supersonic

The Unseen Ghost

Maybe I've just got my "missing the lesmand scenes/dynamics hours" goggles on. But to me what it looks like more and more as the season goes on is that Armand is haunting Lestat's narrative HARD.

Armand is basically mentioned all the time. Like, multiple times per episode, in a way that Claudia and even Louis don't seem to be. True, the mentions don't feel like they're going anywhere, and they always seem to have flippant or negative connotations. Although one could strongly argue this ties into Lestat being the most unreliable narrator ever about Armand in the books; like that is part of The Dynamic.

But even if that weren't true, it's just getting more and more unavoidably at odds with itself that Armand is mentioned in like, every other conversation someone is having around Lestat who's heard of Armand. The subtext of this show could absolutely fit in with the whole "Claudia, Claudia, Claudia, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat" thing. Because it's subtle, but it is absolutely just a long level background hum of "Armand, Armand, Armand" going on in this season. Except as if it was someone trying very hard not to have it look like that at all.

And this episode was the one where it felt especially unmistakable. There's Nicki showing up, mostly just to berate Lestat about Armand, and to make it absolutely, unmistakably unmissable that Armand and Lestat were constantly fucking back in Paris. Like we already KNEW that, and they took the time to remind us of it again, two episodes later. (While Lestat is trying and badly failing to record the song he wrote about Armand.)

This is at the point where this doesn't feel like an easter egg or red herring or just some things to fill time onscreen. This is starting to feel like an official subplot.

You also have that shot of the table when he's with Akasha, and they don't really feel like they're playing around with what they're showing you on camera first. And the very first image that you can clearly see is a setting for Armand. He might not be in good company (though as a reminder, Nicki is the first one mentioned being at this "table"). But the camera doesn't want you to think of him as a sidenote. He's the first and most prominently figured namecard, before you notice things like Lestat's own family, among others. If I'm not mistaken, he's the only one who gets some sort of visual or verbal mention the most in the scene: The unmistakable visual of the nametag, then calling Armand a rotten guest because he's "probably the reason Marius hasn't come back," and then later berating "Armand" for not dealing with the music.

The point is, he might be berating "Armand" the whole time and treating this imaginary version of a guest like he's unwanted.

But... this is very much Lestat's fantasy. And he DID "Invite" Armand to feature prominently within it.

(And if this is the "long table" Magnus was talking about in the car in ep3, then Armand's conspicuous absence in that scene seems like a very big and intentional contrast, as Lestat's mind and memories are deconstructing. To suddenly erase Armand while keeping Magnus. Though it's definitely possible that "the long table" is referring to something else we haven't seen yet.)

Then there's the way all throughout the season that Lestat is constantly redirecting Daniel back to Armand in conversations. Not to mention, the way he apparently invited Daniel to be and stay on the tour with him... while denying he did so. But crucially, he's neither kicking Daniel out, nor letting Daniel actually do the job he's been hired for. He mostly seems to just be around so every so often Lestat can redirect a defensive conversation back to Armand.

There are a lot of scenes between, so it breaks up the continuity, but Lestat also seems at his most deranged, like he's totally losing it. Right after Armand comes to apologize to him/he performs the song about/for Armand.

Nicki, Resentment, Misdirection (& Gabrielle)

In the last episode, 3x03, we get at least 2 moments where Nicki's resentment of another/several other lovers are bleeding through. But interestingly, all of them are kept intentionally vague. And following that, there's a moment with Gabrielle where the dialogue about Armand struck me as odd, and perhaps a little vague. Like these moments are intentionally trying to bury their connotations; be easy to skip right over without picking up on those connotations.

So let's get into it all.

The first time in the episode is on the tour bus with Dan again. After the reveal of Nicki's death, they start talking about that and then about Gabriella and then about Lestat's mother. There's a moment where ghost!Nicki interjects something about "a great love. Not your first love," when they are comparing Nicki and Gabriella. Admittedly, this seems pretty self-explanatory, and we know that Nicki is resentful and maybe uncomfortable with Lestat's dynamic with his mother. But this itself could be its own red herring, and I'll explain why:

Besides the fact that both real and ghost Nicki seem the most vocally and unmistakably resentful of Armand (mentioning him by name multiple times as a sexual partner, unlike Gabriella, in 3x03 and 3x05). But even without that. There's also the moment in the same scene when, once again, Lestat brings up Armand to Daniel. It's notable that in the first line, Nicki's ghost is sitting on the other side of Daniel, as if he's on Daniel's side as an antagonist toward Lestat. When Lestat asks the question about Armand, Nicki has moved to sit next to Lestat, and they each look at Daniel at the same time, with the same kind of antagonism toward Daniel now on their faces.

Later, in the freakout scene where Lestat is calling Gabriella post-concert (post concert with Armand), Nicki starts speaking. He says "When she's not around and he's not around, am I third in the queue? Did I at least beat Antoinette?" Which is a really fascinating, intentionally vague linguistic red herring, too. The mention of Antoinette evokes Louis, and we've been primed to think of Louis for 2.5 seasons as Lestat's only real love.

But we also know that Nicki's ghost is getting more and more resentful of Armand, specifically, especially after the last episode. And that this has precedent for real Nicki. The "she" and "he" of the phrase in question seem like, from the perspective of Nicki's ghost, they would be most likely to evoke Gabriella and Armand. Especially because we haven't seen any outright resentment from Nicki's ghost toward Louis (and, contextually, why would we?). Also notable again that this is right after Lestat runs into Armand again and the big number written, if derogatorily, all about Armand. And, as Nicki is a manifestation of Lestat's psyche and Lestat is basically losing it at this moment, it's also fair to connect these dots and say all this is related. Especially since Nicki is writing "Marius" on the mirror. Which has nothing to do with Louis. And it seems unlikely or at least at best unclear if it would have anything to do with Gabriella.

Armand, though...

The last moment isn't between Nicki and Lestat, but it's the thing that is both most straightforward and just... weird. Like in my mind, a weird use of language, where it's almost maybe... an open acknowledgement that Lestat cares about Armand more than he says, in plain sight.

Lestat has decided after the shooting to cancel the tour. (Fascinatingly, this is also after Armand told Lestat to stop, and then Lestat's potentially last ever set heavily centered Armand. And then he had a crazed mental health spiral immediately thereafter. Which... could mean nothing.) He is interrupted from singing his very sad song and having flashbacks about his mother abandoning him. By Gabriella showing up because he's been badgering her (and because now she wants to manipulate him into being the voice for destructive vampires).

When she gets on, she says a few phrases in a mocking tone of voice, to poke at his melancholy: "Oh, we're feeling pity for ourselves, are we? [...] Did Armand break down and weep over your biting diss track? Did your assassin misspell your name in his manifesto?"

So, this is really fascinating to me. She's clearly mocking him for feeling sorry for himself, right. If you connect the two questions grammatically, the implication here is that he's feeling sorry for himself over something inconsequential, or at odds with a bigger problem. Or that it's just an ego thing; his ego is not being stroked enough. In the second sentence, crying about your assassin misspelling your name either does speak to pitying yourself egotistically, or to the fact that you're focused entirely on something inconsequential.

But it's the way the first part of the first sentence is phrased: "Did Armand break down and weep over your biting manifesto?" Again, either way, this seems like, if what she was trying to mock him for is his bad music? Which makes sense in the larger context of the season. AND if Armand and Lestat were at odds in her mind? She wouldn't ask if Armand cried. She would imply that Armand didn't. That the music was so inconsequential that Armand, supposedly Lestat's enemy/rival/whatever, wasn't bothered by it. With the implication that the music is the problem, the music not being good enough to even make Armand upset. Which on its face, would appear to be the goal of the song.

Phrasing it the other way, though, implies that the thing Gabrielle thinks Lestat is sad about? Is that his song made Armand upset.

And let's not forget other moments that have always seemed intentionally vague as well: "Enjoy him" from the tower scene. It's never been clear exactly who was supposed to be enjoying who.

Gabriella the Exploitative Mother vs Armand

The dismissive way she speaks about Armand and Lestat in the aforementioned scene is par for the course. Actually seems to be a recurring theme behind the scenes, and may very well be intimately linked to Lestat's largest deconstruction of this season: His mother not being a very good person. In a few specific ways.

It's worth mentioning that narratively, Lestat bringing Gabriella on his tours is like a funhouse mirror to the unspoken theories about why Louis brought Daniel into the Dubai penthouse to do the interview. This is never outright stated, but one implication is that Louis and Armand were getting easier and better with each other, and Louis wanted someone to come deconstruct his own feelings about memories of things. To make sure he really understood his history, including his history with Armand, before he full committed.

In Lestat's case, the publication of the book plus resultant music is making him spiral, which is when he starts really reaching out to his mother to draw her in. And, as we see in this last episode, doing both together seems to be breaking down all sorts of mental/emotional dams, including those about his relationship with her + some things she did that he's sort of been avoiding thinking about too deeply or too critically.

Bringing his mother in means his forced to deal with his history with her; talking about Nicki suddenly opens the floodgates to talk about resentments, including of Gabriella and definitely of Armand. The music plus his mother's suddenly intense involvement. Plus the muses/ghosts arrival suddenly resulting in multiple ghosts wandering around, haunting him. Including the child!self that is reminding Lestat more and more of the discrepancies in Gabriella's relationship with him. He's finally able to say directly to her face, "You were a terrible mother." To which she agrees, and finally admits she left him in Spain because she "didn't need" him anymore. Which is now getting very meta for him in real time, because he's starting to have reason to realize why she came back and stayed back now: She needs him to make this album.

This goes all the way back to the beginning of ep5 for me, when Lestat casually admits that Christine has been kicked out (along with Daniel and Dee). And that Gabriella replaced Christine with herself and "whittled down his entourage."

This absolutely fascinated me on its own merits at once. Because the fewer people around Lestat, the fewer people to resist whatever Gabriella is asking him to do.

More than that? Christine was loyal as fuck.

Christine was almost sycophantically loyal. We never saw her ever - not once - not actually have Lestat's back on something. To frankly an absurd degree. The relationship was in the background, but it was clearly one where, when you think about it, Lestat relied on it very much.

He also relied on Dee, even though it may not seem obvious - Lestat lets Dee decide if they'll go with the recording company that's courting them. (She's also another sexual/romantic rival.)

And Daniel is someone who's watching Lestat (and everyone around him) like a hawk, as well as calling out anything that seems remotely shady.

They also "killed off" Lestat entirely from the public eye, which even further isolates him into a smaller and smaller sphere with only his mother.

Seeing Regina opens the floodgates to thinking about Claudia, which itself is forcing him to openly acknowledge, in his song to her, that he needs to face some things he would rather forget. And I think this is going to be important both to his storyline with Claudia/Louis, but also in general. The whole emphasis on not forgetting things, not turning away from things, feels like a moment stuff's going to change in his outlook.

And that's going to affect the past generally. Which will involve Gabriella. And I have very little doubt at this point, since it's now confirmed that

Gabriella intentionally isolates Lestat from people, this is part of their ongoing dynamic from the beginning whenever she needs somethign from him, and

Armand at one point believed Gabriella was the thing getting in between him and Lestat?

That this is going to be confirmed, on some level, to be true.

Especially because the reason she gives for leaving Lestat in Spain, after Paris, is that she "didn't need him anymore." Suggesting that she DID see herself as needing him for something up to that point.

(And don't forget, it's consistently shown as Gabriella who is curious about vampires abroad, including older vampires and Marius. The flashbacks we have of Lestat so far do not EVER show him having any interest in leaving Paris.)

Tinfoiling About a Missing Sex Scene (& Other Scenes)

Very much last but maybe least. Because it's a very small thing and could mean literally anything (or nothing) at all.

But in the first episode, there's a bunch of different sequences of images that flash by really quickly, and at one point I tried to catch all of them and see what they all were. I swear I caught a super-quick image of one scene where from the lighting and stuff looked like a flashback. Like, my first impression before I even had a more conscious thought was that it was a flashback, so something from the past. And it looks pretty clearly like Lestat having sex with someone (especially likely considering the voice over context monologuing about sex). But it was an over-the-shoulder camera shot from the other person, so it wasn't clear who it is.

It's interesting though, because at this point, I feel like we should be mostly done with flashbacks, as they pertain to the birds-eye view broad strokes of TVL. Technically I guess he hasn't left Marius yet, but if I'm not misremembering, after that he goes to New Orleans, and then it's all forward into the story we know from there.

All other sex scene flashbacks are, from what I can tell, accounted for at this point. But not that one!

Looking at it from the shadow of the hair, it doesn't look like Louis or Gabriella. Could be Nicki, but I just can't imagine why they would need to revisit any Nicki sex scenes at this point. The impression by the lighting of the scene is that it's firelight, though there's no real reason you couldn't have firelight in a more modern scene of course. And there's always the chance it could be someone else random. Or that I'm wrong about the hair.

The one thing about this is I do have to admit there's also another scene from that same sequence, that looks like it's in the past, and seems to be referencing some sort of violence via the voiceover. Something is slamming up against a old-timey lightpost (though from what little I can see, I think this is going to be in New Orleans-era, from the clothes. So that means it COULD be someone else in New Orleans, and not a thing farther back). There's also a second scene I don't recall seeing before in the quick flashbacks, where Lestat appears to be drinking from someone, once again looks like New Orleans era. BUT.

It also looks like there's a scene that's like, some sort of upside-down-reverse different version of the scene where Armand slams Lestat into an outdoor wall in Armand's s2 flashbacks in Paris. Or maybe it's meant to be some other fight scene in Paris, since from the flash I got, I don't see a red cloak. But it definitely looks like the same wall/type of wall. The image was definitely pretty blurry, but it looks like it might be older style clothes, too.

The point is, it seems like we should be running out of new flashback opportunities, especially flashback opportunities for plot-relevant sex. If we continue moving forward from where we are now in 3x05. It's possible that everything we'll see may have to do with New Orleans, or perhaps 20th century Paris. I definitely can't rule that out.

But still... that missing sex scene... with the hazy figure in shadow... after the ever-increasing emphasis on Lestat and Armand's past sexual history... And again, in the larger context of it basically all but directly confirmed now that Gabriella intentionally isolated Lestat from Armand in Paris...

But I feel a lot more confident after the last episode that Lesmand is not meant to be read as entirely one-sided. Just that at this point, we're still getting the full early TVC experience of Armand and Lestat's relationship being something Lestat, for reasons that haven't entirely been revealed yet in the show, is unreliable in not caring about Armand that he doesn't like Armand.