The Vampire Lestat Season 1, Episode 2
“Toledo”
Writers: Jonathan Cinceroz & Kevin Hanna
Director: Craig Zisk
Cast: Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Joseph Potter, Jennifer Ehle, Eric Bogosian, Justin Kirk, Jeanine Serralles, Gopal Divan, Moses Sumney, Peter Outerbridge, Noah Reid, Ryan Kattner, Seamus Patterson, Sarah Swire, Bally Gill, Amaka Umeh, Kaleb Horn, Shepherd Munroe, Gage Munroe, Ella Ballentine, Christopher Geary, Elise Baumann, Dorian Grey, Guy Maddin
The vampire Lestat understands your curiosity about what he terms his life’s “Oedipiphany.” “You’ve weathered the Freudian storms,” says the vampire who’s been sleeping with his mom for a couple centuries, before adding a weary “and yes, that boat is a penis, and yes, that ocean is my mother’s vagina.” But even as he and his mother Gabriella swear off the sexual side of their relationship for now — well, more or less — Lestat feels an origin story is in order. And memories can be a motherfucker.
Lestat grew up title-rich but cash poor, the runt of the litter in the family of a downwardly mobile Marquis (Peter Outerbridge). Bullied by his father and brothers for his stutter, young Lestat seeks refuge first at a monastery and then with an acting troupe, neither of which seem to take. All this happens under the watchful eye of Gabriella, an Italian aristocrat bitter at having been married off into a failing house. She shares Lestat’s loathing of the rest of the family, whom they call “cabbages,” much to everyone else’s annoyance.
As times grow tough, a pack of wolves descend on the local villagers’ flocks, driving them into deprivation.
They beg the Marquis for help, but no one will lift a finger except Lestat, goaded into it by his mother. He believes she means for him to die in his attempt to defend the village against the ravening pack, enabling the depressive young man to commit suicide by wolves. Instead he kills eight of them singlehandedly, though he’s devastated to lose his horse and dog during the battle. His mother consoles him by treating his wounds while telling him about her sexual fantasy of getting gangbanged Messalina-style.
This rather sets the tone for what follows. Some time later, after he’s fled to Paris and become a vampire, Gabriella tracks him down to say goodbye before she dies of consumption. Instead, he turns her, and together they brutally massacre their family, waiting until dawn to hear the brothers’ returning children discover the corpses and scream in terror and grief. Hey, no one ever accused Lestat of being a nice guy.
In the present, Lestat’s dealing with the fallout from the Detroit Vampire Massacre. Alex, his band’s most talented musician, quits rather than work with a supernatural murderer. The rest of Lestat’s band and entourage, stick around, even with Lestat’s fellow vamps Daniel and “Sophia” — the alias they’re using to keep her and Lestat’s true relationship a secret — in the mix. Since Lestat informs them they’re all targets for vengeful vampires angry at his antics, it’s probably best for them to stick close.
Not every vampire is out to get Lestat, however. Using his pseudonymous ownership of the hotel Lestat trashed during his fight with the Detroit coven as a ruse, Louis du Lac himself tricks Lestat into a legal negotiation, demanding only a VIP experience with the star. Despite his irritation — Lestat is not a man who likes surprises — he gives his ex a great balcony seat at his next concert. He then freezes time or flies at super-speed while telepathically communicating or ... I’m not sure what, but he levitates up to Louis mid-song and hands him his annotated copy of Interview with the Vampire, detailing where he thinks Louis got it wrong. (Pretty much everywhere.)
Louis also reconnects with Daniel, whom he largely forgives for the book. But he’s hurt on behalf of Lestat, of all people, whose resentment of his portrayal Louis can understand. It’s especially painful, Louis says, because the two of them were just starting to patch things up.
But Daniel’s not there to cut the rights to a movie deal. He’s there to introduce Louis to his contacts in the Talamasca, who published his book in exchange for vital intel. That would be Raglan James, a loose cannon with a preposterous accent (we saw him at the auction in the cold-open flash-forward last episode), and Rashid (Bally Gill), Raglan’s former informant inside Louis’s estate.
The Talamasca need help taking down the Detroit coven, which runs a small criminal empire in addition to, you know, being vampires. Louis, a formidable fighter who slaughtered 32 nosferatu who came for him at his home in Dubai after the book’s publication, is the right vamp for the job, they reason. Louis is not interested…until they reveal that the coven’s leader, “Killer,” used to go by Bruce — the biker vampire who raped and tortured Louis’s beloved Claudia decades earlier. The scene is cross-cut with Lestat and Gabriella’s bloody revenge against their abusive family, hinting that Louis will say yes. Vampires do love vengeance.
And they love sex, though not as much as they love blood. Lestat says as much just before his mother knowingly bites into his neck for a drink. They may not be fucking anymore, but killing together, drinking each other’s blood, is even more intimate. As for the incest, well, “It’s different for vampires,” Lestat shrugs. “That’s it.”
As you might expect from an episode centered on mother-son vampire incest, it’s a showcase for the mother and son in question, Jennifer Ehle and Sam Reid. Ehle is mesmerizingly sexy as Gabriella, a woman who seems to have been made awful by her marriage only to be liberated by her own son. Her gratitude is, uh, obvious, though they do spar over the relative merits of Italian and French culture. “Italy never made a Baudelaire,” Lestat says before performing an adaptation of one of the poet’s works on the piano of an Italian restaurant where they’ve slaughtered the staff.
Between that performance and the power ballad he sings to Louis, this is a real showcase for Sam Reid, Rock Star. It’s working, man. The guy is a golden god up there! He’s completely convincing having a bitchy back-and-forth with Louis about the fact that they’re both fucking their lawyers, or exposing that his drummer dislikes Thin Lizzy (gasp!), or preparing to murder a philandering father with his loving mother at his side after a night at the strip club.
But he feels equally at home in the period material, killing a pack of wolves with tears of terror in his eyes, or looking like the spitting image of Brad Pitt in Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire feature film during his first hunt with Gabriella in Paris.
Considering the strength of Jacob Anderson as a lead in what used to be Interview with the Vampire the TV show, shifting not only to Reid as an actor but to Lestat as a narrator — a nastier, more cynical, more comedic, less reliable narrator — is a massive risk that is paying off in spades. The Vampire Lestat visually and aurally bitchslaps you with entertainment like an unexpected shot of Eric Bogosian’s bare ass.
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