‘Interview With the Vampire’ Season 2, Episode 5, Recap & Review

Spoilers for ‘Interview With the Vampire’ Season 2, Episode 5

For a journalist, an interview with a real, full-fledged vampire must be the pinnacle of their career. The intrigue, opportunities, and danger are not for everyone, but for those who can summon the strength of will and have the determination, it’s really the chance of a lifetime. Enter Daniel Molloy, who is a mess at the best of times but is given this opportunity.

However, in“Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape,“ we learn a little bit more about his connection with the vampires Louis and Armand. We travel back to their first encounter, the original interview, and dig deeper into memories that had a profound effect on Daniel and that will change everything between these three.

The last episode’s events showed us the cracks forming all around this vampire community, especially between Louis and Armand. The Theatre des Vampires is also changing allegiances and preparing for an internal war. This week continues with Louis and Armnad’s relationship and how Daniel plays a key role in that. The episode takes us back to 1973 in San Francisco, where it all began for these three. Daniel wants answers from Louis in order to clear his fog and memory flashbacks and to explain the audio clip he has.

We find Daniel back at Louis’s apartment again, a place where most men come to meet their end. But Louis sees something in Daniel that he can use, and when the tape starts rolling, so does he. Louis starts spilling out his hopes and fears and disdain for all things in this vampire life he is living. As always, Lestat is front and center, then Claudia, and then himself. Daniel is exposed to the truth of his being a vampire but pushes on and eventually pushes too hard. Louis comes in for the kill, only to be pushed aside by a just arriving Armand, leaving Daniel bleeding and in a heap against the wall.

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It is here where things get interesting. Back in the present, with Armand off on a hunt, Daniel and Louis begin to realize that something is not right. Both of them have missing memories, and as they begin to piece together what happened, everything seems to point to Armand. This is not surprising, seeing as Armand is the master manipulator of truths, although perhaps he’s not as good as he seems. There are some truly wonderful moments between Daniel and Louis, combatants in a battle of wits for so long, now becoming uneasy allies in this search for the truth. 

Interview With the Vampire season 2, episode 5, is about the search for the truth, the questioning of so-called facts, and the lonely feeling of betrayal. It is ironic that journalist Molloy is supposedly doing just that, digging through the exposition and colorful vampire language for this interview, only to find he is discovering long-buried memories from his past. Actor Eric Bogosian is haunting as Molloy, stopping and freezing during conversations as his brain tries to make sense of the shards of memories that are jumbled or still eluding him. Louis, too, first worries, then doubts Molloy, only to doubt his own memories as they discover things together. 

As the younger Daniel Molloy, actor Luke Brandon Field is marvelous, moving effortlessly from shaky confidence to fear, to curious journalist to all-out panic and begging for his life. Watching Louis confront Armand in San Francisco and then stumble upstairs to the daylight was curious. Was this due to the drug-laden blood he drank from Molloy or his attempt to end his frustrated existence once and for all? Maybe a bit of both, perhaps, but he recovered enough to stop Armand from killing young Molloy. Now, here they are, all back together again.

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While the time jumping can be a bit disorienting, it is seamless here, and the whole episode benefits greatly from going back and forth from that important day in 1973 to the present day in Dubai. This is especially true for Molloy, who shakes loose some dark and hidden demons and ends up confessing them to Louis, himself a victim of Armand’s manipulations. All three characters are so flawed and damaged, yet in the final minutes of the episode, we sense a realization from them all that something very important is about to happen, something to change all of their lives. 

It is a riveting hour of television, full of drama and tension, and the actors portraying these characters made sure not one bit of dialogue and screen time went to waste. “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape” is an even darker peek underneath the skin of these characters, human and vampire alike, leaving the viewer wondering if they can really tell anymore who is on the side of good and who is not.