Shall we begin like David Copperfield? "I am born…I grew up?" Or shall we begin about 120 years after Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire took place, with AMC's brilliant TV adaptation shifting the story from Louis de Pointe du Lac as a wealthy white plantation owner in the 1790s to one where Louis is a Black man in the 1910s working the red light district to keep his family fed? That's one of the many brilliant changes Rolin Jones and his writers have made to Rice's beloved book, and Paul, Arlo, and Eric couldn't be happier. The gang discusses why these changes fit so well in a series driven by its characters' perceptions of reality; the beautiful work by a cast including Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Eric Bogosian, Bailey Bass, Delainey Hayles, and Assad Zaman; and why, yes, this Interview is just better than the book.

NEXT: it's been a while since we've had a Four-Color Flashback, eh? Let's take back the night with J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank's Midnight Nation.

BREAKDOWN

00:00:26 - Intro / Banter

00:07:55 - Interview with the Vampire

02:15:00 - Outro / Next

LINKS

• "The Writers Who Invented Modern Television" by Eric Sipple, A Beautiful Rain of Frogs

• Exploring the Complexity of Interview with the Vampire - A Video Essay by Seriesable

• The Radical Rebirth of Interview with the Vampire - A Video Essay by Seriesable

MUSIC

• "Devil Inside" by INXS, Kick (1987)

• "Need You Tonight" by INXS, Kick (1987)