RARE praise (sort of) for AMC's TVL (from a radical Loumander):
(TVL finale spoilers from here on)
I actually thought one of the points Louis made was very much spot-on. And that's the tragedy of him being an ex-pimp while Armand was a trafficked victim and now is a survivor of sexual slavery, forced prostitution and exploitation.
This trauma that haunts Armand, that has haunted him for five hundred years, these scars that will never be fully healed... it's a huge part of who Armand is. And Louis was never able to deal with this part of Armand. He chose to ignore it. Not out of malice or lack of interest, but rather out of guilt. Because, dealing with Armand's trauma would also automatically mean that he would inevitably have to deal with his own crimes and sins.
While yes, Louis was a pimp and made his fortune by shamefully exploiting people (mostly women, I take it), I do not believe (I don't want to believe) that my Louis would ever have accepted to go to the lowest lever possible and include children in his 'business.' However, being as deep into that 'business' as he was, he was certainly familiar with (and probably disgusted by) the people who actually did that and their... practices. Louis would have known things. Would have seen things, even. Things that he probably wanted to scratch out of his brain, if that was possible.
And then he fell in love with Armand. Someone who used to be in the deepest pits of the opposite end of Louis's 'business.'
How does one deal with that?
Please don't get me wrong - I'm not excusing Louis for refusing to deal with it. Not at all. He literally had 77 years to do it. He absolutely should have at least tried to go through all of that with Armand at some point, as any loving and caring partner would. And he should have faced his own demons in the process. He was a coward for not doing that.
That said, even if Louis had tried... I sadly don't think much good would have come out of it. I think the whole ordeal would have ended up with both of them heartbroken; Armand because he'd be forced to extensively go through his trauma without the proper support he would need to go through such an ordeal (Louis most definitely isn't the right person to provide that for anyone, let alone someone as deeply scarred as Armand), and Louis would end up absolutely wrecked, depressed and loathing himself over his own involvement in a similar 'trade.' If they tried to go through it together, they would both end up FAR worse than they started; it was doomed from the start.
If the writers' implication was/is that Louis didn't love Armand enough to do it, then fuck them and their fuckass monogamistic views of "ooohhhh, you can only romantically love one single person in your entire lifetime!" - no. No. NO. Anyone with such views should stay as far away as possible from an adaptation of TVC, a series famous and infamous for its polyamorous characters and polyamory themes.
Louis and Armand did love each other very much. They writers might tell me that they just stayed together out of spite on Louis's side and fear on Armand's... but Assad Zaman's and Jacob Anderson's performances tell me otherwise (and that's why we're so blessed for this cast). Their performances tell me that Armand and Louis truly loved each other - that they wouldn't have spent 77 years together if they didn't. They just couldn't give each other the exact kind of love each of them needed. And that's the tragedy of them.
Just like Louis said, Armand needs a love to cradle him; a gentle, warm, soft, caring and understanding partner. Someone who will adore him and coddle him, someone who WILL be there and who WANTS to listen and WANTS to understand and WANTS to help (someone like... a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter whose entire career and fixation is getting people to open up, perhaps? 👀).
What Louis needs... is the thrill. Louis craves the hurricane, the storm, the drama, the tension, the toxicity, the insanity, the noise, the triggers, the heartbreaks. The things that only Lestat can give him.
At the end of the day, Louis and Armand just needed completely different things. And that's why they didn't work out as an exclusive marriage/relationship.
BUT. That doesn't mean that they fully stopped caring for each other and having feelings for each other... and being attracted to each other and wanting to fuck. 👀 And THAT'S what the auction scene is all about, as far as I'm concerned.
Have you guys ever met one of these couples that have been together since like forever and have never had an actual healthy relationship and they end up breaking up BADLY... and then, after that, they're suddenly ALL OVER EACH OTHER, casually having sex and even rekindling their romance at times, and they go like "omg yeah, ever since we broke up/divorced we are actually SO much better???" 😭
That's Louis and Armand at the auction- until the fuckass writers make it otherwise. I know they hate Armand and they dislike Louis, so I don't have false hopes that everything I spent the last 30 minutes writing this will be the actual case in their show. But who cares, I probably won't be back next season, so I can think whatever I want now.
