{"id":31555,"date":"2026-06-29T14:58:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/we-were-on-the-devils-road-now-the-vampire-lestat-and-the-making-of-a-vampire-messiah-review\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:58:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T18:58:39","slug":"we-were-on-the-devils-road-now-the-vampire-lestat-and-the-making-of-a-vampire-messiah-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/we-were-on-the-devils-road-now-the-vampire-lestat-and-the-making-of-a-vampire-messiah-review\/","title":{"rendered":"We Were on the Devil’s Road Now: \u2018The Vampire Lestat\u2019 and the Making of a Vampire Messiah [Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\nTrigger Warning:<\/strong> This review discusses rape, sexual assault, and incest as it is present in the plot of the episode.<\/p>\n

Somehow, in some way, we\u2019re already over halfway through AMC\u2019s <\/strong>The Vampire Lestat<\/em><\/strong>, the third season of the critically acclaimed Interview with the Vampire <\/em><\/strong>series, and the season has delivered what is perhaps its saddest episode yet.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s \u201cToronto\u201d<\/strong> was horrifying and devastating in its own right, but that devastation served primarily as a launching point. By the time the credits rolled, both Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid)<\/strong> and Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson)<\/strong> had been left utterly broken, setting the stage for an episode that is far less concerned with shock than with the aftermath of trauma.<\/p>\n

As a quick refresher, the emotional core of \u201cToronto\u201d centered on Lestat\u2019s life in Paris, culminating in two of the most traumatic moments of his existence: his forced turning at the hands of the vampire Magnus (Damien Atkins)<\/strong> and the death of his first love, Nicolas de Lenfent (Joseph Potter)<\/strong>, after Nicolas descended into madness. While both moments are disastrous, it was Lestat\u2019s assault by Magnus \u2014 shown predominantly through fragmented, nightmarish flashes \u2014 that became the episode\u2019s emotional centerpiece. Intercut alongside Louis confronting Bruce<\/strong>, the vampire who raped Claudia (Delainey Hayles)<\/strong> decades earlier, the sequence showcased not only Sam Reid\u2019s remarkable physicality, but also the ways Lestat continues to avoid fully confronting what was done to him.<\/p>\n

Louis, meanwhile, discovered that revenge offers no real solace. Killing Bruce didn\u2019t heal anything; instead, it reopened the wound of Claudia\u2019s death and forced Louis to confront an even more frightening reality: the Claudia lookalike he mentioned in Episode 2, \u201cToledo,\u201d isn\u2019t simply someone who reminds him of her. To Louis, she represents who Claudia could have been in another life, and he is beginning to unravel beneath the weight of that grief.<\/p>\n

There are a few other important threads to keep in mind before diving into this week\u2019s episode. Lestat\u2019s rockstar career has unleashed a collection of muses \u2014 manifestations of the people and memories that continue to haunt him. His increasingly disturbing relationship with his mother, Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle)<\/strong>, remains one of the season\u2019s most unsettling storylines as she repeatedly violates boundaries Lestat has desperately tried to establish. And finally, Lestat\u2019s confrontation with the ghosts of Magnus and Nicolas culminated in \u201cThe Loneliness,\u201d<\/strong> easily the strongest song of the season so far \u2014 and, yes, the<\/em> song of the summer. You heard it here first.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt with his band and crew. Photo from AMC. <\/p>\n

The performance ends with Lestat involuntarily levitating through the Cloud Gift<\/strong>, a moment Sam Reid recently described to Variety<\/em><\/strong><\/a> as a \u201clovely callback to Season 1\u201d that occurs when Lestat experiences \u201cpure elation.\u201d (I will politely refrain from pointing out that the only other time we\u2019ve seen him levitate in Season 1 was while making love with Louis. And yes, it is \u2018making love\u2019 when it\u2019s them). Unfortunately and\/or fortunately for Lestat, this particular display of supernatural euphoria was captured on countless cell phones and immediately plastered across social media.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Armand (Assad Zaman)<\/strong> is back in the picture, springing into the episode\u2019s final moments like the world\u2019s least welcome jack-in-the-box. His latest destination is an AA meeting attended by Alex (Seamus Patterson)<\/strong>, one of Lestat\u2019s guitarists, and if there\u2019s one thing Interview with the Vampire<\/em> has taught us over the past seasons, it\u2019s that Armand never simply shows up. If he\u2019s there, something terrible is almost certainly about to happen to someone. Or someones.<\/p>\n

So strap in, because we have a lot to discuss as we hit the halfway point of the season.<\/p>\n

(I\u2019m not emotionally prepared for there to be only three episodes left.)<\/p>\n

The Devil\u2019s Road<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As has become the structure for much of this season, \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Road\u201d<\/strong> splits its time between the past and the 2025 timeline of The Vampire Lestat\u2019s tour. In the past, we follow Lestat and Gabriella as they leave Paris and begin traveling together as newly made vampires. In 2025, we bounce between Lestat and his band, Louis and the waitress Regina<\/strong> (played by Delainey Hayles, who we absolutely love to have back\u2026 but at what cost?), Armand and Daniel (Eric Bogosian)<\/strong>, who are finally reunited (cheers to you, Devil\u2019s Minion<\/strong> fans), and the various ways those storylines begin to intertwine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Louis and Regina<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the second episode of this season, Louis tells Daniel that he saw a girl in New York City who looked just like Claudia had she made it to her twenties and worked in a dingy diner. At the end of last week\u2019s episode, we finally meet her, and she is a Claudia lookalike in nearly every way \u2014 most notably because she is played by Delainey Hayles herself. She\u2019s a waitress named Regina, and every scene the two share is as disturbing as it is heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

I think part of what\u2019s happening here, and what the show is deliberately playing with, is that because Regina is played by Delainey Hayles, audiences are being pulled into the same trap Louis is. We keep reading her as Claudia, or as a continuation of Claudia, when she isn\u2019t. She\u2019s not Claudia. We don\u2019t know Regina at all, and the show is intentionally withholding that distinction to make Louis\u2019 projection feel justified in real time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Delainey Hayles as Regina \u2013 Anne Rice\u2019s The Vampire Lestat _ Episode 04 \u2013 Photo Credit: Sophie Giraud\/AMC<\/p>\n

One thing that is incredibly important to note is that there are two distinct posters hanging on the wall behind Regina throughout these scenes. The first reads \u201cGold Diggers of Broadway\u201d and the second \u201cGlorifying the American Girl.\u201d Neither feels accidental, and both become much more significant as the episode unfolds. I\u2019ll come back to why later.<\/p>\n

Lestat\u2019s narration at the beginning of Louis and Regina\u2019s storyline tells us almost everything we need to know:<\/p>\n

\u201c[Louis] told himself he was in control. We all did that year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the good, because there genuinely is a lot of it.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One of my favorite moments comes when Regina assumes Louis might be interested in her romantically. Louis immediately clarifies that he is, in fact, very gay, pulling out his phone to show that adorable picture of his current boyfriend-situationship-relationship (?) Lemuel (Moses Sumney)<\/strong> while proudly declaring, \u201cI\u2019m spoken for!\u201d followed by an emphatic, \u201cGay, gay, gay!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s truly a sweet moment because we\u2019ve witnessed Louis spend so much of his life ashamed of his sexuality. Seeing him embrace it so openly is beautiful, and feels like a really encouraging sign of where he and Lestat could eventually be if they would just figure themselves out now that they\u2019re in modern times.<\/p>\n

The banter between Louis and Regina is equally delightful. Regina, sporting Delainey Hayles\u2019 actual British accent, continuously pokes fun at Louis for being absurdly wealthy, calling him \u201cposh boy\u201d and kindly making fun of him for walking into this dingy diner dressed head-to-toe in cashmere.<\/p>\n

In a brief but important scene, Louis scrolls past a video of Lestat levitating during \u201cThe Loneliness,\u201d confirming that his Cloud Gift usage has now spread across social media. More importantly, though, we catch a small glimpse of Louis\u2019 concern. Beneath everything that has happened between them, he immediately recognizes just how reckless Lestat is becoming.<\/p>\n

Another standout moment comes in Louis and Regina\u2019s final scene together, where Daniel Hart<\/strong>\u2018s orchestral score is finally allowed to shine. As much as I\u2019ve loved Lestat\u2019s rock music this season (also Daniel Hart, no fears), I have found myself missing those haunting orchestral pieces that helped define the first two seasons, and hearing them return here feels incredibly welcome.<\/p>\n

The last two things I have to mention are Delainey Hayles and Jacob Anderson.<\/p>\n

First, Hayles is so fantastic that Regina is immediately recognizable as someone entirely different from Claudia despite being played by the exact same actress opposite the actor she shared the majority of her scenes with for two seasons. That\u2019s an incredibly difficult balancing act, and she pulls it off effortlessly.<\/p>\n

Lastly \u2014 and this is incredibly important \u2014 good Lord, Jacob Anderson looks phenomenal in these scenes.<\/p>\n

It has always been apparent why Louis is almost universally referred to by the fandom as the Helen of Troy<\/strong>, but somehow Anderson continues to raise the bar. That fit with the white shirt? Oh, mama. Divine.<\/p>\n

And then he has the audacity to remind everyone why he\u2019s one of the best actors currently working on television.<\/p>\n

As per usual, Anderson does some of his strongest work in the smallest moments. He communicates more with his eyes and the slightest turn of his mouth than most actors manage with an entire monologue. Every microexpression tells us exactly where Louis is emotionally, often before he ever speaks. It\u2019s an absolutely insane display of talent.<\/p>\n

Now\u2026 onto the bad, the sad, and everything in between.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Anne Rice\u2019s The Vampire Lestat _ Episode 04 \u2013 Photo Credit: Sophie Giraud\/AMC<\/p>\n

The Bad<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Though the banter between Louis and Regina is charming enough at first, it becomes clear to Regina very quickly that there is something deeply off about the man who only ever seems to show up when she\u2019s working. And when she finally asks, when she finally tries to understand why he keeps coming back, Louis tells her the truth.<\/p>\n

He tells her about the book. He tells her he\u2019s a vampire. He tells her she looks exactly like Claudia.<\/p>\n

When Regina presses him \u2014 \u201cClaudia. I look like her.\u201d \u2014 Louis can only admit that she does, prompting Regina\u2019s entirely appropriate response: \u201cThat\u2019s mental.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then things become even more uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Louis offers to help her pay her bills. He offers to help with her record. He offers to solve the financial problems keeping her from the life she wants. On the surface, they\u2019re generous gestures, but underneath them lies something much sadder. It\u2019s the concern of a father.<\/p>\n

The problem is that Regina isn\u2019t Claudia and Louis isn\u2019t her father.<\/p>\n

Regina, understandably, lashes out, and Louis leaves. But when he returns, something has shifted. Regina has realized there\u2019s an opportunity here, and Louis is far too broken to turn it down. Pay for her time. Pay to pretend, even if only for a little while, that he has Claudia, or someone like her.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fucked up. Plain and simple. But it\u2019s also absolutely devastating.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen quite a few reactions that have immediately jumped to condemning Louis for his actions here, and while I understand the discomfort \u2014 and the discomfort is very much the point \u2014 I think that reading misses what the episode is actually doing.<\/p>\n

None of this is to say Louis\u2019 behavior is healthy. It isn\u2019t. Regina is her own person, not a replacement for Claudia, and Louis blurring that line is deeply unfair.<\/p>\n

But I also think Louis deserves more grace than some viewers seem willing to extend him.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve spent two full seasons inside Louis\u2019 head. We\u2019ve watched him fight to become better in so many ways. We\u2019ve watched him try to make amends for his mistakes, wrestle with guilt, confront uncomfortable truths about himself, and carry grief that has never once loosened its grip on him. That growth doesn\u2019t mean he has become incapable of making catastrophic mistakes. If anything, this moment proves just how profoundly broken he still is.<\/p>\n

Louis isn\u2019t acting out of cruelty, but desperation.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a grieving father trying to convince himself that an impossible wound can somehow be healed. He\u2019s profoundly lonely. He\u2019s endured betrayal after betrayal, unimaginable violence, and the loss of nearly every person he has ever loved in some capacity. None of that excuses what he\u2019s doing with Regina, but it does explain it.<\/p>\n

And understanding a character\u2019s behavior isn\u2019t the same thing as condoning it.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a story about Louis preying on Regina. That, to me, completely misses the point of what\u2019s happening here.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about two profoundly damaged people \u2014 because Regina isn\u2019t well either. Someone willing to enter into an arrangement like this, to sell the illusion of someone else\u2019s dead daughter for financial security, is carrying wounds of her own. They have each recognized an opportunity to exploit the other for what they believe they desperately need.<\/p>\n

For Regina, that\u2019s money. For Louis, it\u2019s the impossible fantasy that, through this stranger, he might somehow begin to fill the hole Claudia left behind.<\/p>\n

Neither of them, I think, truly understands just how psychologically destructive that arrangement can become.<\/p>\n

To me, this storyline is less about asking whether Louis is \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d and more about asking what grief, loneliness, and desperation can convince us to do when we\u2019re offered even the smallest illusion of relief.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a far more interesting, and far more tragic, question.<\/p>\n

Louis isn\u2019t well, and he hasn\u2019t been well for a very long time. I spent these scenes aching for him because after watching him spend the better part of a century trapped in one form of misery after another, I want him to find happiness.<\/p>\n

I just don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to find it here.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s only going to find another kind of grief.<\/p>\n

For both their sakes, I hope this situation resolves itself as quickly as possible \u2014 and with as little damage to either of them as possible.<\/p>\n

Sam Reid and Jennifer Ehle as Lestat de Lioncourt and Gabriella de Lioncourt. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

Lestat and Gabriella<\/strong><\/h2>\n

To stick with the uncomfortable, let\u2019s get to Lestat and his mother, Gabriella, where there is no good and all bad.<\/p>\n

We were introduced to the incestuous nature of Lestat and Gabriella\u2019s relationship at the very end of the season premiere, so by now you would think we\u2019d be prepared for it. Somehow, though, each episode manages to make it even more horrifying. This week finally shows us what appears to be the first time they have sex, during their travels along the titular \u201cDevil\u2019s Road\u201d after leaving Paris, and every single scene between them is genuinely difficult to watch.<\/p>\n

Last episode, Gabriella had sex with Lestat\u2019s body double, Jarda<\/strong> (also played by Sam Reid), in an absolutely unhinged bathroom scene not ten feet away from Lestat while he was trying to conduct his interview with Daniel. It also gave us the unfortunate knowledge that Gabriella is incredibly vocal during sex. Honestly? Didn\u2019t want or need to know that.<\/p>\n

That encounter shattered what little stability remained between them in the 2025 storyline, leading Gabriella to leave at the end of the episode. As a result, nearly all of her scenes in \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Road\u201d take place in the past \u2014 save for one final, deeply nauseating moment that we\u2019ll get to later.<\/p>\n

Near the beginning of the episode, Daniel questions Lestat about Gabriella yet again, and it\u2019s obvious why. He pushed on the subject during last week\u2019s interview as well, and Lestat\u2019s reactions were suspicious enough that Daniel even started eyeing \u201cSofia\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 the identity Gabriella is hiding behind \u2014 as though the pieces were beginning to fall into place. Now that \u201cSofia\u201d has disappeared, Daniel circles back, and Nicki\u2019s muse conveniently returns to remind both Lestat and the audience exactly what Lestat is trying so desperately not to confront.<\/p>\n

In the past, we watch Lestat and Gabriella traveling together, and one idea keeps surfacing: Gabriella insists she no longer believes in the boundaries of the mortal world.<\/p>\n

On the surface, there\u2019s almost something poetic about that. For people who spent their human lives constrained by expectations, becoming a vampire could absolutely represent freedom from those limitations.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not really what Gabriella means or, at the very least, it\u2019s not all she means.<\/p>\n

After declaring for a second time that she is not a mother, Gabriella has sex with a man she has just met, loudly enough that Lestat comes looking for her. She immediately kills the man, but that isn\u2019t remotely the most horrifying part of the scene.<\/p>\n

Instead, she turns the blame onto Lestat. She implies that if hearing her was so upsetting, he simply shouldn\u2019t have come into her room.<\/p>\n

With one of the most devastated expressions Sam Reid has worn all season, Lestat quietly replies:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I killed the wolves and you tended my wounds, we were mother and son.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s referring back to the scene from \u201cToledo,\u201d when a physically and emotionally vulnerable Lestat sought comfort from his mother after the wolf attack and that relationship crossed a line it never should have crossed. It should have been a moment of maternal care. Instead, it became something else.<\/p>\n

Gabriella\u2019s response?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the coldest lines in the episode.<\/p>\n

But only moments later, she whispers, \u201cI love you.\u201d It\u2019s breathless and it\u2019s intimate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also profoundly manipulative.<\/p>\n

There is every reason to believe Lestat never heard those words from her as a child. Gabriella was never particularly maternal and never wanted children. Now, after dismantling every boundary between them, she finally offers him the affection he spent his entire childhood craving.<\/p>\n

Then she, wordlessly on our end, invites him into her bed.<\/p>\n

What follows isn\u2019t simply disturbing only because it\u2019s incest, but because it\u2019s a textbook display of grooming as well.<\/p>\n

Gabriella weaponizes the very thing Lestat has spent his entire life searching for \u2014 love \u2014 and twists it into something transactional, something sexual, something impossible to separate from affection itself.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, so much about Lestat begins to make sense. His inability to separate love from possession; his tendency to equate intimacy with devotion; his desperate need to be wanted; his constant search for affirmation through sex.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll come back to the final two Gabriella scenes \u2014 the one in the past and the one in 2025 \u2014 because they serve as the episode\u2019s closing movements and set up what comes next.<\/p>\n

For now, though\u2026 Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

The horror of Gabriella is overwhelming and, at this point, I genuinely don\u2019t know if the series can redeem her in the audience\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

I certainly don\u2019t see it. Right now, I just want her gone.<\/p>\n

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt on stage. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

Lestat and Daniel<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Lestat and Daniel continue to have the most \u201cbro\u201d relationship we\u2019ve ever seen between two vampires on this show, and it\u2019s honestly kind of refreshing. That said, they\u2019re very much the kind of bros who barely tolerate one another.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an incredibly funny exchange about the pronunciation of Worcester, Massachusetts (and honestly, Lestat is asking the right questions here. Why isn\u2019t<\/em> it pronounced \u201cWor-chest-er?\u201d), but the episode\u2019s most interesting moments between them come during a party.<\/p>\n

Lestat is already in a mood. Gabriella has been gone for days, he feels abandoned yet again, and her absence has forced him to sit with the reality of their relationship. That emotional state makes two exchanges with Daniel particularly fascinating.<\/p>\n

The first comes when Lestat announces to everyone at the party that Daniel is still upset over the interview. If you need a refresher, last episode Daniel thought he\u2019d finally captured Lestat\u2019s emotional breakdown over Nicolas on camera, only to discover Lestat had frozen both of them and ensured none of it had actually been recorded.<\/p>\n

Lestat insists it was a gift. And the thing is\u2026 he is telling the truth.<\/p>\n

Having grief that belongs only to the two of them as vampires \u2014 grief only immortals can truly understand because they\u2019ll carry it forever \u2014 is, in Lestat\u2019s mind, a gift.<\/p>\n

Daniel doesn\u2019t see it that way. He sees himself as having been cheated. Lestat recognizes that immediately and asks, \u201cMissing the psychodrama of Dubai?\u201d (Which\u2026 I kind of am sometimes. I loved the Dubai storyline and I do occasionally miss the Dubai Trio.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a wonderfully layered line because, from Lestat\u2019s perspective, Daniel became accustomed to Armand\u2019s manipulations, Louis\u2019 emotional walls, and the psychological warfare that defined those interviews. Compared to that, Lestat almost seems to be saying, Isn\u2019t this fun?<\/em><\/p>\n

Then comes the better exchange. Lestat casually remarks, \u201cArmand could not read your mind because he was sitting two feet from Louis [whom he loved].\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel doesn\u2019t hesitate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were 5,000 feet from Louis when you dropped him. That was love, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fantastic. For a split second, the Daniel Molloy of the first two seasons is back in full force. He catches Lestat completely off guard, and Reid\u2019s response is perfect: that slow, unsettling smile that spreads across his face like a warning because Daniel has found the wound.<\/p>\n

The drop remains one of the most horrifying things Lestat has ever done. It\u2019s the act that continues to define him, both for the audience and for Louis, and it\u2019s impossible to talk about Lestat\u2019s capacity for love without also talking about his capacity for violence.<\/p>\n

The tragedy is that Lestat still refuses to fully confront where that violence comes from.<\/p>\n

His unwillingness \u2014 and, in many ways, his inability \u2014 to face the abuse, manipulation, and trauma that shaped him means he also can\u2019t fully understand the horrors he has inflicted on others.<\/p>\n

The drop isn\u2019t just something that happened. It\u2019s something that continues to haunt both of them. And because Lestat, in this particular instance, hasn\u2019t confronted it, it lingers around everything he does.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the show\u2019s deepest wounds and Daniel knows exactly where to press.<\/p>\n

Sam Reid and Assad Zaman as Lestat de Lioncourt and Armand. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

Lestat and Armand\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Some of the episode\u2019s most memorable and most unhinged moments belong to Lestat and Armand.<\/p>\n

Their first interaction in the 2025 timeline takes place aboard Lestat\u2019s tour bus, specifically in his upstairs living space, complete with a coffin and an entirely open shower because, of course, that\u2019s how Lestat decorates.<\/p>\n

Lestat wakes from that horrific memory of Gabriella weaponizing his desire to be loved in order to pull him into her bed, and then he has to deal with Armand. Great.<\/p>\n

(There is absolutely a conversation to be had about how Lestat and Armand may be the two characters most desperate to be loved in this entire series, but perhaps we\u2019ll save that for another day.)<\/p>\n

Throughout the episode, Armand is effectively on an apology tour, working through the twelve steps as though they could ever undo what he\u2019s done. He arrives to read Lestat an apology \u201cfrom his soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lestat\u2019s response? \u201cYou have no soul.\u201d <\/p>\n

But before any of that, Lestat narrates something that I fear is going to haunt me until the finale:<\/p>\n

\u201c[Armand] would do more damage than the Queen ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does that<\/strong> mean? I hate it.<\/p>\n

Back to the scene at hand, naturally, Lestat decides he\u2019d rather shower than sit through Armand\u2019s apology, so he wanders off while Armand continues reading.<\/p>\n

Now don\u2019t get me wrong. Sam Reid looks incredible. The commitment to the physicality of this role remains absurd. That shoulder-to-waist ratio is insane and unfair.<\/p>\n

But underneath the fanfare, there\u2019s something deeply sad about the scene.<\/p>\n

Lestat has spent centuries learning that his body is something to be used. Something that can distract, seduce, manipulate, or regain control of a situation. Even here, while Armand pours out a mostly-superficial apology, Lestat instinctively falls back on that performance.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s survival for him at this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a moment, however, that didn\u2019t quite land for me, though.<\/p>\n

Lestat claims he let Louis leave with Armand because he knew Armand would make him miserable.<\/p>\n

There may be a sliver of truth there, but the line ultimately falls flat because it ignores everything we \u2014 and Lestat \u2014 already know.<\/p>\n

Lestat watched Armand hold Nicolas in a fire to ensure his death. He knew exactly what Armand was capable of. He also knew Louis attempted suicide in 1973, and yet he still never went after him. Those facts make it difficult to fully buy into Lestat\u2019s posturing here. That said, I also don\u2019t think we\u2019re meant to. Lestat is talking to Armand, after all, and vulnerability is the last thing he\u2019s willing to show him.<\/p>\n

Pretending that he orchestrated Louis\u2019 misery is much easier than admitting that he made massive mistakes, lost him, missed him every day, and was too damaged to know how to bridge that impossible distance between them.<\/p>\n

Then comes one of my favorite exchanges of the entire episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe who you are,\u201d Lestat tells Armand, \u201cbut be it on the other side of the moon. Or kill yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

A diabolical line, truly.<\/p>\n

But by the end of the conversation, we learn Armand\u2019s visit was never really about apologizing at all. He wants Lestat to stop making music. He believes the concerts, the songs, the fame, all of it, is accelerating the Great Conversion and drawing the attention of vampires around the world.<\/p>\n

Whether that\u2019s his genuine motivation or simply another attempt to control the situation remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

With Armand, after all, those two things have never been particularly easy to separate.<\/p>\n

Sam Reid as Lestat De Lioncourt and Joseph Potter as Nicholas De Lenfent \u2013 Anne Rice\u2019s The Vampire Lestat _ Episode 04 \u2013 Photo Credit: Sophie Giraud\/AMC<\/p>\n

\u201cBig Boss\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Lestat does invite Armand to one of his concerts, though, and for some absolutely insane reason, Armand agrees and actually shows up.<\/p>\n

The performance opens by revealing Lestat\u2019s outfit for the evening: a horrifying mash-up of Claudia\u2019s Baby Lulu costume from her theater days and Lestat\u2019s own pinstripe trousers from Louis and Claudia\u2019s trial. It\u2019s an absolutely unhinged look. It\u2019s also impossible to ignore what it\u2019s invoking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a horrific reminder that none of these characters \u2014 not Louis, not Lestat, not Claudia\u2019s memory, and certainly not the audience \u2014 are anywhere close to being finished with what happened at the trial.<\/p>\n

I kind of love it for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lestat himself also feels noticeably different during this performance.<\/p>\n

His manic energy immediately reminded me of Louis in Season 2\u2019s \u201cLike the Light by Which God Made the World Before He Had Made Light.\u201d Obviously, the two of them express mania very differently because they are fundamentally different people, but there\u2019s the same unsettling sense that something beneath the surface is beginning to fracture.<\/p>\n

You can almost feel it.<\/p>\n

Then Lestat launches into another wonderfully chaotic rant about Interview with the Vampire<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(Seriously, I need AMC to publish the in-universe version of this book because I genuinely have no idea what genre Daniel and the Talamasca wrote and what fuckery they did to Louis\u2019 actual words and truth.)<\/p>\n

And then he puts a spotlight directly on Armand.<\/p>\n

The very same Armand who had just begged him to stop making music because of the attention it was attracting. It\u2019s wonderfully petty, but it\u2019s also deeply reckless.<\/p>\n

As much as I hate admitting it, Armand might actually be a little bit right here and I hate when Armand is kind of right.<\/p>\n

Lestat then performs \u201cBig Boss,\u201d the song we first heard Salamander playing earlier in the episode \u2014 a song originally written about Lestat that has now been reworked into a gloriously petty diss track aimed squarely at Armand.<\/p>\n

The performance is also completely unhinged. The song itself? Horrifically annoying. 10\/10. Would absolutely listen again.<\/p>\n

Best of all, it pushes Armand completely over the edge. His eyes start doing that unsettling vibrating thing we\u2019ve only ever seen when he\u2019s entering full gremlin mode. Never a good sign.<\/p>\n

And, unsurprisingly, Armand storms out.<\/p>\n

Assad Zaman as Armand. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

Devil\u2019s Minion<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Armand is followed out of the concert by Daniel Molloy himself, though it isn\u2019t their first interaction of the episode.<\/p>\n

Devil\u2019s Minion fans, rejoice! I\u2019m trying to care about them, okay?<\/p>\n

Their first reunion actually takes place at a bowling alley, because apparently that\u2019s where centuries of trauma are processed now. Daniel is Armand\u2019s very first stop on his apology tour, and his arrival immediately causes everyone else in the bowling alley to disappear \u2014 a neat reality to the phenomenon Daniel mentioned to Louis back in \u201cToledo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel is, understandably, furious.<\/p>\n

His maker disappeared for the better part of two years after turning him into a vampire, leaving Daniel to navigate immortality entirely on his own. Armand insists Daniel is the person he has \u201cdone the most harm to.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll refrain from relitigating everything Armand did to Louis and Claudia because it will just make me upset and also, in Armand\u2019s deeply warped little worldview, turning someone into a vampire is probably the greatest harm imaginable so he likely believes that.<\/p>\n

The conversation also quietly answers one of the biggest timeline questions left over from last week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n

Lestat\u2019s narration revealed that Daniel was turned sometime in mid-July 2022, despite the Dubai interview ending around late June. That immediately told us Daniel wasn\u2019t turned in the penthouse after Louis walked away.<\/p>\n

Now we finally know where it happened: on a private jet while Daniel was flying back to New York.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small reveal, but an important one that fills in one of the show\u2019s lingering gaps and also gives us many more questions about what did happen in that timeframe.<\/p>\n

Their second interaction, outside Lestat\u2019s concert, leans much more heavily into establishing the beginnings of their romantic relationship.<\/p>\n

So\u2026 again, congratulations, Devil\u2019s Minion fans.<\/p>\n

But for me, the more important part of the conversation has very little to do with romance.<\/p>\n

It has everything to do with the Great Conversion. Armand warns Daniel: \u201cYou are courting great danger with Lestat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he continues: \u201cThere are nearly enough now. More deaths than births. The Great Conversion. It\u2019s happening, Daniel. He\u2019s going to lead it and get us all killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all of Armand\u2019s manipulation over the years, I don\u2019t actually think he\u2019s lying here.<\/p>\n

Whether he\u2019s exaggerating, perhaps.<\/p>\n

Whether he has ulterior motives, almost certainly.<\/p>\n

But I do think he genuinely believes what he\u2019s saying.<\/p>\n

The Great Conversion has been quietly lurking beneath this entire season, and every episode makes it feel more inevitable.<\/p>\n

I wrote at length about it earlier this week, and it\u2019s a thread I\u2019ll continue following because it\u2019s becoming increasingly clear that everything this season is doing \u2014 from Lestat\u2019s music to the growing visibility of vampires \u2014 is pointing us toward The Queen of the Damned<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt with some of his crew. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

Other Details\u00a0<\/strong>and Some Problems<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • Lestat\u2019s levitation stunt at the end of last week\u2019s episode has officially done exactly what Armand has already feared: the band is trending all over social media.<\/li>\n
  • Rockstar life on the road continues to look absolutely miserable. Everyone\u2019s doing drugs, everyone\u2019s having weird sex, the interaction with the police was simultaneously bizarre and hilarious, and Lestat continues to psychologically terrorize everyone around him. He\u2019s so awful sometimes.<\/li>\n
  • \u201cTC thought for the first time she could have been a vampire.\u201d That\u2019s a fascinating line considering Magnus previously suggested something similar to Lestat. It makes me wonder whether the muses \u2014 particularly Magnus and Baby Jenks \u2014 are capable of seeing the future in some capacity, or at least recognizing things before they happen.<\/li>\n
  • I genuinely thought Lestat was going to keep the K-9 dog because that man has never met a dog he didn\u2019t love. Mojo, come to me!<\/li>\n
  • There\u2019s a really lovely interaction between Dr. Fareed (Gopal Divan)<\/strong> and Lestat that reminded me of a favorite moment from The Vampire Lestat <\/em>novel. Fareed politely corrects Lestat, and Lestat welcomes it with genuine appreciation. Early in the novel, Lestat reflects: \u201cWhen I was corrected, which wasn\u2019t often, I knew an intense happiness because someone for the first time in my life was trying to make me into a good person, one who could learn things.\u201d<\/em> It\u2019s one of those small moments that feels incredibly true to book Lestat.<\/li>\n
  • Alex has officially returned to the band, which under normal circumstances would be exciting. Unfortunately, the last time we saw him he was meeting Armand at an AA meeting, so\u2026 absolutely terrifying.<\/li>\n
  • Lestat seems genuinely happy to have Alex back, which somehow makes the whole situation even sadder.<\/li>\n
  • We also get confirmation that Armand is acting as Alex\u2019s sponsor. Horrifying.<\/li>\n
  • Lestat\u2019s laughter while riding in the carriage with Gabriella is so sweet. More than anything else, it reinforces why he has never been able to let her go. Despite everything she has done to him, she was still his mother, and his love for her has always been heartbreakingly genuine.<\/li>\n
  • \u201cI always did what my mother asked.\u201d \u201cA mama\u2019s boy.\u201d Okay, muse!Nicolas. Calm down.<\/li>\n
  • We have got to talk about the vampiric incest of turning being framed as something parental. Since Season 1, there\u2019s been this recurring emphasis on a vampire maker being your \u201cdaddy,\u201d meaning Lestat is both Louis\u2019 daddy and\u2026 well\u2026 Louis\u2019s daddy <\/em>\ud83d\ude09. In all seriousness, though, there\u2019s a fascinating layer of vampiric incest that hangs over both of our central couples now \u2014 Lestat and Louis, and Armand and Daniel. The act of turning already blurs familial, romantic, sexual, and spiritual boundaries, and the show has only continued to complicate those ideas. It\u2019s one of the messiest recurring themes in the series, and absolutely deserves its own breakdown.\u00a0<\/li>\n
  • Daniel makes a racist remark about Louis that goes completely unchallenged by the episode. Obviously, dialogue spoken by a character isn\u2019t automatically an endorsement by the writers, but previous seasons were generally careful to challenge those kinds of comments in some way. This season has had a few moments that have struck me as odd in how Louis, in particular, is discussed, and this was another one that didn\u2019t entirely sit right with me.<\/li>\n
  • Armand is apologizing to everyone except Louis. Frankly, Lestat may have had a point near the end of their scene on the bus.<\/li>\n
  • Someone please explain the practical purpose of the blood shower. Is it exclusively for sexy vampire times? It looks fantastic, don\u2019t get me wrong, but blood is\u2026 for drinking. I\u2019m confused.<\/li>\n
  • AMC and writers, I understand why the incest is narratively important. I really do. But it is admittedly wild that, in a show celebrated for its queer relationships, we\u2019ve now seen considerably more explicit incestuous sex and kisses than queer sex and kisses over the past two seasons. Perhaps that\u2019s a larger conversation for after the season concludes.<\/li>\n
  • Nicolas wondering where he fits in Lestat\u2019s \u201cqueue\u201d of important people is a tiny moment, but an incredibly revealing one.<\/li>\n
  • \u201cDante\u2019s hell.\u201d Louis, Nicolas, and Gabriella have now all directly referenced Dante Alighieri \u2014 Louis in Season 1, Episode 6; Nicolas in Season 3, Episode 3; and Gabriella here in Episode 4. I don\u2019t know exactly what the pattern means yet, but apparently vampires are huge fans of The Divine Comedy<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt with fans. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

    The Shooting, the Manifesto, and the Vampire Messiah<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    The episode\u2019s closing moments radically shift the trajectory of the season.<\/p>\n

    The growing fame of the band comes to a catastrophic halt when a fan \u2014 one we\u2019ve seen at Lestat\u2019s concerts since the premiere and who openly declared back then that he believed Lestat really was a vampire \u2014 opens fire on the band. Chaos erupts. Lestat is shot. Others are shot. A manifesto warning of the danger vampires pose to humanity is released.<\/p>\n

    And then the episode leaves us with perhaps its most striking image yet: Lestat as martyr.<\/p>\n

    This isn\u2019t the first time the season has flirted with the idea of Lestat as a kind of vampire messiah. Earlier in the episode, Daniel jokingly refers to him as the \u201cVampire Messiah,\u201d but beneath the joke lies one of the oldest recurring ideas in The Vampire Chronicles<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Lestat has always occupied an almost godlike role.<\/p>\n

    The show has hinted at this from the very beginning. In Season 1, Louis and Lestat\u2019s bedroom prominently features Egon Schiele\u2019s <\/strong>Young Man Kneeling Before God the Father<\/em><\/strong>. The painting sits directly behind them in the flashback shown in Season 2 Episode 7 as Louis falls to his knees, begging Lestat to turn Claudia \u2014 a young man literally kneeling before his god, his maker, and in many ways, his father.<\/p>\n

    Anne Rice<\/strong> plays with the same imagery throughout the novels. In Interview with the Vampire<\/em>, Louis famously reflects:<\/p>\n

    \u201cWhat would Christ need have done to make me follow him like Matthew or Peter? Dress well, to begin with. And have a luxurious head of pampered yellow hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

    And decades later, in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis<\/em><\/strong>, Louis adapts the Book of Ruth <\/strong>into perhaps the greatest declaration of devotion in the entire series:<\/p>\n

    \u201c\u2018Wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people\u2019; and because I have no other God and never will, you shall be my God.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

    For Louis especially, Lestat has always existed somewhere between lover, creator, father, and deity.<\/p>\n

    The shooting transforms that symbolism into something physical.<\/p>\n

    A charismatic public figure preaching a new way of life. Followers hanging on every word. A manifesto declaring him dangerous. A body riddled with bullets. The visual language isn\u2019t subtle, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s meant to be.<\/p>\n

    The scene also quietly echoes The Vampire Lestat<\/em> novel. Shortly after becoming a vampire, Lestat attempts to return to the stage, only for an audience member to become so unnerved by his unnatural movements that he opens fire. Lestat chooses to flee rather than reveal bullets cannot kill him, fearing that surviving would only confirm everyone\u2019s worst fears.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s another example of the show pulling from the novels while reshaping the circumstances to fit its modern story. And if Daniel\u2019s \u201cVampire Messiah\u201d line wasn\u2019t enough of a clue, the episode\u2019s closing moments certainly are.<\/p>\n

    The question now isn\u2019t whether Lestat has become a symbol, but what happens when people begin treating him like one.<\/p>\n

    The Final Lestat and Gabriella Scenes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    There are two final scenes between Lestat and Gabriella that need to be discussed: one in the past, and one in the present 2025 timeline.<\/p>\n

    In the past, Lestat and Gabriella imagine what their future might look like. What do they do? Where do they go, with endless time stretching ahead of them? Gabriella, in a line that feels distinctly Akasha-esque, asks, \u201cShall we scorch the mortal world?\u201d \u2014 a moment that continues to complicate her motivations and further threads her into the looming idea of the Great Conversion.<\/p>\n

    Lestat\u2019s response is\u2026 unexpectedly domestic in its horror.<\/p>\n

    He tells her, \u201cTogether, as dark monarchs [we will rule], intertwined for all eternity,\u201d and binds it with a blood oath, placing a ring on her wedding finger. It is, effectively, a marriage.<\/p>\n

    Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt. Photo from AMC.<\/p>\n

    What makes this more unsettling is how un-Lestat it feels on the surface. In the books, Lestat has always held a complicated but genuine reverence for mortals. And yet here, he is willing to reshape even that core part of himself if it means Gabriella stays. If it is what she wants, he will become it.<\/p>\n

    We see the cost of that immediately.<\/p>\n

    Because even after the promise, even after the oath, it means nothing to her. When he wakes, she is gone. Abandoned again. And whatever sense of power he tried to construct around that agreement collapses instantly. It leaves him exactly where she always leaves him: alone.<\/p>\n

    Which brings us to the final scene in the 2025 timeline.<\/p>\n

    Lestat sits on the tour bus after the shooting, guitar in hand, stripped down emotionally and literally. He sings an acoustic piece about his family, including the haunting line \u201cYou used to teach me how to kiss,\u201d which clearly gestures toward Gabriella \u2014 and raises even more unsettling implications about the nature of their relationship long before Paris, or at least long before any boundaries were ever formed.<\/p>\n

    And then she arrives and immediately reasserts control.<\/p>\n

    Lestat, still trying to maintain distance, calls her \u201cFledgling,\u201d but she refuses the framing entirely. When he admits he\u2019s done with the music \u2014 done after everything that has happened \u2014 she snaps at him to \u201cGrow up!\u201d<\/p>\n

    It is such a violent tonal rupture that it almost lands as comedic, until his face breaks open into something younger, something childlike.<\/p>\n

    And then she does what she always does: she pulls him back in.<\/p>\n

    Gabriella reframes the music not as performance, not as ego, but as obligation. She tells him she was with \u201cthe voices,\u201d the global network of vampires who heard him, who were moved by him, who are now connected through him. He has a responsibility to them. He has to keep going.<\/p>\n

    But what\u2019s really happening is far clearer.<\/p>\n

    She needs him to keep making music so she can continue using him as a conduit for the Great Conversion. His art is no longer his own \u2014 it is infrastructure for whatever she believes and wants to be coming, and Lestat is only valuable to her insofar as he produces it.<\/p>\n

    The episode ends on one of its most devastating images.<\/p>\n

    The camera pulls back to reveal that Lestat is not alone on the bus. The hallucinations of his past \u2014 child Lestat, Nicolas, Louis, Claudia \u2014 sit with him in silence. The muses have fully overtaken the space.<\/p>\n

    And underneath it all, Daniel Hart\u2019s score returns to the series\u2019 earliest emotional language, the same motif that once belonged almost exclusively to Louis and Lestat\u2019s connection.<\/p>\n

    On top of it, Lestat\u2019s narration twists back to something Louis once said in the pilot episode, just before the turning: \u201cIt is difficult to explain how his\/her words disarmed me, how efficiently succinct and impenetrable his\/her argument was,\u201d followed by Lestat\u2019s mocking laughter.<\/p>\n

    My first reaction to that was visceral. The pilot \u2014 Louis and Lestat\u2019s \u201cvampiric wedding,\u201d for lack of a better term \u2014 has always felt sacred. To reframe it this way feels almost like desecration, like something being taken apart that shouldn\u2019t be touched.<\/p>\n

    But sitting with it, I don\u2019t think the intention is simple mockery.<\/p>\n

    Lestat, narrating from a point after The Queen of the Damned<\/em>, is not a stable interpreter of his own history. He still sees himself as a monster, and that self-perception warps everything, including how he understands love, consent, and memory.<\/p>\n

    In that framing, Gabriella\u2019s manipulation mirrors what he now believes he did to Louis. But I don\u2019t think Louis experienced that moment as manipulation at all. I think Lestat is projecting backward, rewriting intimacy into coercion because that is the only language he currently has for himself.<\/p>\n

    The tragedy is that the two readings cannot coexist cleanly.<\/p>\n

    What was, for Louis, a moment of recognition and transformation is, for Lestat, being reclassified as control and violation.<\/p>\n

    And that mismatch is where the horror sits.<\/p>\n

    Because even now, even after everything, Lestat is still fundamentally out of sync with the reality of how he is loved and how he is remembered.<\/p>\n

    Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    This was a really well-written episode that I genuinely never want to watch again, if I\u2019m being honest. It\u2019s devastating in a very deliberate way, leaving both of our lead characters utterly broken in its wake. And with only three episodes left, there\u2019s a growing sense that whatever closure we get is going to be messy, incomplete, and likely only a bridge into a (still unannounced, AMC) fourth season.<\/p>\n

    Once again, Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson deliver absolutely spectacular performances. They continue to be the beating heart of this series, in that order, and at this point it almost feels redundant to say it. They are the reason this show works as well as it does, even when it is actively trying to destroy them.<\/p>\n

    And, frankly, I am going to need a Loustat reunion next episode to make up for everything I have been put through this season. Thanks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

    The first four episodes of <\/strong>The Vampire Lestat<\/em><\/strong> are now streaming on AMC+. Keep following us here at iHorror for continued seasonal coverage \u2014 including breakdowns, editorials, and ongoing coverage of all things Lestat.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The Vampire Lestat<\/em><\/strong> airs every Sunday at 9 p.m. EST on AMC.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Trigger Warning: This review discusses rape, sexual assault, and incest as it is present in the plot of the episode. Somehow, in some way, we\u2019re already over halfway through AMC\u2019s The Vampire Lestat, the third season of the critically acclaimed Interview with the Vampire series, and the season has delivered what is perhaps its saddest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11617],"tags":[18243,20091,6062,18346,18347,18348,20097,18349,18350,2621,21778,1065,5161,18351,18352,233],"class_list":["post-31555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror-global-news","tag-amc","tag-anne-rice","tag-devils","tag-interview-with-the-vampire","tag-iwtv","tag-jacob-anderson","tag-lestat","tag-lestat-de-lioncourt","tag-louis-de-pointe-du-lac","tag-making","tag-messiah","tag-review","tag-road","tag-sam-reid","tag-the-vampire-lestat","tag-vampire"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/ihorror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/30413.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"HORROR GLOBAL NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Trigger Warning: This review discusses rape, sexual assault, and incest as it is present in the plot of the episode. Somehow, in some way, we\u2019re already over halfway through AMC\u2019s The Vampire Lestat, the third season of the critically acclaimed Interview with the Vampire series, and the season has delivered what is perhaps its saddest…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31557,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31555\/revisions\/31557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}