*****BLOOD-SUCKING SPOILERS!*****

I’ve been an Anne Rice fan for around three decades now, having read half of her “Vampire Chronicles” books. For a time, they were a staple of my late 1990s/early-2000s literary diet. Having seen the movie adaptations of “Interview With The Vampire” (1994) and 2002’s “Queen of the Damned” (a mashup of the 1988 namesake book with 1985’s “The Vampire Lestat”), I wrote in my 2019 review of “Interview…” that a miniseries might be the best means for telling the story, as it’d give the material room to finally breathe. Well, AMC made it so, and with all its violence, blood and sexuality intact. The first seven episode season debuted in 2022, and the second arrived earlier this year (sorry so late).  

Two years ago I reviewed the first season of the show (AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire” offers a new take on Anne Rice’s bloodsuckers), and it was clear that changing the races of vampires Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and young orphan Claudia (Bailey Bass) from caucasian to African-American was an insightful choice. It gave the story of their domination by the blonde, white, aristocratic French vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) a much more disturbing subtext.  AMC’s version also better explored the social strata and homophobia of the centuries the story passes on its way to our present-day. There was also a strong undercurrent of domestic violence, as well. The first season ended right around the middle of the first book, after Louis and Claudia conspire to kill their maker Lestat. Leaving Lestat for dead, they escape to Europe in search of other vampires. Fans of the book and the movie knew, of course, this would not be the last we’d see of Lestat… 

Now I’d like to take a dive into season 2, which may well be the most in-depth live-action adaptation of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles I’ve seen to date (and yes, that includes the opulent 1994 film; which looks more like handsomely-produced Cliff’s Notes by comparison). 

“Interview with the Vampire” Season 2

S2E1: “What Can the Damned Really Say to the Damned?”

Vampires Louis and Claudia arrive in Europe near the end of the second World War. Claudia (recast with Delainey Hayles) has certainly grown up, though she remains trapped in her teenaged body. She’s learning multiple languages and honing her hunting skills. Meanwhile, her ‘father/brother’ Louis (Jacob Anderson) sees a constant, mocking specter of Lestat (Sam Reid) in his mind. Traveling to war-torn Romania, they find zombie-like vampires feasting like wild animals (a subplot from the original 1976 book). 

After one of these near-feral vampires kills herself in a large fireplace, a disappointed Louis and Claudia make their way to Paris; the “mother of New Orleans.” Meanwhile, in present-day Dubai, Parkinson’s-stricken interviewer Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) becomes increasingly hostile as the vampire Armand (Assad Zaman) injects himself into the interview with his lover Louis, after previously posing as manservant Rashid…

Note:  The recasting of Claudia from teenager Bailey Bass to the slightly older Delainey Hayles is subtle enough not to be obtrusive. Injecting World War 2 into Claudia and Louis’ vampire-finding tour of Eastern Europe (from the original novel) adds an omnipresent darkness and death over the search, just as changing Louis to a Black man added greater depth to his character as well. The reveal of the Romanian vampires as near-feral creatures is taken from the 1976 novel, though they seem a bit more loquacious in this version. Also, the real manservant “Rashid” (Bally Gill) is finally introduced to the series, after Armand drops the pretense of being Rashid himself. 

S2E2: “Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death?”  

After finding an apartment together in post-war Paris, Louis and Claudia are unaware they’re being stalked by a local vampire coven from the Grand Guignol-inspired “Théâtre des Vampires.” Eventually, Louis is introduced to their leader, Armand, who invites them to the show.  Claudia is spellbound by the decadent coven of vampire-actors, as they meet the flamboyant Santiago (Ben Daniels); the star of the troupe.  Backstage, Louis and Claudia see a portrait of Lestat, the troupe’s cofounder.  

Armand, who is attracted to Louis, senses he and Claudia know far more about Lestat than their weak lies suggest. To that end, Armand suggests Louis keep thoughts of Lestat buried, for fear of incurring the troupe’s wrath.  In present-day Dubai, the story is interrupted once again by the skeptical Daniel, prompting Louis and Armand to trigger his own painful memories, which include a seemingly impossible memory of meeting Armand back in 1973…

Note: Ben Daniels makes the vampire-actor character of Santiago his own. His interpretation of the character is a mix between F. Murray Abraham’s Antonio Salieri from “Amadeus” and Bette Davis’ Baby Jane. A far cry from Stephen Rea’s impish irritant from the 1994 film. 

S2E3: “No Pain.”

In the present-day, at a swank restaurant during a break in the interview, Daniel meets agent Raglan James (Justin Kirk) from the Talamasca; a mysterious group that chronicles and oversees vampire activity around the world. Agent James discreetly offers a bit more information to Daniel on his interview subjects. Returning to the interview, we see flashbacks of Armand meeting Lestat in the 18th century, when they co-founded the Théâtre des Vampires together as a means of unifying the Parisian vampire coven.  

We then return to Louis’ narrative in 1940s Paris. Claudia’s joining of the troupe includes a ritualistic hazing.  During her initiation, Santiago reads to Claudia the inviolable Vampire Laws, which include never killing another vampire; this makes Claudia visibly nervous. Afterward, she’s given the permanent role of a toddler as a humiliating, implicit penance for an unspoken crime. Meanwhile, Louis is taunted by his ongoing hallucinations of Lestat, prompting him to kill a man and leave the corpse in public. Santiago demands that Armand punish Louis for this transgression, but he’s conflicted, as his own feelings for Louis deepen.

Note: At first I was worried the “head-Lestat” that Louis sees in the first half of the season would quickly degrade into a trope, but the writers wisely use this sometimes tiresome story device selectively and effectively. 

S2E4: “I Want You More Than Anything in the World.”

After months in the role of a toddler, starlet Claudia grows to despise the play “My Baby Loves Windows.”  Forced to wear her costume even in her off-time, Claudia becomes friends with a mortal dress shop owner named Madeleine Éparvier (Roxane Duran), who’s ostracized for being a young Nazi officer’s lover during the occupation of Paris.  Santiago and the troupe then question Armand about allowing Louis to remain unaffiliated with the coven. 

Losing patience with Armand’s inaction, Santiago creeps into Louis and Claudia’s apartment. There, he finds Claudia’s diary, which includes Lestat’s final words, written in his blood.  Meanwhile, an oblivious Louis commits to life with Armand, as he bids farewell to Lestat’s ghost.  In present-day Dubai, Louis and Armand heatedly disagree over discrepancies in their personal archive, as Daniel discretely receives email attachments from the Talascama that offer secret photographic proof Daniel did indeed meet Armand during his interview with Louis back in 1973; a meeting Daniel can’t remember…

Note: Claudia’s would-be companion Madeleine is nicely fleshed out in the series, going from a tragic young mother pining for a lost daughter to a woman whose relationship with a Nazi officer during the Paris occupation has ostracized her from her community; making her a perfect candidate to join the eternal outsiders of vampires.

S2E5: “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape.”

With Armand conveniently off on a blood hunt, Daniel has a chance to speak with Louis alone again. After Daniel confronts Louis with Talamasca photos of the three of them together in 1973, we flash back to the original “interview with the vampire” from September of that year, after a drugged Daniel (Luke Brandon Field) spends the night in Louis’ San Francisco apartment. Daniel’s interview with Louis prompts a heated argument between the two vampires, as Armand brings up Louis’ relationship with Claudia.  Mention of his ‘daughter’ prompts the still-grieving Louis to attempt suicide by stepping into direct sunlight. 

Badly burned, Louis writhes in pain for days before he’s placed in his coffin to recover by Armand.  With Louis recovering, Armand uses powerful telekinesis to torture Daniel. The torture is halted by the burned, still-recovering Louis, who crawls out of his coffin to demand that it stop.  Armand taunts Louis by telling him he’s in telepathic contact with Lestat, though he blocks Lestat’s own attempts to reach Louis.  In present-day Dubai, both Daniel and Louis realize the 514-year old Armand has almost entirely ‘edited’ their memories of his post-1973 interview wrath. 

Note: I’m usually leery of mid-season flashback episodes, as they tend to slow the forward momentum of a series, but this one needed to be told, as it is a key difference between the series and Rice’s book; it’s an intra-view of the interview. Malloy and Louis’ original meeting was tantalizingly hinted at in season 1, and its disclosures change the rest of the story going forward. 

S2E6: “Like the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Made Light.” 

In present-day Dubai, Daniel once again meets with Raglan, who tells Daniel his life’s on danger—perhaps more from Louis than Armand.  Resuming the interview, Armand and Louis become increasingly combative, as Armand realizes that he and Daniel have regained their ‘edited’ memories from 1973. Back in 1940s Paris, Santiago has shared Claudia’s diary with the coven, as he engineers a coup against Armand—seeking leadership of the troupe for himself.  

Meanwhile, Claudia grows closer to Madeleine after saving her life by draining a group of angry hooligans who’d threatened her.  Learning of Claudia’s vampiric nature, Madeleine is intrigued, not frightened. Claudia then coerces Louis to sire Madeleine into vampirism after Armand refuses.  Armand then tells Louis that he’s left the coven to be with him exclusively, after allowing the coven to kidnap Louis and Claudia—forcing the two vampires to be put under a literal ‘show trial,’ which is staged as a performance with a live audience, who will act as an unaware ‘jury.’  A fully-recovered Lestat is also revealed to be a living ‘eyewitness.’

Note: The Talamasca agent Raglan James is a character from the Anne Rice Immortal Universe, but not from the first book. He was the central antagonist of her 1992 novel, “Tale of the Body Thief.”

S2E7: “I Could Not Prevent It.” 

With Santiago as prosecutor before a tribunal of his fellow vampire actors, a battered Louis, Claudia and the recently-turned Madeleine are presented onstage, with their ankles slashed and their feet nailed to the floor.  With the audience assuming the trial is yet another morbid matinee, Santiago charges the trio with violating the five vampire laws, as the duplicitous Armand watches from the balcony.  Lestat testifies he was coerced into creating Claudia at Louis’ insistence, before he goes off-script to tearfully apologize for his abuse of his former lover.  

Lestat’s change of heart throws Santiago off his game, but not before the prosecutor calls on the audience to pronounce sentence on Louis. The audience delivers a surprising call for “banishment” instead of death. Suspecting Armand telepathically manipulated the audience, Santiago successfully delivers death sentences for Madeleine and Claudia, however. Before their executions, Claudia threatens revenge against her accusers (and the audience), which prompts the judges to silence her with intense telepathic vibrations.  As a pinhole of sunlight is directed through the roof, Claudia mockingly performs her song from “My Baby Loves Windows,” as she and Madeleine are reduced to ashes. Meanwhile, Louis is taken away and immobilized in a rock-filled coffin, where he faces starvation…

Note: The trial, something hinted at in the original book, is turned into a Grand Guignol set piece for the series, and it is a showstopper; gruesome, brutal and heart-wrenching. However, it also has a wonderful moment where Lestat addresses the homophobia directed at Anne Rice’s openly queer vampires over the decades by calling out a heckling American soldier in the audience who shouts a gay slur. Lestat uses his vampiric speed and mind-reading abilities to frighten and shame the outed bigot into silence. If only it were that easy everywhere…

S2E8: “And That’s the End of It. There’s Nothing Else.”

Armand rescues Louis from the coffin, and Louis then plans revenge on the coven. Using petrol from their motorcycles, be sets most of the coffins ablaze during the day when they’re sleeping, picking off the survivors one by one.  Louis telepathically taunts a fleeing, cowardly Santiago, calling him by his birth name of “Francis” before beheading him with his own scythe.

Only meek vampire playwright Sam Barclay (Christopher Geary) escapes the carnage, along with Claudia’s diaries. Louis later reunites with both Armand and Lestat in the lair of ancient vampire artist Magnus, which is filled with his paintings; including a painting of Armand before he was turned.  Louis then takes his final revenge on Lestat by kissing his lover Armand in front of him; his own emotional ‘execution’ of Lestat.  Louis then says that he and Armand left Paris to travel the world, eventually settling in modern Dubai. 

The story returns to the present-day, where Daniel reveals discretely delivered “trial” script pages from surviving vampire, Sam Barclay. These pages reveal handwritten notes from Armand, who directed the show trial—only pretending to be a ‘helpless’ observer.  Armand had convinced Louis he used telepathy to coerce the Paris audience into delivering their call for ‘banishment,’ but Louis learns it was Lestat who telepathically manipulated the audience, not Armand.  This prompts a wall-shattering fight between the pair, as Louis leaves Armand alone with Daniel, taking a redeye flight to New Orleans. In New Orleans, Louis finds Lestat in their dilapidated former residence. The two of them reconcile, as a monstrous hurricane batters the house around them; a fitting metaphor for their tumultuous relationship.

Months later, we see Daniel taping a talk show for the promotion of his new book, “Interview with the Vampire,” which he insists is true, despite derisive quips from his host (and the public).  After the taping, we see that former Parkinson’s-patient Daniel is now a vampire himself, having being implicitly turned by Armand.  He takes a telepathic call from Louis, using his phone to cover it in public.  With the book published and the secrets of vampire existence revealed, Louis hears the telepathic threats from vampires around the world, as he dares them to bring it on.

The End.

Note: Eric Bogosian’s Daniel Molloy finally gets to be a vampire; a development that happens eventually in the books as well, but without the panache we see in the series. The ending of the novel “Interview with the Vampire,” saw a much-younger Daniel (“the Boy”) driving off to New Orleans in the hopes of meeting Lestat. The 1994 film saw Lestat jumping from the backseat of the younger Molloy’s Mustang and offering him the choice between death and vampirism; the choice Lestat himself never had.

Summing It Up

In the second season of “Interview with the Vampire,” everything is amped up, though still dovetailing with the first season.  What I appreciate most about this reimagining of Rice’s classic book is that the added material feels consistent within Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe; such as the use of her many characters, like Raglan James (who doesn’t appear until “Tale of the Body Thief”), or the greatly expanded (and extravagant) “show trial” of Louis, Claudia and Madeleine at the Théâtre des Vampires, which adds a new twist that rewrites Armand and Lestat’s roles in Louis’ life.

Turning younger Daniel Malloy’s original ‘interview’ with Louis in 1973 into a blacked-out, barely-remembered nightmare was another intriguing notion as well. This retelling of Louis’ original story makes this new series both a semi-sequel and deconstruction of Anne Rice’s classic book; putting some of the story’s original elements in a whole new light. The newly revised story, with its additional perspectives, also gives this version a Rashomon quality. This is something I appreciate better in my own advanced years, as some of the perspectives I once clung to in my 20s and 30s feel surprisingly outdated now.  AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire” takes the book apart in the same way.  Even “the boy” Malloy is now a sixty-something man suffering from Parkinson’s disease; a far cry from the eager young seeker from Anne Rice’s books. Time plus age often equals changing perspectives. 

The second season of “Interview…” is aided by terrific casting as well. Ben Daniels (“The Exorcist” TV series) makes for a more effective and memorable Santiago (nee: Francis), a character who was little more than a hammy side character in Rice’s book, and a grinning irritant in the 1994 movie. The role of Claudia’s would-be companion, Madeleine Éparvier is also greatly expanded from the book and movie. Roxane Duran has a haunted expression that makes her onstage execution all the more tragic. The recasting of Claudia, now played by Delainey Hayles, is almost unnoticeable, though Hayles really brings down the house with Claudia’s final, defiant warning to her accusers. 

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention lead actor Jacob Anderson, who’s far more present and self-determined as Louis. Sam Reid continues to be the embodiment of Lestat; as if he sprang straight from the pages of Anne Rice’s books. I can’t praise Reid’s interpretation enough. Veteran actor Eric Bogosian (“Talk Radio”) remains snark incarnate, making Daniel Malloy’s final vampiric transformation more than a little tongue-in-cheek.  And a round of applause for Assad Zaman’s “Armand,” whose refined features almost look like classical statuary come to life; a fitting look for a 514-year old vampire. Zaman delivers an almost electric undercurrent of menace that is carefully masked by his refinement. 

In the wrong hands (say, Alex Kurtzman), an “Interview with the Vampire” series would’ve been a disastrous idea, but series creator/showrunner Rolin Jones has marshaled a writing and directing staff with a genuine feel for the material; pushing the classic novel into the present, while retaining those unique elements of Anne Rice’s books that reinvented the vampire genre for generations, including mine.  Frankly, I wish those behind current “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” had production teams so in tune with their subjects. 

Rolin Jones and his crew have given fresh blood to the late Anne Rice’s immortal bloodsucking progeny, and I look forward to their incarnation of “The Vampire Lestat” next season.

Where to Watch

“Interview with the Vampire” season 2 is currently streaming on AMC+ and may still be found on the AMC network (check times). While season 1 is also available on DVD, both seasons can be digitally purchased on Prime Video, YouTube Premium, iTunes and other for-purchase streaming platforms.