Rowan learns her mother has been lying about her past and that only makes her grief worse. She sets out to find answers and finds them, teeth bared and waiting for her.

With the set up out of the way this has a pleasingly feverish, clammy feel to it. Daddario excels at being Fine with a capital F and Rowan’s combination of grief, seething rage and denial is compelling to watch. It’s helped immensely by the introduction of Ciprien Grieve to the spotlight with her. Tongayi Chirisa plays the empath with a gentle determination that’s the exact thing you don’t expect from a male lead in an urban fantasy show and it works all the better for that. The adversarial nature of their meeting also makes their alliance feel earned, and it gives Daddario some fun investigative stuff to do and a neat dovetail to the episode. Using Ciprien’s phone, she traces the house where her mother is living and parks in the hotel across the street. Along, unknowingly, with her Aunt Carlotta and eventually her mother.

Annabeth Gish feels like a short-term presence on the show which is a shame but understandable given the plot. The work she gets to do this episode makes up for that, and the image of her wafting into the hotel in a brilliant green dress is otherworldly because of its normalcy and how Beth Grant’s Carlotta reacts. There’s a smart bookend too, with Cortland much more dialled in than last episode and providing a kind counterpoint to Beth’s abusive approach. Everyone’s not on the same page, but they’re all reading the same book. Even Huston’s Lasher, imprisoned behind the pharmaceutical walls of Deidre’s mind and released at last as Deidre’s injections stop.

We still don’t have the whole story but it feels like it’s being assembled and that’s both welcome and exciting for a second episode. Especially one that ends as shockingly as this one.

Verdict: Mayfair Witches is still finding its feet but definitely has its pace. A definite improvement on an already strong opener. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart