I feel sorry for the people whose lives are not consumed by the weekly drama of Interview with the Vampire. Clearly, the hottest club in town this summer is wherever Louis and Lestat are at.
This show delivers banger after banger, and Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Episode 4, “I Want You More Than Anything in the World,” is no less of a showstopper as it steamrolls towards the destruction of the Theatre des Vampires with pazazz and vexing parlays.
As Armand lets his inner theatre kid drive the coven to collusion, Louis ignores Claudia’s impending doom in favour of courting Dream Lestat. As a result, our insufferable trio of immortal men continue to flourish in their own delusion. Everyone thinks they are the master manipulator, and this proves to be the perfect breeding ground for profound power trips.
I’m strongly on Team “The Bear is not a comedy” (it is a drama with comedy elements). Still, if Interview with the Vampire were to accidentally end up in a comedy category, I am convinced it would clean up.
No show does camp or melodrama better than these characters — because somehow, an outrageous Dream Lestat is just one of this episode’s many comedic delights.
However, he is by far the most entertaining aspect of the hour, figuratively and physically chewing up the scenery as he hilariously chomps down on Louis’ discarded photograph. Sam Reid is clearly enjoying playing this very harmless and unserious version of the blonde tyrant, and his joy is infectious, bleeding beautifully into Louis and Armand’s back-and-forth dynamic.
Lestat takes on Louis’ inner anger and overreactions, which is where the former actor shines as an illusion.
The episode gives Reid stellar dialogue to match the absurdity of his presence as an unwanted third wheel. Whether it is the line “What’s the secret? Oh I’m the secret,” mocking Amand’s choice of Romeo and Juliet, or calling him a “Manipulative gremlin,” this jealous mirage of Lestat is killing the line reads.
Dream Lestat has been a stroke of brilliance for the season.
That much is proof, as his presence elevates the scene between Armand and Louis in the museum by creating another layer of conflict for us to consume. However, the character also provides a moment of emotional sadness as Louis says goodbye to the fantasy of his ex-lover.
That goodbye might just be Lestat’s best scene to date (and there have been more than a few good ones) because Louis highlights all the best parts of the character as if the amateur photographer is taking a mental snapshot to remember him. After all, it isn’t really Lestat but the parts of Lesat that Louis wants to exaggerate because they are the parts he loves most.
It’s a softened Lestat that breaks our hearts to see fade for good.
Reid’s delivery of “the wilderness that is our daughter,” alone could be enough to emotionally destroy the strongest viewers. But then he had to say the piece about having Louis’ name on the inside of his jacket pocket just to twist the knife in a little further.
When Lesat returns, he won’t be nearly as funny or sweet, so it was nice to have this time with him, fake or not.
Despite the triumph that is Lestat at his sassiest, Claudia is ready to show all these insufferable men up.
She imbues her horrendous performances at the Theatre des Vampires with a patheticness that makes you want to cringe away in horror at the tortured expression accompanying her childlike voice. Seeing Louis grimace at watching the coven humiliate her but stay quiet feels like the nastiest nail in the coffin yet.
Claudia striking up a friendship and potential romance with the German dressmaker is an excellent way to give her a reprieve from her prison and introduce a more vulnerable human side to the vampire.
There was once a Claudia who saw no need to humour human companionship. This Claudia is fighting her nature to have a human moment with a bluntly honest woman who never treats her as less than an equal. “Claudia, you have eyes like my windows” is such a loaded piece of dialogue that suggests Madeleine knows Claudia is not a child, just as Hilter was not entirely a scared little boy.
With Claudia set to take her final curtain call, we desperately need a fiercer and more dynamic female like Madeleine introduced into the narrative to counteract the large ensemble of men.
Claudia finally gets to tell Louis precisely what she thinks of his schoolboy companionship with Armand. Our girl does not hold back, and it is invigorating to see her finally hand Louis’ ass to him on a silver platter after years of watching his lovers make her life hell.
We all knew the “You and me. Me and you” pledge he gave her when they arrived in Paris didn’t mean to Louis what it meant to Claudia. To have her strike down his love fantasies by confirming Armand used Lestat to threaten her is just the tip of this powerful confrontation.
When Louis tells her she has it wrong, Delainey Hayles delivers one of the best monologues of the series. She throws the “Me and You” promise back in Louis’ face because it has always been “You and him. Him and you.”
“You picked another one over me,” it might as well be a blade driving itself into our chests with the slicing delivery at her hands. I don’t think any line or performance will top this moment for Claudia. Her anger is so incredibly cathartic and painful to finally see unleashed on Louis.
Meanwhile, Louis is enjoying his no-strings-attached relationship with Armand, which is not the case for everyone else.
I’m not entirely invested in the fight for power over the coven. Other than Santiago, a lot of the theatre vampires aren’t really known to us, and that indifference to them makes these desires to overthrow Armand come off flat. When given the option to spend more time with Daniel, Claudia, or the inner workings of this dysfunctional coven — the theatre is the last place we want to be.
Seeing Louis fill that Lestat role in Armand’s world of order and rules is fascinating.
However, witnessing Pimp Louis resurface just to call Armand by his presumable slave name and then Armand calling him Maitre in response is just strange. We know these two have insane chemistry, even if their relationship is a blatant red flag waving atop the rooftops of Paris. But it is difficult to find it in these moments where they contend for unspoken power over the relationship.
That said, the museum scene and Armand’s tragic backstory do an excellent job of cracking open something human inside of him that we can connect with for the first time since he made eyes at Louis during the mansion massacre.
The highlight of this season continues to be the interview sessions.
Watching Daniel mouth off to Amand while validating Louis’ photography skills continues to push for an odd couple friendship between the two unlikely allies. Whether Daniel is joking about his own death at the hands of Louis or listening to the vamp couple bicker in the other room, his human presence really makes their creepy apartment of chaos somewhere the plot can comfortably live in.
Louis “Take it Way Back” de Pointe du Lac and Armand “Know Your Role Thesp” aren’t letting this relationship end without taking all of Paris and Dubai down with them. But not before Daniel confronts them about the infamous 1970 interview that may have been far more sexual than Brad Pitt and Christian Slater led us to believe.
What I want more than anything in the world is for this show to continue being its terrifying, delightfully trite self.
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