i could not prevent it

late 20s / they pronouns / fin&eng

i like tv and try to watch more movies

i have no problem with armand going all that butcher-shop on anyone because we were promised gremlin shit, right? like you can justify a lot of stuff by armand being armand. and i liked the additional level of crazy with fareed moitoring louis' vitals and all, like armand justified decapitation to himself because he wasn't actually going to let louis die. he just needed him to acknowledge some stuff.

and it's good that they fit the louis-armand confrontation in this season and didn't drag it out. i just wish there had been a bit more emotional buildup to that. idk like if armand was now struggling with his childhood trauma, the narration should've hinted at that at some point during the season? like if armand ACTUALLY endured sincere intense conversation with himself, and had a look at his childhood, maybe the aa scene could have given us a little something? or the daniel scenes? sure, he mentions his childhood in his apology to lestat but that was such a throwaway line? (or then it being throwaway line was the point. in which case it could've benefited from us getting another instance of people sidelining it, just to show us the pattern, and give us a why armand felt he needed to result to extreme measures)

or then we just accept that he REALLY didn't know what he wanted louis to say, and that louis managed to soothe him out of incredible selflessness and empathy and understanding of armand better than armand could understand himself, and under insane pressure. okay, you have to force louis to say the words you want him to say, sure. and like sure, if louis' arc was about confronting how his actions affected others, then this finale sure was an insanely fucked-up and extreme instance of that. "hey armand, if we ignore the fact that you fucked with my head for 77 years and plotted and directed the murder of my daughter, i can see that my former profession as a pimp and your history as a sex-trafficked child was pretty messed up, and i clearly wasn't the right person for you"

because armand's plot wasn't about louis. it wasn't about whether louis "used" armand or wronged him. it was about armand. he's spiraling. he's "enduring intense conversation with himself". so as a scene, it does tell us about armand. and i do think it manages to crack open that story for us. armand is frantic, and now louis has directed him to go to daniel, ("a love that cradles him") and i do see how they can now use that as leverage for armand to open up to daniel. otherwise the scene doesn't really have a function.

i guess armand finally taking his apology tour to louis does finish that branch of his 'arc'... but really? did they move armand's obsession with lestat over to louis? why else go all that length with regina and larry and alex and the revenge-porn and what-not?

maybe they thought armand needed this to move on from louis? so that they can move forward with armand/daniel? but this perpetual setting-new-things-up is in my opinion the weakness of this entire season. they drag and drag and then hassle with the long overdue payoff, juggling way too many would-be-plots with too little time (and too little budget it seems?).

edit: i emphasize that i did not for one second think that there was Factually Anything for louis to apologize for (that would make no sense?), and instead that armand got so fixated on his own problems he thought he needed Someone to say those things to him that he wanted to hear. but after seeing HM's comment i have no idea what the writing wanted to depict ?

and then the utterly separate dream sequence with lestat "dying" while there were no stakes because the audience knew he lives? :D it didn't tie at all back to armand's gremlin shop. we didn't learn anything new about lestat? or anyone else? the witches place was just all tough love from gabi? after allllll the build-up?

and for daniel, the bright young reporter with a point of view, beheading lestat was a fulfilling victory in the battle of egos? o....kay? he did all that because 'lestat was mean to me'? jfc. next season is too late to give any additional depth to this. like i don't know what kind of soul-possession-evil-spirit-thingy they just set up for daniel but the momentum is gone. whatever they do next season just tastes like retcon. (UNLESS they give us zamasian sloppy making out. then i'll be okay)