# Interview with the Vampire (TV series)/season 2

    Season 1 2 Main
Interview with the Vampire (2022-present), created by Rolin Jones, is a television series about Louis de Pointe du Lac recounting his past life and tumultuous relationship with his maker and lover, Lestat de Lioncourt based on the 1976 novel and elements from The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice.

## Season 2
### What Can the Damned Really Say to the Damned [2.01]

    Louis de Pointe du Lac: She had stowed us away in ships, trains and wagons. She had asked the desperate farmers and rationed soldiers to teach her their languages before she killed them. And when she had cobbled together enough words and grammar, she stopped asking. Claudia was a thing of little indecision, a manic tour guide. And any castle with ties to Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracul, however slight, had to be explored. And I endured it all for Claudia, whose rage toward me and my refusal to burn Lestat had dulled into a bitter silence. [Sits besides Claudia passively silent and staring at fire] This war. It's affecting the blood. Been drinking misery, hopelessness. It's in the blood, we're taking it in. Taking it on. [Grunts] I'm thinking that's why we can't get warm, warm up. You think that's it? [Imitates Claudia's voice] "Louis did you say something?" Thank you for asking. I did say something, Claudia. I said I'm cold. I'm sleeping in a hole every night. I'm worn to a nub. How about you? "Well, brother Lou, I'm a little low myself. But, uh..."
    Claudia: Air raid. [Louis and Claudia run out of building amidst bombings]
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: [Voice of thought] It wasn't the murdering Hun or beasts of Ivan, or the fire raining down from the RAF that chased the vampire away. The vampire hadn't been here for centuries. The few scraps of forensic proof we found made the case plain, but Claudia was unassailable. Like... like some deranged geologist waving a woolly mammoth tusk saying, "Let's knock on the neighbor's door, there must be one inside." It's dead. Maybe it's time we go home.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: "He asked me if we can go home. Home? Can there be a more offensive question? Run back to New Orleans. Pry up his bones, why don't you? Louis de Pointe du Lac. Dead weight."
    Daniel Molloy: I want to thank you, for the memories you helped restore the other night. I understand these diaries much better now. And I want to thank you, Louis, for yesterday's eight hours on how to avoid the sun and torpedoes while cruising the Mediterranean war theater. And tonight's two hours and counting on chasing old world vamps who never materialize. You ever read "Moby Dіck", Real Rashid? I'm here to serve. Ah. Yeah, sure. I'm sorry, this is... this is so weird. Where did they send you when. Shah Rukh Khan over here was playing you?
    Lestat de Lioncourt: Is there a panic room behind the stolen Rembrandt? My love ran a theater company for 150 years, Daniel. Your love was in a box pondering a premediated neck wound, according to Claudia. She wrote it, let's choose to believe it. Unworthy in San Francisco, unworthy in Dubai. Disregard.
    Lestat de Lioncourt: Hmm. [Louis gasps] Bonjour, mon amour. No. Oui. No. Is it the same question? Go away. Or do you miss me? I miss you. Despite our recent unpleasantness still missing each other. Claudia! Hmm! Four years of grim wayfaring and still no sight of the benevolent vampire. So, how does denial manifest itself tonight? Sniffing German brandy? You're not here, I'm just fսckеd in the head. Quite fսckеd. Was she worth it? Yes. You say it like you believe it. [Repeatedly] I do...
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Stop!
    Lestat de Lioncourt: [Repeatedly] I do... Oh. Purgatory is a lovely room for music. I have a new piece, Concerto for Gashed Throat and Orchestra.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I'm sorry.
    Lestat de Lioncourt: Don't say it again. You ruin it with remorse. It was a perfect betrayal. You gave me a death of distinction.
    Claudia: Trucks!
    Lestat de Lioncourt: But in answer to your question. Yes. I'm gonna bloody kill you. If you were alive you'd have done it already. Hmm. [Chuckles softly] Oh, love. I'm merely waiting until you're happy. So hurry up, mon Cher.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I had taken 7,000 souls by then. Argh! But Lestat was the only one that felt like murder. Semantics, surely, but it's how I felt. He came by invitation. My distraction from the monochromatic landscape. The gray of an obliterated road, the gray-brown of a charred and bullet-ridden city. In Germany, Herr Hitler had popped a pill in his bunker and Europe celebrated. But in Romania, the champagne fizzled and went flat. Soviets replaced Nazis. War became occupation. [Witnesses soldiers exhuming cemetery internments and shooting them up]
    Claudia: [Telepathically] Why they shooting up coffins? Windows shuttered, doors bolted.
    Louis: Like every other village we seen, folks left when the Russians rolled in.
    Claudia: Folks left? So who ran garlic around these doors? Who nailed the crucifix to the wall?
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Why don't you knock and ask?
    Claudia: Just like in the books, they think garlic protects them.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Your books?
    Claudia: They think we hate Jesus.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Don't start back with your books! Your books are bullshit.
    Claudia: There's a vampire been here. Another crucifix.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Hey, now. Okay, okay.
    Claudia: Oh, shit.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Look like you should. Don't say anything about anything.
    Soviet soldier 1: Papers [Claudia hands over passports then holds up photo speaking in Hungarian] My mother. Have you seen? Please to help.
    Soviet soldier 1: Hungarian. This is Romania.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Looking for my wife, hope to find.
    Soviet soldier 2: Your papers aren't good.
    Emilia: [Stops walking by speaking Romanian] Making them stand out here in the dark? Are you stupid?
    Soviet soldier 1: Speak Russian.
    Emilia: Go, go. Do your very important patrols.
    Soviet soldier 1: Speak Russian.
    Emilia: Papers don't matter if they're dead. [Soldier hands back passports, takes one of Emilia's hunting kills and they walk away]
    Emilia: American? Okay. War, all have sad story. You understanding my English?
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Yeah.
    Claudia: This is my father, Robert.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: We're tired, we could use a place to sleep. We got things to thank you with. [Produces vodka bottle]
    Emilia: Vodka? Oh, yeah. You will make the friends.
    Emilia: [Brings Louis and Claudia to shelter] No more beds. Boiler room, you can use for night. Warm, boiler loud.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Thank you. That'll be fine.
    Emilia: American! [Speaks Romanian] They've brought vodka and cigarettes [Shelter refugees stare silently] They are not used to seeing man with good looks.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: And, uh, the rest of everyone?
    Emilia: Most from town, some can't go home. Home is gone.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: How come you're all living out here? Stone walls, metal doors. Is something going on out in the woods?
    Emilia: Bombs in ground, wolves, maybe German soldiers who don't know war is over. Maybe something, uh, worse.
    Claudia: [Telepathically] Or maybe vampires.
    Louis: Please! Claudia:
    Claudia: Oh, look, soldiers with garlic around their necks.
    Emilia: Your flesh will feed our soil. Your bones will whiten our land. [Soldiers walk away unimpressed]
    Emilia: [Sets down bowl] Soup for cigarettes. Bad trade for you. But God will forget when you die. God "not" forget.
    Morgan: Americans? I haven't heard a word of English in half a year. Say something, anything.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Uh, something, anything.
    Morgan: Oh! Hello.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Hello.
    Emilia: What am I talk?
    Morgan: Oh, you, darling, are talk broken English by an Englishman too enamored with his student to do the job properly.
    Emilia: Mm-hm. This Robert.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Uh, Louis.
    Morgan: She's a quick studier actually and very resourceful and I'm desperately in love with her. I hear you have vodka.
    Emilia: This Morgan.
    Morgan: Morgan Ward, correspondent Daily Herald. They've forgotten I'm here. And I've forgotten your name already.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: It's, uh, Louis.
    Morgan: Louis! Louis, wonderful strange. Welcome to, no question, hell on Earth! And you? What's your name, sweetheart?
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Why are they shooting up graves outside? This is my daughter, Mary.
    Morgan: Oh. [Holds up cigarette] Uh, Andrei. Maybe you can take Mary here to meet the other children.
    Claudia: I'm fine, sir, thank you.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Go ahead, Mary. Go and meet the other children. I bet they know everything about this place. [Claudia takes the hint and leaves then cut to scene of interview] Wait, that's wrong. She didn't say that in front of Claudia.
    Daniel Molloy: Say what? Who?
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: The wolves, the Germans, something worse. Emilia, she would not have said that in front of Claudia. [Flashback] She thought Claudia was a child. Claudia left. And then she said it. [Flashback of Emilia sitting at table after Claudia leaves] Yes. Yes! That's how it went. We should get every detail right.
    Daniel Molloy: In total agreement. Perhaps this would be a time to take a break, Louis. You know, Real Rashid, I'm pretty good at my job, a bright young reporter with a point of view. Interviewed a fallen Catholic archbishop, four Enron vice presidents, and if they've got something to hide they always start with some kind of disguise. Not literally, not some dumb Halloween costume, gloves, contact lenses. They tell jokes, they're charming. And then at some crisis point, when I get close, it drops away and I see a flash of the truth.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Armand didn't want me to do the interview, Daniel.
    Armand: Still don't.
    Daniel Molloy: But he wanted to be close to it, right, Real Rashid? I mean, hey, whatever it is they're trying to hide, I'm probably not going to crack it, which is, you know, who cares? Happens all the time. But I wanna ask you, as a member of the inferior species, why say, "Hey, vampires are real. Here's almost all the story"? Thank you, Rashid. That's why I'm coming after you, Real Rashid. You I can fսcking break! If you'll excuse me.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: [Holds up photo] She got all tore up when our boys started shipping out. Volunteered for the Red Cross.
    Morgan: [Observing photo] A sainted wife.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Yeah, grew up in a military family. Kind of woman you can't argue much with.
    Morgan: I am familiar with the breed. [Softly] Up your bum. [They clink glasses]
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Okay. Why are they firing into coffins here?
    Morgan: [Laughs] Farm boys commanded by farm boys. German amphetamines, the superstitions of a backward country. Mad fog in the dirt, trees and rivers. I keep my trousers pinned at the ankle when I sleep for fear it will get me too.
    Emilia: This is an old country with old things in it.
    Morgan: More mad fog, and she's currently village prefect.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I believe you.
    Morgan: Oh, I do too. I believe everything you say, Emilia. Marry me.
    Emilia: [Emilia laughs] When the priest comes back.
    Morgan: That's our little joke. The priest was dragged away by our Soviet friends. And by dragged, I mean, tied to a truck and dragged.
    Emilia: Something out there with soul disturbed. Disturbed?
    Radio announcer: The triumph over Hitler's evil can be felt throughout France, and in no more fantastic an example than the priceless works of art being bundled up in the countryside, lifted on to trucks and returned to their rightful place in Paris. And we of the BBC World Service, speaking for the rest of the western world, send a most grateful thank you to our allies in France with one of your very own.
    Morgan: Are you a Red, Louis?
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: You say something?
    Morgan: I did.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Didn't catch it.
    Morgan: Then I'll repeat myself. Are you... a Red? No judgement. Simple question.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I am a magical vodka Nеgrо. Having the first alright night in quite a while.
    Morgan: C'mon now. You're either a deserter or a Bolshevik, which is it?
    Emilia: This is why you have no friends, old man.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I told you already. I'm looking for my wife.
    Morgan: Oh. It's printed on albumen. I really want to hear the lady sing. I take my own photographs, I make more money that way. And your dutiful wife's photograph was taken by a glass-plate camera, printed on albumen paper. That makes this 30 years old, which would make her sixty, sixty-five, and the birth of your daughter a medical miracle. This is a road you really don't want to go down. I like you. You seem like a good man. If you can be quick with it. Song's half over. If you're AWOL, turn back around and take your punishment. It'll be paradise in comparison to Uncle Joseph's utopia.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: That it?
    Morgan: That's it. That was unkind. I'm cutting you off and taking your woman.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Never mess with a magical vodka Nеgrо.
    Morgan: May I have this dance? If you're a Bolshevik, you're making a fool's bet.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: You really want to marry him?
    Morgan: He's got the big one down the pants.
    Daniel Molloy: Okay. Um... Session ten, the vampire Louis and the vampire Armand. You went west.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: Claudia was entirely broken. She had left a part of herself in Romania. I knew I had to steer her far away from it. I chose the city that called to us on the radio. To the mother of New Orleans. Members of my coven sensed... Uh, uh, uh. We'll get to you. The war had turned off the lights, stripped its streets of their beauty, sent its avant-garde into exile. But now, the whole world was ready to return, to remake their lives. Pilgrims on their hopeful way. [Flashback of riding an army truck with Claudia sitting across from him] I wanna say something to you. I don't need to hear anything back, I just need you to hear me. Hard words and soft words. The hard. Our life is shit. It's been shit. It is shit. It's gonna be shit again. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. No one's watching, no one cares. A shit life beats no life. But where we're going now we can't be running away again. Doesn't mean we forget what we saw. What she did in front of us. If I see you going that way, I'm going pull you back. I don't need that from you. As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me? We're going to find others like us. And if it ain't here, cos life is shit, or I fսck it up again, or you fսck it up, we'll go to the next place. We can't be the only good ones out there. Soft words. If you were the last vampire on Earth it would be enough. [Repeatedly] You and me. Me and you. [A slit throat Lestat appears besides Claudia then disappears]

### Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death [2.02]

    Daniel: Who are the young men? Vampires?
    Louis: [Smiles fondly] Those were our young friends. Humans. Guys.
    Louis: I had endured hundreds of nights in the theater with Lestat. I was not seeking more.
    Claudia: Louis needs Paris. I don't know what I need. Maybe a new brain in my head. Why can't I tell him this? I suppose I'm afraid my joylessness will take away his happiness, and maybe I don't want his feelings to depend on mine anymore. Maybe I want to be joyfully joyless. A forever switch of wild opposites at play.
    Claudia: I saw his stupid face up there and had to think of something quick.
    Louis: You couldn't make up a name?
    Claudia: Best lies got some truth to 'em. And that's the only other vampire I knew. It's gonna be fine.
    Louis: Fine?
    Claudia: Yeah, fine.
    Louis: What about Lestat? He's 100-something-year-old painting in a frame. They got a fսcking shrine! What if they find out we killed him? One of us would have to tell them. Or think it!
    Claudia: Well, I thought it the second I saw his face in the frame, but there they were inviting us back, five minutes later. To kill us. And right after that I invaded their thoughts, and not one, not one of them, thought anything other than I want to lick these two, so we need to stay away from Estelle if we can.
    Claudia: Louis needs Paris. I don't know what I need. Maybe a new brain in my head. Why can't I tell him this? I suppose I'm afraid my joylessness will take away his happiness, and maybe I don't want his feelings to depend on mine anymore. Maybe I want to be joyfully joyless. A forever switch of wild opposites at play.
    Daniel: Paris sucks. Macarons are bullshit, café culture is boring.
    Madeleine: Américaine note? Your French is ugly.
    Louis: If Claudia and I were looking over our shoulder at all, it was in astonishment our skin did not attract the same attention it did in America.
    Daniel: Right, because there wasn't any racism in mid-20th century France.
    Louis: Oh, I didn't say that.
    Daniel: I think [[w:Algerian people|your Algerian [savory] inferiors of the time might disagree.
    Louis: But I wasn't an Algerian. I was an American, and if there was an assumption that I'd arrived to blow a trumpet or sing for my supper, it did not register as a slight in those days. I was just grateful knowing no one wanted to lynch me or direct me to the far end of the café counter.
    Louis: Oh, you felt my lust?
    Claudia: Armand? Oh, yeah. Felt his too. Now I know what two blood fat cocks slapping hands feel like, so thank you for that.
    Louis: We never brought our kills home. We used the sewers for that.
    Armand: Waterways of which they had no expertise. The flow controls, the pumping stations. We were constantly cleaning up for them.
    Armand: You must understand, in a community as small as ours, such crossings of immortal paths is expected, perhaps more common than you would think.
    Claudia: When they all pounced on that woman, drained her right in front of their dumb faces? Tell me you did not feel pride.
    Louis: I did not feel pride.
    Claudia: Yes, you did! Past your empathy for that woman, past your fear of being exposed. Vampire pride. Those Frenchies love being vampires. And they shamed us because we never felt that way and we fucking should! I'm going back. I want more... Take your people pictures! Worship them in the red light all you want! I want to be with my own! Don't ruin this for me, Louis. I need this!
    Armand: "Maître" is a coven endearment. Armand for you.

### No Pain [2.03]

    Daniel: You kill nightly.
    Armand: And sometimes you've watched that kill on the local news. You've never been easier to distract. You're at the height of willful ignorance. We exploit it. This is, was, Lestat's prophetic vision.
    Daniel: You let it happen.
    Armand: Yes.
    Daniel: You led him there so he could destroy it.
    Armand: His words had been my thoughts for half a century. If it had come from me, they wouldn't have believed it.
    Daniel: The question was how do vampires hide from Google, not how did Lestat break his heart.
    Armand: But because you're a good listener, you got answers to both.
    Louis: He abandoned Nicky. He abandoned Armand. He abandoned the coven. Lestat is, was, and will always be for Lestat.
    Daniel: Never say I love you to a raging narcissist.
    Armand: And I locked away those words for another 150 years.
    Louis: I was with Bruce for 30 years.
    Armand: Bruce. How long are we going to play games, Louis?
    Lestat: [To Louis] Even now, I'm still the only one you chose.
    Louis: You want to come upstairs?
    Armand: Are you inviting me in?
    Louis: Depends. Are you gonna kill me?
    Armand: I'm evil, evil as any vampire who ever lived. I've killed over and over and I will do it again. Why does that make you as evil as any vampire? Aren't there gradations to evil? Is evil a great perilous gulf one falls into with the first sin?
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I mean, kinda. It's not as logical as you're saying, but it's dark and it's empty, and I can't see the bottom of it.
    Armand: But if evil is without gradation and it does exist, this state of evil then, only one sin is needed. That's your argument.
    Jean-Paul Sartre: [Politely coughs] Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract what is concrete.
    Armand: Jean-Paul.
    Jean-Paul Sartre: Armand.
    Armand: This is my friend, Louis.
    Jean-Paul Sartre: Bonjour. Now, will you two kindly shut up, so I can hear the music, hmm?
    Armand: Your argument assumes God exists.
    Louis de Pointe du Lac: I don't know that God exists. From what I saw in the war, he doesn't.
    Armand: Then surely, there are degrees and variations to goodness? The goodness of the child which is innocence. The goodness of the nun who lives a life of self-deprivation and service. The goodness of the saints, the goodness of the midwives. And how is this evil achieved? How does one fall from grace?

### I Want You More Than Anything in the World [2.04]

    Santiago: [To Armand] Discipline Claudia for bumping into the scenery, but let Louis run wild.
    Armand: Lackluster. Bromidic. Unacceptable.
    Claudia: Yes, Maitre.
    Armand: So explain to the company why the 500th performance of 'My Baby Loves Windows' felt more like a slog than a celebration?
    Claudia: Maitre, I think that... I think that... Wave your words to shore, please. I'm a fierce vampire trapped in the body of a little girl. I'm reminded of it every night of my existence buttoning up this dress and singing and smiling, while the mortals laugh and point. I relive every condescending look or fսcking comment I have ever had to suffer. I... I have lost my passion for work on stage. I think I prefer... backstage work.
    Armand: Sam?
    Sam: Yes, Maitre.
    Armand: What are you holding in your hand?
    Sam: Popcorn bag and a prophylactic.
    Armand: And why, as the author of 'My Baby Loves Windows' would you humble yourself thus?
    Sam: It is a privilege to work in this theater. I do what I am asked and I do it gratefully.
    Armand: And your nomadic passion, Claudia, owes your playwright an apology. Sorry, Sam.
    Sam: Oh, you're grand. And to help you rediscover your passion for Lulu, you'll no longer remove your costume. You'll sleep in it, rehearse in it, feed in it, hunt in it. You'll live with Lulu offstage, until she returns to you onstage.
    Santiago: And yet the audience sang along in full voice.
    Armand: The red hands of clapping cattle are not the measure of the Theatre Des Vampires. [Santiago gets up and walks forward] If they were, then your mugging and pandering would have us standing room only to the decade.
    Santiago: Nicely volleyed, Maitre, but why single out our sister when nomadic passion has infected the entire company?
    Armand: Has it?
    Woman 1: Maitre might not have noticed as he has been nomadically attending the Theatre Des Vampires.
    Santiago: And the infection spread what, year and a half ago?
    Woman 1: When a certain vampire was granted dispensation from coven membership.
    Louis: It's Louis. I got a name.
    Armand: Louis takes all the proper precautions.
    Man 1: He reveals himself in the cafés, the salons and gallerias.
    Louiss: I keep my business tight, thank you.
    Man 2: Maybe his human friends ask why he can only meet at dark?
    Woman 2: He reads books during Blood Sabbath!
    Louis: I'll loan it to you when I'm done.
    Woman 2: Oh...
    Claudia: This is not about Louis!
    Santiago: Discipline Claudia for bumping into the scenery but let Louis run wild?
    Woman 1: It's a show of shallow power.
    Woman 3: [In French] What do you think you're doing?!
    Santiago': And you do this for what? Is it thirst? Is it love? What is it exactly? Are you companions?
    Armand: Yes.
    Louis: No.
    Woman 3: [In French] Put your tits back in your bloomers, slut! [Hisses and lunges at Woman 1 screaming in a ferocious brawl]
    Armand: If it's not a companionship, what is it?
    Louis: It's whatever you want to call it.
    Armand: An affair? A romance? Mm, it works for me.
    Louis: "Companion" works too. It's not the word I would use.
    Armand: So, it's not whatever I want to call it then? [Armand telepathically lights a candle stick and Louis laughs with Armand getting up in bed to put on pants]
    Louis: What was my mother's name?
    Armand: Grace.
    Louis: Florence. Grace was my sister.
    Armand: Well, you don't talk about your mother very much.
    Louis: No, I don't. And so it's okay if you don't remember her name. But that's just how this settled. And that's great. This is great. What we got is great.
    Armand: [Lestat uses candle to light cigarette and Louis blows out candle] It's just not a companionship.
    Lestat: Oh, God, how do you manage it? We see each other when we want to. And when we want to be alone, we're alone. And that's good, it's easy.
    Armand: [Sits on bed] It's not easy for me. [Lestat chuckles] You don't understand the danger I risk every night for you. How that danger compounds with every slight.
    Louis: What slight?
    Armand: You rarely join us for a hunt. You read novels during performances.
    Louis: I've seen those plays a hundred times!
    Lestat: I keep your secret. What? What's the secret? Oh, I'm the secret. Do you notice how hot the room gets when you two talk about the secret? [Lestat telepathically lights up candle stick]
    Armand: Progress.
    Louis: Mm-hm. It only seems to work when I think of shit that pisses me off.
    Armand: I try and find the vulnerability within the object.
    Louis: So you want me to come around more?
    Armand: Yes, that would help.
    Louis: Okay, then, I'll come around more.
    Armand: I have to get back. Curfew.
    Louis: I love you.
    Armand: [Sighs, and puts hand on Louis cheek, kisses him and walks away] I love you.
    Louis: You promised you wouldn't talk!
    Lestat: [Mocks] "I love you."
    Molloy: Are you schizophrenic, Louis?
    Louis: No.
    Molloy: Did you consider yourself schizophrenic at the time?
    Louis: I'm not sure the term applies to a vampire. Perhaps when the book is published, enterprising psychotherapists will write papers. Until then you only have Daniel Molloy. [Louis scoffs] He was my biographer, my therapist, my murderer. Short of a diagnosis, would you like to know what it felt like? Yeah. I could feel the movement of air with his movements. His breath on the back of my neck. If I were to reach out and touch his hand, I wouldn't say it was his hand. But it was not not his hand.
    Molloy: And you weren't feeling Lestat in the room?
    Armand: No. And I was not aware he was as present as it seems he was. But looking back on it now, I can understand it.
    Molloy: Hmm. The vampire bond.
    Louis: I was severing one and knitting another.
    Molloy: So... [grunts] were you two the only ones who survived the fire at the theater?
    Armand: [Leans forward] You weren't provided any information about the fire in our archives.
    Flashback Rashid: [Faintly] That's enterprising. Is that what makes you fascinating? In high school, you told a girl you'd only do her if she had a paper...
    Louis: Uh, sorry. The fire?
    Molloy: One of my researchers found it in the Beinecke Library in New Haven. She thinks we're working on a book about the post-war reconstruction of Paris. [Holds up diary] Claudia. [Opens it] In direct violation of the third Great Law, still journaling.
    [Claudia dumps Pepa's body into rat feeder box]
    Santiago: What are you writing, Baby Lu?
    Claudia: Why are you lurking?
    Santiago: Honoring the blood. Pepa Matekja moved me. I wanted to hear his heartbeat one last time.
    Claudia: Well, here it comes.
    Santiago: [Listens to rats feeding on Pepa's body] No vampire must commit to writing the history of the vampires. Law three.
    Claudia: It's not the history. It's just random thoughts. It's a habit.
    Santiago: Read me some.
    Claudia: "Celeste and Estelle hate me. I hear their petty insults in the middle of our scenes."
    Santiago: You know what we call Celeste behind her back? The Marie Celeste, because her talent disappeared without trace years ago. And Estelle is so far up Celeste's arse that she doesn't need a coffin to sleep in anymore. I do hope there's something juicy in there.
    Claudia: A few things about you. [Throws diary to him] Go on.
    Santiago: Maitre has a gravely attachment to the laws. Now, you may feel protected by his equally tender attachment to your Louis. But tender... [lays diary on top of rat feeder box] can turn to tinder.
    Claudia: I took an oath. I don't need it.
    Santiago: Francis Naughton was transformed without the permission of the vampire Armand in absentminded violation of law one. And here lies his daddy vamp. [She dumps diary in rat feeder box] Oh, please, don't be so melodramatic. I have bent law four with at least half the working girls at Le Chanabais, but I am rigorous. Had I been Celeste or Estelle lurking in the shadows... [Reaches into rat feeder box with rats squealing] Oh! [Grunts as he holds up diary] And thank you for the kind words you wrote about me. How do you know what I wrote? I read it just now right in front of you.
    Louis: [To Claudia at dinner party] So this couple, the Perriers, they got this salon thing they call R-26. Artist types, some showing work, some just there to be there. Painters, poets...
    Claudia: Photographers?
    Louis: Yeah, me, okay, I showed a little work, got some love back.
    Santiago: I don't know what he sees in him. He's not that attractive. ]
    Woman 1: And a waterfall of pretension bursting forth from his mouthal cavity. Read my mind, grab my nethers. Already doing it.
    Man 1: Sam was late with the bed bellows. Head's in a hat. Working on a new play. It won't happen again, Maitre.
    Man 2: It happened four times!
    Man 1: It won't happen again, Maitre. Eglee?
    Armand: Catatonic since Santiago has taken up with Celeste again.
    Man 2: And Gustave? Les Toilettes? Back at the lair, hung over from last night, when he split from the pack and over-served himself in the Latin Quarter.
    Woman 2: Ran down the street screaming, "I am a vampire! I am a vampire!"
    Man 2: Wheels are coming off this week, Maitre. It's not just Paris giving birth to more genius.
    Louis: She's giving birth...
    Claudia: ...to modernity itself?
    Louis: [To Claudia] Yes! Sculptors and authors, and photographers and saxophone players. Intermingling, innovating.
    Louis & Santiago: [In unison] Collapsing two art forms into one. Coming up with new ones. Meanwhile, everyone's fawning over Picasso, but out there on the Left Bank in shabby hotel rooms and cold water walk-ups, a new generation's ripping apart the old modes. Bursting into new ones.
    Louis: Suppose I can come off haughty.
    Louis & Santiago: [In unison] Everyone's fawning over Picasso, but not me, not Louis du Lac. I'm out in the streets on the barricades with the avant-garde.
    Louis: Funny.
    Santiago: See, now that I've wriggled inside your voice, pulled it on like a costume, you don't sound all that Chicago to me.
    Claudia: Outside Chicago. We roamed all around.
    Santiago: It's that emphasis on the second syllable, borrowed from the French.
    Louis: So it's mimicry that you're good at. Like a parrot?
    Santiago: Like a gent with upright downstairs.
    Louis: Or an organ monkey?
    Santiago: Cajun drawl. I want to test a theory. Say New Orleans!
    Louis: Or a buffoon! [Santiago hisses with Louis then leaping from seat, popping up besides Santiago pulling his tongue] Anything else you want to say, buffoon?! I couldn't hear you from the other side of the table! But you got my attention now!
    Armand: Enough! [All guests heads slam on table and whole restaurant goes still]
    Louis: Take your time. Come on! What?! Spit it out! A-huh.
    Armand: I said enough!
    Louis: Good boy.
    Armand: If you two want to act like fledglings do it in darkness! [Telepathically] Louis, come back!
    Alois: So, you've been showing your work at the Perriers' salon?
    Louis: Always something interesting happening there.
    Alois': Maybe before the war more than now. But then I'm rarely out of my gallery.
    Louis: You got a nice one. You might remember, I bought a Fougeron from you early in the year. I was a little short of asking so I threw in that watch I was wearing.
    Alois': Ah, yes, yes, a good watch. Where did you hang the Fougeron?
    Louis: Over my bed all spring. Then I sold it to Germain Seligmann in summer. I saw he was expanding beyond decorative arts, getting into paintings. I got a good price.
    Alois': So are you a dealer or are you an artist, Mr. Du Lac?
    Louis: I like to think I'm maybe both.
    Alois': Mm. You are using a Rolleiflex and always at night? Very hard. Sometimes a Leica. Like this one?
    Louis: That's in there by mistake. I didn't mean to bring that one.
    Alois': Mm, you aim the camera straight but here, something fragile about this man.
    Louis: If you knew the man you'd know he was anything but.
    Alois': A happy mistake then? You caught the soul he is hiding. So... [lays out a photo on table] tell me... what do you see?
    Louis: Frame of the door. The light on the street. The door across the street. The look he's getting from the stoop across the street.
    Alois': Is the look a warning? "This is what happens if you play in the street," thinks the mother.
    Louis: Or is it, the friend of the boy he used to play with? Can't anymore.
    Alois': And what of the look of the boy who cannot play anymore? We are left to wonder.
    Louis: Helluva shot. Who took it?
    Alois': A young American like yourself. He has the eye.
    Louis: Are you're saying I don't have the eye?
    Alois': No, no. I think you do have the eye. Like I have the eye. We know it when we see it. You see it in yours? Only five prints left. You should buy one from me. Sit on it. Sell it to Seligmann when he moves into photography. You'll get a good price.
    Louis: [Slams binder shut] Fսck you! [Storms off, slamming door]
    Molloy: Yeah, early work. I can't read anything I wrote before Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire. But some of these aren't so bad, Louis.
    Louis: They document, nothing more.
    Molloy: I mean, this one with the fountain and the couple, and the water's glowing. I think I've seen it somewhere, like in a book or something. Right?
    Louis: There's a good reason you picked that one, Daniel. It's not mine. That's Fred Stein. Elsa Triolet. Model, mid-30s I'm still in New Orleans. What is this?
    Armand: Dear, this is a Stein.
    Louis: I know. Why is it in there? Why are all these in there?
    Armand: Don't ask me. We've been staring at those...
    Louis: I didn't put these here.
    Armand: Probably, Rashid confused them.
    Flashback Rashid: In high school, you told a girl you'd only do her if she had a paper bag over her head. She agreed and you did...
    Louis: This is embarrassing. I don't want you thinking I was trying to pass them off as mine.
    Molloy: Yeah.
    Louis: I was an adequate photographer. An amateur. [Shuts briefcase] I want our readers to know that.
    Louis: [In apartment with photos strung up] Only been at it a few years.
    Lestat: It's one man's opinion.
    Louis: Can only take 'em at night when I can't control the light I'm getting. I'm supposed to stand by a street lamp and wait for the world to pass under it? I'm a vampire!
    Lestat: You're a vampire, a hunter!
    Louis: I'm out there prowling for the moment. Do you know how many great shots I've taken only to find that the light was insufficient when I put it in the bath?
    Lestat: Tell me, mon cher.
    Louis: A whole goddamn lot! [Hands Lestat a photo who immediately starts eating it] Look at this. And this fսcking Gordon Parks fella he put in front of me? Guy spends three or four days with folks before he even picks up a camera. Friends with 'em and shit. I can't do that. I'll end up eating 'em!
    Lestat: [Starts perusing photos on a table] Like this gentleman. And this one. [Picks up photo] Oh, and her.
    Louis: [Clips up a photo] Tell me one thing wrong about this photo.
    Lestat: [Walks up] Well, for one thing, I'm not in it.
    Louis: Please!
    Lestat: Mmm? Your lens is not entirely clean. And you see here in the corner? And on this night you only had eight frames of film on you. A haunting set of clouds moved in minutes after your last shot. If it lacks singularity, there is nothing wrong per se with the frame but... perhaps, going forward, when the moon is your favored source of light... a little patience? If it lacks singularity, there is nothing wrong per se with the frame but... perhaps, going forward, when the moon is your favored source of light... a little patience?
    Armand: [From below in streets] What light through yonder window breaks? It is there, no? Northwest and Louis is...
    Louis: Romeo!
    Armand: ...the sun? Barely Balthasar. The moon? [Louis goes out onto balcony] I was wondering if you wanted to take one of our walks!
    Lestat: I love you.
    Armand: I’m not Lestat.
    Louis & Lestat: Okay.
    Louis: Who are you?
    Armand: Who am I, Louis? I am my history I have endured? I am the job I do not want? I do not know anymore. No one has painted me in over 400 years.
    Romaine: [Telepathically while dressing up Claudia] Sorry to disturb you, Maitre.
    Claudia: What is it, Romaine? I look good. I look French.
    Romaine: No, it's not right at the front because your chest...
    Claudia: I don't have much.
    Romaine: Yes, you don't have more than you did two years ago. Same shape, same height. The war. Shriveled some people, stunted others. Claudia, you have eyes like my windows. Been through some shit like anybody else. Mom died. Dad ran off. Aunt didn't want me. A fire. Adopted. One of them was bad trouble. Ran away. One dark thing after another. Maybe I seek it out. Maybe I chase after it. Why? I don't know. But it's something to think about. Because even in between the dark things... there's something broken in me. A collision in me, like I wanna go bang. Well, go bang. Go flag it out or go cold. I mean, that's fine, then you'll be fine again. And then bang. And then okay, and then bang, and... You just get used to it, like weather.
    Claudia: [Noticing blood trickling down Romaine's leg and begins to protrude fangs] You got blood on your, uh...
    Romaine: Ah, I bled through. Ah, don't move too much, the pins, huh? [Gets up and walks away] I am leaving a trail. I am Gretel!
    Armand: [Peers through shop window] Claudia! [Dragging Claudia by arm up alley steps] The show is a hit! The show is our cover!
    Claudia: Tell me again what it is.
    Armand: We all humble ourselves!
    Claudia: Tell me again how Sam licks the stage clean after every show, and I'll tell you a job I'd rather do.
    Armand: You're the only one with a child's physique.
    Claudia: Audiences don't give a shit. Tuan could play the part. They just wanna watch the bouncing ball. Fifteen minutes a night to pretend. It's a degrading 15 minutes. I'd like to walk off stage in the middle but I don't. I'd like to pounce on the audience members, but I don't.
    Armand: [Walking down marketplace corridor] You left the sacrifice on the green room floor. We honor the blood when we dispose of it.
    Claudia: You dispose it so you won't get caught. C'mon, now. I missed a chore and made a friend. And before you tell me to make friends with the coven, I can't.
    Armand: Because they've turned inward too long ago and you know it!
    Claudia: Which is why you run to Louis!
    Armand: [Grabs Claudia by neck and slams her against pillar] I've let you whine and have your say. Most in my position would treat you no better than you treated your maker. Let us agree, going forward, you will do more than the bare minimum, on and off stage. And the friend you made, you will not see again. Yes? There's rot on the green room floor. See to it. [Claudia walks away violatedly and Armand realizes Santiago is behind pillar and grabs him slamming him against pillar] Too old to play Hamlet, too young to play Polonius. Know your role, thesp', or join your maker in oblivion. [Lets go of Santiago who slumps down and walks away]
    Lestat: You can't think of it as a waste of time, Louis. What's two years? I pretended to be actor for two years. And your dalliance with that manipulative gremlin? Well... what is vampire life but poor decisions, stacked next to better ones. [Sound of door opening]
    Claudia: [Enters room] Louis!
    Lestat: Speaking of poor decisions.
    Claudia: Louis! Armand knows all about Lestat! How long's he known?!
    Louis: The whole time.
    Claudia: What?!
    Louis: Read our minds, first night at the theater.
    Claudia: But you colored it in for him, painted a picture?! Who did the poisoning, who did the throat cutting!
    Louis: You can trust Armand.
    Claudia: What about, "Me and you"?! "You and me! Me and you!"
    Louis: New Orleans, unhappy. Vampire homeland, unhappy. Paris, unhappy. Comes the coven, you're beaming like the whole world went technicolor.
    Claudia: What the fսck's gone on without me here?
    Louis: I didn't want to wreck that for you and this whole time...
    Claudia: Chasing it! Chasing!
    Louis: ..he hasn't betrayed our trust or told our secret!
    Claudia: Gotta be chasing it! Except he just threatened me with it!
    Louis: Doesn't sound like him.
    Claudia: Doesn't sound like him?! Oh, forgot! Love makes you stupid! Makes you fickle and weak and blind! Let me guess, he's your companion finally?! Well, good for fսcking you! You and him! Him and you! [Swipes down photo drying line] You and fսcking him! Picked another one over me! [Storms out room]
    Louis: [Follows her passionately pointing] You picked the coven! You left me! Go sit in your choice, sister! [She slams door] Go sit in it!
    Lestat: The wilderness that is our daughter. [Louis stares hard in reluctant admittance looks at photo of Armand starting to incinerate and extinguishes it and looks back at Lestat] Hmm.
    Louis: Shall we hunt?

### Don't Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape [2.05]

    Daniel: Does Malik know he's lunch?
    Louis: Malik knows if he makes it on foot to Jumeirah Mosque by evening, he'll be paid enough crypto to, well, most anything he wants.
    Daniel: Has anyone ever cashed in?
    Louis: How was your lunch?
    Armand: [Smiles while wearing Malik's sunglasses] Entertaining. (Malik) made it all the way to the Burj Khalifa.
    Louis: Leave (Daniel) alone, Armand! Leave him be, Armand! Stop!
    Louis: Often it's someone carefully chosen for the harm he does the world with his chosen profession.
    Armand: Have I atoned for my part of... Paris? Have I crawled an inch forward? Or am I a reminder of the worst of it?
    Armand: [Mocking Louis, repeatedly] "Lestat..."
    Louis: I talked shit about him the whole time! So what?!
    Armand: [Repeatedly]THE NAME! Unuttered in our home for 23 years, said over and over again until it was pounding in my brain like a hammer!
    Louis: Our problems aren't about him.
    Armand: And you threw [Claudia's] name around just for cover, but it always circled back to him.
    Armand: If you wanted escape from this prison of empathy I've locked you away in, all you had to do was ask, Louis.
    Louis: Suffocation by the world's softest, beigest pillow!
    Armand: You left me for death. Will I be on suicide watch for the next 1,000 years?
    Louis: Paris in the 1940s with its permissive laissez-aller sexual atmosphere was the more formative liberation for me.
    Louis: Does (Armand) want to lick my boots? (sticks his tongue out at Armand) Or chop my hands off? Is it the gremlin or the good nurse tonight?
    Armand: [Mocking Louis] "Oh, it's so, so hard to be me. It's so hard to kill humans. I can feel their feelings as I drain them. Everyone I know wronged me."
    Louis: Let's try you. [Mocking Armand] "I'm the vampire Armand and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little bitch!"
    Armand: "My brother, he tossed himself off a roof!"
    Louis: "The vampires who murdered my daddy made me pretend I didn't have a dіck for 240 years."
    Armand: "My sister (Grace), she buried me alive. My daughter (Claudia) was my sister was my throw pillow when (Lestat) wouldn't look at me kindly."
    Louis: Armand could see I was partial to you. Armand preserves my happiness, even when I don't or can't. He had a hunch you might prove fruitful in later times.
    Daniel: Okay, sure. Let's go with that.
    Daniel: All of your slickness at the bar, all that's gone.
    Louis: What do I seem like now, boy?
    Daniel: A veteran of many wars.
    Louis: This, after all I've told you, is what you ask for, boy?
    Daniel: Yeah, well, you don't know what human life is like. I mean you've forgotten, man. I mean you don't understand the meaning of your own story.
    Daniel: Suicide hotline 101. Don't say to the person on the other end of the line, 'Hey, why don't you cheer the fuck up?'
    Louis: I overreacted.
    Daniel: Not sure that killing me was a totally warranted response to my idiocy.
    Daniel: Turns out I had a copy saved in the cloud.
    Louis: You're a liar, Daniel.
    Daniel: So are you, Louis. Whether you know it or not.
    Louis: I walked into the sun.
    Daniel: You remember that?
    Louis: I'm remembering it now.

### Like the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Made Light [2.06]

    Armand: Are you thinking of coming back to Paris? Trash piles and men who smell like cheese? Non, merci. No. We're going to wander.
    Louis: Wander?
    Armand: Mm-hm. [Louis chuckles]
    Louis: Wander? This one? She of the straight line to the next X on the map?
    Armand: This is the X, Louis. Alright. Okay, well... to finding the X.
    Madeliene: Santé! Santé! How do you like my coffin? I wake up at night and the Phams aren't trading insults, Estelle isn't smearing makeup all over herself or humming off-key. [Claudia sings off-key] No one is forcing me to listen to their gossips or solve their petty crises. It's bliss.
    Lestat: Still, we didn't make it easy for you. I'm sorry for that. You alright there? I cannot read your mind. The architects of our, uh... I made you, that's just the way it is. Yes, but I feel you, Louis. I feel you too, Madeleine. I told Claudia I can feel you love her... and we should see him once more. I'm glad you did. I'm glad we did this. I can feel you too. Through him. Yes, he loves you. Okay. Okay, well, let's get the hell out of my soul! He gets enough affection. I don't need his head getting too big to get out the door. Taking a stretch. Order me another, love. There he goes. Mm-hm, there he goes! Will he get through the door with that big head? [Madeleine laughs] Why don't you want him to know how much you love him?
    Louis: That's a little personal. He knows.
    Madeleine: Uh-huh.
    Louis: He knows. They gave him a choice. He chose.
    Santiago: [Hosting cabaret performance] Ladies and gentlemen! Madames et messieurs! Offal and offalesses! And all those who flourish outside the divide, welcome. For 150 years, we here at the Theatre Des Vampires have shown you "you". [Audience laughs] Your obscene predilections, your savage desires. But today, we're shunting human affairs aside. So if you want to kill your lover or fսck your mother, it'll have to wait. [Audience laughs] Because today... we're turning our lurid spotlight on ourselves! I stand before you in broad daylight at this first ever matinee at the Theatre Des Vampires to perform for your salacious gratification...
    Audience: Yes!
    Santiago: ...us! Are you ready, you filthy animals?
    Audience: [Shouts] Yes! Yes? [Audience cheers and applauds]
    Santiago: Yes? [Audience cheers] The jury may be seated!
    Daniel: I want to get out alive.
    Ragland James: You want a book.
    Daniel: I want...both.
    Ragland James: You fear Armand. You should fear the other one.
    Daniel: Little more vermouth next time, Rashid.
    Rashid: I can make another.
    Daniel: No, it's good. Just his were better.
    Claudia: You were Lestat's. Now your Armand's.
    Louis: Or Armand is mine.
    Claudia: I've been a third all my life. Not saying that to fight, just saying it's true. I feel like I get to pick one thing for myself. And it's her. A weird white lady I met by happenstance.
    Claudia: Without the burden of me.
    Louis: I said it to get him through the door.
    Claudia: Did you mean it?
    Louis: Does it matter? I got the result.
    Claudia: If you get scared, you just look at that light. Listen to my voice. I won't let anything go wrong.
    Madeleine: Don't worry about the blood. It's the blood that made you.
    Armand: Stop it! Stop it. This is too important a moment in our story for these games.
    Daniel: Oh, is there a game being played?

### I Could Not Prevent It [2.07]

    Lestat de Lioncourt: [After an audience member yells a derogatory slur] Men embracing men, it disgusts you?
    Audience Member: Uh, I'm pretty sure it disgusts a whole lot of people.
    Lestat de Lioncourt: Oh? You fought at Bastogne. You vomited into your foxhole often. But what you didn't do, Corporal Jonny Chaffin, is fire your M1 Garand rifle a single time. Germans overran your line and three days later, you ran off into the Belgian forest, during which time your friend, who you share a matching tattoo with, Private Earnest Hughes' arm was shot off. You tried to desert, but you couldn't read your map. And eventually, you stumbled back to your line and claimed you'd been lost in the fog! There are fourteen men who served their countries honorably in attendance with us this afternoon. They may, like yourself, be disgusted by the transcendent love between two vampires of the same sеx. But I wonder, where lies their disgust now?