Catch up on Interview with the Vampire
What’s Interview With the Vampire Season 1 Episode 5 about? What do Lestat, Claudia and Louis get up to? Who gets their blood sucked this week?
If you missed the other Interview With the Vampire episodes head here:
- Interview With the Vampire Season 1, Episode 2
- Interview With the Vampire Season 1, Episode 3
- Interview With the Vampire Season 1, Episode 4
This is a review / recap of Interview With the Vampire Season 1, Episode 5 – ‘A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart’. Viewer beware – spoilers below!
Interview With the Vampire Season 1, Episode 5 Recap
“Poor dear. She wasn’t held enough between ritualistic murders.”
The episode begins with Molloy examining Claudia’s diaries that appear to be a kill-list of all her victims, even including their last words. Louis explains that after she accidentally killed Charlie, she lost all interest in humanity and has seemingly retreated into solitude in her coffin. Louis thinks she has been starving herself but Lestat tells him she has been sneaking out at nights to feed. They open her coffin to find its empty save for her diaries which Lestat (and a reluctant Louis) read to discover the details of her killing spree.
It also turns out she has been burying the fifty odd bodies in shallow ground that leaves them vulnerable to flooding, which of course happens, leading to their discovery. Lestat and Louis meet with Tom, who lets them in on a few more details, such as the victims were all drained of blood and had missing body parts.
Lestat and Louis return home to find police officers searching their apartment and a drunk Claudia (after dining on an inebriated victim) holding court. We learn that Claudia has been taking souvenirs from her victims – fingers, toes, even a removed breast. While the police don’t find anything, they cast aspersions over Lestat and Louis’ parenting (a drunk teenager) and their homosexuality.
The pair confront Claudia and Lestat tells her she was a mistake. She lashes out at them for making her and trapping her in a teen’s body, bemoaning the fact that only boys and perverts would ever be interested in her. She then leaves.
Louis and Lestat become shut-ins, although Lestat still ventures out to feed and possibly to cheat on Louis. Meanwhile Claudia meets Bruce, another vampire who came looking for her after hearing Louis call her name on the vampire radio waves. Bruce attacks Claudia. In the present day, this section of the diary has been ripped out, insinuating the incident was far too traumatic to leave in. Molloy presses Louis about the missing pages. In response, Louis sets off Molloys Parkinsons Disease, causing his hand to shake uncontrollably. When it stops, Molloy slaps Louis before continuing the Interview.
Louis has a final visit with his sister in a cemetery, where she shows him a memorial with his name on. The family has lost its money and moving out of New Orleans. Claudia watches Louis from afar.
Claudia returns home after seven years but Lestat is displeased by both her presence and Louis’ pining for her. Claudia reveals her plans to travel to Europe with Louis, which sets Lestat off. He attacks Claudia, but Louis steps in. They engage in a brutal vampire brawl which culminates with Lestat taking Louis up into the sky far above New Orleans. Lestat says Louis never loved him in return and drops him out of the sky.
Interview With the Vampire Season 1, Episode 5 Review
In last weeks look at episode 4, I wondered when we would see the end of Louis and Lestat’s relationship, a crucial event in the book that sets Louis and Claudia off on their journey to Europe. Well, I only had to wait a week, with this episode detailing the gradual dissolution of the vampires union, and it has a lot to do with their surrogate daughter Claudia, who arouses much suspicion with her careless body disposal and then letting the police into their home.
Claudia has become much a more unhinged and reckless vampire, but as Louis says, her opinion of humanity has decreased considerably after killing Charlie. We still feel sorry for her plight, despite the fifty six bloated bodies that wash up in the flood and the body parts hidden throughout her room. She is a fascinating character – wild, impulsive, tragic.
Louis’ family story seems to come to an end with Grace moving out of New Orleans and declaring Louis dead to her. Claudia sees that Louis didn’t want her as a daughter so much as a replacement sister. Their inclusion in the series has helped characterise his melancholy nature, whereas Brad Pitt’s Louis in the film just seemed to mope endlessly.
Lestat’s pettiness and rage explode on a major scale this episode, with him having no qualms about demeaning both Claudia and Louis, before unleashing violence against them. The brutality of the vamp brawl is something to behold, with the two men destroying their townhouse from the inside out. There is a brief moment of peace as they float in the sky before Lestat coldly lets Louis plummet to the group below. Lestat is now the abusive monster he has been threatening to become for a while, with his harsh dismissal of Claudia and his beating of Louis. Despite his romantic tendencies, we realise that his humanity has fully expired, leaving only a selfish monster.
It’s quite remarkable how well the show traverses the narrative beats of Rice’s novel, while still doing its own thing and is getting better and more involving with each episode.
Who’s part of the Interview With the Vampire cast?
- Jacob Anderson as Louis De Pointe du Lac
- Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt
- Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy
- Bailey Bass as Claudia
- Assad Zaman as Rashid, Louis’ familiar in 2022
- Steven Norfleet as Paul de Pointe du Lac, Louis’ brother
- Kalyne Coleman as Grace de Pointe du Lac, Louis’ sister
- Rae Dawn Chong as Florence de Pointe du Lac, Louis’ mother
- Jeff Pope as Finn O’Shea
- Chris Stack as Thomas “Tom” Anderson
- Luke Brandon Field as Young Daniel Molloy
- Rachel Handler as Peg-Leg Doris
- John DiMaggio as Alderman Fenwick
- Dana Gourrier as Bricktop Williams
- Christian Robinson as Levi Freniere
- Maura Grace Athari as Antoniette, a blues singer
What did you think of this episode?
Did you enjoy episode 4 of Interview With the Vampire? Let us know on social media.
