Mind Lost at Sea

THEORIES HOPES AND BOOKS FOR SEASON 4 OF (interview with the vampire, the vampire lestat) QUEEN OF THE DAMNED!

So I said, here, that they seem to be pulling stories from different books. My theory is it's going to be for the main plot for season 4 (aspects) of The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned (for the main plot) and The Prince Lestat Trilogy (towards the ending).

So we aren't entirely done with TVL because:

We have only gotten to album 58.

Sam stated that the death of Nicki may not be exactly how they remembered. (Fingers crossed we revisit more of the past like the wolf fight and if we get to Body Thief we could get a bit of the monastery.)

We need to revisit aspects of episode 7 and as they've already stated to catch up with Armand

We need to see the concert, which if Rolin is to be believed we can see it in episode 1.

Now to my general theories:

Lestat will narrate everything including Akasha's past if the recording takes place after QoTD.

Devils minion will definitely be happening in the middle of the season. Also give me what LBF filmed I know he filmed something give it to me!!!

We may introduce parts of the Body Thief through Daniel this season since I think by the end we'll get LBF as main Daniel.

Claudia will be showing up as a ghost. The circle was broken so her soul is definitely wandering about if my theory that they've pulled a bit form Memnoch in it and ofc they pulled from the prince Lestat, also the Talamasca talking about the soul and in the books... This can be the way to keep Delaney in the show. If Merrick is in season 4 or 5 (if they keep her book story) then we have someone who can conjure/see her.

Lemuel may be Seth. Okay no concrete reason for this I said it in my past reviews he's pretty and I want to keep him around. Also can you imagine him and Fareed together 😋🤤.

The story Marius told about leaving Enkil in the sunlight may be a lie. It makes so much more sense that Akasha killed him, like the cut foot, broken finger and hole in the head.

They might make a new song to wake her up. So I think to make sense of the concert, that Lestat went through with it after cursing Gabi out, was pushed by Raglan. So instead of performing the make more song he might make a new one up on the spot and that's how Akasha wakes up.

Now for my hopes:

We need at the very LEAST 8 EPISODES! This season suffered from now having enough time to tell the story they wanted. Fingers crossed 🤞🏿 we get 10 epsides.

A bigger budget! Season 2 was about 4ish million per episode, but TVL needed a bigger budget than that with everything they needed to do. I know Rolin said they don't have Game of Thrones money we can get at least half, a decent 7.5 mil per episode. Like all the creative decisions they had to make, good and bad, the lack of time given to Lestats past are all because they had a skint budget and I can't imagine that working out well for season 4. (Also I hope the Album and merch sales help the season along)

They aren't filming in Canada! So rumour has it they'll be filming in Spain and Georgia, and thank the Goddesses for that! They are enough historical sites to flash back to 1700s France if they need to also the atmosphere and some filming locations can stand in for Ancient Egypt, 1500s Italy (for Armand's back story) and Ancient Rome (if they choose to flash back to Marius')

Black writers in the room, especially if we go into Akasha's storyline, dot all the I's and cross all the T's.

Past Devils minion for a whole episode, similar to S2E05 and the chapter in the book, I hope Devils Minion gets a full episode just for them and their relationship.

Make Akasha as evil as she is in the books! I hope they show her to be as messy, as evil and as hypocritical, as she is and not some Girl Power type villain or poor misunderstood queen. If they are going to scale up her distraction from the books make her terrifying!

Why the fuck??? Listen Hannah is good but some of the better show ideas and direction came from Rolin and the more iffy things from Hannah.

Lets get the worst/dumb ones out of the way:

There are 13 books and Louis is barely in most of them in a substantial manner so no the writers did not sideline Louis /Jacob or Claudia/Delainey. Like it or not they were never going to switch protagonist to Louis despite how much you wanted it. I loved how black the first 2 seasons are but let's be realistic they tried to follow the chronicles as much as possible. They've done a relatively good job integrating him into the season and giving him others storylines from the books (you don't have to like it but the Lestat Armand relationship is being given to Louis instead which makes sense since they spent 77 years together)

Speaking of Claudia, no the writers didn't kill her off for shock value. She dies in the books and because of who she represents she was always going to die.

Back to Claudia the seance scene there are valid criticisms of the language but saying she hates Louis more is very much book accurate and makes sense even in the context of the show. Her saying she hates Louis more than Lestat is not anti-black.

Armand wouldn't do that! Yes he would, he literally does, this is gremlin Armand he can be insane. And no it's not racist to depict him as such because this is a book accurate characterisation. You guys can't on one hand go yay Devils Minion, where Armand psychosexually tortures Daniel and be mad that you get to see this side of Armand.

The torture scene also isn't anti-black, I agree its poorly led up to and explained, but with in the story if they are giving some of Lestats story to Louis regarding Armand then it makes perfect sense. Also again I can't believe it's been years and we still have to say this depiction =/= endorsement. Or are you all saying Rolin and Co are pro child abuse also regarding Gabriella??

Depicting the characters of colour as being equally as monstrous isn't racist and as Jacob this one has been so consistent that Jacob Anderson had to effectively make and Instagram story about letting black and brown characters be messed up, flawed and evil. This is one that I hope we can going forward because I assure you if they stick to the books Akasha is not going a woke, girls girls, girlboss she's evil in her own right. So yes please let Louis, Armand, Claudia and every other character of colour be and do bad, sick, twist and evil.

This isn't the straight / hetro season. For all the ways I hate some of the writing choices for Gabi (and some is definitely AMC studio interference as per my previous post regarding her gender presentatio) but it's blatantly that the relationship between Gabriella and Lestat is an abusive one (they've compared her to Magnus twice for christsake and used the witch burning to show her as a predato) and to call it a straight relationship as if it's consensual especially after episode 6 is weird as fuck! Also Lestat is bisexual he isn't suddenly straight for having sex with women, you are erasing his sexuality.

So I did a binge rewatch of The Vampire Lestat (or should have probably be named A Tale of The Prince Lestat since that's more accurate see here and here for why)

So overall the score is a solid 7.0/10 for me as a the begining of the Vampire Chronicles and Prince Lestat story but as an adaptation of the TVL book it's a 5.5/10.

Now some things I will defend the writers on AMC screwed them big time with the budget, episode numbers and interference. You can definitely tell that they were expecting a bit more of both by how the writers were speaking a couple of years ago. Also the weird level of studio interference in the show you can tell hampered some plans, from how everyone is talking about Gabriella, to Rolin saying they had to sneak things into the script, Hannah mentioning they tried to cover as many important plot points in this season just in case. Yeah Rolin and Co were kinda screwed over in something we definitely need to hold AMCs feet to the fire for it (which this fandom isn't doing enough, especially regarding Gabriellas gender presentation).

Also the marketing of the show was a mistake as I stated in another post by episode 4 they definitely showed that this was more Queen of the Damned and The Prince Lestat trilogy adaptation, they set themselves up for disappointment because we all, particularly book readers had different expectations of what was to come. Rather it's the beginning of The Prince Lestat.

Now what I can fault Rolin and Co with is some of the writing choices even if I can understand where they are going and what they are planning. So let's go into their own Failures

The biggest failure is Gabriella's writing she was way too over the top in a cartoon, nymphomaniac, femme fetal villain. I get that studio interference hurt some of their plans as you can see that pushed for this high femme version of her, but some of the writing choices in her personality and styling are entirely on Rolin and Co. If they couldn't escape the high femme push, they should have made her far more ice cold femme fetal, my friend said akin to Amy Dune from Gone Girl with a hint of Catherine form Basic Instinct. If they had gone with that for the writing it could have mirrored some small aspects of her book personality. But its almost as if they said we need to make sure everyone hates her so make her fucking annoying. It also hurts their plans because I actually like the idea that she's the one pushing Lestat to be The Prince, and that's she may be taking aspects of Rhoshamandes into her story line which is an interesting way to both link her to Lestat and Magnus, but they took all that intrigue out with how they've written her in such a flat manner, which sucks as they still managed even with setting Lestat and Armand up as villains to add a hint of beautiful humanity and still make them endearing to us even in their monstrosity. So what happend here?

The second failure not enough past. Okay I'll give them again the budget screwed them here so they couldn't film enough of the past I get that it'll be too expensive, which is such a shame I remember that the location scout talked about Prague mentioned 1800 Paris so clearly again they had the plan to shoot there but alas capitalism stifling art again. But they had some creative story telling bringing aspects of the past to the present eg, and upon a rewatch I actually like the Auvergne scenes but the major issue I have I wish they went more theatrical with it a la Magnus music video retelling. A stage, modern lights bigger and louder acting everything moving like a theatre play actor walk off stage then on stage again in different make up, until we to the wolves. Then ground it in reality again. I figured 1 that would have been far cheaper to film since you can get cheap costuming and wigs with abandon and it adds to the narration of how Lestat chooses to view his past and how he copes and 2 it could have worked and tied into his dream and mind in episode 7 far better. Also for Nicki, we could have seen a tad more for their relationship, a narrated montage of them talking, Nicki playing for Lestat, them arguing, sleeping in bed etc and then end it with Lestat crying looking at a fire.

The third failure not showing the wolves and substituting it with the vampire fight. Listen I loved the vamp fight but ask anyone between that and the wolf fight which would you have preferred? Exactly, the wolves because it's far more important to who Lestat is. Even with the budget strain we could have had 2 wolf puppets, snow (because TF was this in summer), a lot of thrashing, blood splatter on the ground and camera, dog whimpers of screen, horse crying off screen, shaky hand held cam, Lestat rolling on the ground, bits to torn cloth flying, then the screen in the show when he points his gun at the wolf screaming. And then at the end with the montage you could have added bits of the fight eg, we see Lestat's hand pick up a bloody knife and stab the wolf we just need to see fur and the montage flips to Lestat stabbing is brother. It ties it in better and we could have had a little to show the resilience of humanstat to fight.

Fourth failure, bringing Armand in too late, and not enough. I am sure they'll add more in season 4 for this as Rolin said plus I know LBF filmed something that wasn't shown so this may be rectified, but I do wish they added a bit more Armand and his followers especially in episode 5 and less of the band. I know people hate what they did but I think they are transferring some of the book plotlines for Claudia + Armand, Lestat + Armand into Louis and Armand which does make sense they spent 77 years together but I think people would have hated it less if I didn't feel like it came out of nowhere. Now I wouldn't blame Rolin and Co for this too much as this one is on Mark Johnson for screwing up with Talamasca. It obvious that Fareed is working with the Talamasca and everything in the last episode has the Talamasca's finger prints all over it and since I can tell they are taking from Marrick, Blood Canticle and The Prince Lestat these things should have been introduced in that season to easily link to this season. From the rival factions, to proving the soul exists, to the vampire experiments in Budapest. If they handled it better the Armand story line would feel far more connected and most likely better received. But instead it feels random and a tad mean spirited, even if we do love when he goes full gremlin.

Fifth failure, not leaning into the non liner story telling aspect more. The recordings should skip around way more than they do, the should scratch and rewind more it will make more sense to lean into that especially for the end. Also not adding more of the chaotic theatricality of some of the scenes, collapse past and present, randomly have people dressed in 1920s outfits in the scenes, 1800 french dresses, randomly someone has a wig on, flash the scenes set in the past in ways that show his mind is effectively breaking.

Sixth failure, a little less Regina, a lot more ghost Claudia hallucination. Like Nicki Claudia could silently and randomly show up in different scenes with Lestat since the beginning, we saw Louis in episode 1, it could also have been Claudia and again in episode 4 with Nicki. And for Louis in episode 3 a hazy image of her as the flames engluf Bruce.

Seventh failure, too much music that could have been given to other bits to story telling. This especially in episode 4 and 5, there are scenes we could have cut and given them to Armand and to Akasha and Marius.

As I said in my post, here, they are adapting the whole Vampire Chronicles here's the break down per episode and which books I noticed.

Episode 1- Detroit

• The Vampire Lestat

• Queen of the Damned

• Body Thief

• Canticle narration style

Episode 2- Toledo

• The Vampire Lestat

• Queen of the Damned

• Blood Canticle narration style

Episode 3 - Toronto

• The Vampire Lestat

• The Prince Lestat

Episode 4 - The Devils Road

• The Vampire Lestat

• Interview with the Vampire

• Queen of the Damned

• The Vampire Armand

• Blood Communion

• The Prince Lestat

• Realms of Atlantis

Episode 5 - New York

• Queen of the Damned

• Realms of Atlantis

• Blood Communion

• Prince Lestat

• The Vampire Armand

• Blood and Gold

• possibly Memnoch

Episode 6 - Montreal

• The Vampire Lestat

• Merrick

• The Prince Lestat

• Blood Communion

• Blackwood Farm

• Blood Canticle

Episode 7 - The Failures

• The Vampire Lestat

• The Prince Lestat

• Realms of Atlantis

• Blood Communion

• Memnoch

• Interview with the Vampire

• The Vampire Armand

If you've read the chronicles you'll realise that they are effectively adapting most of the books in this season and the next few seasons. We've already got Queen of the Damned, Prince Lestat, Atlantis, Blood Communion, Merrick as the major plot and small aspects from Vampire Armand, Blood Canticle, Body Theif and Memnoch added to it. The issue is you don't get that till episode 4 which is when it clicked for me that this is more a Prince Lestat than TVL which is fine but especially the marketing led to so many of us being angry and disappointed at things that make sense in a full binge, even with some questionable writing choices I'll critique later.

PARALLELS BETWEEN THE VAMPIRE LESTAT AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

In my review I referred to Armand as Robespierre and my little Armand de Guillotine joke. (It was really good I promise).

Throughout the show even in first couple of seasons there have been mentions of the Revolution, makes sense Lestat was of age at the time and lived through it, but I think the writers are putting our characters in roles of vampire revolution using the French Revolution as a skeleton.

Currently it's mentioned that the vampires are tired of hiding, enduring and being in the shadows. In season 2 their numbers were already increasing (few 100 of 1500) not to mention in s2 ep 1 when Daciana jumped in the fire because she was also tired of living as she was. We know the book essentially lit the spark for the canon to breakdown the walls and Lestat's music and album did rest. It's not a perfect 1:1 but aspects of what's happening map up with the Revolution like a mini play.

So the roles that they are playing:

Daniel Molloy is Jean-Paul Marat, radical journalist whose writings inspired much of the Revolution (here jump starting the Great Conversion.) which btw doesn't bode well for him. But he's also, funnily Charolette Cordey who was a moderate Girondins, who stood against the radical Jacobins and killed Marat as she blamed him for the worst excesses of the Revolution and the violence that followed (as he moves towards Armand he takes on this role).

Armand is Robespierre radical anti Aristocratic revolutionary and Jacobin, and his cult that being to form around them is the Cult of the Supreme Gentlemen.

Lestat is Georges Danton to Armand, he mostly would have mild views of the Vampire revolution but hates the excess of the Armands brutality and rigid rules hence like the man whose beheading brought Armand out to see Lestat perform he too looses his head. But to the vampires and Gabi, Rockstar Lestat is Jacques-Louis David one of the premiere artists and propagandists of the Revolution whose works inspired the Jacobins and Reign of Terror.

Gabriella is the French Nobility. I wanted to say she's Marie Antoinette (wink wink) to due to Lestat mentioning Madame Deficit as his guest in his "dinner" with Akasha, but represents the worst excesses of what it means to be a vampire (in the show).

Historically vampires have always used to represent bourgeoisie and aristocracy, parasites who feed the life force and work of others. From Dracula to Nosferatu, early vampiric work has been used as a class critique, not to mention Karl Marx calling capitalism a vampire, death sucking on living labour. This show used vampires as allegories for sexuality, gender expression, race but since the first episode it's keep the classic representation of Vampires as a subtle allegory for the bourgeoisie and the rich in general eg:

Louis as an insatiable capitalist, living in Dubai and his exploitation of others.

Lestat being from (minior) nobility his displays of excesses of wealth.

So for these vampires the revolution is in a flipped those who would be the leaders in the French Revolution would be counter-revolutionary and the Vampires would be an inverted version of the Jacobins.

Gabriella plays a similar inverted role as Marie Antoinette, a figure to lead the revolution, but for the parasites, for lack of a better word, to rise and take over, although it's more covert in inspiring the works rather than being the direct image. And Lestat plays her propagandist like David but through music rather than paintings. And the shooting in ep 4 plays like an inverted Storming of Bastille, as we hear at the end more vampires are angry, one says he gave them what they wanted and they attacked him for it. As Gabi says they are tired to having to live in the shadows, hence the explosion in their numbers and the call to "make more" and now they are 50 thousand of them and growing more.

Like I said this feels more like an inverted play and the characters are set to play their parts, in my lost review I mentioned that Armand set the last few episodes up like a play to get his desired outcome like the trial. In this play it's the inverted French Revolution, and if he's Robespierre I suspect a true Reign of Terror coming soon. And for Armand Lestat is Danton closer to him in his attitudes towards the conversion but far to moderate to the vampire revolution and as Nikki said pity is treason so he loses his head. In the play I think the fates of the characters will eventually some what mirror their real-life counterparts. Danton lost his head, but David lives, Marat is killed for his writings, but so is Charlotte Cordey as she's executed by the revolutionaries for silencing their biggest voice. Robespierre dies when his own revolutionary forces turn on him. Marie Antoinette and the nobility lose their heads to the Jacobins.

It'll be interesting for episode 7 as Akasha comes to disrupt the play as she truly isn't in any camp on this one, she most likely doesn't care for their numbers being that large but shes also wouldn't live and hide in the shadows as the old laws said.

So Prince Lestat, Merrick, Blood Canticle and Blood Communion are being Frankensteined to make the story and part of me scared but part of me is excited. I am assuming they are also gonna pull from Atlantis and definitely Memnoch if the theory I have comes in next episode.

THE QUEEN IS COMING!! SHE IS THE ANSWER!

Okay I'll start by saying I was right! I figured in my last week's theories is that the writers where tricking us that we aren't really doing TVL, but instead a mix of The Prince Lestat and Blood Communion! Which okay that makes so much of the weird choices make much more sense here (even though I still dislike some of them.)

But to the episode... Where to begin but at the beginning of it all..

Akasha, the dark mother, the Queen, the Night (sorry Lou it was never you).

Now I already knew she could act the shit out of this role so no worries there, but I was really worried about there styling and costuming after the earlier... Let me be nice and call them mishandlings regarding costuming, I didn't have faith that they'd do a black woman justice. But well done the wig needs a tiiiiny bit of work but it's otherwise great as is.

Now I love that it seems we are getting book Akasha, this is a Queen I can see committing genocide and global catastrophes.

The mologue that she gave if I remember harkens back to the book. I need to go back to reread the because I am sure that some where taken wholesale. But the mention of Amel the old laws and rules. The twins, tongue cut out and eyes looking down. I'll add more in my theories.

But I am so freaking excited for her to wake up and fuck shit up!!

Now for the next part since I don't have much to say, Louis and Regina. Like we all knew it was gonna start cracking she isn't Claudia and can't act like her so every mistake would compound. I kinda liked the idea that she wouldn't look that much like Claudia, I wish they went that route like get a similar enough look alike actress for Lestat to see but it still dregs all these feelings emotions and regrets up because he can I understand why Louis sees her. (Or even that she's Merrick in disguise)

Either way, I'm a tad over this story I wish the did more with it this week but I'll hold out to see what they plan for next week, especially since I think we will have Merrick bringing Claudia's actual ghost.

Before we get to the Gremlin lets go to Lestat.

First being dug from the ground by Marius, by the way That was an amazing Marius the look like a Roman senator, the voice and accent and speech amazing.

No Marius why would you leave this man for over a decade to do you're job? Now look a future apocalypse has been set.

Now back to the studio, please let's get everyone some therapy. Lestat self harming to get the note right. Your torturing his band for perfection baby some lexapro, lithium anything. But please keep at it with Sam 😂😆

But I do have to say Dreamlou is sooo cute.

But the song he wrote for Claudia made me misty eyed, and remembering her playing the piano with him, that was his daughter 😭.

Now to Gabi 🙄. Still not well written but I wish we got more of the witch burning I am mad at the screener told me we'll get more of his childhood and that was it?? there better me more for the next episode. But at least I have confirmation she wants the Great Conversion and with the mention of Amel we are definitely going to The Prince Lestat. They are using Gabi as the vehicle for it. (I am glad he called her a bad mother though, even though it felt clunky in where he said it. It should have been after meeting Regina) (Also Akasha do me a favour please kill her, I can't deal with her character anymore or Armand more on that for my theorie).

Now the band (getting to the Gremlin soon). Alex is drinking again is that Armands influence, "I took your trauma away you're fine now". But I don't think this is gonna end well. So they are all becoming Vamps (except poor Larry) after what Marius said poor poor TC she's gonna die bad isn't she, especially if she was turned by Lestat.

Now to the Gremlin... Armand.

Yay we've got past Devils Minion confirmed so Rolin and Co, give me a whole, and I mean whole episode for DM in season 4 I will accept nothing less than 40 mins dedicated to it.

Armand speaking using others voices, how many times do we think that he has done that in 52 years... Like was he sometimes talking to Armand instead of Alice or 2nd wife or random hook up?

Also Armand watching him hook up with someone in the car the mention of his changing sexuality. Delicious give me 14000 more!!

Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, he told you Lestat and his mom are sleeping together and your reaction is "Walk in the Sun?" Jshshdudbufuhdbdudbkdiixkrk this is the most unserious man ever!! But go off nepo fledging.

Now back to gremlin Armand we've seen his trick to speak through different people, when Alex mentioned "rest" the 1st time do we think that was Armand?? Subconsciously setting Larry's depression in place?? Like I am convinced he got Alex to start drinking so it's easier to get into his head especially after wiping shit.

Now I know the damage Lestat mentioned is the destruction of the Band. Like TC is definitely next and he can try to control Alex because he's already in his head and Salamander seems to be curious about Armand.

If the theory everyone has that Lestat is getting book Claudia, behead and stitch deffo going to be the damage he talks about or to Regina instead.

THEORIES!!

So since Amel was mentioned Amel is most definitely inside Lestat. So TPL is definitely a go. Now could it be Amel driving the great conversion?

Depending on how big a control Armand may get Alex to attack the rest of the band which is defo happening next episode.

Also Armand and Daniel can walk in the sun if that's the case then definitely they would try to use that to cull the vampire numbers. Like Marius mentioned when Enkil burnt their numbers dropped really low. If there are really 50,000 vampires now it's never gonna be sustainable, it means 50k people at least dying per day to feed them and if it's each turning 1 a week it can't hold. So Armand will use that get Akasha into the sun and kill several of the new and weaker vampires especially if Lestat sings about it. Maybe Marius may come in to help on this one. (More damage than the Queen).

AKASHA!!!!

The Queen has Risen!!