"Interview With the Vampire": Anne Rice Misery Mode Era

Yikes! Episode 5 was a rough one!

Great news, gang! I’m continuing my Queerty’s AMC’s Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire recaps exclusively here on Johnny Writes… You’re thrilled, I can tell! If you need to catch up you can find the first four recaps here.

Oof, god, Episode 5 was a rough one though. Like, we’re finally officially in the actual full-on Anne Rice misery era of this show. I mean, I guess we all knew it was coming, right? But oh holy blerg, some of the shit that goes down in Episode 5 does, in the end, makes it rather tough to make jokes about these gorgeous bonkers dead drama queens!

So, in 2022 Louis is chowing down on his alive servant Rashid’s neck while award-winning has-been journalist Danielle reads the part of Claudia’s diary where she wrote down all the last words of her victims.

Daniel: “I’m trying to think of something more fucked up than this.”

Um…how about the dude across the table having a conversation with you while his MASTER sucks blood out of his neck? (Also, if getting blood-sucked is as orgasmicly ecstatic as Louis previously described, how is Rashid even having this conversation???)

While Louis is busy guzzling his blood, Rashid takes the opportunity to voice his concerns about what the vampires of the world are going to do to Louis when Daniel publishes the book they’re working. “You’re basically writing his suicide note,” Rashid says.

But Louis’s like, “Shut up, Rashid. But also thanks for eating lots of honey and pineapple so that that’s what you taste like!” …Ew.

Meanwhile, Daniel is annoyed because he can’t corroborate all these deaths that vampires did in the 1920s. But Louis is just like, “How about we not worry about that and get back to the crushingly depressing story of my life fun vampire show?”

So, with her boyfriend Charlie dead, Claudia is super dooper depressed and acting out like the perpetual teenager she kind of is. Louis thinks she’s not eating people so he keeps putting birds in her room for her to kill (LOL). Then Lestat finds her diary and turns right to this page about how Claudia’s…biznass keeps…uh…healing every time she tries to have sex. Yeesh.

Also, it turns out, Claudia actually has been sneaking off to murder people all over New Orleans and not disposing of the bodies properly. Which is a big problem because the next time it rains, all the corpses come floating up the river and everyone freaks out. One of those stupid Business Moustaches (STILL WITH THESE GUYS?!?) tells Louis and Lestat that all the bodies they found had parts chopped off, and when they get home from hanging out with that bewhiskered snoozebomb, the cops are there to do a search.

Claudia, who is dressed like Little Orphan Annie and fully drunk somehow (???) has to run around hiding all the fingers and…severed boobs and…not quite-dead-yet bodies she’s been keeping in her room for some reason, while the cops root around in the family corpse incinerator. Enjoy those shenanigans, friends, because they’re the last we get for a while.

So, now the cops are onto Louis and Lestat for maybe being serial murderers and definitely being homogays and it’s all Claudia’s fault.

But she’s not worried about that right now because she’s too upset about being forever 14 and never having a boyfriend. See, in addition to leaving dead bodies everywhere, she’s also been trying to turn dudes into vampires constantly, but she can’t I guess because she’s underage?

Lestat is like, “Uuuuuggghhh, this kid is such a dick!”

Claudia: “Counterpoint: it is you who are the dick because you made me a child young adult vampire without my consent and also you have a girlfriend on the side too!”

For some reason Lestat’s sidepiece comes as a devastating blow to Louis despite their previous conversation about nonmonogamy with humans.

Meanwhile, Claudia packs up her shit and runs away from home for seven years. (Which, like, the whole point of Claudia in the book was that she couldn’t survive on her own because she looked five years old…BUT NEVER MIND THAT this show is great I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT REALLY I REALLY DO!)

At this point in 2022, Louis is suddenly getting all weird about including all the stuff in Claudia’s diaries in Daniel’s book. Daniel is like, “She’s a monster! The kids will love her!” And Louis is all, “Eeeeeeehhhhh…”

Anyway, in the past, Louis and Lestat go basically into lockdown due to the cops, and they let their nice house go to shit with an actual racoon living with them (is that a snack for Louis or just a vermin? Unclear!) amongst piles of newspapers and stuff. Also it is now The Depression, in the historical economy sense and also in Louis’s state of mind sense. Plus, they really hate each other now too and fight constantly, to the point where it seems like a COVID divorce is imminent.

Meanwhile, Claudia has been traveling through Americaland sneaking into different colleges. At one of them, some shitty white guy is like “You don’t belong here, little girl!” But then some guy rolls up on a motorcycle and it turns out he’s also a vampire, so he whisks Claudia away to go have a campfire in the wood. He’s like, “Hi, I’m Bruce.” But Claudia decides that his name should be Killer instead. So, bonus points if you know who this guy is from the books!

Ugh, ok, genuine trigger warning here, because then it is basically implied that Killer sexually assaults Claudia. Thankfully, we don’t actually have to see that though, because in present times it turns out Louis has torn those pages out of her diary. This annoys Danielle so they have a little fight about it before moving on to more stuff in the past.

Back in New Orleans, Louis has been obsessively trying to figure out where Claudia is based on murder reports in the newspapers, while Lestat just gets border and border with him. Then one night Louis’s sister Grace calls and invites him to a cemetery, which is a totally normal thing for an estranged sister to do. Turns out she and her family are doing The Great Migration due to losing all their money in the Depression. Also, she’s like, “You’re dead now Louis, bye,” and Louis sees that the grave they were at was his all along! Which is a real power move when you think about it, to just buy a grave and tell someone “This is your grave, never talk to me again!”

Claudia witnesses all this because she’s back in New Orleans and has been stalking Louis. She realizes that she can’t live without him and so she goes to their house to make nice and take Louis away to Europe to find other vampires.

But Lestat is having none of that! “Vampires in Europe are the woooooorrrrst,” he tells them. And Louis and Claudia are like, “Are they tho???” So, Lestat goes nuts and starts violently beating the undead shit out of Louis while Claudia cowers in terror. Which, for a TV show about magical immortal bloodsuckers, actually manages to be pretty upsetting.

Claudia is like, begging for Louis’s life, but Lestat just sinks his teeth into his neck and flies him up into the sky.

Lestat: “I love you so much, why don’t you love meeeeeee?”

Answer: BECAUSE YOU LITERALLY HAVE JUST BEEN DOMESTIC ABUSING HIM, YOU LITERAL MONSTER!

But Louis is just like, “Let me go.” So that’s what Lestat does, dropping him millions of thousands of feet down into their back yard, where Claudia rushes to his pulverized side. Lestat hovers back down to earth and the two of them just glare at each other.

YIKES! Just…yikes.

R.I.P. my massive crush on Sam Reid’s Lestat. (Ugh, JK I can’t help it he’s so handsome!!!) I need a wine now.