#armand asks

I actually loved that beat! It felt really true to the chaos and confrontation of the moment and the deluge of feeling to briefly hold to something like that because it's easy. To think about your shoes is to not have to think about anything else, and it doesn't hold, but it's a brief grip on the ground in the midst of a hurricane, y'know? I kind of think it was for both of them too, in many ways, and so any hurt from it was likely swallowed up by the bigger hurt that came (pardon the pun) on its heels.

I mentioned it last night, but I really love that Louis brought Armand up in that way too, not because it says anything about Lestat - it doesn't, and the circumstances are obviously completely different which Louis realises very quickly given how his reaction shifts - but because it reveals Louis' still carrying the weight of what Armand did to him. It feels really in direct conversation to the mediation scene in 3.02 to me where Louis's posturing and saying they can talk about Armand like it's easy when it's clear they haven't, and acting like he's completely healed from that chapter of his life when his emotional response here reveals that he's not. He responds badly to the incest, but worse to what he perceives as a century long lie - it triggers him in a way that I don't think we've seen much else do before, and I think as an emotional beat it really lands us back in the reality of how traumatising Armand's deception was for Louis.

I think it would depend. If I were to come across it in the wild, or wake up with it just on me, I would probably freak out. However, if i were at a sanctuary where they teach about such animals and insects, and I was allowed to have one crawl on my hand, I would feel safe enough to try it and not flinch.

However, there really wasn't any suspense or tension at all, so I kind of get why people are calling this a filler season.

some things are still not clear e.g. was lestat really there as he said this season at Nicki's end when in s1 he said they'd parted ways by then

what i understood from the books lesmand dynamic seemed so interesting to explore and i loved lestat calling armand gremlin at the tower lol

s3 lestat's flashbacks were quite character-centric, like lestat's time/world is defined by his loved ones almost and the portrayal of armand in paris almost felt tangential. given that we didn't get the trial flashback (but i wonder if we are NOT getting one in the end, lots left to explore anyways) wonder if we'll be getting armand-centric flashback in s4 (there'd better be s4 btw!!!!!)

I was hoping for more of Armand and Lestat's dynamic too, but looking back on it now with the context of the full season, I think it does make sense that they wanted to centre Armand's spiraling around Louis and Daniel this season and save that deeper exploration of Lestat and Armand's dynamic for part 2, especially given how they've held off on Marius. There have been too many open-ended beats for me to think they're not going to go all in on them at some point, and these last two episodes especially have really I think played around with expressions of those darker elements (the revenge porn, the way he touched his prone, headless body, reminding us that Lestat and Louis still haven't talked about Armand in both 3.02 and 3.06).

I think giving Armand and Louis the space to really reckon with the reality of their own marriage and to see how the wound of it has affected both of them - Louis' lack of healing evident in 3.06, as I talked about here, the way it's truly festered in Armand as evident in this episode - free of the distraction of Lestat was needed in the broader arc. It offers more room for understanding them as characters and what their relationship was - especially when you consider it really made physical what was formerly psychological - but also narrative space to explore other dynamics going forwards without undermining the specific harm ingrained in theirs, I think.

One of my main issues with Lestats characterization so far is how willing they have him to hurt Louis. Repeatedly. The drop, then the trial for which we've never gotten any answers, then after all Louis had endured he let's him go with Armand who wanted to murder him and killed Nicki? And Claudia. ??? Its never ending. And not to mention poor writing? The only characterization this gets us is: petty. Lestat is traumatized and petty but not much else these past 3 seasons.

Also the plotholes here are driving me crazy. What's the point of saving Louis if he's gonna die from starvation later?

For that matter why show that he is angry at armand about the trial if we're never gonna get an answers as to what went down with lestat and armand there?

Why did Louis say it's not on you during the reunion only to go around blaming lestat again in ep2?

We get the Regina thing and so many silly modern scenes while so many important things are being glossed over.

I mean, I felt he was pretty clearly lying, anon.

That scene is set-up to have Lestat in an incredibly vulnerable position and immediately, visibly, attempting to regain any modicum of power. I mean, he's alone and asleep in his coffin and wakes up to Armand, who is incredibly powerful and the murderer of his child, a couple of feet away.

My interpretation is that he strips to weaponise his sexuality, put Armand off-balance, and try and regain control of the situation as Armand starts talking about a past that we've spent three episodes being reminded Lestat doesn't want to face or deal with, from Magnus to Armand's abduction of Nicki, to Gabi, and then when Armand touches a fresher point that Lestat hasn't even revisited yet, Lestat fronts to shut down the conversation. He doesn't want to have a heart-to-heart, he wants Armand off the bus, and then he invites him to the show in order to regain the upper hand, writing a song in a day and dressing up in provocation. As a sequence, it's not actually about pettiness, it's not even really about any one specific line of dialogue, it's about how these two characters have power over each other and how they don't. Armand's capacity to isolate and corner Lestat, and Lestat's capacity to use his sexuality and influence over others to put Armand on the spot. It re-establishes Armand as someone who catches and kills, and Lestat as someone who honeytraps before he stings hard. I'm sorry you think it's bad writing, but I think it was pretty great writing, personally.

I really really love this outfit, he looks so good and just perfect for Armand in that section. I wanted to ask you, I see some people claiming that this season looks cheaper, but I don't think it does? Are people confusing a less romantic aesthetic on Lestat's part, like his somewhat dirty version of the Wolfkiller coat versus Armand's swashbuckling prince version (which they could have used again if they'd wanted...), or the bus versus 1910s New Orleans, with cheapness?

Saw this tweet and I think it's true:

Seeing ppl say that the decline in quality for iwtv s3 is bc they lost the production designer and costume designer from s1 to s2 and i rly want to ask “where specifically do u think the drop in quality for the costumes and prod design is” bc idt they’d have an answer

(they clarified that they don't mean wigs, which is hair and makeup, just costumes. I wish the wigs were better, but on the other hand this is by far the best everyone's natural hair has ever looked. I did not love Louis and sometimes Armand's hair in most of season 2, and Lestat looked beautiful but was frizzled up the wazoo in season 1, then weird flat Brad Pitt hair in one pivotal season in season 2 lol)

I'm obsessed with that Armand costume, anon, and I'm honestly kind of tickled, because I've had a similar, real outfit from 1790s France saved in my Courtesan AU inspo folder for ages:

Period-accurate costumes, my beloved!!!

But no, I don't think the production values have gone down at all in either sets or costume, it's just that we're getting a lot of different lighting which does have a significant impact on how a show looks and feels, and how costumes and sets appear on camera. The combination of having the contemporary scenes frequently highly lit between stage lights and the sterile fluorescent lighting of most modern hotels, and us having multiple natural light scenes in a way that we haven't had since 1.01 for all of the human!stat sequences does inevitably change the look and feel of the show.

IS THIS HIM FALLING THROUGH THE TRAPDOOR IN THE STAGE THEY PUT THEIR VICTIMS THROUGH. Because I remember people pointing out the "ten minutes" thing and how that was said to Lestat and about their victims, and other parallels, and oh my god