Summary
Mayfair Witches Season 2 continues to amble along with no idea what it’s doing in Episode 3. Things are becoming less and less compelling by the week.
Nobody likes a dinner party, and when you really boil it down, that’s all Episode 3 of Mayfair Witches Season 2 really is. There’s an ulterior motive, to be fair; it isn’t all prosecco and vol-au-vents. But it feels a bit like that. In “Cover the Mirrors”, with reluctant help from Cortland, Rowan invites the entire family around with the vague hope that doing so will attract Lasher and allow her to ensnare him in a magical thrall, keeping him trapped in the house and, by extension, an endless nightmare.
It would be a solid plan if Rowan wasn’t stupid. If there were another word for it I’d use one, but it’s the only one coming to mind. I mean, seriously, letting Cortland handle the invitations? That was never going to go well.
It probably says a lot that the most interesting part of “Cover the Mirrors” is a crossover with AMC’s much superior Anne Rice show, Interview with the Vampire. But it’s a tokenistic inclusion, really. While he’s roaming around all confused, Lasher bumps into Felix, a vampire from that show whose job is pretty much exclusively to give Lasher a pep talk about embracing his dark inner nature. Wasn’t he already doing that?
AMC keeps airing these episodes with a little behind-the-scenes segment wherein the cast and crew talk up the previous hour in a misguided effort to convince us it was great and full of hidden depth and intricacy. They’re generally hilarious, but the one about the supposed significance of this scene was an all-timer. We’re led to believe that Lasher’s mightily struggling with his inner nature and that Felix’s speech leaves him at a kind of existential crossroads where he tries to lean into being a one-of-a-kind evil specimen and ends up realizing he’s not suited to it. But it doesn’t play out like that at all. We’ll get to the details in a minute.
In the meantime, Cortland makes Rowan look incredibly foolish by telling everyone on the guest list that they’re going to meet Lasher, despite being well aware that his whereabouts are currently unknown and he’s on a murderous rampage. Cortland’s hand-wavey excuse is that the Mayfairs, who have been raised to believe in the idea of Lasher being of tremendous value to the family, wouldn’t believe the claims of him being a serial killer without evidence – certainly not coming from Rowan. But it’s really clear he’s up to no good.
Cortland’s hope is that he can manipulate the situation by situating Rowan between a rock and a hard place, having to lie to all the Mayfairs to keep them present until Lasher arrives, without telling them what he has been up to, and also while solving every personal and familial crisis that comes up, almost all of which have, in a roundabout way, become Rowan’s responsibility. It’d be engaging if it wasn’t so funny, but it’s hard to be sympathetic because Rowan, as mentioned, put herself in this predicament by trusting Cortland to do anything in the first place.
Alexandra Daddario in Mayfair Witches | Image via AMC
Oddly enough, Rowan’s only potential ally seems to be Moira, whom the Talamasca have talked into attending. Thanks to Moira’s mind-reading powers, Rowan can theoretically prove to her that her intentions are good and she wants to kill Lasher to protect the family. And even though Rowan is now so powerful that Moira gets a jolt of pain when she attempts to read her mind, Rowan’s willingness to let her try is almost enough to convince her.
Unsurprisingly it’s Cortland who proves Rowan’s undoing in Mayfair Witches Season 2, Episode 3. Rowan thinks all of the family are safe and sound because Cortland neglected to mention that certain Mayfairs won’t come near a place where Cortland is; this includes Dolly Jean’s sister, Evelyn, who runs a local bar that, of course, Lasher stumbled into earlier in the episode looking for a glass or few of milk.
This is where Lasher tries out the dark nature Felix told him to embrace. He starts to come onto Evelyn a little strong, and when she rebuffs him he gets violent. She runs the bar with her son, David, and it all kicks off between the three of them, with Lasher largely at the receiving end. Stung, embarrassed, and a little guilty, he begins making his way home to mommy, which puts Rowan in a position where she has to tell everyone present that it’s Lasher who has been killing their relatives off.
Needless to say, this isn’t the news everyone was expecting to hear. Jojo and Daphne try to storm out, and in an effort to stop them a suddenly OP Rowan, amped up by Lasher’s impending presence, inadvertently traps them in a thrall. She meant well, but it’s just about the worst thing that could have happened to her public image.
In an effort to redeem herself, Rowan heads outside to confront Lasher and, at Moira’s urging, presumably prepares to kill him (not that I think she would have.) But Sip and the Talamasca try to intervene with some weird knockout gas device, and Rowan gets in the way, leading to her dropping unconscious on the floor and Lasher being dragged away by the Talamasca.
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