Turn it up. The spotlight has swung from the series formerly titled Interview with the Vampire and onto The Vampire Lestat. And this newly reinvented series (not a reimagining, merely a re-tuning) does not so much premiere as kick down the door of the venue, plug in, and start playing before you’ve finished finding your seat.
Three seasons in, and this series is still the best thing on television. It’s louder, bloodier, and more confident than ever.
Showrunner Rolin Jones has said in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that the season’s motto was “adapt or die”, and he meant it. He has taken the season’s title character, handed him a guitar, put him on a tour bus, and set him loose.
Here’s where we are: Following two seasons of interviewing the vampires Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Armand (Assad Zaman) in Dubai, Daniel Molloy’s (Eric Bogosian) book Interview With The Vampire is finally out in the world, and the world cannot decide if it’s an elaborate joke, a genuine confession about the existence of vampires, or something they just don’t give a shit about.
Lestat (Sam Reid) is having a crisis over the very fact that the book exists, and is processing the indignity of having his history and traumas laid bare (and in his opinion, badly misrepresented and mostly wrong) the only way he knows how — onstage, in front of a crowd, at maximum volume.
We meet him mid-tour, playing what he calls “intimate venues” because most of humanity, as he puts it, moved on from vampires rather quickly. His new band, which includes brothers Larry (Noah Reid) and Alex (Seamus Patterson), plus Salamander (Ryan Kattner — also a writer on the series) and Tough Cookie (Sarah Swire), thinks he’s only pretending to be a vampire. The other vampires of the world mostly want him dead. Daniel is tagging along on tour, shooting a documentary about him, and burying whatever emotions of his own might be below the surface with drug-infused groupie blood and bowling.
Just another day in the life of a rockstar vampire.
Except it’s not so simple when your past keeps creeping in around the edges. There’s the return of his vampire mother, Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle), the original complicated woman and relationship in his very long life. There’s his former paramour, Louis (willing to speak to Lestat one day, not the next), who is still reckoning with an eternity without Claudia, the daughter the two of them made together. There’s the matter of who’s haunting every venue, and what they want. There’s Akasha, the Queen of the Damned herself, out there somewhere waiting in the wings. And there’s the question, growing louder by the night, of what it means that the vampire population is swelling in a Great Conversion around them while the world barely notices.
And what of the Vampire Armand, you might be asking? He’s been off on his own, working through some things. But fear not, he is literally the first character we see this season (though as we have never seen him before), as if the show is signaling to fans, “Don’t worry, he’s still here, and he’s still going to play an important role this season.”
(And for those keeping count at home, Armand is in every episode except for one. Breathe easy).
With the Vampire Lestat now taking center stage, what exactly is this new season? It’s rock and roll, baby. It is camp. It is cheese. It is also somehow the most emotionally devastating season of this show yet.
The season plays like Lestat’s deepest cuts, and it assumes you remember the greatest hits already. Lestat and Louis’ relationship, Claudia’s afterlife and her subsequent death, the Paris flashbacks from season two — almost none of it gets a direct retread. The show is not here to hold your hand or carry you from concept to concept. Gone are the linear flashbacks of seasons past, the long, melodramatic monologues. We drop in on moments like we’ve hit shuffle on Lestat’s eras, trusting you to keep up.
Book purists, fair warning: I think you’ll be surprised by how much of this season takes place in the present day (though there are, of course, still lots of flashbacks). But with only seven episodes to fit an entire novel into, the compression works because Lestat isn’t here to dwell upon anything, to determine the details of if it was raining or not (it was). I was surprised by what I consider some pretty major beats becoming one-off lines or happening mostly off-screen (at least so far, critics were given six of the seven episodes, and it’s always possible we revisit some of these moments in the finale, which seems likely given moments shown in the full version of the trailer). But the season is tighter for it.
This season still finds time for fun tangents, though, and features some of the show’s wildest swings yet. I won’t spoil the context, but there is one scene staged like an 80’s music video that is so unhinged I was physically on the floor, howling. Plus, the way Lestat pronounces “Reddit” is worth the price of admission alone.
The performances across the board this season are exceptional, but this is unquestionably Sam Reid’s season. Reid has always been a tour-de-force as Lestat, but here he undergoes a complete transformation, as if possessed by the character of Lestat himself. He isn’t simply performing at being a rock star, he fully convinces you that he is one. He has the swagger, the magnetism, and the ego, but the rare occasions when the mask slips enough to reveal the aching vulnerability underneath it all — the grief, the longing, and the regret — land so much harder for it. Watching Sam Reid peel back those layers over the course of the season feels like watching a masterclass in character work.
And while Lestat may be the titular vampire this season, Jacob Anderson delivers what is arguably his strongest material yet. Louis may no longer be the central narrator, but his emotional journey becomes one of the season’s most rewarding threads. Anderson brings such depth, warmth, and hard-earned maturity to the role, proving that he is just as essential to the show’s success as he was when Louis was the one seducing you with his tale.
Of course, the music has to be good for a show about a vampire rockstar to work, and oh boy, does it work. Composer Daniel Hart has outdone himself with more than a dozen songs that feel both in character for Lestat and so damn good that it’s going to completely redefine the idea of what music written for a TV show is capable of. Sam Reid is more than up for the challenge vocally (and the fact that Reid sang live for the takes is nothing short of astounding, and adds so much more to the performance). Lestat’s songs cross genres and decades, delivering everything from heartbreaking ballads to some of the wildest diss tracks you’ve ever heard. I don’t think anyone is prepared for “Big Boss” — which is going to be the fan favorite of the season, mark my words — or “Stained Glass Eyes”.
(I will leave you with one tiny spoiler in this otherwise spoiler-free review… the “Traaaaap!!” part of “Dancing With Yourself” is indeed in the show. As it should be.)
But underneath all of it, this season’s real subject is failure, and the loneliness underneath it. It’s the thing that makes the strut hollow and the love songs ache. It’s the thing Lestat is screaming over every night and the thing waiting for him and all of our other favorite vampires in the silence after. The failure to save your child. To keep your lover. Failing your fledgling. Failing in ways both the same and new as you adapt to a new life. To be worth staying for, or to be loved the way you actually need to be loved.
Immortality doesn’t heal anything, it just gives you more time to feel it.
You are not prepared, Beautiful Unwell. Hit play anyway.
The Vampire Lestat premires on AMC and AMC+ on Sunday, June 7 at 9pm ET/PT.
