‘Mayfair Witches’ Boss on That Bloody Finale & What Might Be Next for Rowan in a Season 3

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Mayfair Witches Season 2 finale, “The Innocents.”]

Leave it to those damn Mayfair Witches to turn ankle biters into appetizers! In the second-season finale of the Anne Rice adaptation series, our head witch in charge, Rowan Mayfair (Alexandra Daddario), managed to foil the Scottish Mayfairs’ grisly master plan to breed the hell out of newlywed demon Lasher (Jack Huston) and his baby-dispensing bride Emaleth (Hennesi Schmidt) before slaughtering their myriad (and rapidly growing) spawn. Why kill the kids? Because it turns out their blood is loaded with Lasher’s magical ability to control nature, to create life and reverse death.

With assists from her current beau Lark (Ben Feldman), her ex Ciprien (Tongayi Chirisa) and his Talamasca pals, hilarious cousin Moira (Alyssa Jirrels), oh, and a werewolf, Rowan was able to tap into her newly evolving abilities to take down her relatives and save the lil ones. But alas, she was unable to save Lasher or stop malevolent family patriarch Julien. Having taken over the body of his own son, Cortland (Harry Hamlin), the old man guzzled some of Lasher’s blood, got a serious upgrade and is now, well, reallly powerful. Like flying through the air powerful.

After bidding a sad adieu to her demon lover-slash-son (gonna miss typing that so much), Rowan secretly helped herself to Lasher’s blood as well. Thankfully, she saved enough to take back to the states in hopes of saving sister Jojo (Jen Richards) and cousin Daphne (Olive Abercrombie) from the thrall spell in which she accidentally trapped them. But will it also protect her from the revenge-minded Julien? Is she really done with Lark? How will the Talamasca feel about a witch gaining this much power? We spoke with showrunner Esta Spalding about bringing this chapter of the story to a close and what could be awaiting Rowan and Co. back in New Orleans should the show be renewed for a third season.

Lasher has died so many times but this one feels final. Was there any consideration of extending his storyline into a third season?

Esta Spalding: First of all, we try to honor the books and the storylines of the books and Lasher dies at the end of book two. That’s very much what happens. So it was always a part of the structure of the way we thought about the first two seasons…but nobody’s really ever dead on Mayfair Witches, so there is a possibility of a return. Last time Lasher died in the Middle Ages, he became a spirit and was called down by Suzanne, and that cycle is embedded in Anne Rice’s universe. So it feels like there’s all kinds of possibilities there. And the relationship with Rowan is so wonderful. I mean, I would love to feel some connection there and some possibility of the story coming back. On the other hand, everything’s up in the air… We’re just in that place of like, “Are we going to get Season 3?”

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With his death, it does clear the table for future storytelling for Rowan, because now she’s got no Lark. She has no Lasher. And I spoke with Alexandra and she’s so fascinated by Rowan’s relationship to men and how she sees that, aside from Lasher, men are disposable.

I think that’s right. And I think with Lasher, she had a real intense connection. [Laughs] Whether it was as lovers or as mother and son, there was this bond between them that was about the way he enhanced her power and he gave her power. And that feeling, which was also kind of a sexual feeling, is still there in her and now he’s gone. So what happens to that feeling and that energy, and is it available anywhere else in the world? I think that’s a really excellent question to be asking about the character.

How much fun was that to give Harry this arc to just really go wild? Cortland was on such a redemptive arc where we were starting to see how he wanted to be part of the solution and then gets pulled into the actual problem.

It felt so fun! He’s at the moment that he sort of redeems himself, then to have him be vanquished!? But to have Harry Hamlin again become a bad guy in the show, it was like we used him so much as an antagonist and villain in the first season, for sure, and even in start of the second season. But then we go on this little redemptive arc and then he’s back at square-one, playing the villain again. I don’t know, there was some fun justice in that for the character. [Laughs]

The image of the visual of him floating in…of all of the people on the canvas to have too much power! 

And by the way, there’s behind-the-scenes photos of Harry, between takes on the rig or whatever, playing his guitar as he’s flown back and forth. It’s fantastic.

Did you find that Season 2 gave you the space to add a bit more humor? Alyssa Jirrels had some great moments, and Ben Feldman is always fun.

Right, right. I felt like one of the mandates and missions for this season was to find a way to make the show less earnest, for sure, and that we looked for places to have more comedy and looked for places to spend more time sitting still with the characters, watching them do the small things. There’s still work to do in that direction, to let us be with the characters more and so on, if we’re lucky enough to get a third season. I feel like we started marching that way this season and I’m excited about.

Even though a third season is still to be decided, what are you looking forward to the most of getting to sink your teeth into?

I mean, if we get to sink our teeth into anything. I think that Rowan’s journey now that she has transgressed and understood herself to desire power, and not just for the good things like healing and whatnot, which is what she was telling herself — now that she has had that blood and felt how the power surges in her body and is lying about it, for instance, to Lark, I think that “Transgressive Witch” is an exciting character to follow… There’s sort of a taste of “she’s breaking bad” there at the end of season.

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She’s on that edge of becoming an anti-hero.

But in a way that’s delicious and fun to watch, I think. And obviously it’s so fun to write for Alex.

How could Rowan’s actions and choices this season alter her dynamic with the rest of the Mayfair family?

I think she’s returning back to a family that she’s, in some ways, elevated beyond. She has a power unlike anyone ever in that family and she’s now got to decide how much she sort of leads them and pulls them forward. What does she do with that power as the leader of this family, especially since Julian, who’s the patriarch of the family and a designee, is now her antagonist? So how does the family side, where do they go with him or her?

Are there characters in the books that you’re hoping to get to?

Oh yeah. I mean, again, the books are an embarrassment of riches and we’ve always had so much to work with from them. There’s a wonderful character, kind of a doll maker in Book Three. Taltos kind of starts in a high-rise in New York City and it’s like “Where are we? Oh!” That’s surprising and fun and something that could be like, “Could that add to the show?” Also, we just loved that moment where Emaleth resists and holds onto the one baby. So the question of where is she? What happened to her? Where is that child? What happened to Talamasca Children? I mean, there were just built-in cliffhangers.

Speaking of The Talamasca, you got to seed the upcoming spinoff’s expansion of the universe this season, you got to have the Interview With the Vampire nods. Have there been any further talk about bringing these worlds even closer?

For sure. I mean, we’ve got The Talamasca series now, which is kind of the sort of giant hovering universal agency of Anne Rice’s world, and that gives us new rules and new players and I think it’s going to interact with both of the shows. So we’re going to get to play more in each other’s sandboxes really.

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Will There Be a 'Mayfair Witches' Season 3? Everything We Know So Far

There are Anne Rice fans who wanted this to be a faithful adaptation of the books as they’re laid out, which is not the case and has never been the case. So what would you tell viewers that are still expecting that linear version?

I guess I would say that, in particular for book two and Season 2, Rowan does not have any kind of drive in that book. She’s really a passive character in that book who’s being acted on in many ways, and that’s really hard when you have a dynamic lead actress. You want that character to drive story. And so I think we really wanted to honor so much in that book, but it felt imperative that we let our lead be an active force and not just be acted on and be passive.

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