Review: The Vampire Lestat, "New York" | Season 3, Episode 5

How do you depict a three-century trainwreck through song? That continues to be one of The Vampire Lestat’s core questions, with Lestat’s band switching out a claustrophobic tour bus for an even more confined space as they lay down tracks for what will be billed as a posthumous album release. Lestat is using this time to find out answers to the events that have plagued him (such as why Gabriella left him on a Spanish beach) and to finally share some of his best-kept secrets, like his history with the Queen. Both are core to Lestat’s identity, jostling for attention alongside the impact of Claudia’s death. Even with unresolved issues and overwhelming bitterness, Lestat cannot leave his ex floundering, and the pair is equally haunted in another jam-packed episode. No one could accuse creator Rolin Jones of withholding or taking his foot off the pedal. 

Zig-zagging between the past and present emphasizes how memories are feeding Lestat’s spiral. Hallucinations of Nicky, boyhood Lestat, Louis from the night Lestat turned him, and Claudia in a New Orleans frock further increase the off-kilter mood, but his delusions are not the same as Louis paying a human to play out his Claudia fantasies. Of course, Louis spent much of last season interacting with an imagined version of Lestat (aka Dreamstat), and the blood they share is a factor determining this behavior. Given the length of the season, Regina-as-Claudia plays out on a fast-track timetable. In the space of two episodes, this game of make-believe goes off the rails fast. How many times Regina cosplayed as Claudia is unclear, but it is certainly more than what we see in “New York.”