So I've been seeing these hot takes, and... Honestly... They're just wrong.
If anything AMC did Jacob huge solid by writing Louis this way.
Louis is so much more boring in the books. So so so so so so so so so much more boring.
They took a depressed ass boring white slave owner who entire family died off when for the most part and just had him be lame the entire book except the moment he burned down the theater.
Louis was never the main character.
But they turned him into a Creole brothel owner. They made his family on screen and gave him more depth. They let him have shine in this show and wrote him to be more interesting than the book or movie ever did...AND they created a whole brand new subplot for Louis this season that they completely developed themselves based on for seeded from the first season, that was also original AMC ideas....
Like naw, I definitely agree Jacob did the heavy lifting in the first two seasons, but they purposely made his character way more involved. The real plot ALWAYS started with TVL.... There was was a huge gap between the two books, because the first book simply did nothing to world build. It was essentially a stand alone....
The entire universe didn't develop until TVL...
That's when you get the origins, the 1,000 year old vampires. The Talamasca, all the lore.... Like everything that makes this IP epic started in the book TVL
The first two seasons technically cheated. If you read the first book.... None of the wider universe shit that was in the first two seasons existed.
The book interview was simply Louis, Lestat, Claudia, Armand, and everybody else was irrelevant.
Antoinette was a dude named Antoine who had almost no relevance. The theater vampires including Santiago were very 1 dimensional and not really relevant either. Daniel was just "the boy" he didn't even get a name until TVL...
But they really made one of the most boring books in the series great TV, and did so much to make Louis a better character than they realistically had to do.
This was always supposed to be the highlight..Lestat becoming a rock star and awakening Akasha is the biggest plot line in the entire series... The first book introduced a few characters, but honestly all it was was an introduction.
Lestat spends most of the second book trashing the first book and saying how inaccurate it was, how bullshit Louis is, and directly telling the readers to forget everything that happened in that book.
They are not doing that with this show... They are standing tall on the success and built fanbase from seasons 1 & 2 and now they are ready to give viewers what everyone was very likely talking about from the inception of making this show.
How do we deliver The Vampire Lestat??
We gotta make Louis a more compelling and interesting character, and we gotta cast someone who can bring more aura to the character than we've gotten before.
Jacob did that, and they're still making him relevant when he legit could have been written off at this point.
So I get it, people who didn't read don't know..... But naw, the fact that they got something this season to keep him active if anything shows how much he truly is valued.... He's not an after thought, even if his og character was
Don't let me catch you cryin'
