Recap / Interview with the Vampire (2022) S1E5 "A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart"

"The prodigal daughter. Apology not accepted."

Aired October 30, 2022

Claudia leaves home for a college sojourn and to learn more about vampires. Meanwhile, Louis and Lestat live through the Depression and receive surprising news from Louis' sister. When Claudia returns, tensions in the family come to a boiling point.

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Tropes:

• Abuse Discretion Shot: Some of Lestat's brutal pummeling of Louis occurs off-screen, although the many injuries that the latter sustains are disturbing.
• Answer Cut: After Louis criticizes Claudia for her foolishness in burying all of her victims in Chalmette because it's three feet below the river line, he asks her, "What happens when the next storm comes out of the gulf?" The scene then cuts to dock workers finding 56 lacerated bodies adrift in the river during a thunderstorm with torrential rain.
• Attending Your Own Funeral: Because the vampire Bruce had faked his own death, he was present for his own funeral and listened to what everyone said. He wasn't well-liked as a human because there were only two dozen mourners, and it wasn't long before they began to Talk About the Weather.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Claudia wants to find other vampires and experience a romantic relationship. Unfortunately for her, the first vampire she meets aside Louis and Lestat is a creepy, violent stalker named Bruce who takes full advantage of the fact that she is, in Lestat's words, "built like a bird."
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Invoked by Lestat, who apparently is well-endowed, when he lets Louis know that if his "considerable appendage" is being wasted at home, he'll use it on Antoinette, his mistress.
  Lestat: And unlike Claudia, I am a full-blooded adult, with all the right appendages. So, if my considerable considerables continue to be squandered...
  (Louis ignores him, so Lestat leaves for his rendezvous with Antoinette)
• Big "SHUT UP!": Louis exclaims "How 'bout you shut the fuck up?!" after Lestat makes A Mistake Is Born remark to their vampire daughter Claudia.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Near the beginning of the episode, Lestat speaks a few French words that aren't translated into English.
    • "Bon." ("Well.")
    • "Ça suffit!" ^note The "Ça" is misspelled as "Ca" in the official English-language subtitles. ("That's enough!")
    • "Voilà, comme j'ai dit." ^note The "j'ai" (used for past tense) is incorrectly listed as "je" (used for present tense) in the official English-language subtitles, and Lestat clearly says "j'ai" (not to mention that "dit" is the past tense conjugation). ("There, like I said.")
  • Later, Lestat is so fed up with Louis harping about Claudia that he cusses, "Bordel de merde. Il me chie dans la malle jusqu'au cadenas!" ^note The expression is normally "Il a chié dans ma malle jusqu'au cadenas!", but this old-fashioned phrase had already fallen into disuse by the turn of the 20th century, so it seems that Lestat has put a slightly different spin on it. ("For fuck's sake. He shits me in the trunk up to the padlock!")
• Bitch Slap: After Daniel is subjected to Louis' People Puppets ability where his right arm was flopping wildly, Daniel is so incensed that he slaps Louis hard in the face, which is extremely brave (or foolish) when he knows all too well that Louis could easily kill him (which almost happened at the end of the first interview).
• Burial at Sea: While Bruce was spying on Claudia, he had witnessed her dumping the bodies of her human prey into the Missouri River, so when they meet, he informs her that she was being careless.
  Bruce: You've been sloppy out in Jefferson City.
  Claudia: How long you been followin'—
  Bruce: You shouldn't dump bodies in the Missouri. Even if you weigh 'em down with rocks, river's too fast. I find you build a shallow grave, sometimes a prairie wind'll catch, burns faster.
• Captain Obvious: After Daniel is attacked by Louis' People Puppets skill because he wouldn't back down about the missing pages in Claudia's diary, Rashid elucidates why Louis reacted the way he did, as if Daniel didn't already know.
  Rashid: Mr. du Lac occasionally finds it difficult to talk about Claudia.
  Daniel: (has a "No shit, Sherlock" expression as he glares at Rashid) Got that.
• Compartment Shot: The camera is inside the incinerator when the police inspect it.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: When Claudia announces that she has returned home after a 7-year absence just so that she can take Louis with her to Europe, Lestat — who is now also a Jealous Parent — is boiling with rage because he feels that she's stealing Louis from him, so he strangles her. When Louis comes to her defense, Lestat totally loses control because it's solid proof that Louis loves Claudia more than him. Lestat then beats the crap out of Louis for not loving him enough, and since nothing else he has tried has worked, a desperate Lestat resorts to a horrific level of violence to scare Louis into submission.
• Creature of Habit: Louis informs Daniel that Rashid is a stickler for routine.
  Louis: Sleep, pray, eat, pray, swim, pray, et cetera. [...] Metronomic, my Rashid.
• Creepy Souvenir: Claudia is a Serial Killer who has murdered at least 56 people and collects their body parts as trophies. She stores them in various hiding places in her bedroom.
• Death Glare:
  • After Louis is Bitch Slapped by Daniel, the former scowls at the latter while barely restraining his homicidal instincts, as he doesn't want a repeat of their first interview where Louis nearly took Daniel's life in a fit of (unjustified) rage.
  • Later, there's an ominous close-up of Lestat shooting daggers from his eyes when he sees Louis and Claudia hugging after she returns home after seven years away. Lestat is both a Crazy Jealous Guy and a Jealous Parent, so he hates it that Louis is very affectionate towards their vampire daughter, but his boyfriend has withheld love and sex while she was gone.
  • At the end of the episode, Claudia has a rather fierce "If looks could kill" expression when she glares at Lestat for nearly killing Louis.
• Disapproving Look: At the beginning of the episode, Daniel is visibly annoyed that Louis is performing a Kiss of the Vampire on Rashid (who's enjoying it thoroughly) with slurping sounds because he understands they're engaged in a vampiric sex act, and they're essentially forcing him to be a voyeur. It's distracting Daniel from his meal (he has a plate of food and a nearly empty mug of tea) and his study of Claudia's journals, so he glares at Louis and Rashid, hoping they get the hint to stop.
• Disowned Sibling: Before he was a vampire, Louis was close with his family. Most of them have died by now and only his sister Grace is left. Their relationship has been dwindling for years. She doesn't know he's a vampire per se, but she knows something happened, that he is — in some amorphous way — changed. For her own sanity and for her family's safety, Grace concludes she has to write Louis off. The last time they see each other, she shows him the headstone she had made for him to give herself closure for the brother she lost.
  Grace: Don't need that either, Louis... or whoever you are that took my Louis. [...] You're not my Louis; you can't be. (lays a bouquet of flowers at a grave marked with Louis's name) I praying myself old beggin' what to do about you. God never talked back, so... this is how it has to be. For me, for my family. You understand?
  Louis: (starts to cry)
  Grace: (squeezes his hand, kisses his cheek, then walks away)
• Disposing of a Body: Discussed when Louis and Lestat confront Claudia about how she hid the corpses of her victims during her serial killing spree without the use of their incinerator. Louis then points out that she failed to take into account the geology and fluviology of the area that she chose as a burial site.
  Louis: Whole families, half a parade crew. The incinerator will be overflowin'.
  Lestat: The smoke alone would blot out the moon.
  Louis: What did you do with 'em, Claudia? Where are the bodies?
  Claudia: Well then, I guess you better hope and pray you taught me how to clean up good.
  Lestat: Where are they?
  Claudia: I buried them, okay?! Way out of town. Nothin' out there for miles. No one's ever gonna find 'em, except maybe criminals burying bodies of their own.
  Lestat: Where out of town?
  Claudia: Chalmette.
  Louis: Chalmette's three feet below the river line.
  Claudia: So what?!
  Louis: What happens when the next storm comes out the gulf?
• Domestic Abuse: Claudia attempts to persuade Louis to leave Lestat and go with her to look for other vampires. In anger at what he sees as her taking his love away from him, Lestat grabs Claudia by the neck, causing Louis to tackle Lestat and the two men fight. After smashing Louis against the walls of their home, Lestat gains the upper hand, and he sits on top of Louis, punching him repeatedly. Lestat then drags Louis outside by his chin with only his sharp vampire fingernails, and flies with Louis into the air. After asking Louis to say he'll never love him, Louis just yells for Lestat to let him go. Lestat does so, and Louis suffers a long and agonizing fall. Taking away all the fantasy/vampire elements, the entire scene is basically an abusive husband/boyfriend assaulting his partner within an inch of his life. What makes this situation even more frightening is that Lestat claims that he had restrained his violent impulses in the past, which means that he wanted to beat Louis many times before.
  Lestat: (to Louis) I fought myself a million times, fought my nature, controlled my temper. I never once harmed you.
• Dramatic Pause: The Background Music becomes quiet after Claudia blurts out that Lestat is cheating on Louis with Antoinette, and no words are exchanged for several seconds.
• Faking the Dead: After Bruce became a vampire, he pretended to be dead so that he could return to the United States from Copenhagen and avoid being scorched by sunlight.
  Bruce: Faked my own death. Shipped back on a boat in a coffin. Got to hear my own funeral. Only a couple dozen people showed up, most didn't have much to say. Started talking about the weather a few minutes in. Almost got myself buried alive. Poor fella diggin' my grave lies restin' in the family plot.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Lestat shouts "Bordel de merde. Il me chie dans la malle jusqu'au cadenas!", which is French for "For fuck's sake. He shits me in the trunk up to the padlock!"
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The raccoon that was rummaging through the townhouse's Mess of Woe later ends up dead.◊ Louis, a Vegetarian Vampire, presumably drained the animal to death.
  • Later, Claudia's journal entry◊ offers viewers a glimpse into her mindset before she heads back home.
    Dear Diary, I'm going back to the house. I've decided I'm ready for whatever Lestat has to say. And I can leave right away and take Louis with me. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I am excited to see him again. And I realize I was a handful all those years. But will Louis even travel with me? I don't know if he even wants to leave Lestat even though he causes him great pain. I just know he and I would have so much fun together. And anything I learn about vampires I want to share with him. He has been sheltered by Lestat for so long! I want to open his eyes! We can learn about our kind together and maybe find some.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While reading Claudia's diaries, Daniel doesn't have much sympathy for her despite all the horrible things she suffers because she's a vicious Serial Killer.
  Louis: We made her out of remorse... out of selfishness.
  Daniel: Poor dear. She wasn't held enough in between ritualistic murders.
  Louis: She spent every night for half a decade with no friends, locked in the emotional storm of puberty.
  Daniel: Look, Charles Manson wrote a couple of beautiful songs. Still, he was Charlie Manson.
  Louis: Is that all you think of her?
  Daniel: Mostly.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: The vampire dads are in agreement that Claudia's serial killing is an issue, but Louis prefers a gentle approach while Lestat does not.
• Get Out!: While rebelling against her vampire dads, Claudia shrieks at the top of her lungs "GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!" at a Glass-Shattering Sound level.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: Claudia screeching "SO WHAT?! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!" causes her mirror to crack.
• Hates Being Alone: It's taken to a violent extreme when Lestat's volatile mind snaps after Claudia declares that she only came back home to bring Louis on her trip to Europe. Lestat then brutalizes Louis and drains part of his blood to weaken his lover even further so that Louis can't physically go anywhere.
• Hates Their Parent: Claudia has grown to loathe her vampire dads for giving her the Dark Gift and reading her journals without her permission. She lashes out at them with "I hate you both!" and later runs away from home.
• Implied Rape: Although it's never shown on-screen and the word "rape" isn't spoken, it's strongly suggested that Bruce had sexually assaulted Claudia.
  Daniel: There are four pages torn out.
  Louis: I'll repeat myself. I will not exploit her.
  Daniel: Did she tear them out? Doesn't seem like something she would do.
  Louis: It's clear what happened.
  [...]
  Daniel: "Bruce walked back from the fire and leaned down over me and..." Torn out pages—
  Louis: (employs his People Puppets power on Daniel) Don't ask again.
• Incest Subtext: Claudia is sexually frustrated because she doesn't have an immortal companion and lover, like Lestat and Louis are to each other. Envious of their union, she screams which of her vampire fathers will fuck her. However, it's a Subverted Trope. She doesn't desire either of them; rather, it's an intentionally inappropriate outburst to express her immense exasperation. She even specifically refutes it being anything romantic/sexual to another vampire who mistakes hearing Louis telepathically calling out to her for this, clarifying "It ain't like that, he's more like a dad."
• Inside a Wall: Claudia sits in between the walls of a university library near a woman's corpse. She presumably hides there to consume her victim's blood so that there are no witnesses to the homicide.
• Jealous Parent: Lestat (who has already been established as a Crazy Jealous Guy when it comes to his boyfriend Louis) becomes violent towards Claudia when she attempts to convince Louis to leave Lestat behind and travel to Europe with her to locate other vampires. Lestat now deems his vampire daughter to be a rival for Louis' love, and he treats her accordingly.
  Claudia: (telepathically) Come with me! Come with me, Louis.
  Lestat: Lou.
  Claudia: I thought I could live without you, but I was wrong.
  Lestat: (getting angry) Louis. LOUIS!
  Claudia: (telepathically) His love is a small box he keeps you in. Don't stay in it.
  Lestat: A thousand nights of sulking, and the first sight of her, YOU ARE JUST GONNA UP AND LEAVE ME?!
  Claudia: Please, come with me! Let's be vampires worthy of your love!
  (Lestat then attacks Claudia and chokes her)
• Kill Tally: At the beginning of the episode, Daniel is aghast while reading one of Claudia's journals because he realizes that she had kept a record of all of her homicides.
  Daniel: "Man with green vest... 'Please, no.' Man with fat fingers... 'Please, stop.' Window washer... 'I can't die like this.' Woman with purple shoes... 'Please.' Boy with inner tube and dog... 'Let my dog live.' 'Please, no.' 'Please, stop.' 'Stop.'" Oh, here's a good one. "Man in the last row of The Son of the Sheik picture show... 'You said you had cigarettes.'" It's a kill list.
  Rashid: Yes.
  Daniel: In a teenager's handwriting.
  Rashid: The final words of her victims. There are 42 pages, if I remember correctly.
  Daniel: "Schoolteacher... 'Guard your heart.'" I'm trying to think of something more fucked up than this.
• Kiss of the Vampire: Rashid briefly closes his eyes and grins while Louis is feeding on his blood, so it must be a pleasant sensation for him.
• Likes Older Women: Bruce claims that he finds older women attractive after Claudia lies about her age (she's actually 27 in this scene).
  Bruce: How old are you, Claudia?
  Claudia: 104.
  Bruce: (chuckles) Always had a fondness for older women.
• Lonely Piano Piece: A sad piano piece is the Background Music in a scene where Louis and Lestat are both feeling very lonely even though they live together. Louis is bereft without their vampire daughter Claudia, who fled from their home seven years prior and refuses to respond to any of his psychic messages. As for Lestat, it was his Tough Love lesson in the previous episode that pushed Claudia away, so in revenge, Louis neglects his boyfriend with an austere mix of Silent Treatment and Lysistrata Gambit. Lestat can't help but suspect that Louis doesn't really love him after being deprived of emotional and physical intimacy for so long.
• Lysistrata Gambit: Louis withholds sex from Lestat as payback for the latter's cruel Tough Love stance during the Charlie incident which drove Claudia away.
• Manly Tears: After Grace disowns her brother, Louis leans against his family's mausoleum and audibly weeps.
• Mess of Woe: After Claudia runs away from home, the townhouse becomes a pigsty with various objects strewn all over the place, and there are raccoons and rats running free. It's implied that Louis does the tidying, but he's so crestfallen from Claudia's absence that he spends all day reading, and Lestat is too much a male chauvinist to do any cleaning.
  Louis: As the depression set in on the nation, I barricaded myself within the dilapidating walls of 1132 Rue Royale, educating myself from Lestat's library, ignoring all other duties of the role Claudia once mocked me for — the unhappy housewife.
• Messy Hair: When Louis is wallowing in the throes of depression, his hair is disheveled.
• Mind-Control Eyes: When Lestat freezes time at the speakeasy, the humans under his spell have cloudy eyes.
• A Mistake Is Born: Lampshaded by Lestat, who is Claudia's maker; he regrets turning her into a vampire, and tells her that she's a mistake.
  Lestat: (aggravated) You wanted her, you fix her!
  Louis: We're doin' this together.
  Lestat: Do you remember our life, how happy we were before her?
  Louis: Happy? We were not happy.
  Lestat: (looks directly at Claudia) An anvil, tied around our ankles, pulling us towards the pitch-black ocean floor.
  [...]
  Claudia: Make me one [immortal vampire companion].
  Lestat: Because you turned out so well.
  Claudia: 'Cause if you don't, I'm gonna go out there and find other vampires.
  Lestat: If you could find them, which you won't (grips her chin firmly), they would shred you to strips, because you are built like a bird, because you are a mistake.
• Mythology Gag: This episode does its own version of the scene from the Interview with the Vampire film where Lestat bites and drains Louis' blood without the latter's consent while flying up into the air, and then Lestat drops Louis from the sky, which leaves his victim close to death.
• Not Afraid to Die: According to Rashid, Louis longs for death, so the memoir that Daniel will publish based on their second interview will mean that Louis will be slaughtered by other vampires. Louis doesn't deny it.
  Rashid: Well, what do you think will happen to Mr. du Lac when you publish this book, when the other vampires of the world get their hands on it? [...] They will make their way to Dubai. They will scale the sides of this building, force their way inside, and paint the walls with his blood. You are chronicling a suicide.
  Louis: Rashid is an opinionated young man. He lives to share these opinions, even when they are not solicited.
• The Peeping Tom: Claudia mentions that her uncle at the rooming house used to watch her pee when she was a child.
• People Puppets: With his vampire powers, Louis causes Daniel's right arm to shake uncontrollably in a painful manner (presumably made worse by the latter's Parkinson's disease).
• Psychic Block Defense: Louis is unable to access Claudia's thoughts during her 7-year-long absence, so he doesn't know where she has gone or what she's doing.
  Louis: [I was] sending out telepathic thoughts of remorse in every direction. But [Claudia] had shut her mind off to me for some time then.
• Quaking with Fear: Claudia, whose leg has just been broken by Bruce, is shaking like a leaf in the last shot we see of her before the scene cuts.
• Rape Discretion Shot: Bruce breaks Claudia's leg and stands menacingly over her before the scene cuts away. The audience infers that he sexually assaults her off-screen.
• Record Needle Scratch: Flanagan and Allen's "Underneath the Arches" is playing on the gramophone, but it suddenly halts when Lestat lifts the needle from the record. It's an aural cue to viewers that shit is about the hit the fan in this scene.
• Rejected Apology: Lampshaded by Lestat when Claudia returns home after seven years with absolutely no contact with her vampire dads.
  Lestat: The prodigal daughter.
  Claudia: I've come to apologize. I put you both in a bad spot. I wasn't right in my head. I am now.
  Lestat: Apology not accepted.
• Replacement Goldfish: Lampshaded by Claudia when she concludes that Lestat and Louis had turned her into a vampire so that she can take Grace's place after witnessing from afar the other woman disowning her brother Louis. (Claudia's belief is partly erroneous because she was also a band-aid baby to save Louis and Lestat's crumbling relationship, but since they never told her this, she does her best to understand their reasoning on her own.)
  Claudia: But today at the cemetery, I finally understood something so obvious, which I pondered for a decade why they made me: to be Louis' sister.
• The Runaway: Claudia spends seven years travelling the country on her own, striking out from the home of her vampire parents.
• Self-Serving Memory: Lestat seems to have "forgotten" (or perhaps conveniently ignored) that Louis was so disgruntled with their relationship due to the Lestat's cheating, jealousy, and racial insensitivity in episode 3 that Louis was on the verge of abandoning him. Louis only returned in episode 4 because he had found Claudia, with Lestat realizing that raising a vampire daughter together could heal the rift between them.
  Lestat: Do you remember our life, how happy we were before her?
  Louis: Happy? We were not happy.
• Serial Killer: Claudia goes on a serial killing spree and murders at least 56 people, even taking trophies from them and keeping a Kill Tally.
• Shirtless Scene: Both Lestat and Louis are bare-chested as they're getting ready for bed (well, coffin), and they both choose not to wear an undershirt or a pyjama top underneath their robe.
• Sickening "Crunch!": Although we don't see Bruce's foot hit Claudia's leg, the snap of broken bone is unmistakable, so it's understood that Claudia is now crippled and cannot run away from her assailant.
• Silent Treatment: After Claudia runs away from home, Louis blames Lestat for being the cause of her distress due to the latter's "sadistic" (as Louis calls it) parenting style, so one of the ways he punishes his boyfriend is by ignoring him. It has gotten so bad that a miserable Lestat, who's burning a playing card with a lighter, wonders out loud if Louis would pay any attention to him if he set himself ablaze.
  Lestat: I sit there thinking, "Light yourself on fire, see if [Louis] would notice."
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In the climax, the beautiful, lush melody of Daniel Hart's "Vicious" contrasts the horrendous Domestic Abuse that unfolds on-screen when Lestat savagely batters Louis until his boyfriend is at death's door.
• Stalker with a Crush: Bruce had trailed Claudia for some time before he introduces himself to her. After she rejects his advances, he breaks her leg, and an Implied Rape ensues.
  Bruce: You've been sloppy out in Jefferson City.
  Claudia: How long you been followin'—
  Bruce: You shouldn't dump bodies in the Missouri. Even if you weigh 'em down with rocks, river's too fast. I find you build a shallow grave, sometimes a prairie wind'll catch, burns faster.
  Claudia: How long you been—
  Bruce: About five, six colleges or so.
  Claudia: How'd you do it?
  Bruce: I had good ears when I was alive. Got great ears now. Heard your name in the air. Somethin' about the way it sounded. (whispering) Clau... di... a...
• Stalker without a Crush: Claudia stalks both Lestat and Louis, which is why she knows that Lestat has an ongoing affair with Antoinette, and later she spies on Louis when he meets Grace at the cemetery.
  Claudia: I spend time following Louis and Lestat now that I am my own woman, with no obvious sense of why I follow them, other than meaning slowly disintegrates without them, my companions in immortality.
• Stealth Insult: When Claudia exclaims to Louis, "Let's be vampires worthy of your love!", her underlying message is that Lestat is not a worthy romantic partner to Louis. Lestat — who is absolutely besotted with Louis — is so offended that he goes berserk and suffocates Claudia by squeezing his hand around her throat.
• Take Me Instead: Claudia volunteers to replace Louis as Lestat's punching bag (she was initially the target of Lestat's wrath), but he's now only interested in punishing Louis for not loving him enough.
  Claudia: (crying) Let [Louis] go. He didn't do nothin', let him go. It's me you want.
  Lestat: Listen to me, and listen very carefully, my infant death. It was never you. (looks at Louis) I chose you.
• Talk About the Weather: According to Bruce, only two dozen people attended his funeral, and because they didn't have much to say about him, they ended up chatting about the weather instead.
• Thunder Equals Downpour: The audience hears the thunder just before we see an especially wet and windy storm when dock workers discover 56 mutilated corpses floating in the river.
• Time Stands Still: Lestat halts time at the speakeasy so that he and Louis can make a quick exit.
• Torch Song: Lampshaded by Claudia when she lets Lestat know that she's aware of his dirty secret, which is he's bedding a singer (viewers and Louis himself can easily guess that it's Antoinette).
  Claudia: White girl, down in Algiers, sings torch songs with a flat, no-nothing ass.
• Unkempt Beauty: In Lestat's eyes, Louis is so gorgeous and irresistible that even when the latter isn't looking his best while lounging around all day in his pyjamas with Messy Hair, Lestat is still very eager to have sex with him.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Louis dejectedly wanders around New Orleans for years sending out telepathic messages meant for Claudia, in the hopes that she will hear him apologize and return home. The messages end up reaching an unintended target: a vampire called Bruce, who becomes aware of and intrigued by the existence of Claudia, and begins to stalk her, culminating in a heavily implied sexual assault.
• Villainous Face Hold: After raining blows on Louis and dragging him across the floor, Lestat roughly grasps his boyfriend's swollen, bloody face as he forces him to stand up. Lestat's clasp remains tight when he makes Louis look at him, then at Claudia, and back to him before he bites Louis' neck. Because the taste of Louis' blood is intensely Hemo Erotic for Lestat, this is a vampiric form of marital rape, so Lestat's hand clutching Louis' cheeks and chin magnifies the disconcerting intimacy of this heinous act.
• Voluntary Vampire Victim: Rashid willingly submits to receiving a Kiss of the Vampire from Louis. Rashid even stuffs himself with honey and pineapple for days before offering himself to his boss in order to make his blood taste sweeter.
• Wicked Cultured: Subverted when Louis (a Bookworm) accuses Lestat of just reading the first ten pages of every book so he can appear to be cultured.
  Louis: (while reading a novel) Flaubert's style is so dense. The absence of metaphor is so striking.
  Lestat: (scoffs) You sound like every pompous Sorbonne student I've ever eaten.
  Louis: (stops reading to look directly at Lestat) Should I do like you instead? Read the first 10 pages of every book, pass myself off as cultured? Use my middling command of literary canon to impress some hapless human I'm gonna kill in a few hours anyway.
• Wipe the Floor with You: After Lestat bashes Louis against the walls of their house like a rag doll, his vampire fingernails pierce the underside of his boyfriend's chin like hooks, and then he drags the gravely injured Louis across the floor, which leaves behind a long trail of blood.
• You're Not My Type: When Claudia is frustrated she doesn't have her own vampire boyfriend, she angrily yells that one of her dads will have to fill the role. She doesn't mean it; she's just saying it for shock value. Lestat — responding in kind — ridicules her and tries to get a rise out of her by pulling this trope out.
  Claudia: WHICH ONE OF YOU GONNA FUCK ME?!
  Lestat: Well, you're not my type. I like a fuller figure.

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