Original subtitles

-Watch "The Vampire Lestat: After Dark"

on AMC+ or wherever you get your podcasts.

- Previously on "The Vampire Lestat"...

- Ask for it, child.

The light's going out of your blue eyes.

His name was Magnus.

He kept me for a week, locked in a room full of corpses.

It's my era now.

- Is it true you were a stutterer as a child?

- You ask this question every night.

- I won two Pulitzers.

I'm taking this thing to Cannes.

- How did I get here? - Sofia.

- Hello, Sofia.

- My maker called for his mama, and I came.

- My first paramour,

Nicolas de Lenfent, a violinist.

[both speaking French]

- There are four pages torn out.

- It was better when he broke my bones.

It was when he had me pinned, and he'd tell me he loved me.

That fucked me up.

- We would like you to take care of our problem in Detroit.

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

[static crackles]

- You are listening to "The Failures,"

Album 22, Side A.

- The vainglorious homogeny of the Toronto skyline

is something to behold,

an onslaught of impractical condominiums

dominated by a 147-floor Waterpik.

Its banality is lost

on the polite citizenry of Canada.

To them, it's iconic

and what the friends and family

of Avery Olson and Natalie Boekelheide

confirmed as a must-see

when the two planned their honeymoon

and waited for Avery's divorce to finalize.

Had they stayed within the realities of their budget

and consummated their union in their home province,

the marriage might have lasted longer.

But love born from a speed dating event

in Moose Jaw, "Sakasatchewan,"

merited an unhurried commemoration.

Can I offer my assistance?

- Oh, mercy.

Aren't you the angel? [laughs]

- Very kind of you, sir. Thank you.

- My pleasure.

I know these moments last a lifetime.

- [clears throat]

- Just make sure we're not in the center-center

and that the tower isn't coming out of his head.

- Mm, the rule of thirds, the golden mean...

And thus amenities

from the Radisson Blu honeymoon package

went unused, exchanged, as they were,

for a vampiric appointment in Samarra.

[camera shutter clicking]

Gabriella's divine intervention had raised

my raptorial spirits, and I channeled our kills

into prurient performances, licking the underside

of Lake Erie in Cleveland and Buffalo

before rounding the shaft of Lake Ontario.

[phone ringing]

Lover.

- Where are you?

- [moans]

- Where are any of us, really?

- Is that him? - Oh.

- Give me that.

Hey, Justin Bieber, I got 40 fucking people here

with their hands up their asses.

- Did you misplace something, Dan?

- I'm done chasing you, Busta Coffin.

I saved your life. You owe me.

- Perhaps.

- I do.

I do.

[clicks tongue] I do.

- You'd be a head mounted above a coven toilet

if it weren't for me.

- Transformational trauma, Daniel.

- He's with Sofia again.

- What do you know about her?

- Mystery vagina past its sell-by date.

- And what do you mean, "perhaps"?

- You assume death at decapitation.

A study done in Budapest had two class B vampires

surviving separation for nearly two hours.

A vampire of Lestat's breeding

could last four to five times--

- Czechstat has the herps.

- Daniel Molloy, delivered unto the world

April 16, 1953, into the arms of his mother in a hospital,

I assume.

It's not something vampires ask one another,

the details of their mortal existence.

It's considered rude. [clears throat]

Nurtured or not nurtured,

nudged in San Francisco towards a career

of distinction and moderate fame.

- After the can, chief. - Sorry.

- Murdered and reborn July 18, 2022,

by the gremlin Armand.

He led a brief, incidental life as a vampire.

Incidental-- hmm, is that the right word?

He found me shallow.

I gave him every reason to.

I have regrets when it comes to Dan.

- Oh, sorry.

Yeah, uh, he's here.

[quirky music]

♪

- Ciao.

[laughs]

- Ahoj.

- What's that on your lip, Jarda?

- OK, we're gonna be using a new camera today.

It's called an Interrotron.

I'll be sitting here, but you're gonna see

my face in the camera.

It'll be like we're talking face-to-face.

- It's 100 for me.

- And we're shooting this in color,

and we're gonna anchor it

to all the black and white tour footage,

OK? - Rolling!

- So you were a stutterer as a child.

- Evening, Dan.

Happy to be here.

- Could you state your name for the camera, please?

- I'm the Front Man Lestat.

- The Vampire Lestat.

- I'm immortal, more or less.

The light of the sun, the sustained heat

of an intense fire,

Jefferson Starship,

garrote-wielding coven members, these things might destroy me.

- [laughing]

- But then again, they might not.

[both laugh]

["All Fall Down"]

♪ ♪

♪ I'm the little killer ♪

♪ I'm the lonely one ♪

♪ I'm the chill creeping up your spine ♪

♪ Telling you to run ♪

♪ I'm a hanging shadow ♪

♪ I'm a 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 ♪

Ugh. Well, that was shit.

- You've said this thing to me a couple of times on the bus,

backstage, that the songs are your story.

- Must be important if I repeat it.

- Or it's a doorstop

because you don't want to talk about yourself.

- Mm. Now, kick that door down, Dan.

I've bunkered down with my cookies

and trauma long enough.

- Exactly my thinking.

So let's run with this.

Let's dig into these songs and see what we get.

- Mm.

- You have a song, "Long Face."

The lyrics are,

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, wah-ah.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, wah-ah."

What's the story behind that? - [laughs]

- "Long Face" is an agreement

between myself and the audience,

permission disguised as anthem.

- "Oh, yeah, we're coming.

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming.

Oh, yeah, I'm coming."

- [laughing]

- "I'm an actor in my makeup.

I'll get fatter if and when we break up."

Performative vampire, and at the end,

they get the real thing.

- "Black Licorice."

- Structure and ritual.

Judged and drained,

thrilled and shamed, left wanting more.

- Well, that's great, because the--the band thinks

that the song's about--

- How the current culture has misshapen the mortal mind

and how easy and unsatisfying

the bringing of death has become.

You must have experienced this, Dan.

The memories you take in as you kill.

Life as a endless cache of influencer videos,

Russian dash cams, and shame-ridden pornography.

[chuckles]

Or are we still pretending that you're human?

- So not about sucking dick?

- Mm. Performative journalist.

- Were you a stutterer as a child?

Oh, he--he doesn't like that question.

Well, we can-- we can come back to it.

Um, let's talk about what happened in Detroit...

- Christine. - The other night.

- Somebody get Christine!

- Some vampires tried to kill you, yeah?

- Is it a question if you merely put "yeah"...

- Christine, please? - At the end of a sentence?

- Coming! - Pretty weak bunch,

but they seemed organized, which is different...

- Christine. - What's wrong?

- Than the other two attempts on your life during this tour.

- He's entrapping me.

- Is this self-financed vanity romp

your vampire wishful... - The stuttering.

He promised he would not ask.

- Spin on "hope I die before I get old"?

Is my doc your eulogy?

- Did you promise him?

- I don't do promises.

- I've had 40 shows in 43 fucking nights.

Nobody gives a fuck about what I was before.

No one cares.

- No one seems to give a shit about you now,

flatlining at 1,000-capacity venues.

- Let's take a walk.

- You're confused about the pursuit, Dan.

It is not about asses on seats

or streams on Pandora.

It is about pure expression!

Raphael's "Three Graces,"

Brancusi's "Bird in Space," Calvino's "Invisible"...

- Ooh, ooh, ooh, wah-ah.

- "Cities"!

- [chuckles]

- [scoffs]

[tearfully] It's embarrassing, the stutter.

- Stop the cameras. - No.

- No, no, no, no, no, no.

- No, no. - Come, let them see.

Let them see.

I have had

40 shows

in 43 fucking nights!

No one cares!

[sobbing]

[laughing]

[sighs]

I'm the Vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac,

undone by your relentless questionings, Mr. Molloy.

[laughing]

[hip-hop music playing]

♪ ♪

- Hello.

I'm making a brief call to share

an important message with you.

- You got the wrong addr--

[gagging]

[distant sirens wailing]

- I'm looking for Killer.

- [grunting]

- Don't. Don't do that.

Just think it.

I'm a vampire, just like you.

Except I didn't disrespect my face like you done.

What is that?

Is that Jar Jar Binks dunking a basketball?

What--

where's Killer?

- [exhales]

["Jewel"]

♪ ♪

[gun cocks, gunshot]

- ♪ Well, I've got a little babe ♪

♪ With jewels upon her lip ♪

- Vester? You get another possum?

Vester?

- ♪ Well, I've got a little babe ♪

♪ With jewels upon her lip [knocking]

- What the fuck? - I'm looking for Killer.

- [screams] - You're not Killer.

- ♪ Her hair's like a river, it's fast and slowly drips ♪

- Oh, hey, y'all. Anybody seen Killer?

- ♪ How, how [indistinct shouting]

♪ How, how ♪

- Someone said we got someone!

- Hold still! - [screams]

[indistinct shouting]

- Shit! Shit! - Hey, you seen Killer?

[splatters] How 'bout you?

- [screams] [indistinct chatter]

[clattering and shouting]

[squelching]

- ♪ She bathes in thunder ♪

- Hello! Killer? [glass shatters]

♪ ♪

- ♪ She walks the wind and has a panther with silver fur ♪

♪ ♪

♪ How, how ♪

♪ How, how

♪ How, how, how ♪

- Out the door, through the fields.

♪ ♪

[lock clatters] Keep straight five minutes.

There's a car, gray Dodge.

Don't look back.

♪ ♪

- Eight wolves by yourself.

- Everyone always repeats the number when I say it.

[chuckles]

I had a pistol, a rifle, a dagger, a mastiff.

- [chuckles] The stuttering wolf killer.

- [laughs] Well, that was the first name for our band.

"Hello, Fort Collins, we are the Stuttering Wolf Killers.

Are you ready to r-r-rock?"

- From the ages of 9 to 29, you--

- Stuttered. I stuttered, yes.

And every kill I have made is a response.

My entire psyche is formed from the deformity.

It's like being strapped down in a dentist's chair,

opening your mouth wide, only to have the dentist say,

"I'm not a dentist,"

as he lubes up a thick rubber glove.

So you be gentle, Dan.

- [laughing]

[telepathically] I think he's just bored by you.

Try asking him about the Great Conversion.

- What happened at age nine?

- Mm. - [screaming]

- I was taken to see witches being burned at a stake.

- OK.

Tell me about that.

- Marguerite Doree, Jean Bodin,

the twins Marthe and Amiée Roulet.

Ceased their prayers and adored the devil in ceremony,

said the torch-bearing priests.

- You remember their names?

- Teenage girls with the resonant voices of men

screaming and thrashing for hours

till their jawbones fell

and the devil could sing no more.

- And you were nine?

- Mm.

That's what moms did with kids

before LEGO and Peppa Pig.

Looking back on it now, they were definitely witches--

the twins, that is.

Marguerite and Jean, probably caught

masturbating in a field with a few sick oxen.

Two for four is not bad

considering it was a priestly-led sentence.

- And what happened at 29?

- Hmm.

[distant violin music]

♪ ♪

I heard music. [crowd chattering]

- So you made it to Paris?

♪ ♪

- Eyes closed, mouth distorted.

What struck my heart was the way that his whole body

leaned into the music.

Had I the ear I have now,

I would have found it pedestrian.

But I was an ape from Auvergne,

and it sounded like a god machine

played by an angel.

- Ah, merde!

Take your squeaks elsewhere, or next, I won't miss!

- Well, it must be Herr Mozart rising over all

that disturbs your peace, Madame.

Kindly, piss off!

- This is Nicky, who you sing about

in your song, "Why Do I Have to Feel?"

[distant violin music]

- Nicolas de Lenfent, my first love.

[bells tolling]

- Tell me to piss off again.

- I'm finished, Madame. I have finished.

[chuckles]

[baby crying]

[chuckles]

- Nicolas de Lenfent.

- Lestat de Lioncourt.

- Uh, no. De Valois.

- Turned on your title? - Hey, put that back!

- Wearing pantaloons?

[soft music]

- Trying to fit in.

- In a wolf-lined cloak, eh?

Good luck with that.

♪ ♪

What are you doing in Paris?

- Eight wolves? Impossible.

[indistinct chatter]

- Stacked the heads in the square,

and the children play "hide the heads" with them.

- Sounds like our village.

[both laugh]

[soft music]

It's my father's stitching.

- Mm.

He gave it to me before I left.

And your address on the Rue de Montmor--

[stuttering]

- Montmorency. - Yeah.

- I haven't lived there for six months.

My father's allowance barely covers the cost

of my music instruction,

much less rent, food, and the bribes

to keep me out of the National Guard.

- [laughs]

[crowd shouting]

all: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!

Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!

- Liberty, equality, fraternity.

all: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!

- Pity is treason.

all: Liberty! Equality!

- Long live the Republic!

[laughter]

- You play beautifully.

♪ ♪

- I play like a tailor's son.

[sighs]

Did he say anything else, my dad?

- He said, um...

"Tell him I love him and that I'm proud of him."

- [laughing]

What did he really say?

[both laugh]

- He said, help him-m--

help him to be a man.

But he said it without the stammer.

- Hmm. [chuckles]

Are you gonna teach me to be a man,

Lestat de Valois?

[moaning]

- That goes where you think it goes,

all the old tropes and trapes of tortured and forbidden love,

blah, blah, blah, bipolar boyfriend, blah, blah.

- Put it on. - Fast forward.

Stop. Vape.

Check your phone. Press play.

Oh, good. Now he's a vampire.

- But you're not a vampire.

You're the stuttering ape of Auvergne.

- Si mon tonton, tond ton tonton,

ton tonton sera tondu.

- Any Quebecers here?

- Tongue twisters, vocal exercises

repeated every day for two years

while I washed the floors and emptied chamber pots

at Renaud's theatre, a job I got through Nicky,

who worked in the pit there, so...

- Go pull up the song for him,

that, uh, "Why Do I Have to Feel?"

- Oh, I love that song. - So the stuttering,

you just bullied it out of yourself?

- Yeah, Nicky got me the job that cured my affliction.

It was a first love, not a great love.

Thank you.

[clears throat]

♪ Oh, I could sleep for a hundred years ♪

- Buried yourself in the ground for a century

over a not-great love.

Only thing you carry with you to New Orleans

is a music box reminder of a not-great love.

- I carried the box because I destroyed him, Dan.

I carried the box to remind me what I was capable of.

- You perform a song--

[distant moaning]

Can someone do something about this...

- Quiet on set!

[moaning building]

[buzzer blares]

- [moaning and screaming]

- Uh, yeah, uh, quiet on set.

- [screaming]

[screaming, banging]

- [chuckles]

[moaning trails off]

So you perform a song every night by your abuser.

- [laughs] - "Biggest Fan."

- Abuser. [laughs]

- Go--go pull up the song for him.

- Liberator. Emancipator. - Uh-huh.

He says, "I want to give you everything I've got.

I know you're stubborn, but you have to ask for it."

Did Magnus ask your permission

before transforming you into a vampire?

- I see it as an unbroken chain of similar songs in pop music.

Herman Hermits, "Leaning on a Lamppost."

"Every Breath You Take" by The Police.

I love that one.

Eminem's "Stan."

- According to Louis, "His name was Magnus.

"He took me from my room in Paris

"as I kicked and screamed,

"locked me in a room for a week with corpses.

They all looked like me."

- I mean, does that even sound like me, Dan?

- "My coloring, my physique."

- Where's the artful turn of phrase?

Where's the assonance, the euphony?

This is-- - "He fed on me for a week.

"I thought for sure I'd become one of them,

but instead, he turned me into this."

[audio playing on tablet]

- We'd love you to walk away...

Louis was not there when Magnus abducted me.

- But he was there in New Orleans

when you recounted it.

- And I was not there in Dubai to correct his faulty recall.

- [laughs] Yeah.

["Biggest Fan"]

- ♪ You really caught my eye ♪

♪ I think you're something special, babe ♪

♪ I want to take you out tonight ♪

♪ I think we got real potential, babe ♪

♪ I got a bottle of wine ♪

♪ And yeah, that's me at your windowpane ♪

♪ We're gonna have such a goddamn good time ♪

♪ I want to be your crescendo, babe ♪

♪ Don't let me catch you crying ♪

♪ Don't tell me the spell is breaking ♪

♪ You're so perfect in that raging light ♪

♪ I know I'm hard to look at sometimes ♪

♪ But I'm here for the taking ♪

♪ I want to give you everything I got ♪

♪ I know you're stubborn, but you have to ask for it ♪

♪ I can tell you everything I'm not ♪

♪ Yeah, I'm a dog ♪

♪ And you're my brave little wolf killer ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Yeah, I'm a dog ♪

♪ And you're my brave little wolf killer ♪

- Mm. [chuckles]

I understood my maker.

If I had seen 19 straight performances of my Lélio,

I would have abandoned all decorum too.

- Abandoned decorum?

He made you a monster

and killed himself in front of you.

- [scoffs]

I was an actor at a second-tier theatre,

squatting in a beheaded nobleman's flat

with a severely depressed lover...

- [telepathically] Are you still boring my beauty?

- [telepathically] How was the kielbasa at crafty?

- And as for the suicide, it gave me a lightness

that I would not have known had he loitered

the centuries beside me.

I see the burden written on your face, Dan,

when I say god and you say monster.

Is it your absent but very much alive father

walking around that gives you this lowly idea of yourself,

son of Armand?

- Who needs another victim song?

- [laughs] Exactly.

- Very rock and roll.

Still, it must have been hard keeping that from Nicky.

Armand got that part right... - [blows]

- In my book. - [screams]

- He confronted you on the street,

abducted Nicky, fed him to his coven.

And yet, you hid your vampirism from him, yeah?

Question mark.

- Where am I?

- You're safe.

You're in our room in Paris.

- [breathing heavily] Why am I weak?

- Delirium took you.

I've been your nursemaid.

You've been dull company.

- [breathing shakily]

And this?

- Oh, a rash.

The patterning is typhoid,

or so the doctor you slept through said.

- Our favorite game-- you lie, and I believe you.

- I'm not lying. - A month ago!

Gone out of the window,

as though nothing unnatural happened.

He returns wearing silk breeches.

- I told you, it's a patron...

- Lies on lies on lies.

Sudden vanishings!

Your changed eyes.

[footsteps approaching]

Oh, and your mother.

How is she alive?

- I brought her to Rocamadour...

- Her skin... - For a cure.

The Black Madonna blessed her. - Stretched over her bones!

- Uh, your...what?

Your mother?

- The Vampire Gabriella.

- Blood on her lips! More lies!

- How?

What?

- She followed me to Paris.

Her body was ready to die, but her mind was not.

My first fledgling.

Louis must have told you.

- No. - Hmm.

I thought it was discretion that kept her out of your book.

Hmm.

My love was a small box that I kept him in.

No room for the many hours I talked of her, I guess.

- And she--where is she now?

- She's here right now.

Right here.

She died.

Vampire toddlerdom.

Always the hardest years, as you know--

or don't know, Dan.

[chuckles]

- What do you think about the Great Conversion?

- Oh.

The vampire thing.

Vampires taking over the world, collaborating.

Hmm?

Fucking stupid.

Can you get out of my eyeline?

- Yeah. [chuckles]

- Three flights up.

Your bones would be pieces.

What are you?

What is she?

- Verza stufata.

- Mother. - Outside the theatre,

the ragged man calling Wolf Killer,

blackened passages

and dog-toothed fiends and wait--

- Nicky, you are gibbering.

[clattering]

- I want to know you in this changed form!

- "Don't look to her." - Don't look to her.

- Roget has bought you a house on the quay.

I have opened a bank account in your name.

both: I could move to Auvergne and sell cloth.

Don't buy me a house!

- Mother, please!

- Speaks my thoughts before I speak them.

You gave this witchery to her.

- She was an hour from death.

- Finally admits it.

- Do you want me to murder you?

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

[sobbing]

- You cannot do it.

You mustn't do it.

["Violin Sonata in B flat Major" playing]

♪ ♪

- I've driven him mad.

And now I leave him to this madness?

- You have used up your affection for him.

You know you have.

Don't bring him into eternity.

♪ ♪

Disaster, my son.

- [shouting in French]

- [telepathically] His playing has greatly improved.

- [telepathically] I cannot hear the actors

over his improvements.

- Well, I prefer his music to Gustave's acting.

- Well, you can return to the role anytime you wish.

- And have your cumbersome words in my mouth again?

No, thank you.

- [speaking French]

- Are there blood drinkers in Italy?

- Excuse me?

- Are there covens like this one

in Roma, Venezia, Salerno?

- Does Nicolas know about us?

- Us?

What is us?

- Do you think you're the only one

in the company he drinks from?

- Do you think I am the only one

with disdain for his fledgling?

- Take him aside.

You're the actor manager. Manage.

- You are his maker. Make him.

- Is there an evil older than you?

Your maker Marius--

- My maker is dead. I've told you that already.

[violin building] - Just checking.

- I give and I give and I give

and I give and I give and I give and I give and--

I give you the Theatre of the Vampires,

the greatest spectacle of the boulevard!

[crowd muttering]

- Huh.

[violin music resumes] He was dramatic as a mortal.

He'll find his way.

- No, he won't. - I believe you.

I love you, Lestat.

- [whispering] Christ.

[sighs] There's not room enough in this box

for your desperation.

- [sobbing]

- Has anyone seen the letter opener?

- You don't need a letter opener, Nicky.

We don't get any letters.

- We want to talk about your recent work

in the theatre, Nicolas.

- It's not in the chamber pot.

I left it there a week ago.

You don't like my music, maître.

Well, it's not me. It's my hands.

But I don't have my letter opener.

I think the music... - Sit down.

- Will improve once I find the letter opener.

- We think you should take some time

away from the theatre, Nicky.

- [laughing]

Did you two decide this in the wings, huh?

Or the box?

The Place Dauphine last Sunday?

The Hôtel de Ville

on the Feast of Assumption... - Stop!

- And the night after? - Stop! Stop! Look at me!

Look at me! - The kitchen!

[laughs]

I left it here! I left it here!

- As I warned, his mind is curdled.

- Two years ago, I opened up a letter from your mother.

"How dare you open up my letter,"

he pouted and shouted.

I was trying to make the opener happy.

I was trying to give it purpose.

Here it is.

[screams]

- No!

- [breathing heavily]

- [laughing]

[somber music]

- Lestat, can you cut the other?

I fear I won't be able to with only one now.

- [gasps] Can you help him, please?

- Are you Nicky's?

"No, no." - Nicky, stop.

- "Lost on the way to St. Denis."

- Stop! - "Could you point the way?

Thank you ever so much."

- Stop, Nicky! No!

- [laughs]

♪ ♪

- It's all a misunderstanding, my love.

I wished to serve the god of the dark wood

like the rest.

Forgive me.

My hands are much older than the rest of me.

Forgive me.

[sobbing]

♪ ♪

- Gabriella went to coffin,

leaving us and Armand.

♪ ♪

I told Nicky that I loved him...

From the first seconds I saw him in Paris.

That I was drunk with his love.

I was engulfed by it.

Your maker would tell you I was being kind, but...

In the moment, the words were true.

♪ ♪

I think.

♪ ♪

[chuckles]

I remember the light.

Fireplace reflecting golden

onto his face

and his bare arms.

♪ ♪

But I would not look at the wound.

I could not.

[chuckles]

[sighs]

I, um...

I couldn't do it.

But I watched...

As Armand

pushed him into the fire

and made sure he stayed there

with a poker in his chest.

♪ ♪

Nicky had a bemused look on his face as he burned.

His mouth

formed into a...

a circle.

[laughs]

And he made only one sound.

[low moaning]

♪ ♪

As though he knew

that in death,

it was a nothingness.

[gasping]

I'm hungry.

I'm hungry! - OK.

Can--can we get something that--yeah, OK, we're cutting.

- We tried booking something called

the Ryan Center in Kingston, Rhode Island, 8,000 seats.

I thought this deep in, we'd be able to fill it.

We sold 2,500, including a papering service.

Unlike your last vampire, there are no delusions here.

[indistinct chatter]

Arduous. This tour.

My ego.

And still, it's not what I hunt.

Never say I didn't give you anything.

Keys.

- Tomorrow's venue is staying open so they can soundcheck.

- Let Larry run it!

How was Czech me?

- Like Karlovy Vary-- fun for three minutes,

then you're longing for Prague.

- Prague is that way.

You can dig yourself a hole in Cork

and be buried in a Matej the night after.

- Provoked? - Bored.

- Ah, you'll run fewer reds that way.

There's a shameful tiki bar in Parkdale.

- Rain check, Sofia.

[engine turns over]

[tires squeal]

- Well, that took forever, but...

[laughs] Right?

All right, run it back, uh, about,

I don't know, four minutes.

[exhales]

Been trying to crack those cheeks for two months.

Vampires, they're-- we're just like you.

OK, let's see what we got here.

[indistinct chatter]

What the hell?

Go--go back a few more minutes, please.

Stop.

Wait a-- what am I looking at here?

Did you go back far enough?

All right, let's-- let's keep going back.

Yeah, right about there. Stop.

- Can you get out of my eyeline?

- Yeah. [chuckles]

What the--what the--

where's the part where he talks about transforming Nicky?

[light music]

They--what--

what, he just--he just--

just sat there like a fucking blowup doll

and no one said anything?

Nothing?

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

What is this?

- No, yeah, it was frickin' weirdsville.

Two of you just sat there for, like, half an hour, eh?

- He was crying fucking blood tears.

Did no one see that?

- A mean-spirited telepathic prank,

a price paid for amusing my muses.

It brought poor Dan to his knees

and seeded a hate for me inside him,

there to be watered in the sunlight later.

But what can I say?

Serving cunt has its consequences.

- You are listening to "The Failures,"

Album 28, Side B.

- You gonna carry me into the threshold?

- Yes, ma'am. - Mm-hmm?

- [chuckles] Hold on, now.

[sighs]

Come--come here. - [laughs]

- Oh, I got you, baby.

[both moaning] [distant sirens wailing]

- You gonna make me a mama tonight?

- I don't think it works like that for us no more,

but we can give it a try.

[both moaning]

We're home!

[both moaning]

Now, I told these fools no shouting "surprise,"

but they're trying to get back on my good side.

Come on, let's get you to bed.

What the dick?

- The hell happened in here?

- Shh, shh, shh.

[footsteps approaching]

Shh, shh, shh.

- Surprise.

Congrats on the happy day.

I couldn't make it to the ceremony.

I hope you don't mind me inviting myself

to the honeymoon.

- You make that mess upstairs, friend?

- I did.

- Where's the food?

- I called 'em an Uber.

- [screaming]

[crunching]

[bones clattering]

- What the fuck did you do to my husband?

[screams]

- [groaning]

[whimpering]

- "Armand told the truth"?

You wanna tell me what that is?

- Oh, shit! Oh.

This is--OK.

This is about that fucking Lestat shit?

[groans] OK, yeah, that--

that wasn't my fault.

Got these Gen Z fledglings,

these righteous fuckers who thinks

we ought to be in the sewers and shit.

- Shh. - Used my Baby Jenks as bait.

- Shut up, Bruce.

- You call me Bruce?

'Cause my name is Killer. - Bruce.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

You and I have a friend in common.

- More wine?

Cold tea, they call it here, I hear.

Mm, apples with a hint of...cowardice.

- [chuckles] Still in rags?

- Is this better?

Hmm? Hmm?

- Same face, same smell.

No hope for you, Father Mags.

- [gasps] Not exactly forthcoming

with the vampire journalist.

Left out a few prickly details.

[engine revving]

Uh-oh.

You forgot to put your blinkers on.

- [groans]

[grunting]

- "Bruce walked back from the fire,

"leaned down over me,

"and for a second, I thought I was gonna go right there,

but no."

- Louis de Pointe du Lac.

- "He plunked me onto his motorbike"...

- Wow. Come to my house.

- "And switched into his friendly self."

- The Lord's right hand is lifted high.

The Lord's right hand is...

my strength and salvation!

Shouts of joy and victory resound

from the tents of the righteous.

The Lord's right hand has done--

- No. - [screams]

The Lord's right hand has done--

- No more of that in my presence!

- I will live and proclaim what the Lord has done.

- I'll feed you to the wolves of hell.

- The Lord's right hand has done mighty things!

Back inside!

You got your song.

- [laughs]

- "But when we got to his house"...

- I guess my biggest question is...

- "I'm trying to get this down, dear diary"...

- Why are you tracking me down now?

- "But my hands are dumb"...

- I mean, we all read your little page-turner.

- "And it's all gone dumb in my mind too."

Crossed out. New sentence.

- You tipped over the collywobble shelf

and took the cloth off the long table.

We eat your soul at the long table.

68 courses so far.

We keep waiting for the bill, but the plates keep coming.

And we keep asking ourselves,

when's he going to make an album?

- When we are ready!

[tires screeching] - [laughs]

- She entertains a lot of little French folks

with her death.

I didn't do nothing that bad to her, Daddy Lou.

[grunts]

- "Guess I don't have to tell you, dear diary,

"what it's like to have a person crack your spine,

open you up, and shove a pencil inside you."

- Very odd company at the long table.

A hand.

- [whimpers]

- A finger.

A drummer.

- No.

- A pimp.

- [laughing hysterically] - You.

- [grunts] - Mommy.

Claudia.

- [breathing shakily]

- "And I fought him, even with my broken arm

"and then my rebroken arm.

"But even still, all the bad things happened

"that bad men do.

"He had my legs pulled apart

"and my dress pulled up 'round my waist.

"And that awful, stuffed full,

"too wet feeling down there,

"like I was packed with dirt.

"And I hope one day, he feels this,

"small and cornered

and crushed like a can."

- [laughing]

- "But then there were the parts

"where he brought home kills,

and I sat with him and ate."

- [laughs]

- "I just said what he wanted to hear."

- [exhales]

Ask for it, child.

- "And it ain't easy to like myself 'cause of it."

- All the light's gone out of your blue eyes.

- "I even once felt a twinge of something nice."

- As if all the summer days are gone.

- No.

- "And not the worst thing ever."

- No! - [gagging]

- No!

[screaming]

[gagging]

- "He let me go 'cause I seemed small

"and it looked like he'd won.

"And he did win,

"'cause I want nothing,

"to be nothing

"and say nothing

"and do nothing.

"You know the stupidest of all, dear diary?

"I thought I was the thing lurking in the shadows.

I thought I was."

♪

That's it.

- [panting]

[flames crackling]

[breathing heavily]

[screaming]

- I imagine you naked in your gold, gilded bathtub

wondering why it didn't end on the highway,

how I got onstage the following night

to another feverishly modest audience.

I couldn't pretend anymore

that we were a Ticketmaster must-have

or that I wasn't having a nervous breakdown

or that psychosis wasn't the exhilarating,

horrifying byproduct of romping and stomping

around the hippocampus.

But here's the thing. ["Loneliness" playing]

I loved the music.

I loved it.

It was compelling me forward, pulling me

through the perennial walls of my psyche.

And I thought, why not ride it to blindness?

'Cause it seemed possible this was the muddy bottom,

and on the other side,

a marble floor polished to the horizon.

Music, in its purest expression,

would make me worse

and then make me better.

[cheers and applause] - I love you, Lestat!

- Bring on the muses.

♪ You can't fuck away ♪

♪ The loneliness

♪ It'll wait till you're done ♪

♪ Till you come

[cheers and applause]

♪ Like a vampire

♪ You can't drink away ♪

♪ The loneliness ♪

♪ It'll wait till the next day ♪

♪ Like a headache ♪

♪ Sucking you dry ♪

♪ You can't escape ♪

♪ This loneliness ♪

♪ It'll say, what a mess

♪ How could anybody ever love you? ♪

- [sobbing]

- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

- ♪ Don't hide it away ♪

- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

- ♪ Don't bury those feelings ♪

- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

- ♪ Don't worship that grave ♪

♪ Dug on your own ♪

♪ Don't burn alone ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

[cheers and applause]

[phone rings]

♪ ♪

- Safe?

- Safe.

Nearly home.

- You get what you wanted out there?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- ♪ You can't scream away

♪ The loneliness

♪ It'll stay till the end

♪ It'll rage with a vengeance ♪

♪ You can't love away ♪

♪ The loneliness ♪

♪ Love will fade ♪

♪ And you stay ♪

♪ And you stay ♪

♪ And you stay ♪

♪ And you stay with resentment ♪

♪ You can't escape ♪

♪ This loneliness ♪

♪ It'll prey, it'll press

♪ How could anybody ♪

♪ Ever love you? ♪

- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

- ♪ Don't hide it away ♪

- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

- ♪ Don't bury those feelings ♪

- ♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

- ♪ Don't worship that grave ♪

♪ Dug on your own ♪

♪ Don't burn alone ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

- Hi.

You OK, or can I get you anything else?

- I'm good. Thank you, Regina.

♪ ♪

[crowd cheering wildly]

♪ ♪

- Is he fucking flying?

♪ ♪

- Perfection.

[cheers and applause]

- So they're out there killing it every night.

And I'm following them, you know, on my phone.

Refresh, refresh, refresh.

[sighs]

And they're blowing up.

You're gonna hear about them soon,

if you haven't already.

But I'm stuck here

in Monroe, Ohio, of all places.

I mean, no offense.

[chuckles]

And God, I just want to drink and feel sorry for myself.

Yeah, thank you for giving me another way through.

- Thank you. - Thank you for sharing.

[applause]

- So who else wants to share tonight, hmm?

Come on, guys.

- I will.

I'll share.

Um, hello.

[eerie music]

My name is Arun.

- Hi, Arun. - Hello, Arun.

- Hi, Arun. - Hi, Arun.

- Hello, Arun.

- And...

I am an addict.

♪

-Listen to tracks from "The Vampire Lestat"

wherever you stream music.

-♪ I am the toxic bitch ♪

♪ God Lestat ♪

♪ Oh, come on now, you filthy little spastic fiend ♪

-Puzzo!

-Hi. What can I get you?

-Lestat -- He's going to get us all killed.

-I've got five more shows.

I'm getting bored.

Shall we do it?

Shall we scorch the mortal world?

♪♪

-The stuttering wolf killer, the vampire Lestat.

-Evening, Dan. Happy to be here.

-♪ You really caught my eye ♪

-Molloy is a deft investigator,

but he's never investigated anybody like this before.

And that's gonna become really clear in this episode.

-Were you a stutterer as a child?

-It's a really wild interview scene.

I mean, there's like 300 things happening at one time.

-You perform a song every night by your abuser, Magnus.

Biggest fan. -Ah. Abuser. [Laughs]

-♪ I want to give you everything I got ♪

♪ I know you're stubborn, but you have to ask for it ♪

-You see the music video

of how Lestat wants to portray his transformation,

and he's like, "I'm gonna write you my, you know,

sweet little Taylor Swift pop-ballad song,

make a fool out of my maker."

-♪ Yeah, I'm a dog ♪

♪ And you're my brave little wolf killer ♪

-He wants to think about it as, like,

"He was my fan and he made me,"

but of course the truth within that episode asserts itself.

♪♪

-We cast Damien Atkins for Magnus.

He's a terrifying, vulnerable creature.

And the transformation that he inflicts upon Lestat

is incredibly violent.

-Ready. And action.

-[Grunts]

-We were trying to really make it as brutal

as we possibly could

so that it had a real contrast to his kind of gilded,

music-video version that he wanted to show.

♪♪

And then Damien's got this incredible, like,

neck blood pump, you know,

that I'm getting rained on beneath

and blood going into my eyes.

We tried to make it as gruesome as possible

and really show that it was an actual assault.

And that is something that Lestat, like,

completely carries through his life

is his transformation was a full-on kidnapping, assault.

He's got to reconcile that on a daily basis.

♪♪

[Tires screech, engine revs]

[Horn blares]

-What happened at 29?

-Nicolas de Lenfent, my first love.

-Don't bring him into eternity.

♪♪

Disaster, my son.

-Gabriella cannot bear Nicky.

I think she really is being honest,

and I think she's absolutely right.

She knows that Lestat doesn't really want to spend eternity

with Nicky.

-Does Nicolas know about us?

-"Us"? What is "us"?

-This is one of those scenes that I was really interested

to see how they were going to revisit the theater.

[In French]

[In French]

This is basically a revisit of Armand's story to Daniel

Episode 3 of Season 2,

but now it's through Lestat's eyes,

which arguably is maybe the more truthful version.

-I love you, Lestat.

-Christ.

-And there's also the dynamic of Gabriella.

-Oh, she didn't like Armand.

-You think you're the only one in the company he drinks from?

-Do you think I am the only one with disdain for his fledgling?

-Armand is like the consummate third wheel in every situation.

Louis and Lestat -- Armand. Gabriella and Lestat -- Armand.

And Armand's jealousy really shows.

-Aah! -Don't!

[Liquid dripping]

-He knew that Nicky couldn't withstand what it takes

to live this life.

He was already unstable before he became a vampire.

And Armand has seen vampires succumb to the madness,

so he's not surprised when it finally turns.

-[Whispering] I couldn't do it.

But I watched as Armand pushed him into the fire

and made sure he stayed there.

♪♪

-Malloy thinks he strikes gold.

As it turns out, that's an illusion.

-What am I looking at here? What is this?

-No. Yeah. It was frickin' Weirdsville.

The two of you just sat there for like half an hour, right?

-It isa mean-spirited prank

in the fact that Malloy didn't get it on camera.

But he is talking truth to Malloy

when he gives him his telepathic story about what happened there.

But it's more of a shared experience

between the two of them.

-The anger is deep.

To some degree, Lestat is bullying Daniel.

And I don't respond well to bullying,

and I willpush back hard.

-We would like you to...

take care of our problem in Detroit, Mr. du Lac.

The coven leader's name is Bruce.

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

-At the end of Episode 2, Raglan James tempts Louis

with this getting revenge on the guy who hurt Claudia.

And Louis has a big hole in his heart,

and he feels like doing this will fill it.

-Making a brief call to share an important message with you.

-You got the wrong add--

the wrong...address.

-That first section when he's trying to get to Bruce,

just doing his job.

-What? -I'm looking for Killer --

[Grunts] -You're not Killer. Okay.

-He's become so adept at doing this.

He's very efficient.

And also, he's held himself back a lot

from having that kind of killer instinct.

So then when it comes out, it -- Like, it explodes.

♪♪

The thing that I actually found creepiest about that set

was the bathtubs and the people lying in there fully clothed.

I was talking to one of the people that was in the bathtub.

I was like, "Is that cold or is that warm?"

And they were like, "It's warm."

I was like, "Okay. It's just like a bath.

It's still horrible." [Laughs]

-Action! -[Groaning]

-He wanted Bruce to understand on some level

a degree of the pain

and of the suffering that he put Claudia under.

-You and I, we have a friend in common.

-I personally had a kind of complicated relationship

with Louis reading Claudia's diary entry

because I sort of felt like that's not really his place.

But I think Louis thinks that he's speaking on her behalf.

-And it looked like he'd won, and he did win,

'cause I want nothing... to be nothing.

-It's just important that before he dies,

he can hear it for himself -- the hell that he created.

And then it's -- phew -- done.

♪♪

-[Breathing heavily]

[Sobbing, screaming]

-I think one of the most poignant moments of the season

up to this point

is when we see him in that diner.

-I think he realizes almost immediately

that it can't bring her back, it can't undo the pain.

-Hi. You okay or can I get you anything else?

-I'm good, but thank you... Regina.

♪♪

[eerie music]

♪ ♪