The Vampire Lestat "Detroit" & "Toledo" Review

The plan had been to review The Vampire Lestat's premiere and second episodes separately (as will be the cadence for the rest of the season), but you know what they say about life and plans and all that. Turns out I am not, in fact, capable of juggling The Vampire Lestat and The Legend of Vox Machina premiering in the same week. A week during which I was traveling in New York to cover the former's premiere concert, doing interviews and write-ups for the latter's first week, video editing said interviews (gag), and putting together a paper edit for a moderator reel that I'd been putting off for months. So, here we are with a two-episode review for The Vampire Lestat. (A full season review of The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 will come at the end of their season.)

This could all be immediately distilled into "Sam Reid, the man that you are." The sentiment isn't because of his looks or the sex appeal of the series (though both are undeniable), but because of his complete and total transformation into Lestat de Lioncourt. The Vampire Lestat is far from the first time we've met his version of the character, but it is the first time we're seeing him from his own eyes rather than Louis' (Jacob Anderson) and Daniel Molloy's (Eric Bogosian) unreliable narration (more on that in a second). Reid has, as they say, reached his final form as Lestat, strutting and crawling around the stage as the Brat Prince like he was made for the role.

"Detroit" slams us into a front-row seat for Lestat's spiral after the publication of Molloy's book, "Interview with the Vampire." We can see that he was mending things with Louis in real-time, with the sire on FaceTime with the fledgling the very moment of the book's release. The crash out that follows is both well-earned and legendary. Lestat is forced to listen to readers decry his name and defend Armand (Assad Zaman) while they drink up every lie in the book, all while he has to reconcile with whether or not all of this is what Louis truly believes about him. In true Lestat fashion, he has a tantrum and starts a new art project. This time? A band.

It isn't until "Toledo" that we learn that Molloy took some, shall we say, editorial privileges with Louis' words. Louis reveals that he's appropriately pissed off by this turn of events, having not been consulted about the publication to begin with and furious that his reconnection with Lestat was interrupted. Their meeting, which plays out like a divorce hearing, isn't an accident: Louis owns the hotel that Lestat, Molloy, and the "Fang Gang" destroyed in Detroit and insists that the man responsible sits down with him. Of course, Lestat only agrees because he believes he is meeting with hotelier Thomas Pitt rather than his ex-lover.

Lestat and Louis aren't the center point of these two episodes, though. That honor belongs to Lestat and his mommy issues. Said mommy issues being, of course, that he's fucking her.

While "Detroit" focuses heavily on Lestat's present, "Toledo" thrusts us into the past. The former introduces viewers to Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle), giving a taste of the debauchery to come, but it's the latter that highlights their messy, complicated relationship. Book readers went into this season anticipating the fallout from those just learning of the, er... coupling. While some mind-losing did occur across social media, The Vampire Lestat's writers did an exceptional job handling the fact that their main character was in an incestuous relationship with his mother (of whom he also sired). This is mostly done through the fourth-wall breaking narration where Lestat blatantly acknowledges why mortals might be scandalized by the concept and celebrating the viewer for "handling it all surprisingly well." It's cheeky, it's occasionally condescending, and it's perfectly on-brand.

The traditional horror elements of the series — much missed in Season 2, which focused heavily on the emotional horror of the show and was still exceptional — are back in full force in Season 3. Two episodes in and we've seen a vamp brawl as well as Gabriella and Lestat eating their way across Toledo. We're dealing with heavy foreshadowing as well, with the series consistently hinting at a gnarly demise for Molloy and significant future injuries for several key characters. Though, the surprise winner here is just how damn funny the show is. Reid is showcasing his talent in a hundred different ways in this series, but his comedic timing is an undervalued and incomparable asset to the show. One that gets even sharper alongside Anderson's deadpan deliveries as Louis.

In a lesser series, the erratic nature of The Vampire Lestat would be off-putting. Here, though, it's both fitting and essential to illustrating the title character's mental state. At his core Lestat is, was, and always will be a little boy who just wants to be loved. The love of his life betrayed him, so he reaches to mommy. Problem is, we know that mommy is where Lestat got his fucked up idea of love from in the first place, and we already know just how cold Gabriella can be when she finds herself bored.

These first two episodes lay a sturdy foundation for what's to come in the rest of the series, constantly nodding to just how pissed the powers that be are that Louis outed their world. It's almost as if Lestat had to do something about all that...

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