Well, gee, what happened in “The Innocents?”
Emaleth spent the entire morning ejecting infants from her body like pop-tarts (in the Mayfair universe, the most powerful woman’s main function is Magic Womb), who were then fattened and trussed for the family to sacrifice and drink the blood. Lasher got his throat slashed on a stone altar, was healed in the nick of time by Rowan, and then killed again maybe an hour later. An entire team of Talamasca led a Taltos-baby rescue mission. A whole action sequence took out 90 percent of the Mayfair clan. Julien and Rowan both drank a goblet of Lasher’s blood, making them super-witches. Lark and Rowan broke up for good. And the whole team returned to New Orleans in time to save Jojo and Daphne. So, it must have been an exciting, action-packed episode, right? Actually, no. It mostly played out like an Escape Room designed for first-graders.
To explain why, let me propose a moment of silence for all the conflicts that withered on the vine this season: The Nola family’s planned coup against Rowan, Sip’s tape recorder bible, The Sip and Lark love triangle, Bonnie. A few episodes ago, Sip agreed to help Moira on the condition that she help him with a favor. I didn’t mention it then because I assumed it would come back up whenever Sip reunited with the main cast. It did not. I hope these plot points rest in peace because they surely will not be remembered.
But Mayfair Witches has two settings for conflict. No resolution or immediate resolution. In “The Innocents,” obstacles evaporated the moment they appeared, like Whack-a-Mole, except all the moles are stationary. An example: Sip and Polina have been thrown into Ian Mayfair’s home prison (a must for every supernatural villain property), complete with iron bars and a surly watchman, but this turns out to be an extremely minor setback. Sip tells Polina in Dutch (Sip speaks Dutch?) about the trust tab I mistakenly thought he’d already used on Moira. All they have to do is tag the surly watchman and he’ll do whatever they say. Problem solved.
Example two: you might think Rowan has been screwed when Julien, still wearing his Cortland skin suit, doses her first thing in the morning and throws her in the same home prison. But no sooner has her passed-out ass touched her stone cot than Sip and Polina are speaking the magic antidote and waking her up. Because Rowan is an irredeemable asshole, her first reaction is to accuse them of kidnapping her, as if she didn’t just see Cortland/Julien poison her coffee. But that is neither here nor there.
A cynic might speculate that this pointless prison break exercise was just a lazy way to get Sip and Rowan’s characters together at the top of the episode. Especially since Moira is being held captive elsewhere, implying that Ian maintains at least two personal jails on his property (really top-of-the-line antagonist real estate, here), and it would not serve the plot, such as it is, for their characters to be together yet. One also wonders if Mayfair Witches kept Moira in lockup for an entire episode because her mind-reading powers would render all of our other narrative action DOA. Like, you’re telling me it took two days just for Moira to get Fiona close enough to hold a knife to her throat?
In any case, now that the tedious business of busting out of jail is done, Moira cleverly disguises herself as one of the clan with a barely passable Scottish accent and seamlessly och, aye’s her way into the heart of the child massacre preparations. This episode is as frictionless as a dolphin’s ass, so why would a relative nobody recognize raise any suspicions? Moving on.
Rowan is following her fingers to the site of Lasher’s ritual murder, where she finds him moments away from bleeding out onto the grass. Would it surprise you to learn that the Mayfairs lured Lasher into the woods, sliced his windpipe, and collected the blood in a ceremonial chalice, all with zero pushback? It shouldn’t because we’ve already established that, ancient deity or not, if you’re looking for a buyer for that bridge of yours, Lasher is your man. So Rowan zaps him back to health with her magic fingers, and we’re ready to tackle the next non-problem — rescuing all eight(ish?) of Lasher’s 9-year-old newborns.
This is when Rowan finally lives up to her genius reputation and outwits the enemy with a brilliant scheme that takes advantage of her extra-strength magical powers. Just kidding. Julien/Cortland has already gone ahead and un-stitched Lark’s body from Ian and co. for reasons that will not ever become clear; so they can just go ahead and attack, which they do. Well, Lasher and his dire wolf familiar — oh, Lasher has a dire wolf familiar, by the way — attack. R.I.P. Ian. Rowan, true to form, mostly stands around (okay, she got one) until Mrs. Mayfair throws an axe at her baby/loverboy Lasher (who Rowan would never in a million years think of killing wherever did you get that idea). Suddenly, Rowan remembers that she’s Zeus and blasts Mrs. M with a lightning bolt, but it’s too late. Lasher is dead for real this time. Well, that was fun.
Now, we’ve got Julien/Cortland grinning at Rowan with a chaliceful of Lasher and a blood mustache, urging her to drink because it’ll make them all-powerful wonder twins. The Catholic in me recognizes that this is supposed to be giving Satanic priest with all the “this is the blood of the new and everlasting covenant” vibes, but all I’m actually getting is playground drug pusher. “Why didn’t the Mayfairs do this 500 years ago when they killed Lasher the first time?” asks Rowan. Because yeah, that is the plot hole we’re all really concerned with right now.
Rowan pretends like she’s not really gonna drink the Lasher blood long enough for Sip and his Talamasca SWAT team to rescue all the Taltos kiddos, who have been innocently scarfing down homemade ice cream about 30 feet away this whole time. (How did the Talamasca get there so fast? Why are you still asking questions?) Oh, and Julien/Cortland kills Polina. All of this happens before noon, by the way.
God, how much longer do we have to go now?
Yada, yada, Rowen drinks the Lasher blood, and suddenly, we cut to the dock, where she, Lark, and Moira are congratulating themselves on a job well done while they wait for the ferry. With a cooler full of Lasher’s blood in tow. (How did they get it from his body? Actually, never mind.) Right now, we’re focused on Lark shrewdly deciding that this relationship isn’t going to work out. Bring on the amnesia tea that will make him forget he and Rowan ever met. Does he know he’s in Scotland, though? Does he still have his flight information? Who cares, says Mayfair Witches.
Cut to back in New Orleans, where the house is looking rough but still standing. We get to hear but not see Rowan undo Jojo and Daphne’s thrall, and, most miraculously of all, nobody is mad at her. And Julien/Cortland is watching from the bushes. The end, I guess.
Additional Questions, Comments, and Concerns
• Nobody knows where Emaleth and the one baby she wanted to nurse personally went, but if you see her, don’t tell Elon Musk about her super-womb because she has been through enough.