AMCThere’s a justified degree of excitement surrounding the new season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire. The series is adapting the next book in author Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe, jumping into the fractured psyche of the Vampire Lestat (Sam Reid), and switching things up by retitling the series in his image. But as intriguing as this perspective shift may be, fans know that the heart of the show belongs as much to him as it does to his twisted soulmate — and the erstwhile star of the series — Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson). Warning: Spoilers ahead for The Vampire Lestat Episode 1.When last we saw these doomed lovers, they were on their way to reconciliation after centuries of scorn and miscommunication. Their embrace at the end of Interview Season 2 felt like a promising tease for Season 3 — in reality, though, it might have been the consolation prize before the storm of strife to come. Lestat and Louis are not together when The Vampire Lestat picks up, thanks in part to Louis’ tell-all interview with journalist and newly-turned-vampire Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). The bombshell, published in novel form, takes major creative liberties with Lestat, prompting the 200-year-old diva to form a rock band and tour the country as an outlet for his rage. Angered as Lestat may be about Louis’ betrayal, the door is not completely closed for these crazy kids. They’re seen FaceTiming before Daniel’s novel becomes a scandalous sensation — and it also seems like Lestat is texting Louis months later, as he moves from city to city with his band. The Vampire Lestat’s first episode is presumably building up to a much-needed reunion when Lestat convinces his pen pal to visit him in Detroit. In its final moments, the subject of his desire strolls into his motel room. But instead of Louis, it’s a new face: Gabriella de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle), Lestat’s “fledgling, lover,” and “mother.”Gabriella de Lioncourt, explainedThe Vampire Lestat really goes there in its first episode. | AMCYep, you read that right — the woman whom Lestat makes out with at the end of The Vampire Lestat’s first episode is also... his mom. He and Gabriella are actually a lot of things to each other. As Lestat explains in his voice-over narration — recorded many, many years after the events of this season — Gabriella is his fledgling too. That means that he turned her into a vampire shortly after he inherited the Dark Gift. In Anne Rice’s novels, Lestat uses that transformation to justify the twisted ways in which their relationship evolves. The Vampire Gabrielle (as she’s named in the books) is a fundamentally different person from the human mother he knew. By turning her, Lestat also kind of becomes her vampire dad, which only muddies this dynamic further. It’s worth noting that Lestat’s bond with Gabrielle never gets outright sexual in the books. Rice depicted the act of exchanging blood (as a vampire does when turning a human) as a sexual act in itself, replacing most human urges. That said, AMC’s Interview took that subtext and made it unmistakably opaque. The vampires of the series absolutely have intercourse, and that pivot is already making Lestat and Gabriella’s relationship more explicit. As with a lot of the themes in this series, the Lestat-Gabriella dynamic is not designed to comfort the viewer. It might be the hardest aspect of this season to get through — but for Jennifer Ehle, portraying Gabriella was downright “liberating.” Speaking to Inverse ahead of the new season, the actress spoke to her excitement about diving into such a fraught character, and leaning into the taboos (and a wild Italian accent) rather than running from them.Bringing Gabrielle to life was a “liberating” experience for Jennifer Ehle. | AMC“It’s so fun just to go,” Ehle tells Inverse. “The world that Anne Rice has created, it’s so liberating to get a chance to walk through that. And the dialogue that [writers] Hannah [Moscovitch] and Rolin [Jones] have created is so just gorgeous, and it can take so much. It’s rare to find something to do on screen that can take such big [performances], and that’s really, really fun.”For Ehle, this season operates on a central brief: “The bigger, the better.” Where its previous seasons were slightly more subdued, leaning more into melodrama, The Vampire Lestat will crank the dial into high camp. This season will dive into Lestat’s origins in 18th-century Paris, peering into his fractured psyche as he works to justify all the wild stuff he’s done. As most have already noticed in The Vampire Lestat’s trailers, even racier moments between him and Gabriella are waiting around the corner. Episode 1 is only the tip of this iceberg; it might not be as fun to watch as it was for Ehle to act it, but that’s part of what makes this series so perversely intoxicating.The Vampire Lestat is streaming on AMC+.