House of R - 'The Vampire Lestat’ Episode 3 Deep Dive

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Mal and Jo dive deep into ‘The Vampire Lestat’ Episode 3! They discuss Lestat’s history with Nicki and Magnus, Louis’s revenge against Bruce, how Lestat tricked Daniel, and more!(00:00) Intro(03:32) Opening Snapshot(14:11) Sofia, Lestat, and the vanishing Toronto skyline(16:58) An interview with a vampire(33:23) Darling Nicki(46:01) Pop-up video: Magnus(56:42) Nicki, Round 2(01:09:57) Louis, Bruce, Claudia, Lestat, and Magnus(01:23:15) “Loneliness” and silence(01:26:29) Vampires Anonymous(01:27:52) Book spoilersExplore the exclusive collection at ⁠Target.com.⁠Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joina Robinson. That's Mallory Rubin. And we're here today to talk about the vampire list at episode 3, Toronto. Fast forward. Stop. Veep. Check your phone. Press play. Oh, good. Now he's a vampire. And that's it. I think we did it. End of the pod. We are so excited to talk about this episode, an episode we both spoiler really liked. Yes. And we're going to get into all of that. Right after this. This episode of HouseVar is presented to you by Target. For 30 years, Pokemon has shown that adventures are better together, and Target is calling all trainers to the celebration. That's because there's something for every era of fan

in the Pokemon and Target limited time collection. Thought you found them all after the first drop? Think again. Drop two just landed, featuring life-size Pokemon puzzles and an instant-print digital camera. The entire collection is in store and online, So check it out now. Explore now at Target.com.

All right, quick program reminder, Zippy. We're doing the Vampilistat every week. It will drop on a Monday every week. And we are just going to, like, zoom through this show that is making, filling us with such joy. Yes. And it is sandwich right between Talk the Thrones, which is coming out Sunday night directly after the house of the, the latest House of the Dragon episode drops. Immediately. Immediately.

Immediately. The moment. Literally right after, right? And then Tuesdays, the. some might say irresponsibly long, but I wouldn't say that. Hot day, deep dive from Mallory and Joanna. So that's, you've got three blissful days with us talking about dragons and vampires and then you get to rest and we get to do it all over again.

Except some weeks this summer you get even more because there are a lot of movies coming out. There might be a movie. We'll see. We're a month away from The Odyssey. Yeah. Tune in to find out. Sheesh. You know what you can't tune in. Well, you can't.

I don't know. Anyway, the Orioles thing that we announced sold out in a day. It did. Yeah. Yeah. Like half a day. Wild. Yeah. Exciting. Thank you so much to the bad babies. You guys rule. I have been getting messages from people being like, hey man, can you release more tickets? I've heard it's like a fire code issue, which is why we can't.

It's not up to us, ultimately. Yeah, we have the space that we have. But, you know, anyone can buy a ticket to the game. Yes, you could be near us. You can be in the same stadium watching the same baseball game. And you can still see Mallory throughout the first pitch. You can enjoy some booze barbecue, which I'd highly recommend. Yeah. The live show itself, sold out. Sold out. Our little cluster of seats. The fan experience. Exclusive fan experience. Are you enjoying this exclusive fan experience? In the pavilion, sold out. But you know what? Hey, oh, invite us back next year. We'll do it again.

Sounds great. You'll still be throwing out the first pitch. It will never be me. All right. Spoiler warning for today's episode, The Vampire. We are discussing this episode informed by The Vampire. Prylostat and Queen of the Damned. Love it. And I don't know why the book is here. It just was in my bag. And so here it is. Wonderful. I've still yet to read a page.

In Ford by, will we make errors? We will. And we'll talk about that in a second. No major book spoilers until a dedicated book spoiler section, which is actually fairly light in this episode this week. That's all I have to say about that. Should we go now to our opening snapshot? Let's do it.

We have a really robust mailbag. We got a ton of emails from listeners. A lot of them were like, hey Joanna, you're so dumb. Gabrielle is Italian in the books, which she is. My defense, which I explained to you, is that the audiobook I'm listening to, they're definitely doing a French accent for some reason, but she is Italian. Does her accent still need to sound like this? I don't think so, but that's where we are.

We did an interesting email about that, about the accent among many other things. Our listener, Camille, wrote in to say, in terms of, like, Lestat's creative storytelling, right? Because, you know, we're listening to Lestat recount this story via the failures of project to someone in their gilded bathtub. That's right. I guess. Ideal. Really?

Gilded, like, like, gilded bathtub? I mean, I just, I'm a bath enthusiast, as you know. Oh, me too. But I don't know that I want a gilded bathtub. I'll try anything. thing. At least once. Yeah, sounds good.

You like a claw foot or no? It wouldn't be my personal style choice for my home. Yeah. But at like a luxurious hotel, perhaps a castle. A resort, something like that. Now I don't spend a lot of time in castles, but I'd like to. But we're going to go to a castle this summer when we go see the Mad King play in Stratford, right? That's exactly right.

Okay. That's exactly right. And I will take a bath in a gilded tub or a clawfoot tub or perhaps both. Both. Why not both? Okay. So Camille says, in terms of like, Lestat's editorializing.

Yes. She says, I think this could even be applied to Gabby and her insane accent. She does sound like a cartoon vampire as opposed to a real person. And part of that could be because of how Lestat perceives her. This Gabby is Lestat's version of her, a figure who has loomed over him like a shadow his entire life, someone who swoops in when he is vulnerable and sinks in her fangs, her hunched shoulders, her overly cool demeanor. And of course, her inspired accent, all called to mind and character like Dracula.

Gabby's one of the true monsters in Lestat's life. And maybe this is his subconscious way of wreck. with that fact. A very generous interpretation from Camille. Interesting. I would say one that is perhaps more applicable as a direction to a book than a television show. When legibility is an issue. This episode, I want to get back to the emails, but let's talk for a second about why we really liked this episode. And I think a main critique that people have had this season is that sort of legibility in terms of like accent work or fast- overlapping dialogue or, you know, non-linear storytelling. So how did you feel about episode three? Oh, I loved it. This was my favorite of the season. I thought this was great start to finish and, you know, very in keeping with the flow of the prior seasons where you can really feel the momentum of the story inside of the season clicking into place. But I also just thought this was a great, you know, one of the questions we've had is like, how will Louis be deployed in the season? How will these storylines coexist inside of.

of their shared experience or if they're not inhabiting the same room space scene, how will we then access whatever Louis is up to? This was an episode where I was like, this is great if this is the solution, right? Just like put us with Louis for something that connects to their shared emotional history and trauma, but it is actually really specific to Louis. It was edited and entwined in a way that connected to Lestat's history and Lestat's trauma and experience. So that was, I thought, just creatively really, really smart. They don't always always. always have to be across from each other in a boardroom, though we love it when they are, for us to continue their journeys in parallel and in a way that is very hyper-specific to them

and the people in their lives. I thought that was great. The Nicki backstory for Lestad in terms of us understanding and unlocking more of his history, Magnus as well. Very illuminating. This was just a key character episode. I feel like I understand who Lestat is much more than I did before this episode, but just the performances were amazing. I mean, it was gut-wrenching what we watch. and very entertaining as well in a really horrific and upsetting way, which is what the show can often do at its best.

From the Vampireless Act. Yeah, so I thought this was great. Yeah, I really agree. I thought, you know, there was the comedy joy of The Your Biggest Fan music video, which is inside a really, like, sick and distorted layers of, you know, truth with oneself, truth inside of art, et cetera, et cetera.

But that was like a really fun song. And then I thought loneliness, which is the song that closed the episode, was like far in a way the best song we've heard thematically and just sort of musically. And I just think we're really, you know, in terms of me saying I loved all the music from the start, true. Yeah. But is it getting better and better?

I think it is, you know, along with, you know, what's going on in the show. This is, you know, having Delaney here playing this waitress character, but having Delaney in the, in, back on the show, Assad showing up as Armand, like, you know, it feels It's like the gang, the gang's all here in a way that they weren't in the first couple episodes. And then having Lestat sit down with Daniel, this is the format we are much more familiar with. As much as he says, I'm not Louis de Pontalac, like undone by your relentless questioning. And the mind trick that he plays on Daniel and all of that is different, but it's still much more familiar territory to us. And I was thinking about this, like, you know, for the people who have been struggling with his season and their memory,

is that every single episode of interview with the vampire is perfect. That was not my experience of season two. I definitely struggled with the first episode of season two when it's like Louis and Claudia on their sort of like Eastern European adventure. And then even in like the second episode, because I just wasn't hooked into Armand as a character yet. It took me a couple beats to really get into season two. And then I thought season two was a masterpiece.

And then when you go back and rewatch it, I'm much more dialed in than I was the first time. But I really like, I remember watching the first couple episodes of season two and I was like, oh no, is my favorite show not great anymore? And then it was. You know? Yeah. So I've been a little less stressed about sort of like any kind of confusion or

shifted tone or whatever we've been feeling here. And this episode just like really clicked it all into place for me. So love it. I'm glad we agree. Back to the mailbag. I will say that our list. Samantha, I thought this was funny, said that as every time I said the vampire list at, she thought I was saying the vampire list dad, and that's what she thought the show was called. Is that a good father's day counter programming for the vampire list at? The vampire list dad? I mean, the dads are very present in the text of this episode. The parents are very present in this episode. Good time for that email. Catherine Roden in to say, God damn, why are all the French people speaking and accented English with each other? And you know what? I agree. let's all speak French with subtitles or dial the accents down a little.

I don't think it would hurt anything. Our listener Owen wrote in response to the conversation we had about Gabriella, Gabriela, about feeling like a man trapped in a woman's body and how she feels liberated by vamporism. He brought up this book that I loved from last year, Bari My Bones in the Midnight Soil, V. E. Schwab. And I just wanted to say a little promo, I will be at San Diego Comic-Con interviewing V.E. Schwab for her like spotlight author spotlight. So that is like really exciting.

We will also like the whole ring or verse crew is going to be at Sanya Comic Con. We can't make like specific announcements, but we will be there. But if you want to come see V. E. Schwab talk about her incredible vampire book among many other things. I will be there too. So come join us. But yeah, that book rules and that book does engage with this exact same sort of idea. TCS wrote in to let us know that when Anne Reis did her book signing for Memnach the Devil, one of the books that I referenced in terms of, like, Lestat drinking period blood.

She was carried into the event inside of a casket, and I just love knowing that about Anne Rice. So give you some ideas for my next to work. Or live podcasts, anything. Oh, yeah. I mean, we've got cameras in the studio and we have a door. And we have staff. And hallways. Yeah.

Do they definitely want to carry me on? Elevators, all of it. Like pallbearer, me into. Ramp to the parking garage. We've got it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's just like wheel me in on squeaky wheels. All right.

So, and then last one at least, Leah wrote in, we did not watch the Talamaska show. No. That I guess has now been canceled. Oh, sad. Yeah. The expansive universe stuff is not super working out here. But Leah wrote in with some important information about the great conversion and the Talamaska.

She was like, is the Telomaska anti-Great conversion? That was allegedly the reason they wanted to publish Daniel's book. It was meant to be a warning, right? However, at the end of the Talamaska spin-off, some higher-ups capture the snarky vamp. played by the great Willem Fickner, lock him in a basement with a bunch of sedated bodies, and order him to turn all of them. So at least one faction has a conflicting goal. Classic espionage stuff, their secrets have secrets.

So where the Talamaska stands on the Great Conversion, open question mark. But for those people like us who did not watch the Talamaska show, I thought that was some important information. Yeah. Okay. Huh. This episode is directed by Claudia Yosa and written by Ansuri Roy. And she's a playwright, incredible Canadian playwright, a storied, famed, a beloved Canadian playwright. And I, you know, we loved the writing in this episode.

Yeah. And I mean, even though we had, like, music videos and a lot of grand sequences, very bloody murders, ripping spines out, etc. What? 52-minute episode. Didn't keep a stopwatch running. 25 minutes of this is... The interview? The interview.

Yeah. which is a very play-like setting. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we got the, Daniel doing his best, Errol Morris with, like, you're going to look at me through this monitor. I'm not going to say,

but it's a couple people in a room with other people watching them interact. Yeah. As they talk. Did it make you think of when we have our teleprompter? It did. It did, actually. It really did.

Yeah. Just always thinking about this studio where we spend so much of our lives. Where we live now. All right, let's go now into our deep ish dive. Love it. All right. So we open with Sophia Lestat on the tail end of a bender. And we get this, I mean, it's a great sequence with the honeymooners here. Incredibly funny. Yeah. And the photo sequence. But we get this, Lestat complaining about the Toronto skyline, right? The CN Tower is something that he finds particularly offensive. 147 floor water pick. Tough feedback from Lestat. Tough beat for the C.N. Tower. Guess what? It's gone by the end of the episode, which is, you know, a wild bookend to the same.

episode. I don't know what's going on here. Do you have any thoughts about what, you know, did they make it obvious enough that that's what was happening? Because I heard from some people that they like missed it. That entire skyscraper collapsed. I felt like it was pretty obvious, but, you know, hey guys, the CN Tower no longer exists in this world, I guess. You know, maybe it depends on which side of the to them its iconic line from Lestat that you fall on in terms of how you think about that skyline. I, I, so, like, Let me answer your question by asking you a question. Because I, this is something on my mind.

You know, we've moved through some locations, right? Detroit, Toledo, Toronto. This idea of the great conversion is the populating and percolating across the season so far, the three episodes and the prior seasons. We've gotten a lot of heavy harbingers. We have a couple more in this episode. For specific characters, but also a larger sweeping doom. Yes. Is anything

The power outage earlier in the season The crumbling of a landmark in a given city's skyline Hyper specific to a thing that is happening in that place Or would we be seeing something no matter where Lestat And the band happened to be at a given moment in time Is the peril so vast and sprawling already That any city they were in something bad would be happening Or are they bringing in?

Is it following the tour? Are they bringing the plight to the place? It's a great question. I don't have a specific book answer for you, neither here nor in the spoiler section, because this is like a bit of a liberty that they're taking. So I don't know the answer, but I think that's a great question to ask. Are skyscrapers dropping like flies around the world? I feel like we would have seen some news reports or something like that if that were the case. Right. Though all of the cell phones are covered with the blood of the recently eaten during dead. So it's, hard to load up the newsfeed. Having just... That was so funny. The cuts from the photos you're taking to just cover to... Come blood. And the photo bomb from...

Gabriela's smile in that photo is really, really funny. I will be calling Gabriela Sophia in exchange... Moving in and out. You know, we're going in and out. All right. Great. An interview with a vampire. So, family list out roll up to the interview in a car full of corpses.

We get to see Christine in full crisis. mode. I love Christine. Where are you? Where are any of us really? Yeah, where are any of us really? Such an incredible exchange. I didn't mean to skip over this. Lestat gives a very evocative description of the tour of the Great Lakes that they take. That's right. How did you feel about that? I'm interested in his assessment of all aspects of Americana. Yeah. You know, I think for different reasons than his mother slash fledgling is, she's really like, why did you choose this place over me? And I'm like, Lestat's tour guide. or exploring different regions, whether you're a rock star in a band or you're just interested in seeing more of the world.

Yeah. I love the feedback is always so I love like whatever he decides is withering as an indictment of a place. And then obviously in this case and in many others, what can with just a couple choice words in terms of phrase become overtly sexual in its description? Well, licking the underside and rounding the shaft is not even trying to hide anything. It's just a talent that he has. It's just a talent that he has.

All right, speaking of Christine, she calls Sophia a vagina passed its sell-by date. Very tough. And Sophia's like, bet I'll show you something in this episode.

Great use of the public bathroom. Yarda, speaking of, has the HRP, apparently. Yeah. So vampires can't get STDs? Any worries here for Sophia? Or would you just heal right up? I don't think so.

Yeah, you'd heal right up. I mean, I don't really understand in the biology of these particular vampires because there's like there's the peeing, there's the crying, there's the, later in the episode, Jenks is asking if she can make a baby with her new groom and he's like, not really sure it works that way for us anymore, but we can give it the old college try. Speaking of vampire lore drop, biological vampire lore drop, Dr. Freed lets us know that mere decapitation will not end a vampire. Right. Which I thought was interesting. So I read that as a double setup.

It is helpful inside of this episode to just prime us for the fact that after Louis cuts off the head of one of killers, house guards, he's going to be able to then interrogate him. Interrogate him and have a conversation about the Star Wars prequels.

Yes. Important. A Jarger Banks tattoo. Important to be prepared for how that conversation could take place. Louis de Pontilac knows who Georgia Banks is. Prequel kid. A kid.

Freacle kid. I feel like while it was helpful to be primed for the fact that that conversation could take place with a severed head. You know, and we get to like class B vampire detail, so there's a little bit of lore there. Like the long, the more powerful you are, the longer your head could continue to exist as it was part of from your body. Feels to me like this is potentially, and again, I know literally nothing about what is to come. Set up for how one of our beloved characters could perhaps survive a decapitation. capitation inside of the events of this season.

I also think it's interesting when it comes to like, Nikki's story because, you know, we'll talk about some of the lore differences, but when Nikki loses his hands in the book, the intention is that his hands will be reattached because you can just like put limbs and heads and whatever back on if you work quickly enough. Not if you then throw the hand in the fire. No, that's, you know. So when he cuts off his hand, everyone in that scene is horrified.

But when he throws it on the fire, that's just like there's no coming. You can't repaste the ash back. back on to. Though, it depends how old the vampire is. Because in the book when Magnus, Magnus kills himself by fire and then he makes Listat promise to sprinkle his ashes because he's like, if you don't do that, I might come back and who knows what shape I will take. The ashes would reconstitute in some form. Yeah, into like a little ash monster. I don't know. It's a no for me. It's absolutely a no for me. Daniel Malloy Death Watch. This is one of those harbingers you were talking about. What do we hear? What does it make you think?

So we're getting the Daniel Biodit's, the many births and rebirths of Daniel Malloy, right? His original birth, the born April 16th, 1953. It's considered rude to ask vampires about their personal, their mortal histories. That was like, dead naming them. Murdered and reborn July 18th, 2002, by the Gremlin Armand. Hysterical. The Gremlin Armand. I don't know if you saw the character posters.

that they released, but it was like the front man, the journalist or like whatever. It was like the gremlin for Armand. So rude, but very good. And then of Daniel, he led a brief incidental life as a vampire. Incidental. Hmm. Is that the right word? We're like intentionally distracted, I think, by the discussion of, oh, incidental, is that the right word?

From the let a brief. And this is not the first time that we've had this beat. We had the first episode, the Jenks Exchange, like, okay, what peril awaits Daniel? How soon and how permanent? Yeah, it's a question I have. Again, I don't have any book information to help us here. And so I don't, I generally don't know if, like, Lestat just thinks Daniel dies or if he does die. How many characters can we, like, think are dead and they're not actually dead at the end of the day? Like, I don't really know the answer. And Rice is like, the limit does not exist, maybe. There's also that this is when he says, like, I have regrets when it comes to Dan. And then, you know, the end of the episode after. Serving cunt has consequences. Incredible line. Put it on the merch.

I'd buy it and sell it. The idea that what Lestat has done to Daniel, the way that he's embarrassed him and tricked him and deceived him, the way that he has bested him here. We'll have fallout. Played with him will have consequences. So it's like how much of this is about the trouble that awaits inside of their relationship and their storyline and how much of it has a larger ripple effect and consequence either for Daniel or for inside the Great Conversion, whatever awaits with Akasha, et cetera.

Daniel seems like he's going to want to get some revenge. I mean, he's deeply humiliated. Very much. And like when you think about... Spightful guy. In terms of the reminding us of his biographical details, there are several reminders in this episode of like, you know, toddler dumb of being a vampire.

There's been several indications of that this season. And so this reminder of like Daniel is a. brand new vampire. Yes. And how chaotic and turbulent those emotions are. And as like snarky and like world weary Daniel Maloy has been as a human, he's a much more vulnerable like vampire. Yes.

And his like absolute relish at believing he has he has cornered and captured his prey only to find him like he's the one in the trap is an exquisite part of this episode. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. And I thought I thought Eric Bogosian played that so well. Oh, amazing. So Dan starts his interview with Lestat, and we get a version of the most of the very famous opening lines of the book.

I'm the vampire Lestat. I'm immortal, more or less. The light of the sun, this is once again, what can kill a vampire, right? He says, the light of the sun, the sustained heat of an intense fire. This is additive to the show. Jefferson Starship. Incredible. Gerard are wielding coven members.

These things might destroy me, but then again, they might not. So that's the opening line of the book. And to your point about this, like, beheading question, like, I think what can eliminate a vampire as old as Lestat, not to mention the other much older vampires that we meet, is one we should be constantly asking ourselves. Yeah, it feels like the episodes to date are really not just readying us for potential story beats here, but actually encouraging us to actively think about this. Yeah. What could kill Lestat? What could befall him that seemed like it could kill him, but that he could actually potentially hopefully survive. I mean, he's already done that, right?

Like, Claudia and Louis thought they had killed the stat. And he's like, yeah, I'm fine. These scars aren't even from you guys. You missed them. All right. Daniel, like, on the hunt the entire episode for LaSat's secrets, the tears, the truth, he doesn't want to give up. We get an early fake out here, which I really love because that primes us to be more susceptible to the later fake out, right? We get the, like, overt laughing, like, crying into laughter.

The way that, like, he peeked through his fingers as he's, like, we're, like, we're revealing that he's laughing into the opening credits. Like, it's a great shitty moment, but it really, like, puts us on the back foot when it comes to the later, longer con than he pulls here. Yes. And I think the other thing that it did that felt very effective was, like, put you on your back foot, but also force you to lean in because you're so compelled to, like, how much of this is intentional from the beat and how much of it is that he is, Lestat is really feeling

something. Daniel has actually disarmed him a little bit and unmoored him a little bit here. You can see on Lestat's face every time Daniel goes back to the stutter, right, that he is like, this is, he promised. He would not give him. Call him. You're mic'd up, guys. We can hear you, but all of them up. Get in jail. He's not vibing with this, and he's pissed, right?

But, like, so how much of it actually does crack through? He reveals something he doesn't want to, and then he covers in real time, right? Which, like, who among us has not done that at some point in their lives? And then, you know, later to, when he is about to, I mean, I thought the reveal was so incredible for so many reasons, mostly Daniel's reaction, obviously also the insight into Lestat that he would do this thing. the commentary and the people around them and how they behave in the face of these people, like when Daniels like, none of you said anything, you know, that's really interesting in terms

of like what we should be clocking about how other people are reading their behavior? What do these people know? Like this camera crew, like, what do they believe? What do they know? I guess they're hearing all of this. They believe in vampires. Are they telemaska adjacent? You know, like who is this crew here?

I don't know the answer to that. All that's sent. Yeah. If early in the process of this interview, the first. following exchanges took place. I would probably also just be in a haze of delirium from having witnessed it. You have a song, long face. The lyrics are, ooh, ooh, ooh, wah, wah. What's the story behind that? And then building to, so not about sucking dick on the black licorice run. No. Incredible.

Daniel, once again, like tough cookie, being all of us sort of like pouring over the lyrics for meeting and being just like, what is this bullshit? it. Like, how can you pretend to be an artist expressing yourself? But then, like, you know, you get to your biggest fan, which is this sort of warped retelling of a traumatic event. And then you get to loneliness, which I think is the most honest, crucially honest, reflective song from Lestat. On the official podcast, they said something, Roland Jones said something really interesting the showrunner about this trick that Lestat pulls on Daniel. Like, that it is both cruel, which it is. Yeah.

But also he's like, Daniel doesn't understand the Listat is giving him actually a gift here, which is telling him a truth that is not for performance. It's not for the cameras. It's not for anyone else.

It's just for him. Yes. And it's a story about a fledgling vampire who has lost, you know, all sense of self and control. So it's a cautionary tale. It's a vulnerable,

I'm sharing something with you, Dan. Right. And also, this is a story that you should probably pay attention to, Dan and none of it is like coded in his usual posturing or all these other things.

So like he is actually, he's crying and he is being emotionally honest and it is just for Dan and there's no way that Dan sees it for you know as a gift in any way he sees it as a humiliation which it also is at the same time, you know? Ain't that just list that?

On the sort of stutter front which again as I mentioned is a show invention thing the idea that he got his from this traumatic event when he went to go see these witches burn. And the idea that in the show, it's Gabriela who takes him to go see the witches burn. And she looks so nonchalant about the trauma that this has caused him as she's watching this interview take place. In the book, it's the priests who take both Nikki and Lassau when they're younger to go see the witches burn. And that Gabriela is,

that Gabriella is pissed because she's just like, why would you, this is so traumatic. And also, this is a cruel thing. This is an ignorant thing to do. Why would you do this? So I'm curious that they gave this thing that the priest did in the books to Gabriel. And in general, there's just none of the sort of like softness and kindness that exists from Gabriel in the books here in this version of her. When Nikki gets turned in the books, she's like kind of trying to help him figure out how to hunt, how to do all these things. Here she is just an absolute C word to. Like, she is so cruel, and all she cares about is dividing Lestat and Nikki.

And none of that sort of, like, kindness and comfort that is present for her in the book. So I think it's interesting, do we interpret that as, like, again, to our listeners' point, this is Lestat's memory of her and it is only the cruelties? Or is the show trying to say something a little bit more, like, make it less ambiguous how, you know, manipulative or, you know, traumatic the impact that she has had on the status and not try to hide it with any of the other, like, kindness and comfort that she also gave him. I think in addition to the benefit of that backward-looking clarity in terms of the impact that she has had on his life, his psyche, a psyche that he talks about here in ways that

feel simultaneously very, like, true and very then, okay, let me, like, heighten the performance and spin this into a yarn in real time. Yeah. We talked a lot in episode two about like the way that the jealousy that was being conveyed on the Louie front. Like what we were priming for there. So to show us this very deliberate attempt to put a wedge between weatherless that was already feeling distant from Nikki is like irrelevant actually, right? She sees a, or not irrelevant. Maybe she had to see something true in order to try to put the wedge in.

But she's doing that for her, not for him. She's not saying it doesn't seem like you're not. like really into this guy anymore? Are you sure you want to spend eternity with them? It's, well, if he's around forever, like, what's that going to mean for me? I think all that's true. And I think what's also true is that both Armand and Gabrielle are like, this guy does not have the temperament to be a vampire. And it's something that you need to consider. And it is something that, you know, we'll talk about it a little later, but like it's something that Lestat had in mind when thinking about Claudia and stuff like that is just sort of like

this warning that he ignored from Gabriel and from Armand about, Nick, you had like some mental, you know, illness before he became a vampire. I'm interested in that aspect of like what part of who you are before your turn is heightened and lingered. Super Soldier serum. Super Soldier serum style. And then because some of what we've talked about with Lestat is like, and Louis, the aspects, becoming a vampire allowed them to like lean into the parts of themselves that they wanted to more fully be. And maybe it doesn't always go that way for everyone.

But in terms of just the history between Gabriella and LaSotte and what Nikki is bringing to the surface and to the fore there, I was really struck. She called him a cabbage. And that Lestat looked like to turn their personal joke there shorthand, the bubble of their world and their language, the thing that isolated them from the pain of the family who ridiculed and actually tried to harm them in so many ways. That's our little language of love. Yeah. And then she's going to use it to diminish the person. person he loves. I thought Lestat looked so truly hurt hearing her quickly say that. So that was really telling as well. In a way that, like, again, you feel very quickly inside of what was episode

two my favorite. No, was episode three my favorite. Yes. But a moment like the cabbage team, which wasn't my favorite part of the season. But it lingers. Then bore fruit here in a meaningful way. All right. So let's talk about him, uh, darling Nikki here, right? So, uh, age 29 Lestat heard music. I think this is interesting. They're pinning his age. Lestat has turned much younger in the books, I believe. But they're like, how young can we get away with Sam Reed looking here? And they're like, 29

sounds about as good as we can do. He heard the music. This is a passage from the book about Lestat hearing Nikki play. He ripped into the song. He tore the notes out of the violin and each note was translucent and throbbing. What struck my heart almost as much as the song itself was the way

he seemed with his whole body to lean into the music, to press his soul like an ear to the instrument. I had never known music like it, the rawness of it, the intensity, the rapid glittering torrents of notes that came out of the strings as he sawed away. And then a little later he says, you make life when you play. I said you create something from nothing. You make something good happen. And that is blessed to me. So this is part of like this whole, I love this description. I love how often Nikki's, the way it's described Nikki playing the violin is violent terms, like sawing at the violin.

The way his fingers hammer down on the string. Like, this is just the language that Anne Rice uses in this description of how Nikki plays. And I love this language she uses about like the glittering and all this. It's as close to the ecstasy that Lestat will later feel in vampirism. here in mortality, right? It's just sort of this transportive, otherworldly thing. And then the Lestat in the book here, he has this long sort of falling out with the church

and with God because his beloved mother is dying. And he's just sort of like, I don't know that I believe in anything in the afterlife. And this is when he says to Nikki, like you make life, like you are the divine to me. You make life when you play, you create something from nothing, you make something good happen.

That is blessed. to me, right? The act of creation, the act of art is a blessed thing. And so to think about all of that and then apply it to the rock star, Lestat and, you know, how he talks about the music at the end of this episode, that it like pulls him forward and keeps him going, that this is his, like, this is his God at the end of the day. That was, I thought, incredibly clarifying in terms of understanding why we find Lestat in this mode of choice now, right? And when he says to Daniel, like, early in the stretch of the interview beginning in this episode. He's like, you're kind of like missing it, right?

It's about pure expression. And again, how much of that is true. How much of that is that that pure expression is a way to attempt to write the wrongs and the record and the record and convey his version of the truth. It's all of it. Right? That's all in the mix. But I thought that this was like a really great stretch of the episode that felt very like much the show in miniature. You go from caught masturbating in a field with a few sick oxen, iconic, hysterical into that I heard music.

Yeah. The comedy, the levity, then the real emotional insight and like the rawness of something that is genuinely true, right? And to understand, you know, because we have like, we have glimpses of, of Nikki prior to this point, which we're really understanding. Yeah. In this way, in the season of Lestat, rock star. Lestat, music is my pure expression.

Lestat, I'm on the back end of Louis hurting me, right? that music, yes, it's something deeply associated with Nikki and this love that he is like still reckoning with and the pain that stemmed from it. But the idea that that was like an awakening, right, that the music was a bridge to love. The music was a bridge to some sort of deep connection. So it's another reason in addition to that pure expression. The desire to be in the spotlight, yes, of course, the desire to be worshipped. Yes, of course. That Lestat has like chosen this musical life.

So I thought that was really illuminating. And, you know, we talked about this early in the season, the fact that he, like, plays the violin on stage. You know, he could play, and he does play other instruments, but, like, he plays the violin and that is a direct sort of connective line. And he tries to sort of play it off in this version of it in this episode when he's like, you know, if I knew them what I know now, I would think it was like pedestrian playing or whatever. Right. You know, he doesn't need to make it smaller. It can be as big as it was for him. And it can be as big as two young men from a backwater town in their 20s going to Paris to be

artists to be a musician and an actor and living in poverty, despite the fact that, like, Lestat is from nobility and Nikki is actually from a fairly, like, wealthy family because of his father's trade. But, like, they choose this life of impoverished, like, you know, lovey boem, basically in the city. And how romantic that will always be. You know, first love, not my great love. But, like, you know, this just sort of like, how do you recapture that sort of like, and And this is the last time that Lestat, this is the only time that Lestat the human will ever be happy.

Right. And that Lestat, the anything will ever be unburdened by the horrors of living with his family back home and the horrors of being a vampire. You know what I mean? Like this brief shining love affair that he has with Nikki and being young and an artist in Paris. It's very sad. I love the parallelism between that description of the quality and calibre. of Nikki's play and that first love, not a great love, because even though it's very clearly revealed to us from what we glimpse in the past, and Daniel sort of like clocks it in real time,

yeah, uh, sure. You buried yourself in the ground for a century. For a not great love. So we sort of know that already. Right. But like, isn't that often how people describe, like, their first relationship, like, yeah, you're like, yeah, no. Like, I thought at the time that it was the biggest thing in the world, but, like, was it now that you

have some distance from it? But if you look back, like often, not always, but sometimes, like, you learned something about yourself. At least that was meaningful. It was some sort of formative experience, something shared. And I love how that built inside of the episode to like the way that Lestat, because again, there's this larger umbrella of like what is true is like at the time, you know. I meant it.

I meant it. Yeah. I meant it. You know? And maybe does it mean that you come with distance to understand that you didn't mean as much as you thought you did? Or that you've had to talk yourself out of that because you have some. like I have matured and grown and lived all this life. And so how could that possibly have

meant as much to me as it felt like it did? But like maybe it did. I think that I love that. I think that we talked about this when we talk about Buffy, this idea, those teenage feelings and how enormous they feel and how like everything just feels like life and death. Now he's 29 not a teenager, but like whatever. But like, you know, that young first love. And I agree with you. I think there is this tendency to to want to make it smaller than it was because you feel foolish. thinking about how big it felt to you at the time. You know, it felt like the whole world to you. He does the blah, blah, blah, blah, bipolar boyfriend,

a quote that you cited earlier. The yada, yada, yada turned into a vampire. So, like, the way we're pulling back the layers on the Nikki trauma, right, blah, blah, blah, bipolar boyfriend is just like such a speed run of this horrible thing we're about to witness with Nikki. And yada, yada, yada, yada, vampire. I mean, finding out, and it's interesting, Sam Reed was saying in the official podcast that he had said before the season started that there was a script he read that he threw across the room when he read it, he threw his computer across the room. And he said it was this script because he did it halfway through.

He saw how they were going to introduce Magnus with this like music video. And he was like, oh no, I've based my entire, like, I have justified a lot of what my character has done based on the traumatic. way in which he was assaulted and abused and turned. Yes. And if we're going to make a joke out of that, what is my entire thing? So he, like, I threw the laptop across the room. He's like, then I read the rest of the episode and I was like, oh, this is what we're doing, you know?

So like that sort of, it is, it is so key, as you said at the very beginning, it's so key to understanding who Lestat is, his relationship to Louis, his relationship to Claudia, his relationship to music is all sort of laid out in this episode. And I think it's done really, really well. It's done with expediency, I think, for people who are used to chapters and chapters and chapters of the Nikki and Lestat relationship. This will feel like a bit of a speed run. But I think it's done much more effectively than the, you know, Averne flashbacks were. No question. Yeah. No question. I thought both in what we got to glimpse in the actual flashbacks, but also in the present day of hearing Lestat engage with this.

Like I loved the, when Daniel called bullshit on the first love, not a great love line, I thought that response from Lestat. I carried the box because I destroyed him, Dan. I carried the box to remind me what I was capable of. That's a really great way to capture everything we're talking about. How much of this is about specifically Nikki and the guilt and culpability and shame and loss and grief and regret and despair? Lestat feels because of Nikki.

Some of it, for sure. But how much of it is like, what transpired revealed something to Lestat about himself and about what he was capable of and about the impact he could have on the people in his life who he loved at one point, whether he did his fully

anymore or not. So then that's always something you carry with you moving forward anytime someone becomes close to you. And I think specifically, like, in this episode, we get a couple promptings from Gabriel for for Daniel to ask about the great conversion. Yes. So this idea of the great conversion of like, let's just make a bunch of other vampires, right? Well, here we are examining the trauma of how LaSat was turned. Yes. And his most traumatic, or maybe not even because of Claudia, but like the very traumatic result of Lestat turning people. He has not sired a ton of people in his life. And so what does it mean to be a sire? And how horrifying this.

that can be at the end of the day and how with Louis, like, it's actually like kind of a best case with Louis, oddly enough, you know, at the end of the day here. Right. Nikki, chopping off the hand, death by fire. Gabriela, really allowed bathroom sex in a very crowded public space. Louis has yet to do either of those things. Yeah. In exactly that form.

How do you feel about Sophia Yardis? that Dan Wig walking into a bathroom and changing... I thought this was hysterical and incredible. Forever how I watched Pride and Prejudice. This was my favorite. Gabriel, by a miles course. I thought this was so funny. The like, you know,

was this kind of like distracting? Can you go in there? And the, like, orgasmic shrieks of being interrupted. The accent, I have some questions. This choice, I have no questions. No notes. But actually, I guess not orgasmic shriek

because the feedback later was like, you know, it was like three good men. minutes and then. And then. His wig is like slipping. Yarda's wig is like slipping. So funny. Much like the wigs did slip in that flashback sequence.

And also he just has this look on his face of like what the fuck is happening right now? What's going on? I am disturbed. I love this. And I love this is like it's a narrative vice because it is distra-like all the levels that Sam Reid has to play in this, like the way his eyes keep tracking. Gabriel and and Yarda and like what's going on there. Yeah.

So, like, his distraction there, the sounds, that distraction, what he's revealing to Dan and what he's not revealing to Dan, he does slip, right? I think he slips when he says that his mom was there. And Daniel's like, what do you mean your mom was there? Yes. Yeah. What are you talking about? Yeah.

And Gabriella, too, is like, uh, what are you doing? What are you about to do here? She's right here. You know, and then the honest traumatic memories that are sort of trying to bubble to the surface at the same time. But it's a great narrative device because we're distracted by that, and that's right when Lestat sort of pulls his glamour, like you're in my eye line, right? That's our clue that that's when he pulls the sort of glamour trick and it happens like right around here. Pop a video, Magnus Edition. You're a biggest fan, music video. You would text

to me that you were quite disturbed by the Magnus character design. I just want to read this description from the book because I just feel like they absolutely nailed it, right? Please. Huge black eyes seeming to stretch the white flesh and deep folds, the nose long and thin in the mouth, the jester's smile. There were the fang teeth just touching the colorless lip and the hair, a gleaming mass of black and silver growing up high from the white forehead and flowing down over his shoulders and his arms. I think that he laughed. I was beyond terror. I could not even scream. And when you think about someone as cocksure as Lestat, Yeah.

Being beyond terror could not even scream at the horror that is. Magnus, who would come and watch him perform nightly in the audience and then kidnaps him and takes him back to his tower, his lair, where there are all these bodies of young men who look like Lestat. Yeah. Like, and then it's all wrapped up in this sort of like gauzy 1980s music video presentation. When Magnus started like lip syncing to this song, I. kind of died and went to heaven. I thought it was so funny.

This stretch was great. This was obviously so upsetting and will grow even more upsetting over the course of the episode. He is so scary. And, like, you know, obviously some of that is conveyed in the character design. But I think, frankly, there's a way to, like, actually make you complicit as a viewer if you, like, just because of that. or like, ugh, this guy. So it can't just be that. Yeah.

It has to be the fact that he's sitting at the long table, the long table that he will then later invoke in like the soul at the long table, right? It's 68 courses. It's like, we're, you know, we're getting close to the, the West Roci Royal Wedding course list there, my goodness. The portrait, the portrait of Lestat. The premeditated nature of this haunt and abuse. and destruction was so disturbing. And, you know, not to jump ahead,

but like to prime for something we'll talk about more later when we get to the Looney stretch where he is recounting in Claudia's words, her rape, her abuse, her assault. When we're cutting to what is happening with Magnus and Lestad, and it is undeniable what we are seeing, we hear the way that Claudia is described, the aspects of that that she has carried with her, right?

And what that has done to her. We'll talk about that. Lestat's version of this is to say, my abuser, my liberator, right? To turn this horrible, horrific thing that has happened to him and to not let anybody see the horror and to instead say, that's not what happened. Right. Right. which is so deeply painful, but obviously also very clarifying in terms of what it tells us about how he has internalized the horrific things that have been done to him that are not his fault.

And this is a truth that he can't even tell Daniel in this glamorized, glamored moment. It only comes to us in the car haunting sequence. But I think that like the long table language was so interesting to me because I was like, surely this is a reference of something specific in the book, but it couldn't. find anything. And so then I was thinking, I've been, I've been wondering, in the opening credits, we get this long table imagery where it's like a, in the opening credits, it's like this beautifully set long table and then it flashes to like rot. And then it's like the long table is inside and then it's like out in the woods. And so I was just thinking about like obviously

the long table of his, like where all of the family scenes took place. And that was like, you know, him as a young kid versus him as a predator. Like he comes back and he just turns that into a, you know, a horror. And then this idea of Magnus, like, with the wine, the bottle of wine, which is, like, a very long sequence in the book, but the bottle of wine and, and the candles and this beautiful table that he's set. But, like, this is this, the, the Lestad is the feast here. When he talks about when, when DREAM Magnus, ghost Magnus is talking about the long table and the endless courses of souls, he caps it with, when are you releasing an album, right? And Lestat's like, when we're ready or like, whatever. But, like, we're good enough. But,

But it goes back to that Baudelaire thing we were talking about, which is just sort of like feasting on the pain. Yeah. You know, wanting to consume more and more of LaSad, the soul, the dishes of your soul are endless food for the masses. Yeah. At least about 1,000 of them. Certainly not 8,000 of them, but at least about 8,000 of them, you know. Couldn't get to 8500 stuff. Yeah.

I like to, I think that what are you, what are you feasting on and what are you, what is somebody taking from you? how are they feeding on you? What are you then trying to offer up to the masses as you... Yeah, and keep for yourself. Yes, what do you keep you for yourself? I think there's also something really effective about taking like a familial setting or an intimate setting. Right, that could be a table that you shared with a partner. That could be a table that you shared, as we saw in the episode two flashbacks, as you noted, with a family.

And the idea that like there is no safe harbor, right? like especially when we're talking about Gabriela with LaStat or obviously Claudia given the way that Louis, their relationship, right, this like adopted sibling. It was very like father-daughter, but obviously brother-sister. That's a family behind the idea of like protecting each other, deciding to care for each other. What, you know, again in this episode, obviously Lestat never misses an opportunity to pick at Armand's and to, like, feel deeply wounded and insulted if other people praise Armand. But, you know, is it your absent but very much a live father walking around that gives you

this lowly idea of yourself to Daniel? So it's a shot at Armand. But once again, it's like, well, what is that relationship supposed to mean and provide? And when you feel the heightened absence of that. So, like, dinner table, just an effective visual for, like, how warped and weaponized. These family dynamics are. And like Sam Reid has spoken very eloquently about the way that the incest is used inside of the story and the warping of, he's like the maternal bond, the maternal child bond is so sacred. So for that energy to be warped into this sexual energy instead is such a like enduringly damaging thing to do.

These ideas of absent fathers, like I, you know, I wrote this down on the notes, but like Magnus, you don't really. understand why he's sort of like absent from the rest of the story inside of this episode. But like, he turns Lestat. He's like, hey, all of my money's over there, you can have it. You're my heir. But I'm going to kill myself right now. And then he doesn't give Lestat any instruction on how to be a vampire. And in the book, Armand sort of jeers at Lestat about that. He's like, your mother didn't teach you how to read. She didn't give a shit about you. And your sire didn't teach you how to be a vampire. Did no one ever care? enough about you to teach you anything. And like, and so when you think about that and then you think about Lestat turning Louis and all the instruction in care he gave to, I mean, it's twisted

and demented, but like in his way, the instruction in carry gives Louis or the way he teaches Claudia to hunt, like all of these things are him doing it differently than was done for and to him. Even with Nikki again. That brings Nikki back to mind for me as well because the when LaSotte finds him, it's the music, but it's also a conversation about their fathers. What did he really say? Wanted me to teach you to be a man. Then it becomes very flirtatious, right? You're going to show me how to be a man?

Yeah. And it's very sexual and we glimpse the extent of their desire. But there's also this like, my father doesn't think I'm good enough. Yeah. He doesn't think I'm the man I'm supposed to be. That's the backdrop for everything. Yeah. This idea that like Lestathe's.

is calling in Magnus his liberator versus his tormentor, it is very complicated in the books. Like he gets turned and like all of a sudden his like fear turns into something else because it's just sort of like it's quite complicated, this idea of like this godlike figure who has turned you into a godlike figure and what that means. But I love this email we got from our listener, Jessica, who said it was an extended therapy session for Lestat and the whole episode picks apart how we as people process their trauma through art. There's the superficial and the pure, and they both have a place. Lestat has always been an artist and found escape and expression through that. He overcame his stutter and found his bliss as

an actor, performing in comedian del Arte as Lillio, not Harlequin, Armand, that heightened, stylized version of reality was his salvation and escape from his past. Even his persona as the wolf killer was a put-on to protect himself from his trauma. What he really loved and could not achieve himself was the, quote, pure music that Nikki produced. His performance was so compelling, though, it had captured the wrong kind of love and attention and brought Magnus into his life, and things get worse from there. This is a cycle he'll repeat the facade of who he pretends to be, obscuring who he is and wants to be. Now in the present day, he's still performing a heightened, cliche version of reality with his music. His music, like the comedian, is dated and over the top,

portraying the past as pastiche and easily digestible form, this time as a corny music video. But then there's the reality, those diary pages that were ripped out because the trauma was so great. Those awful secret moments that can only be addressed in violence and revenge like Louis does. That's what he can only touch when recounting his failures and running away. Lestat is only able to banish Magnus's ghost when he experiences a moment of pure wordless, wordless musical perfection. There's no artifice, just the music, and he gets a little bit of catharsis there. But will it be enough or will the cycle happen again? And then yada, yada, yada, yada, cacha. So I thought that was great, this idea of like artifice, art is expression, art as a passage to a deeper truth,

but also art as like a mask for the realities of what you're doing. You could do both. Absolutely. And Lassad often does. All right, Nikki, round two. How does all of this work for you? This was great. Yeah.

I guess we've hit on some of this already. But yeah, I thought this was like totally harrowing and gripping, just so upsetting to watch the I think again especially this felt like a really good way to link past and present on a number of levels because part of what

a lot of this is inside of their relationship, Nikki is like, I loved, you know, I want you to love it enough to love me enough to give it to me. Yeah.

This idea of what, how central are you in another person's life if they're your entire world, right? That's just like, that's the kind of context of all of it. for everything, right?

That really got me. This idea that you could have this great love with somebody. Something has changed. You know, and Nikki's like, Nikki has his struggles. But he also is like, don't fucking gaslight me into saying that this is not real. Like, your eyes are different. Right. You're leaving.

Bip marks on my arm. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. So all of that was great. And Lestat might have a more noble intention there of wanting to protect. him, wanting to soothe him, not wanting to expose him to something that is horrific and for Lassat, as we will see later in the episode, just hinted at, like, connected to, there's a new level of power and immortality, but also this, like, gaping raw wound of this horrible thing

that he has just suffered through. There's all of that. Yeah. But Gabriella is also there, right? And she's saying the things about Nikki to Lassat that we already talked about, but, like, I like the way that Nikki was talking about her, too? And like, what is she doing her? What happened? What aren't you telling me? Yeah. Just that dynamic, especially because as we noted last week, there was the, like,

what does Louis know about me exchange between Gabriella and La Stott? So this feels like very expertly done to me through three episodes, connecting these relationships. Yeah. Different people, different times in their lot in La Stott's life. But Gabriella is here and that's relevant for both of the. these relationships. So I thought that was interesting. I think that's really smart.

And I think that I don't know, I'm just so disturbed by Gabriela in this sequence. And all of this. I think Joseph Potter, who plays Niki does like a tremendous job with this unraveling. Yeah. And I thought

Assad Zaman being back as Armand was fantastic. Always welcome. He's like pining for Lestat in the box where he's like, I love you Lestat. Lestat. Christ. It was so good. There's not room enough in this box for your desperation. Absolutely killed me.

That was incredible. Gabriela has her own agenda here. She asked Armand about his maker Marius and evil quote older than him. Everyone has their own daddy issues in this show. Armand's like, I don't want to talk about my maker. We heard about him in season two. But as you mentioned, like a lot of this stuff was already in season two. We got sort of like the Armand kidnapping Nikki and tormenting him and Lestat saving him and all that sort of stuff.

But I think this is so hard to watch interesting adaptive changes here where in the book, Lestat and Gabriel have left because he and Nikki are not getting along anymore. It has soured. It's soured partially because when Lestat becomes a vampire, he can see inside of Nikki's head and he's like, oh, this is much darker in here than I knew it was. So that's tough, tough reality for those of us who are in therapy. It's okay. So people can see your internal self and be still love you. It's fine. I expect more empathy from Largaelostat, honestly.

But also like then Nikki is angry and then Nikki's love turns to hate and all the sorts of like. But Lestat leaves. But he's like, please take care of Nikki. And Armand's like, oh, I surely will. And then Armand takes Nikki's hands off to try to like get. him in line because Nikki's just like running around the city turning people, speaking of the great conversion. Nicky has just like no control and just running around and converting people to vampire in like plain daylight. And that's captured here in the orchestra pit scene where he like turns

around just like shouts about the tirata de vampire de vampire de vampire and stuff like that. But so Lestat's gone and he's like they're like, okay, by the way, like his other vampire friends are like, by the way, Armand took his hands and put the violin in the room where he locked him and That's kind of tough because he has no hands. And, you know, but Ramon's like, I was going to put them back. Like, I was just trying to get him in line. I was going to put it back, no problem. But then Nikki decides to dance his own ass into a bonfire and burns and dies.

All while Lestat is gone. Okay. So the change to make Lestat there for this, to make Nikki the one who takes his own hands and then to make Armand more actively involved, not in a tormentor sense, but almost in like a, it's a mercy what he does here. Right. It's a gift for Lestat and it's a gift for Nikki at the end of the day. So this is actually like a more sympathetic shading of some of the information we had about Armand

because in season two when Lestat's on trial and Santiago is talking about Nikki and he's like, he took his own life and Lestat's like with some help and then looks at Armand. You know, so for book readers, they're like, yeah, because Armand took his hands off and made him like even more unhinged than he already was. But in this version, it's like Armand helped by pushing him into the fire and using a poker to keep him there. Interesting. So that's an interesting change that I'm not upset about. I'm just curious about. Are we trying to shade Armand as a more sympathetic figure at the end of the day here?

Right. Or what the intention or what the result is from that. I like that it connects to a lot of these things, a little more of a sympathetic portrait of Armand there, but also like how this connects to Lestat. Looking back in what level of clarity is he able to bring when he does, right? So in real time, You know, you have Gabriella saying, as I warned you, his mind is curdled.

Couldn't be less sympathetic. Couldn't be less open-hearted and kind and inclined to. Gearing, mock. Yeah, horrific. Very, very upsetting. And then he's like, she went to coffin. Like, she just went to bed. She went to coffin.

She's just like, bye, I don't want to deal with this. The, like, plea in LaSat's voice when he says to Armand, the desperation, can you help him? please, wanting to provide to ease Nikki's burden in some way. And then with distance, the idea that Lestat, both because as we hear in this episode,

he's blaming himself, right? I didn't think that this was the right thing for Nikki. I got kind of like talked into it, maybe against my better judgment. And I, I ushered him into a type of life that led to this outcome, right? am I ready to like face that?

Obviously he on some level really is carrying that with him and feels that guilt and shame. That's very present, I think, in this episode. But isn't it easier also to just blame someone else for that? So to say like, well, Armand, wasn't this on you? Yeah. That feels very true to the spirit of Lestat where he is really actually introspective and deeply aware of his own insecurities and shortcomings, but so much then of how he lives his life is too. mask or spread the blame.

Yeah, or to try to like overcorrect in some capacity to balance out the scales. Yeah. There's some sort of vestigial remains of the idea that they were originally going to do the book version of this when you have in season two in Louis and Armand are fighting in San Francisco. And Louis says to Armand that half blank, half apocalyptic look, but what does it mean tonight? Do you want to lick my boots or chop my hands off? Right. So Louis's like, I know what you did to Nikki. Right.

And then in season two, when at the trial, Lestat recalls talking to Louis about how unwise it is to turn Claudia. And he says, her mind and her spirit will age, but the world will treat her as she is now and she'll be miserable and you will love her. And it will spiral beyond your reach. Obviously, he's thinking about Nikki there. And he's just sort of like, if you do this, it is not a gift to her. and it will not end well for you. And I know this from experience. What I think is really interesting

inside of this episode, you're so right to bring up the blurred lines of the vampire family because it's easy to think about like Louis and Lestat as the parents and Claudia as the child or Louis and Claudia as the children in Lestat as the parent.

But the way in which this episode draws a line between Lestat and Claudia as like, you know, twin flames, I think is really, really interesting. And obviously, like, the show has done that before. You know, Louis's, like, connection to Lest-on and his connection to Claudia, like, he has a type and they're sort of like capricious and, you know, and emotionally volatile and all these other things. But I thought the way, as you mentioned, those two strands are entangled over their assault and their creation inside of this episode, I thought was really, really good. I love that.

I think just in general a complexity of everything that the show is seeking to explore is just really, really. it's just a really rich text and very satisfying. Like I thought that, okay, we just talked about part of Halestat. Maybe it's about justifying a decision. Maybe it's a real belief. But he's like, I'm like freeing Nikki from something. But then what does he say? You know, he's describing it.

And he made just one sound, a low moan, as though he knew that in death it was a nothingness. And then that's when he like starts to hyperventilate. He pulls his mic off. He's like, I'm hungry. I have to get out of here. Confronting that. Is it a gift, a reprieve, a permanent reprieve? maybe, but the other thing that it is is an end, right?

Yeah. And that's a really heavy thing to have to carry and confront. And also for LaStat, talking about his own immortality, what waits, what awaits if that finally ceases? I think it's so interesting because this era in Lestat's life, this young 20s, when he has this huge crisis of belief and that low moan, that O, that perfect circle of the mouth and the low, the low. moaning, oh, that is a Lestat experience that he has. That's like a, that's a direct from the book, Lestat, realizing there's no God. And Nikki has to comfort him through it. And he's just sort of like, and he just like is moaning and saying, oh, and

Nikki's like, you got to get it together, my guy. And then to go through these stages of belief for Lestat, so Lestat is like vaguely atheist, doesn't believe that there's an afterlife. And then when he is assaulted by Magnus, he says, in God's name, get a way. way I shouted I had to believe in God now. I had to. That was absolutely the only hope I went to make the sign of the cross. And we get that in the real flashback of Magnus. We see Lestat, both in the car here and in flashback, reciting, you know, not the Lord's Prayer, but, but, you know, biblical passages, right? And Magnus is like, none of that, right? Like, okay. Then he's

turned. So Lestat believes in God when he's, like, being turned. And then once he's turned, if that quote if there was a god he did not matter now he's part of some dull and dreary realm whose secrets had long ago been plundered whose lights had long ago gone out this was the pulsing this was the pulsing center of life itself around which all true complexity revolves ah the allure of that complexity the sense of being there so this idea of like once he becomes a vampire then it's like it's not he doesn't believe in god he's like god is inconsequential the afterlife is inconsequential because I live in a, I'm existing on a different level now. You don't swipe God.

If that, if that's an incorrect interpretation of this, I'd be curious to hear because Anne Rice's like snarl of sort of like religion and supernatural and all these other things is something that I'm by no means an expert on. So I'd be curious of people of different interpretations. But I find that evolution of Lestat. So fascinating. The last thing I want to say about the Niki trauma and how it, how it echoes everything in the end of season two when louis comes to see listat uh in new orleans and lestat

heartbreakingly is like did you hurt yourself yeah so thinking about nicky driven mad by this you know louis has come to thank lestat for the dark gift he gave him right yeah and lestat's like did you did you hurt yourself do you walked into the sun and tried to like kill yourself and that is like thinking about nicky chopping his hands off and he's like what have I done to these beautiful boys that I was in love with, you know, and how have I tormented them? And for Louis to come and say, like, it's okay. What you gave me was a gift, actually, is this incredibly healing moment until the book comes out, you know. And then, thanks, Daniel, well, I think so much. Thanks, Daniel. Um, all right. What have we not said about this sort of

Magnus in the car, Bruce, Claudia, Louis thing that you want to touch on here. Boy, I mean, just Jacob Andrews its performance. Holy shit. I think on the Louis character beat front, this is one of the things we were just like texting about after watching it or like, God, was it in person? I can't even remember. Terrifying. No unreliable narrators, all of us.

I was so struck. This show has an ability to really, like, bowl. you over with a choice it makes. Louis has brought out the pages. They're pristine. This is a sacred thing in his hand. And the moment has come to read them to Bruce, the person who did this,

the monster who did this to Claudia. The pages are there, the words are there. They're preserved intact. He doesn't need to look at them at all. Every single word of that is in his head. It's in his heart. It's a mark on his soul. And I just thought that was like,

Because we see characters who go on quests of vengeance all the time. There was something that was conveyed through that choice. I don't need to look down to know every word of this, every sentiment, every beat of horrific turmoil and despair behind it. And I know when I reached the end that just like really shook me. But in a great way. It was an incredible performance. I really agree. And there was something about the visual of the pristine pages, even though obviously he's read them enough

to like memorize them. But the pristine pages in the sort of like in the in the in this zip lock bag. Yes. Immediately smeared with blood like you know the blood of the people, all the vampires that he has killed. And then he will burn them up eventually, you know. But like there was just something about that. It's just sort of like I'm taking this out of the case where it has been and I'm bringing

it into the real world now and I'm smearing it with blood. What did you think of Bruce's Talia-esque posture once he got his spine ripped out? And then his jaw broken. The slump. The slump. You know, no one does it like Talia Ghul, ultimately. Bruce's second on the power ranking here. But pretty, I thought, I mean, obviously it's like when Louis pulls the spine out and kind of like sends the little bone ship scaring.

Horrifying. The fact that he is then describing something that has been done. to Claudia and you understand that he is like recreating something very specific and intentional deliberately. It was haunting. I also thought what I loved about the sequence, I mean, I love is complicated. It was very harrowing to watch, but extremely well done. I thought the way in which it's just Claudia's words. Yes. Like from the moment he sits down and pulls the pages out, except for the part where he says like, this is crossed out. Right. It's just what Claudia said. Yes. You know, and not him editorializing and not him saying, like, how could you or anything like that?

It's just in Claudia's words, this letter. Right. And the complicated nature of Claudia talking about how hard it was to like herself after everything happened and also the ways in which she, like, made nice with him to a certain degree sometimes. The way she did feel connected to him in certain degrees and how complicated that was and how repulsed she was with herself about that and how that feeds into LaSotte and his relationship with Magnus. and now it's like this horrible thing was done to him without his consent, right? You know, Magnus does in the book and in here there's his language about like, you have to ask for it. Yeah. But he doesn't, ultimately, at the end of the day.

He does not ask for it. And he is just sort of like the way the blood is spilled down onto Lestat's mouth and he's spitting it out. And it's just like, it's horrifying. Yeah. The, the, the, the, we have heard these things about Claudia, but I, I really, I really. agree with you to hear them in her words in such a unvarnished and there's no room to escape for the people in the scenes for us at home. Yeah. What has happened here? Right. There is something that is clear and intentional. I think there's a version of the editing choice here that's,

that goes wrong. Like, I think there is a way that you could cut between these two things and like, potentially, and I don't know, I don't actually know, I don't want to like imply that everybody thought this was, uh, well done. They might not. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, this is a, can be a very personal thing to, to receive in art. Um, so I want to, I want to acknowledge that, of course. I thought that something that in lesser hands could have really gone poorly and gone,

gone, gone, run a foul of some sort of like, why try to imply a link this cop. Yeah, yeah. assaults. I thought that what this did to help us understand an experience and an atrocity that is so personal and individual and specific to them, but also helps us understand the emotional space that they're inhabiting. But then what they do, what Claudia and Lestat, the choices that they make that are very different as a result of the things that have happened to them. but also the choices they make that are the same. Yeah, exactly. Like, what becomes a cover and a mask?

What is a pain and a wound that guides you? And, like, obviously a really awful aspect that is explored in art and shows and books, but of real life, is that often victims of atrocities feel like they need to, like, justify what has happened to them. That is just a horrible true thing, right, that happens to people. And so, like, I think there's something really powerful and poignant about seeing how two characters, like, dealt with a version of that. So I thought this was, like, really upsetting, but in an effective way that helped me understand the characters, the show, and the aspects of humanity that it is interested in exploring. and what an immortal life, what a longer life does to you. Some of that is I have more time now to lean into my power and to make changes and to discover

something new about myself that I didn't get to do before. And some of it is a longer road to carry your own pain with you. I thought this sequence at the end of the episode captured that in a way that was pretty astonishing to me. So I just really, really loved it. And then, you know, there are also the moments, like, obviously I think it's important, as you already said. I think it's a great point that this is very much about Claudia and Lestad. It is also still true that we do see things about Louis.

Like, he's so composed, there's a break, though. He gets up and he, I mean, he's ripped Bruce's spine out, to be clear. But, like, that moment where he gets up and just, like, tears his lip off, basically, little things like that. And even, you know, I guess on the, not to. shift gears from the really intense subject matter here into like the, oh, what are we being primed for in a kind of like larger, like, lower mythology of the moment from,

but, you know, we should note that just the wall, you know, you had noted, you had, you had, uh,

remarked upon the honey trap. Mm-hmm. Language from, was at in the beginning of the season for baby janks. So obviously that's like, and you know, we'd seen the killer tattoo. So this is all like her,

the relationship with Bruce. All of that is confirmed. But getting to this farm, the house and the, um, the blanketing of Armand told the truth. Armand told the truth and these pictures of Lestat everywhere. Yeah. So this question of just like, what is going on here? What's the larger agenda? Right. Yeah. Is it Bruce, does it originate with Bruce or is there a bigger conspiracy here? Yeah. And like there was that

little nugget earlier too from Daniel where he was talking about the Feng gang. Like it was, they were, this was organized. And he's like different from the other two attempts on your life on the tour. There were a lot of little things like that in the episode. Harbingers. Yeah. Portets and signs. Sines and portents. But I thought Louie's response.

Because, like, you know, we have Lestat constantly ripping Armand. But Louis was like, what the fuck does that mean? Yeah. Which was really interesting, too. So I thought that was, it's really hard to balance all these things in one episode of TV, but this episode managed to do it. I managed to do it all with backing track of T-Rex's jewel, which is like, I love, we already got a T-Rex mentioned this season of just sort of like the way in which Lestat's band is like a bit of a T-Rex rip-off, but like to play some actual T-Rex here was incredible. Again, I love that band. But what did you make of, you know, Delaney comes in as this new, this waitress character. We'd already heard Louie talk about this. Talk about this. But then we see him there back at the diner. Right. And there she is a different accent, right? The actress's native accent. She gets to be British. Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about that?

I thought this was really interesting and good. I mean, the fact that Louis, like every other character feels pulled back into the past and this unescapable thing. His ghosts. The ghosts. It was chasing a ghost. Louis found Bruce and turned him into a pile of ash after pulling his spine out and getting to read Claudia's words to him. Did he then say, and now I feel better? No.

He went and sought out that ghost. We had just heard him last episode say. and it wasn't her. But the idea that you could find your way to approximating this thing that you can't let go of is like very sad, very, I think. He wants to tell her. Yeah. I did it. But he can't.

And it's too late. It's too late for actual Claudia. She's gone. And so in a particular set of circumstances that we as non-vampires obviously can't understand, there's something so, I think, relatable about this idea that like you would always be thinking about the thing you didn't get. to say to somebody who was gone, right? But also it's like, I worry for Louis. So it warms me to him, but like it makes me concern. Plus, all of this was an errand that the telemaska sent him on. Right. You know what I mean? Or at least Raglan sent him on. So like, what is the larger agenda

there? Like, you know, was it just cleaning up like fentanyl distribution in, you know, in the Michigan area or, you know, what was their agenda? And what, you know, the rules of like who vampires can kill, this is obviously like a huge part of season two, right? Louis and Claudia are on trial because they tried to kill a stat and that's against the rules. Only a coven leader can kill. So like Armand can kill Nikki because Nicky's in his coven. So he's allowed to as a covenant. That does not break any laws. But Louis's like, fuck your vampire laws and has been like, you know, for a while. So like all the people that he killed at the end of season two and all by people, I mean vampires, and all the vampires that he

killed here. Like technically this is against the vampire law for him. him to do this, but it's like, you know, and Daniel's killing him and Sam's killing them. So, like, the wheel are coming off. Right. These ancient rules. Our main characters are like, fuck your rules, which, yeah, feels exciting and right. And also, like, a little bit of quicksand for the characters to all exist on. I think whether it's something like a structure and a group, like the Talamazka, or, you know,

what is going on with these various covens in different places, the great conversion, what sort of uniting threat is there around all of this? Even something, again, I think the way that the episode connected, very intimate personal things with, like, the larger macro text, which's really impressive. Because to go back to like the Claudia Lestat reveals, there's a version of like, okay, Lestat has told Daniel a really true thing. He has also withheld certain things that we, as you noted, will access in the car sequence with, with Magnus and the spin and the crash. Magnuson is crisp white tea. Switching up with a fit change, mid-alucination. Yeah.

I like that Listat is like, I don't owe you my truth, right? In a story that is about what is true and interrogating that and challenging the characters, it's like you can decide what part of yourself and your experience is to share with somebody. Like, that's not up to them. That's up to you. But whether it's like, we're making this documentary or I'm recording the, the, the, the, failures or there are these bodies like the Talamazka who are trying to point us towards something or what is Gabrielle up to? What's going to happen with Kasha? It's like, well,

somebody is trying to gain access to or weaponize something at every point. Worrying. Last and not least, well, we've got one CODA after this, but like this, the song, Loneliness, which I loved and this idea of silence, I just want to sort of run through some textual stuff here. So there's this, the, you know, I'm just going to pull a Daniel Malloy here and look at some lyrics, right? Some of the lyrics in loneliness are don't worship that grave, dug on your own, don't burn alone.

I think that's about Nikki, right? Like this idea that like Nikki in the book is like wants to become a vampire because it's him leaning closer into the skid of death more than more than it is, I want to be immortal. I want to like be powerful. So don't worship that grave. like don't burn alone like all of that um but this this idea of the nature of silence and loneliness as a maker so like once in the book once listot turns niki and gabriella gabriel sophia whatever you prefer he can no longer hear their thoughts but they can hear each other and the book spends like

they spend a good amount of time talking to each other gabriel tries to train nicki else or so like that and the same thing happens with louis and then and lestat like louis and claudia so like lestad is on the outside of Louis and Claudi can talk to each other telepathically. Right. Nikki and Gabriella can talk to each other telepathically. Right. But the maker cannot hear that and how isolating that is. And this is a quote from the book,

The Dark Trick Never Brings Love You See. It brings only, I think this is Armant talking, it brings only the silence. We used to say it was Satan's will, that the master and the fledgling not seek comfort in each other. It was Satan who had to be served after all. But this idea of like this idea of loneliness for Lestad and how disconnected he feels from his mother, despite their unnatural closeness, from Nikki, from Louis, from Claudia, how he's just on the outside of all.

And the people that he is like who are reaching for him, Armand, he does not want. You know what I mean? So just like how lonely all of that feels to him. And now he tries to sate that loneliness by performing to at least a thousand people, you know, sort of thing. There's also that moment where Gabriella and Magnus, the real Gabriela and the vision of Magnus turn and walk out during the performance. Yeah. I loved that.

And again, this is like, this goes back to this idea of like Gabriel and Magnus both declining to parent Lestat in a way that was helpful for him. Is this him exercising demons? Like, you know, Nikki stays, by the way. But Magnus walks out and Gabriela walks out, right? Right. Is he exercising demons there or are they turning their back on his plaintive cry of like, who will ever, how could anybody ever love you? You know, and they just like coldly turn their back on him.

They, this is a quote for the book, they never satisfy you the ones you make in silence the estrangement and the resentment only grow. It's devastating. Sheesh. Nikki left him, Claudia left him, Louis left him, Gabriol left him. you know, like, well, blah. Magnus left him. Lestat, sat. I feel like he's better off without Magnus, but it's...

You know what, I agree. And also Gabriel, I would say. And also kind of Nikki, who was annoying me at the end. And... But Louis and Claudia, okay. Man. Last not least, Vampires Anonymous. That's...

Uh-oh. Alex. Alex. Danger. You know, he was warmed. He was warned. I got real... As soon as the camera started to pan around the circle, I was like, let's fucking go.

Yeah. You're like, arm on. Armand. Really happy and excited to see him. And obviously the like, I'm an addict. Vampirism as a form of addiction. But he calls himself Arun, his original name. Really.

And I thought Assad, like, we should be scared for Alex. He is most likely there for Alex. Like, there's no way that's a coincidence. However, yeah, what's true about what Armand is saying there? I'm an addict. I mean, if you think about him in that box and he's like, I love you, Lister. incredible. The way it was with Louie, too.

There were a lot of moments in this episode where I think we got to see ourselves on screen. Just like not being able to help but burst out. I love you, Lestat, really one of them. I thought also Lestat, before he kind of puts on the cover of like, I'm just fucking with you. The genuine, obvious, like, I'm as stressed out as I've ever been having a panic attack break

when he's like, uh, 40, 40 shows and 43 days and no one cares. I was like, I'm pretty sure I shouted that to Adam last night. You're like eight podcasts in four days. Nobody cares. Relatable. Relatable content. We have a long day in front of us today.

Okay. Let's go down to book spoilers. Yes. Tell me. All right. So Akasha has pyrokinetic powers. So she can just like look at a vampire and they burst in a flame. That's a thing that she can do.

Amazing. Very special. Yeah. But did not as far as I could determine ever explode a Toronto skyscraper. Okay. So I don't know if this is her Like I guess those could extend to like blowing up vampires and also just blowing up buildings, I suppose But if this is Akasha, it's earlier than anyone would expect her to enter the plot

So if she's just like already here causing blackouts and taking down skyscrapers and just like doing her shit in the background Yeah That's earlier than anyone to expect her to be here or is it the Talomasca for some reason or is it Raglan for some reason? I don't I genuinely don't know Right the answer to that I'm curious to find out. But I don't know. Is it Armand? I don't know. Could be. Maybe it's just a lot of home runs from the Toronto Blue Jays. This is just a book spoiler section where I'm like, I don't know what's happening. Is there anything on the Regina Claudia front that's worth noting here? Like, what? This is not a character. Yeah. So there's like Claudia's ghost, haunts. Okay. Lestat and Louis. And there is like a like a attempted like saunce to connect to Claudia and stuff like that.

like, will they use this, like, vessel for that or something like that? Is that what's happening here? Or is it just a way to have Delaney and the show? I don't know. But it's like, it's definitely a departure. But it could connect back to some of these other things that happen. Yeah, I'm curious, like, is Louie just like, I'm not ready to let go and I need to be around this person who reminds me of Claudia who is gone, even though I know it's not Claudia? Does she actually look like that? Or, like, if someone shows up, is it going to, is she going to not look that much like Claudia? Great question. You know, I don't know. But I was wondering, is he going to, is this like a vessel? Is he going to find, is he going to try to find some way to restore some essence inside of this form?

That was the other thought I had about Daniel. Because, again, I would be, I don't have any book context for, like, Daniel's death. But the language is, like, a brief, I wrote down the wrong word. It's not inconsequential. It's incidental life as a vampire. Yeah. Is there any way he, like, gets unturned as a vampire? vampire. So it's not that he dies. He's just no longer a vampire. Oh, is that? I don't know. Oh, my goodness.

I don't know. I don't know. I have no book context for that, but I don't know. Jeez. But I was just like, is that the way they get around the language of like, but, but when Jake says like, he dies bad in terms of Daniel. That seems specific. Is it just Bogosians? Like, I'm, um, I've, I've, I've given you three seasons of so much sass. I bear, you know, I'm like, bared my ass for you in the bus shower. I'm done. I took a, mid bus. Yeah. to a shower. I've had to pour both chardonnay and Gatorade. Tough one for Gatorade, by the way. It's interesting that it wasn't the yellow Gatorade. It was like the white clearish Gatorade. I love a Gatorade. Oh, I mean, a Gatorade Frost is like delicious. Okay. I love.

Well, poured down the urinal. I love a Gatorade for, especially like out on the beach, wonderful. Yeah, on the Daniel Lestat like Harpenter front too, I thought the, I was, again, I have no clue, but I was wondering the, a mean spirit of telepathic, telepathic prank, a price paid for amusing my muses. It brought poor Dan to his knees and seated a hate for me inside him there to be watered in the sunlight later like hate seated watered in the sunlight felt like such specific language. I know what that is a bit. Okay. In that like Armand is a day walk like day walker. Yes.

Salamander was happy to share. Right. So like water like Kenny, the idea like gifts being passed down from your maker to you, right? So like kid Dan daywalk. It's not just a low-hanging ball's gift. Right. Well, but you need your maker to show you what you've been given.

Lestat has the cloud gift. There are some people asking if Louis had the cloud gift in this episode, but I just think he just had Mad Hops getting up on that portico above the front porch there. Incredible. Real like Jar Jar Bing's dunking energy from Louie. When talking about Jarjar. But Armand is a daywalker. Interesting.

So Daniel could be a daywalker. I mean, it would be helpful if Daniel is going to still. pretend to be a Pulitzer-worthy journalist if he could interview sources during the day. Just throwing that out there. Watered in the sunlight. Interesting. Interesting. Great detail for you to note. All right. Anything else? I think I think that's it. I'm excited to, I'm sad. There are only four episodes left, but I'm excited to watch episode four and see what happens next. Please keep the emails coming, Hobbits and Dragons and Gmail.com. I really appreciate

everyone's insights. Fantastic stuff from you all. Thank you to our Coven here. Jacob Cornett, Carlos Chiroboga, Scott Lee, Arjuna, Rae, and Jomey, Adon. squad. We'll be back with a deep dive of House of the Dragon, amongst many other podcasts that we were recording this week. We're fine. This is fine. I'm fine.

Bye.