so i need to be insufferable about The Vampire Lestat for a minute and i need everyone to understand going in that iām the crank here, not the consensus
context: iāve seen one episode. the reviews are basically a wall of raves, RTās sitting up near 100, every critic i respect is doing a victory lap. and iām sitting here going. is it though
the setup, because the whole season hangs on it. they retitled the show. itās not Interview with the Vampire season three, itās The Vampire Lestat, adapting the second Rice book, and the premise is that Lestat read the bestseller built out of Louisās testimony, decided heād been slandered, and is now correcting the record by. starting a band. going on tour. Danielās filming a rockumentary about it. the whole thing is pitched as unreliable narrator , the Lestat you knew was Louisās version, āboth villainized and idealizedā (thatās the Ebert review), and now you finally meet the real guy.
and like. thatās a clever trick on paper. itās also where i get off the train.
seasons one and two worked because they were Louisās story. not incidentally his. structurally his. they race-bent him, made him a Black man in Jim Crow New Orleans, and suddenly the whole vampire-as-outsider thing thatās kind of limp and aristocratic in the novels had actual stakes. the metaphor meant something because of whose mouth the story came out of. that was the best idea the adaptation ever had and it wasnāt subtle about it being the point.
season threeās entire foundation is: actually that version was the distorted one. the showās own promo copy calls Louisās book a ātrashy best-seller.ā the animating move of the season is handing the microphone to the white guy who feels he was done dirty, so he can do it over. IndieWire ā a positive review! ā calls the season flat out āa rewrite on what came beforeā and āa revision of the heated emotions therein.ā
iām not saying anybody intended anything. i canāt see into a writersā room and iām not going to pretend to. but you can talk about what a thing does without claiming to know why, and what this does is spend two seasons making a Black characterās interiority the wall everything else leans on, and then build the third season on the idea that his account needs fixing by the man who turned him and loved him and wrecked him. Ebertās review notes Louis literally gets shunted into a plotline called Side B. MovieWeb and Inverse both circle the same wound from the comfortable side of it ā Louis āis not having any fun,ā the season ācanāt reconcile the pain and trauma of its B-plot with the debauchery of its A-plot.ā they file that as a tone note. iād file it as: the trauma got quarantined into the B-plot, and itās the same trauma that was racialized for two seasons, while the A-plot is a white rockstar throwing the most fun nervous breakdown of all time. yes itās faithful to the book. the novel really does pass the mic to Lestat in volume two. āfaithful to the structureā and ādrains the thing that made this worth adaptingā are allowed to both be true. thatās just what adaptation is ā every version is somebody choosing what to put in front, and the choice to put Lestatās grievance in front, as a correction of Louis, is itself a statement no matter who meant what.
separate complaint, equally heretical. the rockumentary format is a downgrade wearing a glow-up.
because hereās the thing about the rave reviews ā read them cold and theyāre describing a coherence problem in an admiring voice. the MovieWeb critic LIKED it, read the novel to prep, and still says the episodes are āin such a hurry to get to the next idea, the next monologue, the next song, the next bit, that theyāre in danger of shaking apart.ā that it ābounces from one thing to the next so manically that itās hard for a coherent narrative to build.ā IndieWire cops to the premiere being gonzo and manic before it allegedly finds its feet. Ebert admits the good stuff doesnāt show up till episode four. read that back to yourself. the season is good once it stops doing the thing it renamed itself after.
seasons one and two were quiet and patient and a little airless on purpose. two people in a room, a relationship rotting in slow motion across decades, the interview frame holding everything in this tight claustrophobic grip. that was the craft. the mock-rockumentary throws all of it out for tempo and gags ā campy voiceover, a music video standing in where a plot beat should be, everyone talking over everyone. some people are high on the chaos. i think itās a show that got scared of its own stillness and turned the volume up to hide it. and the Spinal Tap comparison everybody keeps making? Spinal Tap is a comedy ABOUT how hollow rock-god posturing is. adopt its form and youāve adopted a register that physically cannot do interiority, which is the one thing the first two seasons were made of.
so then why the perfect scores. genuinely my best guesses, no grand theory: one, two great seasons bought an enormous amount of goodwill and goodwill pays for a lot of ātrust the swing.ā two, ābold reinvention!!ā is just a better, more fun piece to write than āthe careful show got loud.ā and three, Sam Reid is apparently incandescent in this, even the skeptics say so, and when one actor is having the time of his immortal life the review grades the performance and quietly rounds the rest up. not a scam. just what a star turn does to the gravity in the room.
to be clear iām not calling it unwatchable, iām going to finish it obviously, Reid sounds like a force, Anderson is the best thing in any frame heās ever in, and a sloppy season of this show still laps most of whatās on TV. but āsloppy season of a great showā is a real and honorable category and i think the reflexive 100s are mashing a genuine step down ā in formal control AND in the showās relationship to the exact subjectivity that gave it a reason to exist ā into a triumph story because the triumph story is more fun to be inside of.
episode seven might make a liar of me. fully reserve the right. but as of the premiere: we took a Black manās story, handed it to the guy who wanted it told his way, scored it with power ballads, and everyone agreed to call losing the thread a reinvention
anyway. be normal about Louis in the notes. iām begging









