‘Interview with the Vampire’ Recap: Episode 2.3 – No Pain

This recap contains spoilers.

Daniel meets with a mysterious contact, Louis ignores a sea of red flags to take his relationship with Armand to the next level, and Claudia joins the Paris coven.

We open our episode with Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) having sushi in a fancy restaurant. It’s nice to see him having some alone time – I was worried that Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Armand (Assad Zaman) were (politely) holding him hostage in the penthouse. Daniel’s peace is short-lived. His dinner is interrupted by a shifty silver fox of a gentleman who knows Daniel is spending his free time chatting with vampires. Mr Mysterious calls himself Raglan James (the main antagonist in Anne Rice’s novel The Tale of the Body Thief, although that doesn’t mean it’s the same character in this world). Raglan works for a secret squirrel organisation tracking vampires worldwide and is deeply annoyed that they didn’t know about Armand until recently. Mr Raglan is very freaked out about “the great conversion” with vampires turning people left, right and centre. Daniel, already on his absolute last nerve dealing with Armand and Louis, has zero time for mysterious organisations and calls out Raglan to the assembled guests, causing him to beat a hasty retreat.

Daniel is unnerved by the encounter and becomes even more so when Raglan starts messaging him on his computer. Louis is absent, leaving Daniel to contend with Rashid and Armand in Louis’s “zen garden”. The penthouse is a lifeless, sterile tomb, but there’s something so extraordinarily bleak about the pebble garden with the black wavy, unfinished lines on the wall. It’s a haunting glimpse into Louis’s psyche. 

Armand is busying himself with books in the library. There is something deeply unpleasant about the bookshelves being elevated when Louis can’t fly like Armand and Lestat can. Lestat built Louis a library because he loves to read. Armand put the books up high so Louis literally can’t reach them. Maybe it’s Amand’s way of feeling wanted – only Armand can get the books for Louis so he has to play fetch whenever Louis wants something. It’s a charming dom/sub riff, but ultimately the power in that setup still lies with Armand. If Armand doesn’t play fetch then Louis doesn’t get to read. And let’s not get started on the remote-controlled windows which block the sun and prevent Louis’s death. If Armand were to open them he would survive, but Louis would not. It’s a horrifying imbalance of power. These boys need so much therapy. 

With Louis sleeping, Armand takes it upon himself to entertain Daniel. Armand wants so badly to be this suave, sophisticated art dealer, but at heart, he’s just this super intense, weird little guy. While a flustered Daniel badly tries to pretend that Raglan isn’t instant messaging him and dropping files on his computer (Daniel would be the worst spy ever) Armand decides it’s the perfect time to tell him all about how he stalked, sorry met, Lestat (Sam Reid).

We flash back to France and Armand is the highly reluctant leader of the Children of Darkness – the proto Paris coven. The Children of Darkness are a sorry-looking assortment of grotesques. Armand is in full goblin mode, living in squalor in a dark and dingy cave surrounded by his followers (although candlelight is very kind to Assad Zaman who positively glows in this scene). The coven performs arcane rituals while Armand looks like he’s about to throw himself into the fire to relieve the tedium. The coven is positively scandalised by the appearance of a new vampire who, to their horror, not only hangs out with a mortal, but wanders around above ground brazen as you please.

Cut to Lestat on stage in Paris having the time of his life. It’s notable that in Armand’s retelling, Lestat isn’t the lead or the romantic hero on stage, but the fool, the clown, the harlequin. (Although the Harlequin make-up and outfit make Sam Reid look ridiculously pretty – it’s one of the best outfits Lestat wears in the show). While Lestat serves drag queen levels of diva on stage, Armand glowers while calling to him telepathically to come to him. Lestat is having none of it, resulting in some frankly epic eye fucking from Armand who wants him very badly.

Armand lets his inner freak flag fly and starts flat-out stalking Lestat. Lestat (wearing a stunning red coat) is on a date with Nicolas de Lenfent (Joseph Potter), Lestat’s first great love, who is briefly mentioned in season one. Lestat is understandably weirded out by Armand’s stalking and insistence that he come to him and seeks to escape with Nicki. Armand, in a massively unsubtle show of power, freezes everyone before hurling an astounded Lestat repeatedly into a wall. While a distraught and terrified Lestat lies dazed on the ground, Armand picks up Nicki like he weighs nothing and kidnaps him.

Understandably this pisses off Lestat who follows Armand to the coven’s headquarters and proceeds to metaphorically burn the place to the ground. Lestat makes quite the entrance, bathed in candlelight, holding an effigy of Christ on the cross – a blasphemous angel. Lestat demolishes the coven’s religious ideologies in two seconds and encourages them to embrace their true nature among the mortals. The coven, fed up with living like rats in a cage, promptly abandons Armand. Armand for his part makes zero attempt to stop Lestat; he is so done with living life like a particularly hot-looking troll.

Lestat takes Nicki to safety, but returns afterwards to a despondent Armand (love that Armand gives Lestat a ponytail in this scene to better highlight those cheekbones). In Armand’s retelling, Lestat comes to him to seduce him into giving up his secrets. Sensing that Lestat has turned Nicki, he taunts Lestat that his companion is not cut out for it – “too fragile’ he intones with mock concern. Despite being shaken, Lestat throws Armand a bone, telling him that they can combine Lestat’s love of the theatre with Armand’s desire for dark rituals, and lo the Theatre Des Vampires is born. 

Cut to Armand and Lestat observing the Theatre Des Vampires from a box in the theatre. They declare their love for each other before getting down and dirty in front of the despairing eyes of Nicki, who is playing the violin below. Lestat cheating on his beloved, fragile Nicki with Armand right in front of Nicki’s eyes? Lestat declaring his love for Armand? Oh Armand, I think the fuck not. Armand is like a 13-year-old girl writing self-insert fanfiction. The strong powerful coven leader who tamed the bratty clown into submission and showed him instead the true meaning of love. I’m not buying it, Goblin Boy. Try harder. 

Daniel isn’t buying it either and asks what happened next, only for Louis to interrupt and dutifully parrot the story he’s been told – that Lestat slept with Armand, and when Armand had taught him all his magic tricks, promptly dumped him and vanished, breaking Armand’s heart in the process. “Lestat is, was and always will be for Lestat”. Oh Louis. Do you actually believe that or is it just so much easier for Lestat to be the sole villain in your story? 

Lestat does two completely inexcusable things in season 1 – the “drop” in which he tries to kill Louis and his caging of Claudia, and the utterly callous way he responds to her sexual assault by Bruce. Both are unforgivable and it would be understandable for Louis to hate Lestat for those reasons alone. But the notion that Lestat only cared about himself? During their time together Lestat showed Louis over and over again that he would give him anything he asked for. Lestat would have crawled naked over broken glass for a crumb of Louis’s affection if he only asked. If Louis had asked Lestat to kill Antoinette, she would have been dead before Louis could finish articulating the request. The notion that Lestat only ever cared about himself doesn’t ring remotely true. 

Daniel is done hearing about Armand’s torrid (and dubious) history with Lestat so it’s back to Paris in the 1940s where Louis and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) are still trying to get their stories straight about their maker “Bruce” and his self-immolation. They’re wildly overcomplicating it – the best lies are the simplest. Claudia overshares that Bruce has moles on his leg and Louis is horrified as Claudia casually discusses how he kept her under his floorboards for a week. Rape as a plot device is my least favourite trope and I have mixed feelings about the decision to age up Claudia and then have her be brutally raped by the first male vampire she meets outside of her parents. While it’s done to parallel the similar treatment Lestat suffered at the hands of Magnus, it’s still a distasteful storyline. But no denying Delainey Hayles sells the hell out of it. Claudia is utterly fierce with only her slightly shaking hand betraying her distress.

Armand swans in and acts domineering with Claudia (who is now calling him Maitre like the rest of the coven). He chastises her for looking him in the eye before sending her to work. Apparently “The Coven has great plans for her”. Louis seems to miss how threatening that sounds.  Claudia is put to work in the wet room where we discover that the coven uses a box filled with rats to strip the bodies of their victims. I’m sure that isn’t foreshadowing that will come back in any way. 

Meanwhile, Armand and Louis are having a lovely evening stroll. Just Armand and Louis, and Louis’s hallucination of his murdered husband who will not let him have a moment’s peace. Louis, how are you meant to snag your adorable twink if you keep imagining your husband on your dates? Armand tries desperately to initiate Louis into the coven. They are sweet together and have adorable chemistry, but it’s all a power struggle. Armand needs Louis to join the coven and submit to his leadership. Louis, meanwhile, seems baffled that he has to join a group with all the messy interpersonal politics that entails, in order to live a peaceful vampire life.

Louis is clearly missing the days when all he had to worry about was manhandling Lestat when he invited a platoon of boys over for entertainment (because he was jealous of Louis taking advantage of the open relationship he insisted upon). Lestat was never interested in any coven that would have him as a member.  Louis politely declines Armand’s recruitment tactics, snapping a picture of him in the process (but actually pointing his camera at Dreamstat because that boy is down bad).

Back at the Theatre Des Vampires, Claudia is making nice with Santiago. It turns out that Santiago is the youngest of the troop (in vampire years), a fact that Armand uses to emasculate him. Armand also killed his maker – something Santiago claims to be fine with (but one suspects he very much isn’t fine with it). Ben Daniels is so wonderful in the role. Sexy, charismatic, funny, utterly conniving and vicious. The man drips venom with every syllable and clearly isn’t buying a single word of Claudia’s backstory. For all her brilliance in outsmarting Lestat, Claudia is so excited about being a part of something that she doesn’t seem to realise how much of a threat the coven is to her and Louis. 

Armand has whisked Louis away to a delightful Parisian cafe where they discuss vampire morality (with a cameo appearance from Satre). Things go wildly off the rails when Louis’s imagination decides to replace the singer in the cafe with Lestat. Cue Sam Reid singing a remix of ‘Come to Me’, the song Lestat wrote for Louis (and had Antoinette record), which pissed Louis off so much that he swam the Mississippi, kicked Antoinette out of her own home, and promptly stabbed Lestat with a shard of the record before screwing him in his mistresses’ bed. Not that he got a rise out of Louis or anything. The new version has fantastic lines such as “Come to me you little whore. You only want him because you’re feeling blue. You fumble each other, impotent lovers” Sam Reid has a beautiful singing voice and it’s an instantly iconic scene. But dear god Louis. You’re on a date with a man you really like and your subconscious has conjured up your dead husband to beautifully sing a diss track about your new man.

Armand insists Louis be honest with him and Dreamstat instantly appears at Louis’s side; “let me tell you a little something about 18th century Armand’. Dreamstat tries valiantly to stop Louis from mentioning his name to Armand and tries even harder to stop him from admitting that Louis killed Lestat (Louis: “I killed him and he fucking had it coming” Dreamstat: “That’s debatable”). On some level, Louis’s subconscious doesn’t trust Armand and conjures up Dreamstat to give a voice to that nagging fear. 

Lestat being Louis and Claudia’s maker, and being dead (ish), is not remotely news to Armand who has known about Lestat for months. Armand copes remarkably well all things considered, with his new boyfriend spending all his time on their date hallucinating his dead husband. Louis tells him Claudia wasn’t involved in Lestat’s death, but how he can think Armand buys that is beyond me. Louis’s subconscious is practically begging him to get away from Armand, but it is only when Dreamstat mentions that Louis never told him he loved him that Louis loses it screaming “Back to hell with you” before fleeing the cafe. Louis withholding love from Lestat is clearly a source of shame for him. Poor Louis and poor Armand. That cannot be how Armand saw that evening going. 

Louis stumbles out of the cafe and to his favourite cruising spot. Dreamstat follows him, taunting him all the while. “ After all this time, I’m still the only one you trust”. He’s got you there Louis. A distraught and grieving Louis passionately kisses him while Dreamstat provokes him. “Kill me again. Show me the only way you know how to love”, Louis erupts with incredible violence, bashing Lestat’s head repeatedly against a tree while Lestat laughs uproariously.  As Louis gets a grip on himself, he is horrified to realise he is holding the dead body of a random man. He races home in a terrible state and develops the photo he took of Lestat and Armand earlier, despairing when the resulting photo only shows Armand. 

Louis’s catastrophic evening builds to a miserable crescendo when Claudia tells him about what Bruce did to her.  Delainey Hayles reaches through the screen and rips the heart out of everyone watching. Claudia is so fierce, so brave, so unsentimental in her re-telling of her sexual assault and it is absolutely and completely devastating. All the plaudits to Ms Hayles. Louis is beyond distraught at the revelations.

The next day, Louis comes to the Theatre Des Vampires to support Claudia, who now has a bit part in the show. Louis is the very picture of a proud dad, beaming at her from the audience. His presence is irksome to Santiago who spends the entire performance telepathically bitching to Armand about Louis. Santiago considers Louis’s decision not to embrace the coven as an insult. Santiago questions Armand’s authority given his failure to recruit Louis and mentions the body found in the park and how it draws unwelcome attention to them. There is a nasty whiff of homophobia about Santiago’s phrasing –  noting that Claudia was highly unlikely to be found in that type of park at night (a reference to Louis’s penchant for cruising). Armand promises to resolve the situation.

After the show, it is time for Claudia to join the coven. She is ecstatic about joining them and is seemingly oblivious to the unpleasant undertone of her dealings with Santiago and the others. Is it a racial thing or are they just offended by her outsider status? Claudia is so desperate to have vampire kin that she sees none of this. As Louis is not part of the coven, and does not wish to join, he is not permitted to see the joining ritual and is led away by Armand. 

Santiago, as the youngest, gets to welcome the newest member of the coven and conducts the ceremony. And it is at this point that Claudia realises just how very, very badly she has fucked up by running from the relative safety of New Orleans and ending up in the clutches of the Paris coven. Nothing is worse than a bunch of law-abiding power-hungry zealots. Santiago tells Claudia all about the five “Great Laws” that all vampires must abide by. The laws are:

Every coven must have a leader (Hi Armand!)

You cannot give the dark gift to a child.

Old vamps shouldn’t make fledglings because the fledglings might be too strong 

No vampire can kill another vampire, except a coven leader can massacre their flock if they feel like it 

No vampire shall reveal themselves to a mortal and let them live. No vampire must commit to writing, the history of vampires (Claudia’s many diaries provide a helpful first-person account of a young vampire).

If a society has five sacred laws its citizens must abide by, and you’ve already broken three out of the five laws, then it’s probably a good time to get out of dodge. Go to South America, fuck it, go to Australia and see if the covens there are quite so stuffy. Lestat’s failure to arm Louis and Claudia with the vampire lore they needed to protect themselves left them in terrible peril. Claudia is, after all, a walking talking breach of one of the laws, having been turned by Lestat when she was 14. Claudia powers through the ceremony with only a slight wince, and her present for joining the coven is a part in a play. They hand Claudia a bright turquoise baby girl dress. Claudia gets to play the baby in the play – for years and years and years. Oh, Claudia. My heart bleeds for you girl. They have such contempt for you. 

While Claudia is realising just how badly she has fucked up, Armand is playing the role of the big, bad coven leader. Louis’s confession that he killed Lestat puts Armand in a difficult position. Louis has broken one of the great laws and must pay with his life. Armand, fire in hand, threatens Louis who asks to be beheaded, so horrified is he at the prospect of being burned. It’s a painfully tense scene. Louis is dignified in the face of approaching death, refusing to beg for his life. His only thoughts are of Claudia even as Armand tortures him by saying that Claudia won’t be around long as her mind will break as she was turned too young. Louis is undeterred by Armand’s callousness and is heartbreakingly brave while he continues trudging to what he thinks is certain death. His last thought is of Claudia; “tell her she’s beautiful. Tell her every morning”. Armand makes his move and… removes the manhole cover allowing Armand and Louis to move out of the catacombs and onto the streets of Paris. It turns out that, like Lestat before him,  Armand is too enchanted by his beloved Louis to ever allow his death. 

In the streets above, Louis haltingly tells Armand that he carries Lestat with him, that he carries the pain of his loss. Armand sympathises, alluding to his relationship with Lestat, telling Louis that he also carries the pain of having loved Lestat “a century ago…yesterday”. That “yesterday” reference better be a metaphor, Armand.  Armand and Louis kiss before Louis invites him inside. Louis, what are you doing? Armand is the most scarlet, vermillion, claret, ruby, reddest of red flags and you’re going to bang him? Armand may seem like an adorable sparkle muffin with his huge orange eyes, glossy black locks and baby face, but he just spent the past 5 minutes threatening you with being burned alive. He tortured you emotionally and made you think you were going to die. And now you’re going to sleep with him? Louis, you played yourself.