Exclusive Interview
‘The Seduction’ Stars Break Down Isabelle & Valmont’s Heartbreaking Ending
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers from The Seduction Season 1.]
Sebastian Valmont’s (Vincent Lacoste) actions catch up with him in The Seduction‘s finale. While viewers watch Isabelle de Merteuil (Anamaria Vartolomei) write a letter to Valmont, explaining how she escaped arrest by becoming the king’s courtesan, it’s revealed that her former lover will never read it. He’s already died by Danceny’s (Samuel Kircher) hand, in a duel for Cécile’s (Fantine Harduin) honor.
Though Isabelle ultimately rejects Valmont’s proposal to remarry, Vartolomei told Swooon the impact his death has on her character, “I think Isabelle lost the love of her life, and she lost an ally. She lost a friend. I think he was her first romantic experience, and also, he helped her in her quest of freedom, independence, and he has never been judgmental about her actions and what she could have done.”
In the limited series’ final moments, Isabelle writes that she’s equal parts devastated and satisfied by her former lover’s death, the latter because he’ll never be able to betray her again. “I feel she decides to once again — and I hate her for that — lies to herself, and she continues being sarcastic and ironic until the end,” Vartolomei said, calling out how Isabelle ends the letter by saying she’s now become the wicked one out of the two of them.
The actress added that Isabelle has become trapped in a game, leaving her character unhappy with her circumstances by the end. Noting that the show wraps on a sad note for Isabelle, Vartolomei also recalled the letter-writing scene bringing her to tears during filming. “I was reading that letter, saying goodbye to him, and I imagined Vincent, Valmont, coming behind and embracing me and saying that it’s not over and he’s still here, and he wasn’t,” she said. “And I was like, oh, what a loss. What a loss for her, because he was a pretty avant garde man, too, and I liked the relationship they built together.”
Though The Seduction begins with Valmont duping Isabelle into marriage for the fun of it — prompting her descent/ascent into a calculating libertine queen — Valmont tells her that he wants to marry her again in the finale episode. Not only would it save her from the Comte de Gercourt’s (Lucas Bravo) accusations of marriage fraud, but Valmont also insists that she’s changed him and he truly loves her.
During their final conversation, Valmont tells Isabelle that he’s turned her into a “monster,” but Lacoste thinks that Isabelle’s evolution only made him love her more. As a revolutionary man, he’s “proud of what she’s becoming. And it’s probably one of his biggest achievements, even more, because in the beginning, he makes a fool out of her and after she’s really angry at him, she hates him, and he tried to take her back,” he told Swooon.
Still, Lacoste noted that Valmont’s real feelings toward Isabelle remain murky throughout the show, despite his relentless pursuit of her and even by the time he proposes again. “In the end, you don’t really know if he’s really in love with her or not because there’s always been some doubt. It’s also both his biggest achievement in life to have sort of created Merteuil and also to be in love with her,” he said. “To be married with her in the end, it will be his biggest achievement.”
When Valmont is about to succumb to his wounds, however, he thinks only of Isabelle. So, while his character’s ending is tragic, it does serve a purpose. “You know [he truly loves Isabelle] because he dies,” Lacoste said. “So you’re like, ‘OK, so he should have loved her,’ but if it had not happened, you would have never known.”
The Seduction, Season 1, Streaming Now, HBO Max
Reporting by Avery Thompson
