We’re On Tour with Lestat, and things are getting messy—just the way we like it. “Toledo” Episode Two of The Vampire Lestat takes us on the road, and things are already unraveling. Kwesi and I are back for another postmortem recap or Lestat Autopsy, and Kwesi is already in his feelings about Lestat’s mother, the Vampire Gabriella.
Spoilers from here. You already know!
Kwesi: I’m very much intrigued. Not turned on, but fascinated by the dynamic between Lestat and his mother.
Sherin: He’s embarrassed.
Kwesi: He’s so embarrassed by it that he keeps talking about it, but nobody wants him to talk about it.
And what exactly are we talking about? The vampire Oedipus complex at the center of this episode. Lestat’s complicated, consuming, deeply uncomfortable bond with Gabriella, his mother, who he sired. What can we say? Lestat is a mother fucker (literally).
Sherin: He’s like, “Thank you for your patience with the vampire incest.” It’s like, bro, we have no patience for that. None. We don’t care if you’re vampires. We don’t care if you’re monsters—that’s nasty.”
Kwesi: “Y’all nasty.”
But the episode isn’t just chaos for chaos’s sake. It does serious work, excavating who Lestat actually is and where he comes from. The answer, it turns out, is deeply rotten people. We meet the de Lioncourt family in flashback, and the picture isn’t pretty.
Sherin: They’re like the very worst that we’ve read about French aristocracy; they epitomize all of the bad things we’ve ever studied about them through history and in fiction. They are superior and filthy and mean.
Lestat and Gabriella were the only bright sparks in a family of what Gabriella herself calls cabbages. Kwesi loved her monologue at the table.
Kwesi: She had a great monologue, just basically reading every single male member of the family.
Sherin: She was too good for them. Had she been born a man, the world would have been hers. Because she’s smarter than her husband. She’s better at everything than her husband.
Which makes it all the more devastating. Gabriella had to use a little trick to make sure she didn’t give birth to another cabbage head.
Sherin: Who wants that man atop you? That trash-ass man put her through a lot, even in luxury.
And yet, Gabriella’s freedom came at a cost. Her perversity, her chaos, her habit of stoking Lestat’s buttons, all of it shaped the vampire he became.
Sherin: You can see a lot of who he is—that messy Lestat—that comes directly from Gabriella.
Kwesi: You see where his abusiveness comes from.
Sherin: He and his mother were also abused not only by their father/husband, but also by the elder brothers in the family.
This episode also gives us a pivotal piece of Lestat’s backstory: the wolves. A pack is terrorizing the local village, and the family couldn’t care less about the people they’re responsible for.
Kwesi: They’re not just dismissive; they’re belligerent like, What do you want us to do about it?
Sherin: They’re cruel.
So Lestat goes out to deal with it himself—before he was even turned—with his horse and his dog. Only the boy comes back. But here’s the thing.
Sherin: Lestat killed eight wolves by himself with only his horse and his dog.
Kwesi: Before he was turned.
Sherin: Because Lestat has always been special. He was born with a sixth sense.
Kwesi: Right.
Sherin: And when he gets turned, everything gets sharpened. He alludes to those powers, he even mentions Akasha.
Kwesi: And the band is like: Who is Akasha?
Sherin: Y’all don’t know what you’re in for.
Kwesi: He’s like, never mind, never mind, never mind. Long story.
Sheila Atim as Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, is clearly coming.
Sherin: The way I am waiting for Sheila Atim to enter the chat!
Back in the present, the band is now very much aware that the danger around Lestat is real. I mean, what Kwesi calls the “sloppy hall fight” in Episode 1 will wake you up fast.
Sherin: As we call it, the inelegant Daredevil fight hall scene. After that and the damages that were done, there’s really no reason to lie anymore.”
Kwesi: The sloppy hall fight. Right? No reason.
Sherin: But the poor band is not made for this. Not yet.
Meanwhile, back at the divorce proceedings—yes, that’s what I’m calling them—Louis is very much living his best life. He’s arrived with his partner Lemuel, and what a casting choice Lemuel turns out to be.
Sherin: Lemuel is played by none other than Moses Sumner. And what’s so funny to me is you’ve got Raleigh Richie and Moses Sumner sitting across the table, and they’re not playing rockstars. Sam Reid is playing the rocker—really well—but while these two men have incredible music careers. Hilarious. The bickering, the sniping, the oh, you ruined my hotel. It’s all delicious.
And then there is the scene at the show (concert). Lestat floating above the crowd, stopping time, locking eyes on Louis, and then hurling his annotated copy of Interview with the Vampire directly in Louis’ face.
Kwesi: I love the fact that he stopped time and focused on Louis simply to just throw his destroyed annotated novel in his face.
Sherin: I need that on the market, friends. I need an annotated edition, and I need it to be written by somebody who can rewrite the original. I need Christopher Rice to write the novelization of the Interview with the Vampire show. And then I need another person to come in and annotate it as Lestat. And y’all can pay me, Penguin Random House. Remember to pay me. [laughs] (but seriously)
But the book-throwing isn’t just pettiness.
Sherin: Lestat and Louis are irrevocably, inextricably in love with one another.
Kwesi: Yeah, unfortunately.
Sherin: I don’t think it’s unfortunate. Jacob Anderson said in one interview that he feels like Louis and Lestat (couple name Loustat) have several human love affairs. They have different cycles of their lives, and they keep coming back to each other, the way a human couple might come together once or twice in a mortal life. And I absolutely agree with him.
Daniel tricks Louis into attending a meeting with the Talamasca, which Louis absolutely did not want to attend. And then, near the end, there’s a revelation about the man who assaulted Claudia.
Kwesi: We got the reveal to Louis of the guy that assaulted Claudia.
Sherin: He finds out who that is.
Kwesi: And he’s in the area.
Sherin: Y’all sit tight. When we get to Toronto, things get crazy.
Kwesi’s standout moment from the episode was the mind-reading scene where Lestat taps into his bandmates’ thoughts and catches the drummer mid-anxiety spiral.
Kwesi: Her primary thoughts were, if I don’t make it big this time, I’m marrying the oaf and having a child. And it’s stuff like that. What more do you need to believe this is real?
Visually, the show continues to dazzle. A shot of Lestat and Gabriella hunting, their reflections rippling across glass buildings as they fly past, was a highlight.
Kwesi: You don’t see them directly flying. You see the reflection of them in the building that they’re flying by. And all the people, interrupting the reflection. That was a really cool shot.
I don’t know if there’s some sort of metatext about the prey they were following; they were all driving individual Cybertrucks. I don’t know what they were trying to say with that.
Sherin: Rollin and Hannah, ladies and gentlemen.
And the music debate from E1 resurfaced with Kwesi clarifying his earlier “the music kind of sucks” take.
Kwesi: The music is good. Like the instrumentals are good. The lyrics, in the context of Lestat basically using it as a personal diary, are so corny.
Sherin: It’s like if somebody took Sting and Billy Idol and mushed them into one person. And that doesn’t have a clear center. But I think there’s purpose to that. When we get to E6 there is a song Lestat sings, and you’re like, Oh. Oh. This is where we were heading.
Kwesi: In-universe, the music kind of sucks, but they’re getting better.
Sherin: In-universe, people in this world definitely think it’s mid. Daniel tells him that.
Final thoughts? I’m making a promise.
Sherin: The show doesn’t even start until episode 3, around midway. If you guys are raving over it now, you’re about to throw fits in your living rooms. If you’re sitting on the bus, they’re going to kick you off. If you’re on a flight, they’re going to call the air marshal on you. Because stuff is about to go down.
Kwesi: I’m looking forward to Toronto.
Sherin: You should.
We’ll see you there.
Sherin’s full no-spoilers review “AMC Turns “Interview With a Vampire” Into the Delicious, Malicious The Vampire Lestat” of the season is at RogerEbert.com.
For more from Sherin and Kwesi, check out Geek Girl Riot here or wherever you listen to podcasts (but it’s a radio show).
