Anne Rice was nothing if not thorough in building out her world of vampires, witches, and the mere mortals caught between their blood feuds. The prolific author spun rich tapestries in The Vampire Chronicles and Lives Of The Mayfair Witches book series, introducing intricate and interconnected mythologies that stretched across centuries, multiple installments, and thousands of pages. And she left very few veins untapped along the way.
But she had a blind spot, at least in her published works, and AMC is looking to capitalize on it with the new series Talamasca: The Secret Order. After choking down that mouthful of a title, the show is, perhaps, the network’s biggest bet yet in populating its burgeoning Immortal Universe of programming. Interview With The Vampire had already been turned into a beloved 1994 film when creator Rolin Jones elevated the material with an episodic take. Even Mayfair Witches, based on the mammoth 1,000-plus-page book The Witching Hour, had the mystic of Rice’s characters and the thrill of finally bringing the fan-favorite story to the screen—even if it took two seasons to finally embrace its kooky, spooky voice.
But Talamasca is nearly a whole-cloth creation of AMC’s Immortal Universe team led by executive producer Mark Johnson. The resulting series, from creator John Lee Hancock, is a conspiracy-tinged spy thriller setwithin the ranks of a secret order of agents (a.k.a. the Talamasca, Latin for “animal mask”) who stealthily monitor the vampires, witches, ghosts, and other manifestations of Rice’s wonderfully demented mind. They watch and they are always there, per the mantra recited by Elizabeth McGovern’s mysterious leader Helen in the first episode. Rice wrote of the Talamasca throughout her books, but she never gave them own series, instead using their globe-trotting mission to keep order as connective tissue to hold her worlds together. So AMC’s choice to diverge from Rice’s bibliography to give the shadow lurkers and their bureaucratic bosses their own moment in the sun (so to speak) is a bold move—and one that mostly pays off in this roguish, paranoia-laced thriller.
Like Mayfair before it, Talamasca has the misfortune of arriving after the fantastic Interview With The Vampire. After two seasons, which completed Jones’ adaptation of Rice’s book, the series is reinventing itself for its upcoming rock-‘n’-roll third round as The Vampire Lestat and remains the best take on Rice’s work ever committed to the big or small screen. Talamasca is not quite on that level, nor should it have the pressure to be. This isn’t one of Rice’s sweeping epics, but rather an enigmatic puzzle of a series that takes pleasure in rolling around in the author’s densely packed lore like a pig in mud. Its purpose is to test the elasticity of Rice’s stories, because if the Immortal Universe is to survive, it can’t all be Interview-level greatness. It needs mid-tier shows that quench the thirst of the famished diehards between seasons, and Talamasca is the right dose of in-world fan service and compelling spy escapism to do the job.
McGovern’s aforementioned Helen is the boss of the Talamasca’s New York Mother House, the code name for one of the many global clandestine bases within the organization. After one of her agents is killed, she decides it’s time to recruit Guy Anatole (Nicholas Denton), a mousy young lawyer who happens to have the ability to hear people’s thoughts. He’s skeptical about her pitch to join their ranks (especially when she starts talking about vampires), but she also knows just enough about his mysterious past to arouse the questions about himself that have been burning a hole in his psyche since he was an orphaned kid.
Beyond Helen’s recruitment of Guy, there isn’t much that can be said about Talamasca before it premieres. But here’s what can be said. First and foremost, McGovern is sensational and clearly having the time of her life portraying an American-based Brit trying to play it cool that something foul is afoot within the Talamasca. McGovern has been preparing for this role since 2011, when she started as the lone American living a highfalutin British fantasy in Downton Abbey. She clearly picked up a few accent quirks hanging around all those Brits, as evidenced by her wild pronunciation of “equilibrium” when Helen explains to Guy the Talamasca’s delicate finger on the world’s balancing scales. But it’s more than just her accent work. The way her character greets every one of Guy’s skeptical remarks and little rebellions with a mischievous grin as if she’s seen it all before and revels in the chance to broaden his worldview is tremendous fun, as is how she manages to class up a hoodie and sneakers as she weaves her way through New York, London, and who knows where else.
Helen is the magnet that Guy must push and pull against as he tumbles further into the void of a world he both never knew existed and was always destined to walk in. Denton’s flustered-but-faking-it demeanor in the premiere takes some getting used to, but with the help of McGovern’s breezy stride and a splendidly over-the-top turn from Jason Schwartzman, he finds his footing. In fact, the entire series feels like it finally falls into place when Schwartzman’s flamboyant vampire Burton arrives on the scene in the first episode, bringing with him a sleekly dangerous vibe that feels most akin to Interview. But the looming threat over this whole party is William Fichtner’s Jasper, an inscrutable yet rakish vampire whose fleeting appearances in the premiere offer very little insight into his actual role in the series.
On the whole, Talamasca is not yet a perfect companion piece to the Immortal Universe’s ongoing slate. The story’s insistence on following a police investigation into inevitable bloodshed feels misplaced in a series that wants its viewers to believe there is no greater danger than what is lurking in the dark—or worse, out in the open. Asking us to care about what a little law and order might do in the worlds of the immortal, undead, and magically charged just comes off as child’s play and wears the show down a bit by the end of the season. After all, who’s really concerned if the police are at your door when there’s a vampire draining your blood in the basement?
But one thing working in the series’ favor is the goodwill of its predecessors and the stirring potential to explore the fringes of fear that Rice so beautifully, tragically, and lyrically mined in her written works. By stepping off the path she laid in front of the Immortal Universe, Talamasca has the chance to pay homage to its creator while restaging the supernatural surveillance state she built for a modern context. What is a spy in the world of AI and TikTok? Are vampires and witches really as elusive as they think in an age with an infinite amount of digital eyes, not to mention authors like Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) writing books about his interviews with a real bloodsucker?
Talamasca will feed that hunger for more of what Interview and Mayfair conjured up, while distinctly living in its own corner of the universe. Will the consequences of the first season come to bear in the other series? Only time will tell. For now, Talamasca and the larger Immortal Universe are asking audiences to simply do what the organization has done for centuries: Watch and come back for more.
Talamasca: The Secret Order premieres October 26 on AMC
