Last Updated on June 19, 2026 by Angel Melanson
AMC’s Interview With The Vampire season 3 kicked off last week with the premiere of The Vampire Lestat. Yes, it’s a different title, but while the new season follows Lestat’s rockstar exploits, it is in fact a continuation of the events that have transpired in the first two seasons of Interview With The Vampire. Which means you should definitely catch up on those first. (Read our full Lestat episode 1 recap right here.)
The Vampire Lestat episode 2 is largely concerned with Lestat’s (Sam Reid) life as a human, prior to transformation. Lestat is still narrating to us from his vinyl collection, The Failures. The voiceover (Guy Maddin) tells us we’re hearing Album 8, Side A.
Lestat’s v.o. cuts in. He’s decided there may be value in examining how he “became me.”
We’re on the grand but decaying de Lioncourt estate in Auvergne, France, 1772. Five of Lestat’s siblings are buried in the graveyard here.
Little Lestat is a young boy at the table with his father, the Marquis, his Italian mother Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle), his two surviving older brothers, his sister-in-law, and his infant nephew. Lestat is described by a visiting monk as possessing an ability “to envision the unseen.” The Lestat brothers mock the little boy because he has difficulty speaking.
Gabriella is reading at the table. Lestat says that Gabriella’s intellect was squandered and that she paid a midwife to nick her reproductive organs to stop her husband from humiliating her further.
Lestat’s father is angry that little Lestat got onstage with some traveling players. When the Marquis instructs his older sons to physically punish him, Lestat stabs one of his brothers. Gabriella returns to reading her book.
Upon returning from his education at the monastery, Lestat, now old enough to be played by Reid, is at the table with the family. Townspeople are in the hall, begging the Marquis’s protection for their sheep from raiding wolves. The Marquis doesn’t care. Gabriella is scornful of his inaction.
Lestat is prompted by his mother’s disgust to take on the wolves by himself. He thinks she wants him to die doing something rather than continue to live among the cabbages (a mother/son term for inconsequential people and opinions). His dog and horse are killed (off-camera) by the wolves, leaving Lestat desolate. He succeeds in killing eight wolves.
When Lestat returns to the estate, bleeding and scarred, Gabriella nurses and praises him.
Gabriella says a mob came yesterday and will come again tonight. “They wish to worship you,” Lestat tells her that he imagined killing his father and two brothers when he killed the wolves.
Lestat lets Gabriella put ointment on him and manually stimulate him, while she tells him she dreams of getting naked and taking to bed any and every man who arrives.
Gabriella says that in that moment, she belongs to no one. “Except for me,” Lestat interjects. He wants her to affirm this, but she coughs and tells him she’s dying. The news sends Lestat into a panic.
Lestat wakes up from dreaming about this on the band’s tour bus. The scene alternates between color “what’s really happening” footage and black-and-white footage from the documentary directed by Interview with the Vampire writer Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Gabriella is also on the bus. Lestat addresses her in front of others as “Sophia,” wanting to keep the familial connection a secret.
Lead guitarist Larry (Noah Reid) and the band want to talk about what happened last night, especially Lestat revealing that he is actually a vampire, not just pretending, and the hotel-wrecking intra-vampire brawl.
Someone asks about Armand, and Lestat says he could have hung it up right there, but the band sounded really good together, and they had a gig coming up. Also, Gabriella had come a great distance to comfort him. He appreciates his listener’s patience with the “vampire incest thing.”
After the opening credits, we’re back to the Q&A. Alex (Seamus Patterson) asks intensely if Lestat kills people. Lestat dances around the question, says he doesn’t have to kill when he drains people, he does it onstage every night.
Lestat explains “the Farm,” where people donate blood for money. Daniel chimes in. They only just now realize he’s a vampire, too. Daniel says there are three vamps on the bus, including “Sophia.”
Lestat chides the band for their “willful ignorance.” He fesses up to having killed a few people, but the band members have been surrounded by vampires their whole lives, vampires have been around for thousands of years, they’ve been with him for a year and a half, no harm done. He’s protected them.
News to the band that they need protection. Lestat says the songs about vampires are considered sacrilegious by some other vampires, but he thinks his bandmates are, in fact, just scared of how great they were last night.
Alex is unsure that Lestat won’t kill them and quits, thinking the others will follow him, but they don’t. Nobody else speaks, but Lestat reads their minds out loud for Alex. Larry thinks he’s glad Lestat killed the sound tech who used to deliberately muddy Larry’s solos; Lestat says he didn’t kill the sound tech, just fired him.
Alex still leaves. Lestat thinks he’s the best musician they have – except for Lestat, of course – so he can take his time, but he should think it through before telling the police Lestat has killed anyone if he values his life, or his brother’s.
We’re now listening to The Failures, Album 12, Side B.
In Toledo, Ohio, Lestat is out on the town with Gabriella, feeding and smooching. He’s crazy about her. Lestat feels they need to come up with a story where she’s not his mom, and to make a pact not to have sex with each other. This last doesn’t seem to be something they take seriously. He wants to know how long she’ll be here, as he only saw her twice in the last century. She says, “Long enough.”
Band manager Christine (Jeanine Seralles) calls, says a lawyer representing a client/Lestat fan named Thomas Pitt has called, who has a financial interest in the damaged hotel. In exchange for not suing, Mr. Pitt wants “an exclusive fan experience,” including sex.
We’re now listening to The Failures, Album 15, Side B.
Thomas Pitt (a reference to Tom Cruise as Lestat and Brad Pitt as Louis in the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire – does that movie exist in this universe?) turns out to be Louis’ (Jacob Anderson) alias. He’s there at the meeting – the requested fan experience – between his lawyer (Moses Sumney) and Christine, with Lestat also present.
Louis is part-owner of the hotel. Costs of the structural damage are still being calculated. Louis’ lawyer says his client asserts that Lestat called the meeting.
Both Christine and Lestat vehemently deny this. Louis counters that Lestat stole his personal physician, hired his biographer, and trashed his hotel. Also, Louis has heard Lestat’s songs. While Lestat insists the songs aren’t about Louis (as if!), Louis feels like it’s a cry for help, so he flew in, because he cares.
The two vampires get into a spat. Are they each having sex with their representatives? Of course. Lestat is angry about Louis insulting him in Daniel’s book, Louis hiring DJ Sam Barclay (former Théâtre des Vampires writer, current Talamasca agent), and Louis having been with Armand.
Lestat offers “Mr. Pitt” tickets to tomorrow’s show. Louis says he needs only one; his lawyer doesn’t care for Lestat’s music, although he likes Lestat’s merch, partly because Louis owns forty percent of it. Lestat and Christine didn’t know this until now.
The next night, the band performs for a rapturous crowd. Daniel, directing the documentary, tells the camera operator to get a shot of the “cougar Milanese” (Gabriella), then of Louis, whom Daniel says is “the story.”
Lestat floats off the stage and up to the balcony, sings directly at Louis, “I tried to write you the prettiest song in the world, but I got distracted,” and hands Louis his copy of Daniel’s book, then floats back to the stage. The audience loves it, but they’re not freaked out by the flying vampire.
Later, at a high-end restaurant, Daniel explains to Louis why he’s making a documentary about Lestat. Lestat says in voiceover that he wasn’t there for this conversation, but it’s his prerogative to imagine it, especially as he knows both Daniel and Louis well enough. Lestat teases that it provides insight into how Lestat wound up awakening the Queen.
Louis asks how Daniel has taken to being a vampire. Daniel says he understands vampire loneliness now. There are moments when it seems like everyone around him disappears, and he feels Armand. “Did that happen with you and Lestat?” “No.”
Daniel says he should have asked before he published, and Louis says he would have said no. Daniel says he can’t fly, he can’t start fires with his mind, and he wanted something (i.e., the book) out of being turned. Louis says he’s glad the book worked out for Daniel but didn’t like the way he was written: passive, selfish … a f***ing liar. The writing’s good.”
Louis says he and Lestat are finding their way back again. He then startles Daniel by revealing he saw someone who looked like Claudia, if she’d made it to her twenties, coming out of a New York subway. Louis followed her into a diner, where she works. She has a different walk and accent from Claudia, but still … Louis left without speaking to her.
Daniel springs his documentary producers on Louis. These are shady Talamasca agent Raglan James (Justin Kirk) and Armand’s erstwhile assistant Rashid (Bally Gill). Louis says this isn’t cool, but Daniel apologetically leaves the three together.
At a strip joint, there are corpses on the floor. Lestat is playing the piano while Gabriella is looking at the pictures she took of Louis at the concert. “What does he know about me?” Lestat says he told Louis that Gabriella died of consumption in 1794. Gabriella muses on Louis, “An aloof poetry behind the eyes, uncanny beauty … I can see why you gave him a daughter. I can see why you took him back.”
We see Lestat turn Gabriella on her deathbed. When she revives, she feeds on one of her maids. The other family members, except for the children, are in the dining room. Lestat kills his sister-in-law and one brother, Gabriella kills her other son, then her husband. Lestat and Gabriella go into the crypt for the day, but hear the screams of the children arriving and seeing the extensive carnage.
Lestat tries to explain the incest thing again for his listeners, but just concludes, “It’s different for vampires.”
In Toledo, Raglan wants Louis to take care of the Talamasca’s “problem in Detroit,” i.e., the vampire mob. Louis says no, he only kills those who come for him first.
Louis gets up to go. Raglan shows Louis a photo and relates a Detroit coven member calling himself Killer used to go by Bruce, as in the Bruce (Damon Daunno) who kidnapped, imprisoned, and raped Claudia in the 1930s. Now Raglan has Louis’ attention.
The Vampire Lestat episode 3 (“Toronto”) airs on AMC Sunday, June 21 at 9 p.m. EST and PST. New episodes are available on AMC’s streaming app at 3:00 a.m. EST/12:00 a.m. PST on Sunday mornings, with new episodes released weekly.
