Once again, I've come here to voice my thoughts about the new Interview with a Vampire show on AMC. If you have not watched yet and don't want spoilers, come back to this post later. Otherwise, enjoy my delve into the relationship between the long-term vampire couple, Louis and Armand. Are they soul mates, or do they just have a different type of toxic relationship than Louis and Lestat?
In episodes leading up to the big reveal that Armand has been toying with Louis' memory, Daniel begins to have flashbacks to Armand berating him with questions: "In high school, you told a girl you'd only do her with a paper bag over her head..." Armond says in an angry voice. Daniel looks over to see a corpse wrapped up in clear plastic on the floor nearby. At this point in the story, their facade of the perfect relationship has begun to fall apart when Louis realizes that Armand has replaced some of the photos he took in Paris with professional photographers' photographs. They have a screaming match about it while Daniel struggles with his memories from that day in San Francisco when he first began the interview.
We open the next episode as if the fight has never happened. We're back to the interview, and Louis and Armand are both calm and collected. However, when Louis makes comments that give Daniel pause, the older vampire is the one to suggest it is merely because his lover is tired. Armand leaves to hunt a human who is in on the game. He knows that if he gets away, he'll get a reward, but he doesn't seem to know or care that no one has gotten away so far. Daniel notices this and comments on it. Armand is vicious in a different way than Lestat. He doesn't eat frequently, but he likes to hunt his victims when he does. Once Daniel and Louis are alone, Daniel decides to confront Louis with the memories that have started to come back to him about that night in San Franscisco. He knows that Louis attacked him, he was pretty high the whole time, so he doesn't remember much that's not on the tapes, but he also has been told that Armand saved him, so what is with the memory of getting the third degree from Armand? Where did it come from?
As the two talk about their night together (Daniel was almost sure that they'd slept together but Louis says no) they both realize something. Neither of their memories of that night are clear. They both have missing pieces. Daniel plays the ending of the last tape after it has been cleaned up and it reveals an argument between Louis and Armand, an argument which culminates in Louis trying to commit suicide by sunlight. Then the two start to remember what has been wiped away by Armand. The three missing days between when Daniel went home with Louis and when he woke up in the drug den where they'd dropped him.
What becomes clear with this reveal is that Louis cannot trust the happiness he thinks he's experienced with Armand. All of it could just be the times in between his mental breakdowns which have been conveniently erased as if they never existed. This is not a healthy dynamic because you cannot grow from pain if you're not allowed to feel it, to remember it. Sure, it could just be this one time. Maybe Armand didn't want Louis to remember that they fought about Lestat or that he contacted Lestat, but Louis chose him, so that's doubtful. More likely is that Armand was exceedingly jealous of Daniel for being someone Louis treated differently. In their fight, Louis calls Armand boring and Daniel fascinating. Armand also intimates that he thinks the reason Louis trash talked Lestat was because it was a call for Lestat to find him and take him away. Like bait if the book were to get published. So yes, Armand might have erased his memory just this one time because of jealousy or because he didn't want Louis to remember trying to kill himself, or he could have been doing it all along.
Armand needs Louis. He needs someone to take care of. He needs to be needed. Keeping Louis in that perpetual state of healing would be advantageous to him, then. Louis also needs Armand. He needs someone to pull him back from the edge of the abyss every time he starts to lean into it. During their first interview in San Francisco, Louis tells Daniel that he was going to stay out in the sun after watching Claudia walk away the first time. Perhaps that is why Lestat forced her to come back. He knew he wasn't enough. Every time Louis sought something outside Lestat (his humanity, his human family, his people), monsieur de Lioncourt acted out. And now, Armand has taken over that mantle of Louis' protector. But their relationship cannot be truly happy if one is being controlled with false memories and manufactured peace, now, can it?
Those are my thoughts on this week's episode. I'm sure next week we'll be discussing the episode where Claudia dies and I'm sure I'll be in tears while I type the post up.
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