Interview With The Vampire: Season 2

Streaming on: BBC iPlayer

Episodes viewed: 8 of 8

Second chances are hard to come by, and even when they do happen, it's not always for the best. That's true for vampires like Louis (Jacob Anderson), who are brought back from the dead only to wish they were still dead when forced to face the agonies of a never-ending life in darkness. And that could have also been true for Interview With The Vampire itself, a critically lauded yet bizarrely overlooked adaptation of Anne Rice's saga that could have easily been cancelled after just one season. But thank the dark gods it wasn't, because Season 2 defies any potential sophomore slump by expanding the world once contained to a New Orleans townhouse with an international scope that's just as mesmeric and more theatrical than ever.

Season 2 establishes this immediately, with an opening card that explains Claudia's recasting with a simple, elegant reveal. As extraordinary as Bailey Bass was, capturing the perverse rapture of a child who tastes true power for the first time, nothing's lost in this transition as Delainey Hayles brings a newfound maturity to Claudia, who's grown more world-weary, exhausted by the childish confines of her prepubescent body. The returning cast are pitch-perfect too, especially Anderson, who grounds the story across three different timelines, including a flashback to 1973 which changes everything. This astonishing episode of television would be up for every award going if not for voters' aversion to genre — and the same is true for the show as a whole.

From the lavish costumes and production design to the intricate nuance of the writing, it's hard to think of another series that's this ferociously strong across the board. Even (largely) without Sam Reid's seductive vamping, Season 2 is a feast more than worth devouring. And if you're anything like us, it'll devour you too, consuming your every waking thought until Season 3 brings us out of the darkness all over again for another dalliance with these twisted yet infinitely watchable creatures of the night.