Isobel Grieve
The following review contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of Interview with the Vampire, S2E8, “And That’s the End of It. There’s Nothing Else” (written by Rolin Jones & Shane Munson and directed by Levan Akin)
What a stellar conclusion to Interview with the Vampire Season 2! This finale was emotional, driven, and cathartic. Although the twists and turns are fun and exciting, the Season 2 finale is not overly dramatic or mind-bogglingly complex.
There is plenty of room for Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) to continue the story as in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series. He invokes the name of an elder vampire from later works. There has been some pondering in the fandom about where in Lestat’s story Interview with the Vampire takes place, and who along his journeys he has already met or yet to meet and learn from. This is particularly promising for fans as more in-depth world-building may come in the recently greenlit third season.
Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) addresses the emphasis on religion and the contemplation of damnation in the Interview with the Vampire Season 2 finale. He moralizes his life and draws similarities between himself and stories of the Bible. As for Anne Rice’s original work, this contemplation has been a throughline, just like Seasons 1 and 2.
The burning of the Theatre des Vampires is similar to the novel Interview with the Vampire except for minor details; in the TV series, Louis never gets to see the remnants of Claudia and Madelaine’s bodies, nor is Lestat still mourning in the theatre. However, the meeting between Louis and Lestat in 2022 was nearly identical to the confrontation between the two from the original novel. Context and emotional specificity in the finale enhanced what was on the page as Louis and Lestat acknowledged their grieving.
I was stunned by Anderson and Reid’s performances in this scene in New Orleans. The conversation about Louis’s attempted suicide was heartbreaking. Their connection runs so deep that their love and appreciation for one another is something they will carry for the duration of their prolonged lives. Everything about the main plot of Seasons 1 and 2 ties back to Claudia and the two men who fathered her. Therefore, the loss of her presence impacts everything.
The Interview with the Vampire Season 2 finale is essentially an epilogue of aftermath, consequences, realizations, and growth. We wade through Louis’s reflections, acceptance of his gift, and Claudia’s death. We experience his gradual grappling for peace, learning the truth, and moving on.
Daniel Malloy’s (Eric Bogosian) connection to Talamasca comes to fruition in this episode. The mention pulls on strings to other greenlit series at AMC, expanding Anne Rice’s world on screen to the Mayfair Witches and Order of the Talamasca: a company of humans researching and compiling evidence of Vampires and Witches. This is the Order that Real Rashid (Bally Gill) and Raglan James (Justin Kirk) belong to. This is where the original script of the trial came from, with all of Armand’s directorial notes.
THE SCRIPT! Watching Malloy take down Armand (Assad Zaman) was an incredible reveal and highly gratifying. Armand’s snakey ways, the false memories he planted in Louis and Daniel, his emotional manipulation, and his betrayal were well-plotted throughout Season 2. Armand is creepy in hindsight, yet he is also a product of his upbringing, a vampire relic of impoverished morality.
It’s a bit depressing that Daniel Malloy was turned into a vampire. I hoped his story would have more resolution between his ex-wife and children. Yet, we see him lean into his arrogance in the press junket he does for the published Interview with the Vampire book. The realism is fixed, with regular society taking the memoir as fiction, while Malloy insists it is true. We are reminded that no matter the evidence of supernatural beings, the claims will always be contested. It is also the foundation for what will come in Season 3 of Interview with the Vampire.
In the final minutes, we are bombarded with the voices of Vampires internationally discussing the crimes listed in Daniel Malloy’s Interview with the Vampire book. These voices open up the possibility of world-building, introducing new characters, other covens, older vampires, the origins of Vampires, etc. All of these themes and anthropological myths are explored in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches series, which leads me to believe that AMC has plans to create its own Anne Rice Cinematic Universe.
My concerns are that with the expansion of the stories and characters, some of the heart and depth of storytelling will be forgotten in favour of pulp fiction. I want the darker philosophical themes to continue; I don’t want another Walking Dead franchise where all the societal parallels are forgotten in favour of mass-produced shock-value TV. I want the stories to continue to contemplate morality, humanity, and our purpose for life, along with the messy conditions of personalities built on weakened empathy.
