How the Season 2 Finale of INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE Changes the Ending of the Book

Interview with the vampireThe second season is officially over. The AMC series now moves on to Anne Rice’s second vampire novel, The Vampire Lestat for the content of the third season. This season of Interview with the vampire gives us a finale that makes a big change in the book’s narrative. And it’s a change that might shock some longtime fans. It’s a pretty big change to a pivotal moment in the novel, changing the relationships of Lestat (Sam Reid), Louis (Jacob Anderson), and Arman (Assad Zaman) as we move toward future seasons.

Interview with the vampire The end of the novel

In Rice’s original 1976 novel, the vampires Claudia and Madeleine are executed by the Paris coven for killing Claudia and Louis’ creator, the vampire Lestat. Or at least for attempting to kill him. However, Louis receives a lighter sentence for the same crime. (Perhaps it is a worse sentence, depending on how you look at it.) Louis is locked in a locked coffin by the coven members. This coffin is placed within the walls of the catacombs beneath the Théâtre des Vampires. He is left to die a slow, painful death, possibly over several years, as he descends into madness due to his lack of blood.

But in the climax of the novel (and the 1994 film), he is rescued by Armand, the leader of the Parisian Circle. He tells Louis that he cannot prevent Claudia’s execution because she has broken too many laws. Nevertheless, he exerted his power over his circle to the extent that he was able to save his beloved Louis from eternal imprisonment. Louis then takes revenge on the entire Parisian Circle by setting fire to the Théâtre des Vampires. Later, he takes a scythe to turn Santiago, the Circle’s second-in-command, into a vampire, thus destroying his undead rival for good.

Louis then leaves Paris with Armand, both now free from the machinations of the Circle. The pair wander the world for decades. Louis finally confronts Armand with the truth – he knows that Armand allowed the Paris Circle to murder Claudia. He denied the truth to himself for years, but now realized that Armand had orchestrated Claudia’s death and rescue (and subsequent revenge on the Circle) to secure Louis’s company.

The film takes a slightly different approach. Louis (Brad Pitt) tells Armand (Antonio Banderas) that he knew immediately after the events that he was behind all this. Louis then wanders the world alone, and we never find out what happened to Armand after that. Well, the Interview with the vampire The AMC series presents a third version of these events.

AMCs Interview with the vampire The season finale changes the original ending of the book

In the series, Louis is freed from his coffin prison when a mysterious vampire feeds him his blood, giving him the strength to break free. We never find out who the vampire savior is. Louis is too starved and spaced out to notice. The rest of the events unfold similarly to the book, with Louis taking his bloody revenge on the entire coven and burning down the theater. He then leaves the theater with Armand, who is committed to saving Louis.

Louis knows full well that Armand betrayed him, along with Claudia (Delainey Hayles) and Madeleine (Roxane Duran). But he believes that they forced Armand to cooperate, thanks to a coup within the Parisian circle orchestrated by Santiago (Ben Daniels). Saving Louis was Armand’s way of making amends for allowing himself to be kidnapped by the circle and forced into a public trial. The two flee Paris together and apparently remain a couple for decades.

But Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) discovers the truth about the events decades ago in Paris through his Talamasca contacts. Despite appearances, Armand not an unwilling accomplice in what the coven did. He didn’t just write the mock court/trial. He also staged it. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice Claudia, Madeleine and Louis to save his own skin. His vampire subordinates revolted against him and he had to prove himself to them (again).

In fact, it wasn’t Armand who saved Louis from eternal prison. It was his creator, Lestat. At first, Lestat used his telepathy to force the mortal audience to give Louis a sentence other than death. Louis always believed that Armand had done this. When Louis had exacted his revenge on the coven and slaughtered them all, Armand happily took the credit for saving him. With the threat to his own life gone, he now had everything he wanted. But Louis’ true savior was none other than Lestat.

This revelation enrages Louis in the present day, who beats Armand by pushing him around in their Dubai home. He later goes to New Orleans, where he tells Lestat that he now knows the truth. This is all a pretty big change from the original narrative. We always knew Armand was willing to sacrifice Claudia to remove her as an obstacle to his relationship with Louis. But in the series, we now know that he was also willing to let his beloved Louis die to save his own life. When the coven was no longer a threat, he took the credit for Louis’ rescue. Louis introduced Armand in the first season as “the love of his life,” but in reality, it’s his creator, the vampire Lestat.