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and with these same anti-survivor writers at the helm, even if they did attempt to show lestat apologizing to louis in s4 or beyond, the audience will have no reason to believe or trust that this apology is more sincere or reflects a more permanent change than the apology in s1ep6 or s2ep7 or his tears for claudia in s2ep8 given all of that fell by the wayside as soon as lestat felt "wronged". (and no, he wasn't wronged by louis when it came to the book, as louis isn't responsible for something that was published against his consent and it's not wrong for abuse survivors to talk about their experiences in a biography. the idea that the book is something louis had to apologize for or that the book justifies lestat mocking his own victims publicly, for months- they can't "oh lestat is a creature of impulse" their way outta that one- in itself exposes a kind of anti-survivor thinking, and we have no reason to believe this team of writers, with their unserious attempts at "comic relief" about incestuous abuse, complete disregard for louis and claudia as victims and voyeuristic, gratuitous framing of racialized black suffering think otherwise.)

claudia (back when there were some black writers with input on her writing and back when she could express herself in her own voice- not the way they depicted her in s3 as a mouthpiece for ooc antiblackness filtered exclusively though her white father's pov and written by nonblack writers) was 100% right and remains validated 80 years after her murder. the unintentional message of s3 is that louis and lestat haven't changed and lestat will always be a mercurial abuser who swings between hurting louis and performative self-serving apologies that lead to no real change, and louis will always take him back despite his cruelty. except even in s1-s2 when lestat was fully a narrative antagonist i believed he loved louis, that we were seeing the nuanced portrait of how love and abuse can exist within the same relationships and love doesn't "cancel out" abuse, but now lestat's love feels like an informed attribute that they have to bring a hallucination of paul onscreen to tell us about since it sure as hell isn't demonstrated in lestat's behavior for the vast majority of s3- the way lestat acts in the front half of the season, followed by complete lack of contrition for either what he did in nola/paris or what he did on tour, makes their reunion feel unearned, rushed and insincere. and beyond the antiblackness and anti-survivor rhetoric, the writers have just gotten lazy- loustat is scripted this season as if the writers thought could take for granted that the entire audience is already invested in them, that everyone already wants them back together, and they don't need to put in the work to get viewers onboard with their relationship and get people invested again. and to be fair, this isn't a problem unique to loustat this season- all romantic relationships in tvl get the "tell, not show" treatment and all their important development beats take place offscreen, which makes me think the s1-s2 writers they fired were pulling the weight of most of the romance writing (just like the black writers they fired were clearly pulling the weight of louis and claudia being framed with any compassion whatsoever).

THESE are the words I want to hear be exchanged between louis and Armand!!! BUT!! The thing is these words SHOULD be shared between armand and louis BUT NOT RIGHT NOW. I find it incredibly beautiful that louis sees armand’s hurt and trauma and tells him that he understands why he is the way he is, and that their relationship was always doomed for his role as a pimp when he was alive.

But it should come from a louis who has genuinely forgiven armand and moved past their relationship. it should come from a louis who has had time away from armand, time to heal and reflect and ready to talk about it. and sorry but 3 years for a vampire is simply not enough.

He should have told Armand this when Armand was at a low point and needed to hear those words from someone he not only loved, but had been on the other side of what was done to him. An armand who was reliving his traume as a sex trafficked child, preferably after finding out that Marius is still alive, and being told by louis “hey what was done to you wasn’t right. What I did to those girl was wrong and I used them just as someone used you and it’s not your fault”

beyond that i think from a filmmaking perspective IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO INTERESTING

cutting back between lestat at the table and armand torturing him would have been so cunt and actually connected the scenes, having it all feel like its driving to a finale, rather than lestat not doing much and louis having an unrelated side adventure

structually it would solidify that the season is about LESTAT

what better way to show you failed in your life then your ex boyfriend hating you and be obssessed with you so much that he beheaded you and asked for an apology?

we would have gotten the culmination of lesmand NOT TALKING about their relationship and maybe got some hints are more information

we would have seen Armand confronting his own repressed feelings about lestat

the seeds that were planted that armand was pissed at lestat would have paid off (where as not once was it EVER implied he was still mad at louis, enough to do all this)

armand torturing lestat would have added to the tone that what lestat was doing/was planning to do was DANGEROUS and that he's about to fuck around and find out, which then would have further supported his turn on gabriella at the end

daniel monologuing at and playing keep away with louis' head would be more compelling, as they actually have a character relationship

the phone countdown would have been more suspenseful intercut with fareed not sure if he could sew the head back on

louis popping up at the end so much more heartbreaking as we wouldnt KNOW that he was fine

but instead the writers are inserting the talamasca for some fuck ass reason they wont tell us and complicating everything

it makes me really upset more than anything knowing how EASY it would have been to make this work, but they didnt

I cannot get the vision of his severed head on the table and his body sitting across from him out of my mind. I cannot stop thinking about him struggling to say "Armand". I realise it is horror, and therefore intended to be upsetting and distressing, but to make us witness that for no purpose is sickening. For what? To adapt Armand's experiments from TVA, which most people consider not canon anyway? Louis could easily have been rest speeched into freezing. He did not have to be mutilated like that, and it did not have to constantly be shown throughout the episode.

We saw Lestat's body, but he did not have to see his own body. He wasn't threatened with having his head sewn onto the body of the Black young woman who looks like his daughter. Lestat wasn't ripped away from his daughter as she screamed for him. Lestat wasn't called a slave by the ghost of his dead daughter, and accused of performing grief for his own self-pity. Lestat wasn't forced to have a conversation with his daughter's murderer in front of the girl who looked just like her, while she screamed and sobbed and was forced to slit her own wrist.

Lestat didn't have to apologise to Armand for anything, even though this season had Lestat and Gabriella abandon him in the 18th century. and write a song about his sexual history and perform it in front of him to a huge audience. Lestat was not made to reckon with his involvement in the trial, his abuse of Louis and Claudia, or even his victimhood at the hands of Gabriella, even though they made that such a point of this season.

Your bad taste isn't the show's problem. The fact you can't watch a show without masturbating to Louis and Armand is a YOU problem.

I genuinely hope you and the other hateers die so you'll shut the fuck up.

Rolin and writers for this season must be held responsible instead of hiding behind the cast of color.

It's not just the season finale that was abhorrently racist and anti-black (+ misogynistic), and she isnt the only writer for this season; everyone on the writing staff/creative team (non of whom are black) were happy with and signed off on everything this season. It's not just about one ep, it's the whole rotten production.

Rolin and writers for this season must be held responsible instead of hiding behind the cast of color. <<<< YUP. At that panel they're doing, I need the audience to question the writers/show runners not the cast on how offensive, hateful, and willfully cruel this season was; to its poc cast, poc characters, and poc viewers.