Sam Reid as Lestat De Lioncourt and Jacob Anderson as Louis De Pointe Du Lac in The Vampire Lestat (Credit: Sophie Giraud/AMC)
The voiceover (Guy Maddin) tells us we’re listening to The Failures, Album 52 Side A.
Lestat (Sam Reid) narrates that he was back in Montreal, again staying across the street from his now-vampirized band. It’s Halloween 2025, exactly two years since the band formed. They’re now pondering what they think is Larry’s (Noah Reid) suicide, not knowing Armand compelled him to jump in front of a train.
The album didn’t sell well with mortals, to Lestat’s irritation. C’mon, The Vampire Lestat, you’re getting a pretty wild response from your human TV audience, why are those in Lestat’s universe so different?
But the songs are drawing 50,000 vampires to Montreal to hear Lestat perform them in person. Lestat says he's feeling alive, though, wondering if it’s because of “him.”
“Him” would be Louis (Jacob Anderson), who wants Lestat to cancel the concert, fearing a mass casualty event when it ends. Lestat says this is the biggest gathering of their kind ever, Louis could at least congratulate him on this accomplishment. He’s also perturbed that Louis isn’t more appreciative of the custom-built coffin Lestat gifted him.
Lestat is dressed as the Grim Reaper for Halloween as he and Louis walk through the celebrating streets. They have a midnight rendezvous with Merrick (Sarah Afful), a witch of the Mayfair clan. Louis is apprehensive, saying he doesn’t get on with witches. Lestat assures Louis that Merrick is different.
The maître d of the restaurant Louis owns greets Louis, his boss, as Mr. Pitt, and is honored to meet Lestat. Other restaurant guests burst into applause as Lestat and Louis enter.
In a private room, vampire journalist Daniel (Eric Bogosian) teases Lestat and Louis about their current amiability, asking about their reunion during Hurricane Odette. Louis and Lestat joke about it, but Lestat finally acknowledges that it was enough that Louis showed up.
Daniel recaps that Lestat’s human double, Jarda Klapic (also played by Reid), has been handsomely paid to disappear after he (pretending to be Lestat) was ostensibly assassinated by Beau Riddley.
Daniel asks if “the fog of vampiric love” was a thing for Louis. Is that why Louis and Armand never saw Daniel’s gotcha questions coming when mortal Daniel was interviewing them for the book?
Louis says he was trying to be respectful and avoid delving into the interviewer’s thoughts, unaware that Armand had told Daniel that Louis had been coldly listening to decades of reports about his human life.
The maître d’ brings in a beautiful young woman, a descendant of the de Lioncourt line. Otherwise unharmed, she is serene as she bleeds from her arm into a decanter, which deposits the blood into wineglasses for the three vamps.
Lestat asks about Dan’s tan – which, granted, is weird for a vamp. Daniel is coy, says he’s seeing someone.
Louis and Lestat toast Daniel’s romantic good fortune. But when Louis and Lestat are alone in the car, Louis worries that Daniel seemed “off.” Lestat dismisses this. “He has that ‘you think you’re better than me’ chip on. And we are. It’s exhausting to pretend otherwise.”
Women in another car, listening to one of Lestat’s songs, recognize him. Louis urges Lestat to indulge them, so Lestat rolls down his window and sings along for a moment, making their night.
Louis finally thanks Lestat for the custom-made coffin. It’s fun to see them finally behaving like the old friends they are underneath all the shit they put each other through.
Louis reminisces about arriving in Paris and imagining he saw Lestat as a spirit walking along the Seine. Did Lestat likewise “see” Louis during those years?
Lestat shakes his head no, but adds, “The songs might have shook loose a bone or two.” Louis throws his head back in an “arrgghh,” exasperated that while Lestat kept taking him to stage performances, he never mentioned he was a composer and performer.
Lestat starts to blame his behavior on “the blood of the Queen.” Louis says, “It’s not the blood, it’s what you do with the blood,” and they burst out laughing. Louis asks “why” to everything that Lestat does, and Lestat says, “Because, Louis, I’m a monster.”
They enter the studio. Louis introduces himself to “Sofia,” really Lestat’s mother/fledgling/lover Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle). She flirtatiously greets him as “the infamous Louis.” They watch as Lestat and the band perform Billy Idol’s “Dancing with Myself.” It’s an excellent song cover.
Gabriella expresses puzzlement about Louis’ fears regarding the concert. She has her own concerns about Louis’ safety, given that he’s antagonized so many vampires. Louis says he thinks Lestat would be hurt if he didn’t go. Gabriella says Lestat would be more hurt if Louis got hurt.
Lestat sings a new ballad to and for Gabriella and Louis, about knowing they’re out there and wanting brutal love. Louis is particularly affected.
The voiceover tells us we’re listening to The Failures, Album 55, Side A.
Lestat ends the band’s rehearsal performance. Gabriella wants a moment with Lestat. She seems to approve of his renewed affair with Louis. Lestat wants to know where he and Gabriella will go after the concert. She tells him they’ll engage in a great wave of making more and kisses him. Lestat exhibits the nervousness that only comes out around Gabriella.
Gabriella warns that Armand is in town and will try to disrupt things. Larry’s brother Alex (Seamus Patterson) looks at them as he leaves the studio. Lestat suggests Gabriella show Alex some affection – she’s his “mother.” Gabriella doesn’t know what to do with this suggestion.
Armand is indeed trying to be disruptive. In the car, Louis shows Lestat footage on his phone, sent by “someone” (aka Louis’ lawyer/boyfriend Lemuel), of Lestat and Gabriella having sex.
Lestat is nonplussed that it’s on the Internet but insists it’s a deepfake. The clip continues as Daniel explains to the masses that it’s a new segment from his upcoming documentary, Interview with the Vampire: Lestat. The camera pulls back to include Armand next to Daniel – in daylight, no less.
Interviewed by Daniel for the record, Armand says on camera that he first met the vampire Gabriella, Lestat’s mother, in 1793. Daniel puts the clip in context – it’s two months after Lestat’s supposed murder, and here he is boning his mom on the studio couch.
So this is what Armand has been up to, learning the language of apology so he could destabilize the vampirically insecure Daniel. To Lestat, the interview-that-wasn’t in Episode 3 was just a prank. To Daniel, it was an Inigo Montoya you-killed-my-father-prepare-to-die-level affront, and he’s retaliating.
Louis demands to know if he just met Lestat’s mom. When Lestat tries to deflect, Louis rephrases: “Are you hitting the same vagina you spent the first nine months of your mortal life in?”
The answer is obviously no, because fetuses don’t develop in the vagina. Lestat begins to lecture Louis on anatomy – and come on, Louis, you asked for it – but Louis demands the driver stop the car and gets out. Lestat follows, says he’s being judgy.
Louis is authentically shocked and offended by the incest, almost in tears, saying Lestat denying this is “all-time Armand-level deception.”
Lestat counters, “We are unnatural beings, and this is the half-human soul that you conveniently whip out whenever you want to win an argument.” Louis says this may be the source of all Lestat’s sickness.
Lestat, now in tears himself, yells that Louis is paying a girl to pretend to be Claudia, and Lestat doesn’t think he’s sick. “I’ve spent a month-and-a-half talking you back from unimaginable frenzy in the middle of my own fracturing! I offer you room under my roof …”
And Lestat has a seizure there on the sidewalk. Louis gently picks him up and says he’s sorry. They walk off holding each other.
In a bar, they’ve calmed down. Lestat teases Louis about his need to place blame in order to make sense of things, and Louis comes to the conclusion that Gabriella is “A hill to climb, vampire or not.” Louis isn’t proud of his own freakout and apologizes again.
Louis wonders about Daniel and Armand being in daylight in the video. Lestat realizes this explains the suntan, but either can’t or won’t say how it could have happened.
Merrick Mayfair, the witch, is at Lestat’s home when the pair returns. She instructs Louis and Lestat to sit and to keep their feet outside the salt circle on the floor. She says all spirits can be unruly, but warns that Claudia may be especially volatile, “a burned girl, a motherless monster – called up by her killers.”
Louis and Lestat squabble about the fact that neither of them killed Claudia hands-on and get testy with each other.
Louis supplies Merrick with one of Claudia’s journals and the dress she burned in. Not to nitpick, but why didn’t the dress burn?
Merrick uses these objects in her spell. She calls out to voodoo deity Papa Legba, the Christian Virgin Mary, and a couple of archangels, cuts herself, and puts her blood on a statue of the Virgin.
The salt on the floor stirs, and suddenly Merrick speaks with Claudia’s [Delainey Hayles’] voice, “Why … you yanking on me, you dumb bitch?” Claudia inside Merrick causes Merrick to slam her face against the table hard enough to knock a tooth out
Louis says he can’t let Claudia go, it’s at the bottom of everything. He wants to say the goodbye he never got to say.
The dress flies up into the air, and then Claudia is wearing it, her feet sliding barefoot on the floor. She says the dress was made by her lover Madeleine, who was killed with her. “She said I looked splendid in it.”
Claudia says Louis took the dress she burned in and hung it on the wall. Louis says he did it to honor her. Claudia snaps, “That’s what I want to be, fuel for your self-pity.” She screams in Louis’ face, “I’m DEAD!”
Claudia rips Louis a new one. The voice he thought was hers calling him from beyond the grave wasn’t hers. She liked Lestat better, thought about poisoning Louis instead of Lestat, but wanted someone who would essentially be her slave until she found someone (i.e., Madeleine) more worthy of her.
“What about the thing you should be thanking me for?” Louis demands.
This takes us and Claudia a moment. Louis means killing Bruce, her assailant. This just makes Claudia even angrier, if that’s possible. She spits out that she hates Louis, “more than anything or anyone I’ve ever known.”
Louis is hurt beyond speech. But Claudia isn’t done. She made up the story, recounted by Louis in the book and denied by Lestat, that Lestat threatened to rape her. She knows Lestat set her up to die. She would have done the same thing, only she wouldn’t have saved Louis.
Then Claudia weeps, “What about Madeleine?” Madeleine isn’t here, and Claudia can’t find her “there.” The one good thing in Claudia’s existence, and why are they not together?
Bloody tears fall from Lestat’s eyes. Louis is too stunned even for that.
Then the empty dress drops to the floor. Merrick wakes up and tells the spirits to close the gate, and says she'll be charging more for a dentist to fix her tooth.
Outside, Louis and Lestat walk together in silence. Louis finally sums up what just happened. “Pretty much closes the door on that.”
Lestat musters, “She spared us the ambiguity.”
Louis actually laughs, then sobers up. “That moment …” He’s ashamed of telling Claudia she should have been grateful to him and says he’s got some work to do on himself.
Lestat observes that working on oneself wasn’t something done in his mortal days. Louis says it wasn’t something done in his, either. “You punched the wall … sat on benches and shared troubles.”
So they sit on a park bench and muse about Claudia not having Madeleine, and about Gabriella. Lestat realizes that, subconsciously, he must have wanted the relationship to be known. But why did he want it now, and “why do I actively, manically pursue failure?”
Louis is philosophical. “Maybe it’s just how you keep your nights straight.”
“I have some work to do on myself,” Lestat concludes.
When Louis asks, Lestat admits most of his songs are about Louis, then counters, “You opened a restaurant three blocks from my house because …”
Louis laughs. “Yeah … Who else is going to have us?”
They notice guitarist Alex watching them from a distance, wearing a Dracula mask, which he removes –
And then Lestat and Louis are decapitated by two masked figures who reveal themselves as Armand and Daniel, and WTF?????
Not to belabor the obvious, but how do our protagonists get from here to the prophesied concert? We know from Lestat’s narration that the performance happens, and we know from the flashforward in the season opener that Louis attends the Failures auction, head on his neck.
So, is this a hallucination? Will Merrick’s powers be called upon again so soon? Does Episode 7, the season finale, begin with Gabriella coming to the rescue with the world’s biggest tube of Superglue? Let’s not lose our heads while we wait …
