Aahana Swrup
After the ferocious conclusion of season 1, ‘Mayfair Witches‘ sets its protagonist up for a whole new and unexpected adventure in season 2. Episode 1, titled ‘Lasher,’ finds Rowan Fielding/Mayfair in the early—and later—days of motherhood as her spawn, young Lasher in his human form, ages as rapidly as he had during the pregnancy days. While the new mom looks after her son, she simultaneously tries to understand the full breadth of the prophecy behind his birth. For now, her newfound powers keep her and Lasher safe even as a threat—which apparently includes her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child, empath Ciprien Grieve—brews on the horizon. Furthermore, another unpredictable friend or foe enters the narrative. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Rowan and Lasher’s Eerie Childhood
While Rowan retreats to a well-fortified townhouse with her newborn, she continues fighting off the real Lasher in her dreams as he tries to get to her son. Nonetheless, an even creepier reality awaits the outside of her dreams, where she realizes that her son is rapidly aging, going from a baby to a babbling toddler in a matter of hours. His appetite remains in line with his swift growth—as does his childish temper. Still, Rowan looks after him—christening him Lasher— with care while her medical mind compels her to study him, tracking his behavior and emotions. Moreover, the kid’s fast-paced aging leads her to wonder whether he’s truly human or not.
This further sparks her curiosity regarding Lasher’s motives for giving up his supernatural form to be reborn as a human at the cost of relinquishing all his powers to Rowan. Initially, she tries to reach out to Dolly Jean Mayfair, who is knowledgeable about the prophecy, to crack the mystery. Nonetheless, the woman is of little help and only guides the young mom toward her uncle/father, Cortland, who might know the answers. Still, Rowan—who has been keeping Cortland in her basement since turning him to stone, decides against lifting the curse off the troublesome man. Instead, she tries to look for clues in Catherine—one of the Mayfair designees, who has no interest in entertaining Lasher’s antics.
While the notebook sheds some light on the family history, it does not reveal Lasher’s plans. Meanwhile, with each passing day, young Lasher grows more and more menacing. When Rowan attempts to gauge answers from him, despite his limited knowledge and memory, he proves to be another dead end. Eventually, she decides to seek answers the old-fashioned way and uses a sample of his blood—covertly retrieved—to run some tests in the local hospital lab. Her previous life as a neurosurgeon makes the process fairly easy for her—and allows her the space to discover the good that her new powers can achieve as she uses them to heal a cancer patient.
Moira Mayfair Rolls into Town
Not every Mayfair is thrilled at Rowan’s fulfillment of Lasher’s prophecy. Yet, none are quite as displeased as perhaps Moira. She is a Mayfair cousin and sister of Tessa Mayfair, the young witch who died during a complication involving Rowan and Lasher. Her sister arrives at the Mayfair manor to visit her grave and remains bewildered at the easy acceptance of Tessa’s demise from the family. Inversely, Moira is frustrated at the fact that Lasher simply allowed her sister to succumb to her death without any interference. She blames him for Tessa’s death—rightfully so—and is prepared to seek vengeance.
Expectedly, neither Dolly Jean nor Rowan takes very well to her intentions. They both want to protect young Lasher, with Rowan arguing that he’s only a child with no memories of the entity Lasher’s actions. However, Moira accuses her cousin of protecting him because she’s gaining extra power from him. While it is true that Lasher’s birth has made Rowan significantly more powerful, and his close proximity only enhances that power, the mother’s real motives behind protecting the kid remain nuanced. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Moira holds no sympathy for her or her son in her tunnel-visioned mission to figure out the truth about what happened to Tessa.
Unwittingly, this sharp-minded focus on vengeance and bitterness toward her family makes Moira the ideal tool for another party at play. Since Rowan took off with Lasher and boarded up her house with defense, Ciprien Grieve hasn’t been able to contact either his ex-girlfriend or the kid, who is technically his child. However, the empath has no interest in forming any family bonds. Instead, he believes young Lasher to be another malevolent force who has manipulated Rowan into caring for him. Therefore, he’s more interested in eliminating the kid from the board.
In his undertaking of the task, Ciprien remains in hiding from both Rowan and his old employers at Talamasca. For the same reason, he has been recording his memories in arbitrary objects and keeping them safe in case his boss erases his memories. Nonetheless, as it turns out, his boss is equally interested in catching Lasher because he considers him a threat to the world. Still, even with Talamasca’s help, Ciprien can’t bypass Rowan’s security, which is only open to other Mayfairs. Therefore, if Moira—the mind reader who is grossly unpopular among her relatives—has the same target as Ciprien, a possible team-up may be in the works for the pair.
Lasher’s Teenage Rebellion Ends in Blood
While Rowan takes a day out to the hospital to get Lasher’s genetic testing underway—with the help of an old friend, Lark, who agrees to complete the testing off-record—Lasher grows into a teenager under Jean Dolly’s babysitting. Consequently, Moira’s impromptu visits push him to wonder about his past actions and Tessa’s demise. In the conversation between him and his mother that follows, Rowan tries to parse out an answer from him about his motivations behind taking on a human form. Idealistically, she wants to believe Lasher’s transformation is a way for him to help people.
Since Lasher has given up his powers to Rowan after his birth, the latter can achieve unbelievable feats of magic, including healing. These powers are heightened and more easily accessible when the witch is near her son. Therefore, she reasons that Lasher must have wanted her to have these powers and help others. However, the teenager denies the claims. Yet, before he can reveal otherwise, his attempts at kissing a horrified Rowan push her to reprimand him—especially when he tries to confess his wild, Oedipal love. As a result, the sharp rejection compels Lasher to sneak out of the house and stumble across a party in an alley.
There, Lasher meets a young girl and dances with her for a while. However, the night ends in some sort of disaster as the teenager finds himself carrying her bloodied body back to his house, crying out for his mother to save the girl. The exact details behind her death remain ambiguous, but the boy seems distraught over the event. Still, Rowan clearly believes he must have had something to do with it. As such, she tricks and traps him in the basement while putting herself on the job of hiding the dead body herself.
While Rowan is out of the house, Lasher attempts a jailbreak by breaking and climbing through the basement window. Once he emerges on the other side, another transformation takes place, aging the teenager into the adult Lasher everyone has known all this time. The additional revelation that the dead girl is Lucy Mayfair adds another puzzle piece to the board. It’s likely that teenage Lasher sought Lucy out, specifically due to her Mayfair connections. Even so, details around her death remain hazy. Furthermore, now that Lasher has grown up to his previous form, one can’t help but wonder if it would carve the path for the return of his previous villainy.
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