Based on Anne Rice’s books, Interview with the Vampire arrived on TV in 2022, focusing on the first book in The Vampire Chronicles and following Louis de Pointe du Lac’s story. This year, the series entered its third season, but it was officially announced under a new title to showcase Lestat de Lioncourt’s perspective on everything that happened. With that, The Vampire Lestat arrived with a different approach in many ways, even adapting its style to match the character himself. However, while it raised expectations among fans, the execution hasn’t been as well received. Yes, the show is still great, but overall, some issues prevented people from having the same experience they had with the first two seasons.
At this point, as we head into the seventh and final episode, there’s already enough material to understand what the new show got right and where it fell short. There are plenty of things to discuss, but we selected some of the points that stood out the most. Here are 4 things worth highlighting about the first batch of episodes of The Vampire Lestat.
In IWTV, Louis was the main protagonist, but here he takes more of a supporting role. From a fan’s perspective, that might not seem like the most exciting idea, considering that, so far, he and Lestat have had very few scenes together (and one entire episode). However, looking at it from the outside, it’s actually a really interesting choice. Louis’ arc in the previous seasons ended in a very impactful way, but it also made it clear that there was still guilt, trauma, and regret tied to everything that happened in the past — things he would now need to overcome. And that’s exactly where the strength of his role in The Vampire Lestat comes from.
While everything involving Lestat is incredibly chaotic, the moments focused on Louis almost feel like a breath of fresh air, giving the audience a chance to return to the more contemplative tone of IWTV (which also fits the character’s personality). We are following a deeply wounded vampire who still can’t move past Claudia’s death, stays close to Regina because of it, and comes up with questionable strategies to cope with his problems. That entire complexity makes him fascinating to watch. Louis is already a character who was positively reinvented compared to the source material, and naturally, there is always a desire to spend more time with him. His journey remains just as compelling.
The idea behind The Vampire Lestat, even though it also covers events from other books and therefore moves the overall story forward, is to show Lestat’s perspective on the past we previously experienced through Louis. And as every fan knows, the tone and pacing of the new season were naturally going to be different because Louis is more reserved, while Lestat is the agent of chaos. The problem is that it’s difficult to follow the progression of events since there is just too much happening at the same time. This new phase has a different identity, with a lot more color and glamour, but maybe the structure of the show should have been better planned so the audience had more time to process all the information.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but considering we are heading into the final episode, it’s difficult to defend. It’s not that the story is too complicated to follow, but it demands a lot from the viewer, and that is not necessarily a positive thing. There is a lot of jumping between different timelines and reveals, and Lestat’s narration can be confusing because he struggles to organize his own thoughts. It makes sense for the character, but the experience of watching the show can be challenging. The Vampire Lestat sometimes feels less like a story moving forward and more like a collection of ideas competing for your attention.
Anyone who has read the books and then watched the 1994 movie, as well as Queen of the Damned from 2002, has seen that the actors’ interpretations of Lestat work in their own ways (or don’t), but there is a massive difference when Sam Reid enters the conversation. Since the first season of IWTV, people have been talking about the actor and how it feels like the character completely possesses him whenever he is on screen, to the point where it’s almost frightening. And why does that happen? Even though Reid himself has mentioned that he would have loved the chance to talk with Rice about the vampire, it’s clear that he understands exactly what makes Lestat so captivating: the uncomfortable mix of charm and destruction.
Reid makes the character feel like someone who walks into a room and immediately takes control of everything, while also being desperate for someone to choose to stay. The actor embraces Lestat’s fun, extravagant, and theatrical side, but he never lets the audience forget that there is something deeply broken underneath all that confidence. It’s an incredibly detailed study of the vampire, down to his smallest traits, making him easier to connect with even when he is selfish, cruel, and manipulative. And that is a difficult line to balance, because there is always the risk of romanticizing his actions or portraying him as a monster — Reid manages to avoid both extremes. His performance is totally outstanding.
The Vampire Lestat is based mainly on the second book in The Vampire Chronicles, even though it also incorporates elements from other novels (as the series has done since IWTV). So when this was confirmed, many fans expected Lestat’s past to be explored in depth, especially because the book itself puts a major focus on that. But instead, the show mostly takes place in the present, using moments from the vampire’s life mainly to justify certain aspects of the story. By now, it is already clear that the plot is moving toward the major events of The Queen of the Damned, and a good portion of Lestat’s past has already been touched on. But was it enough? We still know very little about what shaped him.
And in Lestat’s case, his past is not just extra information; the way he loves, controls, provokes, and hurts the people around him comes from centuries of experiences that influenced how he views affection, connection, and survival. The series gives us some hints about that, but it doesn’t actually explore them. His mother Gabriella is obviously important to understanding this part of him, but focusing only on her is not the solution. Will Lestat’s past continue to be shown only through short flashbacks in future seasons? IWTV was based on a relatively short book and was split across two seasons, while The Vampire Lestat came from a much larger novel and ended up wasting more than half of the story in a single season.
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