It’s been a week since AMC aired the season finale for Interview with the Vampire, and we haven’t stopped thinking about it. The adaptation based on Anne Rice’s popular Vampire Chronicles book series brought in old fans and some new ones. The show stars Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and Bailey Bass as Louis, Lestat, and Claudia. It was seven episodes of pure vampire goodness (can we say good and vampire in the same sentence?), and we’re not ashamed to admit we’ve gone back and watched a few of them multiple times.
There were so many incredible moments, and the attention to detail, from the delivery of specific lines the readers know and love to the costumes and setting, made everything come together perfectly. We have still been trying to process everything we watched.
While there were some great moments in the series, there were also a few shockers. Come along with us as we give you the 10 WTF moments from Interview with the Vampire season one.
Interview with the Vampire 1×01 did not hold back in letting us know what we were in for. We’ve watched many vampire programs before, but some tend to tone down the gore and brutality of what a vampire can do.
Not this show.
In the final 10 minutes of the episode, as Louis confesses his sins to Father Matthias, Lestat shows up. In those moments, we see that while Lestat can be alluring and completely charismatic in the way he kills, he also still has a highly vicious side, which is seen when he rams his fist through the face of one of the priests attempting to escape. I still don’t think I’m over that.
2. That Tape Burning.
In “Is My Very Nature That of A Devil,” Daniel attempts to call Louis out on inconsistencies with past interviews. It’s 50 years later, and Daniel is looking to get to the truth. He chooses to be dramatic and tosses the old tapes of his previous interviews with Louis in the trash. He then deletes the voice recording files on his laptop. Louis’ response to that performance is burning up all the tapes. Daniel looks just as shocked as we were. And honestly, with all the shit he was talking to Louis, is it any surprise that he basically said, “okay, you don’t believe anything on those tapes? Well, guess you don’t need them anymore”?
3. That Disrespect For The Dead
When Claudia came into Louis and Lestat’s lives, everything changed drastically. You already know how we feel about her in earlier episodes. Honestly, the way she carried herself during the wake of Louis’ mother in 1×04: “The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding” was so rude it was irritating to watch. I get that Louis had a fractured relationship with his family, but that was still his mother. The audacity of Claudia to stand in front of Louis’ sister and tell her, “The smell is awful,” while people were mourning the loss of a loved one, quite frankly, pissed me off.
4. That Claudia Sun Moment
After Claudia accidentally kills Charlie, the first boy she ever loved, she spirals. In a moment that still has us asking what the writers were thinking, she climbs onto a table and sticks out her arm for the sun to burn her. We all know what happens to Claudia in the book and how she met her demise. That makes this moment feel a bit like she is contemplating suicide. We don’t know if that was what the writers intended us to think, but the optics did not look good.
5. That Body Stash
We can say that the shock value never stops on Interview with the Vampire. We were in shock when Claudia’s stash of bodies and body parts from her victims was revealed as she tried to clean up the mess before the police could enter her room. I mean, if you know Interview with the Vampire, then you already knew there would be a moment like this. But it still didn’t take away from the shock.
Hello, wheezing man in the closet surrounded by flies.
6. That Guy Bruce.
We admit there were quite a few questionable moments throughout Interview with the Vampire. Still, none was more questionable than what happened in episode 1×05: “A Vile Hunger For Your Hammering Heart.” After losing Charlie, Claudia’s IDGAF attitude almost got Louis and Lestat in deep shit. She leaves them for seven years and goes out on her own. While exploring the world and looking for others like her, she meets a guy named Bruce.
Like her, Bruce is also a vampire. He and Claudia sit around a fire and chat. Claudia becomes increasingly uncomfortable when he gets a little too familiar with her. What follows appears to allude to the fact that he raped her. We don’t see it happen, but from Claudia’s diary and the reaction from Louis when Daniel brings it up, it seems like it did happen.
Adding the rape of a woman to every story is not it. Why writers feel this adds to a story is beyond me.
I will say this, though, being a black woman in that time surrounded by white men, even though it is a terrible plot device to add in, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. Many white men sexually assaulted black women because they viewed them as nothing. And that was how Bruce saw Claudia. It was infuriating to watch that scene because I desperately wanted her to kill Bruce.
7. That Fight Between Louis And Lestat.
We always knew that a confrontation would be coming between Louis and Lestat at some point, but we never expected what we got. After Claudia finally returns home, it is clear there is a deep seeded resentment from Lestat when he sees her. Louis went into a depression that Lestat couldn’t bring him out of when she left. Seeing Claudia waltz back in triggered him, and he once again felt like he was being pushed to the back burner. Lestat loves Louis and wants him to choose him, but he always chooses Claudia. This time around, it was too much to bear.
Claudia has returned to take Louis away from Lestat, and he refuses to let that happen. When it appeared that Louis was considering going away with Claudia, Lestat lost it, and he and Louis got into one of the worst fights I’ve ever seen on screen in a long time. It was brutal and intense, but it was executed in a way that made sense because it reminded us again that Lestat has a vicious side. His anger was more because of how betrayed he felt. That Louis would up and leave him without giving it a second thought pushed him over the edge. For Lestat, it was like, “How could you go with someone who abandoned you and leave me the same way Claudia abandoned you?”
8. That Train Ride.
That infamous train ride in episode 1×06: “Like Angels Put In Hell by God.” After that brutal fight between Louis and Lestat, he took off, and he and Louis did not see each other for several years. Once he did return, he began trying to make amends. Louis and Claudia set conditions for him to remain in their lives.
Unbeknownst to Lestat, Claudia was again planning to leave and live her own life. Louis knew she was going, but he and Claudia knew Lestat wouldn’t like it, so they kept it a secret. Or so they thought.
As Claudia was preparing to make her escape, Lestat showed up on the train in a dramatic fashion that only he could do. Of course, Claudia was shocked because she did not think he would care if she left. Technically, he didn’t care if she left, but he did care how Louis would be if she did. The thought of her leaving took him back to the worst parts of his and Louis’ relationship. He didn’t want to watch Louis go through depression all over again.
This scene is on our WTF moment list, but not just because Lestat walked in with the head of the conductor in his hand. It’s because his behavior was entirely out of pocket. While talking to Claudia about her attempt to leave, Lestat does one of the vilest things we know Lestat would never do. He brings up what Bruce did to her. We know Lestat is gonna Lestat, but he would never throw something like that in Claudia’s face.
9. That After-party.
Episode 1×07: “The Thing Lay Still” was chock full of WTF moments, but that after-party massacre was bloody. And it had us in complete shock. Especially when Louis tore off that man’s jaw — I literally yelled “WTF!” It was completely unexpected, given that Louis had been so reserved. The audience didn’t expect that level of brutality from him.
It didn’t get any less WTF as we watched Louis kill Lestat. The twist was exceptional, and I loved that they changed it up a bit to keep an element of surprise for those of us who already knew what was coming. Or at least what we thought was coming.
10. That big reveal.
From the moment we learned who was cast to play Louis and Lestat, we all wondered who would be playing Armand. It was entirely kept under wraps for the entire season, but some of us had our speculation, and ultimately, that speculation was revealed to be true. As it turns out, Rashid, Louis’ assistant, if that’s what we would call him, is the vampire Armand.
The reveal was indeed a shock…but also not. Rashid was giving off a different set of vibes throughout the whole season, so a few people were able to figure out who he was before the reveal.
Interview with the Vampire season one is available to stream now on AMC+.
