ORBzine - Interview with the Vampire (2022) TV Review

Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Season 1



Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 1] In Throes of Increasing Wonder
Shown 29 Sep 22

Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ), seventy-year-old former journalist, is summoned to interview Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson). This is their second attempt at an interview, since they tried it forty-nine years earlier. Yes, this is a reference to the original book - as portrayed in the movie Interview with the Vampire (1994) .

The TV show tries to differentiate itself from the movie in other ways too. Louis was now a thirty-year-old pimp in 1910 Louisiana, after the Reconstruction era had ended slavery, which explains how he is now African-American. Lestat arrives in town, and becomes fascinated with Louis. The first entire episode is the events leading up to Lestat turning Louis.

This does a few things that are reminiscent of other shows. At least the mixed-race gay sex is original enough to have the black man as the recipient - unlike Watchmen . However, a pair of vampires hanging around in New Orleans is just another episode of The Originals .

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 2] After the Phantoms of Your Former Self
Shown 2nd October 2022

Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) is served dinner. Louis joins him, with some dishes of his own. He still does live feeding, but he only kills animals. His human blood donors are voluntary, from living blood dolls rather than bags, and he shows enough restraint to let them live.

In the flashbacks, Louis learned how to be a better vampire. Unfortunately Lestat took pleasure in killing, in a scene reminiscent of Hannibal Lector targeting the violinist in Red Dragon .

The 1995 movie had Lestat and Louis played by famous movie stars. This version has them played by competent actors who are also complete unknowns in comparison. This is a prime example of the 21st Century phenomenon of the characters becoming bigger than the actors who portray them. Who needs stars when you have talent?

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 3] Is My Very Nature That of a Devil
Shown 9th October 2022

After dinner, Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) continues questioning Louis. They discuss the flawed nature of memory, as Daniel points out Louis' recollections are different from the story he told in the 1970s. Even Louis' flashbacks are uncertain about the details.

In the post-war period, New Orleans introduced a racial segregation law that had a bad effect on Louis' business. This was part of a reactionary religious movement in the USA, a religious revival that included the temperence movement and the KKK, and led to repression like Prohibition and the Jim Crow laws. Louis used his vampiric superpowers to take bloody revenge, like in Watchmen (2019) , which just invited retaliation on the African-American community.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 4] The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding
Shown 16th October 2022

Louis is resting in the daytime, so Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) is allowed to read the diaries of Lestat's second childe Claudia ( Bailey Bass ). She narrates the story.

Claudia started with the mind and body of a fourteen-year-old girl. She had the metabolism of a teenager, so she needed twice as much blood as Louis. Lestat taught her how to kill, and she enjoyed it. Until, that is, she met a young man named Charlie.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 5] A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart
Shown 23rd October 2022

Louis is awake again, so Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) gets to question him about Claudia ( Bailey Bass ). She was killing two people a night - combined with Lestat, they must have killed a thousand people a year. Of course, Lestat carefully burned his kills in the incinerator. Claudia buried hers in a mass grave in the swamp, where they would inevitably wash out in the next flood. Molloy claims he cannot verify the killing spree online, and Louis claims the New Orleans authorities covered it up because they depended on tourism revenue. However, surely there would be some coverage in newspapers or online.

Claudia became obsessed with finding other vamps. She flew the nest, and left a trail of bodies across university campuses. Louis and Lestat skipped the Roaring Twenties, and went straight to the Great Depression.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 6] Like Angels Put in Hell by God
Shown 30th October 2022

Louis takes a few weeks to heal. However, his relationship with Lestat takes six years to recover.

Claudia is a bloodthirsty little horror. She is just as manipulative as Lestat, but she is more subtle so we are supposed to assume she is the lesser evil. That said, she still hunts humans as food instead of taking animals like Louis.

In the framing story, the journalist takes his medicine. He has a flashback to the first time he met Louis, and rediscovers a detail he had long forgotten.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 1, Episode 7] The Thing Lay Still
Shown 06 Nov 22

Claudia has a plan to kill Lestat. However, she refusese to tell Louis the details. Well, she is smart to adopt a need-to-know strategy. Louis has a weakness for Lestat, and while Lestat claims he cannot personally listen in on their telepathy he also withheld his secret ability to fly for twenty years.

Claudia tricks Lestat into holding the annual Mardi Gras party. They pump significant resources into it, while their whole plan hinges on causing yet another massacre. We are presumably meant to be unsympathetic towards the victims, who are rich old white folks, while the murderous vamps are black and/or gay.

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Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2 , Episode 1 ]
Shown th October 2024

Reviewed in our special supplement Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Season 2

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 1] What Can the Damned Really Say to the Damned
Shown 12 May 24

Louis and Claudia ( Delainey Hayles ) have made their way to Europe towards the end of the Second World War. They end up in Transylvania, which looks a lot like the Czech Republic.

Morgan Ward (Blake Ritson - Krypton ), an English journalist, tries to help them. However, the vampires do not feel obligated to reciprocate. After all, Louis has killed thousands of humans and yet the only death he feels bad about is Lestat's.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 2] Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death
Shown 19 May 24

Louis and Claudia ( Delainey Hayles ) have made their way to Paris, which looks a lot like the Czech Republic.

Armand invites them to join his coven. They pose as a circus troupe, with Santiago (Ben Daniels - The Exorcist (2016) ) as the master of ceremonies. Since they target black marketeers they get away with murder, but the sheer number of victims must be overwhelming.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 3] No Pain
Shown 26 May 24

Armand is awake first, so Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) gets to question him about Lestat. This leads to a flashback to the 1700s, when Armand ruled the coven with medieval rules. Lestat's arrival in Paris was the catalyst for change, and the founding of the Theatre of Vampires.

In the modern age, Daniel is approached by a secret agent. This man claims he wants to help, but his allegiences and agenda are unclear.

In the 1940s, Claudia ( Delainey Hayles ) wanted to join the coven. They had an almost foolproof system in place, and she really felt at home there. However, Louis was unwilling to join. This left Armand under pressure to get rid of him.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 4] I Want You More Than Anything in the World
Shown 02 Jun 24

The flashbacks pick up a year and a half after the previous episode. Claudia has performed her theatre role five hundred times, and naturally is completely bored with it. Nobody cares that this means they have killed five hundred humans, which - in the post-war era - would be unlikely to have gone unnoticed.

In the modern day, things do not seem to match up. Louis's photographic portfolio seems to have been padded with work from a more successful rival. Meanwhile, the journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) makes slip a reference to the fire ... something it seems the vamps went to extreme lengths to keep from him.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 5] Don't Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape
Shown 09 Jun 24

Armand nips out for a couple of hours for a snack. While he is away, Daniel questions Louis about what really happened the first time they met. It turns out that neither fully recalls what really happened. They manage to put it all together, piece by piece.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 6] Like the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Made Light
Shown 16 Jun 24

Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian - Under Siege 2 ) continues his questioning. The outsiders contact him again, requesting more help. Armand seems suspicious - how much does he know? After all, he can literally read minds.

Back in the 1940s, Madeline the seamstress is attacked by vigilantes. Claudia intervenes, of course. What is another three or four disappearances? But the next step is to turn Madeline.

Armand took Louis' suggestion on how to run the coven. He allowed Santiago (Ben Daniels - The Exorcist (2016) ) more say in running the theatre company. Unfortunately Santiago gets the playwrite to create a vampiric version of Waiting for Godot. It has no female parts, so not only does it fail the Bechdel test it also gives Santiago's female accomplices a free hand to continue the plotting.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 7] I Could Not Prevent It
Shown 23 Jun 24

In the 1940s, the three good (well, less evil) vampires are put on show-trial at the theatre. This is scripted, and the accused are just props. But how can it be a murder trial if the alleged victim is the main witness for the prosecution?

We see the highlights of Season One, but from Lestat's perspective. He offers an apology to Louis, but how sincere can he be? If he wanted to save Louis, surely he would actually do something. He certainly has a tendency to go off-script and ad-lib, such as when he calls out a homophobic heckler and shames the man for alleged battlefield cowardice.

Interview with the Vampire (2022) Interview with the Vampire (2022) [Season 2, Episode 8] And That's the End of It. There's Nothing Else.
Shown 30 Jun 24

After the show's climax in the previous episode, this is all about tying up some loose ends. The lesser characters are dealt with first, then it is the turn of Santiago (Ben Daniels - The Exorcist (2016) ).

What the show is really about is the love triangle between Louis, Armand and Lestat. Who will Louis end up with?