Madames et messieurs, please welcome to the stage: Justin Kirk doing a funny little voice! Justin Kirk doing a funny little voice, everybody! Kirk is in Dubai in suited-up Jeryd Mencken silver-fox mode, and thank God for that, only now he’s got on persnickety little glasses and he’s waxing ridiculous about “the perils of omakase.†(You see, unlike his interview subjects, Daniel prefers his food “non-wriggling.â€) He introduces himself to Daniel at a sushi counter, saying, “We cede power to the chef, submit to his whims, to his eye at the fish markets, a series of risks.†It’s comforting to know that, in this universe, even humans speak like this. Unless he’s not human. But he does appear to be firmly anti-vampire. His name’s Raglan James (deranged), and he seems to know a lot about Daniel’s reporting on the undead. “You were tracking 900 of them a month ago. We’re tracking 1,600 now. The great conversion. It’s real. It’s happening.†Raglan James (this sounds like an Instagram-based MLM for sundresses) implies that other journalists who have tried to sniff around these coffins have been offed or turned. He reveals he’s hacked Daniel’s laptop, Daniel makes a scene, no one in the sushi spot cares, and then it’s back to the interview room. I don’t even know if we’re three minutes into the episode yet. Did you get that all down?
Raglan James (which sounds like the Artful Dodger’s boyfriend) has really gotten to Daniel, so he asks Armand how his kind have managed to stay undiscovered in an age of Too Much Internet and So Much Cell Phone. Armand deflects. “Your cell phones make you slaves to your fetishes,†he says like the most annoying guy you know, and this segues perfectly into the farthest-back flashback we’ve seen yet: Paris, 1795.
Armand was sent by the Roman coven (Volturi crossover event?) to lead the “shambolic†Paris coven in 1556, and even then, vampires were behind the times, hewing strictly to a set of religious medieval laws that kept them cowering in the shadows. This strictness is demonstrated by Armand sitting bisexually in a chair in a catacomb, setting a sinning vamp aflame with a bored flick of the wrist. But then came a new breed of vampire metrosexuelle, Lestat, who not only was living out loud in human society, he was playing stadiums. I can’t even imagine what notes were given to Sam Reid to produce such a performance in these thespian-Lestat scenes. He is so silly. Armand slams him as “prancing and preening†like some “tarted-up dervish,†and we see him onstage with a full clown-beat, essentially babbling French gibberish and wiggling his tush and kicking about in tights to hundreds of adoring human fans, the Alyssa Edwards of his time. Armand heckles him telekinetically and proceeds to stalk him for a while before breaking up his date one night with Nicholas, a human musician in the orchestra. He refers to this as having “tolerated his presence,†but Armand’s not fooling us. This is obsession.
“The loneliness you feel, he will not reach it,†Armand says. “He doesn’t get your humor like I do.â€Â (Okay, not the second part, just making sure you’re paying attention.) Armand tells Lestat to live among his own kind.
“And give up my patterned waistcoat? My jabot collar? Live as a grub?†Why would Lestat trade his Dyson Airwrap for a basement apartment? This makes Armand Ar-mad. Although he may look like a dweeby Harry Potter kid skulking around in his big black cloak, he’s able to beat up Lestat (and his boyfriend) with his mind. Before Lestat even notices Nicky on the ground, he’s intoxicated by the power on display. Armand explains that Lestat could unlock it, as a child of Magnus (more on this … eventually), if he joins him.
So Lestat stomps into Coven HQ carrying a giant crucifix as a statement piece. The statement: God is dead, but so are we, so let’s go be gods. The coven cowers from his cross like the dirty, shameful creatures of Satan they think themselves to be, so Lestat smashes the false idol (a.k.a. “the sad man with the nails in his handâ€) and calls a shard of the cross nothing more than “a fallen tree. Whittled by the simple for the simple.†Nouveau-atheist Edgelord Lestat is activated, driving the tradcore vamps out of the sewers and curing Armand of his boredom. He storms out with dying Nicky slung over his shoulder. He’s the whole Enlightenment in one guy.
After a steamy mutual suck-off (the vampire kind, although probably the other kind, too, off-camera), Lestat convinces Armand to start the Theatre des Vampires with him, and soon we see the death-play in action, with Nicky, now a vampire, still fiddling in the orchestra. I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of him.
In the present day, Louis walks in and summarizes what happened next: “They went at it on the floor, Armand taught Lestat the mind gift, and a week later, Lestat was gone.†This episode loses a full star for telling rather than showing all of this, particularly the going at it on the floor part. Meanwhile, Daniel’s computer is remotely hacked and he’s getting texts from “RJ,†short for Raglan James (which I believe is a brand of beard oil?).
Now that Louis’s here, we’re back to the jazzy ’40s, where Claudia is trying her hardest to work her way into the coven/troupe, doing gruntwork and getting called puce (“fleaâ€). She has a couple of funny scenes, including a moment of bonding with Santiago that feels like a Spike and Dawn B-plot. Louis is not spending time with the coven at all outside of Armand, who’s courting him at this point. Like a certain vamp who came before him, Louis doesn’t want to give up life among the humans to join the coven; he’s lit up by the city and its people, and he tells Armand he likes the feeling of “what’s next?†after decades in a controlling relationship. Zaman and Anderson’s chemistry is absolutely electric in the scene of them walking along the Seine.
The date takes quite the turn when they find themselves in a jazz bar having a spirited philosophical debate about the nature of evil, and a guy leans over from the next table and weighs in with his two cents, and Armand is like, “Louis, this is my friend Jean-Paul.†As in Sartre?!?! I think they’re implying that’s Sartre!!! Okay, so now we’re playing by Midnight in Paris rules, and frankly, that’s great; more of this, please; in fact, Armand and Louis should be friends with all the great Jean-Pauls of the 20th century, and in season three, they should have a threesome with a young Belmondo.
Anyway, Sartre is like, shhh, you guys, so they take their debate to mind-o-sphere, only their chat is drowned out by Ghost Lestat, playing the piano and singing an improvised jazz number about how Louis is a “little whore.†It’s impossibly good, silly shit. Louis snaps and admits that he and Claudia killed Lestat because “he fucking had it coming.†Armand says that killing another vampire breaks a strict vampire law, and Louis is like, okay, well, no one told me that, so now he’s having a full-blown panic attack and leaves the café. Out on the street, he confronts Ghost Lestat and bashes his head in, while Ghost Lestat laughs and begs for more. It’s a gnarly, gruesome scene, with the extra knife-twist reveal that Louis was actually killing … some dude. Back in the flat at the end of the night, Claudia tells Louis about the trauma she suffered at the hands of the “motherfucker†vamp on the motorbike from season one. It’s heartbreaking to think about how closely she must have been guarding those thoughts from him.
On the night of Claudia’s coven induction, Louis comes to see her onstage like a dad at a school play (the Theatre des Vampires is only slightly less disturbing than a middle-school production of Seussical), but he can’t stay for the ceremony because it’s strictly members only. Armand death-marches Louis through the sewers in a very intense scene that doubles as exposition (Santiago reads Claudia the five vampire laws as Armand tells Louis which ones he broke). Louis just asks that his executioner take care of Claudia after he dies, only to be told that Claudia won’t be alive for much longer, because she was turned too young, which never ends well. Claudia doesn’t know any of this, though, as she’s fully welcomed into the coven and given a gift: a frilly baby-blue dress intended for a little girl. That will be her role in the theater troupe’s new play. “You’ll be their little birdie for the next 50 years,†Santiago tells her as her smile disappears and it dawns on her that she’s just as stuck as before.
Across town, Armand raises a sewer grate as Louis braces for beheading. This wasn’t a death march; Armand was just walking Louis home. Louis confesses the pain he’s still carrying from Lestat, and Armand reveals that he, too, dated Le Fuckboy de Lioncourt way back when. “A century or so ago. Yesterday. What is time to a vampire?†They kiss and Louis invites him upstairs. And that, kids, is the story of How I Met Your Maître.
Notes on Vamp
• Daniel thinks Raglan James is a spy but notes he’s “a little pale for Mossad. Although, that could be very Mossad.†“I wish,†Raglan James answers. “I’d be better funded.†Is this the IWTV writers’ room’s way of sneaking in some commentary about the IOF? Or is he just pale because he’s a vamp, too, somehow? Book readers: Don’t spoil me on this.
• “Michelin fish in the desert†sounds like a George Saunders book.
• The way Armand pronounces “Amazonâ€Â like “Amaz’n.â€
• I was really tickled by Santiago going, “Thank you three!†while getting ready before the show.
• Also tickled to learn that vampires are susceptible to springtime airborne allergies. Who knew they could sneeze?
• Loved the stupid-funny scene between Claudia and the Irish vamp in the “wet room†with him explaining their system of the “rat box†and the “body box†and talking about how smart rats are. Strong Charlie Kelly vibes emanating off of this one.
• “Kill me again. Show me the only way you know how to love!†God, these bloodsuckers can be so dramatic!
• Jacob Anderson broke me a bit with: “Don’t give up on her. Tell her she’s beautiful. Tell her that every morning.â€
• Caught a good glimpse of Daniel’s desktop folders, which include: “Relaxation Shit,†“Pulitzer Stuff,†“VICE Years,†“Shit my Condo Sends me,†“Snowden,†“Photos I Like,†“Dad_s Estate Stuff,†“Divorce Lawyers Ex-wives,†“Fuck Taxes,†“Medical Insurance Stuff File This,†and “Man Man Bootleg - Oct 05, 2006â€. More shows need these levels of insane specificity.
• Santiago’s arms!!!