Das Conk Creat, Baybee

@everything-you-feel-is-real I know by tumblr tradition that I'm to say "impossible, my posts never blow up like that," or "please don't do this to me."

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

At some points, Lestat is just going so off like a high speed train with the voiceovers that subtitles were a necessity even for me as a native English speaker. The sex scene with a particular character felt shoehorned in. That ceiling shot was DIABOLICAL. So bad that even AI CGI would refuse to take credit for it. The whole thing just felt super rushed.

I expected the tone change, vibe change and was looking forward to being pulled into the modern vampire world etc but I did not expect an episode that felt so green, unpaced, inconsistent, incoherent etc. Like this is technically season THREE, they should know wtf they are doing already.

Omg, I really hope Rolin was right about this being the weakest episode and that this isn’t the quality for the other episodes because I cannot take it. I’m so surprised and disappointed and you can tell that Sam ‘effin’ Reid is right there ready and waiting to act the shit out of this season and I hope, hope, hope they’ve given him some better episodes to work with and this first one is the outlier

I could cry

yeah, i agree. my logic is: i'm fine with it being experimental if it feels good or at the very least satisfying to watch. lestat's narration did not feel good to watch, i had to pause and rewatch certain scenes all the time (i'm not a native english speaker and i'm not that great with english). all the easy-to-miss editing choices are fun, but i wouldn't tolerate watching them on tv for example, where i wouldn't wanna pause every second. i don't deny that it was possibly made to be confronting to the audience, but like with all the meta stuff, you can't always use that excuse for everything. you're making mainstream tv show and it needs to feel satisfying to watch.

that ceiling shot was fascinating, because it doesn't really feel out of place with the tone (the quality of the effects reminded me of good om*ns show, if you know what i mean), but also it's just... so ridiculous to look at lol. and i think the only teaser that hinted on this type of special effects was "rolin's cut" one, other teasers tried to make it look cool. i was sitting there thinking like "okay, what should i feel about this?" the entire time and it's not how you want to make your audience feel. it's like... come on, go harder on some decisions. like full in. make it look even shittier. add ridiculous music. contrast is a good thing in this type of storytelling!

there are some signs that the show's budget was cut unfortunately, probably because of talamasca. and the decisions they made in relation to visual quality seem to be: let's make it look messy, let's make it look bad, it'll work well with the tone of the season and we'll be able to save money. the same thing with editing and adding stuff from the previous seasons (which means they likely didn't have enough of filmed material). and it's not a bad idea really, because the lack of finances and/or time led to creation of masterpieces in the past. but so far, in my opinion, the show is having identity crisis and not in a good way.

lestat has always been a bigot by modern standards tbf. who he says he is and who he actually is are two wildly different things. we've seen him being racist & misogynistic in the first season plenty of times. the fact that he's also transphobic doesn't surprise me at all. the fandom deluded itself into believing that he's some kind of super progressive inclusive icon.

what i didn't like is that the show didn't take time to reframe it and therefore turned lestat's transphobia into a joke they expect the audience to agree with. for example, lestat being anti-black in s1 was always counterbalanced by louis' pov (even in "joking" moments like "non-discriminating" scene we're supposed to be on louis' side). in s3e1 lestat is also being ableist by calling louis "an insane person" but the joke is that he immediately says with regret in his voice that he needs to remove that part.

i always suspected that tvl is gonna be way too self-indulgent on rolin's part, since he always wanted to write this season. read the original draft for s1e1 and you'll know what i mean lol. so far the treatment of women and transphobic joke were the worst parts to me, because i really don't think these two things come purely from lestat's pov. also, i think rolin and hannah wrote this episode together, so we can't even put the blame on all the middle-aged white dudes they invited to the writers' room just for this season.