People are entitled to whatever opinion of the show they have, but I swear half the complaints I see are things that have either already been done in the show or are clearly being set up. If there is going to be so much complaining, that you’ll have to expect complaining about the complaining. That’s only fair.
Ignore how bad the general audience are at picking up on things for a minute. Remove influence of their awful opinions for a second.
Armand is playing the same role he does in the book. He’s the presence. It’s very clearly going somewhere. His character has not been flattened, the general audience are just not curious about him and it is not because of the writing. The first two seasons set up a very layered character and Assad did so even more. In this season too, we’ve seen him very sincerely address his roles in Paris and in Daniel’s life. It’s still Lestat’s season, but Armand is as interesting as he’s ever been.
We are lucky to be getting any DM at all. They do not exist until QotD. This season was priming the audience for their relationship. Having Luke back and doing past!dm this season would’ve been out of place and wouldn’t have made sense for people who are not already intimately aware of their relationship. It would be jarring for them to kiss right away.
It’s The Vampire Lestat. I get that he can be a lot, but it’s his book. He’s obviously going to feature heavily.
Making the band more prominent made sense because the structure of the book is bad. You get the tiniest bit of Rockstar Lestat at the start and end and it’s so rushed. They’re actually lived-in characters now.
Lestat doesn’t actually counter any of Louis’ points in his book either. The bulk of the novel, the part that consists of his in-universe autobiography, is just backstory. They’ve hit every one of the major points of that autobiography. He’s actually been way more combative towards Louis in the show, even if he’s only mad about superficial things.
Lesmand have their book dynamic. It’s all there. If anything, they’ve given us more. There isn’t a romantic relationship in the book, so clearly they’re considering Lesmand’s dynamic across the entire book series instead of just this one book. They are very different in later books. I was shocked by how Lesmand heavy this season was. Lestat’s animosity towards him makes totally sense, especially when you see the fondness seeping in beneath it.
When Lestat does finally counter Louis’ book, it’s all crammed into the epilogue, and all he really does is say “please don’t be too hard on Louis :) he probably didn’t mean to lie in the way he did.” It’s not good. He barely mentions anything. Anne just uses it as an excuse to retcon things that made Lestat look bad.
Loustat are not together until the very end, and they still don’t get back together. It’s the Loustat show, but that means Louis and Lestat as the protagonists. Not that every episode will be about them having a normal romance. The episode we just got is pretty in line with them meeting again in the book.
There are complaints about the pacing. This would not benefit from being two seasons. It is just 500 pages of backstory. Lestat is a lot. I’m relieved they condensed it in the way they did. The pacing is not better in the book. The entire thing is just Lestat going”and then this happened, and then this happened, and then, and then, and then…” More episodes would be ideal, of course, but they’ve mentioned the budget a lot. It is incredibly unusual for a showrunner to be so candid about budgeting issues while promoting the show. They all know it was an issue. Clearly they wanted to do more but I think what they were able to do was enough with the restraints they had.
They have some heavy lifting to do in the finale, but there is literally no reason to believe it won’t happen. The structure of the entire series has been Lestat running from his past and now he’s in a place where he can no longer avoid it. Armand is also a critical part of the book, and once he stops being the presence, we get the lore dump. The writers do not hate Armand. They do not favour Lestat. They don’t hate DM. They just don’t. There is no reason to believe these things, not with how thoughtful the comments from the actors and writers have been. The actors do not hate the writing. They do not hate Rolin and Hannah.
What is left to do is the epilogue and the concert. We are sitting at the night before the concert where we left off. I think we are done with the trial, which is a major part of the epilogue. They haven’t set up Showmand to torture Lestat. Santiago fit that role far more, and it would feel reductive for a big twist on the trial to happen twice. He did what he did, and Lestat did what he did. Changing Lestat’s level of involvement was bad in the books. They already have done away with some of Anne’s whitewashing retcons from this section. I expect the episode is going to be Lestat finally having a reckoning in his own head. And then whatever Armand is up to.
I firmly think the first two seasons improved upon many things from the books. Mainly Louis being incredibly dull. I think this season has improved on the book in some ways too. They’ve really trimmed the fat. I’m not happy with every change, mainly the sections with Armand and Marius because there is some really beautiful prose in there, but the book is so meandering and long. It’s also an adaptation. They completely transformed the first book, why would the second be different? The unusual structure fits perfectly with the version of Lestat they’ve created.
Look, feel whatever you want, complain all you want. It’s your right to do so. I’m just tired of people coming into my comments and shitting on the show, assuming I agree with them. I can see the logic behind virtually every creative decision made this season and Rolin Jones is not the big bad wolf. He is a guy none of us know. I am not going to antagonise him.
