the very real sensation of weather in comparison to the illusion he has devoted himself to years after Lestat’s death.
But here comes Armand with his own umbrella. A shield from the rain and any more hallucinations of Lestat.
And while Louis conspires with Armand about how they can refute a coven coup d’etat, Claudia is left on her own once again, not included in the plan. and forgotten yet again.
In her solitude, Claudia connects with a social pariah who has been marked with the enemy’s logo. She is caustic, sharp, and just as lonely as Claudia is. So of course Claudia gravitates towards her. No one in the coven is vying to be her friend. As the eternal little girl, she is forever tossed aside despite her many years. As Claudia talks about her life and Madeleine actually listens to her, it’s easy to see the maelstrom that hides in her heart.
She wants love, respect, and the consideration of her father-figure to include her in things. But she feels broken. She feels as if maybe she will always be this broken girl that will have no chance to live her life outside of it. Madeleine tells her to not give in to it. That they all go through seasons of brokenness. To let it out, and then move on.
The moving pieces of Claudia’s relationship with Louis, the coven, Armand, Santiago, and now Madeleine are building. She is trying to settle and be happy just as Louis claims he wants her to be. But within this gothic world of blood and romance, I have no hopes of seeing her live out her dream of having a family.
Final Score ( 5 out of 5 Stars )
Many times through this episode, I laughed or felt my mouth drop open in perpetual glee and surprise.
Louis calling Armand out for using grand gestures to apologize for his behavior as a “Vintage de Lioncourt” delighted me. And when Armand insisted he was not Lestat, the way Louis and Dream-Lestat said, “Okay” in unison is a testament to the bond of the toxic main couple.
Make no mistake, I know very well that the relationship dynamics within Interview with the Vampire are messy. There is no one here that is good. Except maybe Daniel among the myriad of poor choices he has made. However, morality is a complicated tool to use in this series.
Romance springs forth after bloody scenes and hateful commentary on humanity. And as the series delves deeper into the mind games played by Armand — the one who seems to have such perfect control over everything — the crux of it all depends on what is real.
The idea that there are three truths — mine, yours, and the story without bias — is something to cling to here. As I mentioned before, Lestat has so many different opinions on who he is tossed through the narrative. But we have yet to actually sit and speak with Lestat himself, through Daniel.
When so much of Interview relies on the Unreliable Narrator trope — first through Louis, then Claudia, then Armand — we take what we have been given to paint a picture. Until Daniel discovers the truth of his forgotten memories, and has a chance to talk to Lestat himself, I believe that there is a mountain of toxicity to climb to truly uncover the nature of these vampires.
And I trust the showrunners of Interview to comb through these bloody details to give us the whole picture.
No matter how gruesome it may be.
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