Interview With The Vampire 1X04: “The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding”

When we left episode 3 of Interview With The Vampire, Louis’ (Jacob Anderson) rebellion against his vampirism was driving Lestat (Sam Reid) to the point of insane jealousy, Louis brought fire and brimstone to the city of New Orleans, and he had broken one of the sacred vampire laws throughout history and decided to dad-i-fy his arrangement with Lestat (except he didn’t run it by Lestat first). “The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding” picks up immediately after Louis rescues Claudia (Bailey Bass). 

Her body is badly damaged from the fire, and Lestat tries telling Louis to drain Claudia. However, in the end, Lestat becomes the one responsible for turning her and taking her human life. The addition of the teenager to their family certainly changes the dynamics of their household and much hilarity ensues. 

Trapped in the body of a fourteen-year-old girl, Claudia is an enigma. Leaving much of her human self behind as she enters the world of vampirism, it’s interesting to see who she takes after the most: Lestat or Louis. 

Here are all our thoughts on the introduction of Claudia in Interview With The Vampire “The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding”.

Claudia

Because Lestat created her, he cannot read Claudia’s thoughts. However, Louis and Claudia can communicate telepathically and this drives Lestat insane. He is a jealous creature by nature and the thought of being excluded from family conversations drives him mental. 

However, Lestat cools his jets when he realizes that his bratty new adolescent daughter is more like him than he anticipated. Much to Louis’ disappointment, Claudia takes to eating people with gusto. It was unlikely that she was going to assimilate to Louis’ vegetarian lifestyle, but did she have to indulge in the eating of humans with such gusto? 

Lestat thinks yes, she did!

Claudia does too. She needs almost no coaching on the art of luring in her prey and settles into the hunting lifestyle effortlessly. In fact, Lestat and Louis realize that she assimilates almost too well, and they set about trying to tamper her primal adolescent impulses. 

She’s a wild beast and frankly, we think that Lestat is quietly kind of proud of that fact. Louis tries to appeal to whatever humanity may be left inside of her, and attempts to teach her about the nuances of killing – but it doesn’t really work. Claudia loves the hunt and loves the kill even more. 

The child has jokes, fam, and the addition of this young creature to the Loustat household really ups the entertainment value of this story. Prior to her entry, the banter that often played out between Lestat and Louis was already belly-shakingly good. However, Claudia’s addition in “The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding” takes the comedic value of this show to a whole new level. 

Love makes you do the whacky

Claudia initially sleeps in Louis’ coffin with him, but it becomes apparent all too quickly that for Lestat and Louis’ relationship, that just won’t do. So she gets a coffin of her own, and even though it’s set up right by Louis and Lestat’s coffin, they manage to incorporate their sexcapades back into their relationship. 

Of course, though, Claudia notices what they are doing and she has questions about same-sex love. Louis indulges her and the conversation transitions to one about love, rather than the mechanics of gay sex. 

As a teenager, these questions are to be expected and they’re normal. As the episode goes on, there is clearly some kind of passage of time that occurs. Towards the end of “The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding” Claudia is eighteen-trapped-in-a-fourteen-year-old-body. She dresses herself up, goes out, and finds herself a man. 

Does she fall in love? It’s really unclear if it’s real first love kind of stuff, or whether it’s bloodlust brought on by her vampirism and the fact that she’s a wee bit crazy. Just a tad, right?

She ends up biting her love in the throes of sexytime and he ends up dying. Lestat throws him into the furnace and makes Claudia watch his body burn, and yikes fam. It’s clear that Lestat wants Claudia to learn a lesson about hunting and people, and all that stuff, but the girl is young and she believed she was in love with this guy. We guess this is what happens when your vampire dad is also a bit coo-coo when it comes to the sanity stuff. 

It tips her over the edge. 

“The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood With All A Child’s Demanding” is hilarious, but it’s also clearly a turning point for the show. If you hadn’t picked up on the toxicity of the Loustat coupling, it’s impossible to ignore from this point forward. Do we think Claudia was an excellent addition to the narrative? You bet we do. However, we do anticipate some dark times ahead, so we’re bunkering down and preparing ourselves for a next level of crazy in the coming episodes. 

Are we ready? We’re not really sure, but we’re here and we’re doing it!

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You can stream Interview With The Vampire now on the AMC Plus app, or wait for it to go live every Sunday night on AMC through your local cable provider. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff.