"This season is racist, it hates its POC characters" then why did watching it fill me with so much love for Louis and Armand than what I thought was possible?
And I have always loved them too. Every single one of them. Armand, Lestat, Louis, Claudia - no favorites, all favorite. But this season... left me with so much fondness for them.
Armand broke my heart. I expected him to but he still broke my heart. 12 years old. He was 12 year old. Now over 500 and counting and yet still 12 years old. Do you understand how much hurt and confusion one must live in to have the last resort methods that he does? I always knew that part of his tragedy as a character is that everything he does is claw back crumbs of love, of feeling seen and understood, of comfort and control and then always failing. Every venture he takes to achieve his goals ends up working backwards and failing miserably, hurting himself even more. He cannot imagine an alternative way of receiving that. It is simply not the sort of thing his brain can conjure up. Like children that scream and act out when they are not being heard because they were never given the tools and the knowledge of how to be functional. In return those children get branded as brats and are further ostracized and unloved than they were in the first place. How would he know to try anything different? If he is tame he is the beigest pillow; if he opens up then Louis' subconscious mind conjures up Lestat laughing in his face (which he then recounts with a tangible sort of indifference). Louis is not at fault for the way Armand is, but Armand had no data to learn how exactly to be better.
And Louis? Oh my god, dude. The whole time he is defiant. He is on the verge of death and still defiant. His fondness for humans is challenged and he is still defiant. Even his empathy in the end felt somehow defiant?
And I am relieved that none of Louis' rough edges were sanded down. They highlight just how hard he is trying. How much desire he has to be better. It makes me tear up again thinking of it now. And, no, apologies are not inherently self-flagellation. This season is the least self-flagellation he has done. He is trying so, so hard to be better and I am so proud of him and so incredibly fond. He is so tentative when he is being kind to Lestat in the car, he is not used to doing that. We have never seen him be openly affectionate or verbally kind to anyone before: not Lestat, not Armand, not even Claudia. And we know how much he loved Claudia, his love for her was palpable, yet all they did was squabble and banter, and maybe hold her hand in the moments of quiet fondness. Even "you and me" moment is filled with 'harsh truths' and his grief over Lestat. He means the sentiment he expresses but is he affectionate in the way he does? Not really. He is the most himself he has ever been this season and I find it fascinating that coming into himself and accepting all aspects of his nature is what allows him to even consider kindness for others. Not performative like before. And it was performative because he used his kindness as a sort of proof that he wasn't all that bad, that he was worth something - kindness before was directly tied to his identity and self-worth. Now it's genuine and it's not perfect but so, so incredibly precious.
It is not satisfying because I want to see a black man grovel and be timid and "put in his place", it is satifying because I see myself in him. It is satisfying because I see so many people that have hurt me (and built me) in him. The fact that one can move forward. That the ingrained, carved into our bones performative masculinity welded into armour is not the end or the grand finale of ourselves, that it is not the cardinal sin that cannot be escaped - THAT is the relief.
Jacob's performance of his last defiant empathy for Armand is everything. Louis doesn't have to be emotional in his sympathy for Armand but he is. It is a stark difference too with his monologue in the pilot where, really, Louis is emotional because of his guilt. His focus wasn't specifically on the people his way of living has hurt. His focus then was on the guilt of being who he was. With Armand now he admits the guilt, the guilt he has always felt, but what breaks him is compassion. This is so fucking important.
"I saw good in you, for a while" he doesn't forgive him, won't, can't, never will. And he doesn't have to, to have room for compassion. Armand isn't begging him to take him back or fix something. He needs acknowledgement. That he didn't imagine it, that Louis was cruel, that the lie they both fooled themselves into believing was never real. Louis struggled with acknowledging Armand as a person as much as he struggled with telling Lestat (or Claudia) that he loved them (I also think there is a parallel between butchershop scene and Paul scene with Lestat). And Louis does now because he knows and he always knew of the mututal pain always buried at the core of their relationship. The fact that he fully embraces the empathy in that moment is everything. It tells us that resentment does not have to erase compassion or compassion erase resentment. We can let both into our heart and it will not diminish the contradictory feelings we have anyways. It is a revolutionary kind of compassion and the fact that Louis is the one carrying it out is so beautiful.
