- You and 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 carried her water uphill... - She had her...
- ...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.
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 divertissment.
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 ♪
[* 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 ]
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 the...
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 grey and grovel in 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!
*