Season two of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire picks right back up with Louis (Jacob Anderson), now joined by fellow vampire Armand (Assad Zaman), as he recounts to Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) what happened when he and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) fled to Europe after leaving Lestat (Sam Reid) for dead.
In “What Can the Damned Really Say to the Damned,” directed by Craig Zisk and written by Hannah Moscovitch, Louis and Claudia trudge through a war-stricken Europe seeking out Old World Vampires while haunted by their crimes back home.
The Immortal Universe of messy, violent, high-drama vampire lovers returns, and that’s truly the best part of the premiere episode now that Armand is revealed to be a key player in Louis’ life—and not just an assistant named Rashid. Molloy’s constant teasing about the presence of a new assistant he refers to as “Real Rashid” as Armand joins in the interview as off-the-record support is deadpan delight. It’s interesting to note that as Louis continues his history in Europe, Armand’s presence feels a bit overprotective—but is it of his lover, or is it of the true nature of the vampires humanity is unaware of?
Claudia begins this season’s arc as Louis’ core reason for going on, post-Lestat. Their arrival in Europe is marred by a rift between them over how Louis really feels about what they did, and Claudia refuses to speak to him much as they trudge through World War II in search of Old World Vampires. It’s a learning period for the pair; amid a war-torn landscape, their feeding is spoiled as humanity suffers and pain is in their blood. Hayles, taking over the role of Claudia this season from Bailey Bass, presents a more mature immortal child vampire; she’s way older than she looks, of course, but she’s grown a lot wiser too. Claudia takes the lead while Louis broods along, haunted by Lestat in his head, and her command really shines as she picks up on languages and creates stories as to why she and her companion are roaming around a war zone. When they’re met with opposition, distrust—or, you know, Nazis—Claudia blesses the show with plenty of violent vampire hunger in action.
Louis spends most of the episode self-loathing, much to Claudia’s annoyance as it often leads to it throwing off their game. Lestat is simply always there in Louis’ mind—whether it’s as a ghost created out of guilt, or maybe he’s astral projecting through their bond while he takes a long mud bath deep in a swamp back in Louisiana. There’s darkness from that and the tainted blood of humans who’ve lost all hope. When the duo reach Romania, they follow the trail of a creature that’s hunting through armies and refugees once they take cover. After a tragedy in the group, Claudia follows the creature which turns out to be a very monstrous vampire who attacks her and isn’t in any frame of mind to recognize his own. In self-defense she blinds the creature—drawing the ire of its maker, an Old World Vampire (Diana Gheorghian), who then kills her own, because how could it hunt while blind? She allows Louis and Claudia to follow her to her decrepit manor, which is filled with struggling, failed spawn attempts.
Claudia feels as if they’ve reached their destination as the vampire reveals she is Daciana—one of the Old World Vampires they’ve been looking for. She’s hundreds of years old and it was just her and the creature they killed left around their parts because “the gift” would not take on the dying. Louis and Claudia explain that it must be because of the war’s effects on humanity’s fight to live after so much loss. Seeing Daciana’s pain as not having had satisfying feeds, Claudia attempts to take her in as part of a new clan and go to America so she can heal and they can continue. Daciana, however, tells them they “own nothing” and throws herself into the fire, breaking Claudia’s heart. Louis reaches out to Claudia after the traumatizing event to promise her that they will find a way to go on and live, determined to make everything up to her.
It’s all so grim and hard for Louis to revisit in the present as he begins to uncover long-lost memories with the gentle guidance of Armand, who I worry might have aided in hiding some of the horrors away from his love. This isn’t the first time Daniel’s tried to get the story out of him, and there’s that past experience hanging in the air in which Armand refers to Molloy as “the boy we met in San Francisco.” You get the vibe that Armand knows more than Louis and Daniel, and the interviewer starts to feel the blind spots perhaps in his own mind. Past the really cute PDA Armand presents as care, Molloy may have unconsciously begun to sow distrust between the loving vampires in order to get more ugly vampire truths out of Louis.
Interview With the Vampire airs Sundays on AMC and AMC+
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