Having set the appropriately spooky tone with a decrepit mansion, a wild-haired catatonic woman, and a syringe full of thorazine in the cold open, the main job of “The Witching Hour” is to set the board for the rest of the series.
Oh yes, there is also some shoe-horned feminism which I’m choosing not to let bug me. The Mayfairs are doing real witch shit like spawning demons (potentially) and giving mansplainers magic aneurysms. These are not Glendas or Halliwell sisters fighting the forces of evil. For two, it’s nice to see witch content today that gets back to the more depraved tropes of the genre. For one, I’m always happy to see a show taking full advantage of the high-camp aesthetics provided by the Catholic church (if I took one positive thing from seven years of Catholic school it was a deep appreciation for ceremonial melodrama).
I am, however, optimistic, as “The Witching Hour” included many of my favorite supernatural things.
I wasn’t sure how Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches would measure up against the unholy three-ring orgy that was Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, and after finishing the pilot episode, I’m still not sure. Photo: Vulture Photo: Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
