Episode 1 - Lasher

Mayfair Witches Season 2
(Image: AMC)

Season 2 Premieres

From IMDb: Rowan Mayfair is determined to understand what Lasher has become; Sip is hell-bent on capturing him.

After a two-year wait, Season 2 of Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches premiered last night on AMC.  I only began to discuss my thoughts on episodes during Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire, but I thought I'd do the same here.  Especially since this site specifically discusses the Mayfair Witches.

This first episode more or less begins where Season 1 left off.  Rowan had given birth to Lasher, and his rapid advancement from newborn to adult male has already begun.  Rowan, although completely mystified by this, and even more so by destructive and sometimes horrifying behavior, is taking an approach to the anomaly of his development in the manner that makes the most sense to her: as a doctor.  Rowan has the boy stand in a cutaway door while she measures his height and carefully notes the more subtle changes in him.  

When his refusal to tell her what his purpose in returning to the living world is results in a rather violent exchange, Rowan sees another opportunity for studying him.

A shard of shattered glass that had grazed Lasher's cheek had collected a sample of his blood.  

As a guest doctor of Josephine Mayfair, Rowan asks to use Mayfair Medical's lab facilities.  However, Rowan already has been given usage privileges and is able to sail right in and test the blood sample collected from Lasher.  This is when we meet Dr. Sam Larkin, a San Francisco colleague of Rowan's.  There is a genetic anomaly, and Rowan needs to know what it is.  Would Dr. Larkin be able to test the sample off the record?

Now, somewhere in all of this, another Mayfair surfaces.  Moira Mayfair.  Tessa's sister.  And Moira Mayfair has a problem with something her mother says: that Tessa's death was somehow meant to be.  What.

Apparently, Moira is that "other sister", or what Dolly Jean Mayfair refers to her as: "nobody's favorite cousin".  Ouch.  Then, Josephine Mayfair calls the girl "a curse" right after saying she feels for the girl who always had on headphones to shut the world out.  BIG ouch.

Excuse me, I have a question.  WHICH world is this girl shutting out?  Dolly Jean explains to Rowan that Moira is a mind reader, and to keep her out of one's thoughts, make sure to play music.  Well, what do people wear headphones like Moira's for?

Music.  SOUND.  Headphones like that are not garden-variety headphones.  So, which world is Moira shutting out?  The physical world or is she using the headphones to filter out sound that only she as a mind-reader can hear but does not wish to?  Does she shield her own thoughts at the same time?  Interesting questions.

Also understandable is that Moira is not exactly Rowan's biggest fan.  Not because Rowan ever intended for Tessa to come to any harm, but she did, despite her command to Lasher to help Tessa.  And it was not Rowan she went to the Mayfair house to confront, but Lasher.  

According to Ciprien Grieve, all attempts to reach Rowan at the Mayfair house have failed due to powerful spells and wards placed all around the property.  Grieve is hiding in a motel room, afraid the Talamasca wants to erase his memory.  Therefore, he is making recordings in order to ensure that should anyone's memory be erased, the information would not be lost.  

Come to find out--as soon as he wakes up from a Talamasca-induced stupor--the Talamasca does not want to erase Grieve's memory.  They want him to help them gain access to Lasher.  The Lasher now in the flesh.

How?  Wards...spells...how is that going to work?

The Talamasca, it turns out, knows of someone powerful enough to get past trifling things like that.  The implication is--and this is just a guess--that the person the Talamasca has in mind is Moira.  However, there is a question.  Were Dolly Jean and Josephine Mayfair able to enter the Mayfair house despite the wards and spells or because Rowan has allowed them entry?  If it's option 2 and the person powerful enough to bust into the Mayfair house regardless of lack of invitation is Moira, as she clearly did and Dolly Jean berated her for, then...

Well, then an interesting question is just WHY Moira is "nobody's favorite cousin" and/or "a curse".  Something Rowan seems to wonder about herself.  She's probably wondering if the reason isn't simply that Moira is seen as a little twit with a bad attitude and atrocious manners (even if she has good reason to demand answers about her sister's murder).  If the first piece of advice is "don't let that kid hear your thoughts", that tends to send up smoke signals that there's more to it than the officially approved "she's a little s***."

In this case, maybe also a carrier pigeon or two.

By the time Moira showed up demanding to speak to Lasher directly, Lasher had grown to the height and development of an adolescent heading rapidly towards the beginning of young adulthood.  He's also been locked in the basement (where the statue of Cortland Mayfair is being stored) a couple of times.  The first time was to be until he was willing to tell Rowan, his mother, what his purpose for returning to the fleshly world was.  Instead, he busted out through a window and headed for the French Quarter where he found a beautiful young woman and...

Episode 1 Recap amc+ on YouTube

Well, he ended up carrying her all the way home to the Mayfair house to demand his mother, Rowan, save the girl.  It was not possible.  Somehow, Lasher once again fell for the "get me something from the basement" trick, and Rowan realized just how devastating this purpose of Lasher's really was.  Even before she's fully learned WHAT Lasher's purpose in being reborn in the flesh really is.

Hmmm...  These behind-the-scenes featurettes on amc+'s YouTube channel for each episode...a fun graphic with a link or should I just embed the thang and be done with it?