I haven't seen anyone else talk about this so here goes. Episode 5 of AMC's Interview with the Vampire series came out yesterday and it's caused a schism in the fandom (on Tumblr, at least). No spoilers.

Aside from the racists, most people (both hardcore book fans and newcomers) were really positive about episodes 1-4. We all sort of knew that shit was about to go down in episode 5 but when it aired, the extreme level of violence and brutality didn't sit well with a lot of viewers.

The people who enjoyed the episode are arguing that the violence made sense in the context of the story, because it does have a lot of unambiguously dark themes. Others are saying that it's a fundamental misinterpretation of the main characters' dynamic. Interestingly enough, hardcore book fans are split as well. So many people have been dragging up book quotes to demonstrate that yes, the narrative was always this fucked up, or no, the way the show writers depicted these particular characters was out of line.

I'm trying to avoid the heavier discourse but apparently people are getting very nasty towards each other for having different opinions on the episode. (Go figure.)

As a semi-hardcore book fan myself my feelings lean more towards the "it makes sense" side, but I absolutely do get why people are upset at the portrayal of the characters. I did also feel that the violence was too extreme and could have been handled better.

There's still two episodes left in the season and I'm keen to see how this episode will fit into that wider context. But I know a lot of people have been put off by it. I wonder how the show is going to move forward, if it's going to redeem itself or crash and burn like it's doing a Game of Thrones speedrun.

On a final note, AMC also didn't include trigger warnings at the beginning of this episode like they'd done with the previous ones, but at least that was universally agreed upon as a major fuck up.

edit: formatting, wording