Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches – What Rough Beast

By: Kelly Kearney

Last week’s penultimate episode died in a blaze of no-glory when Rowan failed to save her cousin, Tessa, from the flames of the local witch hunters. As Tessa lay dying in Rowan’s arms, the younger Mayfair designee handed back her necklace so her cousin could call out to Lasher for help. Let’s dive into what that demon has in store for Rowan and just exactly what is this prophecy tying them together.

The Chase is On!

Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) is chasing the murderous Keith (Ian Hochs) through the woods. That’s when Lasher (Jack Huston) pops out and offers to find Keith and hold him accountable for Tessa’s (Madison Wolfe) death. He manages to track him down hiding in a shed and, since he is bonded to Rowan, she’s able to see everything through his eyes and vice versa. She orders Lasher to kill Keith, but she immediately does it by burning the shed down. Live by the flame die by the flame and with that the final witch hunter is now dead. In the woods Rowan kneels down in the mud smiling at what her mind sees turning to ash.

Elsewhere, JoJo (Jen Richards) and her father, Cortland (Harry Hamlin), get the horrifying call about Tessa’s death, as well as the witch hunters who kidnapped her. They immediately assume Rowan killed Tessa’s murderers and that prompts JoJo to ask her father why he seems so obsessed with their new cousin. She tells him she deserves answers since she has broken her own rules about using her gift to look into the future to help him through his ALS diagnosis. Cortland doesn’t budge and instead brushes JoJo’s concerns off which angers his daughter and she storms out.

When we catch up with Ciprien (Tongayi Chirisa) he’s still with Albrecht (Dennis Boutsikaris) who happens to take a call secretly with Cortland Mayfair. Ciprien figures it out and feels a bit betrayed by the man he considered a Telamascan mentor. Without realizing it Ciprien removes his glove and shakes Albrecht’s hand which allows him to use his power to read the man’s memories. Unfortunately, he can’t see anything and that’s when he realizes Albrecht, who claimed he didn’t have any powers, actually does. He has the power to erase memories and it seems like he was probably the one who erased Deidre’s (Annabeth Gish) death from the elevator. When Ciprien tried to read what happened in the witch’s final moments everything was blank and now he knows Albrecht was behind it. He didn’t kill Deidre but now Ciprien is fairly certain Cortland was behind it to fulfill Lasher’s prophecy, but why? When Ciprien confronts Albrecht, he attempts to erase his mind but thinks twice after Ciprien reminds him that part of the prophecy says Rowan will have a child and he just learned she’s pregnant with his baby. He needs his memories intact if Albrecht’s prophecy is going to play out and, for now, that’s an insurance policy for his memories.

Back in the woods with a pretty nasty shoulder wound thanks to Keith’s gun, Rowan is still kneeling in the mud but her mind is elsewhere. Lasher transports her to a place we’ve seen before and it looks like 1600s Scotland, where this prophecy and her family’s magic began. Meanwhile, at Ciprien’s apartment, his sister Odette (Keyara Milliner) finds a business card for the Telamasca’s New Orleans office and assumes they might have some information about her missing brother. She knows he works for them, although what they do she isn’t sure. The receptionist who answers her call refuses to help her locate her brother and acts as if she had never heard of Ciprien before. The call leaves Odette frustrated and worried about where he could be and if he is okay. When the receptionist hangs up the phone she makes an announcement to everyone that there has been a breach and we can assume she means Ciprien’s sister is sniffing around their secret order. Speaking of Odette’s brother, Cip heads to Cortland’s house where he meets up with JoJo and she figures out he’s looking for Rowan. He touches various things in Cortland’s office until he comes across a memory attached to a party mask and whatever he reads stuns him. That’s when we head back to Scotland where Lasher is talking about the pact he made with Suzanne (Hannah Alline)– the first Mayfair witch, which was plotted out in etchings she made on the walls of the room they’re standing in.  Lasher tells Rowan that Suzanne left them for her and each one is an example of this language he created with the woman that now Rowan understands. When she touches the markings of her ancestor on the wall, the wound on her shoulder instantly heals. This shocking discovery delights Lasher who tells her she’s the only one of the Mayfairs that has the power to cure people if she chooses – not a bad skill to have for a neurosurgeon. This magical tidbit excited Rowan enough to fall into bed with Lasher and unify their bond.

Cortland’s Secrets

Back at Ciprien’s apartment his sister tries to hack into his computer to find out where he could be. That’s when Albrecht shows up to deal with the Talamasca breach. He lets Odette think that he’s going to help her find her brother, but in reality he just wipes her memory – not caring about the fact that the woman just had a child and there’s no telling if that baby was included in the brainwashing. Speaking of her brother, the memories attached to the party mask leave Ciprien disgusted and enraged. He sees Cortland wearing the mask as a disguise as he not only chokes a man to death but sneaks up on Deidre while she is fast asleep. All the pieces of this sick and twisted puzzle are coming together so when JoJo spots Ciprien’s horror she demands answers. What she learns about her father cannot be unheard. Ciprien tells her that Cortland raped the sleeping Deidre so that Rowan could be born. JoJo is Rowan’s half-sister! He goes on to explain that once Rowan came to town Cortland had Deidre killed so her daughter could assume the prophecy’s throne as the thirteenth witch.

Speaking of the prophecy, after they have sex Rowan’s first trimester becomes her last thanks to Lasher’s demon seed. As her belly swells, she doesn’t understand what is happening to her any more than she knows what that blackness, like a shadow, is spreading across the walls of this Scottish hut. The clock ticks towards the witching hour as we see a desperate Rowan too distracted by her visions to notice a man dragging her unconscious body through the woods.

Now that she knows what her father has done, JoJo hands Ciprien a family relic that contains most of the Mayfair women’s memories. She might love her father but what he has done is unforgivable and she will do what she can to help Ciprien save her half-sister. Once he touches the relic he is transported back to Scotland where he sees Lasher talking about the witching hour and something about “over the bones.” This catches JoJo’s attention and once Ciprien is back in the present she takes him to the family’s mausoleum–the same one that had a plaque with Rowan’s assumed death date we saw earlier in the season. Unfortunately, nothing is secret in a family of magic wielders because Dolly Jean (Charlayne Woodard) catches on to what is going on and tells Jojo that Lasher is “ripening.” Ciprien realizes where Rowan is and takes off to find her while JoJo fills Dolly Jean in on what her father has been doing.

The Ripening

We soon find out who was dragging Rowan through the woods when we see Cortland toss the muddy and bloody pregnant woman into the backseat of his car! Not that she has any idea of what is happening in the present because she is still in dreamland, having conversations with Antha (Chelsea Edmundson) in the Mayfair mansion about the woman’s clock sketches. Everything is about time now, as the witching hour approaches, and Rowan heads upstairs to her mother’s bedroom where Deidre is waiting for her – armed with the truth about this prophecy. The woman tells her daughter to look at her watch which shows it’s midnight. That means Lasher has “run out the clock. ” She says, “It’s the witching hour. He will be embodied.” But what does that have to do with Rowan and her quickly growing-fetus? Deidre explains that Rowan cannot escape Lasher because he is inside of her; he is the baby! The ripening will end when the prophecy is fulfilled by birth! While Rowan’s mind is stuck in the Mayfair Mansion with her mother, we see Cortland dragging her body inside the family mausoleum. Dolly Jean tells JoJo that Cortland has always been a selfish man, ever since he was a child. The story about what he did to Deidre must be about saving his own life from the quick decline of his ALS diagnosis and Dolly is not surprised. All of this is about saving himself and to hell with the women in his family–including his daughters. Inside the mausoleum Rowan wakes up to the ghost of Suzanne who induces labor and delivers Rowan’s baby. Cortland watches the entire scene unfold from the dark corner of the room.

Meanwhile, Ciprien is desperate to find Rowan, so he puts a call into Albrecht to try and convince him that protecting the witch from Lasher will save her baby and ultimately the prophecy. Albrecht reminds him that his job is as an “observer” and the Talamasca doesn’t interfere. It’s almost as if Albrecht knows something about this prophecy that he doesn’t.

With the umbilical cord cut, Suzanne tells Rowan that if she embraces her son he will give her more power than any Mayfair had before her. But when the baby’s head starts to stretch and grow, Rowan freaks out and hands the baby back. She takes off running through the shadowy halls of the dead. From behind we see the baby crawling towards her, determined to be accepted by its mother. That’s when Cortland makes his presence known as he attempts to take the child – something he claims he’s earned. He says he did all of this for their family, but Rowan knows he’s lying as he did it for himself and his own survival hoping that the reborn demon will owe him one. Again, he tries to convince her to leave New Orleans and her child behind with a promise that he will take care of the three-minute-old toddler just like Ellie cared for her. Rowan is homicidal over what she now knows her uncle did to her mother. However, when she makes an attempt to use her powers to kill him, it doesn’t work! Lasher’s rebirth made Cortland immortal and now she can’t touch him. It’s a bet he shouldn’t have taken because in her rage Rowan goes full-fledged Medusa on her uncle-daddy and turns the immortal man into stone. Never underestimate a witch who just got a power boost courtesy of her baby demon daddy son!

Now that Rowan has embraced her child she exits the mausoleum and runs right into Ciprien who had some help from Albrecht in locating her. She can tell her protector is eyeing up the pale-skinned boy he assumed was his son and now clearly knows isn’t. He can tell Rowan is exhausted–I mean she did 9 months of pregnancy in under an hour, so he asks to hold their boy to give her a break. Rowan gets the feeling like Ciprien isn’t being honest and also feels as if someone else is there with them. She tells him she feels like they are being watched and questions if it could be the Talamasca keeping tabs on her. Ciprien comes clean, admitting someone is there but it was just the person who helped him find her. He goes on to try to convince her of Lasher’s evil influence that could be infecting her mind, but Rowan isn’t interested in his concern. In fact, with a cold demeanor, she agrees with him that the demon is inside of her because he is actually her son. Horrified by that fact, Ciprien pleads with Rowan to come with him because this bond she has with the devil can only end in her demise. She practically laughs him off because now that she is one with Lasher, she is in control of her magic–not him. She refuses to allow her son to be taken from her the way she was ripped from Deidre’s arms, but Ciprien doesn’t think she knows the danger she is putting herself in. “You can’t control him!” he says, but Rowan fires back, “You can’t control me!” That’s when she leaves Ciprien behind and walks towards the Mayfair mansion ready to raise the curse that ruined thirteen generations of her family.