Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

The Vampire Lestat - EP 3 (Patreon)

Published:
2026-06-23 14:00:20
Imported:
2026-08

Videos

  • 686165607.mp4

Downloads

Content

fair warning: this episode really upset me. I cut a lot of it out but left enough in to try and show how much it got to me. It's hard sometimes to know what to leave in and what to cut out. I'm letting you know in advance in case watching other people upset, upsets you and also to warn those of you that are watching this episode for the first time with me that it is very upsetting. This episode contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence, please proceed with caution.

Files

Comments

Dan

I hope you’re doing ok 💗

bella

Sorry that you found the ep so upsetting Freddie, I think it was a very valid reaction and your thoughts were all super fair. I hope you were able to decompress and feel better afterwards 🫂 Personally, I didn’t enjoy this episode either and I’m starting to feel frustrated with how the show is approaching Lestat’s POV. I compare it to Louis and Lestat’s house fight in the earlier season when Lestat drops Louis from the sky - that scene was very distressing for me to watch (I actually found it MORE upsetting than this episode personally) but it felt necessary for the viewer to be able to unlock a deeper empathy for Louis by better understanding his circumstances at that time. Before that scene, I obviously knew their relationship was a bit toxic but I was allowing myself to be distracted by their chemistry, sweet moments and funny banter to convince myself “they’re not THAT bad”. So the fight scene serves as an important reality check which adds new context to the narrative with the ultimate goal of allowing Louis’ experience of being victimised to be honoured and shared. Conversely in this season, I the viewer am already WELL aware that lestat has been deeply traumatised throughout his life and I certainly do not still believe his blasé descriptions of his transformation. But the trauma we were shown this ep did not give me any new insight into any aspect of his emotional experience, it was just raw pain, fear, and suffering - all of which I have ALREADY SEEN in Lestat thanks to Sam Reid’s phenomenal acting. So, if we are not being given new understanding about the character’s perspective, then the only other thing I could see justifying such a brutal depiction would be if the show was going to ground that experience around other plot points to recontextualise how those emotions sit within the viewer. And I think this is ultimately what the episode tried to do but in a way that just absolutely did not work for me at all. I don’t inherently have an issue with depicting Lestat’s transformation in such visceral style because I think that approach of not ‘sugarcoating’ it can be a way to honour the trauma of that experience. But, if they were going to choose to present his assault so graphically, I would have preferred the show to ground it in a moment of genuine connection and empathy from another character (whether that could be Daniel, or Louis, or even just Lestat connecting with himself?) so that we as the viewer are learning something new or gaining deeper empathy out of seeing those events on screen be met with a response (which could then prompt us to reflect on how we feel about the reaction). But instead, Lestat and Claudia’s trauma was grounded to Louis’ revenge scene which to me just felt completely hollow in the face of what they both experienced… like killing bruce does nothing for either of them as characters or for us as the viewer?? Lestat’s pain continues to be unrecognised by everyone around him and himself, and so it’s just starting to feel like trauma porn at a certain point tbh. Before this episode I thought "wow what has happened to lestat throughout his life (including what I can easily imagine likely occurred during his transformation)" is awful and upsetting. After this episode I now know what happened to lestat in his transformation - it was awful and upsetting. 🤷‍♀️ Idk that’s just my personal frustrations vented straight after watching... I’m very interested to see how I look back on this at the end of the season because in fairness to the show these are extremely complex themes that I imagine must be very difficult to execute in general, let alone when the show is primarily about how unreliable narration affects the story. I also continue to be frustrated by the casual incest but I am more willing to be patient with that plot line because as you said, I do think the show is authentically depicting lestat’s feelings at this point in time, so if the arc of the season is for his POV to ultimately be exposed as the “music video” version of the darker reality I am okay with taking our time to unpack that across multiple eps. Anyway as funny as bitter divorcee Louis/Lestat was, I am really missing their emotional connection at this point and would love to see them have an actual conversation soon, bc for me their relationship is the emotional throughline of the show. So I hope we get some hope for that next week… or hey I'll take an hour of Daniel/Armand making out sloppy style instead 🙃

ella

Dang kinda upset this episode took out your excitement of the show. I was deeply saddened by this episode but in a different way, this was actually my favorite episode of the season yet bc I think we got a lot more depth in the story. I understand your opinion on the particular scene completely and won’t blame you if u don’t even continue, it’s just really upsetting to see that a lot of people are already giving up on this show when in my opinion everything it has shown has been very on par with stuff we seen from previous seasons. Maybe bc I read the books I know what to get out of the episodes a little more so it’s not so surprising to me. Idk it’s just the current talks around the show are upsetting to see and has me even avoiding conversing abt it bc I feel like people are so turned off when I’m still deeply invested. I do hope you’re ok and choose to continue out of the want to watch not bc you want to please your viewers.

freddies_patreon

completely agree with you. I think that comparing it to the loustat flying fight is really helpful actually, to recontextualise the show more broadly. I've been sitting on it for the last couple of days (I recorded this on Monday) and I think the main issue I can't get away from was the combination of the two assaults layered on top of each other, and as you said, the way they were grounded to Louis's revenge. I think, honestly, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of trauma processing to have someone recount what happened in a very blasé way in front of others only to re-live it as a visceral flashback shortly after when alone but I think it would have been enough to show one incident at a time. To watch Lestat being assaulted was horrific enough, finding out what happened to Claudia in the previous seasons when it was only implied was horrific enough. The combination of the two, especially with the graphic description of the assault to Claudia, felt almost like the showrunners were trying to show us how far they could go, like they were showing how serious they are about depicting the depravity and I think to your point about the incest, with everything that's happened over the last few episodes I've been feeling very much like, okay, I get it, we're pushing the boundaries. Idk. I logged on to tiktok and saw a lot of praise for the ep which made me doubt myself a little but ultimately I reacted the way I reacted and I felt the way I felt. I'm also interested to see how I feel about this in the context of the whole season and whether my opinions change. Thank you for sharing your thoughts Bella

freddies_patreon

This is really interesting as I went on tiktok after watching the episode and found that the majority of the feedback was similar to you! Really positive and praising the episode as the best so far. Definitely had me doubting myself a bit and made me nervous to see what everyone would think about this reaction. Perhaps because I am watching this season as it's airing and not when it's been fully released and become universally loved like the first two seasons I'm finding it harder to see the bigger picture and have faith that it will come around. Knowing that the show had such a strong fanbase potentially helped me push through the tougher parts of the first 2 seasons, but who can say for sure. I will say that a lot of the positive feedback I have seen has come from people who have read the books so maybe having more context and being able to place this in a larger sequence of events helps. I spoke with my girlfriend about it at length (she has never watched the show) and tried to give as much context as I could for the scene and we both agreed that it makes a lot of sense why they chose to do what they did with this episode. But that it's also understandable why I didn't like it. It has actually been reminding me of my attempt to watch The Handmaids Tale during covid. I was incredibly gripped for the first few episodes and then got to a scene where there was very shocking violence against a lesbian couple and I realised that despite knowing why the show was doing what it was doing and thinking that it was executing it really well, I knew that I couldn't tolerate it. I ended up dropping the show completely and now avoid anything I see of it :/ I think there are some of us who gain strength, catharsis and valuable processing from watching trauma similar to ours played out on screen. There are also some people who gain insight into the horrors that happen in the world from fictional media, which can be valuable for culture (such as with The Handmaids Tale) but unfortunately I just find it incredibly upsetting :( That being said, I will be continuing the show next week, not to please the audience but because I've had a bit of space and time to process everything and as I said in my response to Bella, I think it'll be interesting to see how I think about this season as a whole. The problem with reactions is that they really are reactive and I usually fill you in on how I've processed stuff the following week. As I said in the vid, I'll stop if I really don't want to continue, but for now I will be! The critique will persist I think though and it's okay if that's not what you're looking for.

bettyreads

There's just been so much violence Lestat's been through and then goes onto inflict on others. The harm Lestat has done to those around him is because of what happened to him & none of it justifies it and now the viewers (that haven't read) get where hes been coming from from his pov, it's a lot and it needed to be shared so hes understood. I agree that the juxtaposition of his assault with Louis reading the letter was going too far. Powerful because both sadly and angeringly went through assault but felt just like harmful viewing. Also the downplaying of what happens that lestat does and it being this "quirky" song that the writer is proud of feels so wrong like again get that lestat in his psychosis would try to paint this that way and still it comes off so gross. Just the whole situation is off putting and Gabriella with her horrible accent which feels on purpose at this point just makes it even worse. At least we got Armand back and Claudia aka Regina. Looking forward to what they bring.

mantellian

Sorry to jump in, but - whilst absolutely respecting all other opinions/feelings - I did just want to respond to a couple of the points raised here as someone who adored this episode (it's one of my faves from all three seasons), in case it helps offer a different pov/interpretation. Sadly I think there were still actually a fair number of viewers who WEREN'T aware of the full extent of Lestat's trauma (or who at least were sticking their fingers in their ears and pretending not to know) - up until now it's only ever been implied or conveyed second-hand through characters who have their own reasons for being pissed at him, and, from what I've seen, a lot of fans - coming perhaps from a place of love for Louis/Claudia - have therefore easily been able to dismiss it. Which I get, especially if they haven't read the books, because in comparison to the visceral trauma we ourselves have witnessed Louis/Claudia experience onscreen, Lestat's foggy history hasn't registered as much beyond a few throwaway lines. (I also think the specific trauma of transformation we see here was more about drawing parallels tween him and Claudia and recontextualising their relationship than just driving home how shitty he'd had it, but I'll go into more detail on that later!) I also think, in terms of emotional grounding, that it was more important for Lestat himself to be confronted by the truth of his trauma before any other characters are, because, as the show has made clear, he's been running from it his whole life - he's incapable of looking it in the face and he can never hope to move forward or to stop repeating the cycle or falling into destructive behaviours and relationships until he reconciles with himself. So for me, there's greater meaning in that moment being all about Lestat coming clean to Lestat than in him revealing it to someone else. And I absolutely think he connected with himself after the breakdown - imo, that's what the car crash (reborn from the flames) and, most importantly, the final song was all about: him confronting his trauma, and achieving a measure (if only temporary) of peace through the pure expression he finds in his music - he put all that pain into that song and literally sang away his two abusers (also a clear indication imo that the show is taking Gabriella's abuse seriously because of the way it parallels her and Marius - they both turn and leave, whereas Nicky stays, delighted). I actually found that whole sequence really hopeful and healing - it's like he says in his monologue before he starts singing: it could have all ended then and there, but he just loves the music too much to give up, and to me that's a really beautiful statement of resilience. He's not okay, none of them are - Louis' revenge was ultimately all about Louis, not Claudia, and it still hasn't helped him, he's still stuck, empty (which is why I think the layering of their assaults with his "revenge" works, because it's not triumphant or even meaningful, it's just Louis trying to make himself feel better and arguably betraying Claudia in doing so, by sharing her words with her rapist in order to fulfil that avenging angel role he's assumed for himself), and Daniel is off draining random dudes in alleys - they're all still alone and fucked up, but at least Lestat has found a way to channel his pain into something he loves, something that, unlike almost everything else in his life, is an act of creation as opposed to destruction (in direct contrast to Louis' bloody rampage). I don't think he's done being haunted by ghosts by any stretch, but in that moment he actually WAS liberated, but by himself (not by Marius as he tried to claim earlier in the ep). They mentioned in the bts that the levitating is something he does almost unconsciously in moments of pure exultation, and we've only seen it happen once before (wink wink nudge nudge), so that there's proof of how good he was feeling! In terms of the layering, I found it really powerful because of the way it drew attention to how strong the parallels always were between Lestat and Claudia even though they refused to acknowledge them, which in turn drives home how tragic their relationship was - they did have things in common, but (perhaps precisely because they were too alike) instead of bringing them together, that drove them apart. Imagine how different their relationship could have been had they been able to talk honestly to each other about what they'd both been through? I think it helps recontextualise some of Lestat's callousness towards Claudia - he was incapable of offering her the support or sympathy she needed because he still wasn't able to face his own kidnapping and assault and unwanted transformation (AND AND AND that's not even getting into all the Claudia/Nicky parallels! Both times Lestat's love was leveraged in order to make him transform someone he knew shouldn't be a vampire and both times it ended in them being burned alive before his eyes). He approached Claudia's trauma the way he did his own - impatient flippancy. And now we can understand why - he looked at her and saw himself, saw his own pain and victimhood reflected back at him, and he couldn't handle it. I think, for me, this episode combined everything I love so much about this show - I laughed out loud, I wept, I shrieked, I contemplated the terror of being known and the devastation that follows when we don't allow ourselves to be. I'm really loving this season - to me it's the perfect vehicle (stylistically/artistically/musically/linguistically/psychologically) for Lestat as a character in all his glorious contradictions, e.g. the way the writing/dialogue mixes the show's trademark wonderfully eloquent loquacity with the frenetic cringe of his nods to more, um, current lingo/culture. It's a great example of how it works to blend (deliciously) the irreconcilable: comedy and tragedy, the absurd and the oh too real, beauty and horror (which I guess is trademark Gothic). Claudia's account of her assault is the perfect example - from an objective literary pov it was an exquisitely evocative piece of writing...which of course is precisely why it was so terribly gutting and hard to stomach. Sorry for rambling! I'm really honestly not trying to invalidate or convert anyone else's interpretation or feelings - I just wanted to explain why I loved it so much. I hope future eps work better for you - I understand how shitty it is when you start to fall out of love with something that's meant a lot to you. All the best!

bella

Thanks for sharing your insight, really interesting thoughts! I think for me I didn't enjoy this episode but was/remain still open to seeing where the show takes it for the rest of the season because I think I will feel differently depending how the topics are handled in future. If I feel like they ultimately address things appropriately I could definitely see myself coming back and appreciating this ep in a different way, for now I think I'm just not confident enough in the show's ability to successfully balance the various conflicting tones with the gravity of the subject matter. Honestly I've been finding the handling of the incest plotline really challenging so far (but will be more accepting of it depending how it eventually resolves) and I think that plus the gore and violence of nicky in this ep as well, it got to a point where I felt a bit beat over the head with GRAPHIC DARK VIOLENT FUCKED UP SHIT this season and it's all started to feel quite senseless and lose emotional impact for me. But now that I've had a few days to sit with everything I think I would have connected with it much better if Louis just wasn't so involved in the assault scene, like if they had Claudia take over narrating her diary entries in voiceover instead, bc I do agree with your point about the parallels between Claudia and Lestat but having a third party be so present just made me feel less connected to them as characters and focus more on the violent events taking place. But these are just my personal feelings about it, I definitely think all your takes are valid and appreciated hearing a different perspective!!

adlizto

I have never read the books, so I'm as fresh to this as you are, and I agree the abuse was extremely visceral in the way it was shown and narrated. I will never think a scene depicting the actual action is necessary, but hearing the diary entry was more than enough to make Lestat's transformation feel just as degrading and powerless. However, we also have to remember that all the scenes of Louis are being told in an assumed form of Lestat's imagination. So quite possibly this is Lestat's way of fighting back against the thoughts and memories in his head when he can no longer suppress them after mind fucking Daniel all while performing emotional gymnastics around his mom's actions and lack of true affection. Does it solve anything? No. But watching the world burn when the things he loves goes to shit is a great distraction. Similarly to how Claudia was breaking code about writing her experiences as a vampire, Lestat is doing the same thing with his music, both a form of self therapy in processing their traumas, experiences that made them feel less than, immediately changing their views of themselves. "I thought I was the thing lurking in the shadows." The last line from the diary holds a powerful sentiment for both Claudia and Lestat, who hunted together once upon a time, because it seems Armand may be scheming in the shadows on another love of Lestat's, the music. On the incest of it all, vampires having relations with their makers isn't too far from it, and considering Lestat's mother was capable of killing her own children without hesitation the moment she was a vampire says a lot about her original connection to her humanity and moral compass. The way Lestat is tormented by the memory of his maker similarly to how Louis was with him is very interesting, as well. They may not hear each other's thoughts, but their abuser lives rent free in their minds, very similar to how trauma becomes a part of you and can fester if left alone. Ultimately, hurt vampires hurt vampires.