‘Interview With the Vampire’: What Does ‘Memory Is the Monster’ Mean?

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“Memory is the monster.” That line is splashed all across Interview With the Vampire Season 2 marketing. We know that the new episodes will excavate Louis de Pointe du Lac’s (Jacob Anderson) memories in his interview with Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). But what does “memory is the monster” really mean in this context? Clips throughout the Interview With the Vampire trailers help paint a picture of its possible definition.

The most obvious definition is a simple one: Recovering repressed memories, and reliving the ones he could never forget, is going to be painful for Louis. Monstrously so. The vampire will also continue to be challenged on his recollection of events, as Daniel is not one to let up on his questioning — especially not now that he knows Louis to be an unreliable narrator. Another possible simple explanation is that the memory of Lestat (Sam Reid) haunts Louis. As Anderson previously told TV Insider, “Louis is carrying Lestat with him kind of literally, and in that is going to massively affect the beginning of the new relationship [with Armand].”

These things will be true no matter what else is revealed in Season 2, premiering Sunday, May 12 on AMC. There’s a deeper meaning here that also needs to be exhumed, one that we think will be a key narrative throughout the second season. And it’s rooted in the reason why Louis’ memories would be suppressed in the first place. Is this the product of a traumatized mind burying painful experiences, or was there a supernatural force involved in this act of forgetting?

Claudia was notably absent from the Dubai timeline in Season 1. Talking about her, and allowing Daniel to read her diaries, was painful for Louis. The thought of his daughter clearly made him feel ashamed, and the Season 1 finale explained at least some of that. As revealed through Daniel’s skillful questioning, Louis couldn’t fully commit to killing Lestat with Claudia. She fed Lestat dead blood (lethal to a vampire), and Louis slit his throat. But he couldn’t burn him to make sure he couldn’t come back from the almost dead. We’re led to believe that this caused an irreparable rift between this father and daughter.

Louis brings up repressed memories of Claudia in the Interview With the Vampire Season 2 trailers. “Claudia… I’m remembering it now,” he says through a haunted tone in the trailer released on March 31. In the March 19 trailer, Louis says, “Pieces of my life, gone. I knew who I was without those pieces,” and he also says they need to “get every detail right” as “all those years” start “coming back” to him. This implies that he learns there were memories wiped from his mind. “I want this, to remember,” he says at his dining room table, blood tears welling up in his eyes.

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Interview With the Vampire Season 2 trailers have a few key hints that imply Armand (Assad Zaman) will have an important connection to these memories. The key hint is from the March 31 trailer, when Armand says, “You’ve remembered?” to Louis in Dubai. At over 500 years old, Armand is one of the oldest vampires in existence in this series. This makes him more powerful than other bloodsuckers; he can withstand sunlight, and he’s had more time to hone his abilities similar to those we saw displayed by Lestat in Season 1.

With practice, vampires can learn to bring an entire room to a standstill, the humans frozen in time, unable to move again until the vampire in control releases them from their telepathic grasp. They’re none the wiser that this occurred at all once freed. Armand, it seems, can exert similar control over vampires as well, as shown in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in the trailer that shows the Paris coven slamming their heads onto a dinner table when Armand yells, “Enough!” (Another clip also shows him igniting flames in his bare hand.)

We’ve also seen in a snippet from an episode that Armand and Louis can invade humans’ memories. If Armand can do to vampires what vampires can do to humans, does that mean he has the power to change Louis’ memories? “Memory is the monster” could be a warning. Louis digging up his past could make him suffer, and perhaps his vampire lover of 77 years wanted to make him feel “no pain.”

“Memory is the monster” could also apply to Armand. What if he did wipe Louis’ slate clean, but without Louis’ consent? We see him urge Louis to “take a break” from the interview in another trailer clip. This could be out of genuine concern for Louis, but also a concern that Daniel is getting close to hitting a vein Armand doesn’t want opened.

There’s one small clip that makes me believe Armand’s motives are inherently altruistic: “You fear Armand. You should fear the other one.” So says Justin Kirk in his mystery role in the March 19 trailer. According to him, Louis is much more of a danger. Perhaps it’s because of what could happen if and when all of his repressed memory rears its ugly head.

Interview With the Vampire, Season 2 Premieres Sunday, May 12, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+