Anne Rice’s biggest claim to fame will always be “Interview With the Vampire” and the ensuing Vampire Chronicles. However, most casual horror fans don’t know that her impressive catalog also features a multigenerational saga about a family of witches. Beginning with “The Witching Hour,” Rice wrote a trilogy of novels following a matrilineal line of magical women. AMC’s Mayfair Witches brings this saga to the fore with a star-studded adaptation of Rice’s dense source material. Alexandra Daddario stars as Rowan Fielding, a California brain surgeon and the 13th Mayfair witch who was whisked away at birth and knows nothing of her family’s occult history. Annabeth Gish is her mother Dierdre, an unfortunate prisoner in the family’s New Orleans home, and Jack Huston is the mysterious Lasher, a demonic presence haunting the women of the Mayfair line.
At just over 1,000 pages, Rice’s novel is a rich text filled with complicated characters who push and pull at the Mayfair legacy. Executive Producer Michelle Ashford and Showrunner Esta Spalding have done an admirable job adapting the massive tome for television, however condensing the entire first novel into 8 episodes of television was bound to significantly alter the story. A list of each deviation from the source material would be nearly as long as the novel itself, but both versions follow Rowan Fielding/Mayfair in a gradual discovery of her family’s dark history. Both versions contain an outside organization known as the Talamasca who chronicle occult phenomena throughout the world, and both versions feature the mysterious Lasher whose attachment to the Mayfair women may be a blessing or a curse. Virtually every other detail of the story is different.
Spalding’s adaptation feels like an updated remix of the general story with themes and plot points liberally altered to fit the pacing of a network show. Unfortunately, by deviating so significantly from Rice’s original tale, Spalding erodes the foundations of the “Mayfair” saga, leaving us with a confusing story that can’t seem to decide on a central villain.
LASHER
In the first episode, we meet both the Mayfair family and the being that haunts them. Lasher is a devilish figure from another realm summoned in 17th Century Scotland by Suzanne Mayfair (Hannah Alline), the first witch of the Mayfair line. Since this invocation, Lasher has built a covenant with the Mayfair daughters and laid claim to a female child from each generation to whom he grants magical powers and the keys to the Mayfair fortune. Lasher’s purpose is similar in both versions of the story, however Rice’s Lasher is much more sinister. Perhaps due to Huston’s charming persona, or Spalding’s choice to position current matriarch Carlotta (Beth Grant) as a major antagonist, Huston’s Lasher at times seems more like a dark liberator than the malevolent presence that would cause Dierdre to give up her baby.
Rice’s novel has Lasher creep into Rowan’s life after inheriting the Mayfair fortune. After looming in the shadows for months, he seduces and essentially assaults her for days at a time. Though she eventually admits a sexual desire for the demonic entity, her conscious mind always rejects him. Spalding’s Lasher is much more romantic. When Rowan arrives in New Orleans, he serves as a friendly tour guide of sorts, accompanying her on a late night walk through the town as opposed to a ghostly vision that terrorizes her in her San Francisco home.
The Mayfair Emerald, set in an intricate key-shaped pendant, symbolizes Lasher’s attention passed down through the generations. Rice’s description of this necklace implies it is but a symbol of Lasher’s claim to the witch, but Spalding makes this control more literal. Simply wearing her version of the necklace equates to entering a dark covenant with the demonic entity. When Carlotta tricks a poor maid into donning the necklace, the woman is made to bash her head against a wall over and over again until she crushes her own skull. The pendant seems to take hold of Rowan as well and she forms a possessive relationship with the charm not unlike Gollum with Tolkien’s powerful ring. The show’s version of this emerald seems to serve as a shorthand for Lasher’s power which implies the sinister nature his presence does not.
MULTIFACETED DIVERSITY
A positive update to Rice’s original text is diversity within its cast of characters. While members of the Mayfair family are all white, there are many other people of color in prominent and leading roles. Few characters discuss their sexuality or gender, but the cast itself includes members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Published in 1990, Rice’s treatment of race in “The Witching Hour” has aged poorly. She consistently notes the Blackness of her characters particularly those of lower socioeconomic status, describing maids and orderlies by their race to seemingly denote uncomfortable stereotypes regarding education and experience. While Rice does not speak about her characters of color with any malice, these dated descriptions feel dehumanizing.
Spalding has intentionally created a diverse cast and has said she hopes the audience will, “look at all of the characters and feel that they see themselves, whoever they are.”
MICHAEL CURRY AND AARON LIGHTNER
Among the show’s most significant narrative changes is the combination of two major characters. Rice’s Rowan falls in love with a man named Michael Curry, a handsome home restorer whom she has saved from drowning before the novel begins. Legally dead for a significant amount of time, Michael returns to life with the power to see into the past. He activates this psychic ability through touch and wears gloves to combat a constant flood of information. Michael also returns from what would have been a watery grave with the certainty that he has been chosen for a higher purpose somehow involving the Mayfair house. In New Orleans, he’s approached by an older man named Aaron Lightner who briefs him on Rowan’s family. Lightner eventually presents Rowan with the same information and the three become a sort of family with the older Englishman giving Rowan away at her wedding to Michael. Spalding’s version of the story combines these characters into a single man named Ciprien Grieve (Tongayi Chirisa). Born with Michael’s power to interpret through touch, he is an agent of the Talamasca and meets Rowan when assigned to her case. Spalding’s Talamasca is led by Albrecht (Dennis Boutsikaris), whose sinister dealings with the Mayfair relatives become clear in later episodes. Rice’s Aaron does have a falling out with Rowan, but he never has malicious intentions for the family.
While these changes to the story make logical sense, removing Michael from the narrative changes a central element of Lasher’s plan. Rice tells us that Michael has been chosen by the demon and guided towards Rowan. His near drowning is no accident, but a clever way for the otherworldly being to draw the two characters together. As the thirteenth witch, Rowa is not only the most powerful, but serves as a doorway through which Lasher may enter the corporeal. By possessing the body of her unborn child, Rowan essentially gives birth to him and he rapidly grows into a sort of antichrist figure now loose in the world. Having chosen Michael as his father, Lasher has been following him since birth as well, constantly altering his life to unite him with Rowan.
The first season concludes with a jumbled version of this narrative. Rowan does become pregnant and gives birth to a baby, but it’s unclear who the child’s father actually is. Rice’s newborn Lasher grows from infant to adult in the space of a single day and convinces his horrified mother to teach him how to survive in the physical world. Spalding’s Rowan gives birth to a rapidly growing baby who settles around one year of age. Ciprian seems to feel some sort of calling towards the child, but it’s unclear what he plans to do. Rowan tells him he is the baby’s father, but this doesn’t feel even remotely true and neither seem particularly happy about the new family they’ve created. The final scene shows Rowan walking into a storm with the baby on her hip, though it’s never quite clear what anyone’s intentions are. By removing Michael as an element in the story, Spalding muddles Lasher’s plan. His birth into the real world feels more like happenstance than a plan he’s been nursing for centuries.
THE FILE ON THE MAYFAIR WITCHES
Removing Michael and Aaron from the plot also takes with it the fascinating files on the Mayfair family. Rice’s novel contains a great deal of action including the murder of Rowan’s adopted father, pulling Michael from the sea, and the couple’s steamy love affair. However a large chunk of the text comes from detailed documentation compiled by agents of the Talamasca. Aaron presents Michael with this file and over the course of several days, he reads about the entire Mayfair line stemming back to Suzanne. In the hands of a lesser author, these chapters would be a dry list of names and dates, but Rice brings these stories to life with interviews, eyewitness accounts, and first person narrative of each generation. Though descriptions of sexual assault and incest are off-putting, the stories of these incredible women build a rich world for the unassuming Rowan to enter. The documents even give us more information about the magical healer herself and confirm elements of Rowan’s power even she doesn’t know about.
Spalding mentions some of these characters, but focuses most of the narrative on the 1st, 12th, and 13th witches in line. We spend time with Suzanne as she calls Lasher to defend her from execution, but the rest of her descendants are relegated to a series of portraits hanging on the wall. A later episode shows the current Mayfair coven chanting the names of their ancestors to infuse a spell with power, but without the foundation of these files, they are merely names in the air. Spalding has mentioned saving the details of these stories for later seasons and it’s likely we will see the lives of Mary Beth and Stella play out in flashbacks. However, it’s difficult to care much about the magic Rowan has inherited without a solid understanding of what that magic is. Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have both done wonderful jobs tracking a complicated story over multiple generations while weaving together many disparate storylines. Similar treatment for earlier members of the Mayfair family tree would build a rich family tapestry and add context to a confusing modern narrative. Without it, we’ve just got a wealthy family with magical powers who squabble with each other for unclear reasons.
MODERN MAGIC
Spalding supplements the loss of this history with modern themes of misogyny and political violence. A group of witch hunters have been burning women at the stake in order to secure proof of the occult. Ciprien meets one of these disgruntled men while investigating Dierdre’s death and the incel-like morgue worker steals the late witch’s heart. He and the larger group kidnap one of the younger Mayfair women and hope to leverage her as bait to take the entire family down. Rowan arrives to save the day and after clumsily using her own powers, she invokes Lasher and begs for his help. While the inclusion of this plotline does update the 33 year old story, it also serves to muddy the waters on Lasher’s characterization. Rice’s story is contained entirely within the Mayfair family and its associates, positioning Lasher’s malevolent plans as the central conflict. The addition of outside agitators places Lasher and the Mayfair women on the same side which makes his rebirth into the world all the more confusing.
Mayfair Witches has been renewed for a second season despite middling reviews and uneven interest from viewers. This is likely due to AMC’s large investment when acquiring the late author’s literary catalog. One gets a sense when comparing the source material to the adaptation that no one involved in the show fully grasps the breadth of Rice’s story nor the details that make it sing. It’s not the powers of the current protagonists that draw us in but the rich and scandalous history of this fascinating family.
Hopefully the second season will stick more closely to Rice’s novels and slow down to tell a more detailed story about the magical Mayfair women, both past and present.
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