goose

And if Lestat really did choose to go to the trail willingly, why is that not explicitly explored in the failures dream sequence? We are we spending time apologizing to victims and for making bad music when this is the single greatest failure of his life? Maybe even more than the drop, because the drop was the heat of the moment, Akasha’s blood became overpowering inside him blah blah whatever excuse. But going to the trial had to be premeditated. It had to be a very conscious decision. Staying had to be a very conscious decision.

This whole season my big issue has been, besides all of my small issues which are also very numerous so it's hard to tell the difference, that we don't know what the hell Lestat is doing or what his motivation is or why we care. I know why I cared about him as a character in seasons 1 and 2, because our point of view character did, and I know why I care about him in the books, very well, and I don't know why I'm supposed to care about him in season 3.

When I talk about adaptations I talk about this idea of there being a guiding principle that you organize your storytelling around, but I think that works for a lot of TV just in general. And this third season I don't feel like the writers really looked at the first two seasons that they made and thought about what the audience actually needed from a pivot to Lestat at all. They needed at least one principle of the season to be making the audience fall in love with Lestat. They knew the actor was charismatic and they knew that the book character was iconic, and they just kind of forgot to make the one in the show... anything?

The book TVL is about looking for a way to live with both authenticity and something you can call goodness. That's a really strong character motivation! You can do a bunch of twists on it, he can fail at his quest and be sad, he can succeed and be happy. When he's doing stuff it's not really hard to understand why, and it's likeable because that's a good motivation even though it's very difficult for him to achieve this very lofty goal. People I know who didn't like the book nearly as much as I do still get the point, they just don't personally relate to it as much.

In the show he's weirdly passive and angry constantly, but doesn't want to affect any change and is mostly just complaining? Which would make sense if I understood what he's actually complaining about, but he's mostly just griping? I can deal with a guy who complains, I read the book Interview with the Vampire? This is ridiculous.

The big original sin of this season: why do you actually want to spend time with the character of Lestat? This guy was mostly an antagonist in the prior two seasons, he testified at the trial that killed Claudia, he abused Louis. Yeah he was fun to watch, yeah we like him because of his relationship with Louis, but we don't like him or know him as a guy who is our main hero yet. Why should we care to watch his story? This season did not a single thing to answer that question!

The book answers that on like page one, you want to spend time with Lestat because he's an optimistic guy! And if that didn't work, he's telling you a linear story where he experiences character growth and change and is on a motivated quest for much of it. The questions you as a reader have keep getting answered: how did he become this vampire who seemed to embrace being a vampire so much? We see that! Why did he do a bunch of the stuff he did in the first book? We see the development of that character, and fairly early on you fall in love with that character in this book and so that question doesn't keep coming up. You stop thinking about Interview with the Vampire pretty quickly, and you start wondering, what's going to happen to Nicki? How is he going to deal with Armand? Is he going to find Marius? The kinds of questions that keep you reading a book!

In the TV show he is on a rock tour because he is bored. He is giving an interview to Daniel because he is... that's actually not explained? Maybe he's trying to correct the book, but he doesn't seem to want to give Daniel any information, so I think he just likes being mean to Daniel, but he doesn't seem to enjoy it? He is fighting vampires who are trying to kill him because they are trying to kill him. He is reconnecting with his mom because his life is in shambles, but not because he did anything, but because he's a rock star because he's bored but he's not good at being a rock star and also doesn't really seem to enjoy that that much either. He maybe wants to spend time with his mom? But he doesn't seem that happy about that either because he's making sad faces most of the time they are talking. Sometimes Louis is here, Lestat is mad at him because he did the interview that became the book, and the interview that became the book contained small factual inaccuracies that don't really change how we view what happened in the prior two seasons in any meaningful way. He doesn't like Armand because Armand is desperate and he doesn't like him and he let Louis be with Armand to punish Armand for... I mean in the show they both genuinely conspired to kill Claudia, so I don't understand Lestat's issue here. Demonstrably in the show Armand has done every single thing Lestat has wanted him to do since shortly after they met.

And he also doesn't want to tell humans vampires exist, and he also is only making an anthem for the great conversion because his mom is a cackling super villain with an absurd nonsense accent who controls him with her evil pushup bra powers. Gabriella really is far and away the worst thing in the season.

And to be fair, we also don't know why he is using an archaic piece of technology to record his story for a random mystery person who even he does not know. And he's telling this story in a similarly evasive way to the way that he is talking to Daniel, almost as though this element was very clearly added later and they didn't really think about why he would be recording this and how the motivations for it would meaningfully effect the voiceover.

What did he attempt? What did he fail at? Why are we supposed to understand why he did any of the bad things he did? Why are we supposed to like him enough to want to understand him?

Forget the human face of actor Sam Reid, and his charismatic performance. Has the show given you a single reason to like Lestat more in season 3 than you already did or didn't in seasons 1 and 2? Not because you feel bad because something bad happened to him, why do you like him? Why is he's someone whose goals you want to root for?

And also what are his goals?

I have none of those questions from the source material, and for what it's worth I had none of those questions about Louis in season 1 and 2. This isn't purposely chaotic storytelling, this is not good storytelling.

Something I struggle with re: the Devil's Minion horror movie turn is that: I get why Armand is mad at Louis, and I kind of get why Daniel is mad at Lestat -- but I don't feel like Armand really wants Lestat dead, or that Daniel is mad enough at Louis to want him dead, either. Armand still clearly carries some sort of torch for Lestat, and Daniel & Louis seemed to be getting back to friendliness back in 3x02.

My best guess at a workable motive (that doesn't require a huge retcon or making Lestat's POV wildly wrong) is that this is, in a weird way, Armand & Daniel proving to each other the seriousness of their companionship.

"They've got nobody in the Odyssey?"

"No I'm saying they don't got nobody."

"Nobody's there?"

"Nobody's not there!"

"So everyone's there?"

"Everybody but nobody!"

it's either "leave the fandom if ur gonna complain! stop being negative! you should be excited about s4 after they butchered s3!"

or its "Hannah and Rolin should be booed while all of the actors watch! someone needs to tell Hannah to kill herself! people who are excited for s4 are going to hell!"