The Vampire Lestat is, in the titular immortal’s own words, a re-write of everything we learned about Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in Interview with the Vampire. The new season on AMC and AMC+ also introduces Lestat’s mother Gabriella de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle), who was weirdly not mentioned all that much in the first two seasons. To help you remember exactly which points the immortal rockstar wishes to contest and which he wants to add, here’s a recap of everything Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) told us about Lestat’s life before meeting him on Interview with the Vampire in Season 1 and Season 2.
Use this as a refresher if you don’t have time for a dedicated Interview with the Vampire rewatch. Or if you want to rewatch a particular scene, but can’t remember which episode it was from, I can help you there as well!
When Lestat invites Louis up to have a threesome with him and Lily, he briefly talks about a music box that he brought with him from Europe. He composed the tune, he says, “for a young violinist I once knew. A boy of infinite beauty and sensitivity.
Some time later, when Lestat meets Louis’ family for the first time, Lestat tells them “my mother, she gave me every advantage in life as a young man. My first Mastiff, first flintlock rifle, the means to make my way to Paris.” When asked if he’s a mama’s boy, he says “My mother’s boy. My mother’s man. We are very close, Mademoiselle.” Oh, I’m sure.
He tells Louis’ brother Paul that he once lived in a monastery and wanted to be a priest. But his father, “a vulgar man,” conspired with his brothers to pull him out. They locked him up, beat him, and starved him until he no longer cared about his theistic and philosophic education. He also mentions that he is “cursed with his father’s temper.”
This is not directly related to Lestat (yet), but this episode opens with Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) looking at a Venetian painting that “Rashid” (Assad Zaman) tells him was painted by someone named Marius de Romanus. “A contemporary of Tintoretto's,” the latter says. “Little of his work survives.”
What Daniel does not yet realize is that Rashid is actually the vampire Armand, as well as Louis’ current companion. The vampire Marius de Romanus is Armand’s maker. Just flagging that for later, thanks!
Lestat also randomly name drops the 19th century opera composer Gaetano in this episode. “I was an acquaintance of his,” he tells Louis, “I saw the premiere at the Salle Ventadour years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday.”
"This was given to me by a marquis who was beheaded by a mob ten years after he gave it to me," Lestat tells Claudia when she picks up a necklace with a green stone that could rival the Heart of the Ocean.
Louis and Lestat’s fledgling daughter, Claudia (Bailey Bass), requests that Lestat tell her about who made him a vampire. “His name was Magnus,” Lestat says. “He took me from my room in Paris as I kicked and screamed. He kept me for a week, locked
in a room full of corpses. Some freshly killed, some bloated and black. But they all looked like me. My coloring, my physique. My own eyes staring back at me from rotting faces.”
Lestat goes on to say that Magnus fed on him every night for a while before turning him, handing him a pile of money, and jumping into a fire to his death. “It's why I don't particularly like being abandoned,” he says.
Later, Claudia asks him about Nicki—the violin player and his first love. He name drops chess master Johannes Zukertort (1842-1888) and then answers her question. “Nicki passed on after he and I parted ways,” he says simply...vaguely, even.
While Louis, Lestat, and Claudia are planning their European vacation they mention Greece as a possible destination.
“Cradle of Western Civilization,” Lestat muses. “Sun worshipers, hot springs. Those who must be kept.”
That last phrase, while he does not explain himself or elaborate, is a direct reference to Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, and her companion Enkil. They are the first vampires, AKA “those who must be kept,” and we will learn about them in The Vampire Lestat.
In what Daniel describes as a telenovela worthy twist, Louis and Claudia learn that the Théâtre des Vampires, a coven led by the vampire Armand that they’re considering joining, was actually founded by Lestat. Back in the present, Daniel surmises that that means Armand knew Lestat, and guesses that Armand also dated Lestat. The two confirm this.
“They were not compatible,” Louis says.
“He tasted like vermouth and annihilation,” Armand quips. Noted!
At the beginning of this episode, Armand volunteers his memories of first meeting Lestat in Paris in the 18th century. Is he more or less of a reliable narrator than Louis? We’ll see.
“It was 1556 when the Roman coven sent me to lead the shambolic Paris coven,” he tells Daniel. “We called ourselves the Children of Darkness.”
They lived humbly underground, “hunted in shame,” and obeyed five strict vampire laws. But “by the time Robespierre was beheaded, I was, by any measure, failing.”
Enter Lestat, who Armand first encounters playing the flamboyant Harlequin role in a Commedia del Arte. “I felt his presence before I saw him,” he says. “Sired by one of my deserters, Magnus.” But Lestat rejected Armand’s initial advances and the coven did not appreciate his flamboyant lifestyle or his human lover, Nicolas de Lenfant (Joseph Potter), who played violin in the pit orchestra.
So Armand, desperate to get Lestat under his control, kidnapped Nicki and fed him to his coven. Lestat makes a grand entrance and swiftly devolves the coven by telling them that they don’t need to live like this. (In the present, Armand tells Daniel that that was his plan all along. He was basically quiet quitting his own coven.)
What happens next? Lestat comes back to the lair alone, lookin’ Heathcliff AF, and asks Armand to teach him vampire “gifts” like fire, mind control, and flight. Lestat tells him that he has an idea to use theatre as a cover for hunting. They can flaunt their nature in public, but call it a play, so nobody believes it’s real. A new coven forms. Lestat quits acting and starts hooking up with Armand, even with Nicki watching them.
In the present, it’s Louis that finishes this story. He tells Daniel that Lestat left Armand, the theatre coven, and Nicki after a week. “Lestat is, and always will be, for Lestat.”
Back on #MariusWatch, just pointing out that in this episode Armand talks even more in depth about his own origin story and maker. He says that the coven in Rome that sent him to Paris also set fire to Marius.
Louis, angrily ranting to Armand in 1973, asks if he’s going to cut off his hands. In Anne Rice’s book The Vampire Lestat, we learn that Armand cut off Nicolas de Lenfants’ hands when he started to lose his grip on reality. Flag that too, please! (He also mentions Marius grooming Armand #MariusWatch)
At the end of this episode, the vampire Santiago (Ben Daniels) in his intro to The Play says, “If you want to k*ll your lover or f*ck your mother, it'll have to wait.” Tune into The Vampire Lestat to see why that’s relevant.
On stage again, at last, Lestat tells a version of his origin story that was written by the vampire Sam Barclay (Christopher Geary). Santiago narrates as well. “Nicki went insane,” he says. “He died by his own hand.”
“No,” Lestat improvises. “With a little help from others.” He then looks up at Armand. “An unfathomable sadness seeped into me with Nicki's death. I buried myself in the dirt, Port Neuilly, on the outskirts of Paris, and I lay there for a hundred years.” Santiago says that he awoke in 1908 and went to America, where he met Louis.
During the trial/play, Lestat also mentions that he is “burdened with his maker’s temper” and also has ancient godlike blood inside of him. He also mentions something about wolves.
In the final episode, we see Nicolas de Lenfant’s grave under the theater. After Louis goes on a rampage and burns the theater to the ground, he and Armand find Lestat in Magnus’ lair. “Ask for it, child,” he mutters to himself. “The light's going out of your blue eyes, like all the summer days are gone.” Book readers will identify that as Magnus words to a dying Lestat just before he gave him the Dark Gift.
When Louis and Armand threaten to kill him, he says that he has the blood of Magnus and the blood of Akasha in him. It won’t be that easy. He also says Armand does not know who Akasha is and that he has to be willing to die.
Fascinating stuff! Can’t wait to see his interpretation of… all of that. Bring on The Vampire Lestat.
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