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The foundation of post paris loumand is that they both want the relationship to work! They NEED it to work actually. Desperately. They dont think they can survive with out each other.

I once read a beautiful meta about how at his core Louis is lonely character. He withholds telling his lovers how much he loves them- but does that not in turn make him lonely too? Louis De Pointe Du Lac was a gay black man in Louisiana during Jim Crow. How much did he withhold- how much had he had to cut and trim himself like a bonsai to survive? Weight of the racist world, weight of a family who wants him to take up the mantle and be the MAN of the house, worry and love and grief over his brother...my God can you even imagine? All of those things bottled up within him. How can anyone ever expect him to shrug off all of that weight of him? And so who to tell so as to not compromise the image you have built to survive? Whom to share with? Who is there? So he used to visit Lily. And he brought back Daniel and talked to him throughout the night and into morning. And he reached out again to Daniel and invited him back to Dubai.

Something I always really appreciated about IWTV (S1&2) was its use of commentary within the narrative. There was this beautifully complex story being told of Louis' past but the narrative would often pause and characters would comment on what was just shown on screen through the interview. This commentary would help audiences process the story but it also gave us an insight into who Louis, Armand and Daniel were as characters affected by the passage of time.

In general, commentary on art cannot exist without culture. If there is a disproportionate amount of commentary, that commentary can often be mistaken for culture itself. IWTV works so well because the meat of the story is culture (the flashbacks) and the commentary is secondary to that (the interview). TVL falls flat because they have centralised their commentary at the expense of what should have been the culture.

Going into episode one, Lestat narrates "The Failures" where he retrospectively chronicles the events of 2025. It is set out that Lestat's voiceover is going to be the commentary for the season which subsequently positions the events of 2025 as the culture he is commenting on. When these events play out though, we see that Lestat is doing a documentary with Daniel where they both discuss Lestat's new musical pursuit and his past. This also acts as commentary for both the modern day story and Lestat's backstory. Lestat on "The Failures" is now commenting on commentary. What exactly is the culture?

In episodes two and three, Lestat's past is quickly sped through and the scenes do not hold as much emotional weight as IWTV's flashbacks did. A lot of the story is delivered to audiences through Lestat's voiceover coming from The Failures or Daniel's interview rather than it being shown on screen. The commentary is not an added layer that provides more depth to the flashback scenes, it is the meat of the story. Flashbacks are also used as a backdrop to enhance both Gabistat's modern day story in episode two and the Molloy interview in episode three. The commentary is treated as more important than the culture.

But perhaps that is fine. "The Failures" have positioned the 2025 story as what it is really commenting on anyway. The modern day narrative is supposed to be the creation of culture, the flashbacks were just context. However, from episode four and onwards, the modern day story mostly serves as a commentary as well. The story depicts Lestat writing, recording or singing songs that are about his past. At times, these songs play over flashbacks that have no dialogue at all. At other times, they are played at concerts to tell you about Lestat's feelings instead of showing them. Yet another framing device for commentary.

So, "The Failures" acts as a commentary for the 2025 story. The 2025 story depicts Daniel's interview which is a commentary on Lestat's musical journey. Lestat's musical journey is a commentary on the past. However, scenes that are actually set in the past are treated like footnotes. There is so much commentary that there is no room for culture. It has suffocated itself.

But what about the other parts of the story?

While the modern day story houses most of the action, it actually spends most of its time rehashing and commenting on the past. Armand's apology scenes are comments on his wrongdoings towards Lestat and Daniel. Louis' arc with grief (that had a lot of potential in the beginning) concluded with Claudia's monologue that was pure commentary on their shared past. Daniel's arc with Armand is held up by expository dialogue which, of course, only comments on their past. These scenes do not have the purpose of creating something new, of creating culture, it only seeks to steer audience opinion. It is telling you the nature of Armand's relationships, it is telling you what Claudia "really" believed about Louis. It only comments.

After all of this, with something as big as a beheading occurring, surely the season finale depicts events that aren't solely used as commentary?

In episode seven, Lestat is put on "trial" where important characters in his life detail his failings... Another commentary on his past... There is a lengthy clip montage of Lestat's life flashing before his eyes and the majority of the content clipped is from seasons one and two, when the show actually created something outside of commentary. For Louis, he is unjustifiably tortured by Armand to make amends for their shared past. Armand reads a letter to Louis which only comments on their past. Louis has to write his apologies focusing on their past. That entire sequence between Louis and Armand is solely about the events of season two.

The story hasn't emotionally progressed past where we left it in 2022, the meaning of it has only been recontextualised. Armand and Louis end up parting ways again, this time with Armand abusing Louis instead of Louis' emancipation. Louis apparently gets "closure" for his grief similar to the ending of S2, but this time the intention was to "humble" him instead of uplift him. Lestat provides a weak apology in the context of a trial, like 2x07, but fails to apologise to Louis' face and ends up being on the receiving end of reconciliation, like the ending of season 2. Audiences are still left wondering about the nature of Armand and Daniel's relationship and specifically what happened during Daniel's turning. We are right back where we started... Was this season just a convoluted way to change the meaning of the S2 finale?

-- Shitty pronoun joke aimed at a trans character who is in the show for all of several minutes.

-- Transmasc Gabrielle nowhere to be seen. Instead we got a character who is just there to sexually harass her son and speak in the worst accent known to man.

-- Multiple incest scenes.

-- Way too many scenes of Lestat's shit music and shit band. Sorry to say, but the band characters (I don't even remember most their names...) were just not compelling enough to warrant so much time spent on them.

-- What was the point of Baby Jenks?

-- A documentary about Lestat that just… went nowhere? What was the point of that again? No, really.

-- Complete butchering of just about every character.

-- More torture for Louis and Claudia and also 'Fraudia'

-- A sleazy kiss between Regina and fake Madeleine. Don't forget, Claudia and Madeleine never even got to kiss in the show.

-- Following the reveal that Claudia is in hell, Louis is seen smiling and laughing with Lestat. One of many writing choices that make no real sense. Louis would be devastated, lets be honest.

-- The overall treatment of Louis this season and the racist language. Just... what?

-- Shots of a woman's bare ass and a woman shooting a ping-pong ball out of her pussy. Thanks, I guess.

-- Claudia supposedly lying about the rape threat on the train, hating Louis and preferring Lestat over him (...?)

-- Akasha is here, and I don't know what any of this means, as a show only watcher. We got one scene and that's it? Are we to be hyped about what's to follow? Why? Doesn't matter, time for more band antics--

-- Daniel somehow becoming more of a dick and now throwing out Reddit style quips and crude jokes. He was rude and witty with it in season 1 and 2, but now his dialogue feels like its been ripped from Reddit and run through ChatGPT. Also, Daniel would be able to figure out Gabrielle's true identity - he's a fucking journalist!

-- No scenes exploring Armand's history from HIS perspective. He is never granted this. Instead, he's made out to be a mustache twirling villain. (Even the cast don't understand the 'A' carving scene, and that's never a good sign.)

-- No exploration of Armand and Daniel's relationship, it was all dumped into exposition. The 'l' word being uttered should've had a huge weight to it. There is no spark and no chemistry between Armand and Daniel in their scenes, and this feels like it's down to the script rather than the actor's failing to sell the relationship.

-- Exposition, exposition, exposition all day long for way too many aspects of the show. The show did so well in season 1 and 2 at flitting between spoken retelling and showing flashbacks. How did they drop the ball so hard on that this season?

-- Armand demanding an apology from… a severed head. Like something from a bad, cheap horror movie. And why Louis? Armand was the one who lied to Louis for all those years, yet it's all spun and made out to be that Louis is the Bad Guy. Why isn't Armand torturing Lestat here instead? Armand holds so much resentment for Lestat.

-- Why does Lestat get put on such a pedestal? It feels like it starts in the writing room. And why the fuck was Paul thanking him? What was Paul there for? Lestat only briefly met this man. Also, hey, remember why Lestat dropped Louis from the sky that one time?

-- No intimacy between men. In fact, pretty much all kisses and sex scenes are between a man and woman. And incest, don't forget the incest. Louis has a new boyfriend and we barely see him. But he's not white and named Lestat so fuck everyone else, I guess. I would've liked to hear more about Lemuel, another black vampire! That's an interesting dynamic, considering the hell Louis has been through. And the show denies us ever getting the chance to learn about him or see more.

-- Lestat's history, and his scenes with Nikki feel rushed and like an afterthought. In fact, most of Lestat's history flashbacks feel and look like a bad sketch show. Also, the accents... fuck me, the bad accents.

-- What ever happened to the relationship between Daniel and Louis? They'd grown to like and respect each other, and it was basically absent from this season. You'd think 'oh, well, Louis has a new relationship now, so he's focusing on that'. But no. Even Lemuel has next to no screen time. Instead, Louis was tied up a fake Claudia. Oh, and that was all set up by Evil Armand himself, tee hee. All this time and effort into fucking Louis over. And for what? Again, why is Louis in the firing line so often and not Lestat? -- The Reddit-ness of it all. The Moffat-ness of it all. The stupid meta nods, the stupid 'uwu' mention. Yaoi? Be for real. Who actually finds this funny? I half expected him to shout out 'I'm Pickle Rick!' for fuck's sake. Imagine if we'd gotten flashbacks to Daniel and Armand in the past. Remember when Devil's Minion was hyped up? Remember how people loved young Daniel? Remember THAT flashback episode to the 70s? One of the best episodes I've ever seen.

Even if it was easier to watch in the Global South, those (re)viewers would rarely be invited to screen the episodes or to cover them for major outlets.

This season has me seriously reflecting on the previous two, and I may have been too generous in finding intent behind what now seems incidental. Was Assad a case of colour-blind, not colour-conscious, casting? Maybe. A few location changes in his backstory aren't enough to convince me otherwise.

It's crazy to show so little understanding of Orientalism with this character, especially since so much of his trauma's the result of him being fetishised.

It's crazy to not revisit his account that Nicki, a white descendant of the crumbling French aristocracy, called him an anti-Roma slur in 1800's Paris. Has that also been written off as 'Armand fanfiction?' Because it was a good indicator of how fascists would've received him. Yet, he was leading a coven of white Europeans as Paris fell to the Nazis, and seemingly emerged unbothered. Yeah, Madeleine was human and exposed, but she should not be the only one with horrors to recount from that time.