Interview with the Vampire Season 1 Ending Explained

Is Lestat Dead?

Lestat de Lioncourt is not dead. Episode 7 makes that pretty clear but no judging if you missed it. Sometimes you’ve gotta look down at your phone and that’s what we’re here for. But even if you did catch that Lestat is not dead, Interview with the Vampire does something pretty interesting with how it approaches that moment, and it goes back to how the show chooses to smartly adapt Rice’s book.

At the very beginning of this episode, Molloy asks Louis to clarify how a vampire can really die. Louis provides him with some options: decapitation, fire, drinking the blood of the dead, drinking poisoned blood, etc. Readers of the novel and viewers of its 1994 film adaptation will know that the timing of Molloy’s question to Louis isn’t random. Per the show’s canon, Molloy already interviewed Louis back in the ’70s (which is when the book is set). Louis didn’t tell Molloy the whole truth back then, which is why he reached out to him to be interviewed again. But Molloy still remembers the rough timeframe of that original story and he knows that Lestat’s “death” will be coming up soon. Additionally, he knows that Lestat’s death ultimately didn’t stick and he returned later on in Louis’ tale.

By getting Louis on record about what kills a vampire, Molloy is setting a little trap. He suspects that Louis truly loved Lestat and that his story about killing him was off. And he wants Louis’ rundown of the methods for killing vampires to confirm it. Ultimately it does not, but Molloy is able to get some confirmation later.

Claudia indeed “killed” Lestat through the method of poisoned blood. The whole thing was a complicated ruse where she knew Lestat would be spying on her and would learn she was poisoning some hot young twins for him to eat. In addition to the twins then, Claudia also poisoned the corrupt city official that offended Lestat, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to help himself from draining him as well (“Always the petty slights with you, uncle Les.”)

Lestat succumbs to his blood poisoning and settles into something resembling death. The show, however, never hides the fact that this death won’t be a permanent one. Molloy knows it from hearing the first iteration of the story and he wants Louis to confess that he knew Lestat would come back too, himself.

“You didn’t kill Lestat. You spared him,” Molloy asserts.