While a lot of talk about the war to come took its fair share of space in the final episode of season 2 of Mayfair Witches, the real treat was the war that unfolded before our eyes this week. And when it’s war we’re talking about, it’s only obvious that winning would require both sides to adapt to the shifting circumstances. By the end, it’s not just Julien’s unfathomable capacity for treachery that shocks you. You’re also left quite bemused by the morally-opaque complexities of Rowan Mayfair’s character.
Spoiler Alert
Strange Parenthood
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Lasher is deeply in love with his new bride, especially if you remember that their union goes back centuries. They’d even been married before Lasher died. And now that he’s got a second chance at building a family with the love of his life, Lasher’s instincts are on point. He wants Emaleth and their soon-to-come children to follow Rowan back to New Orleans. It’s really too bad that Emaleth feels safe with Ian’s family. Now that she’s about to give birth to a handful of their children, it’s fair that she’d want to stay back somewhere she’s familiar with. Rowan’s got to be feeling a pretty extreme mix of feelings sitting outside Lasher and Emaleth’s room, waiting to become a grandma and likely battling a dark jealousy to stay focused and morally clean. Julien had to have sniffed that out. Why else would he try to get a rise out of Rowan? That was just entertainment for someone as conniving as Julien–the cherry on top of the act of putting Rowan under a sleeping spell. The Mayfair house is alive with the preparation for a certain ominous feast as Lasher’s pulled away from a laboring Emaleth. The Taltos’ magical genetics assure the safe birth of a whole litter. But since they lie to him and tell him that he’s going to be meeting Rowan, Lasher can’t be heading anywhere good. Rowan’s only been kept alive because Julien wants her present for the ceremony. No, not out of the goodness of his heart. It’s got something to do with how powerful Rowan is. Julien believes that having her there will only multiply the powers they’re going to recieve.
The good and the bad
It looks like the Scottish Mayfairs prepared for the Talamasca to interfere with their ceremony. Locked up in the Mayfairs’ dungeon, Polina is lucky that Sip still has that trust chip on him. Even though she’s terrified by the idea of taking the risk, Polina has no other option but to work alongside Sip and distract the guard so that Sip can stick the chip on him. What’s even luckier is that an unconscious Rowan’s thrown into the cell across from theirs. With the guard now on their side, Sip pulls Rowan back to her senses and reassures her that he doesn’t want to hurt Lasher. Until she heard it from Sip’s mouth, Rowan didn’t totally believe that Lasher’d ever been an angelic being. Rowan knows Sip enough to know when he’s telling the truth. If you ask me, I think Julien must’ve had something to do with Rowan getting the complete arsenal of her gifts back. Sip didn’t see how Lasher had died in his previous life. But he does know that after his marriage to Emaleth, he went into the woods with his friends. So that’s where Rowan, Sip, and Polina head in their search for Lasher. But they’re not alone in their search. Moira’s tricked the naive guard and gotten free herself. Under the pretense of being a Mayfair, she does exactly what they were afraid she’d do. She reads their minds like open books. What she finds is more morbid that any of them could’ve imagined. The Taltos aren’t beings of worship to the Scottish Mayfairs. They’re the sacrificial lamb that they mean to consume. They’re fattening up the rapidly-growing children for the feast. Lasher’s fate isn’t too dissimilar to that of his magical children. His throat is sliced open, and his blood fills Julien’s bowl of greed. The tragic gift of Lasher’s blood blooms all around him. But he’s not dead yet. Not if his furious mother has a spell to do about it. While everyone thought that Lasher was gone, Rowan’s magic brought him back. But when she was faced with the fear of losing Lasher, I think it got too hard for Rowan to deny the very convoluted mess of emotions she feels for him. It’s just as well. When have the Mayfairs ever been able to avoid an incestuous mess anyway?
The face-off
As the father of the children the Mayfairs can’t wait to chomp down on, Lasher is a force to be reckoned with. It’s pretty crazy to see how the men in the Mayfair family make the same mistakes that their father made. Abel and Hamish went against their better judgment and chose to do awful things to please their father, a man who’s not very capable of loving them more than he loves himself. But that’s because Ian’s spent his whole life stuck in a similar dynamic with his own father, the master manipulator, Julien Mayfair. Everything he did was to be seen and loved by his dad. What he got in return was the final betrayal. Julien never cared about family. He wanted power more than anything else. And since power lies on Rowan’s side, Julien doesn’t hesitate to backstab his son and undo the stitch that tied Ian to Lark, essentially nicking the only card he held against Rowan. I guess it’s not going to be Ian’s day. But that doesn’t matter too much now that Lasher’s unleashed his hound on Ian. But Ian doesn’t die a coward’s death. Even as his throat is ripped out, his last act is proving how swift he is with his knife. That might be the only way he made dad proud.
Lasher Is Dead For Now
It’s always fun to watch Rowan in a struggle with someone who knows what they’re doing. And who’s a better planner than Julien? His job is made easier when Lasher takes an ax to his chest and, as you’d guess, dies for the second time in the final episode of Mayfair Witches season 2. But unlike the first time, his heart has stopped, and it’s out of Rowan’s hands. Time and again, Lasher has been devastated by the greed of the people of the glen, people he felt nothing but love for. Julien’s perfected the game of exploitation this time around. Centuries ago, the people of the glen had betrayed Lasher and sacrificed him, probably unaware of the gifts that run through the veins of Taltos children. So even if Lasher and Emaleth had had children back then, they might have been sacrificed the same way. It was Julien’s mother who cracked the code of the magic that’s connected to the Taltos’ genetics. And ever since, Julien’s life’s purpose has been drinking Lasher’s blood, consuming his children, and becoming something of a god. Rowan’s powers have kind of changed things up. It’s not that Julien’s powers didn’t skyrocket when he drank Lasher’s blood. I mean, the man can levitate now. But Julien knows that the real power, a world-changing amount of power, can only be found if he combines his strengths with Rowan’s. All that Rowan needs to do is chug her son’s blood if she wishes to achieve the ability to bring the dead back to life. The only hitch is, it isn’t just Rowan who’d get that power. Since her gifts would have to bounce off of Julien’s gifts in order to be amplified, Julien would also get to become all-powerful. It’s not the worst deal if she really wants to bring Lasher back to life. But a super powerful Julien would be unstoppable. Lucky for her, Sip and the Talamasca have bought her some time by rescuing Lasher’s children and diverting Julien’s focus. It’s really too bad that he’s now able to summon lightning. Even though all the children and the Talamasca agents go through the fortified wall and get away to safety, Polina’s smoked by Julien’s lightning strike.
Rowan goes home
The Mayfairs have really done a number on Rowan. For someone who desperately clung to her identity, she’s been very accepting of some big changes in who she is. One of those significant moments is marked by Rowan drinking Lasher’s blood and feeling the surge of its untamable power coursing through her veins. There’s no telling if Julien was being honest about the gift of resurrection. But either way, seeing as she drank the blood by herself, I don’t think that Rowan was able to resurrect Lasher. On her way home with Moira and Lark, Rowan does Lark a favor by telling him what she’s about to do next. I don’t think Lark knows that Rowan has drunk the blood that they’re taking back to New Orleans, but he does find it odd how Rowan’s eyes light up talking about the blood. Even if he’s on board with Rowan using her gift to help people seeking medical counsel, he can’t get behind her dangerous fight against Julien. So they cut their losses before it gets too hard, and Lark sips on the tea that’ll make him forget Rowan. When all is said and done, Rowan is able to achieve what she set out for when she went to Scotland. We don’t get to see what happens inside the decaying Mayfair house on First Street, but we hear enough happy sounds to surmise that Rowan was able to bring Jojo and Daphne back from the thrall. But while that’s joyful and everything, Rowan better watch out when it comes to Julien. He’s already keeping an eye on her.
