‘Mayfair Witches’ Season 2 Feels Immediately Wasteful In Episode 1

I don’t have the same kind of affection for Anne Rice as most of the target audience of Mayfair Witches, so take this with a pinch of salt. But this isn’t very good, is it? Despite being popular enough to secure Season 2, little adjustment seems to have been made between seasons to iron out some of the issues, and Episode 1 is a brilliant case study in how it introduces a great premise full of creepy Gothic atmosphere and then handles it all wrong.

The Season 2 premiere revolves, primarily, around the rapid growth of Lasher in his new form as Rowan’s child, beginning as a baby and then morphing almost in real time into a young man. The opening sequence is the best of the entire episode, a panicky dream Rowan has about the more familiar version of Lasher striding into the house and looming over the baby’s crib. It gets to the heart of parental anxiety and how powerless Rowan feels in Lasher’s presence – a direct counter to how superficially powerful the rebirth of Lasher makes her – that doesn’t come across anywhere else in the episode.

The issues start with Rowan, admittedly, but they do spread out into everything else. Rowan’s character is in an interesting position. She still knows much less than she needs to and understands so little about her powers, her family, and Lasher’s significance to both that she’s essentially flying blind. But she’s also now part of “the gang”, so to speak, one of several Mayfairs who are trying to plod on all happy about Lasher’s rebirth. The contrast between the two modes doesn’t suit. You’ve got her trying to use her personal connections to analyse Lasher’s DNA on one hand, but comfortably leaving him chilling in his room being watched by his relatives on the other. Is she scared of this guy or not? Does she see herself as his mother or his keeper? It’s hard to tell. Perhaps Rowan herself doesn’t even know.

But this kind of thing bogs the Season 2 premiere of Mayfair Witches down. There’s still ambiguity about whether we’re supposed to fear the darkness in Rowan or not, but it doesn’t really feel like deliberate ambiguity. It’s more like indecision. Can she handle death or not? Is she to be feared or pitied for her predicament? The feckless way she insists on going about things suggests the latter, but occasionally Alexandra Daddario is asked to stand up straight and be a little menacing, and it never quite takes.

Alyssa Jirrels in Mayfair Witches | Image via AMC

But the big problem here is Lasher. The creepy kid trope isn’t exactly fresh-feeling in Gothic horror, but more time spent with him being an awful baby would have been effective in putting us in Rowan’s headspace too. His lack of manners, his abnormal strength and intelligence, and his glimmers of real danger are more horrifying in the body of a baby. But his growth spurts are skimmed over with something that feels like indifference. Before you know it, he has morphed into a young adult off-screen. He might still be just as dangerous, but it doesn’t feel as creepy when he’s fully grown.

Mishandling this kills a lot of the potential drama. You don’t get that strange idiosyncratic feeling of instinctively caring about the fate of a baby but knowing, deep down, that something’s amiss. You don’t get to see Rowan grapple with more pronounced motherly instincts, the same kind of helpless parental anxiety she exhibits in the opening when she’s pinned in the corner by Lasher and powerless to help. In the space of this single episode, Lasher starts to feel like an annoying lodger.

It’s only the mind-reading Moira Mayfair who adds something tangible to the premiere, mostly because she sees through all the bullshit. She wants to get at Lasher to read his thoughts about Tessa, but Rowan won’t let her near. I like the gimmick of her powers, how music should always be playing when she’s around so she can’t delve into someone’s thoughts, and I respect that she’s not buying Rowan’s bluster. I hope subsequent episodes do more with her.

The same can be said of Sip, who is sidelined almost entirely until he’s pitched by the Talamasca with turning a Mayfair who still harbors a grudge against Lasher – Moira, I guess – and can access the house, bypassing all the complicated hexes Rowan has put on the place. It’s a setup for later, which is fine and expected, but it turns out Sip isn’t all that interesting when he’s kept completely away from Rowan.

It’s just hard to be especially excited about Mayfair Witches Season 2, at least not as far as Episode 1 is concerned. Some glimmers of that Gothic atmosphere are here, but the show doesn’t seem especially interested in preserving them, which is a shame since that’s kind of the entire Anne Rice thing. It’s worth keeping an eye on the season to see how things go, but thus far the implication is that they won’t be going anywhere all that interesting.