Last week’s episodeofMayfair Witchesended in a bloody mess! Rowan (Alexandra Daddario) made her way to New Orleans to learn more about who she is and where she comes from. Meanwhile, her biological mother Deirdre (Annabeth Gish) got nostalgic in her old childhood bedroom and was visited yet again by Lasher (Jack Huston). The episode ended on a rather ominous note when the hotel elevators opened in front of Rowan to reveal Deirdre, who, within seconds of locking eyes with her daughter, has her neck slit open by a mysterious invisible force and bleeds out on the elevator floor. Where does Rowan go from here? It’s time to unpack Episode 3, “Second Line.”
Remember Scotland? We’re back there now with Suzanne (Hannah Alline), who is frantically trying to heal a woman who was mauled by a bear. Suzanne is a midwife and treasures being able to bring life into the world but doesn’t like to think about the very real possibility of death. After some convincing by the pleading woman, she agrees to use Henbane, a plant that one could surmise will bring out some of her witchy ways and hopefully heal the woman.
But oh man, the elevator in New Orleans. It opens to reveal the mostly-severed neck of the bloody Deirdre, who is lifeless and being cradled in the arms of her daughter Rowan, who is absolutely shell-shocked. The hotel guests are understandably horrified (one of them being Carlotta), and Rowan is promptly interrogated by a cop. It’s pretty hard for them to buy that she didn’t know this woman but saw her severed neck and decided to approach her, but she tries to tell them that she’s a doctor and wanted to help. Do we think she knew it was her mother?
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Carlotta (Beth Grant) wastes no time in formally introducing herself to Rowan, telling her that she’s her great aunt and the woman who died in her arms was indeed her mother, Deirdre. She wants to bring her to be “safe” at the Mayfair mansion, but Rowan clocks Ciprien (Tongayi Chirisa) outside and runs through traffic to get to him. Ciprien takes her to his apartment, er, safe house (the security is intense), and begins to offer his condolences, though Rowan only wants answers. Why does he have pictures of her on his phone? He’s trying to protect her. The Talamasca has been around since the Middle Ages, and they track the “unexplained” and, well, Rowan and the rest of the Mayfairs are tricky to explain. In order to protect her, he has to get a sense of her routine and daily life. Okay, Ciprien, that’s still a little stalker-y.
Ciprien explains from one of the pictures about the Mayfair house and Lasher, the “being” that visited Deirdre that they were worried would start visiting Rowan. After Ciprien convinces someone he works with at the Talamasca that he will be fine watching over Rowan in his apartment, a team applies protections to the building for extra precaution. (Guess Rowan is far more powerful than we can imagine.) But, as Ciprien insists,sheis the one in danger the most. In the Mayfair mansion, Carlotta cries and tells her friend that she failed Deirdre and God, the latter of whom must be angry and “looking for his whore.” They try to figure out a way to get Rowan to go to them rather than Cortland (Harry Hamlin), and decide that hosting a wake for Deirdre would be a safe bet. And the necklace? Carlotta took it off Deirdre and has a plan to “bind” it to someone. After all, that’s how it’s always worked in the past.
Rowan makes herself comfortable at Ciprien’s and inquires about his intense glove collection. He explains that he has to wear gloves because his gift is that anything he touches, he can see into its past, a particular moment connected to the object, all involuntarily. He can’t turn this gift off, and thus, the gloves. But Rowan’s gift is so strong that gloves don’t even work on her. Not all the Mayfairs have gifts (Cortland and Carlotta included), but then again not much is known about them. Cortland has more earthly power in that he owns the hotel and is overall incredibly wealthy and influential.
So how long had Ellie (Erica Gimpel) been in touch with Ciprien? Rowan learns that she called him for the first time at the hospital, though we find out that she had been in contact with Ciprien’s predecessor for years. In fact, she reported the playground incident that she told Rowan was all in her head. (Gaslight, much?) Ciprien tells Rowan that she can’t leave his apartment, and he sets off for the hotel, where Cortland is understandably horrified to see the bloody aftermath of his great-niece’s death. He heads to the bathroom to collect himself, and he is startled when a piece of glass bursts through the window and slices his cheek. Of course, it’s Lasher, who is angry and emotional that his beloved Deirdre is gone. But Cortland reassures him that his “time has come” now that the 13th witch is here. Hmm, could that be Rowan? Yes. Lasher is frustrated because he knows Rowan isn’t like the others. She’s more powerful. Rowan, meanwhile, is still on house arrest. Ciprien’s sister Odette (Keyara Milliner) pops by to pick something up (a pair of gold heels) and asks if Rowan is dating her brother. Rowan explains that it’s a work thing, and Odette’s response indicates that Ciprien tells his loved ones he works in some sort of high-up, secretive government position. Thanks to an alarm going off in the building, Rowan is able to leave the apartment and decides to track down the Mayfair house.
Carlotta has quite the sinister plan cooking. She sits down with long-time caretaker Delphine (Deneen Tyler) and praises her for her loyalty to the Mayfairs for over 40 years. (Remember, Delphine is the one who looked the other way and let Deirdre escape.) Carlotta lies and says that Deirdre leftthenecklace to Delphine, and requests she put it on. Though she feels unworthy to wear such a prized heirloom, she puts it on and heads to the cellar to grab something as Carlotta requested. But, turns out, Carlotta is full of it, and really sent Delphine to the cellar with the necklace as punishment for letting Deirdre out of her sight. If Lasher is now bound to Delphine, then he will no longer be the Mayfairs' problem.
Rowan wanders the busy streets of a nighttime New Orleans and comes across a lively funeral procession. A woman strikes up a conversation with her about the afterlife and convinces her to share a colorful drink with her (would you trust a stranger who gave you a drink in a test tube?) and Rowan is immediately affected. For a moment, the stranger in question changes to Lasher, so now we know that he’s the one behind all this. Ciprien grows frustrated when his gift fails him in the infamous elevator and isn’t able to show him memories from the night Deirdre died. Rowan gets more into the procession-turned-party and is taken by Lasher, who teases her from afar. The two get close to one another and flirt. Rowan’s vision blurs on and off, and she has trouble trusting what she sees. It looks like zombified humans have joined in on the fun, and the man that died that the people are remembering might also be there too? Lasher tells Rowan that “the dead are with us always,” which just adds more confusion to Rowan’s day. The two kiss, and Lasher tells her that she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.
Ciprien visits the morgue in the hopes of connecting with the dearly departed Deirdre. The man in the morgue is surprisingly relaxed with having Ciprien in the room, who said he just started on a forensics rotation. The worker is a little peeved at Ciprien’s simple questions, telling him that he better hurry with whatever he needs because rules don’t apply to Mayfairs, and Deirdre won’t have to wait for embalming. Ciprien cranks up the weird by placing his hand on Deirdre’s forehead. This time, his powers work, and he’s able to see the moment she gave birth to Rowan and Carlotta whisked Rowan away.
Lasher, the sneaky bastard, walks ahead of Rowan in the crowd, and Rowan follows after him. She finds herself in front of the Mayfair house and is visited by a very much alive Deirdre, who is so excited to see Rowan. She tells her that she’s perfect and that they are both alive, and that she is “beginning to see the world behind the world.” She also tells Rowan that she was told she died shortly after being born and that she never would have given her up. She encourages her to open her mind in order to transform and connect to her blood family, though Rowan doesn’t want to transform. Deirdre then references “him” which becomes a major red flag for Rowan. This isn’t her mother, this is the being that haunts her family. A disoriented Rowan backs away, then eventually wakes up on the street. Did all of that really happen?
Ciprien tells someone on the phone about a drawing he sent them that seems to recount what he saw in the elevator when he touched Deirdre. He said he saw a man stop it to get in with her, which is strange considering he had trouble seeing what happened in the elevator before. The man from the morgue earlier stops Ciprien and tells him that he knows he isn’t really a medical student and hands him a flier for a Brotherhood rally. Ciprien tries to act like he doesn’t know what the man is talking about, though he doubles down and tells him that the Mayfairs are witches, saying, “You just touched the body of a real goddamn witch!” Ciprien arrives home to see that his apartment building is surrounded by fire trucks, and he places his hand on the brick to reveal that Lasher started the fire to get Rowan out of the building. The most disturbing part of the episode occurs back in the Mayfair house cellar with Delphine, who is under the control of an irate Lasher, who does not want her to have the necklace. Delphine is busy bashing her skull against the wall, her necklace getting covered in blood.
Back at Ciprien’s place, he fills Rowan in on his struggles in the elevator and tells her that he felt Deirdre’s heartbreak when Rowan was taken from her when he touched Deirdre in the morgue. Ciprien encourages her to go all in and discover the full extent of her powers so that she can protect herself. He agrees to go into those vulnerable moments and slow them down to see how it all works. Now sharing trust in one another, the two hold each other’s hands and prepare for the unknown. Their faces are illuminated by what they see, which causes them to cry and stare in awe. What, or who, are they looking at?
