The Vampire Lestat Season 1 Episode 1 Review: Lestat Takes Center Stage

Critic’s Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

4.2

The first image of Lestat de Lioncourt in The Vampire Lestat is him emerging from the darkness on the stage of an intimate theater, relishing in the screaming and adoration of a crowd there to see him.

It’s Lestat on stage, where he feels wildly at home, that gives you the first taste of what this new season will entail.

We’re not walking the streets of New Orleans and Paris, or settling into a Dubai penthouse. Instead, we’re traveling the country on a tour bus, sitting in the passenger seat of Lestat’s dark, cross-country, cross-century trip.

If Interview with the Vampire is a deep exploration of the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac from the beginning, then The Vampire Lestat starts us off less as a lookback at Lestat’s beginnings (that’s coming later) and more as a check-in on where he is now.

You can tell pretty quickly into this hour that this isn’t going to be like the first two seasons of Interview with the Vampire. It’s a complete tonal shift, one that tips into comedic absurdity at times, but does so with determination and aplomb.

They’re not interested in telling a straightforward Lestat story in the same vein as Louis’s, and that likely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

As I watched The Vampire Lestat Season 1 Episode 1, I couldn’t help but play the comparison game until I realized it was futile, because this series is trying to do more than just be the third season of a television series.

It’s not necessarily trying to reinvent the wheel, but it is trying to challenge viewers to accept a new reality in which we’re firmly in the present day, unlike in past seasons.

Yes, we were in Dubai, but we were relatively confined to Louis’s penthouse. Now, we’re everywhere and anywhere, flitting through life like a modern-day rock star in an age when the modern-day rock star may not be as relevant as Lestat thinks they should be.

It’s also interested in dialing up the raunch factor with ridiculous dialogue and set pieces at times, culminating in a ride that can be amusing yet deeply uncomfortable.

The first hour serves as a kind of introduction: we meet the band and learn how they came to be a band in the first place, along with Lestat’s body double and how he’s conning the world.

But one of the most interesting aspects of the opener unfolds early, when we see the breakdown of Lestat and Louis’s relationship once again, which precedes his rock star life.

It’s been a long while since Louis and Lestat have existed in any form of tranquil domesticity, but that’s almost what you get during their FaceTime exchange, which shows the two bantering and flirting, as if the longstanding violent history between them hasn’t beaten them into submission.

There’s a sweetness between them, as if they’re tentatively finding common ground on which they can exist and see what comes next. But it abruptly stops when Lestat first learns about Daniel’s book.

Much of this hour is played for laughs in a way you don’t associate with this universe. It’s campy at times, almost to a staggering degree, but it feels somewhat necessary to get you into the headspace of this particular time in Lestat’s life.

The book has to shatter him in a very specific way, not only because of what Louis meant to him but also because of the memories it evokes.

Imagine you’re creating music in a beautiful apartment in Montreal, on a quiet little street, only to learn that the love of your life has exposed the secret of your immortal being and aired every single corner of your dirty laundry for the world to see.

Or at least their version of it.

It’s no shock to discover that when we’re on the road with Lestat, Daniel Malloy now in tow as a documentary filmmaker, he and Louis have drifted again.

Lestat’s someone whose entire outer façade appears to be made of Kevlar, but we know that’s not true.

We know that beneath the exterior of a vampire who always seems to have it together, there is a somewhat frightened being, plagued by abandonment issues, abuse, and a lack of companionship that no amount of bravado, charm, or theatricality can conceal.

Lestat on tour is brash and confident, but he’s masking a lot with drugs, sex, and anything that will seemingly get his mind off all the things that must cycle through your mind when you’ve lived the life he has.

There’s a running thing throughout the hour of Lestat texting someone to come see him, and if you haven’t been paying attention to AMC’s massive promotional push, you may not know who he’s begging to come.

But for those of us who knew who would show up at the end, there’s a throughline in these messages that grows increasingly desperate (for obvious reasons) while also peeling back the layers of Lestat’s psyche.

He’s not doing well, and that’s fairly evident by the copious amounts of debauchery he’s engaged in while on a stop in Detroit, Michigan.

“Black Licorice” is such an odd song because the lyrics are a mess, but that seems purposeful. And Sam Reid’s performance feels like just a preview of things to come this summer, as we see him perform various songs illuminated by screaming crowds or maybe even more intimate audiences.

When Lestat’s struck with the memories, a cascading playlist of some of the seemingly worst moments of his life, Lestat breaks down on stage, with his bandmates looking on in concern, but the music never stops.

It pulsates through the scene and through Lestat, and it’s a pretty surreal moment, made all the more powerful when, at the end, he bites into the neck of the erstwhile Baby Jenks in front of a crowd who thinks it’s all make-believe, while Lestat clings to the performance as the only thing keeping him from completely unraveling.

The show leans on the somewhat clichéd drug-induced hallucination device, using distorted voices and figures, all to underscore just how unmoored from reality Lestat has become that evening.

Is it needed? Probably not, but again, the series feels like it almost needs to make it clear to the audience that we’re witnessing something entirely different from Interview with the Vampire.

They are siblings of the closest variety, but this isn’t Louis’s story. It’s Lestat.

Louis wouldn’t see Baby Jenks on the ceiling, reading him for filth, but Lestat would.

Earlier in the episode, when Lestat sees the Fang Gang members in the crowd, you can sense the trouble brewing from the vampires who aren’t exactly thrilled about Lestat’s ruse.

I don’t think Lestat’s making a mockery of vampires or anything like that, but he’s parading in plain sight each week, and even if he’s pretending, after the book’s release, it’s putting a lot of unwanted scrutiny on vampires in general.

Sure, the average person probably wouldn’t give it a second thought, but there are a lot of non-average people in the world, rightfully scaring the scores of vampires who’d prefer their very existence wasn’t being flaunted on a multi-city tour, complete with girls getting drained on stage.

Everything Lestat is doing goes against not only the Great Laws, but also the older vampires who’ve crafted a way of life that has kept their secrets for hundreds of years.

Lestat’s throwing a monkey wrench into the entire vampire existence, or a guitar pick, complete with a lack of regard, care, and respect for the centuries of secrecy that made that existence possible in the first place.

When it all culminates in that boutique hotel hallway, it’s so damn good.

This has never been the kind of vampire show that thrives on big action pieces and scene after scene of vampires being killed by a stake through the heart. This is about vampires enduring rather than being slain.

Of course, Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Episode 8 goes completely against that, but Louis had his REASONS.

Lestat versus a bunch of vampires hellbent on beheading him for the greater good plays almost as comically as everything leading up to it, especially with Lestat’s narration (which can admittedly be a little draining at times).

That narration builds to a crescendo where Daniel and the DJ Sam have to save his ass before his story ends in a boutique hotel hallway thanks to drugged-up blood, too much sex, and too many ill-timed memories.

With only seven episodes this season, I wondered when his identity would be revealed to those closest to him, and the fact that it came at the very end of the opening installment felt like the perfect time.

In a series full of all-time grand moments of utter despair and shock value, the image of an overwhelmed, bloodied, disfigured, bereft Lestat breaking through a window to fly away was just poetically incredible.

Of course, if things were always leading to a showdown with The Fang Gang, they were also heading toward the reveal of who the “Toi” was texting Lestat.

Again, AMC’s promotional push, along with the novel’s existence, meant that Gabriella was coming sooner rather than later.

Her appearance in that motel room was less about a big reveal and more about adequately introducing the dynamic between mother and son, as seen in Lestat’s reaction upon seeing her: he immediately shrinks in on himself.

Fledgling. Lover. Mother.

And we’re off.

Lestat’s Liner Notes

• The beginning, with Armand missing an eye, Louis missing a leg, and everyone bidding on the Failures, was such an interesting way to begin things. I had to watch it twice because I was a little confused.
• So what’s the deal with Lestat’s scars? Did Louis lie about them?

• “Collecting fledglings like they were labubu dolls.”

• Lestat only calling Daniel Dan is funny for so many reasons.

• Jarda. I hope we see him again, because I was cackling.

• There were so many hilarious moments, but one of the funniest was Lestat’s remark that he wanted to meet Joey Chestnut.
• Dee was such a standout in the hour, but did we need to see her showering in the background? And why was she sleeping on the floor while Lestat looked out over the city?

• Learning new vampire anecdotes from Lestat is great because we wouldn’t have gotten these same things from Louis, who simply hasn’t “lived” as long as Lestat and hasn’t had the same experiences.

• I can already tell I will be missing Louis at times.

It’s been a very long and arduous wait for this one, but now that it’s here, I’m so curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

Was it what you wanted it to be?

Are you excited about the tonal shift?

Let all your feelings loose in the comment section below. And check out TV Fanatic all week for interviews with the cast, producers, and the composer for this epic season.

You can watch The Vampire Lestat on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC and AMC+.