Mayfair Witches Season 2 Review: Still Waiting to See Rice’s Mayfairs

I tried to give this series’ first season the benefit of the doubt and allow that quite a bit of Anne Rice’s Mayfair trilogy might not be easy to adapt for modern-day TV, but after watching Mayfair Witches Season 2, I realize I should’ve been much more honest about its failings from the start. Because if this is taking the feedback and rolling with it? Oy. AMC’s other series based on Rice’s work, Interview with the Vampire, does something fresh and new with her characters and her story while still making them her characters and her story. But this…isn’t that.

I’d even argue it’s not an adaptation at all. Instead, it comes across as nothing more than borrowing a handful of character names and scenarios, defanging them — who cares if the vampire pun’s intended even though no vampires play a major role here (yet)? Maybe it is, maybe not — and writing a book report using only the CliffsNotes. Not even the full CliffsNotes either, mind you, but a very brief, surface-level skimming of a few random pages.

If that sounds harsh, well…let’s just say that’s what happens when you don’t let your frustrations out properly the first go around. Probably the most annoying thing here is that Season 2 has some moments where it seems like it just might capture the preternatural darkness — or, at the very least, that sense of something being off that sets you on edge — that Rice was always so good at creating, only to offer zero payoff. The series spends a little bit of time at the beginning of the season on tip-toeing right up to the line of feeling “Riceian” (to borrow from IWTV star Sam Reid). But then, it suddenly sprints so far in the opposite direction, it would be impressive if it weren’t so frustrating.

Case in point: There should be a certain dawning horror in watching Lasher grow, and consume, at the rate he does. Unfortunately, it’s kinda like “oh, yes they’re going th—…meh.” Even with that being said, Season 2’s first episode is easily its best. The very first scene opens the season in a style that gives viewers the tiniest tease of what bringing this story to TV could’ve been. But, well. Not long after, it’s just a big, magical oops that spirals into a series of events that would be hilarious if it weren’t so frustrating.

Instead of horror — or a complicated, problematic, and fascinatingly dark AF family history — a lot of this season comes across as a bad comedy. Which, again. The potential to tell the family history was there — especially with Deirdre in Season 1! — but the series, yet again, fails to capture the magic. To set the lowest bar possible: Let’s look at Rowan. It would be great to make the central character come across as, I don’t know, capable. Or intelligent. Perhaps powerful. Just one would do! Instead, she’s just as wide-eyed and feckless as ever.

In fact, a lot of Mayfair Witches Season 2 sees Rowan just irritatingly fumbling through. She’s totally and absurdly at a loss of control of her own powers, her own situation, and her own destiny. In Rice’s novels, for all the building blocks that wouldn’t play well for modern audiences, there was a plausible reason for Rowan to lack agency — deplorable as it was. Here…no. Cortland’s also, for lack of a better word, goofy. One kind of starts to wonder if this is what the people involved with this series think of Southerners. And don’t get us started on the innocent bystander who gets yanked into the mix, purely against any reason or his own capacity to cope. Think of it this way: Anne Rice’s writing is full of absurdities that somehow work against all odds. On the other hand, Season 2 is just an exercise in absurdity.

The creative team is, apparently, deathly allergic to the worst of Rice’s narrative impulses. Which, honestly, isn’t bad in and of itself. But, well. You’ve got to give something, aside from buffoonery, for conflict. And Mayfair Witches Season 2 simply doesn’t. In fact, in some ways, it does one even worse. Admittedly, it feels almost impossible to drive this point home without going into specifics. But let’s just say that if you’re going to avoid well-known plot points because they’re too triggering, then your choices are to fully avoid them or to, at bare minimum, not present the character committing the acts as some sort of helpless, innocent lamb who had full consent…and kept seeking that consent, repeatedly, despite the consequences. Especially when readers know he is, in fact, neither innocent nor helpless and has never, not once, cared about consent. 

As far as the character of Lasher goes, here are a couple more thoughts. One, see what I said above about the lamb. And two, there seems to be, perhaps, a bit of confusing him with another member of his species. Either that, or I was too checked out to catch them not blending the characters at random. But, well. Isn’t character-mixing par for the course? At least the Michael Curry/Aaron Lightner mashup had a chance to work, difficult as eventually merging this world with Lestat’s became as a result. Here, I simply can’t bring myself to even pretend to say the same. Oh! And without giving anything away, there’s a name that pops up this season that legitimately had me seeing red.

MORE: See which clip gave us high hopes for Mayfair Witches Season 2. And here’s our, in retrospect, overly-kind Season 1 review (but we stand by what we said about Annabeth Gish killing it as Deirdre).

Some more thoughts on Mayfair Witches Season 2

Oddly — or perhaps predictably, given the seeming lack of understanding about what many of us who love Rice’s work are drawn to — enough, the most interesting character in Mayfair Witches Season 2 is a random cousin. Alyssa Jirrels brings something to Moira Mayfair that’s quite interesting. If only she had the richness of Rice’s storytelling to work with. As it is, well, she does her best. And that best, coupled with those opening moments of Episode 1, is the best Season 2 has to offer. Moira is a character I’d love to see as her own thing, in her own story. That’s probably the best compliment I can give to any of this.

Sure, there will be folks who only know these characters because of Season 1, who might like or dislike this latest season for what it is. But, well. Not here. Moira aside, even if I pretend this has nothing to do with Anne Rice, I’m out. Overall, let’s just say maybe it’s best to stick to writing new “witch” stories, leave Lasher and his kind to someone better equipped to deal with them, and avoid the name Mayfair altogether. In that case, Mayfair Witches Season 2 could be fun for viewers who enjoy “goofy family screwups with a hint that something sinister could’ve happened in some AU fanfic.” And those of us who prefer to see Anne Rice’s characters come to life can wait to check out what Rockstar Lestat’s up to when he returns. 

Oh. And…whatever you do, don’t think about how that world and this one, technically, are supposed to be the same. Because, uh, if we ever get to the point where they’re supposed to have a major crossover? Yikes. How. Just how. And I’ve got another question, actually. How is it possible that the vampires got such brilliant treatment, while the witches just got burned?

Mayfair Witches Season 2 premieres Sunday, January 5 on AMC and AMC+.