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Well. Damn.
"Arson is a crime of passion."
We always knew how this was going to end and it was both satisfying and anti-climatic. The fire? I wanted more of it. I wanted to watch the Theatre des Vampires WRITHE while it burned. The tragedy of Claudia's death, the snuffed potential of her immortality, in episode seven demanded it. The way she fought for herself and Madeleine, the way she fought SO HARD to be heard demanded a reckoning reflected from the eyes of her tormentors. I wanted the coven, and especially Santiago to SUFFER.
The ending was peculiarly cold in comparison to Alderman Fenwick back in season 1. His death was so personal in a way that the fire, despite its passion, was not. Maybe its because most of the coven were locked in their caskets so we only got their screams when I wanted them to SEE their executioner and look him in the eyes while he tore them to pieces. Claudia DESERVED that level of retribution.
pirateshelly wrote about Claudia's storyline here:
GO Read it.
I include my comment there because I think the post perfectly encapsulates what was wrong with Claudia's story arc. To note, despite the insistence of The Great Laws, there was nothing wrong with Claudia, and that break has everything to do with the change in her circumstances from book to show and the failure of the show runners to account for that change as explicitly as they did for Louis.
In the books, Claudia is turned at 5 years old. In the Neil Jordan movie, she's 11. In the show, she's meant to be 14. 14 isn't so young that she can't age into and move through society. I looked 16 when I was 20, it's not a far fetch. The writer's needed something else to convince us that Claudia was truly going to break from having an immortal life. There were really small suggestions, but mostly we were just TOLD this would happen. That old show don't tell rule would have fixed alot here. But then we got Madeleine and it was a beautiful future that unfolded. Better than Claudia needing a mommy, Claudia had a friend, maybe a future lover, someone who FINALLY put her FUCKING FIRST!
Claudia in season 2 was otherwise woefully underutilized.
Shifting Louis' backstory, the era he lived in, his race, his sexuality, and then making explicit the nature of his relationship with Lestat blew the story wide open. There was so much room for this story to be made relevant and truthful. Rolin Jones said that changing Louis's story was a choice to place it in a "time period that was as exciting aesthetically as the 18th century was without digging into a plantation story that nobody really wanted to hear now". I'd like to get an amen right now because as a Black person in America I am REAL tired of every historical story of the black experience being located during slavery, the Civil Rights movement, or the modern, urban ghetto. There is a place for those stories, they are important and necessary and we HAVE to continue to have those conversations and remember those histories. But I also want new things shown new ways and nuanced to reflect the millions of different experiences that make up the lived experience.
Louis was made active and full of agency and anger. Making him a businessman with a certain amount of power and authority and then having him deal with TPTB in the skin he was born in was exquisite. He lived in multiple worlds and we really got to see and understand that, but it wasn't all misery. The circumstances of his mortal birth were allowed to live and breath on the surface of his skin in a way that Claudia was not gifted. Season 1 told the story of what it meant to be a queer, black man in America. It glanced very briefly on what it meant for Claudia as young and black and female. Three different states of being that impacted her different ways and then coalesced into what could have been greater than her sense of disconnect from Louis or her rage at Lestat. Arguably, Season 2 did more to interrogate her status. A second class citizen as a mortal and made doubly so by the condition of her re-birth.
Episodes 3 and 4 make the most of her, I think. The potential for her immortal life is suggested in episode 6, but perhaps in a meta reading of the stoey at large, there is no room for Claudia. She haunts the interview in the same way that she haunts Louis and as we later learn, Lestat. In the books, Claudia's ghost is imprinted upon her makers, but she is seldom truly centered.
That she is an underused and voiceless character being marched towards an end established from S1E1, it's like the nuance of her life isn't as compelling a thing to explore. I don't know. I think there's a lot to ruminate on and dig out about Claudia in the series, but too much of it is sublimated to the men's stories. I wanted more of it to be explicit. She is an excuse for Louis rage in the last episode, a powder keg for Louis to strike himself against. The last straw.
I loved that Louis was a little mad when he got out of the crypt. The voices and the visions could have lasted longer.
"All the madness and rage exited my body and nothing replaced it." What must that be like? To love someone so much and to know that they didn't love you as much? For Armand to know that Louis only picked him to spite Lestat. In reality not even second best because that place belongs to Claudia.
Fuck.
And then Armand and the truth. I wasn't surprised. Last episode, I was surprised that it was apparently Armand who turned the tide in Louis's sentencing. I initially thought it was Lestat because I didn't think Armand had that much power considering the size of the group. Maybe that's my novel bias kicking in. So when the reveal was that it was Lestat after all … again, not surprised.
And then it takes us all the way back to Omikase. Chef's choice because Louis leaves believing what Lestat wants him to believe. How he ultimately tells Louis that he "gave" him to Armand. A toxic ass phrase especially charged by the race bending, but even on its own … who the fuck gets to say or do that? Lestat for all that he loves, has no clue how to take care of people or treat.
In the end, Louis doesn't kill Armand, although he has every right. I LOVED those closing scenes. The MS and Armand's hand written notes. Daniel's triumphant reveal of Armand's duplicity. I NEVER liked Armand because -- MIND CONTROL -- although there were times were I felt sorry for the dude. He legitimately seemed to love Louis. But, hey, then you don't make a sacrifice of your lover to your old friends. The fact that he really was going to sit there and let them kill Louis? Yeah, nah, I'm good on him.
Lestat is still just as terrible. Once again, he chooses Louis over Claudia. Always someone else over Claudia and it's not until it's way too late does he understand that he was her father, too. Fucking asshole.
I'm excited for season 3. Someone posted how Louis's story is wide open and how anything is possible for him given the reimagining in the show. I 100% agree. The Vampire Chronicles were written as the Lestat Show. It's exciting to see them bring Louis to the forefront. I'm betting that they're not going to leave him tucked away in a crumbling plantation or even sitting at the top of a tower in Dubai. He issued a challenge at the end of episode 8 worthy of book Lestat at his most rebellious.
The potential is infinite for how this all can go. I can't wait to see it.
"Arson is a crime of passion."
We always knew how this was going to end and it was both satisfying and anti-climatic. The fire? I wanted more of it. I wanted to watch the Theatre des Vampires WRITHE while it burned. The tragedy of Claudia's death, the snuffed potential of her immortality, in episode seven demanded it. The way she fought for herself and Madeleine, the way she fought SO HARD to be heard demanded a reckoning reflected from the eyes of her tormentors. I wanted the coven, and especially Santiago to SUFFER.
The ending was peculiarly cold in comparison to Alderman Fenwick back in season 1. His death was so personal in a way that the fire, despite its passion, was not. Maybe its because most of the coven were locked in their caskets so we only got their screams when I wanted them to SEE their executioner and look him in the eyes while he tore them to pieces. Claudia DESERVED that level of retribution.
pirateshelly wrote about Claudia's storyline here:
GO Read it.
I include my comment there because I think the post perfectly encapsulates what was wrong with Claudia's story arc. To note, despite the insistence of The Great Laws, there was nothing wrong with Claudia, and that break has everything to do with the change in her circumstances from book to show and the failure of the show runners to account for that change as explicitly as they did for Louis.
In the books, Claudia is turned at 5 years old. In the Neil Jordan movie, she's 11. In the show, she's meant to be 14. 14 isn't so young that she can't age into and move through society. I looked 16 when I was 20, it's not a far fetch. The writer's needed something else to convince us that Claudia was truly going to break from having an immortal life. There were really small suggestions, but mostly we were just TOLD this would happen. That old show don't tell rule would have fixed alot here. But then we got Madeleine and it was a beautiful future that unfolded. Better than Claudia needing a mommy, Claudia had a friend, maybe a future lover, someone who FINALLY put her FUCKING FIRST!
Claudia in season 2 was otherwise woefully underutilized.
Shifting Louis' backstory, the era he lived in, his race, his sexuality, and then making explicit the nature of his relationship with Lestat blew the story wide open. There was so much room for this story to be made relevant and truthful. Rolin Jones said that changing Louis's story was a choice to place it in a "time period that was as exciting aesthetically as the 18th century was without digging into a plantation story that nobody really wanted to hear now". I'd like to get an amen right now because as a Black person in America I am REAL tired of every historical story of the black experience being located during slavery, the Civil Rights movement, or the modern, urban ghetto. There is a place for those stories, they are important and necessary and we HAVE to continue to have those conversations and remember those histories. But I also want new things shown new ways and nuanced to reflect the millions of different experiences that make up the lived experience.
Louis was made active and full of agency and anger. Making him a businessman with a certain amount of power and authority and then having him deal with TPTB in the skin he was born in was exquisite. He lived in multiple worlds and we really got to see and understand that, but it wasn't all misery. The circumstances of his mortal birth were allowed to live and breath on the surface of his skin in a way that Claudia was not gifted. Season 1 told the story of what it meant to be a queer, black man in America. It glanced very briefly on what it meant for Claudia as young and black and female. Three different states of being that impacted her different ways and then coalesced into what could have been greater than her sense of disconnect from Louis or her rage at Lestat. Arguably, Season 2 did more to interrogate her status. A second class citizen as a mortal and made doubly so by the condition of her re-birth.
Episodes 3 and 4 make the most of her, I think. The potential for her immortal life is suggested in episode 6, but perhaps in a meta reading of the stoey at large, there is no room for Claudia. She haunts the interview in the same way that she haunts Louis and as we later learn, Lestat. In the books, Claudia's ghost is imprinted upon her makers, but she is seldom truly centered.
That she is an underused and voiceless character being marched towards an end established from S1E1, it's like the nuance of her life isn't as compelling a thing to explore. I don't know. I think there's a lot to ruminate on and dig out about Claudia in the series, but too much of it is sublimated to the men's stories. I wanted more of it to be explicit. She is an excuse for Louis rage in the last episode, a powder keg for Louis to strike himself against. The last straw.
I loved that Louis was a little mad when he got out of the crypt. The voices and the visions could have lasted longer.
"All the madness and rage exited my body and nothing replaced it." What must that be like? To love someone so much and to know that they didn't love you as much? For Armand to know that Louis only picked him to spite Lestat. In reality not even second best because that place belongs to Claudia.
Fuck.
And then Armand and the truth. I wasn't surprised. Last episode, I was surprised that it was apparently Armand who turned the tide in Louis's sentencing. I initially thought it was Lestat because I didn't think Armand had that much power considering the size of the group. Maybe that's my novel bias kicking in. So when the reveal was that it was Lestat after all … again, not surprised.
And then it takes us all the way back to Omikase. Chef's choice because Louis leaves believing what Lestat wants him to believe. How he ultimately tells Louis that he "gave" him to Armand. A toxic ass phrase especially charged by the race bending, but even on its own … who the fuck gets to say or do that? Lestat for all that he loves, has no clue how to take care of people or treat.
In the end, Louis doesn't kill Armand, although he has every right. I LOVED those closing scenes. The MS and Armand's hand written notes. Daniel's triumphant reveal of Armand's duplicity. I NEVER liked Armand because -- MIND CONTROL -- although there were times were I felt sorry for the dude. He legitimately seemed to love Louis. But, hey, then you don't make a sacrifice of your lover to your old friends. The fact that he really was going to sit there and let them kill Louis? Yeah, nah, I'm good on him.
Lestat is still just as terrible. Once again, he chooses Louis over Claudia. Always someone else over Claudia and it's not until it's way too late does he understand that he was her father, too. Fucking asshole.
I'm excited for season 3. Someone posted how Louis's story is wide open and how anything is possible for him given the reimagining in the show. I 100% agree. The Vampire Chronicles were written as the Lestat Show. It's exciting to see them bring Louis to the forefront. I'm betting that they're not going to leave him tucked away in a crumbling plantation or even sitting at the top of a tower in Dubai. He issued a challenge at the end of episode 8 worthy of book Lestat at his most rebellious.
The potential is infinite for how this all can go. I can't wait to see it.
