House of R - ‘The Vampire Lestat’ Episode 6 Deep Dive

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

Mal and Jo dive deep into ‘The Vampire Lestat’ Episode 6! They also check back in on Episode 5! They discuss the introduction of Akasha, a séance, and the best song of the season so far. (00:00) Intro (05:27) Opening Snapshot (28:00) Let’s begin at the end (41:10) The queen arrived! (01:00:08) “Stained Glass Eyes” (01:05:52) “Dick Salt” (working title) (01:10:31) Dan gets a suntan (01:14:49) Exorcising demons (01:21:45) Back on the bench (01:28:08) A roundup of fun and funny things (01:33:17) Book spoilers! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin Producers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott Lee Studio Production: Jacob Cornett Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No, you're not dreaming. It's House of Our Vampire Listad, a little early in your feeds. I'm Joanna Robinson joining me today. The beautiful, the luminescent, the queen of the damned herself, Mallory Rubin. Straighten your tie. Inflate your lips, be it facial or labial. We're back. I just hit us, what was the other? You were deciding between two. What was the other one? Really tore between that and bought a retirement villa, a wallpapered her basement sex dungeon with billable hour invoices, which, like, like, goals. Yeah. Like, Christine could not be more Mallory goals quoted.

We're going to talk about episode five, New York, which is where those lines came from, and also episode six, Montreal. That's right. In which a lot of stuff happened, and we'll get to all of that. Don't lose your head right after this. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales,

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We had missed last week, but we're doing a double dose this week, and then we will be here at some point for the finale. We don't have... We don't know for the finale yet, so we don't know if we're getting them. Monday, the 20th at the absolute. At the latest. At the latest. Yeah.

Probably. Yeah. We'll be my guess. House of the Dragon. That's right. A really fun special talk of Thrones is coming. For y'all. This week, also the deep dive.

That's right. I'm excited. Same. It's been so fun to cover this season. Thrilling. And then what do you call in the other ones that we're doing this week? Oni and Appy. We have our last Christopher Nolan revisited podcast on Oppenheimer.

Our hope and dream is for Sean Fentasy to join. for that. He's currently out of the country. Currently in Canada, but if he makes it back, that's the plan. We have a lot of, like, if the schedule cooperates stuff in the mix right now, but that's the goal. And then, of course, a little film. Would you say Sean Fennessey is the atomic bomb of the ringer? Has Sean Fennessee ever sat nude in a hotel armchair, legs crossed at exactly the right angle? The Robert J. Oppenheimer.

The bomb. Well, you know, these are both good. and reasonable questions, I think. We've been watching all of these Nolan movies. Folks, The Odyssey arrives next week. It's finally time to cover The Odyssey. And we have seen it, and it is amazing. It is incredibly good.

We can't wait to pot about it. We're going to try to see it again before we do a deep dive on that. And that's going to be the end of next week. We have a lot of podcasts coming in the feed next week. We're like a week and a half, two weeks. I don't know. How far away is Comic-Con not far? So stay tuned for more information about Comic-Con.

We'll be there. The Midnight Boys Pew Pugh will be there. We've got a lot of good stuff coming up. It's an exciting time. So follow the pod. Why not? Watch us on YouTube or Spotify, wherever you get your videos.

Not wherever, but some places. And we're on social at House of our pod. Mm-hmm. And you can email us, Hobbitz and Dragons at gmail.com. Do it. The inbox is always open. It is.

Spoiler warning. Yeah. informed by our knowledge of the vampire listat, Queen of the Damned. And there's a passage from the book Merrick is going to be read in this episode, but it's not spoiling anything because it's released to something that happens in episode six of Vampire Listat. Like all of the other books, I have read not a page nor a word of Merrick, so it's all new to me. And I'm excited to learn from you, my maker in all vampire things.

My beautiful fledgling. The only thing is I don't want you to... Don't you think you were my maker? Well, it's all a circle. Okay. You know? Yeah, we're a little like snake eating its tail here on this podcast. I think the only downside of a maker fledgling relationship in either direction.

The only one. The only one, literally the only one I can think of. I wouldn't want to not be able to communicate telepathically with you. I know. You know, though I think we could still do a lot of like meaningful eye contact and we know what the other person's thinking. I have a question. This is like before opening snapshot, I'm just going to get right into it. The beginning of this episode.

of this episode, episode six rather, Lestat, like, sends a telepathic message to Alex. Alex. And then later he says something to Gabriel about, like, his, so do you think Gabrielle made Alex? I do. And that's why Lestat and Alex can. But, like, then I'm surprised you couldn't, like,

read Alex's intentions. Maybe it's sort of like, you know. Or the love fog, the fog of love that Daniel keeps talking about back on that bench with Louis, talking about the future. Talking about what blooms at night? just a wonderful sequence in this episode. I was also very much in a heated rivalry, like the cottage headspace

when he talked about having. He said cabin, I think, that cottage, but still. Why was I envisioning like a mobile home? Why was I envision a list out Louis would live in a mobile home? I think what Louis was describing had a real, like,

what's it called, an airstream? Yeah, I was thinking of them in an airstream. First of all, should we get one? Yeah. I think that sounds great. Should we drive an airstream to Comic-Con? Why not? Honestly, it would be a quick comedian. That would be wonderful.

Yeah. We could take turns. It's like a three-hour drive, but we both, I think, are exhausted and can use a nap so we could alternate, you know, stretches on the five, a little power nap. That sounds great. Wonderful. All right, quick facts. Episodes five and six, New York and Montreal. New York directed by 11 Aiken, Aiken.

Montreal directed by Jane Wu. Really fascinating choice for a director of this episode. If you look at Jane Wu's CV, Marvel Storyboard artist, a supervising director of Blue Eye Samurai. worked on Into the Spiderverse House of the Dragon. She's just, like, kind of touched everything that we care about. It's incredible. I love it. She's very, like, having gone from, like, storyboard artist to director, she's done a lot

of, like, action-based stuff and visual stuff. So it's really interesting that this episode, Montreal, which is such like a walk-and-talk episode, it's not a big action episode. She's just a fascinating choice. I'm really interested as to why she was the choice here. Episode 5, New York was co-written by Daniel Hart, composer of the show. And Hannah Moscovich, who's one of the exec producers on the show. And then Montreal, co-written by Ryan Katner, who's in the band, the Vampire Lestad, is the Vampire Salamander now.

An icon. And Kevin Hanna. So I don't know exactly how that all broke out that Daniel Hart and Ryan Katner got writing credits on these episodes. But that's very cool. And I loved these episodes. Spoilers. So quickly before we get into, I mean, I think we've already said that we like these episodes, but before we get into that, I just really quickly want to mention great news from AMC's Dan McDermott, who's one of the chiefs at AMC on the future of the franchise in an interview with Leslie

Goldberg at the Ancler. Leslie just took sort of like a big picture look with Dan at the state of AMC and sort of why, you know, they're getting into like more horror content, franchising, all that, you know, they have a long history with horror with The Walking Dead, but they They're just, like, really leaning in in that direction. How are witches and vampires and all these things, the future? And zombies, of course, always. Natural. The future of AMC.

He said in that interview that the vampire list out is massively outperforming their projected streaming numbers. I love it. That's wonderful. And then he spoke about wanting to planning to do at least two more seasons based on Queen of the Damned and Tale of the Body Thief. And so it sounds like any question of like, is there going to be more of this show? I think there's no question. There's going to be more of this show. How many more seasons?

I don't know. But they seem like the show, as we've already talked about, both in the spoiler section, and out has really set up for Queen of the Damned and Tale of the Body Thief. So like both of those books are definitely, definitely the writers on the show are like, we're hoping and planning that we get to tell those stories. But it sounds like the studio is also like, yeah, let's tell those stories. Well, here's a question. Yeah.

I mean, this is great news, obviously. Will your outfit change when we're covering those future seasons? because this is, I think, probably appropriate for all seasons of this wonderful show. But this is very much a way to honor Lestat, the rock star. Oh. So will you have a queen of the damned fit? Will you have a bad fit? I don't know.

I have no idea what a body thief fit would be. Are you prepared to commit right now that you will come in costume for future seasons? You all did let me expense this coat. I have been reimbursed for this coat. So if you're going to let me expense future, like, who the damn fits? Let me know. Sure. Why not?

Also, fun fact for, I don't know why you'd be listening to podcast necessarily if you haven't, aren't able to watch list that. But it is hitting Netflix July 20th for certain international markets, but not for the U.S. yet. So like, but I think sooner than. Sooner than. Sooner than you would think is what I think is going to happen. This is, uh, let's make sure we text. Hit up the group chat tell CR. Because wasn't he sort of like once it's on Netflix?

I'll get into it. You better fucking follow through. That's great. Once the soccer is done, it's vampire time. All right. Mallory. Yes. Hey, Mallory Rubin.

Yes. Did you like these episodes of television? I did. I'm just having such a great time with the season and I'm sad that it's ending. I'm really, I mean, I'm just one more episode. I know two today, so I don't want to think about the end of seven while we still have five and six to discuss. But one more new hour awaiting us is pretty. pretty sad. I'll be sad when it's over, though looking forward to revisiting it, not only this season, but the whole series. Yeah. That'll be really fun. Um, I texted you my, I have had captions. For some reason, I had the ability to, uh, to activate the closed captioning and you didn't on the screeners previously. They have vanished for me. And so my first watch through five, I was like, it's disorienting without the captions. Yeah. And it takes. And it

It takes forever because you're like, did they just say what I think they just said? Second watch through, I had a wonderful time. And obviously, you know, for me with no exposure to the book canon and the book lore in this case and just like the kernels of the mentions of Akasha, the mentions of the queen, what I've learned on the pod so far, that felt like a really big monumental thing to have the full Akasha experience or the first full Akasha experience inside of episode five. I thought episode six was extraordinarily good. That was my favorite of the season so far.

Episode three had been the high mark to that point, but I thought Six was just incredible. Hard not to love an episode that really roots us back inside of the LaSat-Louis relationship again. Yeah. The comedy of it, but the heart of it, the way that they are saying such awful things to each other. Well, more so in one direction, which then becomes fodder for like, you're being very judgy. And also, like, when you called and I needed you, I showed up and where's that in turn? It's a great point for him, Lestat. But you did fuck your mom.

It's fascinating. Also, you got some blood vom on my kicks. So I'm glad you mentioned that because I did want to note, while I love Louis, and have a lot of room in my heart for watching these two vampires who we adore, struggle and make mistakes. For just a couple hours removed from watching Louis, now months in the canon of the show, but hours for us, watching Louis pull out Bruce's spine with his bare hands. But when he gets a little blood vomit on his shoes, he's like, on the, like,

They wore nice shoes. Platform checks. Is that what they were? Probably a designer version of them. Yeah. Very good shoe. They look fantastic. The Claudia or, and let's just chef's kiss, Lestat, Fraudia.

It was amazing. So good. That whole seance, the introduction in the show of Merrick, I really thought that was mesmerizing that entire sequence. The performances are sensational. And there's just these moments where, again, one of the things I've appreciated about this season is like trying to understand and read something in a look. So like when, I think probably one of the moments we both love the most was Lestat serenating Louis as

Gabriela watched them, watch each other. But even just before that, I'm going to start crying right now. It's like so good. The really charming, I was chuckling in that way that you like kind of like feel yourself smiling on reflex when you're just watching something that makes you happy. Lestat goes up for sound check. Gabriela and Louie are next to each other for the first time. Lestad is hamming it up. And there's the great, he's shy, it's hard to be him, like, wink, wink, we've never spoken, but we both understand this person in our own ways. And then we watch him, Lestat, use the cloud gift, just kind of like bop around the rafters on set. It was such a perfect little encapsulation of the dynamics of the show. And then to

watch Gabriella, like the look on her face is she's turning and looking at Louie and try to understand what is going through her mind in that moment, I just thought it was great. Obviously, wild Daniel and Armand stuff in this episode. The Larry, almost called him Patrick, Shitzkriek, High, for Eyes always. The Larry stuff was harrowing. It was just really, really good two episodes, and episode six, I thought was just amazing. I really, really agree. I think having these absolutely show-stopping scenes for both the Akasha character and for

Claudia, for those actresses to just, like, really, really stop us in our tracks. We're going to talk about the Akasha scene, of course. But I just thought that was like jaw-dropping. And like, it's funny, I was watching with my best friend Diana. And she loves both ironically and also kind of not the Queen of the Damn movie, which is a terrible movie, but like is one of her favorite movies, but is a terrible movie. And like, she knows that. And I was worried because, like, I know a lot of people are really attached to Aaliyah's performance of Akasha. And so there's like a lot of expectation around.

that. It's a very different performance. And so then I was like, I turned to Diana and I was like, I had already seen it. I was like, did it, did this Akasha work for you? And she's like, Aliyahoo, essentially. She was just like, this is incredible. And I mean, like, with love and respect to Alia, but it was just sort of like, this is just absolutely astounding stuff. It was so good. In like minutes, mere minutes of airtime. I cannot wait to spend more time in that character. So I thought that was incredible. I thought, you know, we've had some questions about the Regina character and like what they're doing with Claudia this season and all this sort of stuff like that. And so for this to be the payoff, this seance scene, which is drawn from another

book, which we'll talk about, but like was just, uh, so hard to watch. Painful. And just like an incredible, once again, showcase for that actress. So, uh, just incredible, incredible work for those women. And then, yeah, and then Louie and Listad, our guys. I also think that, that Gabrielle, uh, Gabrielle, Gabrielle is seen that you're described. describing with Louis, the two of them sitting there, that's the most I've enjoyed that character and that performance. No question. You know, she's like, I'll protect you.

Like all, you know, her whole like, you shouldn't come. Like, all of that stuff. Like, all of her scheming, all of her whatever, all of her jealousies. All of her trying to be charming, but Louie is not into it at all. It's just, I loved that exchange between the two of them. And I was just sort of like, this is the Gabrielle. I wish we, I had, I wish I had had had had. this response to more of her this season.

Yeah, same. I really, I found myself quite taken with her in this stretch, which was really fun. And I think that overall, because you could put some of the Daniel moments for sure in this bucket as well, this was a great stretch of the series of the season for like, how do I put this? So much of the show is, by design and intention, overt and in your face, right? Like, it's flashy, it's showy, it's supposed to be. Lestat is that character, especially this season. Right. And there are a lot of moments in these episodes where the characters are saying things out loud and interrogating,

why do I behave this way? Why do I do the things that I do? Who are we? Why are we here? We love that. Are we evil? Yes. Am I evil?

And then paired with that, a lot of moments where you were trying to just look into someone's eyes and understand the truth of what they are not sharing, either with the other people in the conversation. or maybe even with themselves. Like, what are they not ready to acknowledge? What don't they understand? So it was a great, I think six in particular, a great episode for, like, motive, right? What motivates characters to behave a certain way? And I think what's both interesting and maybe I think a little bit frustrating is, like, when you hear Roland and his writers and producers talk about this, they're like, oh, that Armand and Larry's seen in the subway. Or, oh, the introduction that we get of Marius, like,

you're not getting the whole story. There's more to that that you're not seeing. And part of that is like the, you know, the POV that we're in. The Marius we meet is the Marius that Lestat remembers. He remembers getting a 10-minute orientation and then Marius like fucking off. Like that's what he remembers. Is that truly what happened unclear? It's different from the Marius in the book.

And so Rollins like, we plan to do much more with that character. And like, you know, this is just a taste of him and there's more to come. Um, but, and that's intriguing, but also can sometimes be frustrating if you feel on the outside of, of a story that you're watching. Um, but to your point about sort of the outspoken literal existentialism that we hear from both Lestat and Akasha and, and some other characters. And then you get a moment like in episode five when Lestat goes to and clap size on, on Regina for the first time. And so good. And then she leaves. And so we just watch his face when she can't see his face. And then we watch him put the mask back on and the posturing back on in his incredibly stealth, hooty sunglasses disguise that he has on. But like that and then the lies that he's telling Louis and the core truth that he's telling

Louis at the same time when he goes out and it's like, it's nothing like her. I mean, it is and it isn't. And, you know, and all that's incredible. or in terms of like musical performance, I have been so excited all season about all the music and music is storytelling and all that sort of stuff. But we, you know, the way we have set it up to talk today, I wanted to talk about specifically about staying glass eyes, the song that Lestat sings about Claudia. And then you already mentioned Lestat serenading Louis. Like I think those are the two, I don't know what they had planned for the finale in terms of musical moments. How do you top that?

But like this singing, serenating Claudia's ghost. And then not just Lestat singing to Louis, but Louis's face while watching Lestat sing to him is just like ecstasy to me in terms of like musical performance as a heightened emotional delivery and singing the things you can't say. Yes. And all of that, you know. Those were my two favorite songs of the season.

Yeah. I would say by a comfortable margin, which, like, for me is maybe about musical style and taste. Yeah. But I did. I found myself listening to both of those. And I was like, I could see myself as like a teenager, you know, hitting just like repeat on my disc man time after time after time. Billboard does not agree with you. Fuck you, Billboard and bitchfork. Only in this fictional universe. The 3.01, so tough. Though Daniel then immediately invoking it to go to LaStat, very funny and very satisfying. I thought that the, you know, to your point about like music is expression and something that can unlock expression in a different form, which was one of the things we were, and I think in slightly different ways because you were a musical, like this was for you just, this is cocaine, right? And for me, I was more like, I'm interested.

But I think that idea specifically in a series that is very focused on point of view, pursue. perspective, some sort of emotional truth and reveal, how interesting it was for music to be the conduit to expression, right? And I love that those two songs, which felt like, I have also enjoyed the music all season, but did really feel like they transcended the achievement to that point. They achieved different things, I thought. Like, the first, the stained glass eyes was, to me, music is self, like as self-care, music is therapy. It's like LaSat working through what that encounter with Regina slash Fraudia called up inside of him. The serenade to Louis is like that, and I like thinking about is that supposed to be for

Gabrielle? Is it supposed to be for Louis? Could that answer be different depending on the moment? I think it's for both of them, but when he starts performing it, he is clearly looking at Louis. No question. Right. The blackening of the screen around them.

So everything else is blotted out. And then we see the jealousy of like one of our favorite narcissists, Gabriella. Like, wait, this isn't about me. Someone else has a greater hold on you than I do. And so this idea of like being able to convey something to someone who you have experienced a rupture with, like a seismic rupture. And that element of episode six was just both for character, like this relationship that we're invested in, but just more broadly. Like they're immortal vampires, but like they're also people or they were once. Yes.

And I loved the way that Lestat invoked. in their argument, you know, that half, that human soul, that half of you that you like to call upon, like, when it's convenient, basically, but that is there. And so what a human way to try to express. And then just the very organic, natural, like, flirtation and the half smile and look and, you know, down the, in the limo, first limo ride more flirtatious and charming than the second when things obviously went wrong. Tough to see that a person you're in love with is fucking their mom. It's not how you want to find out either. No.

Your current boyfriend texts you, hey, is this your ex fucking his mom? Incredible. I do like the idea that Daniel prodded Shirley by Armand is like, I'm just going to distribute this on my own. I'm uploading this. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's great. Independent journalism, we love it. The comp that I made in our notes here and immediately came to me for episode six was the film before sunset, the middle piece of the before trilogy.

one of my favorite movies. Any of those movies is a walk-and-talk movie, you know? And this, so you could slot it anywhere. But the way this hits before sunset is there's the like, it's not meeting someone. And it's not the like, okay, we're together. What does that mean? It's the reconnection. It's so funny.

I invoke this phrase all the time and then I had a listener email me and was like, Do you know that that's literally from just one film studies book? And I was like, oh, yeah, I read that in college. Okay, I thought it was a broader thing. But the comedy plot of remarriage, which is a phrase I like to talk to. But it's one of my favorite tropes. This is what much to do about nothing is about. This is what the Philadelphia story is about.

Like, it's we used to be together. We were apart. Now we've come back together. And there's just something undeniable here, despite all of our resentments and all the real reasons why it didn't work out the first time. There's something so strong here. But we know each other. and we know how to push each other's buttons. And so all, like that energy, that energy of like history hanging over you, knowing exactly how to cut someone, but also like, but I'm here with you.

And this is still something despite all that hurt. Yeah. And despite all that distance, there's still something here and it's worth pursuing. Yeah. And so it's one of my favorite storytelling, you know, contrivances. And so to have that here inside of this, you know, It's Halloween night. We start, we walk out of the apartment, and it's like, we have to meet with The Witch in a couple hours. And so we're going to have dinner with Dan and we're going to go to have a seance and we're go get our heads chopped off on a bench, you know. It's a busy day. But, you know, it's a one crazy night, which is another sort of trope that I love, meets the comedy plot of remarriage, like, which is not a thing, but I'll keep trying to make it a thing on a microphone.

and, you know, and it's vampires all inside of, and it's a musical, all inside of a show that I love. So thanks for this gift. You're thriving. I really appreciate it. You're thriving. I don't know how they can possibly top it with the finale, but we'll see. I'm excited to find out. I love the Before Sunset shout out. That's great. The Before Trilogy is one of my three favorite trilogies ever made.

I just adore those movies, as you know. And one of my hot take, child of divorce takes, which I think I said on the Before Sunset, that rewatchable's, but I can't remember, is that before midnight is actually my favorite. Because I'm a child of divorce. So I'm just like, there's something so raw and real about being like, even this great love. If we were to take the GQ best friend test and they were like, which of the before movies is Mallory 7? I'd be like before midnight, obviously. And the true answer is like my favorite before movie is the one I'm watching at that moment.

But like before midnight has a hold on me that is, I think, undeniable. Yeah. Because of the role that divorce or just like fractures in relationship of it has played in my life. life. But before sunset, before, like, there is something about, I think it's a perfect comp for this. And one of the things I really love about your observation is like, there's an interesting part of this with Lestat, where like thinking about Lestat and Louis through that lens of rediscovery, right? Something is really toxic or wrong or damaging in the relationship, but you're drawn to each other. There's a pull that is undeniable. There's a magnetism that will

keep bringing these characters back to each other. That's like also, and so when you say that and you think about the before movies, you want to think of it as a relationship, a duo that is like distinct, you think you watch this movies, you're like, well, I ever know a love like that, will I ever lose a love like that? Will I ever miss a love like that? You could, you could apply that description to Lestad and Gabriela. That like we are just, we hurt each other, we wound each other. Yeah, maybe, yeah. You know, this idea that part of an immortal life, part of just the span of time and the swath of time is like, do you find yourself moving back towards someone who has probably wounded you or who you have hurt seismically?

Yeah. Because the centuries will pass and you will both still be there. That's like, and I think that the love that, and the draw that Louis and Lestat have is in many respects different from. The one that Lestad and Gabriela have, to be clear, I think one of those is actually love and one of them is a needy, narcissistic, befowled obsession. Yeah. But still, like, the fact that Lestad is like, you left me in this episode again, it's like, why did you leave me? Which time? Yeah.

But here they are again. Yeah. This is interesting to think about. By the room you were three. Very tough. The stick stuff was so good. It was really funny. Oh, what does that stick to?

What a fantastic do? Incredible. All right. Let's go down to our deep-ish dive. Love it. All right. Because we are doing two episodes matched together, we're just going to sort of hit some buckets along the way. We're not going to go beat by beat in these two episodes.

And I just think we should begin at the end. Let's be it at the end. Wonderful. Which is the Halloween setting. Here we are sort of back where we started in Montreal. It's Halloween again. Two years have passed, which is interesting. Yeah.

The band has been together. Yeah. Alex at the beginning of the episode, Alex at the end of the episode. And then what I'm calling a fairly silly cliffhanger for a number of reasons. And I suppose if it had just been Lestat losing his head, I suppose some people watching at home could think, okay, we open this season, we hear that Lestat's dead. Is this how Lestat dies? Is he die because he gets his head chopped off on this bench? Right.

And hey, folks, maybe still that's true, but I don't think so. Sure hope not. I mean, they're making a lot of adaptive changes, so I actually don't know. We haven't seen the finale. I don't know what they're going to do. But I think there's no way we don't get a concert in the finale. I think that's a zero percent possibility. And also, we've seen Louis alive with his head on his shoulders.

Correct, yeah. Missing other body parts, but, like, his head is on his shoulders. So, like, Louis also being here, you're like, well, I know this isn't the end for these characters. Yeah. A reminder for folks at home that we were, you know, because I heard for some people who watch this episode and they're like, I'm sorry, what's going on? They cut their heads off. And I'm like, well, if you overanalyze every single word of every single episode, you will know that they've been laying track for this in terms of like the head that Louis cuts off.

Charger Bang's fan prequel kid. Yeah, exactly. And still talks to. Our guy Farid was like, hey, guess what? Certain class, you know, powerful older vampires can have their heads cut off and they can still be alive. So he said class B vampires can survive. So he said class B vampires can survive. for two hours after decapitation, but then went on to say, a vampire of Lestat's breeding could last four to five times that. So we had ticking clock. Eight to ten hours. But we've got a minute to deal with this.

And what was interesting to think back on there was that Daniel knows that. Oh, and Armand knows this. Yeah. So I don't think they don't think they're killing them? Right. Are they teaching them a lesson? We're going to have some theories in a second. I just really want to mention also one other thing.

thing, which is like, as Lestat may have mentioned once or twice, he has the blood of Akasha in him. So that makes him extra special. Has that come up? Yeah. Exterspecial juicy. Yes. And when he and Louis were sharing a pint in the bar, he put some of his blood at Louis' request into Louis' beer. And Louis' beer's like, this tastes fucking delish. Delish. He was orgasmic. He loved sipping on that blood beer. Yeah. Would you try blood beer? Hmm. If it's Lestat, maybe. Yeah, Lestat blood beer specifically.

Yeah, Lestat blood beer. Akasha blood beer, I would also try it. Put you on the ceiling. Why not? That looked fun. That looked like a party. Especially after the empty seat. Like, everyone's got their nameplate, but no one's there other than the cabbage.

So literal. The cabbage was so funny. And the moldy bread for Armand. Yeah. And then you're just sort of up in the ceiling. Yeah, yeah. Good time. But so Louis freshly sipped on some of Lestat's blood, which you might recall, has the blood of

Akasha in it. So, like, their, their, their, their, they're exorspers. special juicy right now. Juiced up on that blood. Great stuff. Yeah, so let's talk about theories. I think this is a really fun place to theorize because this is not a thing that happens in the book. And we have not seen the finale.

So what do we think is happening here? I don't know. So Armand does not want the great conversion to unfold. That seems like why, at least partially why he talked Larry into jumping in front of the subway. He's like,

anything to fuck up the band, I will do. Do you think he's just very, very, very familiar. Like, has he called up Elizabeth Fehrman, our wonderful live events lead? He's like, run me through a pre-event schedule. Okay, that's exactly when Soundcheck asked me. That's when this, uh, okay, doors at the... And he's just like, 8 to 10 hours.

If I just fuck up that schedule, I can't do the concert. That's so funny. Yeah. Is that what happened? Yeah. Do you think? Do you think they also eat California chicken... Yeah, that's the pre-show? The pre-show snack? Maybe. For the... Some pretzel chips? I love a pretzel chip. Yeah.

It's interesting because Lestat and Louis and Armand have such a depth of history. And Daniel and Louis and all of them have such history with each other. And like the rawness of the wound and that desire for vengeance is both deep and like newly fresh. Right. And there's been these like very ominous mentions of like, and that's when I super pissed off Daniel. And that's when I super pissed off and humiliated Armand. So like are these just sort of like fresh humiliations and Daniel? and Daniel Armand, freshly together, like, you know, it would be really fun.

Right. Fucking chopping off their heads. And, like, maybe they are trying to make it permanent. Maybe they're going to, you know, put La Stott's head in a bowling bag and just, like, you know, hide it so you can't reattach it. If you leave the head sitting there on a nighttime park bench for 10 hours, the sun comes up. Ooh, tough. So that's concerning. We need someone to show up and scoop up those heads.

So my theory. And take them away from the sunshine. Not that we think much of her, but my theory is that this is a job for Gabriela. because, or the vampire tough cookie, of whom I am a huge fan. Fantastic. But because there was that weird line earlier where Lestat told Gabriela to, like, give Alex some attention. And we saw Alex lurking about in his Dracula masquerade stuff, like really great and spooky. Like, Alex was quite spooky in this episode.

But like eyes and ears for Armand or whatever the case may be, trailing them the whole night, who's to say? But if Gabriella is nearby, then, like, she could. help. Another theory, this is just theories, again, because I don't know anything. But like, what if they do snap, like snatch up Lestat's head, but they leave Louis behind because he's less important. And then it's Gabriella and Louis have to work together to find Lestat's head to put it back on his body. I mean, that would be great. We probably only have 53 minutes left to put five-hour finale. That would be, or they just pop their heads right back on at the beginning of the next episode. I don't know. I like, yeah, thinking about

Gabriella as a character who could be in a position of devotion and attachment. Yeah, maybe there's a more... I don't think it's because she cares is because she needs the concert to happen. Practical aspect of it because it's like they're here to hear you sing the 50,000, like we got to give them the show so that she can then exactly enact her agenda. Yeah. Thinking about... So, Gabriella as Alex's maker, slash mother. Has she ever failed to properly understand the maternal presence in a young man's life before? Open to interpretation. You know, mileage may vary. What would the cabbages say? To pull, it's not just be present for Alex, it's pull him out of Armand's thrall. Thrawl.

Because we have not only, and we've been kind of since the minute we saw the, the, like, the AA meeting, the group. and then heard the way that Alex talked about Armand, you know, I don't want to use the word sponsor. God. In this stretch, these specific things that Alex said to Larry, mentioning like their, you know, him being a shitty goalie when they were kids, but you're a shredder with an axe. And then planting the seed about like you can rest now. By the way, I was thinking of in a more pure and less potentially very evil and manipulative way. I was thinking of Pepper and Tony, you know, and just like, it's so. rest now.

Rest now. But he was saying, Alex was saying to his brother, like, I know, and then Armand says it. And then Armand uses that exact language when he joins Larry at the subway station. So the idea of Armand using Alex as his wedge, his, to go back to that scalpel idea to cut into the band, we have to pull Alex out of that power. Right. So that's going to be hard. Is there, how do you do that quickly, given the grip that Armand holds? Oh, you feel like Alex could be, if Gabriella could use Alex to get to find out where Armand and Daniel have stashed the head by the finale.

Or just to compel him to basically work with them instead of Armand and Daniel or still be in the band. I mean, he does really feel strongly about making a good record. That's clear. On the Daniels list of grievances front, and it's long, how high do you think one has to ask, what is with the tan, Dan? Did you indulge it overshute your coffin again? How high up did that shoot on the list of like, fuck this guy? That was so funny. Did you connect with, given your current sunlight glow?

Daniel at the dinner. Yeah. When they brought in a descendant of the Leon Kodz. By the way, delicate and flowery, which sounds like a lovely description, I guess, if you're drinking a very attractive woman's blood. I was like, this is also kind of a dig because, like, delicate flour is like an insult, I think. Like, you're a delicate flower potentially. your blood is the blood of delicate flowers.

Like we're going to take you down. Maybe delicate flour can also be a compliment. I don't know if it wasn't at that dinner, but it certainly could be. I don't think anything that comes out of Dan's mouth is a compliment. So that's true. My stepmom likes to refer to my dad, me, all of us when we're sick and just as delicate flowers. So it certainly could be a term of endearment. I clocked it immediately.

I'm like, yeah, I guess. And you're like, these rubens are such delicate flowers. You have a cough and you're going to bitch and moan about it. for two weeks. It's like, I am. But Dan, yeah, Daniel with the like really red kind of swollen face, but then the pale skin around the eyes because he clearly had sunglasses on, which I don't really wear and I should because I live in Los Angeles. But I was like, that is definitely what I looked like coming out of July 4th weekend. Check the deep dive footage from Tuesday. In high school, like a bunch of kids that I went to high school with would go like to Tahoe

over the weekend to ski, not me, but they did. And they would come back with like these obscene goggled hands. Yeah. Obscene. Okay. Anything else you want to say about this beheading? Other than we don't think it's permanent. It simply can't be. I think it's kind of silly, but okay. You know, I like it as something to add to their trauma, the trauma bond.

Like this is, even if they just, the pop of those heads right back on. Going through it with Claudia wasn't enough. We got our heads lopped off together. Mutual decapitation on a romantic park bench, it's going to be something that bonds them further. So that's nice. I thought that the, why do I actively, manically pursue? failure. Maybe it's just a vampire's burden. What do you replace death with? What's to live for? If there's no end exchange that directly preceded the chopping of the heads. That was an intense thing to

think about. And we love, like, we talk about this with good place, stories where you're like, that's a different context, but, hey, there's no end in sight. Well, what do things, how do you find? Things matter is because they end. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and this idea of failure, you know, like the failures and sort of tracking when that gets reintroduce. Like, tracking when that voiceover comes back in, you're listening to Side B, you know, number 58, the failures or whatever. I think those moments are quite interesting to go back and sort of note when we are reminded that this is a massive failure for Lestat all of what we're watching. Not just according to Billboard and Pitchfork, but like, you know, objectively, whatever he was trying to do here absolutely failed. And he failed with Claudia and he failed with Louis and he failed.

and he failed with Gabriel and all this sort of stuff like that. And so when you hear Mario screaming, fail, fail as he's running out with Akasha, you know, that's another one of his failures. So I just think that's really interesting. But also like sort of his examination, like how ironic is this use of failures here at the end of the day or how sincere is it? I don't know. I love Lista up. And I want to support him in all of his endeavors. Not all of them.

Not the incest part. I'm sad stand with Louis. Don't fuck your mom. How brave. You shouldn't come in the door you came out of is iconic. Iconic. Iconic. The Marius Akasha, you are now the keeper.

He's like, I just wanted to like stay in that muddy grave. What the fuck, man? I didn't ask for this internship. An 80 year dirt nap was not long enough. And I really relate. I agree. This is real. You had one job stuff.

Marius was like, no. Don't let her drink some blood. And he's like, what have I paid you with him? My blood has some beautiful red, just a little purple color on your lips for my party. No, my notes are from Marius, who gave him not, like, stay a couple days to train him. Yeah. Don't just like yada, yada, yada, here are the... He's like, you only have one job, but you're going to learn on the job.

It's ash, not blood. Did you get that? Okay, bye. Like, really tough. Yeah. And you're going to be alone here. Yeah, for quite a while. For like nearly a decade.

Okay. I'm just going to scratch the record and then once. Speaking of which, yes. The queen arrived. Akasha. Boy. We regret that we had to miss last week, and I really regret that we had to miss Akasha's arrival. That is like the one thing that I really wish we had gotten to talk about in real time.

But hey, we're talking about it now. Queen of the Damned herself, Akasha. Yes. Mother of all vampires, meets Lestat, King of Mommy issues. What could go wrong? I'm sure it'll be fine. What could go right? When can you miss a moment where I think Marius implies that Akasha wanted to kill Gabriela?

Eliminate the competition? He says to Akasha wanted to take care of her as you said, well, he would. was there, she was not. Wanted to take care of her, as you said. And I don't know how to interpret that other than like, take care of her as and like, kill her. Because I don't think it was like, give her a pedicure. A relaxing spa day? No? No? No, I think Marius would be good at a pedicure. I just have that feeling. But I, so like, was Akasha like, was Akasha like, also, like, you should not come in the door you came out of? Or is she like, no competition? for Queen of All Mommies or, you know, what's going on there?

I don't know. There's some sort of kind of immediate connection and heightened tie, right? Because Marius basically says, I had to wait for fucking ever. Yeah, and she's like, hey, honey, right away. Immediately whispering into Lestat's mind about various things, including ice cream scoopers, who among us. And wanted him to be retrieved for this job. So that's interesting, too, like, why him? I mean, why not him?

Who wouldn't pick him? Yeah, on the official pod, they asked Sheila at him this question. And she was like, basically, she said something about the charismatic twinkle, I think, is one of the phrases she used, which is like, of course, extremely true. But also she was just talking about this idea of, like, wanting to have someone who matches her. And like she's an incredibly powerful person. Right. And in Lestat, she sees someone who is potentially incredibly powerful. Well, that was the kind of recurring refrain in that stretch.

I guess in general across the show, this idea of like, are you worthy? Right. Are you worthy of someone's love? So Marius identifying him is worthy at first of this appointment. But then when he comes back to find that Lestat has failed to follow the fairly simple, just don't give her blood. Like just one thing, just don't give her anybody. lot. And he says he's

unworthy. Yeah. So unworthy of the responsibility. Unworthy of the inheritance. Yeah. Jealousy. No question. I think quite jealous. I think Marius is quite jealous there. This is what Sheila said. She said the magnitude of rage that Akasha

has. She's going to need someone by her side who can match her. Marius, not so much. Yeah. Charismatic twinkle, fortitude. That's what she said. Those are the notes I took. As as Roland Jones said in the official pod That this was like essentially their pitch for season four How did it work for you?

More of this? Fantastic. Yeah. Is this a season of television? Why not? Okay. There was a intrigue and a menace entwined in these sequences that I really loved.

The design, the character design, the fact that there's this like, you know, from Marius, he's like, it took me so fucking long. to get them on the slab, and now I'm going to have to. But just the way that we built, the detention mounted, the stone-like quiet tap, and then suddenly the ice cream scoop knocked over and what is paired with that moment. What are these awakenings triggered by, the playing of music, et cetera? And then the, like, sitting up finally in the reach.

And, like, he has to decide still to take that hands, right? So there's something working in both directions there, and he does. Desire. brings him, yes, brings him in. In her mention, I mean, like, I don't. I have poured over her speech and I have ideas about what each line means and plenty of people have ideas about what each line means. Man.

But I don't have a definitive answer because it's not book canon. Some of what she's saying here, there's lore. But when she's talking about desire, and I was wondering if, like, that desire was her desire for Lestat or her desire for other things that she's done in her past. I don't know. But that idea of, like, desire for Lestat, who, among us. You know, we're not reach out for Lestat.

Deeply related. Especially after he washes the mud off of him. His, like, post-Dirtnap wig, uh, or, or, or just the mud they put in Sam Reed's hair, I just thought it looked great. I thought her design was amazing. In a season of questionable wigs, Maria, some people are not fond of, like, his particular wigs. I think she looks fantastic.

Uh, she was laying there for, that's her for most of the scenes. They put a mask on top of her face to, like, make her look more immobile. but that is like actually her laying on the slab. So that's incredible work. Wild. She was like, I was trying not to breathe. And it really looks like I wasn't breathing, which is great.

There was like a doll for like one scene, I think. But like the way she looks like a statue. Yeah. She looks incredible. She looks beautiful and terrifying. And I'm just sort of like I was like insorseled, but also just like petrified. Like, you know, it was just so incredible. And I love the way that she like.

The way she starts with these, like, sort of, like, the addled mind of a vampire is scary. Like a very old, very powerful, addled vampire? Scary. So when she's just, like, asking all these questions, again, there's some lore here. There's, there's, and then there's also just sort of like this litany of things that women have had to endure, you know, that is, that is the subject of her rant here. She's also in all these questions. She's confused. She's upset.

She's all these sort of stuff. And then she switches to. the answers, right? I am her. I am the girl. I am the answer. Yes. Like, it's so scary and so good.

It was very disarming in a quite compelling way. I thought that the I am the girl, I am the God, I am the voice, I am the soul, I am the night, that whole stretch. Because I know nothing about the story. I was like, oh, okay, how much of that is, in terms of like tense, right? and the point of view question, how much of this is Akasha speaking in all those respects about herself and her evolution and her journey

and the different aspects that she can manifest or embody or is there some aspect or maybe not or maybe it's end or some aspect of like, especially because I was thinking about the recurring beat across the season of like the voices

and the hearing the voices and the channeling of the voices and who and the great vampire army sprawling across the world is voicing something that you, like the antenna, right? I'm like, is this everyone else? Is she parroting or channeling the voices of the other vampires that are a part of her tree? That was, I don't know the answer, but that I think either feels like potentially in play.

Were you excited to hear a tree when you love talking about coaching trees? I love coaching trees. And as you know, I just love trees in general. I do love trees. So trees coming up a couple times from Marius. That was exciting. I thought that on the visual front and the speechifying, the kind of like, Almost I can't control the monologue that's coming out of me again, Who Among Us?

Come on the pod, Akasha. Yeah, Akasha. Come and join us on Al-Somarra. So Akasha Masaria are two podcasting talents waiting to happen? Can you imagine? Can you imagine? A must listen. And it's not just a must watch as well.

That's why the video of Poderos upon us. There was something about the, there's like the idea of power that has to be both preserved and contained, right? We have to protect and nurture and keep. But in this exact way, don't wake them up. Yeah. That is, but don't make them up. Ominous and a harbinger, but also feels like, you know, even though we understand that Akasha is the supreme force, you know, also interesting to kind of apply that, that logic to our other characters. Yeah. I love that. On the like sort of musicality front, we've been talking all season about this, about the way in which this show, even before it was a musical, had such musicality to the language. And hearing Roland Jones say that he always writes to music was so unsurprising to me.

Like, I was just like a fucking course he does. And so I was just thinking back through some of these like moments that feel like, lyrics feel like refrains almost that we've experienced. like the Louis' last monologue before he becomes a vampire in the season premiere which I think about all the time

I run to the bottle I run to the grift I run to bad beds I lay down with a man I laid down with the devil and he has his roots in me all his spindly roots in me Lassat, LaSat, LaSat, LaSat

LaSat, LaSette Or like is that what makes you fascinating? Armand's repetition of that Did you eat the baby? Did you stutter as a child? Dan's journalistic repetitions Like all of that

And so when you get to Akasha and her sort of like, I am, I am, I am. Like, it just like goes into this idea of like the way this show is written and the way the, it's not just the music, it's the words that become these earworms of just sort of like, I just like have lines of the show running through my brain. Not just the quick, clever asides that we love, but also just these grandiose speeches that are delivered in this rhythmic fashion that just like spinnily. roots in you of language. I just love it. Gorgeous. All right. I don't need to go into all the lore that's here at all because some of it is, I would be considered spoilers, I would say. But she mentions this name Amal. And I think that's worth noting that that's the name of the original demon that

made Akasha the first vampire. So before she was a vampire, she was just a girl. She was a queen, not just a girl, she's a queen of Egypt. Or like actually, I think it's Egypt. they sort of take over the sort of like a sire. Anyway, she was a queen. And I would say like, but she was like one of the many girls that she mentioned this beach. Like she was once a girl. Right. Before she became a queen and then a vampire. But she knows what it is. And then, you know, she did things that I would not say make her a girl's girl. But maybe she has changed her mind after many centuries on this lab. You know, it's all I think about. And then her mate next to her and keel. So they were like the original vampires. They've turned to stone. As they're. desire to connect the human world has ebbed, but they must be kept alive for the life source of all the vampires. And that's the sort of anecdote that Marius tells when he's like, I left Enquil out in the sun and then a bunch of vampires just burnt up in flames because we're all connected. Right? And Lestat's like, good thing I found a bog. And Marius is like, oh, a bog. The yearning tendrils for the bog was so funny. Yeah. I had a call, this like, I had a, I had a, like, I had a, bar. Baw. A bog. Borg. The yearning tendrils for the bog was so funny. I had a couple questions about this just in terms of the vampire canon of this universe.

Because like, you know, kill the one, kill the many, like a very, you know. Kill the Sire, kill that. Yeah, that's a part of the wider canon in many stories. So this is here to conf-like, if someone definitively killed Akasha, every vampire is gone. That's the fear. Yeah. Okay, so this is my understanding. Yeah.

There is like a core. A vampire core. Okay. A source of a power. Let's call it a glowing ball. Why not? Beautiful. Every time a new vampire is made, it gets sort of like diluted and spread out to the new vampires.

And so like when Akasha and Kiel were originally made, they were voracious in their appetite and could not stop killing and making and stuff like that. And as they made more, their sort of appetite dwindled. But there's this question of the great conversion is like, can you dilute the core too much? Like that's sort of a question around this vampire math we're doing here. Is there such thing as too many? But there's this thing and it's interesting because later one of the lyrics that Lestat sings in Brutel of the song he sings to Louis talks about a thread. There's this idea of the silver thread, which is almost this like vampiric umbilical cord that connects all of the vampires. So it like, but the core can reside in other vampires.

So it is currently housed in Akasha. She is the original. Okay. But should that house not be hospitable anymore, there are other places the court can go. Okay. So is it reasonable to assume that even if she were not killed, but if she were harmed, that a numb, because of what we learned from Marius and Lestat, like the feeling, even though the moon was out, feeling the burning, if she were just harmed that a number of vampires in the great conversion could be. eliminated and cold that the great conversion could be counteracted, not even by killing her, but just by wounding her?

Is that in play? I think theoretically that's possible, yeah. And then is it correct that that tie, that potentially mortal tie, does not, that's not in place with other maker fledglings? Like, when Magnus died, Lestown, oh, yeah, no, it's not. Right, yeah. So that's just an Akasha and the wider way. Yeah, so everything. So that's good.

Yeah. Because that would have been concerning. Yeah. Okay. All right. A couple other things before we leave Akasha, our queen here. Yes. I mean, it's a great question. And like the question of like how much the show is engaging with exactly the vampire Canada, Van Rice.

I'm unsure. An open one. Because they're making some changes. Oh, I just heard of Baltimore. Ooh, an open one. And open one. A really brilliant viewer connected this Akasha speech to this really eerie Samuel Beckett piece called Not eye that he did in the 70s where it's like this woman who has experienced a lot of trauma in

her life. The way the play is put together, it's just a spotlight on a woman's mouth and it's all black otherwise. And she's like, I think seven or eight feet off the stage is just her mouth. There's videos of this. It's like quite terrifying, but that sort of like extremely rapid speech and the repetition of the and the bewilderment of like what has happened and all the sort of stuff like that is very similar. And so I would not be surprised. And especially given that Vampire Sam has been like sort of connected with Samuel Beckett, I think that would be an interesting comp. But like a really cool kind of obscure possible inspo here. I like that. As soon as I saw that, I was like, really? And then I watched the video and I was like,

ah, yeah, it's there. And it's really scary and really good. But it's, yeah, this idea of like a woman who has been voiceless for so long, finally having a voice and what are all the things that would come out? Were she given that opportunity? This is also Lestat's origin as a musician, the birth of the artist, right? Yeah, this was really interesting because learn to endure the depths of living, find yourself Lestat as a note from Marius. There's something kind of like empowering and encouraging about that isish in the context of Marius being like, I pulled you from a grave if you didn't want to leave and gave you a job you don't want to have. But then the fact that LaSada is like, I don't know how to play.

And Marius tells him to recall his fledgling, to mimic Nikki. And this idea that a wound, because that's a source of pain, but also watching Nikki play initially was a source of joy. Just a nice little reminder that those things are really never separate from each other for Laestad, which is quite sad. Quite sad. This was also like the stretch of the blood overwhelms. You know, LaSat will bring it up later with Louie. And Louie's kind of like, I'm calling bullshit on you using that as an excuse. Yeah.

It's an interesting question. It would be sort of a show invention. I don't think the show is trying to like excuse everything that LaSot ever did. But is it something LaSot is trying to do? Like in his, when he dropped Louis, you know, from the sky. Yeah. Is that a moment where he was like, oh, the blood of a caution? just took over and I didn't have control over that

and is that real or is that just an excuse he's making? Yeah. I like the idea that the show is, especially, you know, it was funny how they kind of, they laugh, right? They sort of mock the gravity of invoking that idea Louis and LaSot in that scene. But that was where my head was.

You know, okay, is there some actual like what is inside of me and how do I learn to either suppress or channel or wield or combat it, whatever the case may be? But yeah, that, you know, it made me, It won't get into like House of the Dragon spoilers from people who aren't caught up on that. But it did remind me a little bit of the conversations we've been having about some characters on that show. And like, what do you see and identify and say about the circumstances in your life that allow you to then kind of justify your bad behavior? Sure.

And so that felt, well, like, what am I supposed to do? I have the blood of a caution me. I have the blood of a question. And the blood of course and me also my mom fucked me. So I don't know. Not my fault. Last month at least, and I do want to move on. But last month at least, I will just say that like it's not just Listott's music.

that awoke Akasha, though that is canonically sort of what happens in the book is that him playing wakes her up and then again later, she's like, ah, this rock music. How interesting. It's his existential pondering, right? Like, you know, when the scoop goes clattered into the ground, it's because he's saying, if you were the first that who made you, why do we exist, why do we endure it all? And why did she leave me? Am I evil? Is my evil sanction by nature or divine error? Where is God? And then Akasha awakes like birming with her own questions, her own sort of existential questions. So I like this idea of just like, she's responding not just to Lestat the musician, but Lestat the philosopher, Lestat the thinker of insist. I don't know. You know, I just, I think that connection,

and that's very, that's very Lestat in his narration in the book, this constant, am I evil, like, who made me, why am I here sort of stuff. So. I love that. Well, waking via connection and then counteracting the great conversion via connection. That feels very much in play. Now you know why there are so few of us. I said this back ages. We are all connected to her.

She is the seed. And if she burns, we all burn. Feels like that'll come into play. I mean, yeah. Sure does. Okay. Stating glass eyes. I don't want to dwell too long on episode five

when we're here to talk about episode six. We already talked about this, but anything more you want to say about stained glass eyes an incredible performance that we didn't already talk about. Man, I just thought this was really, really, really good. I thought that the look on his face when he went to the diner, Brick and Bacon, what an establishment, and just sat there and, like, you can see the pain and the guilt and the shame on his face,

even though he is very much in the, like, fact-finding for Louis and also, like, trying to stifle and contain this toxicity of a woman. what is unfolding between the two of them. Just going back to the studio and immediately penning this ballad, like immediately don't you try to forget all the things you regret? Like, what a, oh my God, what an incredibly powerful idea. And I just thought it was really a lovely, lovely sequence. I think Jacob Anderson, as Louis in the car, when he's, like, begging for a list out to help him is incredible shit always. and then Sam Rade is Lestat when he sees her.

Just like these guys are just top tier, incredible stuff. I did love when Louie, when, because Louis is texting him, begging him to come help. And Lestat's like, I got shot. Yeah. And you didn't even call. You didn't check on me. And Louie, the fact that he gets shot. Yeah.

Pick up the phone. I think the fact that Louis had the grace to say, like, I'm selfish. I'm selfish. And like, I knew you were going to bring it up. And I don't have an excuse. I actually don't have an explanation. and I'm sorry. I really love this.

He's like, I'm selfish. And right in close proximity to Armand being like to Dan, you know, you shaded him as a saint. Yes. He shaded him in gray as a saint. But he's cruel. Cruel. Yeah. So like, the real Louis that we're getting to know to a third degree, who does not pick up the phone when you get shot in the street.

Very tough. But this sort of like you came, you called moment. This is like a trope I love. And like, Gabriella has sort of like invoked it a couple times. but her appearances are so toxic and so conditional and so sort of like when she decides you came, you called, she's going to show up. But like, well, it's not in the middle of recording his album and Louis texts him and he's like, I'll go. I'll go. You know, he shows up.

I'll go. You came, you called. And the way that he, when he walked over, when he walked out of the restaurant over to the window of the car, he's like it's not her. And the way, you mentioned earlier, the kind of entwignment of truth and lies. that he is telling Louis what he knows Louis needs to hear. Yeah. It's not her. And even invoking the specificity of, to Louis, the eyes, but to Regina, to Fraudia,

I'm just like, I look like her, don't I? Like, I can see on your face how much I look like her. He's like, you have the hip, the gate, the heart murmur. Here's the list of differences that I logically can point to to rationally tell myself that it's not near so that I don't fall into the pit that Louis was in. But yeah, you can see that, like, it's, he doesn't make the same decisions, Louie does, but you can see how, how easily that could happen. I love this, like, the day you were born, I was shaking like a leaf on an old oak tree. Then you stayed like a thorn, red roses raining down till they flooded me.

This, like, idea, obviously we love a tree. We love a botanical imagery. But, like, his, how much he, he was, did not, was so reluctant to make Claudia. Yeah. How he didn't want to. how that scene plays differently in La Stats' recollection versus Louis' recollection, all of that. But also, like, you stayed like a thorn, like, you're around and you were obnoxious and I hated you, but also you're a beautiful rose. And also then also in the same song, he's got lyrics that invoke that harrowing image of her

turning to ash and looking at him at the trial and just sort of like her eyes being, you know, locking with him as she absolutely turns into Ash. Did you think that when he was in the fairly comical sequence when he's running out into the sun to scream into the microphone to get that scream just right? Did you think that like he was thinking about, I mean, it's really funny when he shows up increasingly like burned and blistered. But like, did you think that he was thinking about Claudia at all in that sort of like, how can I capture the worst thing I've ever heard? Yeah. I think they're all always thinking about. each other. And I mean, the Thorn thing is so perfect because it's like the idea of being

embedded, you know, someone else embedding themselves in your very essence so that there's like an inescapable quality to it. And then, you know, we'll talk about the scene separately in a few minutes, but the way that the ghostly specter of Claudia, you know, sniffed Achilles and all, Louis is there for closure and an absolution and to hopefully see that she has, he says, quiet, like a sense of peace. That is not what happens at all. And the idea that it connected very powerfully and poignantly with what we've talked about all season, like who actually has the definitive account and record of what transpired.

And, you know, Claudia, just like each of them has an agenda. So is the thing that Claudia is saying, which in some respects kind of absolves LaSat of the blame, both private and public, is how true is what she's saying? Or is it directed to, is it intended to just wound and hurt? How true is anything of what she says is a question. But her anger is real. Her emotion is real. Dick Salt, working title. Incredible love.

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I'm just a neighbor. Friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day.

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Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. We already talked about this. I don't need to get into it, but I do want to go back to this lyric about a distant thread and a restless hand, you know, and I'm sort of like, you know, constantly sort of pulling on this thread. So, like, I feel like it's invoking the red string of fate. Yeah. That concept. And umbilical cord, because the song is definitely also about Gabriela. Right. And then that silver chord that connects all vampires to the source. Um, and I just, I love that this song is about Gabriela and Louis, but song only to Louis. I love that. We've already mentioned that. Yeah. It was so good. I love all the possibilities of what this idea of the thread can mean, but like how that thread that before sunset thread connects to most of your songs are about me. Yeah. You bought a restaurant three blocks from my house.

You know, like, yeah. Let's talk about the proximity of the restaurant was so good. Let's talk, you know, and we get, we watch them walk. Yes. From his apartment to the restaurant, you know. And so those are like, you know, a little Taylor Swift of it all, but like invisible string, this like this thing that connects. them and and the way that they're constantly tugging on it while having plausible, you know, while Lestad says, the songs aren't about him.

And he's like, the songs are about it. They're about him. I just, you know, I just like real estate. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Right around the corner from your house.

Rev par. Yeah. Fraudia on Madeline. Oh, just tell you about Revpar. I love the, you know, I mentioned earlier, the trying to parse the look on Sophia's face as she is looking at Louis throughout this sound check rehearsal

stretch and then especially during Brutal Love and speaking of threads and ties that connect it felt to me like this was their

version of is that what makes you fascinating right? Looking at him through that Daniel is that makes you fascinating like who is this

New Orleans boy and why? Yeah, it was just great and I don't know there was something It's such a... I have to imagine they did several takes of that moment where she, like, turns and looks at him. The camera isn't focused on him.

It's focused on her. And the one they picked is such a slow... It's a very slow turn. And I feel like we all know, like, we're watching it and we're like what she's processing and what she's thinking. But, like, he picked a fascinating take there. That makes it makes it fast.

Yeah, it's so good. And it just felt, even though I think we both agree that the lyrics could apply either of them and at some points maybe he would have chosen to direct his serenade and toward his mother instead of, uh, Louis, it, it felt to me like more intimate than watching them fuck. I agree. You know, and especially because we then get an actual, Louis is watching Gabriela and list that fuck. And he's just like, this is gross and weird and this is a sickness and maybe the source of all your sickness. The tonal distinction of Gabriella

processing, and some of it is the jealousy of the narcissist, but some of it is really feeling on the outside of a relationship that has been defined by an unholy level of closeness and proximity. And I think it's narcissistic, but I also think it's logistical in terms of, like, her agenda, which is that this concert go off without a hitch and knowing that Louie doesn't want the concert to happen. And she's like, maybe you shouldn't go for your own protection. I don't know. You know, but like...

Like, the cities of like, where he's had some sort of confrontation with an enemy. Yeah. Not subtle. Not great. But, you know, so, so worried about her, you know, if Lestat is her little puppet. Yeah.

Like, who is his other guy who can pull the strings on him, you know? And, um, right. And I, and speaking of strings, I love the moment where Lestad is like, has this brady response to the string section, right? Like, you could be doing more. Yeah. Right? And Louis, like, smiles fondly where he's just sort of like, yep, there he is. Lestat, the brat, my guy.

There he is. And then an interjection of the failures right as the song concludes. Right as we have this conclusion of this song, which is just this, like, incredibly beautiful song, you know, Salaimitar doesn't think so. Yeah. And incredibly, like, I mean, this is a huge achievement, I would say, and their connection. And then it's like, you're listening to the failures. Yeah. This is a failure what you're watching here.

Sad. All right, Dan, Dan, Dan gets us on Dan. You already mentioned this, but, like, how are you feeling about this Armand and Daniel connection? Armand being like, I've been here the whole time, you know, pulling the strings from the shadows of your life. I loved that because it was so, it was intended to be a, it was intended to be a declaration of proof.

Daniel's like, I call bullshit on this, like, you're professing your love to me. Yeah. And Armand says, let me go through the list of moments over the last half a century where I watched you and I knew how you were suffering and I wanted to make sure you were okay. Your daughter rejected you. I led you to a chapel. The guy told you to leave. I got rid of him so you could sit and cry. Yeah.

You fucked and maybe sexually assaulted one of your students? And I made sure he forgot. I made sure he forgot about it. Whoa. Yeah. Grim. The, as is so often the case with Armand, and this is. is one of the delicious aspects of his character.

There's a read on that that is so sinister. Well, and you watch me from the shadows, didn't tell me you were there and tried to, like, puppet master my life. Right. Well, the puppet mastering of Armand, like, that's... That's our mom. That's his MO.

Yeah. But, like, I think what's interesting is that Dan, sort of similar to, like, La Stop being, like, I have the blood of a caution on me, so I'm not responsible for things I've done. Right. Dan has given this sort of statement a couple times. is sort of like, ever since you mind-fucked me in the 1970s in San Francisco,

listen to my failures. Here's all the things that I did that fucked up. And it's all because of you. Right. I had addiction problem because of you. My relationships didn't work out because of you. All this is because of you because of what you did to me. The Dan we met before Armand showed up was not on the straight and narrow.

You know what I mean? He was not living his best life out there. And so, like, this has been his idea the whole time that Armand did this to him. And Armand's like, I wasn't just, I didn't just do that to you. Right. I covered up your sexual assault as well. You're welcome. My gosh.

Really grim. Really fucking grim. Anything else you want to say about Dan and Armand? I will say I love, and speaking of like lingering shots, the shot of Armand's face at the close of episode five after Larya stepped in front of the subway. He's just so beautiful. So doll-like. He's just so gorgeous. And he's done this horrifying thing.

The calm, the stillness. Yeah. So it's still. The, what I thought was interesting is they used this like blurring effect on a cautious mouth when she's talking. That I thought was like very cool, you know, just like heightens the surreal reality of what you're watching. And they mentioned that they wanted to match the fact that like when Armand, who is like a more powerful vampire than the other vampires we've met is really in his powers, his eyes vibrate. And so they're like, we wanted to like do something. for Akasha where it's just sort of like, this is even, you know, this is even more. And what more might we do with Akasha who is, you know, the first?

I love it. Sort of thing. All right, anything else you want to say? Just as always, I want to just take 10 seconds to appreciate the Daniel Maloy comedy. Please. Because. Give us the greatest hits. It's your boy, Daniel Malloy, very, very funny.

Like, very, very, very funny. But at dinner, I know we were going to talk about this later. The Cosmic. How did they make a Travis and Taylor joke, the week? of the wedding. Oh, I know. Really good. Incredible. That's like cosmic fortune there or maybe just very careful planning. I don't know. I don't know. I feel like it's kind of lucky. Like Travis and Taylor when you're going to set the date is something they could have written. At any point. Yeah. But then it just so happened to be incredibly timely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great stuff.

shared on, shared in Blackwood, dumb name. So funny. He just has to get still fanging Sophia. Incredible. Yes. And, of course, on the precipice, on the brink of releasing the interview with the vampire Lestat, yeah, ready to eat your own. I mean, ready to eat your own is he is about to reveal the incest. His face when he says that. I have no notes. Ready to eat your own is iconic.

Really good. Wait until Daniel Molloy learns about Damon Targaryen's dreams. It's your boy, Daniel Molloy. All right, exercising demons. So this is a double. So we already talked about this about, like, Lestat and Louis have a, out in the street. And this is like a horrifying moment for Lestat. And the, and the denial, the panic, the blood vomiting. This isn't his most intensely guarded shame. Like there's intensive shame here

for him. And we love journalists. You know, we had a sunshine problem here. Here we go. Here's some sunshine on this information. It's out here. And now Louie knows. And now Louie knows more about Lestat than he ever knew before. Yeah. And they already knew each other quite well. Yes. And he knows even more here. And then they go through this experience with Claudia where they are confronted with, you know, some fictions that she told about Lestat, but also just sort of like having to confront her anger what they together did to her.

Yeah. And so I just, you know, we wind up on the bench and they lose their heads. But just bring all of this nastiness up and out into the sunshine. Not to like, vampires can't do that. But Dan can, Dan with the tan can. But like bringing that all up and then just sort of like and then being connected even more afterwards. Yeah. I love it. So good.

I loved it. The initial response, let me put it this way. Are you hitting the same vagina? You spent the first nine months of your mortal life in and Lestat, who very very quickly will not even be able to form a coherent sentence and his vomiting blood everywhere because he's just so mortified that this has come to light even though he will then say, I guess I wanted it to. The fact that he, just for another second there, has the wherewithal and composure, be like, well, anatomically, there's the womb.

The show is just, God dear. So, so, so, so good. Oh, man. I just love, they're fighting. Lestat will not let Louis walk away from this. Louis is like, I was really worried that Louis was just going to walk away. way and this is just going to be like they wouldn't talk to each other again for another season of television or something like that.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned the shame, the shame that Lestat, I think with apologies, it's fair to say, should feel. Yep. You have to apologize. We can be anti-incest on this podcast. Can we? We cover it so routinely. I don't know.

Louis' shame is also brought to the fore here when Lestat is like, there's the kind of of comedy of you're being very judgy in the face of the just like litany of this is a really gross thing you've done. But Lestat's like you're paying a girl to pretend to be Claudia. You're paying a girl to pretend to be Madeline. Do I say you're sick? No. I come and support you. Yeah.

And so for Louis to have to confront his failing, which is different from fucking your mother, but is still a failing. It's different. It's different. It's different for vampires. It's different. I really loved that. That the way Lestat, you know, got Louis to basically just take a beat and think about what room there would be to still accept this person who has done a thing that is not acceptable is to remind him that he has been present for Louis. But Louis has done things that in different ways and to different extents are also like not acceptable.

This line that comes later actually when they're on the bench, clearly somewhere in the self-destructive scaffolding I house my heart in. I wanted it known. That was great. Bars. Okay. That was great. Merrick Mayfair, played by Sarah Affle. This performance was amazing.

Fantastic. There's been some question. There is the Mayfair Witch's show. This is not a character that has shown up on the Mayfair Witch. So this is not like this is a new, I mean, this is a book character, but not one that we've, you, it's not like you have to have seen the Mayfair Witch is to have the context for her. So I was wondering if I was missing an element by not having seen that. She's both a witch and a telemaska agent. And now in need of some cosmetic dentistry.

So the novel Merrick, Mary Wick, Merrick, written in 2000, Claudia's haunting Louis, and he has this, and he is just at his wits end of what to do. He is in deep despair. He does not pay a waitress to pretend to be Claudia, but he does go to this witch. Only then moat her once. Hundreds of Texas today. That was like, wow. That was really tough because, like, Louis has. And I'm like, he's being relatively cool about this.

No, hundreds of texts a day. Really tough. So rough. Tough look for our guy. He does ask this witch to, you know, bring about the spirit of Claudia. Yeah. And it's very, it's done very differently in the novel. And I'm interested in this adaptive change.

So in the novel, and again, Claudia is described as looking like, you know, Kirsten Dunst looks like in the movie. Just this, like, little angelic doll looking girl. And when she shows up as the spirit, it's all like whispers and quiets and but it is menacing as fuck. And it's just sort of like, and her whole agenda in that sequence is to try to get Louis to kill himself. She's like, come join me, father. She's like, oh, you think I'm happy. I'm not. Do it.

Come here. Come join me. You know, what have you done to deserve to live? All this like coaxing him. Trying to coax him into killing himself. But this is something she says. I suffer father. But she's whispering and she's gentle and she's girlish.

She says, I suffer father. I suffer and I wander. I know nothing and all I once knew seems illusory. I have nothing father. My senses are not even a memory. I have nothing here at all. So I love the way that it's done in that book, but I loved the way it was done here. It's pure rage and violence and anger.

And in the book, she stabs, she becomes corporeal enough to grab something and stab him. She doesn't kill him. but she like stabs him with his object. And the witch cannot, like, control her or stuff like that. And so, like, when Claudia starts, like, sort of knocking papers around and stuff like that, like, I thought that part was really cool. But just, like, and she's out of the circle. Right. And she's off the leash.

And it's just sort of, like, so scary. Again, like, similar to Akasha, it's like, it's pitiful. You're upset when she's talking about how she can't find Madeline anywhere. So sad. And she's all alone. So sad. And she can't find her. Like, horrifying when she talks about everything that's done to her.

You feel like so much, like, empathy for her and pity for her. And then you're also terrified of her at the same time. Very unsettling. I thought it was so good. I, the initial Merrick, when she's trying to summon and channel and it does not work initially, there's the first, like, what have YouTube been up to tonight? I need you to move your chairs further apart. You're blocking the gate about them, which was very good. Yeah.

But then the, she's got rage about Claudia before channeling her in full. That's so interesting what you just shared about trying to. to coax Louie in the novel because I like now thinking about having not known that the way that that is slightly, slightly warped here where Louis is the one who's like, I thought you were calling to me. Like, I thought you wanted me to join you. And she's like, if I did, I would have tripped Armand on the stairs. I don't want you anywhere near me. I hate you. Well, I don't, she's not saying like come join me so we be together happily ever after. She just wants them to die. She just wants to do that. Yeah. Well, and then that's interesting too,

especially, again, we talked about this already. We don't really think they're dead at the end. and their heads are probably going to flop right back on their beautiful shoulders. Right. But what this Claudia stretch gives us is a sense of like you aren't, there is no release from your turmoil. Death is not, death does not bring for these characters in this supernatural state. You won't be together.

The two of you won't be together or we won't be together because I can't fucking find Madeline. Yeah. So we're damned after it all ends too. I also really liked making the audience a little bit complicit for our tendency to side with Louis and Lestat in all matters. Like, I was thinking back to our conversation about Louis's very disturbing vengeance quest with Bruce. And I remember saying on the pod, like, boy, and watching Louis, he doesn't even have to look at the pages on the diary. He can recite it from memory.

And then Claudia's like, that make you feel good? Did it make you feel good to pretend those words were yours? Yeah. And I was like, damn. that it was just so effective as a way to simultaneously bring you further into the closeness of these characters and their history with each other and their inner turmoil and intentionally keep you on your back foot of like don't assume you know why these people are behaving this way. Right. Also, so this moment in season one when Claudia tells Louis that like Lestat threatened

to like rape her on the train was like a thing that book readers were really like, whoa. Like, whoa, Lestat would never do that. And so this question of, like, was Claudia even telling a truth? So in this scene, she's like, oh, did you like that little performance I put on for you, Louis, where I said Lestat did this? Oh, you know, so scared. And so, again, it puts us constantly. It's not just like we're watching Louis tell this story or watching Lestat tell the story. It's like inside the story, people are unreliable narrators inside of the unreliable narrators, you know.

I love that. And especially because they both evoke the idea. of, you know, Louis is like, he's surprised. When they're walking after the scene, he expresses to LaSotte that he is surprised by the thing he said of like, what about the thing you should be thanking me for, Bruce? And he's like, man, I got to, I have some work to do on myself, which LaSat will that on the park bench bring up.

I've got some work to do myself. And to think about that, we watch Louie at the table with Fraudia and Madeline and the look on his face of disgust, confronting that that's what they think he wants to see, like when they start kissing at the end. Do you think he was upset because of that or because of how bad her wig was? Why not both?

The old why not both? Madeline's wig, bad wig and accent, and I'm like, how different is this from the Cappages sequence really? Really great question. And then like she broke character and he's like, whoa, that's not what we're here for. But then they're back in character and he's like, is this what we're here for? I can't tell the difference anymore.

Two voices still is still a start. Very sad. The boat sequence. When he like freezes her. And his hand is quivering. like confronting what, not only what he is capable of, but why he is doing these things and what he thinks he is gaining from them. Something that they said in the official podcast, I think it was really interesting is that originally those scenes were flipped that like the boat scene came first and then the fraudia and Madeline dinner. Because like the Madeline Fraudia dinner was written to be like, he's like, I've gone too far.

I'm repulsed by myself. They were like, but when we watched those two back, the more disturbing one was the boat one. so we flipped when they came. And I, like, really agree. Yeah. All right. Back on the bench. Yeah.

Season one nostalgia. Love these two on a bench. Wonderful. We already talked about this plenty. I do want to shout out because I have to. It is in me and it is, I must. When they're talking about their sort of, like, Southwest dreams or Nevada's Southwest-ish, right? I think so.

Ish? Yeah. Enough? Yeah. I think so. It reminds me of, like, in the musical rent. This dream of like, open up a restaurant in Santa Fe. Escape everything in New York.

You know, save from devastation our brains. We'll go to Santa Fe. It'll be simple. Or, if you prefer, in the musical newsies, when Grisha Bale sings about going to Santa Fe. Like this idea of like the Southwest dream of like, we'll leave all of this horribleness. Sounds wonderful. Should we go? Yeah, I've never been.

We can go to some Georgia Ar-Martin stuff and we can have the, isn't that where they have the chili peppers, the green chili peppers on all the burgers? Isn't that a thing there? Possibly. I'm ready. Okay. It has to be a regional flight out of Burbank, I think. Ideal. When he says what blooms at night, did you have any, did you have any botanical thoughts?

I went immediately to night blooming Jasmine. As you know, I care a lot about Jasmine as a climbing vine. You do. I do know this about you. I am not much of a gardener, though I do love nature to observe it. So I had nothing popped to mind other. Pigeon, nature. No, I thought it made me think of just like night shade and stuff like that.

But no. It also made me think of. I've talked to you about the bury my bones in the night's soil, the Ishwa book. She has talked about how she wants to sort of start a universe of a kind, and she's calling it the garden. And it's just sort of like there are vampires in the garden, but like what else, what other creatures are in the garden? Just sort of like what else. And, you know, I was just thinking about that. I was trying to look to see if like Anne Rice had ever talked about her universe as a garden or like vampires as like night.

But also what's interesting is if you Google vampires and night blooming flowers, there's a ton of cool, creepy-ass flowers that are like named after vampires. Incredible. There's like a vampire orchid, no. But you will. They just like, look, they're amazing and they're scary and I love them. That's all I just want to say about that. How did you feel about the heartstopper-esque fingerbrush that we get? Great.

And I'm like the little pinkies. Yeah. With their little press on nails. All right. Anything else you want to talk about before we get into, like, I thought we do a roundup of fun and funny things. You've already hit plenty of these, but like if there's any leftover that we haven't hit. I want to shout out in this roundup of fun and funny things. I want to shout out.

I just think the phrase, the vampire tough cookie, was really fun to hear. Incredible. I think her in the previous episode saying, I don't play metaphorical drums. And then I think Yoko Mirren, which is what she calls Cabriela, is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Come here and absolutely killed me. That was so funny. I quite liked all the commentary on the luxury coffin. The Heston, you should be thanking me for this.

Also, by the way, Lestat, not keeping his cell phone in his coffin just seems very impractical to me. Maybe it's like me, and he's like he's breaking his phone or not. Yeah. Maybe. So he doesn't scroll in the coffin. Maybe, maybe. But then as soon as it vibrates, he opens it, potentially risking, exposing himself to sunlight. I don't know. Not ideal. Did you like the, when Daniel had his man on the street stretch, first of all, I got, I'm a yardophile. I'm a archa-file. I'm not. Unfortunately.

You wanted to talk about Listat's passport. I just, I don't know. It's so fucking hard to take a good passport photo. It's impossible. Also, don't you have to show your ears now when you take your passport photo. Oh, I don't know. I have. I'm due to refresh mine, actually. So I, it's been a minute. My memory is that you have to, like, tuck your passport photo. I'm. hair behind your ears. Well, his was curly and luxurious as always, and he looked fucking incredible, and he was serving face in a passport photo, which is basically impossible to do. So shout out, Lestat, you're really hot. Canonically, 5-9, Lestat? I mean, that is, that's nuts. Probably can't be true. I support five-nine guys out there, but I don't think that's true. It looks like he's like six-three. I really love this quote. I spent half of two decades in the silken embrace of a chestnut casket purchased for my French Quarter Town Home, for was hurled off a balcony during one of Mr. Doolock's redirected moods.

And we get the cut of like the redirected moods is just like an incredible phrase. So good. I'm going to start using that. I don't know when or how. Taylor Travis, we talked about the stick. Lestat's Spirit Halloween Grim Reaper costume. Incredible. Outstanding and his enduring commitment to Halloween candy that he puts out the bowl and the sign.

The please take one sign. So good. Really good. When he first lifted the hood, it's like, oh my God. Our guy is doing a. A murderer. murder cloak, you know. I kind of felt that way about his murder hoodie.

Yeah, murder hoodie for sure. Yeah. But then he's like, no, I'm going to be the Grim Reaper for Halloween. Basically, it was just incredible, as was the round of applause in Louis' vamp den restaurant when he took it off and revealed himself. That was so funny. Or him singing out the side of the car. That was great. I loved that.

To the adoring vamp public. That was wonderful. I was quite interested in the blood chalice, the delicate flowery blood, like decanting it into the little. little smaller goblets. We saw... Oh yeah, yeah, that whole device. Yeah. Because we saw the decanting in season one.

But not the like sort of, yeah, like, then it's spread out into smaller things. Or maybe that was season two. The grim reaper thing, I think, is also a throwback to when Lestat and Armand are at the theater. Right. And Armand's like, you would be a better Grim Reaper. And Ristat says the scythe does a lot of work. It's not so funny. But he's like, I got myself a plastic sign.

I know what I want to be the salary. Also, after he put on the costume and they're walking to the very approximate restaurant, as noted. Looked lovely. Let's go to Montreal. I would love to go to Montreal. I've never been to Canada. Vancouver number one on my list, but I would love to do Montreal. And Toronto. I went to Syracuse. So I was like two hours from Toronto and somehow never went in four years. Disaster. Calamity. When Lem calls. And obviously he's the one who texts, did you see this later? Classic. But when he calls and Louis talking, well, that's like, you know, me too. Like, what? Love, Miss.

but the before that lem lem lem oh lick me lamb was just hysterical speaking of talking over people was Nikki shouting page numbers from Daniel's book when when Lestat was singing I could not possibly tell you he was shouting numbers and I was like what was what was happening? Um I think that's all the ones that I had oh last one and this is I actually thought this was the this is maybe the line I liked the best though it's such a crowded field. They've gotten into the limo after the dinner slash interview. You know, I owed him an ending with Daniel. Yeah. And Louis's like, something seemed off him. And Lestat replies, always, he's an awkward van. He has that. You think you're better than me chip on him. And we are. It's exhausting to pretend otherwise that he killed me. So good. So good. It's exhausting to pretend otherwise was just absolutely incredible. I loved it. All right. Well, that is five and six. Yes. We're going to. I know. I know. How long will it be between seasons?

I would say at least a year and a half. Like probably less time because they don't have to write an entire musical, which I think took a lot of time. But probably like a year and a half at least would be my guess. But we'll see. Well, you know what? That's a year and a half for everyone who's not watching to catch up. Catch up. That's how I'm spinning it.

We're going to close out with some book spoilers. Such a menacing laugh. I know. It's so good. Good job, Carlos. All right. 50,000 of us out in the woods together. What could go wrong?

I'm going to assume quite a bit. Yeah. I don't need to get into details. but it's not going to go well. And Akasha's showing up in the finale. So that's exciting. I can't wait. I'm really thrilled.

So, you know, Sheila said that she only filmed like a couple, you know, so it's just like this scene in episode five. And then I have to imagine she's like just in the closing scene of the finale is what it would be my guess. But I'm just excited to see her like out and about not non in non statue form at all theoretically. If we're doing Queen of the Damned and Body Thief as subsequent seasons, like, will Lestat and Louis be prominently in both of them? Lestat, certainly. And then they're just doing all this stuff to get Louis, like, still in the mix, this sort of thing. And that's kind of, that's what Dan McDermott from AMC said is he's like, we're figuring out a way to have Armand, Daniel, Louis and Lestat sort of like in the mix for all of these.

So, like, how can we sort of contort the story to make sure that these characters that everyone's attached to are prominent? like Claudia, bringing in the Merrick book into this season so that Claudia can be here. I should say, Louis does briefly kill himself after the Claudia seance scene in Merrick. And then he's resurrected. Okay. So the chopped head is standing in for that? I'm wondering if that's the case. Like, do we need to see a Louis so despondent?

He kills himself. I don't know how he could get more despondent than like paying, then he wasn't the car outside of the restaurant. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I feel like, I feel like that's happened. Yeah. But I don't know. Okay.

Okay, this is the big one, though. Okay. In the Lestat voiceover in episode five, he says, I amel. Uh-huh. And then he says after he says, I have slumbered in a variety of sarcophagi over the centuries. This is after he says a thing about the coffin in New Orleans, before he calls a studio, basically, a coffin. Okay. I have slumbered a variety of sarcophagi over the centuries.

He says, IML. So, spoilers, the core of Akasha, the core of all vampires goes inside of Lestat and he is possessed by Amel the first. And so, exciting. By the time he records the failures, this has already happened, which is like a very different timeline. But that, like, he has, the original demon inside of him as he's like, that's, he says, IML. Like, that's what he says, right? So, like, it is Lestat talking, but is Lestat with Amel inside of him, which is a wide. old thing to hear and know. You know, goes over the heads of people who don't know who the fuckabelle is. You know, they're like Stephen Avel?

What are we doing? I don't know. Has Lestan after the Aeroverse? Will he save this city? This is a huge deal. And it's another like time marker for book readers. So like, no, Lestan getting his head chopped off is not how he is going to die. And so we sort of know a bit more about when the failures is recorded, I guess.

Oh, exciting. Maybe I'll try before season four try to read all these books. I believe in you. Oh, you've got a lot going on. A year and a half. You love Laura. I'm not going to commit to anything. Yeah, you love lore. Maybe I'll give it a go. Am I going to be scared? No. Are they very scary? No. Okay. Will you hold me in your arms if I am scared? Let's curl up together and read them. Play an audiobook? Okay. Wonderful. Divine. That's all I have. We did it. Just a delight. Episode seven, we'll be back. Thanks to our coven, the tree connected to all of us, which is Jacob Cornett, Carlos Chirobogo, Scott Lee, Arjuna, Ranco, Kapal, and Jomey Denaron.

Our keepers. We'll be back. Talk the Thrones, theoretically, is what comes after this. That's right. I'd love to record out of order. I have no idea. What is time? Talk the Thrones. That's right. And then the Deep Dive.

Yes. And then Oppenheimer. Appie. And then The Odyssey? Adi. Yeah. And then more Talk the Thrones, the more listening. that and we do it all over again? Wow. Yeah, that's right. And then Comic-Con. All right. We'll see you

soon. Bye! Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.com.