Down in the muggy heat of Louisiana stands a formidable ivy-cloaked manor home passed down through generations of Mayfair women. Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches on AMC opens on the mossy old house with its two-story porch and damp green exterior. A doctor arrives to administer a Thorazine drip to a catatonic woman perched on the front porch.
This woman appears to be a much older version of Deirdre Mayfair. The doctor mentions that he’s taking over for her previous physician and is surprised that this woman is not elderly because her file is so thick. Looking through her files, he notes that she previously attempted suicide and appears to struggle with a mood disorder, which makes sense since that’s what Thorazine is typically used to address.
SPOILERS ahead for Mayfair Witches episode 1
While inside the house, the doctor notices a strange man talking to Deirdre and questions her maid as to who he is. “What man?” she asks. Then we move from New Orleans to San Francisco, where Deirdre’s daughter, Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario) lives.
Rowan is an intelligent surgeon who enjoys the simpler things in life. She’s a fancy doctor, but she spends her days living on a boat rather than investing in an expensive apartment or house. Rowan was adopted at a young age by Ellie Fielding (Erica Gimpel), who is secretly a Mayfair, though we don’t learn that until later in the episode.
Rowan’s life is flipped on its axis when she learns that Ellie’s cancer has returned. Eager to do something to help, Rowan decides to apply for a research assistant job for a stem cell trial. But her boss at the hospital is, to put it bluntly, an ass.
Death comes in threes
He’s dismissive of her talents and seems irritated by the fact Rowan is smart, savvy, and maybe even a better surgeon than him. He criticizes her, and Rowan grows increasingly frustrated until suddenly, he falls to the ground. Somehow, Rowan caused him to have an aneurysm. She’s distraught when she tells her mother about this. Apparently, something similar happened before when she was a kid to a girl named Lucy Stone.
Ellie dismisses her daughter’s worries, gaslighting her into believing nothing is amiss despite knowing full well that Rowan comes from a line of powerful witches. She tells Rowan she’s being silly and that she couldn’t have possibly caused that man to die.
But later, it happens again. Rowan comes face-to-face with the stem cell trial leader, who is even worse than the surgeon. He’s pompous and misogynistic, going so far as to urinate in front of her in some weird act of intimidation. Then he tells Rowan to pick one of the 30 trial participants to kick out and replace with her mother, but Rowan refuses. I didn’t feel bad when Rowan killed him.
Again Rowan goes to Ellie to tell her what happened, and Ellie comforts her. However, she still doesn’t tell her the truth: The Mayfairs gave Rowan to Ellie when she was a baby. Throughout the episode, we see flashbacks to Rowan’s mother, a young Deirdre Mayfair (Cameron Inman), who grew up in that once-grand Louisiana manor. After giving birth to Rowan, Deirdre’s aunt Carlotta Mayfair (Beth Grant) took the baby and told Deirdre that she’d died. In reality, Carlotta gave Ellie the baby, and the rest is history.
Upon receiving Rowan, Carlotta told Ellie that Rowan can never know who she really is or it could be dangerous for her and all of the Mayfairs. So Ellie has done everything possible to keep the truth hidden from Rowan, despite telling her she was doing everything she could to find her birth parents.
Having now killed three people, Rowan presses Ellie to learn more. She contacts an agency that apparently knows everything about the Mayfairs and speaks to the receptionist, Mawbel (Melissa Chambers). Ellie requests that an agent go to New Orleans and check to see if anything has changed that might have triggered Rowan’s powers.
The agent in charge of Rowan’s file, a man named Ciprien Grieve (Tongayi Chirisa), travels to the house in New Orleans and uses his abilities to open a portal into the past to see what happened recently. He sees a woman hanged from a tree. Lasher (Jack Huston) watches her body dangle.
Ciprien contacts Ellie and tells her that the man isn’t here, but he can feel his presence nearby. That’s a good thing, right? If Lasher is in New Orleans, that means he’s over 2,000 miles away from Rowan. But Ellie is still concerned because she’s dying. What will happen the next time Ciprien calls and no one answers? He promises Ellie that he will keep Rowan safe.
I am everyone, I am no one
In the flashbacks to young Deirdre’s past, we see that she was a free-spirited young woman who often felt restricted by her family’s strict rules. She also frequently conversed with a mysterious man, the same one we saw in the beginning, named Lasher. Lasher is a shape-shifting demon that has haunted the Mayfairs for centuries, and now he’s set his sights on Deirdre. She wears a special necklace to protect her from Lasher, the same one the adult Rowan is seen wearing at the start.
During a crazy party at her uncle Cortland’s (Harry Hamlin) house, Deirdre is seduced by a masked man named Patrick, and when they have sex, he appears to sprout some freaky black, demon-like claws. It’s very Rosemary’s Baby.
Deirdre becomes pregnant. She visits her priest, a man she regularly sees to confess. He appears to know about Lasher and believes that Deirdre might have gotten impregnanet by him. Deirdre pleads with him for help. She wants to run away. But all he offers is prayer. Deirdre realizes he’s scared of the Mayfair family, just like everyone else, and screams at him to leave.
That night, Lasher returns and convinces Deirdre to remove her protective necklace and bind with him. He then shows her who he really is, a shape-shifting entity that looks quite disturbing. “I am everyone, I am no one, I am a saint, I’m a demon. Will you take me, Deirdre? Will you take me to be yours forever?” In answer, Deirdre puts the necklace back on but seems to accept Lasher’s offer. “You are my witch now.” Then she goes into labor, and as we know, Carlotta takes the baby and gives it to Ellie, leaving Deirdre to believe her child has died.
The first episode of Mayfair Witches ends with Ellie dying as Rowan lies with her in bed. Then we return to New Orleans, where the doctor is still inspecting an older Deirdre. He notices scars on her chest and wonders if she’s been trying to remove her key necklace, so he takes it off for her. This doctor apparently has big plans for Deirdre. He tells her he doesn’t intend to give her the Thorazine because he wants to know who she is without the drugs and to learn more about who she really is and her past.
Elsewhere, Mawbel contacts Ciprien to warn him that Lasher is on the move. Ciprien tries contacting Ellie, but she’s already dead. And as Rowan sleeps on her boat drifting at sea that night, she gets her first visit from Lasher.
Overall, I think the first episode of Mayfair Witches was fun to watch, but I did feel slightly disappointed. The show is very somber and somewhat slow-paced, sometimes making it a little boring. I’m also not convinced by all of the acting performances, particularly Lasher, who is supposed to be a formidable character. He doesn’t seem all that scary. That said, I’m certainly interested enough to keep watching!
Episode Grade: B-
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