If there’s a moment this series turns inscapably dark, it can be found in Episode 5, foreshadowed by it’s ominous title “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart” Up until this point the series has always been a combination of glitter and tarnish, humor and gravity, amusement and horror, but this week we see a bleaker side to the characters and their story.
It’s in this episode that we get to see the aftermath of the actions and choices made by the characters up to this moment. Claudia, wracked with guilt and confusion over the death of her first love, goes on a killing spree, endangering the coven as the bodies piles up and are found and investigated. Lestat views her as a failed experiment while Louis sees her nightmarish existence as his own punishment and grows increasingly desperately to find and save her from the fate he’s put into motion. But even Louis’s attempts to bring her back into the fold fail; after one last confrontation Claudia runs away. For good, this time.
Louis descends into a deep depression as the years pass, resisting Lestat’s attempt to use the schism as an opportunity to win him back. Louis’s ongoing despair and rejection pushes Lestat towards another lover – the devious and devoted Antoinette.
Meanwhile, the newly emancipated Claudia has focused her trauma into more violent killing – murdering college students. During one encounter she accidentally stumbles upon a college student who shocks her by revealing he too is a vampire. This is the first outside vampire we’ve been introduced to in the series, and a huge easter egg for Vampire Chronicle fans. Killer, who is featured in the third Vampire Chronicle (Queen of the Damned) turns on Claudia, and while we don’t see what he does to her, we can surmise from the ominous cliff-hanger that it isn’t good.
Following the violation, Claudia returns to Lestat and Louis, a hardened and changed woman, with one thing on her mind – to travel to Europe and find other vampires. It’s apparent that her mind is still evolving, sharpening, expanding beyond her childish frame. Her return and proposition splits the coven down the middle and in a shocking conclusion Lestat batters Louis nearly to death, dropping him thousands of feet to the ground.
Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire airs every Sunday through November 13 at 10 PM EST on AMC. Episodes are available one week in advance for subscribers of AMC+.
Photo by AMC
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