This article contains spoilers for Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire on AMC.
The premiere of Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire may not be as bloodsoaked as previous entries in the series, but the show still has a keen understanding of when to take its gory shots and when to, shall we say, set the scene. This first episode kicks off with a hell of a lot of introspection, and even has the presence of mind to call out its own exposition, but the heaviness still looms large in a way that the lack of gore isn’t super important.
Here, it's the blood — including the "bad" blood — that is connected to the changes our characters are undergoing in the wake of last season's finale. And it’s the wounds that don’t bleed that matter the most. Even when it comes to feeding.
When we left the main trio at the end of Season 1, Lestat (Sam Reid) had just met his fateful “end” after being poisoned by Claudia (Bailey Bass). However, though Louis (Jacob Anderson) understood that their abusive maker had to die and supported the cause by slitting Lestat’s throat, his heart would not let him burn the body. While this moment only confirmed what Claudia had already known — she had left Louis out of the loop on the plot to kill their sire because of his feelings — her brother’s refusal to finish the job or to allow her to do it herself drives a considerable wedge between the two of them.
By the Season 2 premiere, Claudia (now played by Delainey Hayles) and Louis make it safely to Poland. “Safely” is, of course, relative, as they land in Poland at the height of WWII. But the series makes it immediately clear that it has no interest in entangling its vampires with the troubles of humanity. The exception here being when it relates directly to their survival and, while bullets can’t do anything to harm them, tainted blood has been a longstanding concern for vampires in Anne Rice’s universe. What’s new here, however, is that perpetual trauma and despair evidently have effects on human blood and how it nourishes vampires in the AMC series.
Hitler eating a bullet (or chomping a pill, depending on your history book) comes and goes, making way for Soviet occupation across Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Turns out, this has such a devastating effect on the people of the region that their “blood is bad.” Louis attempts to explain to Claudia as they sit trying to warm themselves at the fire, but she’s still so furious over his slight — now six years prior at this point — that his words fall on deaf ears.
The pair had made their way to Romania as yet another effort to find more of their kind. Where better to find more vampires than their birthplace, after all? But the people are so downtrodden that their blood doesn’t fill, so the vampires who feast on them cannot get warm and get a literal taste of their victims’ despair. It’s a curious effect, one not explored in Rice’s novels, but acts as a welcome companion to Louis’ own misery (over Lestat, over the blood, over life, death, whatever…). What is explained, at least briefly, in the books is the concept of revenants. Braindead, fledgling vampires turned and then trapped in a coffin, unable to feed.
We meet what I can only assume is the series’ version of a revenant in this Season 2 premiere. At first, we’re not sure what it is. We only know that it’s ravenous, killing off the few survivors, and broken in a different way than Louis and Claudia’s deep emotional wounds. It’s very strong, but otherwise it’s more zombie than vampire. We only learn of its age when its mother kills it after Claudia gouges out its eyes to stop it from attacking Louis again. “How would he hunt?” Daciana (Diana Gheorghian) asks in misery while standing over the corpse of the last of her kin.
The introduction of Daciana is an important one, not because of any potential for her lingering as a recurring character, but because her fate ultimately returns Louis and Claudia to the same page.
Before meeting Daciana and her youngling, the two protagonists were oceans apart. But when Daciana chooses suicide, throwing herself into the open fire rather than leave her homeland in search of better blood and believing in Claudia’s many promises, something in the young vampire breaks.
Early in the episode, she screams at Louis that there must be others, because the only ones she has met are, and I’m paraphrasing here, tremendous assholes. Discovering Daciana was the hope that Claudia so desperately needed. Having it ripped away mere moments after their introduction broke the girl in a way that we haven’t seen yet in the series despite her many challenges in Season 1. Lestat never had the power to hurt her in the way that he hurt Louis, but Daciana choosing to end it all rather than believe in the promised future presented by Claudia destroyed the girl’s dream that she could find a future with her own kind.
The aftermath is a great equalizer between the two protagonists. Claudia falls to the emotional depths that Louis had been occupying since slitting Lestat’s throat; Louis claws himself out of his haze long enough to give Claudia some hard and soft words (the soft words are the ones that are important: he promises he will not make the same choice that Daciana did so long as they are by each other’s side) and to decide their next destination.
Claudia and Louis will make their way to France, and undoubtedly the Théâtre des Vampires to show the beginning of Louis and Armand’s (Assad Zaman) relationship. The real question of what awaits them in France centers on Claudia, given the fate that she is to meet there (at least in the books). But will the series elect to keep her alive instead? With Louis and Armand still partnered in the present, it seems that, at the very least, Armand’s involvement in her death will be shifted somewhat. Only time will tell, though.
In the meantime, it seems that bad blood has restored the troubled little vampire family for now. Still, here’s hoping there’s a brighter day awaiting the two of them in France, at least for a time. Lestat is still very much alive and extremely particular about being abandoned, so his presence in the series will undoubtedly change from haunting Louis’ mind to chasing down his traitorous companions and seeking his revenge.
Amelia is the entertainment Streaming Editor here at IGN. She's also a film and television critic who spends too much time talking about dinosaurs, superheroes, and folk horror. You can usually find her with her dog, Rogers. There may be cheeseburgers involved. Follow her across social @ThatWitchMia
