Original subtitles

-Watch "The Vampire Lestat: After Dark"

on AMC+ or wherever you get your podcasts.

- Previously on "The Vampire Lestat"...

- If you are hearing this now,

you must be a very privileged individual.

- Louis, do you know someone called Daniel Molloy?

- Uh... - [speaking French]

Never happened!

Absurd. We're doing a rewrite.

- As absurd as a documentary about a rock band

posing as vampires fronted by an actual vampire.

Is it true you were a stutterer as a child?

- The name is Raglan James.

Mr. Molloy would like to stay alive, Rashid.

- Got me wondering what it'd be like,

ride with others, hunt in a pack.

- Hmm. The Tooth Team.

- The Fang Gang.

- I assume a privileged individual such as yourself

enjoys a little dirt in their sandwich.

So I serve it to you now...

- Are you for real?

- How it felt then.

Fledgling.

Lover.

Mother.

- You are listening to "The Failures,"

Album 8, Side A.

- If you're still listening after the...

Oedipiphany of the last hour, welcome back.

I've been fondling my thoughts since the last album,

and I believe there might be value added in illuminating

the why and how I became me

in the light of said Oedipiphany.

You've weathered the Freudian storms.

And yes, that boat is a penis.

And yes, that ocean is my mother's vagina.

Kiss, grope, aftercare.

Onward.

[light harpsichord music]

Picture Auvergne, France, 1772.

Picture the dingy seat of the Lioncourt family

at the fag end of a thousand years

of aristocratic decline.

Picture my five dead siblings, Aristide, Marie, Jules,

unbaptized, and Faustin,

garden gnomes guarding the undulating domestic bliss

of our great hall.

- The boy possesses an ability to envision

the unseen, the holy.

He would be well-suited

to the monastic house at Haute-Loire.

- And what will you get for this favor, hmm?

A silk-lined cassock?

[laughter] - Nothing, Monseigneur.

I see goodness in your son.

- Are you a good boy, Lestat?

[laughter]

[slams table]

- Answer your brother, Lestat.

- I-I... - [belches]

- D-d-don't--

- D-d-don't.

- [laughs]

- Kn-kn-kn--

- Kn-kn-know.

No, he doesn't know.

- My son, the hiccup, the next Pope?

[laughter] - We can mend his affliction.

- Pope, as befits his rank and station.

Titles won on the blood-soaked fields of France.

- [speaking Italian]

- Siege of Compiègne. Battle of Coutras.

- In time, he would learn

to find consolation in philosophy.

- What is the course of studies at Haute-Loire?

- Aristotle, Erasmus--

- I asked the question.

- Aristotle, Erasmus, Aquinas.

- Cicero, Alberti, Bruno.

♪

- The innkeeper tells me he brought these "actors"

back to the inn,

buys them a sum of wine beyond obligation.

Half the village there, waiting for me to pay.

Tenants asking me this. Tenants!

- Escape was not an option for Gabriella Vece.

The Marquis had promised her preservation

and delivered her ruin.

- On stage with whores and whoremasters.

He wants a taste of the theatre,

you tell him to bed one of them.

You don't open the wagon and join up!

- I was impressed into s-service.

She sacrificed her youth, squandered her intellect,

and paid a midwife to nick her in the womb

so he couldn't humiliate her anymore.

- Held his hat in the square like a beggar.

- Like an actor.

- Better a gong farmer than an actor.

- Better an actor than a cabbage.

- Look up from your book when you speak to our father.

- Cabbage. - Cabbage.

- Cabbage.

- It was our little joke, the cabbages--

the cabbage heads with cabbage brains

and cabbage wives all speaking cabbage.

- At least there would have been some honor in it!

- The Lioncourt name, covered in his shit again.

- Love nothing, do nothing, change nothing.

Sit and suffer.

- Am I suffering?

Is Gregoire?

- A question for the philosophers.

Can a cabbage suffer?

- [laughs]

- [singing in French]

[militaristic music]

- One hour on stage, an hour of not this place,

its dampness and dimness and your pockmarked wife

and Gregoire jamming his cock into servant girls

like he's saucing pork!

- Cabbage.

- And Lestat speaks... - Cabbage.

- A verse with players in a wagon.

- Cabbage.

- Say "cabbage"

one more goddamn time.

- C-c-cabbage.

- Break his legs!

♪ ♪

You will hunt the land as we do.

You will marry your worth and have children

who will shame you the way you have shamed me.

[baby crying]

[all grunting]

- [screaming]

- She had a cold beauty,

like snow behind a thick, distorting wall of glass.

And I grew hard by example.

- But now the wolves, they are taking our sheep,

so bold now they have lost their fear.

Another one stolen today.

A puddle of guts where sheep used to be.

They will snatch our babes soon.

- There have been wolves in the hills since I was a boy.

Magnificent animals.

- The wolves are causing trouble, father.

- It's a famine now, seigneur, from here to Versailles.

- What do they want us to do about it, huh?

- Nothing.

Sit there on your titles

while you fumble to find your pricks

from under the awning of your stomachs.

[coughs]

- Piss off!

- [coughing] - [mimics coughing]

Keep coughing, huh?

- Seeding the nothings you wed, bearing more nothings

who will inherit nothing!

[coughing] - Not funny, brother.

- Put the gun down, Lestat.

- She's with child. - Hey!

Put the gun down, Lestat.

- The wolves will move on.

- We ask your protection as our seigneur.

We would like you to share

some of your bounty on your table.

[crowd muttering] - Hey, go home!

There's nothing more we can do here.

- But be men!

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- She meant to kill me with the challenge.

Better a quick end

than watch me surrender another decade,

watch me join the cabbages.

[wolves howling]

[mastiff barking]

♪ ♪

And what was this life?

[wolves barking]

The good in me lost at the monastery.

Wait.

My sense of wonder abandoned in a traveling player's wagon.

Go. [speaking French]

[growling and barking]

[dog whimpering]

[wolf snarls]

I wanted the wolves to come.

[horse whinnies]

[breathing heavily]

Until I didn't.

[gunshot]

[screams] [snarls]

- He refuses food.

He refuses care.

- You killed five wolves

by yourself?

- Eight,

not five.

Tore apart my horse.

My dog.

Eight.

- Do the wolves look worse?

- [gasps]

- There's a mob came yesterday, again tonight.

They wish to worship you.

Your father and your brothers bent

with shame.

Come down.

You'll enjoy it.

- From room to room,

slaughtering the three of them.

That's what I dreamt

when I killed the wolves, Mother.

- You know what I dream?

I'm drinking wine.

So drunk, I strip off my clothes

and bathe in the mountain stream naked.

[both laugh]

I go into the village... - [breathing shakily]

- Into the inn,

and I take into bed

any man that comes.

Crude men, big men,

old men, boys,

taking them one after another,

and feeling some magnificent release in it,

no thought of your father

or your brothers.

In that moment,

I belong

to no one.

- Except for me.

[laughs]

- [coughing]

I'm dying.

I won't survive the winter.

- Mother.

- [coughing]

[tense music]

♪ ♪

Finish it. He has a mob to bless.

♪ ♪

- Mother?

[footsteps leaving]

Mother!

Mother! Mother?

[water running]

- Would it help you mouth breathers

if I said it slowly?

Unilateral nondisclosure agreement.

- I don't think an NDA gives you

legal clearance for murder.

- What murders?

- There were eight bodies in that hallway.

- You think you'd be on this bus right now

if we left eight bodies in a hallway?

- I saw them too.

- Oh, and the drug mule contributes

a complete sentence. - Social media coordinator.

- Check your contract. It says "cocaine whorebucket."

- I know what I saw, lawyer.

I saw a guy kill another guy...

- Vampire. Vampire. - Right in front of me.

- What the killjoy second guitarist

may or may not have witnessed was one vampire

acting in self-defense.

But he signed a unilateral,

which is a one-way street that I control.

Suitcase bomb.

- Where are we? - Buckeye State.

- Do you have the fire gift?

- Oh, my God. - Yo, what?

- [gasping] - This again?

- What the fuck?

- How did I get here?

- Sofia. - Sofia?

- Forgotten my name already?

- Oh, hello, Sofia.

- I'm sorry, are we just, like,

not gonna talk about last night?

Are we--are we not gonna talk about, like,

the year and a half of weird bullshit

that you've been putting us through...

- On top of the fact that you can fly?

- And you didn't feel like that was

at all important to tell us? - You set things on fire

with your mind! - Been up all day,

and we've got, like, a shit ton list of questions, man.

- Like, what else can you do?

- Yeah, like, where do you put the bodies?

- Don't answer that.

- And when was the last time you talked to Armand?

- I could have hung it up there, too, I guess.

But we sounded really good in Detroit.

And there were another thousand beautifully unwell

to serve in Ohio.

And she had come a great distance

to comfort me.

And, um, you are being very patient

regarding the "vampire incest" factor.

And I do appreciate it.

- Do you guys play baseball, like in "Twilight"?

- One at a time. - Yeah!

- What do you do with the bodies?

- Don't answer that! - One at a time, please!

One at a time.

["All Fall Down"]

♪ ♪

♪ I'm a little killer ♪

♪ I'm a lonely one ♪

♪ I'm that chill creeping up your spine ♪

♪ Telling you to run ♪

♪ I'm the hanging shadow

♪ I'm the lost love ♪

♪ I'm the past and the future ♪

♪ The last of the sutures, the cooing dove ♪

♪ We're the rock and rollers ♪

♪ We're the good time ♪

♪ We're the heart pumping blood ♪

♪ We're the face in the mud ♪

♪ We're this stupid rhyme

♪ Bang, bang - ♪ Bang, bang ♪

- ♪ Bang, bang - ♪ Bang, bang ♪

- ♪ Bang, bang

♪ All fall down ♪

♪ Burn the ground ♪

♪ All fall down

♪ Burn the ♪

♪ Bang, bang - ♪ Bang, bang ♪

- ♪ Bang, bang - ♪ Bang, bang ♪

- ♪ Bang, bang - ♪ Bang, bang ♪

- ♪ Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang ♪

Fabulous. Moving on.

- Do you kill people?

- I sleep, I think, I sing,

I contribute to local economies.

- Do you kill people? - I drain people.

- What is the difference?

- Don't have to kill when I drain.

I do it on stage every night.

- The small cup.

- How many people do you kill a night?

- [laughing] How many people?

This is what I have Fareed for.

- Yeah, that's also why you have a body double.

- You tell them.

- He gets most of his blood from the farm.

- Most? - The farm?

- It's like a blood bank.

People donate, and they're handsomely compensated.

It's all highly ethical.

- They tap college burnouts and addict-run bingo games.

Cash-only, no questions.

- Well--so you're a vampire too?

- Three of us, nine of you.

Out and proud.

- Three? Three? Three? - Three.

- Hi, name's Daniel.

I'm a Taurus on the cusp of Aries.

I prefer AB negative.

Who's your maker?

- Have you tried RHnull?

Only 45 people on the planet possess it.

Only nine active donors.

- Tell me all about it, babe.

- Hey, hey, look--hey, this isn't a goddamn joke.

- Band-only meeting!

- Your client failed to back up security promises

of protecting those like my client--

- I understand the panic.

You saw something that you didn't want to acknowledge.

But willful ignorance is sleep in a giant's hand.

- Willful ignorance? - Oh, come on.

Have you ever seen me in the light of day?

- Armand is a day-walker.

- Did you help me hose off my Mustang

at a self-service car wash in Spokane?

- You said that was a deer.

- As D-E-A-R

as any KFC night manager has a right to be.

- Oh, God. - OK, so you do kill people.

- Vampires have been among you your entire lives.

We've been a part

of the ecological landscape for thousands of years.

- How do we know you're not gonna kill us?

- You've been in my band for over a year and a half,

and nothing has happened to you.

- It's not your band. It's our fucking band.

Jesus Christ, you're such an asshole.

- In fact, you've all been protected numerous times

without being made aware of it.

- What? - What we're doing,

the confessional nature of the songs,

performing for mortals, the insights

into vampiric desires, it's all...

[laughs]

It's all sacrilegious to vampires.

- What? - It's not a worry.

I have the blood of Akasha in me.

- Sorry, what the fuck is Akasha?

- What is important, and what we should be celebrating,

is what we did onstage last night.

- Are all of your songs about this guy "Lewis"?

- We were raw and nasty.

- "I was afraid of losing you."

- Transcendent. Excuse me?

- "And I lost you." You know.

- It's Louis, not Lewis.

And the "you" you are referring to

could be one of two dozen paramours

I've pompoir'd over the centuries.

- OK, sure--who's the villain sneaking up from behind

with the knife in his hand and a mouth full of lies?

- We were beyond epic last night.

- "I pulled the knife from my cane,

and I held it up to Lestat's throat."

- And that is what we are all scared about.

- "I want to stay in bed." - Can we do it again?

Can we do it nightly? - "Eating black licorice."

Is that about sucking Lewis's dick?

- "Black Licorice" is about

the first kill I made

after Louis and I reconciled. - That's it.

- I lived... - I'm calling the cops.

- 54,554 days

before I met Louis de Pointe du Lac.

- You kill people.

I'm people. We're people.

- And so was I.

No vampire was born a vampire.

- Eff this. Eff you.

We quit.

Come on.

Larry?

- They don't want to speak, but being a vampire,

I can tell you what they're thinking.

Would you like to know what they're thinking?

"1,500 when we started. 20,000 followers now.

"He killed the sound technician in Denver

that muddied my solos on purpose."

And he is glad that I killed him,

except I didn't kill him.

I merely fired him, Larry.

Fate's Entourage, the Brooms, the Tits,

the Dime Store Darlings, Bukkake Ice Helmet,

and four others that are not as good

but just as successful.

"If I don't hit it now, I'm gonna marry the bum

"and have a baby.

"Thin Lizzy sucks.

We'd sound better with one guitar."

- I don't think that. - Yeah, she does.

Salamander, "Another one of Alex's vegan,

"straight-edge, bullshit mood swings.

He'll find a meeting and be back tomorrow."

- Dude. - [laughs]

And I make it a rule never to sleep with my bandmates.

[soft dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[telepathically] TC was talking about Larry,

not you.

You are the best pure musician we have, other than me.

So take your time, Alex.

Process it, as they say.

But think thrice before running to the police

or sharing in one of your anonymous groups,

not if you value your life--

or your brother's.

- You are listening to "The Failures,"

Album 12, Side B.

[light piano music]

- There's a dearth of privacy on a vampire rock tour.

The bus, shared hotel floors,

roadies transporting coffins, et cetera.

And as front man, you're encircled

by those who invariably want something from you.

Now, my mother, Gabriella Vece, rest her soul,

was a complicated hang.

But my fledgling, the Vampiress Gabriella,

was anything but.

And with the band at sound check

and Jarda playing billiards on the other side of town,

she and a less pharmaceutically challenged me

found an evening to catch up and kill time.

And there was simply no one in the garden more effortless

in killing time than her.

Why were you in Chicago?

- I wasn't.

I was glamping in Húsavík.

- You're lying.

- My maker called for his mama,

and I came...

and came and came.

- Yeah, about that. - I know.

We really shouldn't.

- We need to make a pact if you're gonna stay.

- Up to you.

- I want you to stay.

- A pact, then.

- Hmm. - Hmm.

- Companionship without the "com."

- We need a new lie.

Weave a basket and fill it with bullshit.

- I missed you.

- We met in Italy, of course.

- Mm.

The Ambrosian Carnival, of course.

- Of course.

- And we wore the same costume, of course.

- And raced across the Piazza del Duomo

to see who would slap each other first.

- And then you unmasked me and, well, this face...

- I recognized myself in it.

- Yeah.

See, it comes back around again.

- Mm.

- How long are you gonna stay?

- Ah...

- I saw you two times last century.

It's not an unreasonable question.

- Long enough.

- [laughs] Long enough for what?

- We-scuse me. - Long enough to see you sing.

[laughs]

For you to show me Muncie,

Wilmington, food courts.

- We-scuse me.

- I want to play cornhole.

- We-scuse me. - The rust on the Rust Belt?

- All the spit on the floor, all the moist cavities.

I want to know this paese grasso.

how it hypnotizes my son for a century.

- We-scuse me.

- Can I take you to dinner, Sofia?

- I would love that.

- We thank you.

- In a glass corner of a glass building,

a group of building glass salesmen

were closing a sale of a substantial amount of glass

sold to a company in yet-to-be-tariffed Germany.

There was to be ritualized saturnalia

in both countries that night.

And we invited ourselves to the one closest to.

A study commissioned

by the Centers for Disease Control

on rates of depression in mid-size American cities

ranked Toledo number two on their list.

Heads are down in Toledo, which makes it a fine city

to travel via the cloud gift,

which was Gabriella's preferred mode

of motor transport.

- Why take so many cars?

- Triumph is a dark road, Sofia.

And each man must find his own exit.

- The worst reveal themselves through time and negroni.

- Nine at the indoor golfing range,

seven eating seafood towers at the Chop House,

five crapped out at the casino,

And then there were three, all tippling by the time

we plummeted back down the backside of Chubbs,

a barcon tetta blocks off the Maumee River.

Our hunger propelled us inside.

And we watched as the remaining items on the menu

marinated themselves in the pole-ravaged sweat

of sex-positive, sex-cynical, sex-stipulated dancing.

They had closed their deal,

and we would close ours.

We watched them, watched them.

And only sometime later would I understand

we were being watched as well

by those who were always there,

a curious tangle of hunters and hunted

that warm spring night.

And then it happened again.

[light music]

- Are you a good boy, Lestat?

- An unamusing muse.

Was this the first soldier over the wall

the Oracle Jenks forewarned me about,

or the last fumes of Detroit?

- If you're ever homesick, there's a classy Italian place

on Adams Street.

- Do they have spaghetti? - Yeah.

Do--do you work here?

[phone ringing] - Oh, go on about the--

- Oh, the-- - Tell me more.

- The waitresses, they gotta sing...

- Lover. - Where are you?

- I'm with Sofia. - I don't want to know.

You have to do a sit-down with Thomas Pitt

and lawyer tomorrow.

- That's your job, lover.

- I'm doing my job, motherfucker.

- No more. We have a pact now.

- What?

- Who's Thomas Pitt? - [grunts]

- The owner of the hotel you defiled in Detroit.

His lawyer says he's a fan and would appreciate

an exclusive fan experience.

- Do I have to fuck him? - Yes.

Call an Uber, go to coffin.

all: Carol! Carol! Carol! - Fine.

- [grunts]

- Thank you, Carol.

- Do you work here?

Wait, did-- did I already ask that?

[laughs]

- You really have to understand,

the Vampire Gabriella,

when she wasn't free-soloing a mountain

or stirring a singing bowl in some dreary village,

she was good company.

Even as you're being out-monstered, out-bantered,

it feels good,

like watching blood down a staircase feels good

or finding a party invitation in your victim's pocket.

Well, I mean, that doesn't happen anymore.

Damned e-invites.

But being with Gabriella is like...

like...like...

[sighs]

- Ah, predatory spirit.

A good candidate for the Great Conversion.

♪ ♪

Uh, Randy, last man standing.

Loves glass.

Also knows somewhere inside that he does not love glass.

[both moaning]

- [sighs] I'm starving.

- Shall we take them both now?

One each?

- I want to share mine with you.

- So we wait.

- We wait.

Do you have a lot of sex?

- I'm a rock star now.

Of course.

- Do you like it?

Like you do the blood?

- It's never like the blood.

[gasps]

We couldn't help ourselves.

[breathing heavily]

We rode the edges of our pact.

- Hi. - Hey.

Just leaving the Chop House.

- You OK to drive? - Yeah, yeah, of course.

- Daddy! - Hey, kiddo.

What are you doing up? - I can't sleep.

- Back to bed. - Listen to your mom.

I'll give you a kiss when I get home.

- OK.

- I love you. OK, bye.

- You are listening to "The Failures,"

Album 15, Side B.

- Estimates on the structural damage

are still being calculated, so the figure we've put forth

was based on comps the engaged architectural firm provided.

- Comps? For a hotel hallway massacre?

- Comparable damages to comparable spaces.

I'd like to add a line for cascading glass.

The parking structure below

had a fleet of vehicles lacerated.

- These cleanup numbers are made up.

- The cleanup numbers in this case

are mostly going towards silencing witnesses.

- This is not my first clown rodeo,

Grace Jones in Gucci.

- Insult received as compliment.

- Anyone who won't take a couple thousand in an envelope,

you guys do the mind-wipey thing.

So you can take that line item

and hold it over your vampire bidet.

We could have done this shit over the phone.

- According to Mr. Pitt here,

your client's the one who called this meeting.

- He did no such thing.

- You stole my personal physician.

You hired my biographer.

You trashed my hotel.

- I didn't know it was your tacky hotel.

- The Detroit coven trashed your hotel.

- I've heard the songs.

- The songs are not about you.

- It feels like a cry for help.

So I flew in because I care.

- Oh, just as you cared in your book.

- We've been through all this.

- The fact that you insulted me

page after page after page after page...

- Take it up with Molloy, who wrote it,

or the Talamasca, who published it.

- And why are you employing Sam Barclay after Paris?

- He's paying down his debts.

- Oh. Bottom line, Louis.

All sins negotiated. - Sam didn't get on a boat.

- Hey, we're here to litigate,

not relitigate. - Sam didn't memorize lines.

- No, he did not direct a play and then come home canoodling

with one of its victims, did he?

Who did that, I wonder? Repeat the name.

- That would be Armand? - Armand!

[laughs]

Santiago, I could understand.

At least he had a presence. But Armand?

- I'm happy to discuss Armand,

if you think that would help you, Lestat.

- Is it true that you had a second home

in Sausalito with him? - We did.

- Did you take turns driving across the Golden Gate Bridge?

Who held the wheel harder? - Yeah.

Writing numbers on each other's backs

and pretending to guess 'em wrong.

- I bet.

I bet! - Come on, Lestat.

- Very specific detail to pluck out of thin air!

Va te faire foutre!

- Are we taking minutes of this?

- I think we can wrap this up dispassionately.

- Yes, let's try and circle back to the particulars.

- Are you two fucking?

- Yes.

- Ha!

"Companion enough for yourself" era over?

- He's not my companion.

He's a great lay and emotionally unavailable.

You doing her?

- Yes.

Petite, surprising, and can perform

what most metropolitan draining systems could only dream of.

- OK.

- Are you enjoying this exclusive fan experience?

- I am.

- Christine, could you please provide

two tickets to Mr. Pitt here and his esquire

for tomorrow night's show?

- One will do.

Lemuel doesn't enjoy your music.

- I do like your merchandise, though.

Healthy margins, considering the size of your tour.

- That's why I own 40% of it.

- Of my merch? - [whispering] 45%.

- 45? My bad.

- I'll look into it.

[cheers and applause] - ♪ I was afraid ♪

♪ I was afraid ♪

♪ I was afraid of losing you

["Why Do I Have to Feel?" playing]

♪ Then I lost you ♪

♪ ♪

[all vocalizing]

♪ Oh, I cried and I cried and I cried ♪

- Sounding a little thin without Alex.

- Larry likes it.

Everyone else is freaked.

- Lestat and his hostage squad.

Get me a shot of his latest friendo there.

- Copy that. Where?

- The Cougar Milanese in the crowd.

- Got her.

- No, no, no, no, not her.

The one standing in judgment of the Buckeye goth.

- The one from the bus? - Yeah.

OK, now go up from her to the balcony

and get me a frame of pretty green eyes again.

- OK, got him. Who is this guy?

- He is the story.

- ♪ Oh, I could sleep for a hundred years ♪

- [telepathically] Mr. du Lac, what brings you to Toledo?

- You're looking younger, Daniel.

- Monocytes and Mounjaro.

- I'm still pissed.

- Want to brawl it out in the alley after the show?

- All right.

- [vocalizing]

♪ ♪

- Mr. Molloy?

- What the fuck are you doing here?

- [vocalizing]

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

[cheering stops]

♪ ♪

♪ Oh, I, I tried to write you ♪

♪ The prettiest song in the world ♪

♪ But I got distracted

♪ Oh, and I didn't ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪

[cheering continues]

♪ Oh, why, why, why do I have to feel? ♪

♪

♪ This pain ♪

♪ It's too much, it's too real ♪

♪ ♪

- Call comes in from some Hollywood asshole

asking me whether I want to write

the movie version of the book.

I'm like, blow me. Lose my number.

Calls me back a week later. What about a documentary?

I'm like, Louis won't even talk to me.

He says, not Louis, Lestat, the white guy.

- Old friends talking around the small betrayal

that kept them apart.

And I know what you're thinking.

"He wasn't there."

But this is my hour.

And when tertiary figures appear in it,

I will be speaking for them.

Daniel, Mr. du Lac, anyone I feel

is important towards understanding

how I woke the Queen and unleashed

her wrath upon the world.

I am everywhere.

And rest assured, it comes with less whining

than their attempt.

Did it happen in a bar with a view?

I say it did.

- How are you taking to the gift?

You enduring?

- I'm all right.

Vampire loneliness, I get it now.

I've taken up bowling.

And I have this weird thing that happens where, suddenly,

everyone around me disappears, like the rapture has come,

and I--

you know--

I feel him.

- Armand?

- Yeah.

That happen with you and Lestat?

- No.

- Oh.

- Sounds weird.

- Look, I-I'm sorry. OK?

I-I should have asked you before I published.

I'm-I'm-I'm sorry.

- I would have said no.

- I can't fly.

I can't start fires.

All I get is the low-hanging balls gift.

I wanted something out of it.

- I'm glad the book worked out for you.

- Didn't do too much damage to you.

Or whoever you are, Thomas Pitt.

Hotels, bars, mall, retail.

- I saw money on the table.

- You read it?

You liked it?

- I didn't like me in it.

Passive, selfish, a liar.

And not the "lying to myself" kind,

a fucking liar.

The writing's good. Hard read.

- [laughs]

He didn't like the part

about Claudia and him on the train.

[laughs]

- Yeah, we were finding our way back again

when the book dropped.

It hurt him.

[light jazzy music playing]

- I called one of my daughters the first month dead.

Called her again during the book tour.

Hung up, hung up.

Probably the right move.

- I saw Claudia.

In New York, coming up the subway.

- Claudia?

- Someone--someone who looked like her,

but in her 20s, if she'd made it to her 20s.

Saw her come up.

I watched her turn the corner.

- Happened to be going in the same direction,

kinda, sorta.

- [scoffs]

I-I saw her walk into a diner.

And I couldn't help myself.

I go inside.

I grab a booth.

It's not her.

She's not there.

Chased a ghost, I guess.

So I order a donut and coffee, you know, just to pass.

Then she comes out the back in a uniform.

It's not her.

This one's got a different walk and accent.

I'm not in her section.

I walked out.

- Don't eat me for this, Louis.

Uh, my producers want to meet you.

- Rashid?

- Rashid, Daniel Molloy,

Raglan James, Louis de Pointe du Lac.

We all worked together in Dubai.

Burj Al Arab,

now HavenMed Senior Care Headquarters.

- Said I'd introduce you.

They got me on retainer.

- Mm-mm. Not cool, Daniel.

- We argued about this cover.

[somber piano music]

[somber piano music]

♪ ♪

- What does he know about me?

What did you tell him?

- That you died in 1794 of consumption.

A mercy--saved you from the peasants' revenge

on our family.

- I only ever saw the aftermaths--

your slit throat slow to heal,

your rotting roof and bathrobe stuck to skin.

An aloof poetry behind the eyes.

Uncanny beauty.

An elusiveness.

Come, go, yes, no.

I see why you gave him a daughter.

I see why you took her back.

[piano playing stops]

- And we were having such a good night, Sofia.

- And now we're not?

Forget I said it.

- [singing in French]

- Your father's tongue.

- My tongue.

And Italy never made a Baudelaire.

[singing in French]

♪ ♪

We should head home to the tower.

- The night is young. We travel so fast.

We could be there in an hour.

- My mother.

♪

[singing in French]

♪ ♪

- I'll race you back to the house!

[children chattering and laughing]

♪

- [screams] Mama! Papa!

[all screaming]

♪ ♪

[light piano music]

- There were eight people on the ark--

Noah, his wife,

his three sons, and their three wives.

Eight people.

And now, somehow, 8 billion.

At some point in your privileged family tree

is the thing we are discussing now.

And familial relations were not a standalone crime

in the 18th century.

And she was dying when she came to see me.

[sighs] Fuck it.

It's different for vampires. That's it.

- Distribution of fentanyl for half of Michigan,

operation of an unsanctioned

and unsanitary farm from their home,

and, in a surprising labor of ambition,

managed to take down the MISO power grid the other night.

Not the pneumatic tube

the upper floor wants to receive.

- So Real Rashid is really Rashid?

That's his actual name?

- Ah.

I em-pha-size the first syllable.

Rah-shid. Rah-shid.

Do you have a preference?

- No.

- I have a plane waiting for me.

- This coven in Detroit, they were the ones

responsible for the damage to your property.

- I'm insured, and, uh, I knew that already.

- They tried to decapitate your love.

- What's the ask, Mr. James?

- [sighs]

We would like you to take care of our problem

in Detroit, Mr. du Lac.

- No.

- One, we're understaffed and overworked,

the exponential growth in your numbers

not helping matters.

Two, the shop's protocols of engagement

limit our roles in these kinds of operations.

We clean up, we don't make the mess.

And three, you're extremely skilled at dispatchment,

Mr. du Lac.

Paris, Dubai.

How many in Dubai, Rashid?

- 31. - 31?

- 32 if you count Agent Talbot.

- No great loss. None of us liked him much.

- I only kill those who come for me first.

- The coven leader's name is Killer.

- Tell Vampire Sam I'm gonna need him

in Vegas and Reno next month.

- Been tracking him since 1925,

a coffin offloaded from a boat out of Copenhagen.

- I don't care.

- Went by a different name then.

His name was Bruce.

Bruce.

Mm.

I believe your Claudia spent a few nights with him once.

Hmm?

[music crescendos]

-Listen to tracks from "The Vampire Lestat"

wherever you stream music.

Evening, Dan. Happy to be here.

♪ Give me a million more screams ♪

Nicolas de Lenfent.

Lestat. What are you doing in Paris?

♪ Give me a million more screams, ha ♪

[Screaming]

Your mother? [Explosion]

[Laughs]

I want you to love me enough to give it to me!

♪♪

♪ Anybody but us ♪

-How did I get here? -Sofia.

-Sofia?

-Forgotten my name already?

♪♪

-Hello, Sofia.

♪♪

-Within this context of the failures,

the first big failure was the failure of his family unit.

-Are you a good boy, Lestat?

♪♪

-Answer your brother, Lestat.

-As a kid, his mother was the only person

in this very hostile environment

who sort of showed him any sort of affection.

-When they first knew each other as humans

and Gabriella was Lestat's mother

300 years ago, they lived in a situation

where neither of them had any agency or power.

She had a horrible relationship with her husband

and was deeply unhappy and lonely.

-There's a lot that you learn about who Lestat is

when Gabriella, his mother, shows up.

-Now the wolves, they are taking our sheep.

They will snatch a babe soon.

-Go home!

There's nothing more we can do here.

-But be men!

-She knows that if anybody's gonna get up at that table

and try to solve this problem with the wolves,

it's going to be Lestat.

-The killing of the wolves

is connected intrinsically to Gabriella.

Gabriella is saying, go out and be something.

♪♪

This is Lestat's moment to be like, "I'm gonna do something.

I'm gonna make something of my life,

and I'm going to go out and kill them,

even if I die."

♪♪

-[Singing in French]

♪♪

-When Lestat kills the wolves, he's 30 years old,

and in Gabriella's mind,

he's been at home longer than he should have.

-From room to room, slaughtering the three of them.

That's what I dreamt when I killed the wolves, Mother.

-That is a shared desire between the two of them,

and then that's given him enough impetus

to get out and go and do something.

-He goes to Paris. Turns into a vampire.

His mom's dying. Turns his mom into a vampire.

♪♪

-[Singing in French]

-Once Gabriella is turned into a vampire,

they both want to go back and kill them,

and now they can.

♪♪

-[Singing continues]

♪♪

-She can now live the life she's always wanted to live.

And vampirism liberates her.

-I was absolutely drawn to Gabriella's

absolute love of being a vampire.

For her, it is almost like a finding of herself, I think,

or certainly the only time in her life

that she has had autonomy and power.

-Do you have a lot of sex?

-Of course.

-Do you like it like you do the blood?

-It's never like the blood. -They love each other.

I mean, they're mother and son, and they're lovers.

I mean, and they're fledgling and maker,

and, I mean, they have a super complicated relationship,

but they're the only people still alive

that both knew each other when they were human.

I think that's really important.

It's like, you know me,

who I really am, you know where I came from,

you know what my fundamental drive is.

And you remember me as a human being

before I was this other thing.

So, they're deeply connected,

and it's toxic, but, you know,

everything's toxic in vampire world.

♪♪

♪♪

-You stole my personal physician.

You trashed my hotel.

-The Detroit coven trashed your hotel.

-I heard the song. -The songs are not about you.

-It feels like a cry for help,

so I flew in because I care.

-I think Louis is being a complete troll in that scene.

He gets off on making Lestat angry, I think, to some extent.

-Did you take turns driving across the Golden Gate Bridge?

Who held the wheel?

-Writing numbers on each other's backs

and pretending to guess them wrong?

-I bet. -[Sighs]

-I bet!

-It's a really fun scene.

It's a real attack,

and he knows he's gonna rile him up.

-It was quite strange to go from being this,

like, very strong, centered vampire

to being just sort of petty. [Laughs]

-Christine, could you please provide two tickets

to Mr. Pitt here and his esquire

for tomorrow night's show?

-Just one will do. Lemuel doesn't enjoy your music.

♪♪

-As petty as he's been,

I think Louis is looking forward to seeing Lestat's show.

[Cheers and applause]

-♪ I was afraid, I was afraid ♪

♪ I was afra-a-a-id ♪

♪ I'm losing you ♪

-He's also impressed.

This is what he should have always been doing.

♪♪

-A lot of his songs, you don't really know who they're about.

Could be about Louis. Could be about Nicki.

Could be Gabriella.

-It's very on brand for Louis

to think every song is about him.

And then on another level,

I think there's probably, like, a gossipy side of Louis

that's like, "Who is this about?

When did this happen? Who was that?

Who is he? Who is she?"

-Could be about just the fact that

why does he have to feel in general?

Because he is a very emotive character,

and he kind of gets totally riled up in his own emotions,

and he'll ride them.

So, I think that can be a frustrating thing.

I mean, he's obviously doing a very intensely

power-thrusting version of the song

and intentionally ignoring Louis

until he can't anymore.

♪♪♪

♪♪

-♪ Oh, I, I tried to write you ♪

♪ The prettiest song in the world ♪

♪ But I got distracted ♪

-When he gets the book and he sees

that it's all scribbled and scrawled,

and I think it's when the guilt really starts to creep in.

-This is the first time they've had a little

private moment about it.

Louis has that kind of effect on Lestat,

that he, you know, will get so angry that he'll freeze time

and fly up to him and sing in his face.

Yeah. [Laughs]

-♪ Oh, why ♪

♪ Why, why do I have to feel ♪

♪♪

♪ This pa-a-a-a-in? ♪

♪ It's too much, it's too real ♪

♪♪

[sweeping music]

♪ ♪