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“Ribbit!”

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Some people have secured relationships and are now acting cute from the top of the Muzlow pyramid, asking their partners: “Would you still love me if I were a worm?”

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The number of times I’ve literally misread ‘Daniel Molloy’ as ‘Draco Malfoy’ is ridiculous.

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Conclave is basically about how the Vatican chose a Black, solo-poly, amputee hijabi over Trump.

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Cannibalism and vampirism are fertile soil for philosophers with religious trauma.

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I watched this edit of Lestat as a faceless character, and—god, oh god—what an incredible narrative/editing choice that would have been. Imagine both seasons where Lestat never gives his side of the story; we don’t even see his face. Just Sam Reid’s voice, his silhouette, the mystery. He becomes this haunting, faceless presence in a story told by an unreliable narrator who’s undergoing memory modification. And then, finally, in The Vampire Lestat (Season 3), we see the face.

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I’ve come to the conclusion that therapy may no longer suffice. Perhaps it’s time to set it aside and see what the devil has to offer.

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My red flag is that I fall asleep while using my phone, and when I wake up, I realize I’ve sent nonsense messages or shared random posts with people I don’t even talk to anymore.

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Armand talking shit about the sun is pure comedy to me.

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Episode 5, Season 1, is one of the most emotional episodes of Interview with the Vampire. It ends with the song Your Home Is Where You're Happy by Charles Manson, a nod to the conversation between Louis and Daniel:

DM on Claudia’s prose: "Look, Charlie Manson wrote a couple of beautiful songs. Still, he was Charlie Manson."

The lyrics serve as a fitting parallel to everything that unfolds in the episode and beautifully highlights Claudia’s character arc in general.

Your home is where you're happy It's not where you're not free Your home is where you can be what you are 'Cause you were just born to be

This part, for me, feels like a direct response to Claudia leaving the house, a place that no longer feels like home. She was a mistake, a band-aid for a failing marriage, a vampire born out of remorse and selfishness.

Now they'll show you their castles And diamonds for all to see But they'll never show you their peace of mind 'Cause they don't know how to be free

This verse reminds me of that scene in Episode 4 where Claudia goes on her first-ever date with Charlie. She is having ice cream but doesn’t enjoy it. Charlie assumes it’s because she’s privileged, too rich to be excited by something so simple. The truth is far sadder; she had never tasted ice cream before. By the time she could afford it, she could no longer taste it at all. Lestat calls her "the prodigal daughter," and she is spoiled by Loustat, but is she truly respected as a person? Louis lies to her until the very last moment in the trial. Lestat withholds his secrets from her. He doesn’t share knowledge about other vampires, something Claudia desperately wants and could never learn from a better person than Lestat. She tells Louis that Lestat’s love is a small box that imprisons him. She craves freedom for herself and Louis, away from Lestat’s overbearing control. Fuck the privilege of eternal life with the money; she wants to be an autonomous vampire, to find a companion, and later in season 2, to also be treated like an adult.

So burn all your bridges And leave your old life behind You can do what you want to do 'Cause you're strong in your mind

And she does. She literally leaves home. When she returns, it’s only to set an escape plan in motion, to free herself and Louis by killing and burning Lestat. Later, in Season 2, Lestat admits that Claudia was strong, the best of his vampiric self. A ruthless predator. A formidable fledgling. He knows her strength better than anyone.

And anywhere you might wander You could make that your home And as long as you've got love in your heart You'll never be alone

Claudia was loved, but not the way a child should be. How could Lestat be a healthy father, given his upbringing with Gabrielle and his cruel father? How could Louis, who let Claudia fight his battles for him, be a good parent when his only model was Mama Du Lac? Not without therapy and self-reflection, at least. Claudia was loved in a twisted way by her vampire parents, but more importantly, she was truly loved by Madeleine. She burned all her bridges, crossed war-torn Europe, learned about revenants and Théâtre des Vampires, and finally found her true companion. The eternal teenager, cursed with forever puberty, wrote her life story, learned the answers to her questions, and, in the end, showed the world what true companionship really meant.

Claudia, Claudia, Claudia...

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Leave it to Lestat to yap about incinerators.

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If there’s such a thing as vampire radar, then Charlie’s horse definitely had it. (I didn’t catch the name, Charlie called her? “Old Jonesy” and “Bella,” so I’m not sure.) She was visibly distressed every time Claudia was near Charlie.

The first time they met, the horse got spooked when Claudia showed her fangs and got angry, she kind of tried to trample her. The last time we see her, she’s in the stable, freaking out while Charlie and Claudia are making out. This horse was throwing every damn warning signal, practically begging Charlie to get his ass away from the vampire girl. In spooky movies, the horse is always the first to sense danger, but I guess, given the time period, Charlie probably didn’t have the chance to learn the cinematic conventions of spooked horses and their connection to the imminent threat of horror movie doom.

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One thing that bothers me about Interview with the Vampire, and I can’t help it, is that none of the vampires actually swallow when they drink. The actors imitate biting, but they don’t mimic the sucking and swallowing that would be necessary to drain their prey. Plus, their Adam’s apples don’t move.

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The killer combination of audacity and bad timing that Lestat possesses, which led him to appear at Paul’s funeral just to pester Louis for attention and crack a vampire joke, is actually fascinating.

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You know those TikTok videos that teach you how to sound professional at work and sugarcoat everything? Louis rebranding his pimping era as entrepreneurship was exactly that:

Daniel: Okay, so as the honorable executor of the family's estate, you were in what business exactly, Mr. du Lac?

Louis (polishing up that résumé): You could say I managed and operated a diversified portiolio of enterprises.

Daniel (not buying it for a second): You were a pimp.

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I don’t care how they do it, but I need them to fit more scenes of Louis meowing in Season 3.

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I think they did a great job aging up Daniel. In the first interview, he was young, high, impressionable, and somewhat reckless. He was awed by Louis and easily swept up in the vampire mystique. But now? He’s been through life. Twice divorced, a father, and a journalist who has worked with all kinds of people, he is not impressed anymore. He’s skeptical, hardened, and has nothing to lose. On top of that, he’s dealing with Parkinson’s and a body that is betraying him. Now, he can sit across from two immortals and treat them like just another set of unreliable sources because, honestly, that’s what they are. He doesn’t buy into their grand narratives. He sees through their BS. He knows exactly where to look for the cracks. So he sits there, playing dramatic music in the background while Armand and Louis pitch their soap opera. He can shut Armand down with a simple “We’ll get to you” and slap Louis when he acts out. He goes around calling Rashid “real Rashid” and “agent Rashid”, mocking Armand while throwing him backhanded compliments on his cocktail skills, and casually referring to Lestat as “Louis’ love” in front of him. What a queen. He even criticizes himself and his professionalism from the first interview, and I love how Eric Bogosian has portrayed it all. He holds his own in front of these two insane vampires, and his commentary brilliantly breaks the story bubble, not in a way that disrupts the flow, but in a way that creates a bonding moment with the audience. I can practically see him looking at the camera like it’s The Office, going, “Can you see the shit I have to put up with when it comes to these two?”