Interview with the Vampire (2022) s02e04 Episode Script
I Want You More Than Anything in the World
1
You and me.
Me and you. You and me.
Okay.
Lestat was my companion in America.
- And where is he now?
- I killed him,
- and he fucking had it coming.
- That's debatable.
- Go away!
- My name is Raglan James.
- Got a real name?
- Files have been placed
on your comically vulnerable laptop.
ARMAND: The coven is envious
of your independence.
It's a problem.
Américaine. Your French is ugly.
- The dress, for my body.
- It's Louis who's from Chicago, yes?
- Just outside it.
- ARMAND: In middle school,
you stole your dad's Playboy magazines,
sold them at recess.
CLAUDIA: They're gonna
let me join the coven.
- It'd be nice if you'd come.
- He will be the ruin of us.
Do what must be done.
And do you speak for the coven?
MAN: You didn't think we
were going to leave you
- in the wet room, did you?
- A new play,
- for you and the ladies.
- And I play the little girl?
You'll be their little birdie
for the next 50 years.
[GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
[MUSIC FADES]
[PLAYFUL CLASSICAL MUSIC]
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
[MUSIC BUILDS]
- [BIRD TWITTERS]
- [OOHS AND AAHS FROM AUDIENCE]
There's nothing more adorable ♪
Than a happy baby bird ♪
And a happy baby loves to sing ♪
With a voice that can be heard ♪
There's just one thing
that makes her sad ♪
In fact, I think it makes her mad ♪
When she's locked away
like an old duvet ♪
Like a lamp that's lost its enchanté ♪
And the sunshine
calls her out to play! ♪
Well, you know what
I'm about to say-y-y-y! ♪
I don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
I want to fly where
the wild wind blows ♪
Trees and bees and big rainbows ♪
No, I don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
She don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
A tweedily-deedily dee ♪
A tweedily-deedily dah ♪
A feedily-weedily wee ♪
A feedily-weedily wah ♪
Trees and bees and big rainbows ♪
- No, I don't like windows ♪
- [LUCHENBAUM HUMMING]
When they're closed! ♪
[ECSTATIC CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
And how did she like being infantilized?
Coven life requires a
letting go of the self.
- She had her
- She carried her water uphill
- like a seasoned player.
- issues with it.
[PLAYFUL PIANO MUSIC]
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- Hello, Baby Lu.
- [WOMAN SHOUTS] Estelle!
We've come to steal your
nounou away downstairs
to stir our cocktails and
serve our canapés,
and keep your daddy's disgusting
hands off your dear mama!
- [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- I'm a birdie!
[NANNY] Madame, your daughter
is bewitched by the window.
- [CLAUDIA] Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
- She thinks she is a real bird.
Nounou, I need two mint
juleps and four bahinis.
Yes. Lulu! Get away from there!
I'm a birdie!
- Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
- Don't make me use this!
Going to flap-flap my wings
and fly far, far away!
You know I will!
Gonna fly far away.
You have been warned!
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! [SHE SCREAMS]
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
[CLAUDIA] Aah! My claw!
This is not a claw!
It is a foot!
- [CLAUDIA PRETENDS TO SOB]
- [ESTELLE] Nounou!
- Where are my canapés?
- [NANNY] Yes, Madame!
[CLAUDIA] Little birdie
Lu's caught in a trap.
[AUDIENCE AAHS]
But she's flapping her wings
and getting free!
- Birdie loves the breeze
- Lulu?
eeeeeeeze!
[AUDIENCE GROANS DISAPPOINTEDLY]
Where are the canapés?
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC REACHES A CRESCENDO AND STOPS]
- The play was a hit.
- An unmitigated hit.
[LOUIS] They added shows,
added seats, sold souvenirs.
Parisians, who'd long disdained us,
started drifting back in again.
We even added back a
Wednesday French performance.
Hmm! How did the coven take it?
- Mostly with good grace.
- They were bitter.
I hate this song like I
hate my mortal father.
I dream that my mortal mother sings it
while she beats me with a crucifix.
[ROMAINE] Blood Sabbath, three minutes.
Fuck off, three minutes!
[MUSIC PLAYS, RAUCOUS LAUGHTER]
[CLAUDIA INDIFFERENTLY]
I'm going to flap-flap my wings
- and fly far, far away!
- [NANNY] You have been warned!
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
[SCREAMING]
It is a foot!
Little birdie Lu is caught in a trap,
but she's flapping her
wings and getting free.
Don't do it, Baby Lu!
[ALL] Birdie loves the breeze!
- [AUDIENCE GROANS]
- [THUD]
It says here in the margins,
"Find Baby Lulu's inner
childlike wonder again."
And, "Claudia, if you do
absolutely nothing else,
at least enunciate."
Those are my notes, but
By the 500th performance,
Claudia was beyond bored.
[ARMAND] It wasn't ennui.
It was sabotage.
No, I don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
She don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
No, I don't like windows ♪
[ALL SINGING] When they're closed ♪
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Lackluster. Bromidic. Unacceptable.
- Yes, Maitre.
- So explain to the company
why the 500th performance
of 'My Baby Loves Windows'
felt more like a slog
than a celebration?
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 fucking comment
I have ever had to suffer.
I I have lost my passion
for work on stage.
I think I prefer backstage work.
Sam?
Yes, Maitre.
What are you holding in your hand?
Popcorn bag and a prophylactic.
And why, as the author of
'My Baby Loves Windows'
would you humble yourself thus?
It is a privilege to
work in this theater.
I do what I am asked
and I do it gratefully.
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.
The red hands of clapping cattle
are not the measure of the
Theatre Des Vampires.
If they were, then your
mugging and pandering
would have us standing
room only to the decade.
Nicely volleyed, Maitre, but
why single out our sister
when nomadic passion has
infected the entire company?
- Has it?
- Maitre might not have noticed
as he has been nomadically attending
the Theatre Des Vampires.
And the infection spread what,
year and a half ago?
When a certain vampire
was granted dispensation
- from coven membership.
- It's Louis. I got a name.
Louis takes all the proper precautions.
He reveals himself in the cafés,
the salons and gallerias.
I keep my business tight, thank you.
Maybe his human friends
ask why he can only meet at dark?
He reads books during Blood Sabbath!
I'll loan it to you when I'm done.
- Oh
- This is not about Louis!
Discipline Claudia for
bumping into the scenery,
- but let Louis run wild?
- It's a show of shallow power.
[SANTIAGO] And you do this for what?
Is it thirst?
Is it love?
What is it exactly?
Are you companions?
- Yes.
- [LOUIS] No.
[CHILLED JAZZ]
[SNARLING AND SCREAMING]
[ARMAND] If it's not a
companionship, what is it?
It's whatever you want to call it.
An affair? A romance?
Mm, it works for me.
"Companion" works too.
It's not the word I would use.
So, it's not whatever
I want to call it then?
[LOUIS LAUGHS]
What was my mother's name?
- Grace.
- Florence.
Grace was my sister.
Well, you don't talk about
your mother very much.
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.
- It's just not a companionship.
- 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.
- 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.
- What slight?
- You rarely join us for a hunt.
You read novels during performances.
I've seen those plays a hundred times!
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?
- Progress.
- Mm-hm.
It only seems to work when I
think of shit that pisses me off.
I try and find the vulnerability
within the object.
So you want me to come around more?
Yes, that would help.
Okay, then, I'll come around more.
I have to get back. Curfew.
I love you.
[SIGHS]
I love you.
You promised you wouldn't talk!
"I love you."
- Are you schizophrenic, Louis?
- No.
I mean, did you consider yourself
schizophrenic at the time?
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.
And you weren't feeling
Lestat in the room?
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.
So [GRUNTS] were
you two the only ones
who survived the fire at the theater?
You weren't provided any information
about the fire in our archives.
[TV REPORTER SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
[ARMAND 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
Uh, sorry.
The fire?
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.
Claudia.
In direct violation of
the third Great Law,
still journaling.
[RATS SCURRYING]
[SANTIAGO] What are
you writing, Baby Lu?
Why are you lurking?
Honoring the blood.
Pepa Matekja moved me.
I wanted to hear his
heartbeat one last time.
Well, here it comes.
[RATS FEEDING]
No vampire must commit to writing
the history of the vampires.
Law three. It's not the history.
It's just random thoughts. It's a habit.
Read me some.
"Celeste and Estelle hate me.
I hear their petty insults in
the middle of our scenes."
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.
A few things about you.
Go on.
Maitre has a gravely
attachment to the laws.
Now, you may feel protected
by his equally tender
attachment to your Louis.
But tender
can turn to tinder.
I took an oath. I don't need it.
Francis Naughton was transformed
without the permission
of the vampire Armand
in absentminded violation of law one.
And here lies his daddy vamp.
[RAT SCURRYING]
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
[RATS SQUEALING]
Oh!
[GRUNTS]
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.
[HE GASPS]
[PLAYFUL MUSIC]
[WOMAN] Non, merci.
Hey, Baby Lu!
I don't like windows when they close ♪
I must be where the big wind blows ♪
[SNARLING, MAN GASPS]
[PLAYFUL MUSIC CONTINUES]
You sold me a dress.
Funny, you made no
impression on me at all.
I liked you.
What, you've moved on from pickpocket?
- You're clowning now?
- I'm an actress now.
Ah! Okay.
I have seen this show.
[SPEAKS IN FRENCH] A divertissement.
Still dressing your windows
for your German tourists?
Your French is still ugly,
like your doll outfit.
I agree. I just wouldn't say it
because it's rude and obvious.
[BIG BAND SWING JAZZ]
Merci.
[NOISY CHATTER AND LAUGHTER]
Mm-hm.
[LOUIS] 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
Photographers?
Yeah, me, okay, I showed a little work,
got some love back.
I don't know what he sees in him.
He's not that attractive.
And a waterfall of pretension
bursting forth from his mouthal cavity.
Read my mind, grab my nethers.
Already doing it.
- Sam was late with the bed bellows.
- Head's in a hat.
Working on a new play.
It won't happen again, Maitre.
- It happened four times!
- It won't happen again, Maitre.
Eglee?
Catatonic since Santiago has
taken up with Celeste again.
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.
Ran down the street screaming,
"I am a vampire!
I am a vampire!"
Wheels are coming off this week, Maitre.
It's not just Paris giving
birth to more genius.
- She's giving birth
- To modernity itself?
Yes! Sculptors and authors,
and photographers and saxophone players.
- Intermingling, innovating.
- [SANTIAGO ECHOES HIS WORDS]
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.
Suppose I can come off haughty.
[MIMICS HIM] 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.
- Funny.
- See, now that I've wriggled
inside your voice, pulled
it on like a costume,
you don't sound all that Chicago to me.
Outside Chicago. We roamed all around.
It's that emphasis on
the second syllable,
borrowed from the French.
So it's mimicry that you're
good at. Like a parrot?
- Like a gent with upright downstairs.
- Or an organ monkey?
Cajun drawl. I want to test a theory.
Say New Orleans!
- Or a buffoon!
- [BOTH SNARLING]
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.
- Enough!
Take your time.
Come on. What?!
Spit it out! A-huh.
- [ARMAND] I said enough.
- [LOUIS] Good boy.
If you two want to act like
fledglings, do it in darkness.
[NOISY CHATTER AND LAUGHTER RESUMES]
You all right?
Hmm.
[ARMAND TELEPATHICALLY]
Louis, come back!
[ALOIS] So, you've been
showing your work
at the Perriers' salon?
Always something interesting
happening there.
Maybe before the war more than now.
But then I'm rarely out of my gallery.
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.
Ah, yes, yes, a good watch.
- Where did you hang the Fougeron?
- 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.
- So are you a dealer
or are you an artist, Mr. du Lac?
I like to think I'm maybe both.
Mm.
You are using a Rolleiflex
and always at night?
Very hard.
Sometimes a Leica. Like this one?
That's in there by mistake.
I didn't mean to bring that one.
Mm, you aim the camera straight,
but here, something
fragile about this man.
If you knew the man, you'd
know he was anything but.
A happy mistake then?
You caught the soul he is hiding.
So [HE COUGHS]
Tell me what do you see?
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.
Or is it, the friend of the
boy he used to play with?
Can't anymore.
And what of the look of the boy
who cannot play anymore?
We are left to wonder.
Helluva shot. Who took it?
A young American like yourself.
He has the eye.
Are you're saying I don't have the eye?
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.
Fuck you!
[DOOR SLAMS]
[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.
They document, nothing more.
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?
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?
- Dear, this is a Stein.
I know. Why is it in there?
- Why are all these in there?
- Don't ask me.
- We've been staring at those
- I didn't put these here.
Probably, Rashid confused them.
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
- [BODY THUDS]
This is embarrassing.
I don't want you thinking
I was trying to pass them off as mine.
Yeah.
[EERIE MUSIC]
I was an adequate photographer.
An amateur.
I want our readers to know that.
Sure. Um
Can I get some aspirins?
Migraines, today.
[CLAUDIA SINGING IN FRENCH]
Arcs-en-ciel, arbres et abeilles ♪
[ALL SING] Non, je n'aime
pas fenêtre quand fermées ♪
Je n'aime pas fenêtre quand fermées ♪
Je n'aime pas fenêtre quand fermées ♪
[MUSIC CRESCENDOS]
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
[MAN IN FRENCH] Merci.
[CLAUDIA] Merci.
Merci.
I know, my French is terrible.
It is better than the plays.
When you went out the window
and you cracked your leg,
yeah, that was good.
- Then the song came back again.
- Oh, oui.
They should kill whoever wrote it.
Claudia. You're needed in the wet room!
I'll be there in a minute.
Merci, Lulu.
For whatever that was.
Hey!
You want a ride home?
Only been at it a few years.
- It's one man's opinion.
- 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.
- You're a vampire, a hunter!
- 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?
- Tell me, mon cher.
A whole goddamn lot. Look at this.
And this fucking 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.
- Like this gentleman.
And this one. Oh, and her.
Tell me one thing
wrong about this photo.
Well, for one thing, I'm not in it.
Please!
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?
[ARMAND] What light through
yonder window breaks?
It is there, no?
- Northwest and Louis is
- Romeo!
- the sun?
- Barely Balthasar.
The moon?
I was wondering if you wanted
to take one of our walks.
[MADELEINE] So you spend
the day and night in the dress?
- Is this some acting process?
- It's a punishment.
Because you don't like flapping
your arms in their stupid play?
Mm-hm.
Are you their hostage?
Mm, more like they're my family?
T.B. killed my family.
All of them, dead.
Oh, my town was sad for
me, "Oh, poor orphan!"
But I mean, not too sad
because we had money
and they didn't know my family.
We gonna talk about that?
Um, a lieutenant.
From Dusseldorf.
He was 19.
He said, "I want to know
what love is before I die."
- Sounds like a line.
- [SHE LAUGHS]
I thought so too, but
then he shook so much
when I took my shirt off.
He gave me food and cigarettes,
but it was the comfort.
He was alive.
I know it sounds like a joke, but
when there's death all around.
- I saw the war too.
- Mm.
And the lovemaking.
You know, it was so boyish.
Up and down, and up and down.
And he has his eyes closed.
I said to him, "You're
making love to me,
and you think it's wrong to look at me?"
I wasn't inviting Hitler
to stay in France.
I was inviting a frightened
boy to cradle my tits.
And now I'm a traitor.
A slut.
- [GUARD SPEAKS IN FRENCH]
- [ARMAND] Rest.
Merci.
This is my favorite walk in Paris.
Boulevards of framed time and space.
The oiled dead still
living, still fighting.
When you're the oldest suit in town,
it is a comfort to be among
your contemporaries.
Feels familiar.
Ah, weary of battles and glorious hunts.
There is a street of fruit and
flowers two doors down.
Rest.
It's not the art, the apology.
Flex your power one night
and follow it with grand
groveling the next.
Vintage Lioncourt.
I don't enjoy using my
powers like that, Louis.
Seemed like you did.
That was for coven discipline,
for the situation.
And if I may, you were
wound rather tightly
after Santiago's probing.
Hmm.
Remember me?
I handled folks like
Santiago both my lives.
I don't need you flying
in like vampire papa.
I did it poorly, but I did
it for our protection.
And I didn't like seeing
Claudia made a puppet.
I treated her as a member of my coven.
I don't like you parading her around
in that baby doll dress either.
And if I may say, it all
makes you look weak.
I'm not Lestat, Louis.
[TOGETHER] Okay.
Who are you?
[ROMANTIC MUSIC]
'The Adoration of the
Shepherds With a Donor.'
Palma Vecchio.
A contemporary of my maker,
Marius De Romanus,
also a fine painter,
albeit one of lesser skill.
In fact, the donor in the
title was my maker.
The canvas painted in my maker's studio.
And in this case, the donation was
What is the modern word for it?
In kind.
This is Amadeo.
He's 20 years here.
He was rescued from a brothel
when he was 15, named
named Arun then, I think.
I cannot be sure.
The abuse in the brothel was such
that he cannot be
sure that's what his
parents named him.
Arun.
The parents that sent him
to work on a merchant boat
in Delhi when in actuality
they had sold him
into slavery to the ship's captain.
All fragments.
Shackled on the boat.
The brothel.
My maker's purchase.
His renaming me.
His reluctance to share the Dark Gift,
knowing what it would do
to his beloved Amadeo.
I served him with all my heart.
Basked in his mercy,
his worshipful mercy.
Still
Amadeo had a skill.
And if a friend wandered into town,
I was occasionally
donated.
Meatier in the forearms,
but then this was
seven years before I was
stricken with illness,
before I was turned,
and imbued with my powers.
And Armand?
The name the coven in Rome gave me.
After they set fire to the studio.
Set fire to my maker.
And sent me to Paris,
to reign over the coven
abandoned by Magnus.
Magnus who begat Lestat.
Lestat who begat Louis.
On and on.
- And on and on and on.
- Ha!
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]
Sorry to disturb you, Maitre.
What is it, Romaine?
I look good.
- I look French.
- No, it's not right at the front
- because your chest
- I don't have much.
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.
You got blood on your, uh
Ah, I bled through.
Ah, don't move too much, the pins, huh?
I am leaving a trail.
I am Gretel!
[ARMAND] Claudia!
The show is a hit.
The show is our cover.
- Tell me again what it is.
- We all humble ourselves.
Tell me again how Sam licks the
stage clean after every show,
and I'll tell you a job I'd rather do.
You're the only one
with a child's physique.
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.
You left the sacrifice on
the green room floor.
We honor the blood
when we dispose of it.
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.
Because they've turned inward
too long ago and you know it!
- Which is why you run to Louis!
- 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.
[SANTIAGO GROANS]
Too old to play Hamlet,
too young to play Polonius.
Know your role, thesp,
or join your maker in oblivion.
[SANTIAGO GROANS]
[GENTLE MUSIC]
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.
- [DOOR OPENS]
- [CLAUDIA] Louis!
- Speaking of poor decisions.
Louis!
Armand knows all about Lestat.
How long's he known?
- The whole time.
- What?
Read our minds, first
night at the theater.
But you colored it in for
him, painted a picture?
Who did the poisoning,
who did the throat cutting.
- You can trust Armand.
- What about, "Me and you?
- You and me. Me and you!"
- New Orleans, unhappy.
Vampire homeland, unhappy.
Paris, unhappy.
Comes the coven, you're beaming
like the whole world went technicolor.
What the fuck's gone on without me here?
I didn't want to wreck that for
you and this whole time
- Chasing it! Chasing!
- he hasn't betrayed our trust
- or told our secret.
- Gotta be chasing it!
Except he just threatened me with it!
- Doesn't sound like him.
- 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 fucking you!
You and him! Him and you!
You and fucking him!
Picked another one over me!
You picked the coven!
You left me!
- Go sit in your choice, sister!
- [DOOR SLAMS]
Go sit in it!
The wilderness that is our daughter.
[GENTLE PIANO MUSIC]
Hmm.
Shall we hunt?
[LOUIS SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
- Third floor balcony.
- Keep a watch.
Eyes, ears and minds.
[LOCK RATTLING]
[LESTAT] What are we
hunting for, mon cher?
What are we hungry for, Lestat?
Hmm. The pick of the city.
The pick, pick, pick of it.
A couple, an illicit couple,
out for a cheat.
His wife and her husband nodding
off in their ignorant beds.
Hmm.
Drain them in heat.
Let their children answer
a knock at the door.
A paled-faced policeman,
a ride to the morgue.
- [LAUGHS]
- Yeah, all that.
Have a seat.
[GENTLE PIANO MUSIC]
Hunt later?
Yeah, hunt later.
Huh!
[RAIN PATTERS]
[SCOFFS]
Wanker.
You summoned him?
Yeah.
You're going to break it
off with him, aren't you?
Yeah.
Well, it had to happen.
Doomed, always doomed.
Well, I'm happy you tried.
No, you're not.
That's you wanted me to say.
And you say what I want you to say now.
Do I?
- Say apple.
- Apple.
Say it in French.
La pomme.
Hmm.
There isn't going to
be a hunt, is there?
No.
Why this suit?
It's my favorite on you.
Really? I didn't know that.
Well, it's quite nice, I suppose.
Herringbone wool, notched collar.
You might not know this, but I had
the tailer inscribe your initials
on the back side of the ticket pocket.
Right here.
So your name would always cradle
[HIS VOICE FADES]
- You summoned me.
- I felt your panic.
The center isn't holding.
Mutiny brewing.
Everyone doing what they
want, when they want.
Everyone but you.
I'm not sure I can keep
obedience any longer.
- Santiago wants your
- Wants your job.
Others will follow him. You should
- You should think to leave.
- No.
I'm staying in Paris. With you.
And everyone's gonna be happy.
- Louis.
- I'm not an artist.
And I don't know too
much about the theater.
But I used to be real
good at running things.
I'm a little wet.
Santiago wants to be coven leader.
- Give him the job.
- Never.
- Watch him fail.
- Never.
- Listen to me. Listen.
- I can't.
- I will not.
- Fine.
Then throw him a bone at least.
Let him feel like he's
your heir apparent.
He'll overplay his hand
and everyone will see
him for what he is.
And when they know they
don't have an alternative
they'll beg you back.
And that's when you can
decide if you want it back.
Or you want something else.
I want you.
I want you more than
anything in the world.
You sure about that, Arun?
Yes, Maitre.
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
- [SANTIAGO] Tuan?
- [TUAN] Sitting on a bench.
Having a smoke.
[SANTIAGO] Celeste?
[CELESTE] Nothing but
a man walking a dog.
A drunk asleep in his auto.
[SANTIAGO] Good, very good.
Meet back at the theater
and stagger your arrivals.
- [CELESTE] Yes, Maitre.
- [TUAN] Yes, Maitre.
[SANTIAGO LAUGHS]
Four Fred Steins in the album!
Four!
- You made me look foolish!
- You just assume it was me.
- Well, it wasn't me!
- You sure about that?
- Excuse me?!
- I take it back.
Take it way fucking back!
It was probably an honest
mistake from the staff!
You think I need to be coddled,
hyped up, lied to?
[ARMAND AND LOUIS ARGUING
INDISTINCTLY IN ANOTHER ROOM]
[KEYBOARD CLICKING]
[ARGUMENT INTENSIFIES]
[ARMAND] Even as she cried,
a splinter of coldness in you.
Is that what makes you fascinating?
[TV REPORTER SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
[LOUIS] Don't be afraid.
Just start the tape.
[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS]
[MOLLOY] You weren't always
a vampire, were you?
[LOUIS AND ARMAND'S ARGUMENT CONTINUES]
[LOUIS] No.
I was a 33-year-old man
when I became a vampire.
[MOLLOY] And how did it come about?
[LOUIS] Would you like to join us?
[ARMAND] No.
You go ahead, have your fun.
[LOUIS AND ARMAND'S ARGUMENT CONTINUES]
[KEYBOARD CLICKING]
[GENTLE PIANO MUSIC]
[YOUNG MOLLOY] I mean,
you've forgotten, man.
I mean, you don't understand
the meaning of your own story.
[SNARLING AND SCREAMING]
Hey, stop!
[SNARLING]
Louis.
[SNARLING, SQUELCHING]
[LOUIS AND ARMAND'S ARGUMENT CONTINUES]
- [LOUIS] What?!
- [ARMAND] Morning.
[LOUIS] I lost time.
- Things got a little heated.
- [ARMAND] What a boy.
Things got heated with a boy.
I was at home picking
DANIEL: San Francisco.
I want to know what happened between us.
LOUIS: Start the tape.
I want to tell the real story.
How often has Armand spared a life?
I can't feel my body.
I know where he is.
I'm remembering it now.
[EERIE MUSIC PLAYS]
"I Want You More Than
Anything in the World".
That is where Louis finally
finds himself with Armand.
And they've done the dance.
And this is the episode when
they both commit to one another.
ARMAND: It's not a
companionship, what is it?
It's whatever you want to call it.
An affair. A romance.
It's been a really horribly,
tormented vampiric existence
for Louis up until this point,
and he's now finally, maybe
glimpsing some happiness.
I love you.
MARK: Lestat has never gone away.
Lestat is there to pass judgment
on decisions that Louis is making,
and one of them is his
falling in love with Armand.
The audience all knows
that there's this secret that is there.
I keep your secret.
What is the secret?
Talked about the laws
that murdering another
vampire is a big no-no.
Oh, I'm the secret.
Yeah, Lestat is not there
just ruining Louis
and Armand's beautiful,
romantic evenings together.
Because Lestat just is always there.
You promised you wouldn't talk.
[INHALES SHARPLY] I love you.
[BLOWS]
I could feel the movement of air
with his movement, his breath
on the back of my neck.
LOUIS: I love Louis.
I think, he has largely good intentions,
but he's not without
his own toxic traits,
his own manipulative instincts.
He almost takes on the Lestat role
in his relationship with Armand.
Armand is terribly insecure,
because he was jilted by Lestat.
What light through yonder window breaks?
- [LAUGHS]
- It is there, no?
And he sealed himself off
from ever loving again
until Louis came along.
Louis' relationship with
Armand is a response
to his relationship with Lestat.
LOUIS: Flex your power one night
and follow it with grand
groveling the next.
Vintage Lioncourt.
Armand is a rebound.
He's a rebound that
lasts for 70 to 80 years.
I'm not Lestat, Louis.
BOTH: Okay.
I think, Louis knows he
can get away with more.
Who are you?
Like Armand is, maybe,
a bit of a pushover.
[LAUGHS] I think he, like,
he realizes that he can manipulate
that relationship a little bit more.
Armand can't accept
himself for who he is.
He needs it from other people.
He needed it from Lestat.
He didn't get it from Lestat.
And now, he wants it from Louis.
LOUIS: Those two are
constantly flip-flopping
between who's the dominant one,
who's the submissive one,
who needs what out of the other.
It's fun. It's very, like,
a mercurial relationship.
Who am I, Louis?
Have a seat.
Ghost Lestat doesn't just
represent Lestat in Louis' mind.
It's also like Louis'
doubts about Armand.
It had to happen.
Doomed. Always doomed.
So, he's kind of letting those
things go as well and accepting
Armand as he is and for who he is.
There isn't going to
be a hunt, is there?
No.
Vampires are the most human monsters.
They really desperately
want this happiness
and want to feel fulfilled.
Louis finds that with Armand,
certainly in episode four.
Armand is the kind of vampire
that will not let it go himself.
And, even though, Louis has chosen him,
and effectively sort of, shed Lestat.
- You summoned me.
- I'm staying in Paris.
With you.
Armand will always see a
little bit of Lestat in Louis.
His paranoia is all encompassing.
It's this really sad aspect of his life.
MAN: Roll camera, please.
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS]
Action, Delainey.
I love to dance, and I'm
not professional at it.
But you'll see me in my kitchen
at 3:00 in the morning dancing.
That's my full love, it's
just a release of energy.
I love doing Baby Lou's performances.
I think, they were so much fun,
even though, Claudia hated them.
It's a beautifully choreographed
performance by Suzanne and Esme,
but I think fans will
understand Claudia's pain
and know that that's not who she is
or what she wants to embark on.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
Claudia has been looking for a
companion since season one,
and part of her discovering who she is
and trying to become older,
and she is a mature woman
in a young girl's body.
She's never been able
to have a true lover,
and she sees this in this woman
who has been completely
shunned by all of Paris.
Hey, you want a ride home?
Nobody really knows why
they-they're together.
They just see the pain in each
other, and that's enough.
Maybe, I'll seek it out.
Maybe, I chase after it.
Why?
There's something broken in me.
But I also think it's Claudia
seeing Louis slipping faster
than she had planned with Armand.
You and him!
Him and you!
You picked another one over me!
♪
You and me.
Me and you. You and me.
Okay.
Lestat was my companion in America.
- And where is he now?
- I killed him,
- and he fucking had it coming.
- That's debatable.
- Go away!
- My name is Raglan James.
- Got a real name?
- Files have been placed
on your comically vulnerable laptop.
ARMAND: The coven is envious
of your independence.
It's a problem.
Américaine. Your French is ugly.
- The dress, for my body.
- It's Louis who's from Chicago, yes?
- Just outside it.
- ARMAND: In middle school,
you stole your dad's Playboy magazines,
sold them at recess.
CLAUDIA: They're gonna
let me join the coven.
- It'd be nice if you'd come.
- He will be the ruin of us.
Do what must be done.
And do you speak for the coven?
MAN: You didn't think we
were going to leave you
- in the wet room, did you?
- A new play,
- for you and the ladies.
- And I play the little girl?
You'll be their little birdie
for the next 50 years.
[GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
[MUSIC FADES]
[PLAYFUL CLASSICAL MUSIC]
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
[MUSIC BUILDS]
- [BIRD TWITTERS]
- [OOHS AND AAHS FROM AUDIENCE]
There's nothing more adorable ♪
Than a happy baby bird ♪
And a happy baby loves to sing ♪
With a voice that can be heard ♪
There's just one thing
that makes her sad ♪
In fact, I think it makes her mad ♪
When she's locked away
like an old duvet ♪
Like a lamp that's lost its enchanté ♪
And the sunshine
calls her out to play! ♪
Well, you know what
I'm about to say-y-y-y! ♪
I don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
I want to fly where
the wild wind blows ♪
Trees and bees and big rainbows ♪
No, I don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
She don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
A tweedily-deedily dee ♪
A tweedily-deedily dah ♪
A feedily-weedily wee ♪
A feedily-weedily wah ♪
Trees and bees and big rainbows ♪
- No, I don't like windows ♪
- [LUCHENBAUM HUMMING]
When they're closed! ♪
[ECSTATIC CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
And how did she like being infantilized?
Coven life requires a
letting go of the self.
- She had her
- She carried her water uphill
- like a seasoned player.
- issues with it.
[PLAYFUL PIANO MUSIC]
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- Hello, Baby Lu.
- [WOMAN SHOUTS] Estelle!
We've come to steal your
nounou away downstairs
to stir our cocktails and
serve our canapés,
and keep your daddy's disgusting
hands off your dear mama!
- [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- I'm a birdie!
[NANNY] Madame, your daughter
is bewitched by the window.
- [CLAUDIA] Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
- She thinks she is a real bird.
Nounou, I need two mint
juleps and four bahinis.
Yes. Lulu! Get away from there!
I'm a birdie!
- Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
- Don't make me use this!
Going to flap-flap my wings
and fly far, far away!
You know I will!
Gonna fly far away.
You have been warned!
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! [SHE SCREAMS]
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
[CLAUDIA] Aah! My claw!
This is not a claw!
It is a foot!
- [CLAUDIA PRETENDS TO SOB]
- [ESTELLE] Nounou!
- Where are my canapés?
- [NANNY] Yes, Madame!
[CLAUDIA] Little birdie
Lu's caught in a trap.
[AUDIENCE AAHS]
But she's flapping her wings
and getting free!
- Birdie loves the breeze
- Lulu?
eeeeeeeze!
[AUDIENCE GROANS DISAPPOINTEDLY]
Where are the canapés?
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC REACHES A CRESCENDO AND STOPS]
- The play was a hit.
- An unmitigated hit.
[LOUIS] They added shows,
added seats, sold souvenirs.
Parisians, who'd long disdained us,
started drifting back in again.
We even added back a
Wednesday French performance.
Hmm! How did the coven take it?
- Mostly with good grace.
- They were bitter.
I hate this song like I
hate my mortal father.
I dream that my mortal mother sings it
while she beats me with a crucifix.
[ROMAINE] Blood Sabbath, three minutes.
Fuck off, three minutes!
[MUSIC PLAYS, RAUCOUS LAUGHTER]
[CLAUDIA INDIFFERENTLY]
I'm going to flap-flap my wings
- and fly far, far away!
- [NANNY] You have been warned!
Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!
[SCREAMING]
It is a foot!
Little birdie Lu is caught in a trap,
but she's flapping her
wings and getting free.
Don't do it, Baby Lu!
[ALL] Birdie loves the breeze!
- [AUDIENCE GROANS]
- [THUD]
It says here in the margins,
"Find Baby Lulu's inner
childlike wonder again."
And, "Claudia, if you do
absolutely nothing else,
at least enunciate."
Those are my notes, but
By the 500th performance,
Claudia was beyond bored.
[ARMAND] It wasn't ennui.
It was sabotage.
No, I don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
She don't like windows
when they're closed ♪
No, I don't like windows ♪
[ALL SINGING] When they're closed ♪
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Lackluster. Bromidic. Unacceptable.
- Yes, Maitre.
- So explain to the company
why the 500th performance
of 'My Baby Loves Windows'
felt more like a slog
than a celebration?
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 fucking comment
I have ever had to suffer.
I I have lost my passion
for work on stage.
I think I prefer backstage work.
Sam?
Yes, Maitre.
What are you holding in your hand?
Popcorn bag and a prophylactic.
And why, as the author of
'My Baby Loves Windows'
would you humble yourself thus?
It is a privilege to
work in this theater.
I do what I am asked
and I do it gratefully.
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.
The red hands of clapping cattle
are not the measure of the
Theatre Des Vampires.
If they were, then your
mugging and pandering
would have us standing
room only to the decade.
Nicely volleyed, Maitre, but
why single out our sister
when nomadic passion has
infected the entire company?
- Has it?
- Maitre might not have noticed
as he has been nomadically attending
the Theatre Des Vampires.
And the infection spread what,
year and a half ago?
When a certain vampire
was granted dispensation
- from coven membership.
- It's Louis. I got a name.
Louis takes all the proper precautions.
He reveals himself in the cafés,
the salons and gallerias.
I keep my business tight, thank you.
Maybe his human friends
ask why he can only meet at dark?
He reads books during Blood Sabbath!
I'll loan it to you when I'm done.
- Oh
- This is not about Louis!
Discipline Claudia for
bumping into the scenery,
- but let Louis run wild?
- It's a show of shallow power.
[SANTIAGO] And you do this for what?
Is it thirst?
Is it love?
What is it exactly?
Are you companions?
- Yes.
- [LOUIS] No.
[CHILLED JAZZ]
[SNARLING AND SCREAMING]
[ARMAND] If it's not a
companionship, what is it?
It's whatever you want to call it.
An affair? A romance?
Mm, it works for me.
"Companion" works too.
It's not the word I would use.
So, it's not whatever
I want to call it then?
[LOUIS LAUGHS]
What was my mother's name?
- Grace.
- Florence.
Grace was my sister.
Well, you don't talk about
your mother very much.
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.
- It's just not a companionship.
- 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.
- 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.
- What slight?
- You rarely join us for a hunt.
You read novels during performances.
I've seen those plays a hundred times!
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?
- Progress.
- Mm-hm.
It only seems to work when I
think of shit that pisses me off.
I try and find the vulnerability
within the object.
So you want me to come around more?
Yes, that would help.
Okay, then, I'll come around more.
I have to get back. Curfew.
I love you.
[SIGHS]
I love you.
You promised you wouldn't talk!
"I love you."
- Are you schizophrenic, Louis?
- No.
I mean, did you consider yourself
schizophrenic at the time?
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.
And you weren't feeling
Lestat in the room?
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.
So [GRUNTS] were
you two the only ones
who survived the fire at the theater?
You weren't provided any information
about the fire in our archives.
[TV REPORTER SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
[ARMAND 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
Uh, sorry.
The fire?
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.
Claudia.
In direct violation of
the third Great Law,
still journaling.
[RATS SCURRYING]
[SANTIAGO] What are
you writing, Baby Lu?
Why are you lurking?
Honoring the blood.
Pepa Matekja moved me.
I wanted to hear his
heartbeat one last time.
Well, here it comes.
[RATS FEEDING]
No vampire must commit to writing
the history of the vampires.
Law three. It's not the history.
It's just random thoughts. It's a habit.
Read me some.
"Celeste and Estelle hate me.
I hear their petty insults in
the middle of our scenes."
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.
A few things about you.
Go on.
Maitre has a gravely
attachment to the laws.
Now, you may feel protected
by his equally tender
attachment to your Louis.
But tender
can turn to tinder.
I took an oath. I don't need it.
Francis Naughton was transformed
without the permission
of the vampire Armand
in absentminded violation of law one.
And here lies his daddy vamp.
[RAT SCURRYING]
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
[RATS SQUEALING]
Oh!
[GRUNTS]
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.
[HE GASPS]
[PLAYFUL MUSIC]
[WOMAN] Non, merci.
Hey, Baby Lu!
I don't like windows when they close ♪
I must be where the big wind blows ♪
[SNARLING, MAN GASPS]
[PLAYFUL MUSIC CONTINUES]
You sold me a dress.
Funny, you made no
impression on me at all.
I liked you.
What, you've moved on from pickpocket?
- You're clowning now?
- I'm an actress now.
Ah! Okay.
I have seen this show.
[SPEAKS IN FRENCH] A divertissement.
Still dressing your windows
for your German tourists?
Your French is still ugly,
like your doll outfit.
I agree. I just wouldn't say it
because it's rude and obvious.
[BIG BAND SWING JAZZ]
Merci.
[NOISY CHATTER AND LAUGHTER]
Mm-hm.
[LOUIS] 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
Photographers?
Yeah, me, okay, I showed a little work,
got some love back.
I don't know what he sees in him.
He's not that attractive.
And a waterfall of pretension
bursting forth from his mouthal cavity.
Read my mind, grab my nethers.
Already doing it.
- Sam was late with the bed bellows.
- Head's in a hat.
Working on a new play.
It won't happen again, Maitre.
- It happened four times!
- It won't happen again, Maitre.
Eglee?
Catatonic since Santiago has
taken up with Celeste again.
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.
Ran down the street screaming,
"I am a vampire!
I am a vampire!"
Wheels are coming off this week, Maitre.
It's not just Paris giving
birth to more genius.
- She's giving birth
- To modernity itself?
Yes! Sculptors and authors,
and photographers and saxophone players.
- Intermingling, innovating.
- [SANTIAGO ECHOES HIS WORDS]
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.
Suppose I can come off haughty.
[MIMICS HIM] 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.
- Funny.
- See, now that I've wriggled
inside your voice, pulled
it on like a costume,
you don't sound all that Chicago to me.
Outside Chicago. We roamed all around.
It's that emphasis on
the second syllable,
borrowed from the French.
So it's mimicry that you're
good at. Like a parrot?
- Like a gent with upright downstairs.
- Or an organ monkey?
Cajun drawl. I want to test a theory.
Say New Orleans!
- Or a buffoon!
- [BOTH SNARLING]
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.
- Enough!
Take your time.
Come on. What?!
Spit it out! A-huh.
- [ARMAND] I said enough.
- [LOUIS] Good boy.
If you two want to act like
fledglings, do it in darkness.
[NOISY CHATTER AND LAUGHTER RESUMES]
You all right?
Hmm.
[ARMAND TELEPATHICALLY]
Louis, come back!
[ALOIS] So, you've been
showing your work
at the Perriers' salon?
Always something interesting
happening there.
Maybe before the war more than now.
But then I'm rarely out of my gallery.
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.
Ah, yes, yes, a good watch.
- Where did you hang the Fougeron?
- 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.
- So are you a dealer
or are you an artist, Mr. du Lac?
I like to think I'm maybe both.
Mm.
You are using a Rolleiflex
and always at night?
Very hard.
Sometimes a Leica. Like this one?
That's in there by mistake.
I didn't mean to bring that one.
Mm, you aim the camera straight,
but here, something
fragile about this man.
If you knew the man, you'd
know he was anything but.
A happy mistake then?
You caught the soul he is hiding.
So [HE COUGHS]
Tell me what do you see?
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.
Or is it, the friend of the
boy he used to play with?
Can't anymore.
And what of the look of the boy
who cannot play anymore?
We are left to wonder.
Helluva shot. Who took it?
A young American like yourself.
He has the eye.
Are you're saying I don't have the eye?
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.
Fuck you!
[DOOR SLAMS]
[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.
They document, nothing more.
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?
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?
- Dear, this is a Stein.
I know. Why is it in there?
- Why are all these in there?
- Don't ask me.
- We've been staring at those
- I didn't put these here.
Probably, Rashid confused them.
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
- [BODY THUDS]
This is embarrassing.
I don't want you thinking
I was trying to pass them off as mine.
Yeah.
[EERIE MUSIC]
I was an adequate photographer.
An amateur.
I want our readers to know that.
Sure. Um
Can I get some aspirins?
Migraines, today.
[CLAUDIA SINGING IN FRENCH]
Arcs-en-ciel, arbres et abeilles ♪
[ALL SING] Non, je n'aime
pas fenêtre quand fermées ♪
Je n'aime pas fenêtre quand fermées ♪
Je n'aime pas fenêtre quand fermées ♪
[MUSIC CRESCENDOS]
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
[MAN IN FRENCH] Merci.
[CLAUDIA] Merci.
Merci.
I know, my French is terrible.
It is better than the plays.
When you went out the window
and you cracked your leg,
yeah, that was good.
- Then the song came back again.
- Oh, oui.
They should kill whoever wrote it.
Claudia. You're needed in the wet room!
I'll be there in a minute.
Merci, Lulu.
For whatever that was.
Hey!
You want a ride home?
Only been at it a few years.
- It's one man's opinion.
- 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.
- You're a vampire, a hunter!
- 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?
- Tell me, mon cher.
A whole goddamn lot. Look at this.
And this fucking 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.
- Like this gentleman.
And this one. Oh, and her.
Tell me one thing
wrong about this photo.
Well, for one thing, I'm not in it.
Please!
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?
[ARMAND] What light through
yonder window breaks?
It is there, no?
- Northwest and Louis is
- Romeo!
- the sun?
- Barely Balthasar.
The moon?
I was wondering if you wanted
to take one of our walks.
[MADELEINE] So you spend
the day and night in the dress?
- Is this some acting process?
- It's a punishment.
Because you don't like flapping
your arms in their stupid play?
Mm-hm.
Are you their hostage?
Mm, more like they're my family?
T.B. killed my family.
All of them, dead.
Oh, my town was sad for
me, "Oh, poor orphan!"
But I mean, not too sad
because we had money
and they didn't know my family.
We gonna talk about that?
Um, a lieutenant.
From Dusseldorf.
He was 19.
He said, "I want to know
what love is before I die."
- Sounds like a line.
- [SHE LAUGHS]
I thought so too, but
then he shook so much
when I took my shirt off.
He gave me food and cigarettes,
but it was the comfort.
He was alive.
I know it sounds like a joke, but
when there's death all around.
- I saw the war too.
- Mm.
And the lovemaking.
You know, it was so boyish.
Up and down, and up and down.
And he has his eyes closed.
I said to him, "You're
making love to me,
and you think it's wrong to look at me?"
I wasn't inviting Hitler
to stay in France.
I was inviting a frightened
boy to cradle my tits.
And now I'm a traitor.
A slut.
- [GUARD SPEAKS IN FRENCH]
- [ARMAND] Rest.
Merci.
This is my favorite walk in Paris.
Boulevards of framed time and space.
The oiled dead still
living, still fighting.
When you're the oldest suit in town,
it is a comfort to be among
your contemporaries.
Feels familiar.
Ah, weary of battles and glorious hunts.
There is a street of fruit and
flowers two doors down.
Rest.
It's not the art, the apology.
Flex your power one night
and follow it with grand
groveling the next.
Vintage Lioncourt.
I don't enjoy using my
powers like that, Louis.
Seemed like you did.
That was for coven discipline,
for the situation.
And if I may, you were
wound rather tightly
after Santiago's probing.
Hmm.
Remember me?
I handled folks like
Santiago both my lives.
I don't need you flying
in like vampire papa.
I did it poorly, but I did
it for our protection.
And I didn't like seeing
Claudia made a puppet.
I treated her as a member of my coven.
I don't like you parading her around
in that baby doll dress either.
And if I may say, it all
makes you look weak.
I'm not Lestat, Louis.
[TOGETHER] Okay.
Who are you?
[ROMANTIC MUSIC]
'The Adoration of the
Shepherds With a Donor.'
Palma Vecchio.
A contemporary of my maker,
Marius De Romanus,
also a fine painter,
albeit one of lesser skill.
In fact, the donor in the
title was my maker.
The canvas painted in my maker's studio.
And in this case, the donation was
What is the modern word for it?
In kind.
This is Amadeo.
He's 20 years here.
He was rescued from a brothel
when he was 15, named
named Arun then, I think.
I cannot be sure.
The abuse in the brothel was such
that he cannot be
sure that's what his
parents named him.
Arun.
The parents that sent him
to work on a merchant boat
in Delhi when in actuality
they had sold him
into slavery to the ship's captain.
All fragments.
Shackled on the boat.
The brothel.
My maker's purchase.
His renaming me.
His reluctance to share the Dark Gift,
knowing what it would do
to his beloved Amadeo.
I served him with all my heart.
Basked in his mercy,
his worshipful mercy.
Still
Amadeo had a skill.
And if a friend wandered into town,
I was occasionally
donated.
Meatier in the forearms,
but then this was
seven years before I was
stricken with illness,
before I was turned,
and imbued with my powers.
And Armand?
The name the coven in Rome gave me.
After they set fire to the studio.
Set fire to my maker.
And sent me to Paris,
to reign over the coven
abandoned by Magnus.
Magnus who begat Lestat.
Lestat who begat Louis.
On and on.
- And on and on and on.
- Ha!
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]
Sorry to disturb you, Maitre.
What is it, Romaine?
I look good.
- I look French.
- No, it's not right at the front
- because your chest
- I don't have much.
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.
You got blood on your, uh
Ah, I bled through.
Ah, don't move too much, the pins, huh?
I am leaving a trail.
I am Gretel!
[ARMAND] Claudia!
The show is a hit.
The show is our cover.
- Tell me again what it is.
- We all humble ourselves.
Tell me again how Sam licks the
stage clean after every show,
and I'll tell you a job I'd rather do.
You're the only one
with a child's physique.
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.
You left the sacrifice on
the green room floor.
We honor the blood
when we dispose of it.
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.
Because they've turned inward
too long ago and you know it!
- Which is why you run to Louis!
- 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.
[SANTIAGO GROANS]
Too old to play Hamlet,
too young to play Polonius.
Know your role, thesp,
or join your maker in oblivion.
[SANTIAGO GROANS]
[GENTLE MUSIC]
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.
- [DOOR OPENS]
- [CLAUDIA] Louis!
- Speaking of poor decisions.
Louis!
Armand knows all about Lestat.
How long's he known?
- The whole time.
- What?
Read our minds, first
night at the theater.
But you colored it in for
him, painted a picture?
Who did the poisoning,
who did the throat cutting.
- You can trust Armand.
- What about, "Me and you?
- You and me. Me and you!"
- New Orleans, unhappy.
Vampire homeland, unhappy.
Paris, unhappy.
Comes the coven, you're beaming
like the whole world went technicolor.
What the fuck's gone on without me here?
I didn't want to wreck that for
you and this whole time
- Chasing it! Chasing!
- he hasn't betrayed our trust
- or told our secret.
- Gotta be chasing it!
Except he just threatened me with it!
- Doesn't sound like him.
- 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 fucking you!
You and him! Him and you!
You and fucking him!
Picked another one over me!
You picked the coven!
You left me!
- Go sit in your choice, sister!
- [DOOR SLAMS]
Go sit in it!
The wilderness that is our daughter.
[GENTLE PIANO MUSIC]
Hmm.
Shall we hunt?
[LOUIS SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
- Third floor balcony.
- Keep a watch.
Eyes, ears and minds.
[LOCK RATTLING]
[LESTAT] What are we
hunting for, mon cher?
What are we hungry for, Lestat?
Hmm. The pick of the city.
The pick, pick, pick of it.
A couple, an illicit couple,
out for a cheat.
His wife and her husband nodding
off in their ignorant beds.
Hmm.
Drain them in heat.
Let their children answer
a knock at the door.
A paled-faced policeman,
a ride to the morgue.
- [LAUGHS]
- Yeah, all that.
Have a seat.
[GENTLE PIANO MUSIC]
Hunt later?
Yeah, hunt later.
Huh!
[RAIN PATTERS]
[SCOFFS]
Wanker.
You summoned him?
Yeah.
You're going to break it
off with him, aren't you?
Yeah.
Well, it had to happen.
Doomed, always doomed.
Well, I'm happy you tried.
No, you're not.
That's you wanted me to say.
And you say what I want you to say now.
Do I?
- Say apple.
- Apple.
Say it in French.
La pomme.
Hmm.
There isn't going to
be a hunt, is there?
No.
Why this suit?
It's my favorite on you.
Really? I didn't know that.
Well, it's quite nice, I suppose.
Herringbone wool, notched collar.
You might not know this, but I had
the tailer inscribe your initials
on the back side of the ticket pocket.
Right here.
So your name would always cradle
[HIS VOICE FADES]
- You summoned me.
- I felt your panic.
The center isn't holding.
Mutiny brewing.
Everyone doing what they
want, when they want.
Everyone but you.
I'm not sure I can keep
obedience any longer.
- Santiago wants your
- Wants your job.
Others will follow him. You should
- You should think to leave.
- No.
I'm staying in Paris. With you.
And everyone's gonna be happy.
- Louis.
- I'm not an artist.
And I don't know too
much about the theater.
But I used to be real
good at running things.
I'm a little wet.
Santiago wants to be coven leader.
- Give him the job.
- Never.
- Watch him fail.
- Never.
- Listen to me. Listen.
- I can't.
- I will not.
- Fine.
Then throw him a bone at least.
Let him feel like he's
your heir apparent.
He'll overplay his hand
and everyone will see
him for what he is.
And when they know they
don't have an alternative
they'll beg you back.
And that's when you can
decide if you want it back.
Or you want something else.
I want you.
I want you more than
anything in the world.
You sure about that, Arun?
Yes, Maitre.
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
- [SANTIAGO] Tuan?
- [TUAN] Sitting on a bench.
Having a smoke.
[SANTIAGO] Celeste?
[CELESTE] Nothing but
a man walking a dog.
A drunk asleep in his auto.
[SANTIAGO] Good, very good.
Meet back at the theater
and stagger your arrivals.
- [CELESTE] Yes, Maitre.
- [TUAN] Yes, Maitre.
[SANTIAGO LAUGHS]
Four Fred Steins in the album!
Four!
- You made me look foolish!
- You just assume it was me.
- Well, it wasn't me!
- You sure about that?
- Excuse me?!
- I take it back.
Take it way fucking back!
It was probably an honest
mistake from the staff!
You think I need to be coddled,
hyped up, lied to?
[ARMAND AND LOUIS ARGUING
INDISTINCTLY IN ANOTHER ROOM]
[KEYBOARD CLICKING]
[ARGUMENT INTENSIFIES]
[ARMAND] Even as she cried,
a splinter of coldness in you.
Is that what makes you fascinating?
[TV REPORTER SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
[LOUIS] Don't be afraid.
Just start the tape.
[TAPE RECORDER CLICKS]
[MOLLOY] You weren't always
a vampire, were you?
[LOUIS AND ARMAND'S ARGUMENT CONTINUES]
[LOUIS] No.
I was a 33-year-old man
when I became a vampire.
[MOLLOY] And how did it come about?
[LOUIS] Would you like to join us?
[ARMAND] No.
You go ahead, have your fun.
[LOUIS AND ARMAND'S ARGUMENT CONTINUES]
[KEYBOARD CLICKING]
[GENTLE PIANO MUSIC]
[YOUNG MOLLOY] I mean,
you've forgotten, man.
I mean, you don't understand
the meaning of your own story.
[SNARLING AND SCREAMING]
Hey, stop!
[SNARLING]
Louis.
[SNARLING, SQUELCHING]
[LOUIS AND ARMAND'S ARGUMENT CONTINUES]
- [LOUIS] What?!
- [ARMAND] Morning.
[LOUIS] I lost time.
- Things got a little heated.
- [ARMAND] What a boy.
Things got heated with a boy.
I was at home picking
DANIEL: San Francisco.
I want to know what happened between us.
LOUIS: Start the tape.
I want to tell the real story.
How often has Armand spared a life?
I can't feel my body.
I know where he is.
I'm remembering it now.
[EERIE MUSIC PLAYS]
"I Want You More Than
Anything in the World".
That is where Louis finally
finds himself with Armand.
And they've done the dance.
And this is the episode when
they both commit to one another.
ARMAND: It's not a
companionship, what is it?
It's whatever you want to call it.
An affair. A romance.
It's been a really horribly,
tormented vampiric existence
for Louis up until this point,
and he's now finally, maybe
glimpsing some happiness.
I love you.
MARK: Lestat has never gone away.
Lestat is there to pass judgment
on decisions that Louis is making,
and one of them is his
falling in love with Armand.
The audience all knows
that there's this secret that is there.
I keep your secret.
What is the secret?
Talked about the laws
that murdering another
vampire is a big no-no.
Oh, I'm the secret.
Yeah, Lestat is not there
just ruining Louis
and Armand's beautiful,
romantic evenings together.
Because Lestat just is always there.
You promised you wouldn't talk.
[INHALES SHARPLY] I love you.
[BLOWS]
I could feel the movement of air
with his movement, his breath
on the back of my neck.
LOUIS: I love Louis.
I think, he has largely good intentions,
but he's not without
his own toxic traits,
his own manipulative instincts.
He almost takes on the Lestat role
in his relationship with Armand.
Armand is terribly insecure,
because he was jilted by Lestat.
What light through yonder window breaks?
- [LAUGHS]
- It is there, no?
And he sealed himself off
from ever loving again
until Louis came along.
Louis' relationship with
Armand is a response
to his relationship with Lestat.
LOUIS: Flex your power one night
and follow it with grand
groveling the next.
Vintage Lioncourt.
Armand is a rebound.
He's a rebound that
lasts for 70 to 80 years.
I'm not Lestat, Louis.
BOTH: Okay.
I think, Louis knows he
can get away with more.
Who are you?
Like Armand is, maybe,
a bit of a pushover.
[LAUGHS] I think he, like,
he realizes that he can manipulate
that relationship a little bit more.
Armand can't accept
himself for who he is.
He needs it from other people.
He needed it from Lestat.
He didn't get it from Lestat.
And now, he wants it from Louis.
LOUIS: Those two are
constantly flip-flopping
between who's the dominant one,
who's the submissive one,
who needs what out of the other.
It's fun. It's very, like,
a mercurial relationship.
Who am I, Louis?
Have a seat.
Ghost Lestat doesn't just
represent Lestat in Louis' mind.
It's also like Louis'
doubts about Armand.
It had to happen.
Doomed. Always doomed.
So, he's kind of letting those
things go as well and accepting
Armand as he is and for who he is.
There isn't going to
be a hunt, is there?
No.
Vampires are the most human monsters.
They really desperately
want this happiness
and want to feel fulfilled.
Louis finds that with Armand,
certainly in episode four.
Armand is the kind of vampire
that will not let it go himself.
And, even though, Louis has chosen him,
and effectively sort of, shed Lestat.
- You summoned me.
- I'm staying in Paris.
With you.
Armand will always see a
little bit of Lestat in Louis.
His paranoia is all encompassing.
It's this really sad aspect of his life.
MAN: Roll camera, please.
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS]
Action, Delainey.
I love to dance, and I'm
not professional at it.
But you'll see me in my kitchen
at 3:00 in the morning dancing.
That's my full love, it's
just a release of energy.
I love doing Baby Lou's performances.
I think, they were so much fun,
even though, Claudia hated them.
It's a beautifully choreographed
performance by Suzanne and Esme,
but I think fans will
understand Claudia's pain
and know that that's not who she is
or what she wants to embark on.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
Claudia has been looking for a
companion since season one,
and part of her discovering who she is
and trying to become older,
and she is a mature woman
in a young girl's body.
She's never been able
to have a true lover,
and she sees this in this woman
who has been completely
shunned by all of Paris.
Hey, you want a ride home?
Nobody really knows why
they-they're together.
They just see the pain in each
other, and that's enough.
Maybe, I'll seek it out.
Maybe, I chase after it.
Why?
There's something broken in me.
But I also think it's Claudia
seeing Louis slipping faster
than she had planned with Armand.
You and him!
Him and you!
You picked another one over me!
♪