LouLou Loves

“Evening Primrose”

The people in that room were all the people he loved and respected as well as all the people he had drained and killed in the last 200+ years. And he remembers every single one. From people who seem insignificant to the significant.

Paul wasn’t someone he drained, but someone he had unintentionally drove to suicide just as he did Nicki. He messed with a mentally unstable man and it led to poor consequences.

But Paul isn’t there for judgment nor penance. He’s there to remind Lestat on the few things he did right in his life. And one of them was loving Louis, as grotesque as that love may have seemed to him.

You could call Paul an Angel or some form of divine messenger. He’s just a gentle presence for Lestat to lean on as a quiet in the loud chaos when the lights go out.

at the same time, i truly feel this has been a stellar season of television. i've adored (nearly) every episode beyond all reason, especially once i let go of my long-held book expectations and just enjoyed the show for what it is, this particular story that these writers wanted to tell. the head writers are all the same as seasons 1 and 2, and i personally do not feel any nuance or quality has been lost in that regard at all. it's been a huge stylistic shift, but i don't see how that wasn't the expectation from everyone, considering how much of a whiplash the source material perspective shift is. i've watched each episode at least 3 times and get something new out of them every time.

what ended up mattering more to me at the end of the day than specific book scenes being faithfully adapted was that book lestat was there in all his glory. to me, the most important aspects of my favorite character have been on full display - his chaos, his vulnerability, his love for humans, his theatricality, the violence inside him he reckons with. i love it all, and this season feels so unbelievably true to the character across ALL books in the series (specifically those 90s/00s years, like totbt and memnoch) in a way that s1 lestat actually didn't for me.

Sam Reid as LESTAT DE LIONCOURT

Louis. My daughter was my sister was my throw pillow. I loved her/but she didn't love you. Not like he did, not like i have/I know! I know...

His relationship with claudia was complex, but louis didn't want A DAUGHTER when she was turned, he wanted REDEMPTION. He didn't have baby fever, he justified his insistence in "saving" (turning) her by aiming directly for Lestat's insecurities, then offering him what Lestat wants from him: emotiinal intimacy, a family. She can be our daughter and I'll be happy, please please please, I'll love you if you do this, this baby will save our marriage. Don't you want a daughter?

Louis switches more easily between father and brother and some other third thing that neither of them will name because Claudia was born with a job but not a role from Louis' perspective. I think you can make a really good case for Louis and Claudia's relationship being emotionally incestuous. Not at all sexually, but in the sense that the relationship isn't really mutual? He stopped being "Daddy Lou" when he didn't protect her from Lestat and then chose Lestat over her. Claudia feels that burden that Louis put on her when she was made and only really stays with him until she finds companionship elsewhere. Had the trial not happened, I don't think Louis and Claudia would have apoken much after that dinner. She wouldn't come back without a specific reason. Claudia dying when she did and the way she did actually serves Louis's own inner narrative better than if she'd lived and just drifted away, which she would have been happy doing. I don't think that she thought of Louis as a father, I think Louis wanted her to fill an emotional need and she tolerated whatever boxes he put her in until she found companionship with someone who loved her for who she actually is and proved it by putting her money where her mouth is. I think Louis's failure to protect Claudia like a parent should, and then his refusal to burn Lestat, AND THEN immediately sidelining her once he started banging Aemand, absolutely lost him any respect from her. I do think she came to think of him as more of a shitty older brother... or someone she's really only staying connected to out of shared trauma and loneliness

Louis has directly or indirectly been the cause of every bad thing that's happened to Claudia from the fire onward, and she knows it. He said "I'm your father" but didn't prove it

Lestat and Claudia are parent and child and act like it, for better or worse. Usually for worse, but he's UNambiguously her father

I don't think Claudia would have looked to Louis once Madeleine was gone. I think she would have reached for Lestat regardless

And tbh this is holding true in TVL. louis is still using his own grief as an excuse to put his emotions onto claudia even if it means hiring her doppleganger (and a fake French girlfriend???) to pretend to be her and then just listen to him talk about himself. Then spiraled out and got his ex to make sure it's not really Claudia in yet another role he's cast her in himself

Gothic Horror's purpose in storytelling is to make you paranoid. It's goal in making the audience feel what it wants you to feel, is to feel just paranoid enough you don't stop looking for answers. Something feels wrong? Note that. Something seems inconsistent? Note that. Someone seems like they are hiding something? NOTE THAT. It wouldn't be horror if you weren't feeling keyed up about it.

This would be a bad show if you weren't encouraged to ask questions. It's up to you as the audience member, however, to decide whether you're asking them in good faith or because you think you're being held at gunpoint. The show isn't over, we aren't even half-way through, that paranoia is only going to build.

To people who are not having fun, it's okay to walk away. It's okay to decide you're done for now. Unreliable narrators will do that to you, I have a whole post about it, and sometimes it's better to let your paranoia cool off if it's causing you real distress. I've personally done it before, and probably will again.