Spoiler Free Review of IWTV S3 (TVL)
I feel a bit too generous and too harsh at the same time honestly but it was an enjoyable show that felt average, like it was filler while we wait for something greater. Its not a bad show, but its not an amazing show. It is rewatchable i will give you that, but purposefully writing yourself into a corner (Rolins words not mine) was not a good idea. Its honestly upsetting to go through my notes across the season and how much of my hope for this show kinda crumbled as time went on.
S3 honestly feels like the setting up season, like yes things happened, but the things that happened felt like they were all in this season so that next season they could be referenced and cause problems then, and not actually because they were important now. It honestly feels a bit laughable seeing it get such high ratings because it felt like i was watching summary clips to get the general gist of the important bits of a story, rather than watching a show. Yes fragmentation was part of the narrative device, but the fragments should build either the plot or the character and it felt like it did neither.
And this isn't just about the ending of the seasons, because i feel s1 did a similar thing with the Armand reveal, but s1 feels like a story, this felt more like i was specifically reading a prologue. I mean we didn't even get to see the things that they were teasing in the promo (this is still spoiler free since this could refer to a lot of things, literally whatever you're afraid isn't included it probably isn't)
It was enjoyable to watch but felt like i barely got anything out of it, it was just flashes of moments.
Dialogue and Writing Quality - 1/5
I didn't want to trash the writing because of course it'll take some getting use to the switch from Louis and Lestat's narrations, but even past that it felt like the quality of writing decreased so much. Mainly because they focused so heavily on telling us exactly what is happening and what it means - its like they have no trust in their audience to figure things out.
And its annoying because there were scenes which felt like they were beautiful. Episode 7 was crawling with good well written moments, but the season is dominated by spelling out the obvious and undermining the raw emotions portrayed only moments later.
I also want to put out there that certain parts feel so fanficky (thats not to say fanfic is bad writing, its just in fanfiction, the worldbuilding and characterisation are already known so fics don't focus as much on setting up of the characters just on the immediate situations). And yeah its contradictory. The entire season felt like it was either setting up something with no reward until a future season (if that) or was writing with the assumption that we already knew the dynamics through the fandom so they could just put the characters in situations without any build (cough Devil's Minion cough).
The writers also forgot things from earlier seasons and so in the grand scheme of things there were a lot more retcons even past the memory is a monster and lestat perspective changes. And yes one of those retcons the train scene. In s1 the scenes focus was on how Lestat knew things Claudia didn't tell anyone so would be able to find her and kill her if he wanted because he knew said things, while in this season it was that that he said he was going to rape or do worse than rape Claudia. I'm leaving it at that to avoid spoilers.
Lestat has to be a brat to be the brat prince, but for some reason the writers assumed that creating sympathy for the character meant sanitising him and pushing his "bad" actions onto others. This lowkey started in s1 when Louis is the one who babytraps Lestat rather than the other way around like in the books, but it was still ok back then because he was still evil. This season tried to use his trauma as an excuse and actually he never did anything like no he did shit and yeah part of it was cause of trauma but HE DID THAT SHIT. It was bad end of story.
Everyone else was also out of character ngl. Like obviously this is Lestat's perspective and thats going to change what each person is like but it feels like a lot of the character choices were focused on making the plot move forward rather than the characters do things causing the plot.
Honestly you could tell the writers were living vicariously through the characters and didn't really bother to find how the characters themselves would speak and interact with other characters. There was practically no focus on character motivations outside of some for Lestat but even those didn't feel adequate.
IWTV has always toed the line between appropriation and adaptation (i personally feel it fits more into appropriation as it doesn't just adapt to a new medium and audience but also fundamentally changes the characters, i.e. Louis's race and a more explicit queer focus). As a result i can understand not translating the book plot points exactly, but once you remove key character arcs and themes? Its disappointing how tackless they were, and its worse because i love gothic media because it can reflect a lot about our society through exploring taboo. This felt even weirder because the dialogue was over explanatory, but they couldn't even leave some themes in the subtext they had to remove them entirely.
The queer focus for example decreased. I know that AMC's heads did step in and keep Gabrielle's relationship to gender from being explored, but even past that the focus on queerness was different. Its not to say there was no queerness especially because there are so many tender moments, but for an initially very explicit show, it was suprising to see that practically all the sex scenes were straight and that none of the main characters kissed. On top of that the fact that we've gotten no sapphic kiss that isn't solely there for a man is annoying.
The racial element was also poorly handled. I've already ranted about episode 6's anti-blackness, but it doesn't change after episode 7, and it still feels like the writers simply wanted to degrade the character, rather than write a narrative of racial abuse. The insults were completely purposeless and honestly didn't feel in character of the person saying them to use the ones chosen.
The incestuous abuse i think was handled "meh". The finale did a lot of heavy lifting that a lot of people expected earlier in the season, and even then it was still vague enough that they can easily ignore it. Essentially the problem was more tha because this season has nothing to say it spreads out the small bits and pieces it does have (which is more of a plot and writing issue in general than specific to the themes). Honestly at times it felt like it was going on for way too long without anyone addressing it.
There are other themes to talk about but unfortunately this writing section is getting way too long.
Everyone was acting their asses off and their accent work continues to amaze me. Especially with such wacky writing both dialogue wise and plot wise it was hard to see how they could pull it off. Delainey especially was extremely captivating and her accent work was chefs kiss. Assad had a sensational performance, he gave his entire pussy to make Armand the most bone chilling character that i still wanted to give a hug. Jacob and Sam were also amazing: I always felt at ease the second i heard Louis speak because even when he got shoddy lines Jacob could play them in a way that felt real; and kudos to Sam for working his Lestat accent so hard that his American accent is just permanently slightly french now, it was absolutely hilarious while watching Doubt.
Its unfortunately pretty obvious who the weakest was (sorry Ebogo), however part of that is because of his character, honestly his writing was some of the worst so the fact that he got it to the standard he did is amazing, especially because even being the weakest he did still perform amazingly. Similarly if it wasn't for the accent they made her do, Jennifer would have been unstoppable, she was truly terrifying in that role.
It felt very unremarkable for most of the time with a good visual here or there, mainly from the last two episodes. Its visually average. There's literally nothing else i can say.
Oh actually there is: don't create the title cards and intro with AI, it sucks to look at and its obvious as fuck.
Ok screw me i like sound design so i'm a bit harsh with this, i think overall the sound design was good. Its in the category of sound design where you don't really notice it because they made things sound very natural, but i think what makes it not the best is just the fact that it didn't reveal anything about the story. It worked well to make sense in the world that was created, but it didn't elevate the scenes, it just focused on making everything feel grounded. And don't get me wrong sometimes that's important, but i do think sound design could be better used if it actually revealed something about the story.
OK this was smart. They actually used the music and the quality of the lyrics to show Lestat's character becoming more vulnerable and so more open. And that was a good choice. I also like that it followed how Lestat in the books use pop culture references everywhere to the detriment of the story he's telling through the songs and how they change as the story progresses.
