Kinda tired of people disparaging Regina's character and pretending like we haven't gotten more charcaterization out of her than we have out of Lestat's entire band, Gabriella, or tbh S3 Daniel whose entire plot has kinda flatlined outside of DM fodder
She gets introduced in episode 3, we are on episode 5.
Here's everything done with her:
we establish her job and not just where she works but how she works; she is often late, doesn't feel afraid of speaking back to her boss or customers, still takes an interest in the customer's private lives and generating some discussion. she is not doing well financially but doesn't let that get her down, as she seems confident that she can make do when things to go to shit
how does she know this? well, we establish part of her backstory. she has a criminal past in Europe. she was able to make her way to multiple countries in Europe to reinvent herself before traveling across the ocean to America to try yet again.
this, in many ways, parallels her with Lestat's backstories of fleeing a messy past in Europe and coming to America for a new hope and running into Louis as a chance to get wealthy
this, in many ways, parallels her with Louis himself. she is a business woman, trying out things that can give her a foot in the door to make good money. when louis offers her $100k, she demands five times that, she knows what she is worth
and YET through her past and maybe her current dealings with onlyfans, she knows not trust men enough to rely on them to fund your life. she keeps her job, giving herself an off ramp if Louis becomes too much.
so, she's smart, she's confident, she isn't in a good situation but also isn't so desperate she is just a victim of circumstance. she actively chooses to keep engaging with Louis
this is further strengthened as intentional characterization by how she's handled Louis this entire season. she immediately clocks that he isn't eating his food and is there to watch him, she researches him to find out exactly how wealthy he is, and with the whole Vampirism of it all, she just... does more research and CONFRONTS him about it, even while visibly scared of him getting closer
she intuits that she reminds him of claudia!! she gets a bit wrong, so she's not like... mary sue level at figuring him out, but that's because she's smart enough to not be completely disarmed by him claiming he's gay and therefore not a creep (likely something she's encountered before!) and thinks his thing with claudia was sexually inappropriate and leans into that too much
or maybe reverts to a more sexual performance for this strange, wealthy man because she's not sure what else she could give him just by looking like Claudia, so she does what she's had to do before for men. but she doesn't settle for just that! she gets props (the diary), attempts an accent she's literally never heard before as she literally COULDN'T have heard Claudia speak, and changes her own style to meet Louis where she thinks he is, with little direction from him.
yeah, she's WINGING playing a random man's dead daughter-sister
when confronted with a SECOND vampire, she is able to figure him otu and dress him down in just one conversation, overcoming her fear to hold her own
Because, again, while her backstory puts her in the framework of say Lily, Bricktop, young Daniel where sex is the work they offer to move in Louis' world, she's actually much more like Louis taking on the class above her (in her case, this rich man, in Louis' case it was the wealthy white men of NOLA) to pull herself up and hold her own. She is a savvy business woman without the capital for business, so she's extracting it from Louis, the same way he turned to running all of those businesses after his father's plantation failed.
And, tbh, she isn't unsympathetic to his grief. She just... is using him the same way he's using her. She hasn't given him boundaries, letting him text her HUNDREDS of times a day, because like when she was just a waitress to him, she recognized his loneliness... but also that she can't fucking fix that, all she can do is her job.
She's a pragmatist, a schemer. Not just a victim, not just a victimizer... putting her in league with the rest of the cast.
She's an incredibly nuanced character who is grappling with Louis kind of forcing her into the vampire world and she's just navigating the best way a random, broke human CAN navigate that. Which parallels her with, say, Lestat's band sticking with him after the reveal. Daniel hanging out with Louis after the reveal.
Is this not a character with depth and agency?
I fear for her because I don't think she fully grasps how much fucking danger she is by being near Louis but that's not because LOUIS is dangerous, it's because other vampires want revenge on him. And she doesn't really have any way to know that. She is acting rationally in an irrational situation.
She is an extremely clear eyed and bold character who reflects so many themes and narrative arcs of all 3 seasons of the show, including pertinent stuff in thiS season, like her OF/play acting for Louis being say paralleled with Lestat sleeping with any client Christine told him to (And LOUIS being one of the clients who paid for the 'fan experience' but did that... just to spend time with him, not to sleep wtih him... just like he did with Regina)
Regina is honestly one of the highest points of this season and it was a brilliant way to keep Delainey on the show while furthering Louis' character as someone reeling from his grief, feeling newly responsible for Claudia's death after staying with her murder for 77 years, and feelign like he lacks control of his circumstances so he takes control the way he always had--through business, through handling and spending money.
There's a reason why in S1/2, he wasn't quite a billionaire, but, after Armand left him, he now has about $5B, actively invests in Lestat's merchandise so he has control over his band a bit, and has ownership of locations where vamps go to (and talks about "expanding too fast" because, again, he's clearly anxiously trying to develop his wealth as a form of control).
This brings his arc full circle to the scene all of us love in the confessional where he cries about stuffing his ears with cotton as a thief, a liar, someone who profits off the misery of others and "does it easy," and "takes daughters with no homes and I put 'em out on the street and I lie to myself and say I'm giving them roof, food, and dollar bills... but I know what I am: the big man in the big house stuffing cotton in my ears so I can't hear their cries."
It's also in that confession where he sees he does that in part FOR his family while ruining them all the same, just like he did with Claudia, which is why he has returned to this behaviour.
This is a great arc for both of them!!
