Review: The Vampire Lestat, "The Failures" | Season 3, Episode 7
Lestat and Louis face their pasts in a delectible finale that quite play all the songs
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About two-thirds of the way through “The Failures,” it dawned on me that the catastrophic concert in the woods wasn’t going to happen in this finale. In the end, we don’t see Lestat back on stage, the Queen’s return, or the auction that kicked off The Vampire Lestat. Meeting the high expectations coming off the back of the excellent and exhilarating penultimate episode is challenging, and on this occasion, the exploration that follows is strong but doesn’t match those previous highs. The finale nails the emotional fallout post-double beheading, but falls short in unleashing the overarching supernatural plot.
The inability to cover both areas illustrates the limitations of a seven-episode season with this much story and lore to cram in, and this concluding part ends up resembling a mid-season finale. At this point, Lestat is on Album 58, leaving 53 albums to go—teasing a whole lot of Lestat waxing lyrical to look forward to. It took two seasons to tell the story from the Interview with the Vampire novel, and for all my minor gripes about not getting to the concert, The Vampire Lestat is following a similar pattern.
Given the choice, I would rather the focus be on Lestat and Louis digging into past relationships and the concept of the soul via Armand's unorthodox methods than rushing to the concert, then the auction. It further proves that this show has always been more compelling when exploring the intricacies of vampire relationships and existential questions, rather than the politics of immortal creatures. (At the time of watching and writing, The Vampire Lestat has not been renewed yet by AMC, but I am quietly confident it will get at least another season, so I did not have that unfinished story worry lingering in the back of my head.)
