{"id":478131,"date":"2026-06-15T09:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/478131\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:06:12","slug":"armand-and-daniels-vampire-bond-is-so-romantic-in-tvl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/478131\/","title":{"rendered":"Armand and Daniel\u2019s Vampire Bond Is SO Romantic\u00a0in TVL"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\u26a1
\n\t\t\t\tQuick Take<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tEpisode two of The Vampire Lestat sheds some light on the vampire bond between Armand and Daniel and how it manifests. And it is ROMANTIC.\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the vampire Armand does not appear in episode two of The Vampire Lestat. And yet, his presence hovers intensely over the narrative as we finally spend an honest moment with his fledgling, Daniel Molloy. In the first couple of episodes of The Vampire Lestat, Daniel is in fine form. He busily needles at Lestat with an icy humor and a sharp tongue, guzzles blood from a hookah, and overall drips with snark and disdain as the tour\u2019s resident lovable menace to society. Absolutely, though there\u2019s not a trace of transformation trauma on Daniel. No sir. He loves being a vampire. But in episode two, we get a brief moment where Daniel\u2019s walls drop, and we see a brush of what\u2019s underneath, something yearning and vulnerable. And for Daniel, much to the delight of Devil\u2019s Minion shippers<\/a>, this The Vampire Lestat moment comes courtesy of Armand\u2026 Or at least the impact of the vampiric bond that lives between Armand and Daniel.\u00a0And yeahhh, to us, the way Armand and Daniel\u2019s maker\/fledgling connection manifests couldn\u2019t be more romantic.<\/p>\n

\"InterviewAMC<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard being a vampire whose maker has abandoned you. Doubly hard when you broke your only vampire friend\u2019s trust to publish a book about his life, and inadvertently caused yet another breakup for him. But the good thing about vampiric life is that it tends to be long. And Louis begrudgingly agrees to speak to Daniel again in The Vampire Lestat episode two. Only, we bet he wishes he didn\u2019t when Daniel starts to wax poetically about his bond with Armand, the vampiric equivalent of girl talk, we suppose\u2026 Except this time it involves Louis\u2019 manipulative ex, who lied to him for over 70 years<\/a>, so it\u2019s not surprising he\u2019s not too thrilled about the topic. We, however, are seated. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have this weird thing that happens where suddenly everyone around me disappears, like the rapture\u2019s come\u2026 and I\u2026 You know, I feel him.\u201d Daniel confesses to Louis, suddenly stripped of his cackling shrewdness and draped in wide-eyed helplessness. And phew, we have to hand it to Eric Bogosian, who plays Daniel; the delivery of these lines is absolutely crushing. For me, a person invested in this romantic relationship, it stabs me right in my heart. Daniel\u2019s obvious loneliness, the hesitant way he clearly wants to talk about Armand and their bond, but has been locking away the thoughts, even from, especially from, himself\u2014all of that comes flooding to the surface in this brief moment. And the incredible skill it takes to make us feel every bit of Daniel\u2019s vampiric infancy, the way he\u2019s lost, looking for an anchor that isn\u2019t there, we cannot say enough about it.<\/p>\n

\"TheAMC<\/p>\n

Also incredible is the deadpan, unimpressed way Jacob Anderson\u2019s Louis delivers, \u201cArmand?\u201d in response to Daniel\u2019s confession, making me briefly cackle. But Daniel presses on, self-depricating and wry, asking \u201cYeah\u2026That happen with you and Lestat?\u201d Louis confirms it didn\u2019t. (\u201cNo. Sounds weird.\u201d) And they move on. But I\u2019m still stuck in that moment. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to unpack here. Of course, according to Louis in Interview with the Vampire season one, all vampires are connected to their makers in an intense, emotional way, and vice versa. Louis, not immune to poetic maker whims himself<\/a>, describes his own connection with Lestat in the following gorgeous way. \u201cThe vampire bond. There is no human equivalent\u2026 It\u2019s a bond that can never fully be severed. A bond like that makes you believe there are only two of you on the planet. Freedom and chastity wrapped in one person.\u201d And, in season two of\u00a0Interview with the Vampire, it\u2019s implied that after Louis transforms Claudia\u2019s companion, Madeleine, into a vampire, she can sense his feelings, and he can sense her presence and absence. While in both cases, a powerful tie exists, it does seem like Louis\u2019 great love for Lestat makes his bond with his maker even stronger and more affecting.<\/p>\n

\"ArmandAMC<\/p>\n

Which leads us to Armand, Daniel, and the case of the missing universe. Because even though Louis notes his bond with Lestat \u201c[makes] him believe there are only two of [them] on the planet,\u201d we guess he means that figuratively, not literally. Whereas Daniel seems to be indicating he\u2019s experiencing\u2026 an actual falling away of reality that leaves only Daniel and the feeling of Armand in existence, when Armand isn\u2019t even there\u2026 That we know of. That feels like a pretty powerful bond to us. A bond of love, we might extrapolate<\/a>? If it\u2019s magnifying the impact of the maker\/fledgling connection even beyond where Louis and Lestat\u2019s bond lives, taking it into completely new territory. <\/p>\n

We don\u2019t yet know exactly how Daniel was turned in Interview with the Vampire, and it sounds like we may not know for certain until season four.<\/a> We also don\u2019t know whether fan theories based on Anne Rice\u2019s books, which speculate that Armand and Daniel fell in love when Daniel was young, only for Armand to erase those memories at some point, hold any water. What we do know is that we can\u2019t imagine anything more beautifully romantic and deliciously toxic than the whole world turning to nothing, leaving only Armand and Daniel in it, as a reflection of their vampiric bond. Inject it. Put it in my veins. <\/p>\n

THE VAMPIRE LESTAT Review: Devil\u2019s Minion Edition<\/a><\/p>\n

Weirdly, I\u2019m reminded of Wanda and Vision from the MCU, who were meant to be the romantic heart of the franchise. And though I personally didn\u2019t really super resonate with their love story, even I could see their most intense line was\u00a0point-perfect. In Avengers: Infinity War, Wanda has to destroy Vision, and as she does, he tells her that she doesn\u2019t have to worry about him because, \u201cI just feel you.\u201d In a sense, it feels to me like Daniel isn\u2019t really feeling much of anything at this point, but sometimes he just feels Armand. <\/p>\n

All of this just over the ephemeral vampiric bond between Armand and Daniel, and the pair haven\u2019t even shared a scene yet in The Vampire Lestat. I know I speak for many people other than myself when I say, \u201cand then what happens?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vampire Lestat\u00a0releases at 9 pm ET\/PT on AMC and AMC+<\/a>. You can also read\u00a0The Vampire Lestat<\/a>\u00a0by Anne Rice today as you wait for the next episode of the series to arrive.<\/p>\n

Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. She is ready for Devil\u2019s Minion to become canon so one of her ships can finally sail.<\/p>\n

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn\u2019t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u26a1 Quick Take Episode two of The Vampire Lestat sheds some light on the vampire bond between Armand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[240442,240681,240682,156,240683,111,139,69,117766,437],"class_list":["post-478131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-armand","tag-daniel-molloy","tag-devils-minion","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-bogosian","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-the-vampire-lestat","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}