Ace of 💜s

This episode is one of the biggest disappointments of the season for me. Not only invalidate(*) they several of previous season's statements, no they also re-appropriate a whole book arc of relationship and reduce it to nonsense imho.

And, at the same time - here comes the (*) into play, maybe, likely, later - they give themselves the caveat that it's all a "hallucination" and "close to dying and not quite conscious".

*stares into the camera*

Let's start with what I liked:

I liked "Butterscotch Bitch", while not sung still very much present and pointed at his "failures". It is the rejection of those failures and honestly? Yes.

I liked the twist with Regina, and that she got to live despite everything.

I liked Armand referring to Daniel as "his companion".

I liked Raglan coming to the rescue.

I liked Lestat finally standing up for himself against Gabriella

I liked Armand... finally owning some shit.

I liked the performances.

I liked that Lestat was disgusted at her putting her hand onto him. Which is also a reaction very telling as of being... not the first time.

I really liked the scene with Paul.

I liked that they made God female.

I liked Raglan wriggling himself into the inner circle already.

The silver threads - the silver cord.

... *coughs*

I did not like:

The whole episode is what @cbrownjc called a "clip show". And it's almost all .... hallucinations. They can just walk back a lot of it if they feel like it. They also put a LOT of little clips into it that make no sense. Like, for example, Sam stating that he played the train scene over the top, right? Intentionally? Because he knew that was fake? And now... they put the conductor into the crowd there - fair enough - but ALSO the clip with the head? And Lestat commenting on the head? So what, is that now true? Did they just shit with Sam there?

And the failures themselves, and Lestat's "soul" reliving his failures... so far so good, but... if it had only been the dead fledglings and Magnus this "could" have been real, but with all of them there? It's just in Lestat's head. It's what HE thinks THEY think. Meaning we are still in the same place wrt any reveals re the trial or Armand or Nicki or... whatever really that we were prior to the episode. Very, very unsatisfying.

Armand. Now Assad really blew it out the water there. Absolutely. But... what is that reasoning there. "Why" Armand did it. Like... he did all that, did the steps, got into LESTAT's band, killed LESTAT's band member to .... get at LOUIS? And he searched for a Claudia-lookalike, installed wires and cameras in Lestat's home to.... what. He wanted Louis to feel things for Regina to make him APOLOGIZE?! WTF. As if LOUIS needed to apologize to ARMAND. Like, get fucking real. That is not even something ARMAND would ever think, imho. Armand, who always understood Louis, pretty well, actually.

Which, like, gets me to the next point. Armand being obsessed about his relationship to Louis. Please, someone tell me they did not take the Lesmand dynamic of the books, to make it about Louis. Don't get me wrong, I love that they give Louis more to do, and Jacob was a very nicely done severed head. But... I have no idea if the Lesmand dynamic we have seen so far... actually works without any of the reasons for it?? WHY is Lestat so pissed with Armand? Why is the dynamic we saw in the rest of the episodes the way it is? "Just" because of Nicki? Something they ALSO softened? Make it make sense. Imho they invalidated the dynamic with it.

Oh, and... having Fareed there to ... infiltrate Lestat to learn about Lestat's blood and... just to... know how long Louis could survive without his head? Really?

The witches' place. They want to tell me that Gabriella took nine-year-old Lestat there to make him run away. Question mark? That the wolves was not an attempt at "killing him" to get him out of the house? That she considers it a "failure" (okay in Lestat's mind, granted, but still) that he... was not able to run away till thirty? That she did NOT see him as a substitute for herself? THAT is what they made the witches' place about???? The only (slightly) saving grace there was the fact that they pointed out what burning "witches" was really about. -.-

Armand and Daniel. Like, I knew we would not get much more this season, and that most of it would be in s4. I knew that. But Daniel going along with this... plan, for these... reasons? And then dragging Lestat's head through the city. I mean...

Paul's scene, as lovely as it was, leaves the impression that Lestat killed him after all, given the surrounding audience. No matter what has already been stated on this. God I'm tired. Also, it toys with the lore from Memnoch once more, with heaven and hell, and how that works in the VC. That said? You know, other than the diary and Claudia being direct lore...? THIS (both Louis' torture nor Paul) was not. Meaning they thought splitting it like this - Claudia in hell/purgatory, Louis tortured, Lestat dying and staring up into the light - was a good look. Have I said I'm tired?

Montreal. Nice shot, I'll give them that. It also pulls the story into its own universe now, completely. Which makes you wonder why they even bothered with covid in the first place. And given Lestat's jadedness there, and Louis' absence...

What was the revenge porn for again? Whyyyy did Armand do that? I mean that didn't include Louis, did it? How could that punish Louis? Like, again, Armand's reasons being making LOUIS admit to something.... makes ZERO sense. Zero.

So. My conclusion?

I'm not sure why AMC actually held this episode back, or maybe I do. And by now I think it does not actually have much to do with spoilers being given out, or, let me rephrase that - with positive spoilers being given out.

But I can understand why they wouldn't any for this. (Apple apparently didn't though lol)

This episode could have been a great 4x01.

I'm serious. Think about it. You are left hanging with the beheading and the concert juuussstttt around the corner, with Armand taking the mask off and Daniel there with him, with Loustat juuussstttt making up, and then after the hiatus, it opens with some explanations, but with plenty of room to ... expand on it all. Plenty of space for "WTF".

(Still would have made no sense with Armand's reasoning behind it, imho, but let's just accept that for now.)

We would have gone into the season knowing that disaster is coming after the final shot, we would have gone into the season the concert is up next, we would have gone into the season intrigued for more.

Now, we have to sit with a "ha ha, gotcha, and btw it's all more or less hallucinations and we're in a separate universe now" situation. It's "ha ha, we're pulling up stuff that is directly contradicting things in the three seasons before now, and also some things the actors said".

I... am left with a certain bad taste in my mouth.

As finales go this is the weakest for me.

It did not really have any reveals outside the... very weird "Armand's reasoning" - reveal. Oh, and Regina's little role in it all. And taking one more Lestat-dynamic from the books... for someone else (???).

Because, again:

Everything Lestat "experiences" there? Is a hallucination. of what he thinks they think.

I'll give them that Louis finally admitted that Lestat is the love of his life at least. That's something. And Paul's words might help Lestat deal with the insecurity about Louis' love.

And I guess, Louis acknowledging Armand's fucked up past especially wrt his own businesses is something, too. Though that would have deserved some proper handling, not some telepathic-I'm-about-to-die-yeah-thinking-about-how-I-exploited-women-the-same-way-you-were-treated-makes-me-feel-sorry-now.

Like... 💀

But the rest of it?

But the first place where this episode goes wrong is the fact that it is nearly impossible to make a clip-show episode good or engaging to watch. Because, unless it’s just an episode of all the actors sitting on director’s chairs reminiscing about the show in question, while some well-known journalist asks them questions about it, then a loose framing device is all you’ve got. And that framing device is always, nine times out of ten, a dream sequence.

Which, right away, lowers the stakes. Pretty much into the basement.  

Honestly, there is only one instance of a show doing such a clip show, with the “dream” framing device that I can think of, that I found in any way engaging, and that was the "Interlude Party" episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

I really do think that episode of FMA: Brotherhood is the best in-universe style clip show ever done. 

And even with that? I still wouldn’t rank it anywhere near the top of the best episodes of the whole series of that show. 

And this episode of TVL? Felt, to me, like a lesser version of “Interlude Party,” a thought I honestly had as I was watching the episode. 

Because, at their heart, clip shows are mainly done to save money. And with the year-long pre-production that went on with this show, because of all the songs that ended up being written, I’d already heard that the show blew through most of its production budget for the season because of that. 

Hence why the show was so minimal in a lot of ways this season. Which, IMO, is not a bad thing. EP205, from last season, was, for all intensive purposes, a minimal, bottle episode, and I still think it is the #1 best episode of the whole series to date. 

And EP306 was pretty minimal in its production, and I think it was the best episode this season. And would have made for a much better Season Finale than this episode did. 

No. The main problem with this episode is that it felt utterly divorced from the first six episodes that came before it. And, even more annoyingly, it advanced next to nothing of the story we were already dealing with. 

I have to say, this is the very first time I have ever felt the show thinking it is more clever than it actually is. And that is not a good feeling. Because god do I hope it doesn't become a habit, which it quickly can do with many shows if the writers and showrunners think they can do no wrong. 

Rolin, Hannah, everyone? I say this with all sincerity: look towards Benioff & Weiss, how they let the success of a show based on someone else’s material go to their heads, and how that ended for them. 

Don’t become that. It’s okay to have tried to shoot for the moon this season, and you mostly ended up missing, particularly with this episode, because you overextended your budget and ran out of money. Shit happens. Just don’t dig in your heels about it when it comes to next season, okay? 

As for this season? Well, let’s break down this final episode. The little that worked, and the most that didn’t.

* * * * *

What I Liked:   

- Armand, calling Daniel his companion.

- The little hint about the past Devil’s Minion, when Armand says that Louis going off with broken boys, just allowed him to spend more time with Daniel.

- LOVED Armand’s confession that he was fucking with Louis’ head the whole time they were together, and that yes, he did put those Fred Stein photos in Louis’ portfolio. THERE is my lovely gremlin! 

- Louis, admitting that Lestat is the love of his life, always will be, and that he knew the whole time he could never love Armand in that same way.

- Louis, however, saying to Armand that Armand deserves to be loved by someone completely for who he is.  

- Armand, clearly running off to find/be with Daniel after everything with Louis, and what Louis said to him about him deserving love. 

- Just Assad Zaman’s overall performance in general. Really, all the performances were great.

- Lestat, remembering that he had to watch a childhood friend, who was only 9 years old, be burned at the stake for being a witch. Heartbreaking.

- Lestat talking to Paul at the end. That made me audibly “aww” when it happened.

- Lestat, mentioning “Silver Threads” as he was clearly starting to fade into death. A CLEAR reference to The Silver Cord. 

- Lestat finally telling Gabriella to GTFO.

- Raglan James, weasling his way into Lestat’s inner circle, and Lestat calling him a friend. I really love all the setups they’ve done for Body Thief so far. Raglan is clearly going to actually steal Lestat’s body in this adaptation of the story, and that is being set up perfectly.

- Raglan, revealing that the Talamasca want the Great Conversion to happen, and have been helping it along. Good, and makes sense wrt everything we’ve seen with them across two shows now.   

- The final shot, of Lestat looking out over a ruined city, that I think is Monteral, after what was clearly Akasha’s apocalypse. And standing in the sunlight as he does so, which also hints at what went down between him and Akasha.   

* * * * *

Things I’m not wild about, but okay:

- The cliffhanger with Daniel. I was afraid the show would do this, which is why I kept hedging about whether we’d see Daniel’s fate this season or not. Anyway, as I said in my short review, Daniel was clearly gearing up to fight for Lestat’s head. But by the end of the episode, we never see Daniel again — and Raglan James and Alex are just fine, on the bus with Lestat. And with the way Daniel was about it? No way he just handed over that head to them. So between that and Raglan explicitly talking to Daniel about souls and the connection between a body and head … yeah. I smell where this is going. Also, you know, there was a whole Talamasca assault team there along with Raglan and Alex.

I don’t know what state Armand is going to find Daniel in at the top of Season 4, but I doubt it’s going to be a good one. 

- Weirdly, I’m okay with Armand and Daniel not having any scenes together in this episode. I’m not happy about it, but I’m okay, mostly because I knew going into this season that there would be minimal interaction and no real romance between them this season. And well, that is exactly what happened. So yeah, I don’t feel ship baited in the least about it all because I knew we’d get almost nothing in that regard between them this season. The visual representation of their bond that we saw — and were not just told about — back in EP304 was enough for me right now, and way more than I expected we’d get. 

- The reveal/twist with Regina. I’ll go into Armand’s whole plan in a minute. But this was the one part of it that at least made sense to me. However, I didn’t really like the co-opting of Armand’s experiment with Claudia here. Or, at least the implication of the co-opting of it. 

- So… Armand put hidden cameras in Lestat’s house? And that is how he knew about the seance with Merrick. Okay, I’ll just let it go that Lestat never noticed them. And given the recent poster of Merrick, I think I can see where this is going with her. (Not that Armand is going to turn her or anything. But he might be the reason why we see her again soon, and why she ends up getting turned.)

- The body horror itself didn’t bother me. I expect these kinds of gothic horror things in a gothic horror show. However, I do understand those who are disturbed about seeing it with Louis, a black man, having to go through that, while we didn’t even see what was up with Lestat’s head. Also, was Armand branding Louis really necessary? I get that it’s supposed to be a call-back to what Claudia said about Louis in the previous episode, and Armand himself having once been a slave as well, and Louis not having the courage to talk about all that with Armand, who was 12 when he was taken into sex slavery. So like, I think I get what the show was trying to do with it, but … I don’t know. I think if we’d seen Armand do it within the midst of his torture of Louis, that would have been better, and spoken more to Armand’s mindset regarding all of this, than to just revealing it afterwards. 

- Buttersotch Bitch is a good song. Too bad we only heard it played over a montage, and not a live performance.  

* * * * *

Things I Did Not Like:

Oh, where to start …

- Well, I already went into the clip show aspect of this episode above. As I said, clip show episodes are usually only done in this way when a production is out of money. And, unfortunately, they used the dream sequence / As I Lay Dying / An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge method of storytelling, when we already knew the main character was not actually going to die. And yes, we did know it because of “The Failures” album. Lestat is still narrating it during all of this. Which we know he hadn’t even begun to record yet. So, right off the bat, those stakes are gone from the episode.

- So, how do you add stakes with such a story where no one is really scared that the main character is going to die? Well, within the dream sequence itself, and what it reveals of the psyche of the character within the dream. And while I could see this being a walk down the path of Lestat confronting the things he viewed as failures over the course of his life? I do not think it all hits in the way the show was going for. Because you can’t take a character who is already self-avodant wrt his own trauma and then put him in a situation that would require him to finally acknowledge that trauma and then … just continue to have him blame himself for everything. 

Because that is very much what this episode does with Lestat’s dream sequence section. It just has Lestat continue to blame himself for all his traumas — and the failures he sees that resulted from those traumas. 

The hallucinations are all about what Lestat thinks they all think of him.

And I’m sorry, but after a full season of Lestat already doing this when it comes to his tramas and such? That is not an insightful revelation about Lestat in the least.  

And what is worse is that, by the end of this whole sequence? We never really see the switch. 

The switch to Lestat, realising that, for all the things he is and should take responsibility for, there are some things he should not. That he was, in fact, not responsible, but the victim of those circumstances. 

And yes, I get that Lestat does not like to see himself as a victim of anything. Again, that was the main overall underlying character arc going on with him this season. But Louis didn’t admit that he is selfish until he had to confront that fact about himself head-on — and has begun to do so.

Lestat, however, appeared to remain in the same fucking place when it comes to how he was abused, even before he became a vampire, for the entirety of the dream/hallucination sequence.

The center of this is the adaptation of The Witches’ Place scene. The setup of it is good. The execution of it is harrowing, with Lestat finally confronting that his mom not only made him watch his childhood friend burn, but that Gabriella gave the girl a bag of tinder that was around her neck so she would burn more quickly. 

And what does Lestat take from this? 

That Gabriella apparently did all of that to push Lestat to escape Auvergne, and Lestat failed because he didn’t leave until he was 30.

Excuse me, what? 

Um, excuse me, Hannah, what happened to Gabby seeing Lestat as a substitute spouse? That she wanted Lestat to stay with her and only let him go when she was dying? Hell, the show even seems to imply that she wanted him to die in the wolf fight because SHE was already dying, and knew so.

The revelation at this moment should not have been that Lestat thinks he failed because he didn’t escape Auvergne until he was 30; the revelation should have been the reasons why he couldn’t escape Auvergne until he was 30.

But that revelation was something that was never conveyed. At all. 

However, that revelation would have actually matched not only what we watched between them over the course of six episodes … but it would have matched what happened after Lestat woke up and told Gabriella to kick rocks. 

Because if that is the message you were trying to convey within that dream/hallucination sequence by the end, that Lestat had come to that conclusion about it all, and yelling at Gabby to leave after he woke up? 

Well, I’m sorry, but you failed to do so. (Haha, but no, I wasn’t trying to be funny or clever with that.)

The whole of that was muddy and muddled because you never showed or conveyed in any way that Lestat had come to such a revelation to make him want to kick Gabby to the curb.

Again, as I said above, this is the first time I have ever felt this show was being more clever than it actually was being.  

Anyway, it is clear that the Witches’ Place memory was the whole emotional weight and point behind the rest of this rather pointless dream/hallucination sequence. Yes, I’m sorry, it was pointless, and really only seemed designed to bring in as many cameos as you could by the end. 

And yes, look, dream sequences can, by their nature, have incoherences in them. But this one, overall, didn’t even appear to have a point to it beyond having Lestat confront that memory regarding The Witches’ Place. 

You could have left everyone else out of that dream sequence, except Gabriella, and come to the same point and place. All of Lestat’s fledglings being there at the table? Magnus being there at the table? Marius showing up at the table as well by the end? They were irrelevant, and their being there was irrelevant. 

You could have replaced them all with kid-Lestat and teen-Lestat, who both would have made much more damn sense to be sitting at that long table, and would have linked back into the major point about Lestat’s realizations about not getting away from Auvergne until he was 30 and why.

But instead we got … what we got. Which just felt like a reason to squeeze in as many actors as you could to try and make the whole sequence feel as big and grand as you could make it, and nothing beyond that. 

Anyway, if none of you have ever seen the “Restless” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, go check it out. That is a dream sequence episode that — aside from not being a clip show — also managed to focus its dream sequences on the overall point only, even with the surreal and nonsense imagey and situations going on within them. 

---

-  Which leads me into the next overall incoherent bit of writing going on, not only in this episode, but which covers basically most of the season, which is Armand and what he has been doing all season.  

Because there are some BIG logical mismatches that make no sense regarding what Armand was doing prior to this episode, and the reason revealed about why he did it all in this episode.

Which apparently, no, had nothing to do with trying to stop The Great Conversion. It had nothing to do with just wanting to screw over Lestat, or even really be a "Maker" to Daniel in some way (since we barely saw them interact together this season, and didn’t even get to see Armand doing so). 

No. Apparently, Armand did all of this -- including puppeteering Alex as his sponsor and killing Larry and the release of the revenge porn -- because . . . he wanted Louis to admit to his own failures when it came to their past relationship and apologize for them.

Excuse me. What?

Like, I'm sorry, am I supposed to think that makes Armand super unhinged in some gremlin way? Because, like, no, it doesn't. 

It just makes him a shit planner. 

Because the plan does not match the motivation/endgame. 

Now, the Regina part of the plan. Okay, yes, that part makes sense, as I noted above. I had a few little quibbles with it, but it’s fine. 

But the rest of it? Becoming Alex's sponsor? Killing Larry? Telling Daniel about Gabrella and releasing revenge porn about it? Withholding info from Daniel about their past together (which he actually dropped info about, in this episode, to Louis)? Even reading apology letters to Daniel and Lestat first?

Armand doing all of that... was mainly about wanting to get to Louis and... not apologize to him but to get Louis to apologize to you.

Louis, who had zero interaction with Lestat’s band all season. Louis, who barely talked to or interacted with Lestat all season. 

You did all of that, all of those things that Louis had zero connection to, you did all of that to get Louis to apologize for what he did. 

As I said, this plan isn’t gremlin unhinged. This is just Armand going 2+2=5. 

And like, look, as I said above, I LOVED Armand admitting he was fucking with Louis' head almost the whole time they were together. That he was the one who put the Fred Stein pictures in Louis' portfolio made me laugh out loud. Hell, I'll even let it go that Armand admits he did want to, tried to, kill Louis in Paris. I think it strips a lot away from the book canon, that a person is only safe with Armand if he loves them, but okay, fine. Louis does — did not — fall under that umbrella for Armand. Maybe he will after this, but back in Paris? No, Louis didn’t. 

Fine. So far, it only appears that Daniel falls under that umbrella, given the simple fact that he lived his whole damn life because, as Armand told him through proxy back in EP305, he did go back to kill him, but didn’t because he kept finding him fascinating. The Devil’s Minion shipper side of me is fine with it, even if the Armand-fan side of me is … sidelong glancing at it. 

But doing all of this simply because you wanted to make Louis look at what he did to you in return, how he contributed to the failure of you two together, and apologize for it? 

That plan to do so makes no damn sense. 

But you know what would have made sense?

If this situation had been between Lestat and Armand.

Use Regina to lure Louis out of the way for a bit, and then chop Lestat’s head off. Then all three people — Regina, Alex, Larry — as well as the release of the revenge porn video, seamlessly tie into your plan. 

And then, you know what this siatuation being between Lestat and Armand could have allowed for? 

REVEALS.

Reveals regarding the full truth of their past together. Reveals regarding how Nicki died, reveals regarding the Paris trial, and Lestat’s presence in Paris… hell, even reveals about Murder Night, which, after three seasons, we have STILL yet to see!

And look, I could tin-foil hat and Epileptic Tree so much with what we did get regarding that scene/sequence with Armand and Louis as-is. Such as the fact that Fareed was there to monitor Louis' vitals in the first place during all of that. 

But I'm not going to do it. Because I'm tired. I'm tired of this show dragging its feet when it comes to real reveals and moving its plot forward. End of the third season, and we still have some of the same questions, such as what happened on Murder Night. Or Paris and the trial. 

There is a fine line between leaving some questions to be answered and just stalling with giving real answers to those questions. And we are very much hitting the tipping point now of nobody giving a shit once you finally do reveal it all.  

I used this gif a few days ago regarding all of this, and I'll use it again here:

Anyway, you know what would have not only made this whole sequence better, but also the dream/hallucination sequence better, too? 

If this whole episode had been a bottle episode and not primarily a clip show episode. 

One, you would have only needed three characters — Lestat, Armand, and Gabriella. Yes, Loustat and Devil’s Minion shippers would be pissed, but whatever. This is an episode that would be focused on character arcs, reveals, and moving things forward in some way, finally regarding stuff we’ve been treading water about for the past two seasons, as well as advancing the overall story and character arcs from this season.

Anyway, while the dream/hallucination sequence is limited to Lestat, teen-Lestat, kid-Lestat, and Gabriella, the framing device would be Armand and Lestat, basically in a rewrite of what we got with Lestat and Louis. And while Lestat is talking with Armand, he is going in and out of consciousness, into the dream sequences with Gabby and his other selves. 

The more coherent revelation is made within the dream/hallucination sequence, as I detailed above. In the real world, Lestat makes it clear why he could never love Armand in the way Armand always wished (the “Cinderealla at the ball” moment is revealed), but Lestat says the same thing to Armand that Louis did, about Armand deserving someone who loves all of him for who he is. 

Then you just leave Fareed to reattach Lestat’s head to his body. You can have Louis already waiting for Lestat on the bus, as we saw. And if you have to rope Raglan into it in some way to get him and Lestat to be “friends” now, just have him arrive after Armand leaves, having brought along Alex with him as well as more sophisticated means of helping Fareed reattach Lestat’s head to his body.  

There you go. Yes, it leaves Daniel in limbo, but the whole point of him hanging out with Lestat’s head in the bowling alley was just him being petty towards Lestat, hopped up on being with his Maker in such a way — and then the Talamasca coming in and leaving his fate up in the air, but not looking good. 

You could still do all of that, with the Talamasca just trying to find out where Armand disappeared to with Lestat, and Daniel having that knowledge. And that is what they take from him to find where Fareed and Lestat are at the end. 

There. Daniel and Louis get short appearances; the episode itself is much more centered and focused, with Armand’s plan making sense, and the dream/hallucination sequence is also more focused on its main theme and without all the extraneous nonsense that, at the end of the day, will mean absolutely nothing in the long run.  

Because there are clips in here that, again, due to things we learned this season, and even before, that make no damn sense. Such as the scene with Lestat puppeting the train conductor’s head. Claudia already revealed that she made up the train scene. So why the hell is the train conductor not only there among the crowd of people that Lestat has killed over two centuries, but we also see a clip of that very train scene that Claudia admits to fabricating?

Who edited this? Did they even watch this show before editing this episode? 

And speaking of that end sequence — Lestat was in Vienna in 1953? After Paris? Why? What was he doing? Ya’ll seemed to focus on that, and the guy named Enzo, whom he ate in a significant way. Is that actually going to mean something? And if so, what? And are we going to have to wait three seasons before we get maybe a tiny bit of an answer? 

Also, regarding that past sequence? Paul. Listen, what Paul said to Lestat was very sweet (for the most part). But you do realize that Paul being there gives off the implication that Lestat killed him, right? Which Lestat has flatly denied at every turn, and that Louis, in just the previous episode, admitted he’d put that blame on Lestat out of anger with his mother for blaming Paul’s death on him. 

Whether intentional or not, you muddied all of that by having Paul there, in that sequence, in the first place. Whereas, you know, if you had cut that whole pointless sequence in the first place — because yes, it was pointless, sorry, we didn’t need to see Lestat reach his epiphany about his failures like that, it could have been done another way that wouldn’t have confused this point with Paul. 

Plus… look, I’ve read the books. There was no way in hell that Lestat was on his way to heaven. So was Paul even really Paul? Or was that maybe someone else … say Memnoch, trying to lure Lestat into one of his hells? 

Again, I can only think this because I’ve read all of the books, and so know the tricks that Memnoch will play on Lestat to try and get him to hell to work with him there. But for anyone else who isn’t as versed in this stuff … it does look like Lestat was headed for a peaceful afterlife while Claudia was stuck in hell/purgatory. 

As I said a few weeks ago, you guys really need to stop being afraid of giving away “too much” when it comes to things like this. You could have just done a one-frame flash to show what was really up at that moment — maybe even that that wasn’t really Paul — to hint at it and make it clear what I suspect was up with that whole exchange between them, and why Paul was there in the first place. 

And, instead, you left it all too vague once again, as you did with the 1x05 fight, and now here we are.

And because it was part of the dream/hallucination sequence, again, it’s possible to just retcon all of it, making most of what we watched regarding it all utterly pointless anyway.  

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- Because that is how I very much felt watching most of this episode. I kept checking the time to see how long so much of this would keep going on for, and if we’d get to some real story progression before the end. And, by and large, we didn’t. In the end, we got a cliffhanger with one character (Daniel), a distant/future cliffhanger with another (Lestat), Lestat finally standing up to Gabby after a dream sequence that only implied that it was his own fault for all the failures in his life and that Gabby had only been trying to help him, and Armand letting out his rage at Louis that came together via a convoluted plan that mostly had nothing to do with Louis. 

All interlocked and held together with a whole lot of clips, some of which make no damn sense being there within the context of where the story ended, and the reveals we did have about some things by EP306

Like I said at the start. Messiest written episode of the series ever, in my opinion. 

* * * * *

Concluding Thoughts:

Look, all episodes of a series can’t be a winner. And while I still think EP302 is objectively the worst episode of the season, its main crime is that it is an exposition episode where very little happens. But what little did happen at least made sense within the story it was telling.

This episode, however? Made little to no sense in too many respects, given the episodes that came before it. It’s muddled, and the clip show format and presentation of the story do not help it at all.  

EP306 should have been the season finale. This episode should have been cut and rewritten as the Season 4 premiere, like @nalyra-dreaming suggested in her review. 

Because there are some good ideas in here, buried under a whole bunch of nothing, and trying to go BIG in some way that the budget clearly wasn’t allowing for. Hence, the clip-show presentation of such a big majority of the episode, when it came to the dream/hallucination sequence. 

And it is very clear why this episode was held back from reviews and screenings. And it wasn’t for a good reason.

Missed and wasted opportunity indeed.

And you know, I do see the vision you were going for when it comes to it, and the whole season, in fact. 

But, in the end, you went too big, and this episode suffered the most for it. It’s not too late to correct and right things for next season. But I can already tell you will have lost some trust from some fans for this. And I can’t say the loss of that trust is fully wrong. Yes, some of it I personally saw coming before the season started, and so I am not as angry/disappointed at the whole season as much as I am with the sum of this episode.

But this was a miss, a big miss, and the worst season finale episode of the show so far.