cool

s3/tvl started promo and already the shift was obvious. rolin talked shit from day one "it's the lestat show", "it's no longer two old men sitting in a room", "the season ended with hugs and kisses", "if you hate this season you hate lestat and daniel" etc. sam had to correct rolin twice over the things he was saying regarding other cast members. promotion for this season when above and beyond, every poster was a lestat solo and people argued that that was due to this being lestat's season. ignoring the fact that lestat was still a prominent character on many of the s2 posters. they did countless tv spots and photoshoots and a live concert and a fashion collab, and basically did everything in their power to promote this now white-led season as much as they could.

they baited people with loustat and lestat flashbacks and incredible writing, claiming that this was their best season yet, and there's been either none or very little of those things. the pacing is awful, louis been reduced to a caricature and punching bag, and not a single character feels fully flushed out or written with genuine passion. yet the book purists aren't kicking up nearly as much of a fuss. lestat being a rockstar was not as big of a plot point as it's been during this season, and they're focusing so much on that (and his relationship with gabriella) that the writing is suffering tremendously.

but then again, i can't even say that because a lot of the choices feel very sinister and intentional: all the women we've seen thus far being sexual props (dee basically just being toted around as a groupie to fuck lestat and whoever else, gabriella being a poorly constructed "femme-fatale" and fucking lestat and whoever else every episode, regina having an only fans, tc having unresolved desires about motherhood(?), christine fucking lestat/being mocked for that and also having a sex dungeon or something? the faux-madeleine kiss). what happened to our well-written and interesting characters? can women not be engaging to viewers unless they're sexual in some way, shape or form?

and louis....they've completely butchered his character to a degree that, as ive said a hundred times before, feels incredibly racist and deliberate. anyone that tries to say that the writers didn't purposefully set out to humiliate louis' character and subject him to as much antiblack racism as possible are purposefully ignoring the evidence in favor of supporting the garbage that was shoveled at us this season. what narrative explanation is there for:

louis apologizing to lestat for a book he didn't want written

louis being called a "nappy headed slave"

louis being told that he can't escape the slave mentality etched into his being

louis being told by claudia that she hates him more than her abusers, rapists, and lynchers

louis sympathizing with a man who mocked his suicide attempt

louis making a comment on being sexually assaulted as a child and never having it explored

louis specifically having his head cut off and put on display

louis being tortured by armand (the man who organized his lynching) and apologizing to armand

louis having armand carve a branding (the first letter of armand's name) into his chest following his (louis') being called a slave in the prior episode

louis' torture being broadcasted live as some sort of fucked up red-room bullshit

louis not seeing the ghost/hallucination of his brother, but that being reserved for lestat. and that ghost then apologizing to lestat on louis' behalf and thanking lestat for "loving him the way he needs to be loved".

nothing that the writers had louis experience this season did anything for his character, he was used for torture porn and to lick the wounds of his white (ex)-partner, who he still refers to as the love of his life. louis is denied the right to be a victim and expected to understand that everything he went through was ultimately a result of his own sins and flaws. why was louis not someone that armand apologized to when he wrote his letters? because those apologies were reserved for white men that he did not hurt nearly as much as louis?

why did armand torture louis but leave lestat alone? why did the writers have armand torture a black woman as a way to hurt louis, but lestat was spared from this horrific abuse? why did louis have to apologize to armand for not loving him or whatever the fuck, while lestat was, as i said, not faced with this name vitriol? i don't even care about "ship wars" at this point, but why did armand tell louis that he never really loved him? and to expand on that point; why did claudia also tell louis that lestat was the one that she actually liked? why, again and again, is louis being shown as unlovable, undesirable, and the true evil villain that has plagued everyone's past.

there is a specific sick joy taken by the writers in subjecting louis (and regina and claudia) to as much antiblackness and suffering and cruelty as possible. louis is a victim as much (and even more, at times) than any one of the other main characters this season, and yet that is constantly cast aside so they can continue to push this rhetoric that louis is The Awful, Manipulative Pimp.

nevermind the fact that lestat murdered prostitutes and kept dee around to do no more than fuck and drink from her. nevermind the fact that armand kidnapped people to be tortured and eaten for his shitty plays. nevermind the fact that lestat and armand directly contributed to the almost-lynching of louis and the lynching of his daughter and her lover. "they're all monsters, they're going to behave this way" except for when its louis, then he needs to be repeatedly punished?

and with regards to the trial: why is that never fully addressed again? lestat can be disproportionately mad at louis for a book daniel wrote and published (without his permission), but louis can't be upset at lestat for taking part in the murder of their daughter? they couldn't even be bothered to write lestat telling louis that he was under armand's control. would that have not been another way to absolve this white man of his crimes, as they're so eager to do? but because they have it said two times that lestat went there of his own volition, we're just supposed to gloss over the fact that this man knowingly planned to murder his lover, and succeeded in murdering his daughter? but louis is the one that apologizes and begs for forgiveness??

this is a quick aside, but they also completely ruined armand's character. they took such a complex, interesting and fantastic character and stripped him of all his parts. now he's just the undesirable south-asian man (which is horribly racist in and of itself) that deluded himself into thinking he and lestat had a relationship, and apologizes genuinely to his white lovers but hates the black man he lied to and brainwashed for 77 years. the writers use armand as another character (like claudia) to spew their personal hatred for louis, and believe that they will be above reproach because armand is not a white man.

armand is a survivor of csa and that is their excuse for how he brutally tortures louis and drags an apology out of him, but when does he subject gabriella to this? she abused lestat for decades and decades as both a mortal and a vampire. but since that wasn't done to armand he doesn't care? but oh wait...that argument falls apart when you realize that louis didn't sexually abuse armand either. he is being punished for something he did (not to armand) over a century ago, and if that's the case, lestat and armand and gabriella should be drawn and quartered for their crimes. but, no, nothing anyone else does matters, this season is solely about humiliating louis as much as possible. lestat and daniel actually made fun of armand's trauma this season, but it's louis that deserves to be tortured....right, right...

i really don't even care about loustat at this point, but we were told that we were going to see louis "through lestat's eyes" and that it was going to be beautiful and this was allegedly the coolest louis has ever looked. but all we've gotten is lestat being horribly cruel to louis and calling him crazy, mocking his suicide attempt, and acting put-upon when louis goes to him for help. the closest we came to genuine loustat was at the very beginning of the season. and then when the book dropped they used that as an excuse to have lestat disparage louis in one way or another every time he's mentioned or they share a scene.

every single relationship louis made in the iwtv s1 & s2 is butchered or straight-up retconned. daniel wanted to reconcile with louis but all of a sudden doesn't care about that and is willing to help armand enact his laughably villainish plan? armand was chasing after louis and begging him to understand the end of the previous season but now he's torturing louis and forcing him to apologize for...what exactly? claudia berates him and the complex feelings she had for louis are watered down to vitriolic rage and antiblack language reserved solely for only one of her parents? lestat was tearful and remorseful during the iwtv s2 finale but is now mocking louis' suicide attempt and calling him a cancerous jackal?

the finale was all of their grievances with louis and hatred for the explicit blackness of the first two (but especially first) seasons rearing its nasty, ugly head. they succeeded in destroying beloved characters and giving the racist fans that hated louis exactly what they wanted. they backed out of and changed almost every writing choice they made during iwtv s1 and s2, and even if their end goal for this show was to drive louis and lestat back together, they did that in the most manufactured and racist way possible.

there was no story told this season, we learned almost nothing new by the end of it. akasha didn't even awaken and the rockstar angle was pointless and used as nothing more than to artificially pad the runtime and make up plot points that went literally nowhere. tvl felt like the writers fucked up version of a 'fix it' fanfiction, because there was nothing that needed to be fixed in iwtv to begin with.

in conclusion, this show did not need to be made. begging jacob to come back just for his character to be treated this way was very, very callous and disrespectful to the phenomenal acting that jacob does. to say im disappointed and heartbroken for jacob, delainey and assad would be an understatement—they have been forced to defend and explain awful choices made for their characters this season despite not having been the ones to write them. and people will continue to use them as scapegoats for this season to pretend that "they were on board" with the racism and antiblackness, as if black and brown actors aren't repeatedly blacklisted for speaking out against bigoted writing choices. my heart bleeds for whatever jacob and assad will be subjected to at sdcc.

tldr; this season would have been written completely differently had louis, claudia and armand been white as they were in the books. rolin, hannah and the others writers for this season sought to create an antiblack, racist, misogynistic, misogynoir-laden mess in a failed attempt to rewrite their white lead's cruelties and victimize him at the expense of every non-white character in the show. and they delight in watching a large portion of their viewership happily consume this slop and defend every single one of their writing choices while their black and brown cast are put on the spot to defend this shit. it is obvious, and to defend or excuse it is doing no more than showing that you support what they've done and don't care about how harmful it is.

and, finally: if you're going to come into my comments or ask box to defend the blatant racism this season, please do not waste your breath. im at the point now where i will be blocking you instead of explaining my thoughts for the hundred millionth time. and beyond that, i have no desire to go back and forth with racist, media illiterate people on the internet.