Mayfair Witches Season 1 only has two episodes out (Episode 3 premieres Sunday, January 22), but as the mysteries of the Mayfair family continue to build, more questions arise about how the season could end.
Ciprien Grieve actor Tongayi Chirisa and Cortland Mayfair actor Harry Hamlin sat down with TV Insider and TV Guide Magazine’s Damian Holbrook during The Television Critics Association 2023 Winter Press Tour. And in the video interview above, Chirisa and Hamlin tease the “roller coaster” ride that is the back half of the AMC drama.
Ciprien (Cip) uses his empathic powers for the Talamasca, a magical agency tasked with protecting supernatural beings from supernatural threats. He’s been assigned to protect Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario), but as seen in Episode 2 (streaming now on AMC+), he’s not afraid to break the rules of engagement with those under the Talamasca’s watchful eye.
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
Hamlin tells us that Cortland believes the Mayfairs work well with the agency, but Chirisa isn’t so confident. Cip seems staunchly team Protect Rowan.
To that end, the actor says Rowan has a hard choice ahead that will require her to decide whether she’ll do what she feels is right or do what her powerful (and still largely unknown) family wants. It sounds like Rowan, like her mother, is at risk with the Mayfairs.
“You get to see Rowan for who she is and the choices that she makes when she’s now confronted with this unique power that she has with Cip’s storyline … with Lasher, played by Jack Huston, and how that all culminates,” Tongayi explains. “Will she succumb to the power? Will I be able to stop her from going through what the family’s expecting her to do and to become? It’s a roller coaster.”
Where they do agree is the fact that the season is hurtling towards shocking revelations in future episodes.
“What it’s racing toward is a reveal about who we all really are,” says Hamlin, who notes Episode 7 revealed things about his character he was blind to when accepting the role. “At the beginning of the season, you think you know who these characters are, but then you find out by the end of the season that it’s not quite so much.”
Learn more about how the writers incorporated Anne Rice‘s Lives of the Mayfair Witches plot into Season 1, plus a closer look into the effects of Cip’s powers, in the full video interview above.
Mayfair Witches, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+