Line #104 Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E4TheRuthlessPursuitOfBloodWithAllA


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iwtv_s1e4.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:"Dear new diary, you've joined a happy home, even if we're an odd one."]]
3
4	[-The full episode title is "…The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding", and the URL had to be truncated because it exceeded the 64-character limit for page titles.-]
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8	!!! Aired October 23, 2022
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10	Claudia's transformation into a vampire teen completely changes Louis and Lestat's lives. As Claudia asks more questions, Louis and Lestat are forced to confront questions about making a teen vampire. Claudia learns dark realities of her new life.
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13	!!Tropes:
14	* AccidentalMurder: The last thing Claudia wants to do is harm her FirstLove Charlie, but because she's an undisciplined blood drinker (more so when she's in a HemoErotic state), she goes overboard while feeding on Charlie, so he dies from exsanguination.
15	* AgeInsecurity: Lestat is [[ProudBeauty vain]], so he doesn't like it when others bring up his age. He's offended when Louis points out that he's unable to relate to a teenager's mindset because he's too old (Louis' [[StealthInsult indirect phrasing]] while avoiding the dreaded o-word is "''Tu as oublié ta jeunesse!''" [[note]]the precise translation from French is "You've forgotten your youth!", which is slightly different than the "You've forgotten what it's like to be young!" provided by the on-screen caption[[/note]]). Lestat also does the vampire equivalent of claiming that he's 39 years old when he's actually 40.
16	-->'''Claudia''': How old are you again, Uncle Les?\
17	'''Louis''': 160--\
18	'''Lestat''': 159.
19	* AutoErotica: Lestat and Claudia ambush two young couples (although most of Lestat's onslaught occurs off-screen) having sex in their cars at lover's lane.
20	* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter:
21	** Louis and Lestat bring Claudia into their household right when Louis is on the brink of walking out on their relationship. In the short-term, it ''does'' work -- they're quite happy as a little family for a time. Claudia writes in her diary that she helps to smooth out any major conflicts between her Daddy Lou and her Uncle Les ("And when they can't [sort out their problems on their own], I can always get in between and make it right"). In the long-term, though, it doesn't work out so well. Lampshaded by Louis and Daniel:
22	--->'''Louis''': Claudia was--\
23	'''Daniel''': A band-aid for a shitty marriage?\
24	'''Louis''': I was going to say... something else. But yes, that's almost certainly what she felt like.
25	** The trope is played much straighter with Louis individually. Fatherhood brings a great deal of fulfillment and meaning to Louis' life.
26	--->'''Louis''': Claudia was... everything. I loved her unconditionally. All the noise, the chaos, the crisis of my former existence, silenced. The simple joy of her hand in mine.
27	* BilingualBonus:
28	** Louis pleads with Lestat to turn a dying Claudia into a vampire because "She's only a kid," and Lestat utters, "''C'est impossible. Elle est trop jeune.''" ("It's impossible. She is too young.")
29	** Rashid ends his Muslim prayer with "''Asr namozi''," which is Uzbek for "Afternoon prayer."
30	** Lestat curses "''Putain de merde''" ("Fucking hell") while teaching a reckless Claudia how to drive.
31	* BoyMeetsGhoul: The cute vampire Claudia becomes enamoured with a young mortal man named Charlie. He gives her a [[FlowersOfRomance bouquet of chrysanthemums]], they eat ice cream sundaes on their first (and only) date, and then they canoodle in his carriage. Their romance is short-lived because Claudia has a voracious appetite and never learned moderation, so she [[AccidentalMurder consumes all of Charlie's blood until he dies]].
32	* BugCatching: The young fledgling Claudia catches a firefly in a jar during a rowboat ride with Louis and seals the lid. She admires the glowing insect for a few minutes before letting it go.
33	* CallAHumanAMeatbag: As a young fledgling vampire, Claudia refers to human blood as "kill juice" with her Uncle Les' encouragement, and she notes that "You suck 'em like frog legs."
34	* CheerfulChild: This is what Claudia was during her formative years as a fledgling vampire: laughing, dancing happily, skipping in the house.
35	* CompartmentShot:
36	** The camera is inside the incinerator when Claudia watches the corpses of her first two victims (a policeman and a trumpet player) that she exsanguinated earlier being reduced to ashes.
37	** The same angle is employed when Lestat forces Claudia to stay put and observe Charlie's body being charred by the flames.
38	* CrazyJealousGuy: Although Lestat initially refuses Louis' request to transform Claudia into a vampire because ''[[BilingualBonus "Elle est trop jeune"]]'' ("She is too young"), he does the wrong thing anyway (not to mention that she didn't consent to it) because he realizes that [[BabiesMakeEverythingBetter creating a daughter is the only way to ensure that Louis — who was about to abandon Lestat — will stay with him]].
39	* CueTheSun: The episode opens with the sun rising above the Dubai desert which fills up the screen. This is as safe as it gets for humans from the threat of vampires because the latter are WeakenedByTheLight. However, the daytime doesn't necessarily mean that Daniel is free of vampiric danger due to the sunlight-blocking shielded windows of Louis' penthouse apartment, which allows Louis to be active during the day if he so chooses. On this particular morning, though, Louis has decided to rest.
40	* DeathGlare: Lestat gives the undertaker a sinister "I'm going to kill you" look before exsanguinating him to death.
41	* DiariesAreGirly: Claudia is a teenage girl who diligently records her thoughts and feelings about the minutiae of her daily life in her diaries, which all have pretty covers. She narrates her entries with a singsong voice and is very expressive.
42	* DisruptingTheTheater: Lestat, Claudia and Louis are laughing their heads off while watching ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}'' (which is not a comedy), irritating the other people in the theater.
43	* DoorSlamOfRage: We hear (but not see) a door slammed in anger twice; the first is when Louis is disgusted at Lestat for bringing their vampire daughter Claudia to a MakeOutPoint to hunt humans who are having sex, and the second is when Louis and Lestat argue over the latter's stern ToughLove stance on Claudia after her AccidentalMurder of her boyfriend Charlie.
44	* DueToTheDead: Grace and Levi host Florence's wake at the de Pointe du Lac mansion. There's a funeral scheduled the next day, but the audience never sees it.
45	* EmergencyTransformation: Near the beginning of the episode, Claudia is dying due to a combination of severe burns and smoke inhalation, so Louis begs Lestat to turn her into a vampire. Lestat doesn't want to at first because ''[[BilingualBonus "Elle est trop jeune"]]'' ("She is too young"), but he changes his mind after it dawns on him that [[BabiesMakeEverythingBetter a daughter will bind Louis to him again]] when his boyfriend was ready to walk out on their relationship.
46	* EverythingsSparklyWithJewelry: Because Claudia is the daughter of a [[VampiresAreRich moneyed vampire couple]], she wears an ornate floral-patterned gold headband studded with pearls for her 17th birthday party, and Lestat's gift to her is an emerald necklace that once belonged to a marquis. She's wowed by it, but the chain is too long for her, so Louis assures her that they'll find one in her size.
47	* EvilDetectingDog: Charlie's horse panics when it's near Claudia, so it can instinctively sense that she's a predator.
48	* EyeCam: Near the beginning of the episode, the corners of the screen are obscured to illustrate that a dying Claudia can barely keep her eyes open while looking at what she assumes to be a Black angel (Louis) and a White angel (Lestat).
49	* EyeColourChange: As part of Claudia's transformation into a vampire, her brown eyes become [[TechnicolorEyes reddish-orange]].
50	* FeelingYourHeartbeat: Lestat briefly rests his hand on Louis' chest where the latter's heart is during Claudia's birthday party. It's a simple gesture that helps Lestat feel close to his boyfriend.
51	* FlirtatiousSmackOnTheAss: There's a blink-and-you'll-miss moment when Lestat briefly performs the finger-brushing variant on Louis' bum just as he approaches his boyfriend from behind in the second coffin room scene. Lestat is signaling to Louis that he would like to have sex as soon as Claudia has settled into her coffin, and Louis smiling at the touch means that he feels the same way.
52	* FlowersOfRomance: While driving his horse carriage, Charlie tosses a bouquet of chrysanthemums at the doorstep of Claudia's home as a way of displaying his romantic interest towards her.
53	* ForeignCussWord: Lestat blurts out "''Putain de merde!''" (French for "Fucking hell!") twice in this episode.
54	* FreezeFrameBonus: The first of Claudia's diaries that Daniel picks up has a tiny sneak peek for Season 2:
55	-->Paris, November 14, 1945: We've arrived in Paris, what a relief! My whole dead self feels revitalized head to toe. We might be outsiders to both humans and Parisian life, but I do appreciate both now with such fervor! Granted, I've never hated my body [unclear]
56	* GenkiGirl: At the start of her vampiric existence, Claudia is an exuberant and energetic girl, frequently running around the house even though Louis and Lestat repeatedly tell her not to.
57	* GetOut: After Claudia gets her own bedroom, she becomes very territorial about it (as is the case for most teenagers), so when Lestat passes through her open door and leans against the doorway, Claudia exclaims irately, "You have to knock first! Out! Out! Out!", and she even throws an object at him.
58	* GirlishPigtails: Claudia sometimes sports braided pigtails (this is her hairstyle when Louis rescues her from the burning rooming house, when she's shopping for her own coffin, and when she's BugCatching during a boat ride with Louis) as a visual cue to viewers that she's a young girly girl.
59	* HappyBirthdayToYou: Lestat and Louis sing "Happy Birthday to You" to Claudia on her 17th birthday, although the audience only hears the tail end of the song.
60	* HealingFactor:
61	** In the final moments of her mortal existence, Claudia is covered with life-threatening burns to her body, but after her EmergencyTransformation into a vampire, the scorches on her skin are mostly gone by the time she explores Lestat's townhouse. There's only some scar tissue on the left side of her face.
62	** Discussed when Lestat cautions Claudia about her careless driving; even though vampires live forever, acute injuries require months to heal.
63	--->'''Lestat''': ''Putain de merde'' [[note]]French for "Fucking hell"[[/note]], steer, steer.\
64	'''Claudia''': Ugh, but we're immortal!\
65	'''Lestat''': You can still smash your pretty little head and then take long, dull months to recover. Eyes on the road.
66	* HemoErotic: Downplayed with Claudia, who is only turned on when she's exsanguinating her boyfriend Charlie, as demonstrated by her pleased moans while they're making out in his carriage. However, because she lacks self-control, she ends up [[AccidentalMurder killing him unintentionally]].
67	* HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Lestat and Louis argue in French so that Claudia doesn't know exactly what they're discussing about her. She scribbles in her diary that "Fighting sounds funny in French."
68	* {{Hypocrite}}: Lestat insists that there are no secrets within their family, yet he becomes crotchety whenever Claudia inquires about his past or the history of vampires. She confides to Louis that it bothers her that Lestat keeps a lot of information hidden from them.
69	-->'''Claudia''': Uncle Les got secrets.\
70	'''Louis''': How you figure?\
71	'''Claudia''': He don't give good answers to questions, sits on the truth like it's his chair or somethin'. I thought we weren't supposed to keep secrets.
72	* HypocriticalHumor: Lestat, a LargeHam himself, complains about Claudia's "histrionics."
73	* KillTheOnesYouLove: In a case of AccidentalMurder, Claudia [[HemoErotic drinks all of Charlie's blood during their make-out session]]. She's extremely distraught about the death of her FirstLove afterwards.
74	* KissingDiscretionShot: Lestat sneaks into Louis' coffin and snuggles next to him. The last thing Claudia sees before Louis shuts the lid is Lestat caressing his lover, but then she hears smooching sounds.
75	* LoveAtFirstSight: Claudia is instantly smitten with Charlie when he first approaches her to check if she's alright after [[EvilDetectingDog his horse is spooked by her presence]].
76	* MakeOutPoint: Lestat and Claudia are at a lover's lane to prey on unsuspecting couples. Claudia is innocent when it comes to human sexuality, so Lestat employs [[SexualEuphemism euphemistic language]] to explain to her what [[CallAHumanAMeatbag "the meat"]] do here.
77	-->'''Lestat''': This is what the meat calls a "lover's lane," and by my estimation, no blood is sweeter. Young people, swollen with passion, denied spirits by this senseless prohibition, park along this lonely stretch to contemplate that most mysterious of mathematical equations -- how one plus one becomes one.
78	* MixedAncestryIsAttractive: While Lestat isn't sexually attracted to his biracial vampire daughter Claudia, he nonetheless uses similar terms to describe her as he does with the mixed-race Louis and Lily (e.g. "pretty little head," "belladonnic beauty").
79	* MyBelovedSmother: Lampshaded by Claudia when she scrawls in her journal that "Daddy Lou can be smotherin'."
80	* {{Nephewism}}: As stated in her journal, after Claudia's [[DeathByChildbirth mother died giving birth to her]] and she was [[DisappearedDad abandoned by her father]], she was raised by her aunt.
81	* NotGrowingUpSucks: At the end of the episode, Claudia writes in her diary with alarming instability about being stuck in a "flat-chested, hairless-crotched 14-year-old baby doll body" as her mind matures into that of an adult. This precedes her beginning to SelfHarm by sticking her arm in sunlight.
82	* OffWithHisHead: Lampshaded by Lestat when he informs Claudia about the fate of the aristocrat who originally owned the emerald necklace that he gives to her for her birthday (the incident may have occurred during the UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution).
83	-->'''Lestat''': This was given to me by a marquis who was beheaded by a mob ten years after he gave it to me.
84	* ParentalFashionVeto: Lestat doesn't like the skirt that Claudia is wearing when she goes out on her first hunt.
85	-->'''Lestat''': I'm not sure how I feel about that pleated skirt.\
86	'''Louis''': It's chiffon. It has movement.\
87	'''Lestat''': ''(disapproving tone)'' Hmm.
88	* ParentalHypocrisy: Lestat is the "Do as I say, not as I do" type of parent because his ''very'' harsh lesson to Claudia after she [[AccidentalMurder accidentally kills]] her FirstLove (and Lestat forces her to watch as Charlie's face melts in the incinerator) is that vampires should "never get close to mortals because sooner or later, they end up dead." Yet Lestat spent the ''entire'' [[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E1InThroesOfIncreasingWonder first episode]] being wholly ''besotted'' with Louis when the latter was still human. Lestat stalked, flirted, courted, seduced and harassed Louis over a period of a few months (based on Louis' comment that "It was a cold winter that year, and Lestat was my coal fire"). While Lestat's endgame was to turn Louis into a vampire, he nevertheless fell head-over-heels for a mortal and invested a lot of time bonding with his human LoveInterest before offering Louis the Dark Gift. Lestat's warning to Claudia rings hollow knowing that he did the very thing he's telling her not to.
89	* ThePeepingTom: Claudia, who is ignorant about sex (Lestat remarks that she's too sheltered), curiously observes a young couple engaging in foreplay, and even delays her feeding because she's so intrigued by what they're doing. When the two lovebirds realize that she's watching them, they abruptly stop, and the man asks, "You gonna stand there watchin', little girl?" With nothing more to see, Claudia pounces on him and messily slurps his blood.
90	* PiggybackCute: When the vampire family returns home after Claudia's first hunt, Louis is carrying his newly adopted daughter on his back. It's an early sign that he and Claudia are bonding.
91	* PinkMeansFeminine: Claudia is a girly girl with a pink coffin and she wears two different pink dresses in this episode.
92	* PrettyBoy: When Claudia is rescued from a burning house by Louis, she believes that he's a beautiful Black angel.
93	* PsychicBlockDefense: Claudia can shield her thoughts from Louis when he telepathically inquires about the identity of Charlie, the young man she has a crush on.
94	-->'''Louis''': Who's Charlie?\
95	''(Claudia gasps in her mind)''\
96	'''Louis''': Claudia, are you blockin' me? This is your father speaking.\
97	''(Claudia smiles when she realizes that Louis can't read her mind)''
98	* PuppyDogEyes: Louis urges Lestat to turn Claudia into a vampire, but Lestat turns him down because ''[[BilingualBonus "Elle est trop jeune"]]'' ("She is too young"). Louis then gazes at Lestat with his soulful, pleading eyes while touching his lover's chest and whispering "Please" twice. Lestat is so moved by how vulnerable and {{pretty\|Boy}} Louis looks that he caresses his boyfriend's face before proceeding with the EmergencyTransformation even though it goes against the vampire rules.
99	* RecurringDreams: Daniel mentions to Louis that he had been dreaming about their first meeting in 1973 at Polynesian Mary's ever since Louis mailed to him the cassette tapes of their first interview.
100	* SarcasmMode: When Claudia refuses to eat a drunk homeless man sitting by a fountain, Louis hopes it means that she'll become a VegetarianVampire like he is; the mere idea of this annoys Lestat.
101	-->'''Louis''': Looks like she takes after me.\
102	'''Lestat''': ''(sarcastically)'' Tremendous. Fortifying myself for an evening of swan hunting.
103	* ScreamDiscretionShot:
104	** The camera faces Louis and Lestat when a trumpet player across the street squeals "No!" in pain several times as Claudia mangles him.
105	** Later, Lestat kills the undertaker off-screen, so viewers only hear the victim's yelps before he dies.
106	* ScreamingWoman: The girlfriend of Claudia's victim screams in terror as she runs away from her boyfriend being butchered.
107	* SelfHarm: At the end of the episode, Claudia is so deeply traumatized from her AccidentalMurder of her FirstLove and Lestat's ToughLove discipline that she extends her arm under the skylight during the [[WeakenedByTheLight daytime to hurt herself]].
108	* SexualEuphemism: Lestat uses arithmetic -- a topic that most people would consider to be utterly unsexy -- as a metaphor for sex when he attempts to teach Claudia about what humans do at a MakeOutPoint.
109	-->'''Lestat''': This is what [[CallAHumanAMeatbag the meat]] calls a "lover's lane," and by my estimation, no blood is sweeter. Young people, swollen with passion, denied spirits by this senseless prohibition, park along this lonely stretch to contemplate that most mysterious of mathematical equations -- how one plus one becomes one.\
110	'''Claudia''': They come out here to do math?\
111	'''Lestat''': You've been too sheltered.
112	* StageWhisper: Because the past events are told from Claudia's point-of-view, the official English subtitles list "[Indistinct whispering]" when Louis replies to Lestat's question "You missed me?" as the two men are cuddling inside Louis' coffin. It's a prelude to sex, so they don't want their daughter to hear their sweet nothings, but viewers only need to turn up the volume to discern Louis' answer: "I hated sleeping without you."
113	* StealthHiBye: Lestat sneaks up on the newly fledged Claudia with his SuperSpeed and greets her with "''Bonjour.''" She reacts with surprised delight and asks, "How did you do that?"
114	* StealthInsult: Louis intimates that Lestat is too old to understand adolescent behaviour when he makes the observation "''Tu as oublié ta jeunesse!''" (French for "You've forgotten your youth!" [[note]]which is the exact translation, although the on-screen caption offers the more wordy "You've forgotten what it's like to be young!"[[/note]]) Lestat [[AgeInsecurity feels insulted]] and swears in French.
115	* SwitchingPOV: The {{Flashback}} scenes are from Claudia's perspective instead of Louis' because Daniel reads passages from her diary.
116	* TerrorAtMakeOutPoint: Lestat and Claudia drive to a lover's lane to hunt for humans who are in a state of arousal. In Lestat's estimation, they're a special treat because no blood is sweeter than young people who are swollen with passion. Claudia's [[FangsAreEvil fangs]] rip into one man's neck so savagely that his arterial spray splashes across the windshield of his car, his blood nearly covering the entire surface of the glass. Lestat murders a couple that was parked further ahead off-screen, and when the [[ScreamingWoman screaming girlfriend]] of Claudia's victim runs to Lestat to warn him of the danger, he kills her, too.
117	-->'''Woman''': There's something back there, something evil!\
118	'''Lestat''': Ah, yes. She's with me. ''(dips the woman in TheVJDayKiss pose and then drains her dry)''
119	* ToughLove: Lestat takes on a disciplinary role after a panicked and heartbroken Claudia [[AccidentalMurder inadvertently murders her first boyfriend]]. He wants to ensure that she never does anything so foolish again by maximizing her psychological turmoil. He smirks while he's mocking her mistake ("It's easy to get carried away when you're young and in love"), picks up Charlie's arm and drops it to emphasize that he's dead as a doornail. Lestat then shoves Claudia towards the corpse and commands her to "clean up after yourself." After she places Charlie's body inside the incinerator, she's about to walk away when Lestat roughly grips her arm and face to hold her in place. She has no choice but to look while her FirstLove's "bones cracked black and his face turned to soup," the disturbing image being seared into her brain.
120	-->'''Lestat''': Stop squirming and watch. Remember this, his face as it melts. [[ParentalHypocrisy This is why we never get close to mortals.]] Because sooner or later, they end up dead.
121	* UnusualEuphemism: Claudia jots down in her diary that her vampire dads have "a funny way of being nice to each other" after she saw [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/c8f3b32f9d70bf3f56c816b9474cc072/e3bedab2fb3dcdcf-79/s540x810/fe83d205845fdfb6a6f8a8394c8757c1074c450b.gif Lestat sensually touch Louis' shoulder.]]
122	* VampireDance: There's a [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/2f5956f077db5cd907ddcfc8fa4e07be/1f73d07e802d61dc-dc/s540x810/4a01743c5abc43d7844fe129150eef3161404db1.gif brief shot of Louis and Lestat dancing]] during Claudia's birthday.
123	* VampiresAreRich: While getting to know her new vampire dads, Claudia observes that "Uncle Les and Daddy Lou were rich. They had nice clothes and a nice auto carriage." (This scene takes place in 1917, when only the wealthy can afford to own cars.) She later writes in her journal that "you wouldn't believe how time flies when there's people to eat and money to spend," and summarizes her vampiric lifestyle as "Kill, spend, kill, spend."
124	* TheVJDayKiss: Lestat [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/e94a180fb08835e3b73544fe2090f001/9402f360ff217da7-6f/s540x810/dc5b5b1d944d2f4a62ce61203a13c39161ec8e7b.gif dramatically drops]] a female victim in this iconic pose before draining her to death. InUniverse, it would be incorrect to say that Lestat is parodying the famous photograph because the scene is set in 1923, 22 years before the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
125	* YourVampiresSuck: During a GoodTimesMontage, we see the vampire family laughing hysterically while watching the first run of ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}'' in 1922. Lestat later parodies Orlok's movements at home, much to Louis and Claudia's amusement.
126	* WritersCannotDoMath: In January 1923 [[note]][[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E5AVileHungerForYourHammeringHeart episode 5]] lists Florence's date of death as January 19, 1923[[/note]], Claudia is mistaken about her own age because she claims in her journal entry that she's 18 years old when she's in fact 19 (her birth year is 1903) and will become 20 later.

Context Recap / InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E4TheRuthlessPursuitOfBloodWithAllA