Interview With the Vampire Season 3 has been rebranded The Vampire Lestat by AMC in honor of the show’s new narrator. For two whole seasons, we’ve traced the saga of Louis de Pointe due Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat de Lioncourt’s (Sam Reid) epic romance (and breakup) from Louis’s point of view. Well, now Lestat has the mic and he’s using rock music to express his version of the story.
The Vampire Lestat Episode 1 “Detroit” ends with the stunning reveal that the “Toi” whom Lestat’s “Moi” has been texting hyper personal messages to all episode is not in fact Louis, but a brand new character to the Interview With the Vampire universe.
**Spoilers for The Vampire Lestat Episode 1 “Detroit,” now streaming on AMC+**
The first episode of Interview With the Vampire Season 3 ends with Gabriella de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle) rushing to her son Lestat’s side after a harrowing fight renders him physically spent and emotionally obliterated.
“Ma chere. Very kind of you to come,” Lestat says. “I got myself into something I can’t get out of.”
Breaking down, Lestat says, “I’m not at my best, but I’m very glad to see you again.”
As the camera cuts to the vampire he’s talking to, Lestat begins to stutter her name. It takes him several tries, but he finally calls her, “My Gabriella.” She scratches his cheek and the two begin to passionately make out.
“Fledgling, lover, mother,” Lestat says and the episode fades to black.
So who is Gabriella and is Lestat really making out with his mother? Here’s everything you need to know about the end of Interview With the Vampire Season 3: The Vampire Lestat Episode 1…
Interview With the Vampire Season 3 Episode 1 Ending Explained: Who is Gabriella in The Vampire Lestat?
Gabriella — or Gabrielle in Anne Rice‘s books — is indeed Lestat’s mother and his lover.
We don’t yet know how AMC’s The Vampire Lestat will portray Gabriella’s backstory, but in the books, Lestat idolizes his beautiful mother as a boy. He does all he can to impress her, including massacring an entire pack of wolves by himself as a teenager. After Lestat transforms into a vampire, he eventually tries to reunite with his mother. However, when he sees her again, it’s clear that she is on the verge of death. Lestat decides to save her life by transforming her into an eternally-damned vampire.
Gabriella’s transformation only deepens the bond between mother and son, and, yes, the two become lovers.
“She is obviously being portrayed through through a very specific lens, which is like this trajectory for Lestat to understand some fundamental things about himself,” Sam Reid told DECIDER last week. “But like Gabriella as a character has got so much room to grow. It’s very exciting for a new character to be introduced and to go through the similar journey that we all go through.”
Reid then also teased that there may yet be more to Gabriella than just this specific Oedipal relationship. “You can see her arc and where it’s going and where they’re taking it, but it’s just the beginning of where Gabriella is going,” he said.
Who Plays Lestat’s Mother Gabriella on The Vampire Lestat?
Jennifer Ehle — famous for playing Elizabeth Bennet opposite Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice — plays Gabriella in The Vampire Lestat. The 56-year-old actress is the daughter of Rosemary Harris and John Ehle and has won numerous Tony awards for her work on stage. You might also recognize her from The King’s Speech, Zero Dark Thirty, or The Blacklist.
“She’s so good in this role and she was so much fun to work with, and she’s so playful and so down to just try everything and anything,” Reid said. “And there’s so many dynamics that we can play doing, you know, Gabriella and Lestat together.” Including incest.
