Welcome to our weekly recaps of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire Season 2. If you missed our premiere recap, you can catch up right here. Spoilers for episode 2 below!
Louis (Jacob Anderson) reminisces via voiceover about post-WWII Paris, which “was many things in those days.” Armand (Assad Zaman), also in voiceover, contributes that Paris was an awakening for Louis. Human interviewer Daniel (Eric Bogosian) opines that Paris sucks.
In the present, when Louis and Armand start to say the same thing at the same time, Daniel asks if they’re going to finish each other’s sentences for the whole interview. Daniel is cynical about their romance, although the two vampires have been together for 77 years, 40 more than Louis was with Lestat.
In the flashbacks, Armand and his coven are stealthily following Louis and Claudia (Delainey Hayles). Armand can’t figure them out – neither was master. Louis takes up photography. Armand is aghast that a vampire would have a hobby (a bit hypocritical since he ran a theatre company).
In the present, Daniel says that Claudia’s point in her diary was that Paris sucked, that she was miserable, but just didn’t want to bring Louis down. Louis disagrees. While reading Daniel’s thoughts, Louis reminds him of the night Daniel’s girlfriend Alice said she was pregnant, and Daniel didn’t want to discuss it.
In her diary, Claudia writes that she doesn’t want Louis’s mood to depend on hers. In the flashback, she demands that seamstress Madeleine (Roxane Duran) alter a pink silk woman’s dress to fit Claudia’s girlish shape.
In the present, servant Rashid (Bally Gill) brings in the Paris photos from 1946-1949. These are many pictures of young men, friends of Louis and/or Armand. Some are old now, some are dead, some Armand drained for sport.
Louis frequented a public park to pick up male prostitutes. Armand thought the American vampires were toying with his coven, so he finally went to the park and introduced himself. Louis thought Armand was going to kill him. Instead, Armand says, “I will not harm you.” Armand gives Louis his card: artistic director of Théâtre des Vampires.
At their apartment, Louis bursts in on Claudia, admiring herself in the pink dress. He’s found other vampires! It seems like we should get more of Claudia’s reaction here, seeing that this is what she’s been seeking for almost the entire series.
Complimentary tickets are waiting for Louis and Claudia at the theatre. It’s full of humans, a mixture of tourists and hardcore fans, none of whom know the vampires are the real thing. Louis and Claudia can feel the new sensation of multiple others of their kind nearby.
Emcee Santiago (Ben Daniels) appears onstage. The crowd chants along with some of his welcome, half-inviting, half-castigating. The vamps disguise what they are doing by showing stagecraft, like a hook on a rope to fly Santiago, even though the rope is slack and Santiago is actually flying.
Santiago tells the audience, “Everything you’re about to see is real.” The show is a series of Grand Guignol sketches, combining live performance and film. The action is all fake except for the last piece. A young Belgian woman (Sinead Phelps) screams, warning the audience that these people are all vampires. She begs for her life. Santiago gets the woman in an almost hypnotic state, promising her a painless death – but as soon as he bites her, the stage behind him lights up to reveal a cadre of white-clad vampires who attack the woman en masse.
Louis is perturbed, Claudia is enthralled. The human audience is divided between being thrilled and confused. The woman’s corpse is dropped down a trapdoor into the basement dressing room.
Armand leads Louis and Claudia downstairs, explaining that the vampires have been here since the time of Charlemagne (758-814 A.D.) but only became a company after the death of Danton (1794).
The vampire company surrounds Louis and Claudia. It seems ominous for a moment, then everybody applauds. There are hugs and compliments all around.
Santiago asks the name of their maker, surmising they were both turned by the same vampire. Claudia says it was Bruce (the name of her vampire rapist) and that he threw himself into a fire.
There’s a portrait on the wall of the company’s co-founder, who Armand says was the finest actor ever to grace their stage. It’s Lestat.
In the present, Daniel berates himself for not seeing this coming. Armand had briefly been with Lestat, but they were incompatible – “He tasted of vermouth and annihilation.” Armand had flings with a lot of the company. Daniel mocks the whole thing as a telenovela.
In the flashback, Louis is freaking out. Since vampires can all read each other’s thoughts (unless they’re maker and made), the theatre vampires will know that Louis and Claudia killed Lestat. Claudia counters that she read the company’s thoughts, and they were all just thinking, “I want to lick these people.”
Claudia feels vampire pride. She felt it when they drained the woman in front of the dumb humans. The French vampires love being vampires.
Uneasy, Louis wants confirmation of Lestat’s death. He goes to the legal firm that sent Lestat his money transfers. The lawyer says they haven’t heard from Lestat since 1914, but that Lestat left something for Louis.
There is an envelope containing a letter to Louis, who envisions Lestat reading the letter aloud: “You are the only being I trust, and I love, above and beyond myself …”
Daniel taunts Louis by asking if Armand is really the love of his life or the rebound of his life. Louis counters by making Daniel confess that when he proposed to Alice, the mother of his child, in Paris, she said no.
Armand adds that Alice wanted to say yes but felt Daniel hadn’t given her a reason to trust him. Louis intentionally hurts Daniel by saying that he and Armand can find out what Alice thinks of him now or if she thinks of him now. Or, Armand says, they can simply return to the interview, if Daniel is willing to listen, which is his job.
Daniel, actually in tears, asks what happened next.
After Claudia attends a month of performances, the coven invites her and Louis on a hunt.
The coven is all on motorcycles, with sidecars, enjoying camaraderie, speed, and the night. They end up at the estate of the family Lacroix (please let this be a Forever Knight shoutout), who became wealthy on the black market while others starved. A soiree is in progress.
Santiago kills one guard outright and causes the other to bleed from his mouth while pulling information from his mind – nineteen guests, plus the hosts.
Armand tells the coven to enjoy themselves. Claudia leaves Louis alone with Armand. Louis ate earlier in the evening, and Armand says he is where he most needs to be. In the background, we see humans being chased and killed by vampires.
Armand and Louis flirt. Armand observes that Claudia is skilled at blocking her thoughts and that Louis should be better at this. Armand offers to help Louis with this, noting that Louis had trepidation when he heard “Lestat.” Some members of the coven can be unforgiving when lied to. Armand also advises Louis never to visit the lawyers again.
Leaving, the vampires set fire to the mansion. Claudia is ecstatic. She loves everything and everyone and never wants to hunt alone again. Louis is happy that she’s happy, but he’s still pensive.
The Théâtre des Vampires is a highlight of Anne Rice’s novel, and it’s quite striking here as well. There’s a meta trippiness to it, since we’re humans watching humans watching actors playing vampires who are pretending to be fake vampires but are actually real vampires – have a headache yet? There’s also an extra layer of cruelty as even the promise of a painless death is revealed as a lie.
It’s great to see Claudia experience joy, and fun to see the budding romance between Louis and Armand. We’re more curious than ever about what they’re hiding from Daniel. As for Daniel, he’s almost as meta in his way as the Théâtre. His self-loathing has led to his failures of intimacy and his repeated efforts to learn about the undead, even though they increase his self-loathing.
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire Season 2 premiered May 12 on AMC & AMC+, with new episodes available every Sunday.
