Interview with the Vampire Season 1 Episode 5 Review: A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart
Claudia goes on a rampage that has significant consequences on Interview with the Vampire Season 1 Episode 5, “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart.”
While Claudia is really at the center of this episode, it’s also a pivotal one for Louis and Lestat when it comes to their relationship. In a word, this episode is brutal.
This part of the interview between Louis and Daniel is a combination of Louis’ point of view and Claudia’s — as Daniel continues reading her diaries. These interview scenes are just as significant as the story that’s being told, no matter how much Daniel Molloy continues to be irksome.
It’s a reminder of where the story is situated, and that it’s — as I’ve said a few times already — as much a sequel as it is an adaptation. It’s also just as important that the story being told is clearly taking into account the full book series already.
Daniel is certainly irksome, though. At first, it was an interesting trait and I enjoyed seeing the development of his character, but it’s getting old fast. That he’d slap Louis across the face is one thing, but the way he does it feels a bit overdramatic.
Rashid’s presence is also increasingly important. He’s still a bit of a mystery, as he seems to happily allow Louis to feed on him and can even communicate on his behalf.
The interview itself may be, in part, unreliable narration, especially considering that Daniel has already called some of Louis’ details into question. Then Claudia’s diaries could have their own embellishments as well. Either way, it continues to be a rich story and it’s a clever way to approach the retelling.
Between Louis’ answers and Claudia’s diaries, we see what takes place after Claudia not only kills Charlie, but is also forced by Lestat to watch him burn. This is the thing that breaks her, and while Louis worries that she’s starving herself alone in her room, Lestat knows she’s been sneaking out to hunt on her own.
And she’s been doing so in the most irresponsible way possible.
She’s acting out against her parents like a traditional teenager in a lot of ways, and it’s another reason that making Claudia just a little older in this adaption works well. It’s easier to watch her at this age, and she can be made to look older, but she’s also able to be a more complex character.
Claudia’s behavior, unfortunately, comes back to haunt her when a storm causes all the bodies she’s dumped in the gulf to be found — just as Louis predicted. And when the police show up at their home, they find a drunken Claudia as well as the incinerator.
For such a difficult episode, there’s levity here in the way they manage to evade the police. That’s true particularly of Claudia when she covers herself and squeals that she’s getting ready for bed in order to cover up the fact that she has a dead body in the room.
I could have watched them work to cover up their transgressions a little longer, to be honest. It’s a great scene.
The police finally leave and it’s then that Claudia’s real motivations are revealed. She’s lonely. She notes that Louis and Lestat have each other, but who is she supposed to love? Among all those kills, Claudia has been trying to make another vampire so she could have a companion.
And of course she wants that. She may still be in a child’s body, but she’s a fully grown adult at this point. So much of this story is about the curse of immortality, and she grieves the fact that maybe, just maybe, she could have lived a normal life if Louis had taken her to a hospital instead of bringing her home with him.
When Claudia leaves, the relationship between Louis and Lestat begins to change. They’re also forced to go underground for seven years — a seemingly symbolic amount of time — and they wear each other down in the process.
Meanwhile, Claudia has been on a journey of her own, moving from one college to another. This is when we meet Bruce.
The good news is that we’re spared of seeing what exactly happens to Claudia during that encounter with a fellow vampire, though it’s not hard to guess. Daniel feels the same, though he pushes a little too hard when it comes to the torn-out pages.
It’s also why this storytelling is so fascinating, and it says a lot that Louis made sure to get rid of those pages before letting Daniel see the diaries. And Louis insists that he refuses to exploit Claudia.
That encounter clearly gets Claudia thinking about returning home. Then, as she follows Louis, she sees something that makes her realized why she was made to be a vampire.
Louis meets with his sister at a graveyard, where she shows him his grave. She says that’s how it has to be — and she notes that he’s not the Louis she grew up with. It’s the final straw — the final break from his mortal family. And what he needs now more than anything is to have his vampire family back intact.
Then Claudia returns, and it’s a heartfelt reunion until Lestat loses his temper beyond measure.
What follows is one of the most difficult scenes I’ve watched on television in a long time. Lestat and Louis fight in a graphic way that shows their vampire strength and also proves how much stronger Lestat can be, but also how much more removed from humanity he is at this point.
It’s a bloody, brutal fight that feels like a punch to the gut, and it’s hard not to look away. That’s largely because of the intense, raw emotion beneath it — and knowing the love that’s there as well. That said, it does feel a bit gratuitous and it goes a little too far.
But what it really comes down to is that Lestat feels that Louis will never truly love him the way he loves Louis. It’s visceral, and the performances are, as usual on this series, impeccable.
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Interview with the Vampire airs Sundays at 10/9c on AMC and streams Sundays on AMC+.
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Ashley Bissette Sumerel
Ashley Bissette Sumerel is a television and film critic living in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is editor-in-chief of Tell-Tale TV as well as Eulalie Magazine. Ashley has also written for outlets such as Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, and Insider. Ashley has been a member of the Critics Choice Association since 2017 and is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. In addition to her work as an editor and critic, Ashley teaches Entertainment Journalism, Composition, and Literature at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.