#tvl asks

I hope we get more with Nicki at some point, but I think the way they did those flashbacks worked great within this episode.

I'm curious, do you think there's a version of this show where Rolin does a lot more of Lestat's past? What would have been needed for that? Because Eric said in an interview that there was an eighth episode discussed but never written, and that it would have carried the story forward to the next big thing that happened, I guess in Queen of the Damned. So an eighth episode by itself doesn't sound like it would have meant much more on the flashback front. If he'd gotten ten episodes, or twelve episodes, in a world where AMC did that kind of thing, what might he have done?

Because I understand him and Hannah wanting to focus in the story in the present. Not only to keep Louis and other characters who couldn't be in the 1700s in the story, but I understand them wanting to move Lestat forward, and not only or mostly tell the story of how Lestat got to be where he is. And I don't think budget really explains the flashbacks, as I've seen some people say. Rolin said he couldn't build more sets, but that doesn't mean he couldn't shoot more on the sets they did build, and they built some beautiful ones.

So I'm just curious from your writerly standpoint, if he had had ten or twelve episodes, do you think he would have incorporated significantly more or longer flashbacks, or do you think he would have mostly stayed in the present and just carried the story further?

And that doesn't even get into some comments in interviews that make me wonder if we might get more flashbacks next season if Lestat is being more self-reflective.

Agreed, anon! I actually re-watched it last night after watching The Curse of Frankenstein and almost fell more in love with the episode if that was even possible, haha.

In terms of a version of the season where Rolin adapts more of Lestat's past, mm, maybe? While only having seven episodes no doubt played a role in how they've truncated flashbacks (and I agree the budget line wouldn't be why they've done it outside of the wolfkilling sequence given that one would be expensive to pull-off), how he and Hannah have structured the season and brought us into Lestat's head also doesn't really give space for them in at least these early episodes? Emphasising Lestat's desire to focus on the present and avoid painful memories in particular when his entire past (at least in France) pretty much is painful memories is a challenging thing to balance on a narrative level and it makes me get what Rolin meant when he talked about the writers trying to write themselves into corners, haha.

They also do seem to be structuring a lot of the season around Lestat and Gabi's relationship, and Lestat's inability to really face that (and I'd argue Gabi's inability too, after last episode when she looked genuinely rattled by the idea Lestat might name her as his mother), which also adds to that sort of handwaving around the Auvergne part of his life in particular.

I think maybe if they'd had more episodes we could've gotten more of Paris, and maybe a full pre-Magnus Nicki episode, but there are two real narrative thrust points in Lestat and Nicki's dynamic, one of which is their reconnection in Auvergne leading them to Paris, and the other being Lestat's turning and the subsequent fallout of that, so by removing the former (and I do get why they did that), you're left needing to get to the latter story-wise. They could've teased more of that out, of course, but I appreciate too that they were also obviously conscious that they'd already hit some of those beats in 2.03 in Armand's abduction of Nicki and the gang feed. As for what else has been kept or lost, I feel like I need to see the rest of the season before I can really make an assessment, haha.

Especially when Rolin has said multiple times that the book of TVL is what made him want to adapt the whole series! Whatever his choices, I don't think they're about just wanting to get to QOTD. And yeah, we're barely into the meat of the story. Think about where season 2 was at this point, or season 1, and where they got to. That doesn't mean some people won't still be disappointed in some things, but let's see what he does before deciding he isn't adapting the book lol

(x)

Yeah, exactly. Even with bringing parts of QOTD into this season too, in some ways they kind of have to given it and TVL are such a duology, and parts of that book are pretty heavily tied to Lestat's music career. To tell this arc both comprehensively and cohesively, it makes sense to me that they'd be approaching the two books holistically, even as they adapt them separately.

I'd forgotten that part from the book, but you made me go back and check and you're totally right!

Interesting that Anne would use the term bawling there, given that you're right it implies a sort of beratement / that he yelled at Lestat over it. And yeah, I do think there's a degree to which Nicki likes that it keeps Lestat dependent on him. I mentioned it in my post last night, but I do think Nicki liked that Lestat saw him as worldly. Their initial dynamic really is steeped in this sense that Nicki knows so much more than Lestat (which of course, he does), and Lestat's starry eyed adoration of that. I think that goes to the light/darkness throughline in them, and that a part of Nicki's attraction to Lestat was, for a long time, in the reflection of himself he could see in Lestat. I think he loved the way Lestat saw him, and I can see even subconsciously that never teaching Lestat how to read (and berating him for never learning) is in part (even subconsciously) a means of keeping Lestat looking up at him and perhaps dependent.

There's also this throughline with TVL as teaching as an act of love, which is something I just adore and I think you can read something of that into their dynamic.

I've talked about it on here before, but one of my favourite conversations in the book is the one between Armand and Lestat where Armand basically says that outright to Lestat as he plays around in his head:

It would make sense for the apple to symbolize the same thing in this context as it does in Christianity imo. I'm not sure if there is some other meaning or connection that can be made though and maybe there really isn't any? It just caught my attention ig

It's an interesting little beat, isn't it? I'd forgotten about it before my re-read too, and was quite surprised by it. I think symbolically you could probably ascribe a lot of meanings to it, but I tend to lean towards two:

The first is exactly what you said. Through the lens of Christianity, it would be that Lestat's Adam/Eve in the Garden of Eden, being tempted by Magnus' Devil. That really leans into this idea of Lestat having been an innocent before Magnus took him and forced him out of God's paradise, but also in some ways I'd say underscores Lestat's own resistance. After all, Adam and Eve did give into temptation, and chose it of their own (albeit influenced) volition, whereas Lestat says no until the very end.

The second symbolic meaning is that apples have deep links to marriage and beauty in Ancient Greek mythology and culture. The Garden of the Hesperides is the Greek goddess Hera's apple orchard, and when she married Zeus, apples were one of the wedding gifts. They were thought at the time to symbolise fertility ('fruitfulness') and sexuality, and the influence of the myth meant that they were used in Ancient Greek life not just as a gift, but sometimes even as a means of proposal. Men would offer women an apple, and if she took it, she'd be saying yes.

The apple is also a symbol in another Greek myth, The Judgement of Paris. In that, the Goddess of Discord, Eris, is annoyed about not being invited to the wedding of two other Gods, and as revenge throws a golden apple into the attendees inscribed with to the fairest. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite start to argue about who among them should have it as the fairest/most beautiful, and end up getting Paris to decide. He gives the apple to Aphrodite, she gives him Helen of Troy in payment, which sets off all the Horrors (aka the Trojan War, haha).

As a result, to give someone an apple in Ancient Greece was sometimes not a proposal, but rather an acknowledgement of beauty.

I have sadly decided that I probably can't swing enough money to go to Sydney in July but hopefully he does another play eventually.

I'm honestly not sure at this point, unfortunately! I'd like to say yes, but SBS only getting Dark Winds s4 after the full season had aired when it got previous seasons simultaneously has left me a little uncertain? It's a pretty different show though, and AMC seems to have a bit of a more reciprocal relationship with ABC than it does with SBS, so I'm hopeful at least. Fingers crossed ABC says something soon.