[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Interview With the Vampire Season 2.]
Any “Finest Episodes of 2024” listing will likely be incomplete with out Interview With the Vampire‘s Season 2 Episode 5 (really, Season 2 Episodes 5, 7, and eight ought to all be included). “Don’t Be Afraid, Simply Begin the Tape” is a standout among the many AMC drama’s extensively acclaimed second season.
It’s the primary and solely episode in your entire sequence to not contain a New Orleans or Europe flashback, as an alternative specializing in the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac’s (Jacob Anderson) interviews with journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian and Luke Brandon Subject) in 1973 San Francisco and 2022 Dubai. Assad Zaman‘s Armand was there too, and he’s the one a kind of three who remembers all the small print of that fateful week in California — an issue that the subsequent episode addresses head-on. Earlier than the Season 2 premiere, I requested Zaman about his favourite a part of “Don’t Be Afraid, Simply Begin the Tape,” an episode followers are nonetheless raving about on social media months after its launch.
The episode outlined by excavating repressed recollections mockingly begins with Louis saying, “We had it discovered, didn’t we?” No, Louis. You didn’t. This line was referencing his and Armand’s relationship dynamic settled in Episode 4, nevertheless it nonetheless serves as an ideal precursor for the revelations to come back. Dubai Armand spends a lot of the episode away on an elaborate hunt that can finish, as Louis describes it, together with his sufferer “begging” for dying inside an hour. Daniel takes benefit of the 514-year-old vampire’s absence by asking Louis to fill the holes in his reminiscence of what actually occurred between them in San Francisco, holes revealed by an enhanced audio recording offered in secret by Raglan James (Justin Kirk) of the Talamasca.
The sequence of occasions that follows reveal two key issues: the emotionally distressed Louis tried to finish his personal life however was stopped by Armand, and Armand gave Louis and Daniel the identical actual reminiscence edit afterwards. The whole lot Louis and Daniel bear in mind in Dubai performs out in flashback, and what occurred was a horror present. Armand left Louis writhing in ache for who is aware of how lengthy following his suicide try. As he begged for reduction, Armand terrorized Daniel, utilizing his historic powers to regulate Daniel’s physique, transfer objects together with his thoughts, and telepathically talk with Lestat (Sam Reid) who was throughout the nation in New Orleans.
Armand’s capability for rage is on full show, triggered by Louis calling him the “world’s softest, beige-est pillow” in comparison with the “fascinating” Daniel. Zaman says Armand flipping the swap from calm to rage “occurs on a dime.”
Larry Horricks / AMC
“Once you love somebody, you typically say the worst issues to them. Typically we might be actually merciless to the people who we love,” Zaman explains. “Armand already has inbuilt insecurities about himself, and Louis is aware of precisely tips on how to prod them. And at that time when he flips it, it’s like, OK, that is what you consider me after so a few years? That is the impression that you’ve got of me? That I’m nothing to you? So I’m going to indicate you a very completely different aspect of me that I’ve held, that I’ve managed, that I’ve hidden from you for therefore lengthy. And let’s see what you concentrate on that. Is that this what you need? Is this boring for you? However I feel even then he’s scrambling. Even his menace is a chaotic menace of scrambling. He nonetheless desires acceptance from Louis.”
“After which there’s this different ingredient, this man who’s been in a position to open Louis up in ways in which Armand has by no means been in a position to,” Zaman says of Daniel. “There’s anger and frustration and disdain there for this child who’s been in a position to do what I’ve by no means been in a position to.”
These emotions are expressed by way of merciless punishment towards Louis, whose ache he ignores, and Daniel, whom he tortures and tries to empty. Armand doesn’t should feed as typically as different vamps due to his age. Due to that, and theatrical director that he’s, he provides his hunts a dramatic flare by coaxing his victims right into a darkish sense of peace with strains like “I’m the quiet you’ve been eager for.” His phrases are like a terrifying lullaby, the scariest half being that he could not even have to make use of his supernatural powers to get folks to beg for dying.
Getting ready to kill the “fascinating boy” was Zaman’s favourite scene to movie from Episode 5, the primary episode filmed for Season 2.
“Once I learn Episode 5, I used to be like, that is genius. We reside for 4 episodes and Season 1 in these eras which can be romantic and which can be filled with tradition and life, however then abruptly we’re thrust into this bottleneck that’s actually fairly claustrophobic as a result of we don’t go away the condominium in San Francisco. It’s such a unique tone. It’s so fascinating,” Zaman says, selecting his phrases properly.
“We knew that we have been going to revisit San Francisco. We knew that we needed to do it, however none of us knew how intense it was going to be. And I feel that’s a testomony to Rolin [Jones, showrunner] and Hannah [Moscovitch, writer/executive producer] and all the opposite writers who’re simply geniuses. Simply so intelligent. It’s simply so stunning,” he continues. “For me, certainly one of my favourite components of doing Episode 5 is the ultimate second with Daniel and form of soothing him into his lull earlier than I kill him. That was such an actual, actually fascinating depiction of how Armand, significantly as a vampire, kills his prey and the way that is virtually like singing him to sleep and going, ‘That is what you need, that is what you want.’ It’s so creepy and darkish.”
“Making you need dying, making you need it,” Zaman emphasizes, is Armand’s most chilling expertise.
That, and his skill to construct a life on a seismic lie for 77 years.
Relive “Don’t Be Afraid, Simply Begin the Tape” and all of Interview With the Vampire on AMC+. Season 1 can even be accessible to stream on Netflix on Monday, August 19.
Interview With the Vampire, Seasons 1 & 2, Out there Now, AMC+
