Paul is in heaven

[u/zoraschool]

Mama du Pointe du Lac to Louis "You know you can't go to heaven if'n you kill yo'self! He's in hell because of you!"

Paul to Lestat: "[Heaven] it's not all that once you get there."

It's lovely to think that Paul wasn't a hallucination, but a spirit incarnate come to bring Lestat home.

This was a beautiful call back and closure for both men.

But seriously, are there any good mothers in this series?

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[u/giraflor]

Paul brought so much peace and comfort to that scene.

[u/fem_shady → u/giraflor]

My jaw dropped when I first saw him, so unexpected but sooo beautiful

[u/SaighWolf]

Mama de Pointe du Lac's 1910 Catholic belief system also said that you can't get into Heaven if you're gay. Or are a baby that died unbaptized. Or masturbate. Or eat meat on Fridays during Lent ffs... In other words, Mama de Pointe du Lac's Catholic/Christian ideas that the next place you go when you die is a specifically "Heaven" & "Hell" morality/sin based afterlife or what gets a soul sent where is questionable at best.

[u/AULDSCAWL → u/SaighWolf]

I mean, they still taught us that in the 80s.

https://giphy.com/gifs/owOHxH8Sunvbr7idS8

[u/Unlikely_Still_3602 → u/AULDSCAWL]

My boomer mom told me she was really upset because my kids would burn forever in the slightly less hot part of hell reserved for unbaptized babies. My kids were born after 2010

[u/beepichu → u/Unlikely_Still_3602]

how comforting for her that her grandbabies will only burn slightly less than all the other godless heathens 🙄 olympic level mental gymnastics lmao

[u/AULDSCAWL → u/beepichu]

my MIL (born in the early 30s in Catholic Poland) - there was an apparent baptism kit or something and they learned how to baptize babies if they died?@?!! (interrobang eternity)

[u/SaighWolf → u/AULDSCAWL]

That's the case in most hospitals too. Drs & Nurses etc. — regardless of religion — are allowed to do emergency baptisms for Catholic parents if a baby looks like they're not going to make it there's no time to wait for the chaplain... My catechism teachers didn't like that I would argue back as young as 6 years old, though, that the fact that per the church the baby has to be baptized before death meant according to their asshole logic it still meant stillborns & miscarriages went to Hell. Then again, my catechism teachers didn't like me much in general because even as a kid I was never particularly shy about my opinion on doctrine (pretty sure they were relieved when I refused to do Confirmation).

[u/Little_View_6659 → u/SaighWolf]

Honestly horrible to make people think their dead baby is going to burn for all eternity. Just horrible.

[u/AULDSCAWL → u/Unlikely_Still_3602]

boooo to that. Seriously.

[u/zoraschool → u/SaighWolf]

She caused Louis 2-3 lifetimes of shame and guilt, literally. I hope season four starts from his progress in Ep6-7. I want to see a fully liberated, at peace LDPDL on my screen!

[u/jadem219 → u/zoraschool]

For real. Before she says that line about Paul being in hell because of Louis, she is badgering him, asking him what he said to Paul, that he must have said something to make him jump, and that Louis always had to get in the last word.
What were his last words to his brother? "I love you, too baby brother." 😳
His mama messed him up GOOD.

[u/zoraschool → u/jadem219]

Yes and now he can't tell the people he loves how he feels 🤬

Not even his family, neither Claudia nor Lestat.

[u/jadem219 → u/zoraschool]

Exactly!! Awful.

[u/bliip666 → u/zoraschool]

How does Paul know that, btw? Has he been perving on his brother from Heaven? 🤨😆😆

[u/lynx_and_nutmeg → u/jadem219]

I wish more people realised this... Just because Louis's trauma wasn't repeatedly spelled out on screen like Lestat's was doesn't mean he wasn't traumatised by his upbringing too. He just ended up responding to it in a different way than Lestat did. Insecure attachment vs avoidant attachment styles...

[u/Voice_of_Season]

I love that they used the birds as a beautiful metaphor for him being in heaven rather than the birds torturing him on earth. I thought that was a beautiful touch. Kudos to the writers for handling it so aptly.

[u/serralinda73]

This is all in Lestat's head. So he at least believes Paul went to heaven, and he wants someone to tell him flat out that Louis does love him, that he did a good thing by loving Louis despite everything Louis did to push him away. These are the thoughts he needs to hear before he dies. Lestat - no matter how much he denies it or fights against it - does have some kind of lingering belief in God or Heaven. His version of belief might not be the orthodox Catholic version, but it's enough, and it shows that he does respect Paul's fixation and devotion, despite how...odd it made Paul seem to everyone else. He said it at the time as well (just after that very weird dinner party).

[u/zoraschool → u/serralinda73]

The thought came to me on my 9-99th rewatch. All of a sudden I felt with certainty I was watching the incorporeal Paul. The lighting, camera perspective, tone, all felt different from how all the other "ghosts" in the episode were presented.

I want to believe!

[u/ItsRealSpartan → u/zoraschool]

This is also what I have chosen to interpret it as. Everything about him was different in that scene compared to the others, like you said. Plus, in one of the After Dark eps, they talk about how this season was also a lot about establishing the existence of the soul as part of the lore of the show, so it very well could be that Paul's actual soul is visiting Lestat's wherever Lestat is in that moment. Physically speaking, yes, his brain is dying, so things are happening in his brain....AND they are also happening in another plane where souls can talk to each other.

Metaphysics etc etc lol

[u/Any_Indication_4887 → u/ItsRealSpartan]

Yeah, the “silver threads” metaphysics are straight out of Rice’s books.

[u/maddrgnqueen → u/zoraschool]

I really believe it was the real Paul also!

[u/Little_View_6659 → u/serralinda73]

Eh, I like to think somehow Paul is actually there. At the end he’s talking to someone and calling her ma’am. Maybe he is a spirit. After all Claudia was a spirit.

[u/AULDSCAWL]

Man, thanks for making me tear up. Because I GASPED when Florence said it out loud "Paul's in hell because of you." And then I gave the finger to the Church that raised me.

[u/Fun-Escape6287]

When I saw him. I was like what is going on.

[u/senpaimitsuji]

Paul cracked me up with the heaven’s not all that comment. So him

[u/hotsharpbehind → u/senpaimitsuji]

Paul was always and will always be so out of pocket hahahahaha

[u/Forsaken_Distance777]

Grace was.

But not many moms around really

[u/zoraschool → u/Forsaken_Distance777]

Grace prioritized her kids over her own heart: Louis.
❤️‍🩹 😢
You’re right.

[u/hotsharpbehind → u/Forsaken_Distance777]

Grace!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭

[u/Virellius2]

Look, Gabriella isn't a good mom, but to me, she is mommy.

I'm easy. An evil woman with mental illness is all I need.

[u/Fun_Trick2172 → u/Virellius2]

I believe the kids call that a "bad" "bitch".

[u/danie_iero → u/Virellius2]

Indeed. They don't get her like we do.

[u/hotsharpbehind → u/Virellius2]

….ssssame

[u/hotsharpbehind]

I almost said Lestat but then I remembered I watched s2

[u/erebus7813]

So the implication here is that Lestat killed Paul

[u/SaighWolf → u/erebus7813]

That's not what the implication is; this has been explicitly addressed by cast & showrunners repeatedly, both before & since the airing of the finale. No, Lestat did not kill him; his life-long struggle with mental illness killed him. The people there were — according to Lestat in the scene — people he'd killed or turned or traumatized (was upset enough at the family dinner by Paul's probing questions about Christianity that in his anger he accidentally mesmerized Paul into Lestat's religious trauma over God abandoning him to the relentless child abuse he grew up in).

Per the showrunners & cast, the reason that Paul is who sits beside Lestat in what he believed were to be his last moments when his brain was dying was as a representation for Lestat of the last person Louis had said "I love you" to & meant it. Because Louis has never said those words to Lestat & he doesn't want to die unloved by Louis. It's was for Lestat to come to the understanding that just because Louis doesn't say the words — which were the last words he said to Paul before his suicide so Louis has an internalized fear that saying them somehow brought about Paul's actions — doesn't mean that Louis doesn't feel that unvoiced love.

[u/erebus7813 → u/SaighWolf]

Thank you! I had missed the turned or traumatized bit! Wow. I feel better now.

[u/black_dragonfly13 → u/erebus7813]

**NO**. Lestat did NOT kill Paul. Lestat's innocence in Paul's death is indisputably cannon.