So you guys were all “oh let the bad characters be nuanced” when it came to him posting revenge porn of Lestat but then when it’s your special little guy lobbing off body parts because, yes, he thought he was entitled to their time and their bodies like we told you, it’s out of character? Give me a break. You’re not made for this show, you just want perfect victims and uncomplicated villains and that’s not this show. Go watch a ya series. Love Armand for who he is, or don’t, but don’t pretend he’s anything different than this.
So this wasn’t nuanced. Not at all. And this episode makes the revenge porn feel even more like an empty writing choice.
Honestly Armand monologuing to a severed head is conceptually kind of my dream, but he didn’t have an arc at all this season, especially not one that built up to this. There was a way to do this, and they didn’t do it. Beheading? Not out of character for Armand. But he’s intentional with his acts of violence and the narrative did not successfully justify this. His reasoning for it in TVA made sense, at least according to the character. This didn’t. Zero set up, none of the substance he has in the book. Nothing.
Armand is quite literally the furthest thing from a perfect victim, especially because there’s no such thing. He is a monster because of what he’s endured. That’s the entire appeal of the character. But I would argue this made him come off as only a villain more than anything else. He admitted to just doing it for the sake of being cruel, which is not Armand, especially not in the show. They all but turned him into the cartoon villain that we’ve explicitly been saying he isn’t.
I like Armand evil, and I think I like the scene. I’m not sure yet. It’s clearly what they’re doing instead of him torturing Lestat in the trial combined with Louis’ sincere apology to him for stringing him along. Okay. That’s interesting.
It’s that there was nothing leading to it. There’s the problem. I love Armand for how multifaceted he is and I also like balanced stories and I don’t think anyone had a satisfying arc this season. Even Lestat. They could save it in season 4 by following his arc from QotD, but it’s harder to trust that they will now.