The Vampire Lestat Season 1, Episode 6
“Montreal”
Writers: Ryan Kattner & Kevin Hanna
Director: Jane Wu
Cast: Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Delainey Hayles, Jennifer Ehle, Eric Bogosian, Sarah Afful, Ryan Kattner, Seamus Patterson, Sarah Swire, Christopher Geary, Guy Maddin
I went back and forth on what headline to give this review. For the most part, this essay is a long stroll through the rekindling relationship of Louis and Lestat, which weathers a pair of storms and comes out the stronger for it. Both men — vampires, sorry — say they need to take time to work on themselves, an activity neither of them had any concept of when they were growing up one to three centuries earlier. In that sense, something like “Couples Therapy” would fit the bill.
But come on. They get their goddamn heads chopped off at the end! Their skulls slide from their severed necks as slowly as a samurai movie. Come to think of it, I’m kind of surprised the necks didn’t spurt blood in the grand samurai fashion — that would be this show’s style, alright! Regardless, their noggins flop to the ground in front of the park bench where they’ve been sitting, laughing like an old happily married couple.
Granted, we know both of them survive, Lestat to narrate the show, Louis to appear at that auction in the season’s cold open. But there are a lot of ways to generate cliffhanger energy for characters with proverbial plot armor that don’t involve having Assad Zaman and Eric Bogosian chop off their heads with machetes while wearing vampire costumes on Halloween night. If you laughed out loud at the sheer suddenness and audacity of it — especially after an episode that approached their pain and their happiness in all earnestness — congratulations, you’re not alone.
Until this point, Lestat and Louis have had a difficult night. First they endure an awkward interview with Daniel Molloy (sporting a tan, they notice) who feints going in uncomfortable directions but never delivers the final Daniel Molloy gotcha question they’re both expecting.
Next it’s off to rehearsal, where Louis meets Gabri—ahem, Sofia—for the first time. It goes reasonably well, if you don’t count all the hints she’s giving off that something horrible has been planned for Lestat’s big farewell concert, where he’ll be playing to 50,000 vampires, the largest gathering of the undead in history. But her whole demeanor changes when Lestat road tests a powerful new ballad that’s clearly written with Louis, not Gabriella, in mind. I wonder now if she’ll make good on her wink-wink nudge-nudge promise to protect Louis when…whatever it is that’s gonna happen does happen.
For what it’s worth, Louis is against the whole concert. He’s moved into Lestat’s place while he’s in town overseeing the opening of a vampire restaurant located oh-so-coincidentally three blocks away, and he spends their time together repeatedly asking his rock-star ex to cancel the performance. As Louis sarcastically puts it to Gabri—excuse me, Sofia, “What could go wrong?”
Before long they’ve got an answer. Working with Armand, who Lestat can sense is in town too, Daniel posts hidden-camera footage of Lestat and “Sofia” having sex. In the process, the disgruntled vampires out Gabriella as his mother. Your pop idol is as incestuous and blonde as any Targaryen.
Lestat, the ultimate exhibitionist, is so aghast at being exposed in this way that he vomits blood in their limo, splattering Louis’s new kicks. But he’s quick to defend himself when a horrified Louis, in hilariously profane terms, repeatedly says that the idea of incest is beyond what even vampires ought to be capable of. Lestat points out that Louis recently paid two women to simulate being his dead kid sister and her dead lover, so let he who is without weird, weird shit going on cast the first stone.
It’s worth recalling here that everything we’re seeing and hearing this season is from Lestat’s perspective. Louis is more temperamental, more judgemental, more messed up, weaker. When he apologizes for his response…well, I wonder if this is the apology Lestat actually got, or just the one he wanted. But they do make it past this…speed bump, let’s say.
They have to: They have big plans for that evening. They’ve hired Merrick Mayfair (Sarah Afful), a broke member of the Mayfair family of New Orleans witches, to summon Claudia’s spirit, so that Louis can say goodbye and finally be free of the trauma of her death. As Louis himself would say, what could go wrong?
A lot more than you’d think. For one thing, Claudia kind of beats the shit out of the witch, forcing her to slam her own face into the desk in front of her, chipping a tooth. But more importantly, we learn exactly how Claudia feels about “Daddy Lou”: She hates his goddamn guts. Sometimes inhabiting Merrick, sometimes appearing directly before them, Claudia says she hates Louis more than anyone she’s ever known.
She mocks his self-pity, saying she only chose him over Lestat because he’s a natural-born “slave” who’d be easier to manipulate and then discard. Even worse, she reveals she’s had no rest in the afterlife, searching the void for her beloved Madeleine, who is nowhere to be found. “STOP SAYING MY NAME!” she screams, and departs. At last, Claudia has been given a voice of her own, and actor Delainey Hayles uses it for all it’s worth.
Or is it Claudia’s voice? Again, everything we’re hearing and seeing this season is being mediated through Lestat, just as Interview with the Vampire was through Louis. It’s possible that the needier, more damaged Louis, the creepier Armand, the more vindictive Daniel, and the Claudia who hates Louis more than her maker and kinda sorta murderer Lestat are closer to reality than the ones we saw through Louis’s eyes. It’s possible we got Spirit Claudia as-is, with no editorializing by Lestat. It’s just as possible that we didn’t.
At any rate, our anti-heroes stagger out into the park, dazed by this night of revelations. (Not least of these is the fact that Daniel, like Armand, can apparently walk in the sun.) Yet they’re determined to try and work out their issues. Lestat, who wonders aloud why he relentlessly drives himself to failures of his own design (he knows he courted the outing of his relationship with Gabriella by touring with her), confesses most of his love songs are really about Louis. Maybe they can get a place in the desert, make a go of things again. They smile at the thought.
Until, that is, they see Alex, Lestat’s guitarist, standing beneath a nearby light in a cheesy vampire mask. As they turn to look, Daniel and Armand creep up behind them and chop their heads off. Now that’s a failure!
Now we know why Daniel’s affect was off at their final interview: He was plotting their downfall. We also can infer that Armand made Alex’s brother Larry kill himself in order to sever Alex’s last tie to the outside world and make him easier to control.
Life is nasty, brutish, and short; life in the vampire world is nasty, brutish, and long. According to Claudia, the afterlife isn’t much better. So many grudges to hold, secrets to hide, hearts to break, lonelinesses to endure (this is Lestat’s biggest challenge), spirals of madness to succumb to. That’s The Vampire Lestat’s adoring fanbase.
The band’s album may not be doing well with human critics or audiences, but it’s spurred the vampire faithful into a frenzy, and they are not reliable individuals under normal circumstances. The hidden agendas of Armand, Daniel, Alex, and Gabriella may or may not be related, but they’re proof that The Vampire Lestat’s music is sonic stochastic terrorism, inspiring violence without demanding it directly. It shouldn’t surprise us, or them, to feel some blowback.
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