Interview with the Vampire (2022) s02e07 Episode Script
I Could Not Prevent It
1
LOUIS: I was being hunted,
and I was completely
unaware it was happening.
LESTAT: Come to me.
I need her not to die. Please.
A thousand nights of sulking,
and the first sight of her, you were
just gonna up and leave me?!
I am trying to restrain myself!
A last dance before the feast.
I'd like that.
[SCREAMING]
No vampire must commit to writing
the history of the vampires.
- You want a companion?
- CLAUDIA: I get to pick one thing,
- and it's her.
- ARMAND: She swore an oath,
trampled on the laws, and
I am to reward her for it?
LOUIS: He broke with the coven.
They gave him a choice.
He chose.
SANTIAGO: The jury may be seated.
The premeditated murders of
the vampiress Antoinette Brown
and the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt.
[GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
[MUSIC FADES]
[SHUFFLING FEET, DRAGGING]
[LOUIS] Claudia!
[MOCKING VOICE] Claudia! Claudia!
- It's gonna be okay!
- [SNARLING]
[MOLLOY] Session 15.
Louis de Pointe du Lac.
The child vampire Claudia
- and her companion Madeleine are
-
[GENTLE PIANO]
Anyone want to start?
Abducted.
- Claudia!
- [LOUIS] Overwhelmed.
- [LOUIS YELLING]
- Outnumbered.
[CACKLING LAUGHTER]
- Armand sold you out.
- I'm talking now.
Sorry. Go ahead.
[GENTLE MUSIC]
I'm clawing
trying to bite anything
that moved outside the sack.
Straining for any sound of her,
any sign she was alive.
- [CLAUDIA SCREAMS]
- [LOUIS] Claudia!
- [CLAUDIA] Stop!
- Claudia! Claudia!
- [SANTIAGO SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]
- Claudia! Claudia!
- [CLAUDIA SCREAMS] Stop! Stop!
- No!
- [CLAUDIA SCREAMS]
- [LOUIS] Claudia!
- [LID SLAMS]
- No!
I heard when the rats found her.
[CLAUDIA SCREAMING]
Help me!
I could not go to her.
I could not help her.
- [AUDIENCE BOOING]
- [SANTIAGO] And finally,
the premeditated murders of
the vampiress Antoinette Brown
and the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt.
[AUDIENCE CHEERING]
[LOUIS] I fell in and
out of consciousness.
[SANTIAGO] Gruesomely!
[SANTIAGO LAUGHS HEARTILY]
Sacks come off. You're
characters in a play.
Props.
Props in a play.
-
- A play that's been fully designed
and rehearsed.
And every actor onstage has
scripted lines except for us.
If the prosecution's
evidence convinces you
[LOUIS] And if we attempted to
speak our unwritten parts
We didn't know any laws!
the coven members sitting behind us
would use their collective
powers to disorient our minds,
our hearing, a vice handle turning
jaws compressing the skull.
They were both trying to kill us!
- [AUDIENCE GROANING]
- [GAVEL BANGS]
[CLAUDIA GASPS]
Dear, dear, dear! [TUTTING]
We've no need to hear from you.
We have your words here.
In all their chilling premeditation.
- [WOMAN] It's a diary!
- [MAN] Read it out!
[SANTIAGO] November 23rd, 1939.
"I shall be your angel
of death, Lestat."
- [RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER]
- "You go on planning," quote,
"our future together," end quote.
"Well, I've already planned yours.
Not much time left, Lestat."
Tick-tock.
- Tick-Tock.
- Shame!
- [AUDIENCE BOOING]
- I know she was your favorite,
but give it a read.
Pass it around.
She had us all fooled.
- [LOUIS YELLS ANGRILY]
- [AUDIENCE CHEERS AND LAUGHS]
[CELESTE] The accused must stay
silent and must stay seated!
[MOLLOY] They'd crippled you?
[LOUIS] Ankle tendons
slashed to the bone.
Wounds that would not heal
before the curtain fell.
Set dressing nailed to the floor.
Will the members of the jury please
[LOUIS] And when the fight
went out of Claudia
a growing sense of nausea took over me.
I could feel a presence in the theater.
A tremor in the air.
A familiar scent.
[SANTIAGO] Begotten of Magnus
[LOUIS] The audience
was leering and feral.
We were on trial for murder.
[SANTIAGO] the boards of
the Theatre Des Vampires
And all I could think was
[SANTIAGO]
the first and only witness.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury
he's coming.
The victim,
Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[AUDIENCE CHEERS, WHISTLES AND APPLAUDS]
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUE]
Whooo!
[APPLAUSE DIES DOWN]
I prefer the old place.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's a grubby
little century, isn't it?
[LAUGHTER]
A very special book for you to swear
upon, Monsieur de Lioncourt.
Written by the vampire Claudia,
in which your last words
are recorded in your own blood.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- [SANTIAGO] Hmm.
I swear in my own blood.
Monsieur de Lioncourt, you've
returned to Paris because?
I have a box at Roland-Garros
for the Men's doubles.
I'm going to drain the
Australians if they win.
[LAUGHTER]
And a croque madame at Brasserie Lipp.
[LAUGHTER]
And justice for the attempted
murder of my being.
Hmm.
It's their turn to hurt.
He was back. In the flesh.
It had all the hallmarks
of a hallucination.
Lestat, at last, come to kill us.
But no, he was real.
So your new boyfriend sold you
out to your old boyfriend
Yeah, alright, I sold him out.
And then he put you on a show trial
- Yes.
- in front of a live human audience.
- That's right.
- And let me guess,
the star witness's testimony
was scrupulously impartial?
Take us back to the
beginning, if you will,
- of this story of butchery
- It's a story of love.
- Not butchery.
- Well [SCOFFS]
It's a story of love wronged.
[GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS]
[PROJECTOR WHIRS]
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- [LESTAT] Love
has always been difficult for me.
[RIPPLE OF APPLAUSE]
My first paramour, Nicolas
de Lefant, a violinist
[SANTIAGO] Belonged to
this very theater troupe.
Mm, briefly, yes.
A fragile mind, prone to corruption.
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
A heartbreakingly beautiful
boy of immense talent.
[SANTIAGO] Nicky went insane.
He died by his own hand.
[LESTAT] No.
With a little help from others.
[LOUIS] I followed Lestat's gaze
and saw Armand in one of the boxes.
It stopped my heart.
Until I saw the vampire Sam
standing next to him, blocking his exit.
He was as much of a captive as we were.
You were forced to watch?
A painfully close view of the stage.
Or what?
Or they'd kill me.
It was a part of his punishment.
Just a clarification for the readers,
uh, to save your own life, Armand,
you screwed over Louis,
Claudia and Madeleine,
and then you sat in the
best seat in the house
watching the consequences
of you screwing them over.
He had a lot to account for,
but he spent the whole performance
calculating a way to save me.
[LESTAT] An unfathomable sadness
seeped into me with Nicky's death.
I buried myself in the
dirt, Port Neuilly,
on the outskirts of Paris, and
I lay there for a hundred years.
Napoleon marched his drinks
cabinet across Europe
while I mourned.
[LAUGHTER]
The only sounds I heard were the
weed roots growing around me.
My only sustenance, the ancient
blood already inside me.
[SANTIAGO] You awoke in 1908,
but even a century underground
could not obliterate the
pain of Nicolas's death.
I did what many have done
when too many ghosts
haunt the old world.
You left for the new one.
Bobbed the Atlantic
in search of America's
star-spangled shores.
[LAUGHTER]
I disembarked for New Orleans,
the humidified daughter of Paris.
- [LAUGHTER]
- And who
did you meet there,
Monsieur de Lioncourt?
[MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY]
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
Louis de Pointe du Lac.
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
[GENTLE MUSIC RESUMES]
[SANTIAGO] Let the court record show
that the victim pointed to the accused.
I didn't point.
I merely glanced his way.
Be precise in your
declarations, Advocat.
[SANTIAGO TELEPATHICALLY]
I'm about to violate the Fifth.
[SAM] Keep calm and carry on.
I first saw Louis in a street brawl.
[SANTIAGO] The accused
was a troubled man.
A failed sugar farmer, a brothel-keeper.
[LESTAT] Forced into
corners by his race,
alienated from his own desires.
American puritanism
mangling his very soul.
- Disreputable, cold, violent.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
Louis first accosted me
in a pleasure house,
and then everywhere I went,
as if by happy accident,
there was Louis, offering
to be my chaperone,
his eyes sliding down me.
I a vampire,
was being hunted.
With every breath, every heartbeat,
every sidelong glance,
Louis was saying, "Come to me".
"Come to me?!" Those are his words!
- [AUDIENCE BOOING]
- He kept coming around after me!
"Come to me?!" Fuck you!
[AUDIENCE BOOING, RUMBLING,
DISTORTED VOICES]
- Stop it!
- [SANTIAGO] An appetite.
[STRAINING TO SPEAK]
"Come to me?!"
He said it to me.
How do you know that it was
not your own voice, Louis?
Speaking your own unspeakable desires.
Screaming them in the darkness
[MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY]
in the hopes that
I would come to you.
- [RUMBLING, HIGH-PITCHED TONE]
- [HE PANTS AND GROANS]
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
- [AUDIENCE MURMURING]
- [SANTIAGO COUGHS]
[SANTIAGO TELEPATHICALLY] Lestat.
It's your line.
Lestat.
And after the heartbreak of Nicky
And after the heartbreak that was Nicky,
to feel such hunger again.
[GENTLE MUSIC RESUMES]
The accused called to you
from within a church
where he was confessing
his sins to a priest.
I destroyed that priest and
another right in front of him.
[SANTIAGO] Yes. You put
your fist through his skull,
showed him what enormous
power you possess.
I offered Louis myself instead.
What I am.
My companionship.
An immortal life.
And I offered it to him
in the church,
on the altar.
And with the two dead
priests in his purview,
the accused raised up his hands
and took your face in them
with a kiss of acceptance.
[WISTFULLY] Yes.
- [MAN] Fags!
- [LAUGHTER]
Did you say something?
[GASPS, MUTTERING]
Men embracing men, it disgusts you?
Uh
I'm pretty sure it disgusts
a whole lot of people.
Oh?
[HIS HEAVY FOOTSTEPS APPROACH]
You fought at Bastogne.
You vomited into your foxhole often,
but what you didn't do,
Corporal Jonny Chaffin,
is fire your M1 Garand
rifle a single time.
Germans overran your line
and three days later, you ran
off into the Belgian forest,
during which time your friend,
who you share a matching tattoo with,
Private Earnest Hughes'
arm was shot off.
You'd tried to desert, but
you couldn't read your map.
And eventually,
you stumbled back to your line
and claimed you'd been lost in the fog!
There are 14 men who served
their countries honorably
in attendance with us this afternoon.
They may, like yourself, be disgusted
by the transcendent love between
two vampires of the same sex.
But I wonder
[SNARLS SOFTLY]
where lies their disgust now?
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
Continue.
[RIPPLE OF APPLAUSE, MUTTERING]
[SANTIAGO] Um
- [COUGHS]
- Louis didn't take to vampirism.
It's Louis did Hmm!
The accused didn't take to vampirism.
Crippled by qualms,
he drank only from animals.
I didn't want to eat people.
[LAUGHTER]
[SPEAKS FRENCH SOFTLY]
- He didn't want to eat people.
- [SANTIAGO WHISPERS SOFTLY]
Do you get it?! That's all of you!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
Louis was fixated on the
loss of his humanity,
his estranged family,
the internecine politics of his food.
[SANTIAGO] He not only
rejected vampirism,
he also rejected you.
Louis was deceptively agile with words.
A trenchant form of verbal amusement.
[RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER]
There was a night when he
told me I'd be alone forever.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- An awful night.
A word of context for our jury.
The single worst thing that a
vampire can feel is loneliness.
Human loneliness magnified by millennia,
by the never-ending road we walk.
- Do they not know this?
- How could they?
[LESTAT] Oh
Take my hand.
[MAN SOBS]
This is loneliness.
[SANTIAGO] This is vampire loneliness.
You want to curl up and die, don't you?
I know.
I know.
There was a night
when one of Louis's infrequent
kills upturned the city,
and he threatened me
with this loneliness.
Shame on you!
[LESTAT] He abandoned
me in our townhouse.
I didn't know if he was
ever going to come back.
I was engulfed with this loneliness.
[MIMICS CLAUDIA] "I closed my eyes
and waited for the fire to take me.
I just prayed it wouldn't hurt too bad.
That's when the black angel came."
- But he came back.
- He did.
With her.
Good luck on how that fucker didn't ask.
Gave me no say,
made me more of a vampire
than anyone up here.
- A child
- 14 years old!
- A minute from death!
- recalling a transformation weeks
after the event.
- [RUMBLING, DISTORTED VOICE]
- [CLAUDIA GASPS]
by Louis to soothe her
relentless questioning.
[RUMBLING, DISTORTED VOICE]
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
I told Louis
Fourteen forever. She'd be a cripple.
[ARMAND] Lestat stood on that stage,
took all the familiar
pieces of Louis's life,
defiled them, bent them
into a Lestat-shaped effigy.
But some some of it now
What?
I remember being out
of my body at the time.
I was in Paris.
But also in New Orleans.
Lestat took me there.
[LESTAT] Fourteen forever.
She'd be a cripple.
She's goin' cold. What do we do?
- Nothing. We do nothing.
- She's dying 'cause of me!
They lit her building
on fire 'cause of me!
They lit whatever fire
you're talking about
with their own free will.
You do not know this girl!
- Make her like us.
- C'est impossible, elle est trop jeune !
Please, I can't have her die!
The Gift cannot be given to children!
- What do you mean? Yes, it can.
- The Great Laws forbid it!
Great Laws?! She's gonna
die in front of us!
[LESTAT] But he was in a terrible panic.
Guilt had seized reason.
Claudia on the ledge of death.
You know you can do this!
And she'll be what? A lap dog?
No. No, not a Not a dog.
[LAUGHS]
[LESTAT] A daughter?
[LOUIS] Yeah.
I'll stay.
I'll stay. I'll never
leave you ever again.
I promise.
I'll be happy,
for you, for her.
[LESTAT] But there was
a light in his eyes.
Please.
A light I'd not seen for years.
But I resisted.
Because I knew the wisdom
of the Great Laws.
-
- [AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
Because I knew pain and anxiety
would be her only birthright.
Fuck you!
I'll do it myself.
She will be at war with herself.
She is of an age where her emotions
will soar and plummet,
mountains and valleys
every day of her life!
- I don't care!
- Well, you must care!
Her mind and her spirit will age,
but the world will treat
her as she is now!
- I found her in the fire.
- And she will be miserable
- and you will love her!
- I heard her voice
- behind the door.
- And it will spiral beyond your reach!
Drink up, drink up.
And you have to drain her first, Louis!
She asked if I was an angel!
Me!
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
That's not how it happened.
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
It is how it happened.
I didn't think it at the time, but
yeah.
[LOUIS] Look at her, our
beautiful little daughter.
Please, please, please.
I'll do anything.
Please. I'll be anything.
Please!
[SOBBING] Please!
Please, please, please.
[SOFTLY] Please, please, please.
Please, please, please.
Please, please, please
You will regret this for
the rest of your life.
[MUSIC SWELLS]
[GENTLE CLASSICAL MUSIC]
- [LESTAT SNARLS]
- [CLAUDIA WHIMPERS]
I made her for Louis. She is my blood.
I broke the second law.
When you sentence them for their crimes,
you sentence me too.
Hah! But you you were
manipulated into it.
- It's all lies, right?
- It's all lies.
How Claudia was made.
He did tell me
what she would be.
And I've played down my role in it.
You should go with Lestat's version,
for the book, I think.
I'm sorry.
74 years have provided, uh
Unwelcome clarity?
Claudia was an unforeseen joy.
A formidable fledgling.
A consummate killer,
a congenial companion.
[LESTAT] We were a happy trio.
Louis coddled her and I gifted
her a predator's upbringing,
- but
- Lunch is served.
But Claudia's defect caught up with her.
Coulda told me I had a defect.
Claudia's moods worsened.
She harmed herself in
the sun for attention
and followed that with a killing spree,
corpses clogging the Bayou,
a penchant for human souvenirs.
[SANTIAGO] She put yours and
Louis's anonymity at risk.
Then she ran away.
The vampiress tot in the
wind for seven years.
And Louis
Louis
he blamed himself.
And he folded inwards.
If your companion no longer wishes
to share his body with you,
if every word
coming out of his mouth
is vitriol or disinterest
for seven years
you don't want to.
You still hope that
he'll emerge out of his melancholy.
That he'll love you
like you love him.
What do you do?
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
What do you do?
Do find affection elsewhere?
- [AUDIENCE AGREEING]
- [ALL] Yes! Yes! Yes, you do!
[SANTIAGO] Antoinette Brown,
ladies and gentlemen,
later the vampire Antoinette.
Seven long years.
- And then Claudia returned.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
[LESTAT] Before her travel
bag had hit the floor,
Claudia assessed the
fragility of our union.
She's an artful predator.
I can say that now.
Hmm.
I see the best of my
vampiric self in her.
She looked at me,
and then she turned to Louis
and said, "Abandon Lestat."
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]
"Come with me to Europe."
- [MAN] No! Boo!
- [BOOING]
[GENTLE PIANO]
And he was hers again.
- And you and Louis fought?
- Well
At first we just slammed each
other around our townhouse.
- [YELLING]
- [CRASHING]
- Aaagh!
- No!
Seven years of
- compromise.
- Aaagh!
I'm trying to restrain myself, Louis!
Denial.
Stop! [YELLS]
- [CRASHING]
- [GRUNTING]
It all gave way.
Stay down!
Cheri, I don't want to fight like this!
[LOUIS YELLS]
[GLASS SMASHING, GRUNTING]
[LOUIS] You start it, you finish it!
[LESTAT] It will end in your death!
[GRUNTING]
[PANTING]
[LOUIS LAUGHS] My death?!
Look at your fucking face!
[LOUIS LAUGHS]
[CLAUDIA] Please stop! Don't do it!
- Please!
- Stay back, Claudia.
It's all good.
You're leaving with her?
- [CLAUDIA] Daddy Lou!
- [LOUIS] No, it's okay.
It's okay, we're done.
It's it's over.
Stay where you are, okay?
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
You're going to leave me.
I'm gonna take this hand here
and wrap it around that
scrawny neck of yours,
just like you did our daughter.
And I ain't gonna stop
until your eyes pop.
And then I'm gonna find
a big ol' butcher knife
and chop your head off.
And then I'm gonna walk that head
all the way to Audubon Park.
And I'm gonna feed it
to the fucking lions.
And I'm gonna
laughhhhhhh!
[LAUGHS MANICALLY]
[PANTING]
Yeah!
[LOUIS LAUGHS] Whatcha gonna do?
[CRASHING]
I'm burdened with my maker's temper.
Ah Uh, no.
[CHUCKLES] No.
You were You were
teased until you toppled.
- He tried to kill him!
- [SARCASTICALLY] Oh, did he?
You used your Cloud Gift.
You flew the accused
high up into the air,
then you let him fall.
Two kilometers approximately.
- [AUDIENCE GASPS]
- Yes, I know, I know, I know.
It's a lethal distance for a mortal.
But for a vampire?
It's a hard fall, nothing more.
Lestat has within his veins,
a most ancient blood.
A godlike strength.
Remember, he put his fist
through a priest's skull.
Did you do that to the accused?
No, you did not.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
I ask you to set aside
your mortal biases
and remember that we are monsters.
And to us monsters, what's
a bite between paramours?
- [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- [SNARLING AND LAUGHTER]
You knew Louis would be fine?
And he was fine.
[SANTIAGO] Lestat?
[SOFTLY] A wolf congratulated
for not killing her pups.
[SANTIAGO LAUGHS]
Yes!
You knew he would be
fine and he was fine.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- No!
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]
He wasn't fine.
I let go of him.
It wasn't a
misunderstanding, it wasn't an accident.
I let go of him.
[SIGHS]
I watched him
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
clutch the air.
I saw him
swinging wild as he
fell through the clouds.
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
The projections went off sync.
Lestat went off script again.
How do you know it
wasn't part of the show?
Sam was cursing to himself beside me.
Read for yourself.
There was no scripting Lestat.
You cannot script a hurricane.
[LESTAT] I did it to hurt him.
And it did hurt him.
And afterwards he was a broken thing.
I know, I saw,
because I am the one who broke him!
[GENTLE PIANO]
I couldn't
persuade him to return my affections.
I couldn't force him
to love me and so
I broke him.
What is worse than that?
Crushing what you cannot own?
I hurt the one
I hurt the only one
[CLAUDIA] Doing it again.
Hurting you again.
I I thought of this
often in the coffin.
That you left me and
And I've thought of
this in the years since.
I
I will always be sorry
for what I did to you.
If it's true, it's too fucking late.
I was not worthy of the
forgiveness you would give me.
[SNIFFS] Continue.
[MOLLOY] Uh Okay.
Nice apology.
From the heart and not the page.
Did it move you?
Crossed an ocean
because he wanted us dead.
And then
something real.
This is Lestat.
What he does over and over.
Until you're left with no sense
of what is and what is not.
[LOUIS] Didn't work on me anymore.
I wasn't thinking about
Lestat's sincerity.
I was thinking about
how I was going to die.
But
But what?
It moved Claudia.
Right up on her feet.
Good!
- Mmm.
- [MAN IN AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]
Real pretty.
You dropped him,
like an egg from an airplane.
He's fine now. You apologize.
All is forgiven.
- We poisoned him
- A confession!
He's not dead! He's standing
right here in front of us!
Can I cry and say that I'm sorry too?
[CELESTE] Disorder! Disorder!
[RUMBLING, HIGH-PITCHED TONE]
This working for you, Lestat?
[CLAUDIA GASPING]
You gonna accept my apology.
Claudia, stop!
This your big revenge?!
Claudia! Uhh!
- [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- Oh, whoopsie-daisy!
Bailiff, could you clear it up, please?
[GAVEL BANGS]
Don't know why I bother.
You didn't come here for me.
One more round in the
stormy romance of you two!
Never been about me.
I was just a roof shingle
that flew off of your house.
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
Are we on trial?
It's not a trial.
It's a stoning.
A stoning.
Took the air out of the
place with that one.
It got a lot less fun real quick.
[ARMAND] But they had
their Technicolor film.
Tuan Pham's wizardry with it.
And they had Lestat back in the chair,
fully recovered from his
apology, back on mission.
Delivering his lines,
picking up his cues,
hypnotizing the mortals back around
with the potboiler in New Orleans.
[LOUIS] The father, duped by his
ungrateful and diabolical children.
The father ridiculed and humiliated
in his final minutes.
The mistress extinguished
in the courtyard oven.
[ARMAND] And the mortals didn't blink.
They followed the pocket
watch back and forth,
until Santiago and Lestat had
them dreaming in their seats.
[SANTIAGO] And here they are!
[ARMAND] Piranhas looking
up through the tank water,
waiting for the chum to be dumped.
[LOUIS] They had uncovered
our crimes there, in Paris.
[ARMAND] And sent a
signal flare to America,
waking the victim from
his state of repose.
-
- [ROMANTIC CLASSICAL MUSIC]
[LOUIS] She had confessed.
- I couldn't move.
- [AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]
Lestat would have his vengeance.
[CHUCKLES]
This is hard.
[BOWL SHARDS SCATTER]
The sentencing.
For the Heretical Desecration
of the first, third,
fourth and fifth of the Great Laws,
what say you for the vampire Claudia?
Ah, Advocat!
Are you not the horse a
mile ahead of the cart?
Madame Justice?
The vampire Madeleine,
what is her crime?
Oh, she's just a bastard fledgling,
made without the knowledge or
consent of the coven master.
[GASPS]
Which is now me.
Yet she is oblivious to the crimes
committed by her maker.
It is only fair that she be offered
the same choice as any vampire.
- This is true and fair.
- In accordance with vampiric law,
may she not join the coven
and become one with us?
[SANTIAGO] Hmm?
She must join or die.
- [AUDIENCE SHOUTING] Die!
- Die!
Oh, points for enthusiasm,
but it is true and fair.
Madeleine Eparvier rise!
[GROANING SOFTLY]
[SANTIAGO] The choice is yours.
Will you renounce the accused
you sit with and join our coven?
- [MAN] No! Pick me! Pick me!
- [MAN 2] Pick me! Pick me!
I am the vampire Madeleine Eparvier.
And my immortal companion is Claudia.
My coven is Claudia.
[SANTIAGO] My vampire heart quiver-eth.
The martyr skips her way to hell.
Indeed.
For the Heretical Desecration
of the first of the Great Laws,
what say you for the
vampire Madeleine Eparvier,
guilty or not guilty?
[AUDIENCE] Guilty! Guilty!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
And there being only
one sentence applicable,
that being death.
- What is your sentence?
- [AUDIENCE] Death!
The vampire Claudia, rise.
For the Heretical Desecration
of the first, third and fourth,
and the murder of the
vampire Antoinette Brown,
and the attempted murder
of her maker the vampire
Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt,
what say you for the vampire Claudia,
guilty or not guilty?
[AUDIENCE] Guilty!
And the sentence?
[AUDIENCE] Death!
May I ask the court for a final request?
Mmm?
- No.
- [LAUGHTER]
Let her have it.
The man in the balcony
wearing the high hat.
Would you kindly remove it?
Sir, will you grant the
condemned her last request?
Thank you.
I now know all your faces.
If there is an afterlife,
I'm going to come back
and fucking kill all of you.
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
And if there isn't an afterlife,
I'll still gonna find a way.
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
[SANTIAGO] Bailiff!
For the Heretical Desecration
of the Great Laws one, two and four,
and the murder of the
vampire Antoinette Brown,
and the attempted murder of his maker
the vampire Monsieur
Lestat de Lioncourt,
what say you for the vampire
Louis de Pointe du Lac,
guilty or not guilty?
[AUDIENCE] Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty!
And the sentence?
- De
- De
- De
- De
[STIRRING CLASSICAL MUSIC]
- De
- De
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Banishment.
Banishment.
- Banishment.
- Banishment!
[AUDIENCE] Banishment!
Banishment! Banishment!
[MUSIC SWELLS]
[MOLLOY] He saved you.
It took all my strength.
You saved Louis.
Yes.
But not her.
I could not prevent it.
I could not prevent it.
Banishment
is not an applicable punishment.
[LAUGHS] Oh
Oh, but you mortals are
bastards, aren't you?
Arguably, a sentence worse than death.
Alright, have it your way.
Send him to Belgium!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
[SANTIAGO TELEPATHICALLY]
Take him downstairs.
Tuck him in nice and tight.
No! No! No! No! No, Claudia!
- [CLAUDIA] Louis!
- [LOUIS] No! No!
Louis! Louis! Louis!
[AUDIO FADES]
I'm gonna guess that they didn't
drive you to the Belgian border.
No.
No.
[LOUIS YELLING AND SNARLING]
I fought back.
[LOUIS SNARLING]
There wasn't much fight left in me.
They took me to their
their crypt.
[SNARLING AND YELLING] No, no, no!
Shoved me in a coffin,
filled the coffin
with rocks, so I couldn't move.
[LOUIS SCREAMS]
What was that, Louis? I can't hear you.
[VAMPIRES LAUGHING]
[DOOR SLAMS]
[LOUIS YELLING]
Banished
to a three by seven foot box
to starve to death,
and join the damned who came before me.
[MOLLOY] And while that's going
on, she's upstairs on stage?
Ask him.
I wasn't there.
Okay.
You were there.
And now for your viewing pleasure
[ARMAND] The lip of the stage.
A spectacle and a marvel
Arms around each other, defiant, scared.
Whispering last words to one another.
Does anybody have the time?
[AUDIENCE] 1:39! 1:39! 1:39!
Oh, dear, way past our bedtime.
[CLARINET PLAYS MOURNFULLY]
What you are about to see
is fake.
Remember that when you leave here today.
You're all
[ARMAND] I tried to hear what
Claudia was saying to Madeleine,
but my mind was with Louis.
What must be happening to him backstage.
And I despise you for it!
[RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER]
[SHOUTS AND CHEERING]
And before Santiago pulled
the black-out curtain,
hiding the perfectly
mounted observatory lens
for the perfectly timed sun in
the sky above the theater
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUES]
- Follow the bouncing ball!
- [SHUTTER WHOOSHES]
[MADELEINE SCREAMING]
[SCREAMING CONTINUES]
Claudia smiled.
[MADELEINE SCREAMS]
And started singing to her executioners.
I don't like windows ♪
When they're closed ♪
[MADELEINE SCREAMS]
I want to fly where
the wild wind blows ♪
[ARMAND] Claudia gave
the audience her back.
[SHE STRUGGLES TO SING]
And Madeleine succumbed first.
[CLAUDIA CRIES OUT]
[CLARINET CONTINUES]
[CLAUDIA SCREAMS] I don't
like windows when they're ♪
Closed! ♪
And you could tell from
the look on Lestat's face,
the last thing she saw on Earth was him.
[AUDIENCE CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
-
- [LOUIS YELLING AND SOBBING]
[APPLAUSE FADES]
[AUDIENCE CHATTER FADES]
[SANTIAGO'S FOOTSTEPS DEPART]
[SILENCE FALLS]
♪
-
- LOUIS: I was dead
♪
but my rage
[BLOOD DRIPPING]
[GASPS]
had risen.
♪
There was 13 of them
- [HISSING]
- and one of me.
[MOTORCYCLE ENGINE REVS]
SANTIAGO: Did Armand tell you
what we did with her ashes?
I lied to you.
- [MOTORCYCLE ENGINE RUMBLING]
- [SCREAMS]
- [FLAME WHOOSHES]
- I've come to kill you.
Episode 7, "I Could Not Prevent It."
It refers to the death
of Claudia and Madeleine,
and it's unexpected,
and what's revealed is
definitely not expected.
It's a fake setup.
It's presented as though
it's an actual trial
with the audience in the theater
- as the final jury.
- [APPLAUSE]
LOUIS: I fell in and
out of consciousness.
The sacks come off,
you're characters in a play.
Props in a play.
I could feel a presence in the theater.
This is something that the
audience and all of us,
frankly, shooting the show,
had been waiting for
for the whole season.
Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt.
- [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
- ANDERSON: Lestat walking on stage
is probably the most complex
moment for Louis.
There's a reason why Lestat
appears as his subconscious.
There's a comfort that he finds in him,
but to actually see him in the flesh,
I think there's a mix of like,
he doesn't know if he's really there.
And I think it's like, fear, excitement,
fury, and a bit of relief.
REID: It's a big deal for Louis and
Lestat to see each other again.
It's their turn to hurt.
For us, Jacob and myself,
it was a lot to do with,
what's their connection,
even when they're not
looking at each other?
Love has always been difficult for me.
But I think as soon as he looks at Louis
and as soon as Louis looks at him,
I think he knows it's all over.
The accused raised up his hands
and took your face in them
with a kiss of acceptance.
REID: Lestat has now lost
himself in the memory,
and then there's this homophobic comment
which snaps him out of it.
Where lies your disgust now?
It's just another element
that pushes him further and
further into catastrophe.
I hurt the one I hurt the only one
Doing it again. Hurting you again.
So today we have a 5 1/2, 6-page scene
which is the climax of the trial,
in which we find out whether Claudia,
Madeleine and Louis
are condemned to death
by the Paris coven.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
I ask you to set aside
your mortal biases
and remember that we are monsters.
Claudia has always been
a defiant character.
Good. Mm.
And so we wanted to give her that
if she's going to die in this way,
in front of a live audience,
burn to death on stage,
we wanted to give her
some moments of defiance
before she goes out.
You dropped him like an
egg from an airplane.
For Claudia, in the
beginning, it's terror,
and then it's just straight
anger from then on,
anger at Louis, anger at
Lestat, anger at Santiago.
We poisoned him.
- Our confession.
- He's not dead!
He's standing right here in front of us!
Can I cry and say that I'm sorry too?
Disorder!
O'BYRNE: Madeleine is out of it,
and not really aware
of what's happening.
Are we on trial?
Claudia is all too aware
and still so defiant.
Not a trial. It's a stoning.
She never begs.
She never gives any ground.
She knows that she's right.
Madeleine Eparvier rise!
Will you renounce the
accused you sit with
and join our coven?
HAYLES: Madeleine picks Claudia,
and that is all Claudia has ever
needed to hear, is to be put first.
So in that moment,
it's acceptance of her circumstance.
My immortal companion is Claudia.
My coven is Claudia.
What say you for the vampire Claudia?
Guilty or not guilty?
Guilty!
Even until her death, she's a fighter.
May I ask the court for a final request?
One thing about Claudia
that I really love
is she will always give it her all.
I now know all your faces.
And you'll always get her all.
If there is an afterlife,
I'm going to come back
and fucking kill all of you.
For Claudia, it's a promise.
It's not a threat. It's a promise.
She has Lestat's blood.
If they do anything,
it's come back with a vengeance.
[SHOUTING]
Claudia!
Louis!
[APPLAUSE]
Louis! Louis! Louis!
MOLLOY: You saved Louis.
ARMAND: Yes.
But not her.
I could not prevent it.
Claudia's death represents Louis'
last connection to this world.
This is hard.
This is a striking and painful episode.
When Claudia protects
Madeleine in that moment,
it's out of sheer love.
O'BYRNE: Louis feels
deeply responsible for her.
It is his biggest regret
that he couldn't save her.
ANDERSON: It's the thing
that's haunted everyone,
the fact he couldn't protect her,
- he couldn't keep her alive.
- [SCREAMS]
But like, a big part of Louis'
acceptance of the gift of his nature
is knowing that Claudia
really did embrace it.
She was a brilliant vampire.
♪
♪
LOUIS: I was being hunted,
and I was completely
unaware it was happening.
LESTAT: Come to me.
I need her not to die. Please.
A thousand nights of sulking,
and the first sight of her, you were
just gonna up and leave me?!
I am trying to restrain myself!
A last dance before the feast.
I'd like that.
[SCREAMING]
No vampire must commit to writing
the history of the vampires.
- You want a companion?
- CLAUDIA: I get to pick one thing,
- and it's her.
- ARMAND: She swore an oath,
trampled on the laws, and
I am to reward her for it?
LOUIS: He broke with the coven.
They gave him a choice.
He chose.
SANTIAGO: The jury may be seated.
The premeditated murders of
the vampiress Antoinette Brown
and the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt.
[GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
[MUSIC FADES]
[SHUFFLING FEET, DRAGGING]
[LOUIS] Claudia!
[MOCKING VOICE] Claudia! Claudia!
- It's gonna be okay!
- [SNARLING]
[MOLLOY] Session 15.
Louis de Pointe du Lac.
The child vampire Claudia
- and her companion Madeleine are
-
[GENTLE PIANO]
Anyone want to start?
Abducted.
- Claudia!
- [LOUIS] Overwhelmed.
- [LOUIS YELLING]
- Outnumbered.
[CACKLING LAUGHTER]
- Armand sold you out.
- I'm talking now.
Sorry. Go ahead.
[GENTLE MUSIC]
I'm clawing
trying to bite anything
that moved outside the sack.
Straining for any sound of her,
any sign she was alive.
- [CLAUDIA SCREAMS]
- [LOUIS] Claudia!
- [CLAUDIA] Stop!
- Claudia! Claudia!
- [SANTIAGO SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY]
- Claudia! Claudia!
- [CLAUDIA SCREAMS] Stop! Stop!
- No!
- [CLAUDIA SCREAMS]
- [LOUIS] Claudia!
- [LID SLAMS]
- No!
I heard when the rats found her.
[CLAUDIA SCREAMING]
Help me!
I could not go to her.
I could not help her.
- [AUDIENCE BOOING]
- [SANTIAGO] And finally,
the premeditated murders of
the vampiress Antoinette Brown
and the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt.
[AUDIENCE CHEERING]
[LOUIS] I fell in and
out of consciousness.
[SANTIAGO] Gruesomely!
[SANTIAGO LAUGHS HEARTILY]
Sacks come off. You're
characters in a play.
Props.
Props in a play.
-
- A play that's been fully designed
and rehearsed.
And every actor onstage has
scripted lines except for us.
If the prosecution's
evidence convinces you
[LOUIS] And if we attempted to
speak our unwritten parts
We didn't know any laws!
the coven members sitting behind us
would use their collective
powers to disorient our minds,
our hearing, a vice handle turning
jaws compressing the skull.
They were both trying to kill us!
- [AUDIENCE GROANING]
- [GAVEL BANGS]
[CLAUDIA GASPS]
Dear, dear, dear! [TUTTING]
We've no need to hear from you.
We have your words here.
In all their chilling premeditation.
- [WOMAN] It's a diary!
- [MAN] Read it out!
[SANTIAGO] November 23rd, 1939.
"I shall be your angel
of death, Lestat."
- [RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER]
- "You go on planning," quote,
"our future together," end quote.
"Well, I've already planned yours.
Not much time left, Lestat."
Tick-tock.
- Tick-Tock.
- Shame!
- [AUDIENCE BOOING]
- I know she was your favorite,
but give it a read.
Pass it around.
She had us all fooled.
- [LOUIS YELLS ANGRILY]
- [AUDIENCE CHEERS AND LAUGHS]
[CELESTE] The accused must stay
silent and must stay seated!
[MOLLOY] They'd crippled you?
[LOUIS] Ankle tendons
slashed to the bone.
Wounds that would not heal
before the curtain fell.
Set dressing nailed to the floor.
Will the members of the jury please
[LOUIS] And when the fight
went out of Claudia
a growing sense of nausea took over me.
I could feel a presence in the theater.
A tremor in the air.
A familiar scent.
[SANTIAGO] Begotten of Magnus
[LOUIS] The audience
was leering and feral.
We were on trial for murder.
[SANTIAGO] the boards of
the Theatre Des Vampires
And all I could think was
[SANTIAGO]
the first and only witness.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury
he's coming.
The victim,
Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[AUDIENCE CHEERS, WHISTLES AND APPLAUDS]
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUE]
Whooo!
[APPLAUSE DIES DOWN]
I prefer the old place.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's a grubby
little century, isn't it?
[LAUGHTER]
A very special book for you to swear
upon, Monsieur de Lioncourt.
Written by the vampire Claudia,
in which your last words
are recorded in your own blood.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- [SANTIAGO] Hmm.
I swear in my own blood.
Monsieur de Lioncourt, you've
returned to Paris because?
I have a box at Roland-Garros
for the Men's doubles.
I'm going to drain the
Australians if they win.
[LAUGHTER]
And a croque madame at Brasserie Lipp.
[LAUGHTER]
And justice for the attempted
murder of my being.
Hmm.
It's their turn to hurt.
He was back. In the flesh.
It had all the hallmarks
of a hallucination.
Lestat, at last, come to kill us.
But no, he was real.
So your new boyfriend sold you
out to your old boyfriend
Yeah, alright, I sold him out.
And then he put you on a show trial
- Yes.
- in front of a live human audience.
- That's right.
- And let me guess,
the star witness's testimony
was scrupulously impartial?
Take us back to the
beginning, if you will,
- of this story of butchery
- It's a story of love.
- Not butchery.
- Well [SCOFFS]
It's a story of love wronged.
[GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS]
[PROJECTOR WHIRS]
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- [LESTAT] Love
has always been difficult for me.
[RIPPLE OF APPLAUSE]
My first paramour, Nicolas
de Lefant, a violinist
[SANTIAGO] Belonged to
this very theater troupe.
Mm, briefly, yes.
A fragile mind, prone to corruption.
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
A heartbreakingly beautiful
boy of immense talent.
[SANTIAGO] Nicky went insane.
He died by his own hand.
[LESTAT] No.
With a little help from others.
[LOUIS] I followed Lestat's gaze
and saw Armand in one of the boxes.
It stopped my heart.
Until I saw the vampire Sam
standing next to him, blocking his exit.
He was as much of a captive as we were.
You were forced to watch?
A painfully close view of the stage.
Or what?
Or they'd kill me.
It was a part of his punishment.
Just a clarification for the readers,
uh, to save your own life, Armand,
you screwed over Louis,
Claudia and Madeleine,
and then you sat in the
best seat in the house
watching the consequences
of you screwing them over.
He had a lot to account for,
but he spent the whole performance
calculating a way to save me.
[LESTAT] An unfathomable sadness
seeped into me with Nicky's death.
I buried myself in the
dirt, Port Neuilly,
on the outskirts of Paris, and
I lay there for a hundred years.
Napoleon marched his drinks
cabinet across Europe
while I mourned.
[LAUGHTER]
The only sounds I heard were the
weed roots growing around me.
My only sustenance, the ancient
blood already inside me.
[SANTIAGO] You awoke in 1908,
but even a century underground
could not obliterate the
pain of Nicolas's death.
I did what many have done
when too many ghosts
haunt the old world.
You left for the new one.
Bobbed the Atlantic
in search of America's
star-spangled shores.
[LAUGHTER]
I disembarked for New Orleans,
the humidified daughter of Paris.
- [LAUGHTER]
- And who
did you meet there,
Monsieur de Lioncourt?
[MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY]
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
Louis de Pointe du Lac.
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
[GENTLE MUSIC RESUMES]
[SANTIAGO] Let the court record show
that the victim pointed to the accused.
I didn't point.
I merely glanced his way.
Be precise in your
declarations, Advocat.
[SANTIAGO TELEPATHICALLY]
I'm about to violate the Fifth.
[SAM] Keep calm and carry on.
I first saw Louis in a street brawl.
[SANTIAGO] The accused
was a troubled man.
A failed sugar farmer, a brothel-keeper.
[LESTAT] Forced into
corners by his race,
alienated from his own desires.
American puritanism
mangling his very soul.
- Disreputable, cold, violent.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
Louis first accosted me
in a pleasure house,
and then everywhere I went,
as if by happy accident,
there was Louis, offering
to be my chaperone,
his eyes sliding down me.
I a vampire,
was being hunted.
With every breath, every heartbeat,
every sidelong glance,
Louis was saying, "Come to me".
"Come to me?!" Those are his words!
- [AUDIENCE BOOING]
- He kept coming around after me!
"Come to me?!" Fuck you!
[AUDIENCE BOOING, RUMBLING,
DISTORTED VOICES]
- Stop it!
- [SANTIAGO] An appetite.
[STRAINING TO SPEAK]
"Come to me?!"
He said it to me.
How do you know that it was
not your own voice, Louis?
Speaking your own unspeakable desires.
Screaming them in the darkness
[MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY]
in the hopes that
I would come to you.
- [RUMBLING, HIGH-PITCHED TONE]
- [HE PANTS AND GROANS]
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
- [AUDIENCE MURMURING]
- [SANTIAGO COUGHS]
[SANTIAGO TELEPATHICALLY] Lestat.
It's your line.
Lestat.
And after the heartbreak of Nicky
And after the heartbreak that was Nicky,
to feel such hunger again.
[GENTLE MUSIC RESUMES]
The accused called to you
from within a church
where he was confessing
his sins to a priest.
I destroyed that priest and
another right in front of him.
[SANTIAGO] Yes. You put
your fist through his skull,
showed him what enormous
power you possess.
I offered Louis myself instead.
What I am.
My companionship.
An immortal life.
And I offered it to him
in the church,
on the altar.
And with the two dead
priests in his purview,
the accused raised up his hands
and took your face in them
with a kiss of acceptance.
[WISTFULLY] Yes.
- [MAN] Fags!
- [LAUGHTER]
Did you say something?
[GASPS, MUTTERING]
Men embracing men, it disgusts you?
Uh
I'm pretty sure it disgusts
a whole lot of people.
Oh?
[HIS HEAVY FOOTSTEPS APPROACH]
You fought at Bastogne.
You vomited into your foxhole often,
but what you didn't do,
Corporal Jonny Chaffin,
is fire your M1 Garand
rifle a single time.
Germans overran your line
and three days later, you ran
off into the Belgian forest,
during which time your friend,
who you share a matching tattoo with,
Private Earnest Hughes'
arm was shot off.
You'd tried to desert, but
you couldn't read your map.
And eventually,
you stumbled back to your line
and claimed you'd been lost in the fog!
There are 14 men who served
their countries honorably
in attendance with us this afternoon.
They may, like yourself, be disgusted
by the transcendent love between
two vampires of the same sex.
But I wonder
[SNARLS SOFTLY]
where lies their disgust now?
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
Continue.
[RIPPLE OF APPLAUSE, MUTTERING]
[SANTIAGO] Um
- [COUGHS]
- Louis didn't take to vampirism.
It's Louis did Hmm!
The accused didn't take to vampirism.
Crippled by qualms,
he drank only from animals.
I didn't want to eat people.
[LAUGHTER]
[SPEAKS FRENCH SOFTLY]
- He didn't want to eat people.
- [SANTIAGO WHISPERS SOFTLY]
Do you get it?! That's all of you!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
Louis was fixated on the
loss of his humanity,
his estranged family,
the internecine politics of his food.
[SANTIAGO] He not only
rejected vampirism,
he also rejected you.
Louis was deceptively agile with words.
A trenchant form of verbal amusement.
[RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER]
There was a night when he
told me I'd be alone forever.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- An awful night.
A word of context for our jury.
The single worst thing that a
vampire can feel is loneliness.
Human loneliness magnified by millennia,
by the never-ending road we walk.
- Do they not know this?
- How could they?
[LESTAT] Oh
Take my hand.
[MAN SOBS]
This is loneliness.
[SANTIAGO] This is vampire loneliness.
You want to curl up and die, don't you?
I know.
I know.
There was a night
when one of Louis's infrequent
kills upturned the city,
and he threatened me
with this loneliness.
Shame on you!
[LESTAT] He abandoned
me in our townhouse.
I didn't know if he was
ever going to come back.
I was engulfed with this loneliness.
[MIMICS CLAUDIA] "I closed my eyes
and waited for the fire to take me.
I just prayed it wouldn't hurt too bad.
That's when the black angel came."
- But he came back.
- He did.
With her.
Good luck on how that fucker didn't ask.
Gave me no say,
made me more of a vampire
than anyone up here.
- A child
- 14 years old!
- A minute from death!
- recalling a transformation weeks
after the event.
- [RUMBLING, DISTORTED VOICE]
- [CLAUDIA GASPS]
by Louis to soothe her
relentless questioning.
[RUMBLING, DISTORTED VOICE]
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
I told Louis
Fourteen forever. She'd be a cripple.
[ARMAND] Lestat stood on that stage,
took all the familiar
pieces of Louis's life,
defiled them, bent them
into a Lestat-shaped effigy.
But some some of it now
What?
I remember being out
of my body at the time.
I was in Paris.
But also in New Orleans.
Lestat took me there.
[LESTAT] Fourteen forever.
She'd be a cripple.
She's goin' cold. What do we do?
- Nothing. We do nothing.
- She's dying 'cause of me!
They lit her building
on fire 'cause of me!
They lit whatever fire
you're talking about
with their own free will.
You do not know this girl!
- Make her like us.
- C'est impossible, elle est trop jeune !
Please, I can't have her die!
The Gift cannot be given to children!
- What do you mean? Yes, it can.
- The Great Laws forbid it!
Great Laws?! She's gonna
die in front of us!
[LESTAT] But he was in a terrible panic.
Guilt had seized reason.
Claudia on the ledge of death.
You know you can do this!
And she'll be what? A lap dog?
No. No, not a Not a dog.
[LAUGHS]
[LESTAT] A daughter?
[LOUIS] Yeah.
I'll stay.
I'll stay. I'll never
leave you ever again.
I promise.
I'll be happy,
for you, for her.
[LESTAT] But there was
a light in his eyes.
Please.
A light I'd not seen for years.
But I resisted.
Because I knew the wisdom
of the Great Laws.
-
- [AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
Because I knew pain and anxiety
would be her only birthright.
Fuck you!
I'll do it myself.
She will be at war with herself.
She is of an age where her emotions
will soar and plummet,
mountains and valleys
every day of her life!
- I don't care!
- Well, you must care!
Her mind and her spirit will age,
but the world will treat
her as she is now!
- I found her in the fire.
- And she will be miserable
- and you will love her!
- I heard her voice
- behind the door.
- And it will spiral beyond your reach!
Drink up, drink up.
And you have to drain her first, Louis!
She asked if I was an angel!
Me!
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
That's not how it happened.
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
It is how it happened.
I didn't think it at the time, but
yeah.
[LOUIS] Look at her, our
beautiful little daughter.
Please, please, please.
I'll do anything.
Please. I'll be anything.
Please!
[SOBBING] Please!
Please, please, please.
[SOFTLY] Please, please, please.
Please, please, please.
Please, please, please
You will regret this for
the rest of your life.
[MUSIC SWELLS]
[GENTLE CLASSICAL MUSIC]
- [LESTAT SNARLS]
- [CLAUDIA WHIMPERS]
I made her for Louis. She is my blood.
I broke the second law.
When you sentence them for their crimes,
you sentence me too.
Hah! But you you were
manipulated into it.
- It's all lies, right?
- It's all lies.
How Claudia was made.
He did tell me
what she would be.
And I've played down my role in it.
You should go with Lestat's version,
for the book, I think.
I'm sorry.
74 years have provided, uh
Unwelcome clarity?
Claudia was an unforeseen joy.
A formidable fledgling.
A consummate killer,
a congenial companion.
[LESTAT] We were a happy trio.
Louis coddled her and I gifted
her a predator's upbringing,
- but
- Lunch is served.
But Claudia's defect caught up with her.
Coulda told me I had a defect.
Claudia's moods worsened.
She harmed herself in
the sun for attention
and followed that with a killing spree,
corpses clogging the Bayou,
a penchant for human souvenirs.
[SANTIAGO] She put yours and
Louis's anonymity at risk.
Then she ran away.
The vampiress tot in the
wind for seven years.
And Louis
Louis
he blamed himself.
And he folded inwards.
If your companion no longer wishes
to share his body with you,
if every word
coming out of his mouth
is vitriol or disinterest
for seven years
you don't want to.
You still hope that
he'll emerge out of his melancholy.
That he'll love you
like you love him.
What do you do?
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
What do you do?
Do find affection elsewhere?
- [AUDIENCE AGREEING]
- [ALL] Yes! Yes! Yes, you do!
[SANTIAGO] Antoinette Brown,
ladies and gentlemen,
later the vampire Antoinette.
Seven long years.
- And then Claudia returned.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
[LESTAT] Before her travel
bag had hit the floor,
Claudia assessed the
fragility of our union.
She's an artful predator.
I can say that now.
Hmm.
I see the best of my
vampiric self in her.
She looked at me,
and then she turned to Louis
and said, "Abandon Lestat."
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]
"Come with me to Europe."
- [MAN] No! Boo!
- [BOOING]
[GENTLE PIANO]
And he was hers again.
- And you and Louis fought?
- Well
At first we just slammed each
other around our townhouse.
- [YELLING]
- [CRASHING]
- Aaagh!
- No!
Seven years of
- compromise.
- Aaagh!
I'm trying to restrain myself, Louis!
Denial.
Stop! [YELLS]
- [CRASHING]
- [GRUNTING]
It all gave way.
Stay down!
Cheri, I don't want to fight like this!
[LOUIS YELLS]
[GLASS SMASHING, GRUNTING]
[LOUIS] You start it, you finish it!
[LESTAT] It will end in your death!
[GRUNTING]
[PANTING]
[LOUIS LAUGHS] My death?!
Look at your fucking face!
[LOUIS LAUGHS]
[CLAUDIA] Please stop! Don't do it!
- Please!
- Stay back, Claudia.
It's all good.
You're leaving with her?
- [CLAUDIA] Daddy Lou!
- [LOUIS] No, it's okay.
It's okay, we're done.
It's it's over.
Stay where you are, okay?
[BREATHING HEAVILY]
You're going to leave me.
I'm gonna take this hand here
and wrap it around that
scrawny neck of yours,
just like you did our daughter.
And I ain't gonna stop
until your eyes pop.
And then I'm gonna find
a big ol' butcher knife
and chop your head off.
And then I'm gonna walk that head
all the way to Audubon Park.
And I'm gonna feed it
to the fucking lions.
And I'm gonna
laughhhhhhh!
[LAUGHS MANICALLY]
[PANTING]
Yeah!
[LOUIS LAUGHS] Whatcha gonna do?
[CRASHING]
I'm burdened with my maker's temper.
Ah Uh, no.
[CHUCKLES] No.
You were You were
teased until you toppled.
- He tried to kill him!
- [SARCASTICALLY] Oh, did he?
You used your Cloud Gift.
You flew the accused
high up into the air,
then you let him fall.
Two kilometers approximately.
- [AUDIENCE GASPS]
- Yes, I know, I know, I know.
It's a lethal distance for a mortal.
But for a vampire?
It's a hard fall, nothing more.
Lestat has within his veins,
a most ancient blood.
A godlike strength.
Remember, he put his fist
through a priest's skull.
Did you do that to the accused?
No, you did not.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
I ask you to set aside
your mortal biases
and remember that we are monsters.
And to us monsters, what's
a bite between paramours?
- [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- [SNARLING AND LAUGHTER]
You knew Louis would be fine?
And he was fine.
[SANTIAGO] Lestat?
[SOFTLY] A wolf congratulated
for not killing her pups.
[SANTIAGO LAUGHS]
Yes!
You knew he would be
fine and he was fine.
- [PROJECTOR CLICKS]
- No!
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]
He wasn't fine.
I let go of him.
It wasn't a
misunderstanding, it wasn't an accident.
I let go of him.
[SIGHS]
I watched him
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
clutch the air.
I saw him
swinging wild as he
fell through the clouds.
[PROJECTOR CLICKS]
The projections went off sync.
Lestat went off script again.
How do you know it
wasn't part of the show?
Sam was cursing to himself beside me.
Read for yourself.
There was no scripting Lestat.
You cannot script a hurricane.
[LESTAT] I did it to hurt him.
And it did hurt him.
And afterwards he was a broken thing.
I know, I saw,
because I am the one who broke him!
[GENTLE PIANO]
I couldn't
persuade him to return my affections.
I couldn't force him
to love me and so
I broke him.
What is worse than that?
Crushing what you cannot own?
I hurt the one
I hurt the only one
[CLAUDIA] Doing it again.
Hurting you again.
I I thought of this
often in the coffin.
That you left me and
And I've thought of
this in the years since.
I
I will always be sorry
for what I did to you.
If it's true, it's too fucking late.
I was not worthy of the
forgiveness you would give me.
[SNIFFS] Continue.
[MOLLOY] Uh Okay.
Nice apology.
From the heart and not the page.
Did it move you?
Crossed an ocean
because he wanted us dead.
And then
something real.
This is Lestat.
What he does over and over.
Until you're left with no sense
of what is and what is not.
[LOUIS] Didn't work on me anymore.
I wasn't thinking about
Lestat's sincerity.
I was thinking about
how I was going to die.
But
But what?
It moved Claudia.
Right up on her feet.
Good!
- Mmm.
- [MAN IN AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]
[AUDIENCE MURMURING]
Real pretty.
You dropped him,
like an egg from an airplane.
He's fine now. You apologize.
All is forgiven.
- We poisoned him
- A confession!
He's not dead! He's standing
right here in front of us!
Can I cry and say that I'm sorry too?
[CELESTE] Disorder! Disorder!
[RUMBLING, HIGH-PITCHED TONE]
This working for you, Lestat?
[CLAUDIA GASPING]
You gonna accept my apology.
Claudia, stop!
This your big revenge?!
Claudia! Uhh!
- [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
- Oh, whoopsie-daisy!
Bailiff, could you clear it up, please?
[GAVEL BANGS]
Don't know why I bother.
You didn't come here for me.
One more round in the
stormy romance of you two!
Never been about me.
I was just a roof shingle
that flew off of your house.
[POIGNANT MUSIC]
Are we on trial?
It's not a trial.
It's a stoning.
A stoning.
Took the air out of the
place with that one.
It got a lot less fun real quick.
[ARMAND] But they had
their Technicolor film.
Tuan Pham's wizardry with it.
And they had Lestat back in the chair,
fully recovered from his
apology, back on mission.
Delivering his lines,
picking up his cues,
hypnotizing the mortals back around
with the potboiler in New Orleans.
[LOUIS] The father, duped by his
ungrateful and diabolical children.
The father ridiculed and humiliated
in his final minutes.
The mistress extinguished
in the courtyard oven.
[ARMAND] And the mortals didn't blink.
They followed the pocket
watch back and forth,
until Santiago and Lestat had
them dreaming in their seats.
[SANTIAGO] And here they are!
[ARMAND] Piranhas looking
up through the tank water,
waiting for the chum to be dumped.
[LOUIS] They had uncovered
our crimes there, in Paris.
[ARMAND] And sent a
signal flare to America,
waking the victim from
his state of repose.
-
- [ROMANTIC CLASSICAL MUSIC]
[LOUIS] She had confessed.
- I couldn't move.
- [AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]
Lestat would have his vengeance.
[CHUCKLES]
This is hard.
[BOWL SHARDS SCATTER]
The sentencing.
For the Heretical Desecration
of the first, third,
fourth and fifth of the Great Laws,
what say you for the vampire Claudia?
Ah, Advocat!
Are you not the horse a
mile ahead of the cart?
Madame Justice?
The vampire Madeleine,
what is her crime?
Oh, she's just a bastard fledgling,
made without the knowledge or
consent of the coven master.
[GASPS]
Which is now me.
Yet she is oblivious to the crimes
committed by her maker.
It is only fair that she be offered
the same choice as any vampire.
- This is true and fair.
- In accordance with vampiric law,
may she not join the coven
and become one with us?
[SANTIAGO] Hmm?
She must join or die.
- [AUDIENCE SHOUTING] Die!
- Die!
Oh, points for enthusiasm,
but it is true and fair.
Madeleine Eparvier rise!
[GROANING SOFTLY]
[SANTIAGO] The choice is yours.
Will you renounce the accused
you sit with and join our coven?
- [MAN] No! Pick me! Pick me!
- [MAN 2] Pick me! Pick me!
I am the vampire Madeleine Eparvier.
And my immortal companion is Claudia.
My coven is Claudia.
[SANTIAGO] My vampire heart quiver-eth.
The martyr skips her way to hell.
Indeed.
For the Heretical Desecration
of the first of the Great Laws,
what say you for the
vampire Madeleine Eparvier,
guilty or not guilty?
[AUDIENCE] Guilty! Guilty!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
And there being only
one sentence applicable,
that being death.
- What is your sentence?
- [AUDIENCE] Death!
The vampire Claudia, rise.
For the Heretical Desecration
of the first, third and fourth,
and the murder of the
vampire Antoinette Brown,
and the attempted murder
of her maker the vampire
Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt,
what say you for the vampire Claudia,
guilty or not guilty?
[AUDIENCE] Guilty!
And the sentence?
[AUDIENCE] Death!
May I ask the court for a final request?
Mmm?
- No.
- [LAUGHTER]
Let her have it.
The man in the balcony
wearing the high hat.
Would you kindly remove it?
Sir, will you grant the
condemned her last request?
Thank you.
I now know all your faces.
If there is an afterlife,
I'm going to come back
and fucking kill all of you.
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
And if there isn't an afterlife,
I'll still gonna find a way.
[AUDIENCE MUTTERING]
[SANTIAGO] Bailiff!
For the Heretical Desecration
of the Great Laws one, two and four,
and the murder of the
vampire Antoinette Brown,
and the attempted murder of his maker
the vampire Monsieur
Lestat de Lioncourt,
what say you for the vampire
Louis de Pointe du Lac,
guilty or not guilty?
[AUDIENCE] Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
Guilty!
And the sentence?
- De
- De
- De
- De
[STIRRING CLASSICAL MUSIC]
- De
- De
[MUSIC CONTINUES]
Banishment.
Banishment.
- Banishment.
- Banishment!
[AUDIENCE] Banishment!
Banishment! Banishment!
[MUSIC SWELLS]
[MOLLOY] He saved you.
It took all my strength.
You saved Louis.
Yes.
But not her.
I could not prevent it.
I could not prevent it.
Banishment
is not an applicable punishment.
[LAUGHS] Oh
Oh, but you mortals are
bastards, aren't you?
Arguably, a sentence worse than death.
Alright, have it your way.
Send him to Belgium!
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
[SANTIAGO TELEPATHICALLY]
Take him downstairs.
Tuck him in nice and tight.
No! No! No! No! No, Claudia!
- [CLAUDIA] Louis!
- [LOUIS] No! No!
Louis! Louis! Louis!
[AUDIO FADES]
I'm gonna guess that they didn't
drive you to the Belgian border.
No.
No.
[LOUIS YELLING AND SNARLING]
I fought back.
[LOUIS SNARLING]
There wasn't much fight left in me.
They took me to their
their crypt.
[SNARLING AND YELLING] No, no, no!
Shoved me in a coffin,
filled the coffin
with rocks, so I couldn't move.
[LOUIS SCREAMS]
What was that, Louis? I can't hear you.
[VAMPIRES LAUGHING]
[DOOR SLAMS]
[LOUIS YELLING]
Banished
to a three by seven foot box
to starve to death,
and join the damned who came before me.
[MOLLOY] And while that's going
on, she's upstairs on stage?
Ask him.
I wasn't there.
Okay.
You were there.
And now for your viewing pleasure
[ARMAND] The lip of the stage.
A spectacle and a marvel
Arms around each other, defiant, scared.
Whispering last words to one another.
Does anybody have the time?
[AUDIENCE] 1:39! 1:39! 1:39!
Oh, dear, way past our bedtime.
[CLARINET PLAYS MOURNFULLY]
What you are about to see
is fake.
Remember that when you leave here today.
You're all
[ARMAND] I tried to hear what
Claudia was saying to Madeleine,
but my mind was with Louis.
What must be happening to him backstage.
And I despise you for it!
[RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER]
[SHOUTS AND CHEERING]
And before Santiago pulled
the black-out curtain,
hiding the perfectly
mounted observatory lens
for the perfectly timed sun in
the sky above the theater
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE CONTINUES]
- Follow the bouncing ball!
- [SHUTTER WHOOSHES]
[MADELEINE SCREAMING]
[SCREAMING CONTINUES]
Claudia smiled.
[MADELEINE SCREAMS]
And started singing to her executioners.
I don't like windows ♪
When they're closed ♪
[MADELEINE SCREAMS]
I want to fly where
the wild wind blows ♪
[ARMAND] Claudia gave
the audience her back.
[SHE STRUGGLES TO SING]
And Madeleine succumbed first.
[CLAUDIA CRIES OUT]
[CLARINET CONTINUES]
[CLAUDIA SCREAMS] I don't
like windows when they're ♪
Closed! ♪
And you could tell from
the look on Lestat's face,
the last thing she saw on Earth was him.
[AUDIENCE CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
-
- [LOUIS YELLING AND SOBBING]
[APPLAUSE FADES]
[AUDIENCE CHATTER FADES]
[SANTIAGO'S FOOTSTEPS DEPART]
[SILENCE FALLS]
♪
-
- LOUIS: I was dead
♪
but my rage
[BLOOD DRIPPING]
[GASPS]
had risen.
♪
There was 13 of them
- [HISSING]
- and one of me.
[MOTORCYCLE ENGINE REVS]
SANTIAGO: Did Armand tell you
what we did with her ashes?
I lied to you.
- [MOTORCYCLE ENGINE RUMBLING]
- [SCREAMS]
- [FLAME WHOOSHES]
- I've come to kill you.
Episode 7, "I Could Not Prevent It."
It refers to the death
of Claudia and Madeleine,
and it's unexpected,
and what's revealed is
definitely not expected.
It's a fake setup.
It's presented as though
it's an actual trial
with the audience in the theater
- as the final jury.
- [APPLAUSE]
LOUIS: I fell in and
out of consciousness.
The sacks come off,
you're characters in a play.
Props in a play.
I could feel a presence in the theater.
This is something that the
audience and all of us,
frankly, shooting the show,
had been waiting for
for the whole season.
Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt.
- [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
- ANDERSON: Lestat walking on stage
is probably the most complex
moment for Louis.
There's a reason why Lestat
appears as his subconscious.
There's a comfort that he finds in him,
but to actually see him in the flesh,
I think there's a mix of like,
he doesn't know if he's really there.
And I think it's like, fear, excitement,
fury, and a bit of relief.
REID: It's a big deal for Louis and
Lestat to see each other again.
It's their turn to hurt.
For us, Jacob and myself,
it was a lot to do with,
what's their connection,
even when they're not
looking at each other?
Love has always been difficult for me.
But I think as soon as he looks at Louis
and as soon as Louis looks at him,
I think he knows it's all over.
The accused raised up his hands
and took your face in them
with a kiss of acceptance.
REID: Lestat has now lost
himself in the memory,
and then there's this homophobic comment
which snaps him out of it.
Where lies your disgust now?
It's just another element
that pushes him further and
further into catastrophe.
I hurt the one I hurt the only one
Doing it again. Hurting you again.
So today we have a 5 1/2, 6-page scene
which is the climax of the trial,
in which we find out whether Claudia,
Madeleine and Louis
are condemned to death
by the Paris coven.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
I ask you to set aside
your mortal biases
and remember that we are monsters.
Claudia has always been
a defiant character.
Good. Mm.
And so we wanted to give her that
if she's going to die in this way,
in front of a live audience,
burn to death on stage,
we wanted to give her
some moments of defiance
before she goes out.
You dropped him like an
egg from an airplane.
For Claudia, in the
beginning, it's terror,
and then it's just straight
anger from then on,
anger at Louis, anger at
Lestat, anger at Santiago.
We poisoned him.
- Our confession.
- He's not dead!
He's standing right here in front of us!
Can I cry and say that I'm sorry too?
Disorder!
O'BYRNE: Madeleine is out of it,
and not really aware
of what's happening.
Are we on trial?
Claudia is all too aware
and still so defiant.
Not a trial. It's a stoning.
She never begs.
She never gives any ground.
She knows that she's right.
Madeleine Eparvier rise!
Will you renounce the
accused you sit with
and join our coven?
HAYLES: Madeleine picks Claudia,
and that is all Claudia has ever
needed to hear, is to be put first.
So in that moment,
it's acceptance of her circumstance.
My immortal companion is Claudia.
My coven is Claudia.
What say you for the vampire Claudia?
Guilty or not guilty?
Guilty!
Even until her death, she's a fighter.
May I ask the court for a final request?
One thing about Claudia
that I really love
is she will always give it her all.
I now know all your faces.
And you'll always get her all.
If there is an afterlife,
I'm going to come back
and fucking kill all of you.
For Claudia, it's a promise.
It's not a threat. It's a promise.
She has Lestat's blood.
If they do anything,
it's come back with a vengeance.
[SHOUTING]
Claudia!
Louis!
[APPLAUSE]
Louis! Louis! Louis!
MOLLOY: You saved Louis.
ARMAND: Yes.
But not her.
I could not prevent it.
Claudia's death represents Louis'
last connection to this world.
This is hard.
This is a striking and painful episode.
When Claudia protects
Madeleine in that moment,
it's out of sheer love.
O'BYRNE: Louis feels
deeply responsible for her.
It is his biggest regret
that he couldn't save her.
ANDERSON: It's the thing
that's haunted everyone,
the fact he couldn't protect her,
- he couldn't keep her alive.
- [SCREAMS]
But like, a big part of Louis'
acceptance of the gift of his nature
is knowing that Claudia
really did embrace it.
She was a brilliant vampire.
♪
♪