Mayfair Witches Recap: Texts From Your Ex

Um, is Mayfair Witches getting good? I mean, obviously not like The Sopranos good, but “Double Helix” is the second episode in a row to tap into the weirdness, and especially the campiness, already baked into Mayfair Witches’s premise without getting lost in it.

It looks like all of my theories are wrong, but I’m okay with that. It turns out Rowan is basically useless when not in close proximity to Lasher, and Julien’s soul is not stored in his old clothes; it is stored in his old Victrola. In fact, the only point I can give myself is correctly spotting that Rowan and Lark have a romantic history, which, well, duh. You know whose romantic history I did not clock? Of course, you do.

Luckily, I am at least shrewder than Sip, Mayfair’s eternal rube, which is comforting. Sip is shocked, shocked, I tell you, to discover that a man who used and betrayed him in the recent past has once again used and betrayed him. Yes, Albrecht Escher absconded with Lasher and left Sip holding the bag, with nothing but a passive-aggressive voice note on a bottle of brown liquor by way of good-bye. So now, the Talamasca have hauled Sip off to Amsterdam for official questioning, and I’m sorry, but Sip really should have been able to predict that it would go like this when he started working with Albrecht.

We are also blessed in that “Double Helix” spends relatively little time on Sip’s incompetence (if Sip got a read on the little scrap of paper from the fireplace, the show has so far refused to share it with us) and more on the brewing buddy-cop duo of Rowan and Moira. Like all great television relationships, they begin at each other’s throats, but if they’re going to work together they need to trust each other, and through this they’ll learn about something even more important than teamwork: friendship. I’m not saying Jojo has been replaced — unless Rowan fails to rescue her from the thrall, in which case, yes, she has been replaced.

Which brings us to today’s case. Starsky and Hutch need to free Jojo and Daphne, but as long as Lasher is out of range, Rowan doesn’t have the juice. The day is not getting off to a great start, and to make matters worse, Rowan and Moira have not yet learned the value of teamwork. Nobody should wake up screaming at each other wearing last night’s clothes, but here is where we find our heroes. They are less interested in brainstorming solutions and more interested in scoring points against one another, which I have taken the liberty of tallying for the class.

That leaves us with a final score of 4-2, Moira. If Jojo and Daphne, appearing occasionally as watery holograms wandering the mansion, could see or hear their would-be rescuers, they might point out that none of this is helping. What they need is for Sip to just drive Lasher by the house for a minute so that Rowan can tap into his magic battery pack.

Oh, but also, at some point in the night, Rowan was temporarily roused from her magic-induced stupor to send Lark a string of regrettable, incoherent text messages, which must now be dealt with. They read, and I quote:

This night iz a DISASTR. I’m trapped them in the house I have to ffix it. When I do

Meet tomorrow

Ur probably asleep I’ve sorry

I’m can fx this will do tomorrow

You should have stayed in SF nad Im NOT being selfish. You’d be a very good surgen

Family thing my fault

Genuinely, the most relatable Rowan has ever been.

In the morning, she could have just texted Lark something like, “OMG, so mortifying 🫣. One too many mint juleps, for sure, lol. Also, I’m super sorry, but my family thing is way more drama than I thought, and I have to cancel again today. I’m the worst!” (This is coming from someone who’s been there.) But Rowan decides this is something she must handle in person, so she meets with Lark at his hotel for “hangover cure” omelets. I’m not one to tell Rowan her priorities, but, like, Jojo and Daphne are literally playing 21 Questions on an astral plane right now, and I don’t even know if there’s food in there. But whatever. Rowan goes to have her little tête-à-tête with her ex — the man who didn’t tell her about his new job across the country until they were mid-move-in — and it’s boring, short, and useless, except that it makes Lark suspicious enough to swipe Rowan’s coffee cup for genetic testing. Bravo, bitch, as Moira might say.

Now, can we focus on the task at hand? Obviously, Sip cannot help them out with a Lasher drive-by because Lasher is with Albrecht in God knows where, and plus, Sip is about to be apprehended by the magic bureaucracy. Also, the house is falling down, and nobody knows why, but we’ve decided that’s a level-C priority.

The next logical stop for information is Cortland, whom Rowan just now remembered is locked in his father’s study and will be desperate to get away from Dead Aunt’s bullying. If Cortland still has a working relationship with Albrecht, then maybe he can help with Lasher’s current whereabouts. How, exactly, they’re gonna get Albrecht to agree to a Lasher drive-by even if they find them is a problem for later.

She may be a pill, but Moira is instrumental in an interrogation situation. She’s a human lie detector, but she’s better because she can also fill in the context Cortland leaves out of his half-answers. Yes, he’s being truthful about wanting to help for Jojo’s sake. No, he can’t actually get in contact with Albrecht any more. (Cortland may not have actually heard Albrecht call him a “dead end” last episode, but he definitely got the gist.)

Much as Jojo and Dead Aunt accuse Cortland of being the second coming of his evil father, Julien, Cortland is not the creep we need, Moira confirms. Julien is. Sure, Julien is dead, but, as Rowan astutely points out, since when has that mattered in this family? Several quick “a-ha!” moments later, the gang figures out that Julien tethered himself to his Victrola, the same Victrola Dolly Jean was seen loading up onto that big trolley of hers last night. To Dolly Jean’s house, we go!

Another really quick side note: The family is plotting a coup against Rowan. Moira explains that Rowan “use[d] them as live bait. They don’t like that.” (Moira +1.)

And then, with a wild swing of the Mayfair incest-o-meter, we learn that Julien is in an undead throuple with sisters Dolly Jean and Evelyn. I realize there must be some genetic distance between Julien and his sister-wives just based on everyone’s race presentation, but if you still all go to the same family reunions, that’s not enough genetic distance for me. But let’s power through.

As I said, Julien has bound his life force to the Victrola, and this allows Dolly Jean and Evelyn to take turns having romantic interludes with him in a netherworld of his making. The same netherworld where Julien enjoyed torturing Cortland during his statue days. Rowan is already raring to jump into the Victrola to chat with Julien herself, but Julien makes all the rules in his Victrola. Why would he let Rowan in? Literally, no one likes Rowan. Moira, who’s suddenly solutions-oriented, takes a hands-on approach and tries to read the Victrola’s mind directly. This turns out to be a brave but medically risky maneuver.

She goes into a sort of full-body trance/medical event and shouts something about the draught of the children of God and “Taltos,” but that’s about it. It wasn’t a complete loss, however. It allows Rowan and Moira time for a bonding moment in the hospital while Moira recovers, thus completing the buddy-cop arc.

Now that everyone (Moira and Rowan) trusts each other. Rowan has doubled down on her plan to talk to Julien personally and, I imagine, give him a piece of her mind. Back at her foundationally unsound manor, she downs the magic potion, lets Dolly Jean prick her finger, presses the blood into the spinning record, and gets sucked into Julienland.

For once, I hope she listens to Cortland when he calls Julien “a honey-tongued devil!”

Additional Questions, Comments, and Concerns

• ICYMI, Sip’s scrap of paper also reads, “Taltos.” Oooooohhhhh.

• As long as Lark is working on Rowan and Lasher’s genetic profiles, do you think he’d mind taking a gander at the rest of the family? Because there is clearly some inbreeding happening that is bound to cause problems.

• I’m choosing to believe Albrecht’s various mind tricks allowed him to block Moira from reading his thoughts because otherwise how did she not see through him immediately.

• If you’re curious, the Latin phrase inscribed over Albrecht’s mantle Google translates to, “We look, and we are always there.” If there are any Latin scholars here who dispute this translation, we welcome the intellectual rigor, but what are you doing here?