summer fruit in the dead of winter

And yet this isn't consistent with how he's characterized in the first two seasons, and certainly not in the books. In spite of his many flaws, he's passionate and earnest with Louis, which is one of the things that draws Louis to him. It's true that he rarely speaks about his past, mortal or vampiric, to Louis and Claudia, but I would argue that this reticence is in part for pragmatic reasons—he doesn't want them to know more about the vampiric world and their abilities because he wants them to remain dependent on him; and Marius has forbidden him to tell anyone about Akasha and Enkil. And furthermore, in TVL the novel Lestat is eager to share his life story with the world through both the book itself and his music and performances—he really, really wants to express himself and be understood.

ep 1: armand is not in this episode, but his name comes up a lot (actually something i think tvl did well at first…) no one knows where he is but daniel is seen trying to track him down; it’s implied that a large part of daniel’s motivation for doing the documentary is to figure out what's going on with armand. this episode deals with the fallout of the iwtv book being published. danloustat bickering abounds and lestat talks about auvergne with flashback sequences comparable to iwtv.

ep 2: lestat talks about being with nicki in paris and magnus. armand isn’t in most of this episode, but at the end, we have a similar aa sequence as at the end of episode 3. i’m not super sure when but at some point it should be established that love and companionship are the addiction he’s trying to break. we're also exploring how aa is kind of a cult along the way

ep 3: armand reads his apology letter to daniel. we get dm flashbacks of armand being a creepy stalker alongside paris flashbacks of children of darkness armand being a creepy stalker and tdv stuff. daniel initially rejects armand but over the course of the episode we see that he can't stay away. maybe they hook up at the end of the episode idk can we have some gay sex on this show

ep 4: armand reads his apology letter to lestat, who initially seems receptive and invites him to his concert only to publicly humiliate him about his trauma (not big boss. i don't care maybe another song but i hate big boss). this should be the episode where lestat recounts his time with marius. we should keep lestat parroting marius' words and victim blaming armand and leave it unquestioned at this point.

ep 5: this episode, we revisit the events of the previous seasons. lestat ragequits the documentary when daniel prompts him to take accountability for his abuse of louclaudia and role in the trial. armand reads his apology letter to louis, who reads him for filth the way only he can. this is rock bottom for armand.

ep 6: we time jump to near the end of the tour, which has been a flop, due in part to the mysterious rash of suicides among the band and groupies (the band members are so unimportant in my world that they can be easy cannon fodder). creepy radio silence from armand all episode. at the very end, the night before lestat's big concert (the one which will wake akasha), armand chops off lestat's head with the assist from daniel. importantly, we don't show lestat alive and well at the beginning, so maybe the audience will feel some actual shock.

ep 7: it’s lestat’s head on the slab. armand spends the finale torturing lestat and forcing him to confront his wrongs. we can keep some of the dream sequence stuff cut between flashbacks of lestat and armand as victims and as abusers, with special focus on marimand to hammer it home. i liked louis' monologue to armand from the finale enough to keep something like that in in an edited form, so maybe that's what gets armand to let lestat go in the end (though this kind of feels like a 2x05 retread... idk, i'm open to opinions), and then we have lestat's final concert and akasha's awakening as a cliff hanger.