The Vampire Lestat Season 1 Episode 4 Review: The Bonds That Bleed

Critic’s Rating: 4.2 / 5.0

4.2

When you only have seven episodes in a season, you have to make every second count.

The dialogue and the moments all have to matter because there’s no time to make the audience forget where you failed.

Four episodes into The Vampire Lestat, I’m still conflicted about whether it’s making every minute count, but the series has finally settled into its identity, coalescing into something intriguing.

A good season is building towards something.

You’re building your characters and plot points, putting them in place to take us from point A to point B and beyond in a way that is entertaining for the audience.

The Vampire Lestat Season 1 Episode 4 pushed the story further in some ways, and it wasn’t subtle in its approach. But then again, nothing about this season has been subtle, and that’s precisely how a season about Lestat de Lioncourt should be.

You could break it all down into three core story beats: Lestat and Gabriella’s burgeoning incestuous relationship, Louis’s guilt and shame, and Daniel’s daddy issues.

These all bleed into each other, right? The vampire bond and the ties that bind, especially between Lestat, Louis, and Daniel, are at the core of this whole thing.

Lestat was still on tour doing his thing, but you could tell his heart perhaps wasn’t as into it, and he was spiraling in the wake of Gabriella’s disappearance, which, to him, would be better described as another moment of paralyzing abandonment.

To this point, Gabriella’s characterization has been a bit all over the place, though one thing that has remained consistent is the control she seeks to exert over her son, which persists both when they were human and in their immortal lives.

I always think back to that horrifying moment during Interview with the Vampire Season 1 Episode 5, when Lestat and Louis are suspended in the sky, dangling him above the clouds in the most callous of ways, and he asks him to tell him that he was never going to love him.

Lestat’s need for love and companionship is as central to his being as the need for him to drink blood to survive. He craves intimacy so desperately that it becomes wild, messy, dangerous, and at times, outright abusive.

Gabriella sees all of that in him. She sees the desperate need for validation born from an adolescence defined by isolation and emotional neglect, and rather than offering the unconditional love Lestat has spent his life searching for, she exploits it.

It’s pretty apparent that, as a vampire, Gabriella is her most authentic self, as she no longer feels she has to fit into a box she may never have asked for or a role she never really wanted.

When she and Lestat are sitting in the bar, it’s the closest the series has come to exploring gender dynamics, the freedom Gabriella feels as a vampire, and the liberation she finds from traditional roles like motherhood.

Vampirism gives her freedom, but also an immense feeling of power.

In Lestat, there’s an obvious power dynamic at play, one that was exploited when they were human, but even more so now, as she knows how to poke and prod at Lestat to get his attention, reel him back in, and then move forward without regard for him.

Gabriella’s ‘I love you’ feels more rooted in manipulation than anything else because she understands what he needs emotionally. She repeatedly positions herself as someone who can grant it to him and withhold it.

When she leaves and abandons him in the middle of the night to set off into the world on her own with nary a goodbye or warning, leaving behind pieces of hair and her necklace, it feels like another power play.

But it’s also another step toward her asserting her autonomy, and those things do co-exist with her.

In the present day, Lestat is spiraling, stuck in the midst of a breakdown that’s getting increasingly harder for him to mask as he dives into his past and is constantly haunted by it.

He’s hallucinating Nicki at every turn, as a figure who constantly reminds him of some of his greatest failures.

And he’s sat with Daniel Malloy on a daily basis, forever reminded of the book whose very existence links back to the love of his life and the gargantuan mountain of trauma that punctuated their story.

Gabriella’s departure grates on him because it taps into his biggest insecurity, and it comes at a time when he’s so emotionally drained by the warring factions within him.

So, what better time for Armand to arrive?

Armand continues to be such a deliciously wicked and enigmatic character, and everything about his reappearance was enveloped in a sheen of mystery because how can you willingly believe anything he says at this point?

He appears to Daniel with a note as a means of making amends to the people he wronged, and he starts each one with a practiced, rehearsed little speech, already dulling its impact.

Daniel’s anger toward Armand, as a fledgling with deep-seated resentment toward his maker, comes pouring out of him within that bowling alley in a diatribe that has some really killer and questionable lines.

The two of them existing in their own private Idaho was a testament to their deep connection, even though Daniel tried to pretend otherwise. And it does beg the question of why their connection renders the world around them obsolete at various times.

Their first conversation is more of Daniel unleashing years of pain on the person he feels deserves it most.

But their second, in the street, feels much more appraising, like a conversation between two people who have shared a complicated, somewhat coercive dynamic they struggle to understand.

It’s worth mentioning again that I am not a book reader, so I don’t know outside of what I’ve seen on the interwebs about the true depths of their relationship.

However, it does appear that the show is leaning into Armand’s love for Daniel as a driving force for his actions, which makes you rethink a lot of Interview with the Vampire Season 2.

Was Dubai bullshit, as Daniel so eloquently put it? Was Armand in control of it all and merely sliding back into his Théâtre des Vampires shoes so it would all lead to this very moment where he could worm his way into Daniel’s life again?

Or do you believe Armand when he says it was his love for Daniel, not Louis, that shut it off in Dubai?

Color me shocked, but I believe Armand.

This feels like merely the tipping point in this portion of their story, one that spans decades and will likely include more declarations from Armand about his influence in Daniel’s life, and I’m here for it.

Yes, this is Lestat’s story, but I am fully invested in this Armand and Daniel saga.

Speaking of Lestat, his reunion with Armand was highlighted by an open shower of blood and deep truths, as well as a performance for the ages that stripped Armand of that carefully constructed image.

Lestat admitting that he never said anything about his role in the trial because he wanted Armand to spiral and Louis to be miserable by proxy feels very in line with something Lestat would do, but for some reason, I don’t fully believe him.

But that’s wholeheartedly me being naïve.

There’s spite, and then there’s purposefully wanting Louis to hurt in a way that is still showing up today, and it’s hard for me to reconcile with that.

While I continue to battle with this, let’s get into the third twisted parental storyline of the hour with Louis and Regina, which culminates in one of the episode’s many disturbing moments: dead-daughter roleplaying.

My dear Louis, if I could wish for one thing, it’s that you take some of that money, make your way over to BetterHelp.com, and pay out of pocket for some individual therapy because this is deeply, profoundly not okay.

I can make a joke about this, but the situation is far from funny. The whole story is severely uncomfortable, and that’s precisely the point.

But more than just making the audience squirm, it’s misguided, cruel, and increasingly more distressing.

Louis spends night after night in that diner, cultivating this odd and transactional relationship with this girl, and it’s creepy, sure, but when Regina presses back, as she should because it was getting weird, his response reveals just how consumed he still is by his grief.

He sends her in the direction of the book, and then he refuses to stay away because he’s not capable of it. He knows she’s going to piece together her role in this rich vampire’s bizarre life story, inserting herself into something she can never fully understand.

Even after learning about Regina, Louis is still so blinded by his own desires, namely, having Claudia back in his life by any means necessary, that he continues torturing himself in a new, twisted way.

Louis is never going to get over Claudia’s death, but this is a dangerous way to cope, both for himself and Regina. Louis is not in his right mind currently, and paying this woman to cosplay as his dead daughter so he can save her as he saved Claudia is every single layer of messed up.

Side note: Jacob Anderson and Delainey Hayles, submit that final scene for your Emmy bids because of all the layers.

I will be thinking about ‘What now, Daddy Lou?’ for a long while.

After such an intense hour, for it all to end with a throwback to Interview with the Vampire Season 1 Episode 1, also known as the best pilot in television history if you ask me, was a nice parallel for Lestat to invoke at such an interesting part.

Gabriella returned, and he tried halfheartedly to act unbothered until she sunk her claws in to push her agenda.

Lestat bringing back Louis’s words about the night he was turned, in which the story was told as a predator/prey situation, was an interesting comparison, no?

Has he always seen the full dichotomy in his relationship with Gabriella, and is he finally putting it into words in his own way?

The Vampire Lestat raises questions like these with answers that often fall into a grey area of understanding and keep the series from ever feeling stale.

Whether you’re loving where things are going or still unsure, the series’ ambition deserves recognition.

Lestat Liner Notes

• Are we going to get Armand’s letter to Louis? I don’t know if we’re ready for the levels of that one.

• Nicki’s mention of Antoinette made me think about that relationship and Lestat’s reluctance to give it up, especially given his history with intimacy.

• Armand has bodyguards, and I’m very curious why that would be.

• Armand “erasing” everything for Alex. What does THAT mean?

• So, Lestat has to be dead now, correct? He was shot in front of a million cameras. How does he pretend that away?

• We are moving toward fully exploring The Great Conversion, and I’m scared because Lestat isn’t taking it seriously, and now he’s following Gabriella’s instructions. None of this will end well.

So much happens during each hour, so there is certainly plenty more to discuss in the comments! Feel free to let your opinions fly so we can discuss.

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