REVIEW: ‘Interview With The Vampire’ Episode 11 — “I Want You More Than Anything In The World”

Interview With The Vampire Season 2 is about Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) trying to find their home. For Louis, that involves running from Lestat’s ghost (Sam Reid) and into the arms of Armand. But for Claudia, that means joining The Théâtre des Vampires coven, a family she’s wanted. In Interview With The Vampire Episode 11, “I Want You More Than Anything In The World,” Claudia takes her place in the troupe as the lead of their new production.

Only now, she isn’t just stuck as a 14-year-old; she’s perpetually playing an even more infantilized character. An insult to her is that she has to balance the clear mockery and the rage it brings with her need for a community to call her own. In the last episode, Claudia got vulnerable and shared the assault she experienced and the pure torture she endured. However, Interview With The Vampire Episode 11 deepens Caludia’s character and is more than the trauma she experienced.

Interview With The Vampire Episode 11 is her episode, and it’s one in which she becomes more like Louis in his eternal loneliness than Lestat’s ferocity. Throughout her time as Baby Lu, singing and dancing for the crowd, she becomes more numb. Each play pushes her further into boredom and rage. However, she also finds a kindred spirit in Santiago (Ben Daniels). For his part, Santiago speaks to her passion and the love of her dark gift. He has her back, even if that means that Santiago must attack Louis. But as animosity grows, Santiago is just another false promise.

Claudia wants to have a home and ultimately wants a future with the coven, but she wants to forget every slight she’s endured, not relive it every night on the stage in Interview With The Vampire Episode 11. At the same time, Louis is trying to pull her back. But Louis was trying to sever one bond, which was Lestat and the life he had with him, and start a new one with Armand. But in that process, Claudia’s love is sacrificed, too.

The two of them are mirrors for each other. Both refuse to say they’re lonely or face their pain but still beg for companionship. When everything comes to a head, Claudia and Louis fight. Louis becomes ignorant of his love, clouded by it, and sacrifices Claudia at the same time. She is always alone. She is alone within the troupe, and she is alone with Louis. “You picked another one over me” is one of the most somber lines of the entire series. The pain that Delainey Hayles brings to her performance in the latter half of the episode is heartbreaking.

But someone sees her, the dress shop owner. As Claudia struggles with life in front of a crowd, she finds solace in a dress shop. Religated to feed, sleep, and do absolutely everything in the Baby Lu dress after disrespecting the Théâtre des Vampires, the dress shop is something new. It’s someone new. As Claudia explores her vulnerabilities and fears with Madeliene (Roxane Duran), she describes herself as broken. The family she thought she was building with the coven has turned inward, and her secrets leave her on the edge of burning out.

At the same time, Louis and Armand’s relationship becomes official in Interview With The Vampire Episode 11. They are lovers now and partners, but with that, Louis’ transgressions stand out even larger to the coven. Santiago gets into Louis’ head, fighting and intimidating.  Here, we see Santiago’s threat to Louis and his future. The deeper Santiago’s anger grows toward the vampire, who shirks all of the rules of the coven, the closer he gets to discovering that everything Louis and Claudia have said is a lie.

Even as he falls more in love with Armand, Lestat is there. He’s hanging around like an old friend instead of just a ghost. Louis describes not just hallucinating Lestat but feeling his movements, a thickened air, and his presence—even when he’s with the Vampire Armand. Lestat lives in Louis, and every choice he makes for himself is in his shadow, even as he tries desperately to pull away.

But Louis has, in fact, found a man akin to Lestat in Armand. In the present, we see Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) uncovering the fragment of Louis’ past that is fuzzy, with events just hovering in the distance. Armand teaches Louis about Marius de Romanus and his birth as a vampire in the 1950s. In the present, though, Armand comes into focus as a manipulator. He is someone holding Louis’ memories hostage, curating parts of them to show his lover in a specific light for an interview at first.

As the small omissions and manipulated memories grow in number, it’s clear that Armand is playing larger games with both Louis and David. Armand is not Lestat. He’s not violent. He’s somber and loving, but he is exerting a specific type of control that is familiar—both for the audience and for Louis’s wounded soul.

Even with Armand’s manipulation coming into focus, his words capture the love that Interview With The Vampire Season 2 is capturing. One that is looking to rebuild what’s broken but is left constantly battling the past. “Am I the history that I endured?”

Interview With The VampireEpisode 11 is heartbreaking and somber. Even more so because the audience knows the fate that Claudia is hurdling to. There is anger in this episode, but there is also a deep, unrelenting pursuit of hope in any way Claudia or Louis can find. Even as they take it out on each other, the past is something they need to sever, but in many ways, that means each other.

Louis and Claudia are stuck in a perpetual cycle of reliving their pasts, of being stuck in it and the loneliness it breeds. They are trying to claw their way out, but it’s suffocating. And Santiago and the others in the coven are here to keep out any bit of air that may give them life.

Interview With The Vampire Episode 11 is another perfect exploration of love and loneliness. The manipulation that warps it and how the dark gift will always keep true peace at arm’s length. If anything this all makes Daniel’s interview and the present all the more intriguing.

Interview With The Vampire Episode 11 is streaming now on AMC+ with new episodes airing every Sunday on AMC.