Warning! SPOILERS AHEAD for the Interview With The Vampire Season 1 finale! Retire to your coffin until you can catch up!
AMC’s Interview with the Vampire came to a close on Sunday night after delivering a different take on Anne Rice’s classic tale of the beautiful undead. While many viewers seemed to enjoy the series, which is the first in what is hoped to be several stories set within the world Rice created for her many horror novels, there’s no denying that this twisted story of romance, obsession, and familial love came down to one of the most tense hours of television, which was filled with even more brutal kills than we were used to seeing in one of its episodes. Now, the stars and creator have spoken about why that big finale double cross had to happen that way.
What Did Interview With The Vampire’s Stars And Creator Have To Say About The Finale’s Big Double Cross?
The previous two episodes of the long-awaited reimagining did a great job of leading us to (yet another) big breaking point for our vamp fam of Louis (Jacob Anderson), Lestat (Sam Reid), and Claudia (Bailey Bass). After Lestat showed just how cruel he could be to the man he supposedly loved so much, Claudia (in particular) and Louis (way less so) had had enough, and wanted to get out from under the powerful, toxic thumb of their maker. Baby vamp Claudia was resolute in her decision that killing Lestat was the only way forward for her and Louis, and the finale saw her devise an ingenious plan that kept fans guessing about just how it might work.
In the end, they definitely got the upper hand, and Louis dealt his lover a brutal blow when he slit his throat and let him bleed out, nearly finishing Lestat for good (but letting him live). Now, stars Anderson and Reid, and creator Rolin Jones, have talked about why the big moment had to go down that way with Variety, and said:
Jones: For Lestat, his love language is murder. So who else should it be than [Louis]?
Anderson: To kill him would be to kill a part of himself, and a significant part of who he has become.
Reid: I think he accepts that Louis is going to kill him, and understands, very much in that last moment, that he needs to do this. Where he is right now is a very dark, fucked-up place, and you sort of need this iteration of him to die...It would be sort of a boring cliffhanger to leave the show on, because you know Lestat is coming back.
While Rice’s original novel had Claudia ruling over the entire plan to defeat Lestat from beginning to bloody end, the show changed the narrative by having Louis take the (semi) final stand against his maker and long-time coffin mate. As Jones noted, their early days as a couple certainly showed that Lestat delighted in sharing meals (humans) with Louis and then cleaning up after dinner together (incinerating bodies), so to have anyone other than the younger vamp do the deed wouldn’t feel right.
On top of that, as the former Game of Thrones star said, it makes sense that Louis, despite the savage way in which Lestat hurt him physically, wouldn’t quite be able to pull the trigger on completely killing his immortal boyfriend. Even with all of the things Louis lost because of Lestat’s dark gift (his mortal family, for instance) he also gained some things, and by the time Claudia felt the need to devise this double cross, the two older vampires were too intrinsically linked for Louis to not feel like killing Lestat would be akin to killing a huge part of himself.
As Reid said, his character made no move to stop Louis once he realized he’d been bested. But, my money is on the cunning Frenchman doubting that the much younger Louis would be able to burn him alive or otherwise finish the deed, maybe in the hope that Louis’ actions would finally break the hold they both had on each other going forward.
We don’t know yet just how much we’ll see of Lestat when the already renewed Interview with the Vampire returns for Season 2, but I’m sure the drama will continue to be one intriguing ride week after week.
