In this week’s episode of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, Deidre gets a taste of freedom as Rowan spirals even further. With Ciprien’s investigating becoming more obvious, Rowan must decide whether to face the darkness she can feel inside. Meanwhile, Lasher waits for his chance to strike. Read on to find out what happened in “The Dark Place”!
Into the Woods
In 1681, Suzanne and her sister Florie look for herbs in the woods to help their healer mother as a man stalks her. Suzanne appears to recognize him and sends her sister away in fear. As she pleasures him to get him to go away, a flock of crows flies away during the act (not ominous at all!).
Sexual Healing
In her drugged state, Lasher appears to Deidre to tell her that he’s found her daughter Rowan. She wants to see her, but Lasher tells her the only way to do it is for her to wake up. Her body in the real world starts weeping as she begins to regain consciousness, much to the concern of her nurse Delphine.
Lasher can feel Deidre starting to wake, but it’s not happening fast enough. He gently reminds her that even when she received shock therapy against her will, she was able to find him by reciting the words her own mother had taught her. He urges her to remember again and she does, waking up with a start. The doctor who has secretly been throwing away the sedatives urges her to be patient and that he will bring a lawyer friend by to help her escape the family. Deidre appreciates his efforts, but she knows they don’t have weeks to plot.
Alone in her room, she explores and finds her necklace from Lasher. When she puts it on, he appears to her and reassures her that he will give her the strength to leave the house. He also tells her that he is guiding Rowan to New Orleans. Free for the first time in years with her demon lover finally in corporeal form again, Deidre lets her other desires come to the surface as she and Lasher have sex. In a creepy psychic moment, Rowan feels all the sensations as Deidre experiences them (we simply don’t have time to unpack all the layers on this one, folks).
Turns out Deidre wasn’t being super subtle during her demon tryst as Delphine heard the whole thing. As she brushes Deidre’s hair, she quietly compares it to that one time they had to drag a bunch of feral raccoons out of the basement (harsh, lady). She doesn’t betray Deidre and continues to pretend to care for her, even letting her run away when the others leave to go to an event.
Deidre runs to her uncle Cortland, who feigns relief at her return while apologizing for doing absolutely nothing and letting her rot down the street for 30 years. Noticing her necklace, he nervously asks where “he” is. Deidre says she never knows where Lasher is despite their connection. She also tells him about Rowan, to his genuine shock. Using her connection to Lasher, she projects him into Rowan’s hotel room to figure out where she is. When he tries to reach for Rowan as she showers, Deidre pulls him away via their link. He sees the name of her hotel in New Orleans before he blinks out of existence again. She wakes up in delight as Cortland offers to have his driver take her to the hotel.
Turns out, the hotel is the same one where Carlotta is a guest for a luncheon. She sense Deidre’s presence as soon as she arrives. Carlotta grabs her and tries to get her to leave, but Deidre silences her with, “You understand that if I’m awake now, so is he?” She rushes upstairs to find Rowan while Carlotta clutches her throat in fear.
Can’t Lie To My Heart
When the episode opens, Rowan calls her adoption agency and is shocked to discover that the agency has only been open since the mid 1990s — after her birth. More importantly, even though Ellie had assured her that she was looking for her birth parents, the woman on the phone has never heard from her. To make matters worse, she’s being followed by a black vehicle she doesn’t recognize. As she drinks to numb the pain, she hears voices calling to her.
When she checks the surgery rotation schedule, she finds she’s been sidelined. Dr. Keck is concerned about her mental state after her mother’s death and insists she see a psychiatrist to clear her for work. She lies through her teeth about how she’s doing in the belief that work keeps her grounded. It appears to work at first, but then the doctor asks her about Daniel Lumley’s death. It’s meant kindly, but the doctor starts experiencing a migraine. Realizing what’s happening, Rowan runs before she can hurt her. When she gets to her car, it’s covered in bird droppings. Even more ominously, a group of crows all fly away while one immediately dies and lands on her car (talk about a lousy Monday morning, am I right?).
She tries to bury the crow at a local beach and lies down in exhaustion. Suddenly, she finds herself in a hyper realistic dream, wearing a beautiful dress and standing in front of the Mayfair home. Ellie calls to her and she tries to follow, but can’t quite catch her.
Meanwhile, Ciprien takes the opportunity to break into Rowan’s boat. Everything he touches provokes a strong emotional reaction as he sees Rowan’s pain and how badly she’s been doing since losing her mother. He reaches the parking lot as Rowan leaves the hospital, following her to the beach. He calls his superiors and suggests telling her who she really is, pointing out that when he first discovered his powers, he was lost too. But his boss points out that if Rowan knows the truth, she’d rush to New Orleans — the opposite of what they or Rowan’s mother had wanted.
Rowan wakes up on the beach as a rager goes on around her. While walking to her car, she notices Ciprien and calls him out on following her. He tries to calm her, and when he reaches his hand out to her, he collapses the second he touches her. She does CPR and manages to get him back for the EMTs.
The House That Built Me
As they take him away, she steals his phone and sees a photo of Ellie with another young woman in front of the Mayfair house in 1990 with “New Orleans” as the caption. It’s Deidre, though she doesn’t know it yet. Suddenly realizing this stalker might have some of the answers she’s seeking, she follows the ambulance to the hospital. By the time she gets there, Ciprien is long gone.
Hopping on the first flight to New Orleans, she uses photos on Ciprien’s phone to piece together Deidre’s identity as her birth mother, though she still doesn’t know her name. She sees Lasher lurking in the background of the image. Rowan is oddly drawn to him, but puts the phone down. While she sleeps, she feels her mother and Lasher having sex and has a physical reaction (again, not enough time, too many layers).
Unsettled after her strange sex dream the night before, Rowan heads to her hotel in the morning. While she checks in, she hears a woman talking about how hotels are vectors for ghosts. Rowan approaches the woman for information about the house in the photo, and it turns out she’s a tour guide. She tells Rowan that the Mayfair house used to be on her haunted tour of the city before the family paid to have it taken off. She agrees to point the house out to Rowan on the tour that night, adding that it’s famous for its witches.
Ciprien calls Rowan, urging her to stay in the hotel so that she’ll be safe. He reassures her that he knows what she’s going through as he shares a bit more information about his own gift. She agrees to meet him in the lobby and heads down to the elevator. The doors open to reveal Deidre. Rowan gets one moment of happiness, giddily saying “It’s you!” But before she can enjoy meeting her mother, Deidre collapses, her throat slit.
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. You can find our other coverage of the series here.
