‘The Vampire Lestat’s Finale Forces Lestat to Face His Demons…Literally

Sam Reid has shown throughout all of The Vampire Lestat that Lestat de Lioncourt is not a 2-dimensional character. While we may have seen a version of him who is over the top, abusive, and unreasonable, the third season of Interview With the Vampire proves that there is more to Lestat than we may have originally thought.

In the finale of The Vampire Lestat, titled “The Failures,” Lestat’s decapitated head is sitting in a bowling bag while Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) bowls Lestat’s final moments away. Daniel may be screaming at Lestat, yelling about the things Lestat has “done” to him throughout their documentary, but Lestat is in a whole different world. Kind of literally.

Lestat is in a dream world where he exists between life and death and sees every mistake he’s ever made with his fledglings. Stuck at a metaphorical long table, Lestat has to answer to the head of the table. At first, it is Magnus (Damien Atkins) before he begs to switch the head to his mother, Gabriella Vecce (Jennifer Ehle). Each moment is spent breaking down his vampire life and how he has “failed” time and time again. All of his fledgling’s hold malice in their heart for him and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) didn’t even bother to show.

This leads to an episode of Lestat being forced to relive it all. The pain of growing up with a father and a mother who hated him, his failure with Nicki (Joseph Potter), what Magnus did to him, how he used Antoinette Brown (Maura Grace Athari), and how his incestuous relationship with his mother has actually weighed on him. It is a lot of realization for Lestat.

But one thing was made clear to him: Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) does love him.

Two long tables, one beautiful romance

While Louis is part of Lestat’s long table, the real Louis’ head is sitting on a literal one as he is forced to apologize to Armand (Assad Zaman). There is probably some truth to what Louis is apologizing for but he is also being forced to as to not get Regina (Hayles) and himself killed. But it all leads to a beautiful realization on Lestat’s part.

In his dream state, Lestat ends with a concert of his fledglings, victims, and those he traumatized. There, he talks to the inspiration of the song “Black Licorice” as well as a victim named Enzo. But the most beautiful moment comes when Paul de Pointe du Lac (Steven G. Norfleet) shows up to tell Lestat that Louis does love him, he just is bad at saying as much.

Louis doesn’t say it to him but it is almost as if Paul is the realization that Lestat needs to know how Louis really feels. Back in the real world, the two have a tender moment where they touch each other’s scars and connect after the turmoil they’ve been through.

While it isn’t a lot, it is enough to tell us that Louis and Lestat are always going to have a love between them. Out of all his failures, Louis is the one thing he didn’t get wrong. Lestat’s long table showed him how Gabriella hurt him, how he hurt Nicki, and how all that led to the love that he shares with Louis.

(featured image: Sophie Giraud/AMC)

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