by Megan Bailey, Staff Writer

Created by Rolin Jones 
Written by Hannah Moscovitch
Directed by Craig Zisk
Starring Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Delainey Hayles, Assad Zaman, and Eric Bogosian
New episodes airing Sundays on AMC & streaming on AMC+

If you missed the first season of Interview with the Vampire, please watch it! The first episode is even conveniently on YouTube, so start right now.

I assume you’ve done that, so let’s jump in on where season one left off: Daniel (Eric Bogosian), through his investigative journalism powers, gets Louis (Jacob Anderson) to realize that Lestat (Sam Reid) wasn’t left for dead in New Orleans. Louis had been unable to burn his body and instead left it in the landfill where he could live off rats to survive. And then Louis has a reveal of his own: Rashid, the man Daniel thought was an assistant this whole season, is actually the vampire Armand (Assad Zaman), the love of Louis’s life (hmmm).

Two weeks ago, I got to attend a screening of the first episode of season two, followed by a Q&A with the cast and crew. This sneak peek was a delightful hint at what’s to come, and I can safely say that I’m very excited for the full season. Now that the first episode is out, let’s go in depth on what happens in the episode and what hints were given during the Q&A.

In the first episode, Louis and Claudia (now played by Delainey Hayles) have made it to Europe in search of other vampires. There’s some lovely voice-over from Louis here, detailing their travels and how he and Claudia felt at the time. Louis is haunted not by Lestat’s ghost, but by hallucinations of him. Sam Reid made the important distinction that what Lestat says in these scenes is not what Lestat would say—it’s what Louis imagines or wishes he would say. So, it plays out between Louis’s guilt and self-loathing and his genuine love for Lestat, even when he’s not there. As much of the season’s promo insists, “Memory is a monster.”

In modern-day Dubai, Louis walks through his memories, stressing that he wants to get every detail right. Daniel is now especially distrustful of Armand, which means that everyone in Dubai is pretty catty. Hilariously, he also talks to the real assistant Rashid, questioning him about where he was when Armand took on his role. And this is our first time seeing Armand as himself, after the season-long charades, so it’s very exciting for the dynamics to shift a bit.

Louis and Claudia’s relationship is so interesting because where Louis was bereft when Claudia left in season one, now they’re together but strained by bitterness. She barely speaks to him, though he keeps trying to break through. She saves her rage to take it out on their victims, including ripping the heart out of a man and throwing it to Louis. They have a temporary reprieve in Romania, but the joy of meeting Daciana (Diana Gheorghian), another like them, is quickly drained by her suicide. And so, we see Claudia shift from bitter and violent to resigned.

Louis’s speech to her at the end of the episode, featuring “hard words and soft words,” is touching, as he promises to never kill himself as long as they’re together and insists that it would be enough to be the only vampires left. Though… with the vision of Lestat beside her as he says it, perhaps it’s not quite true.

During the Q&A portion, Rolin Jones, the executive producer, talked about how the writers would play What Would Anne [Rice] Do, in terms of how she approached the novels, and used that as inspiration while working on the show. He also noted that, in season two, they’ve taken material from several books in the series, including The Vampire Armand, Tales of the Body Thief, and Prince Lestat, and a short story.

Eric Bogosian, a one-man spoiler machine, talked about which episode had flashbacks to the first interview between Daniel and Louis and a bit about how it felt to watch Luke Brandon Young play a younger version of his character. He also noted that this season is a mystery for Daniel to investigate and that we, as viewers, should be looking for clues as well.

I’m so excited for Interview with the Vampire to be back, and I hope everyone’s tuning in on Sundays at 9 PM on AMC.