Guy and Jasper’s Unorthodox Bond Is the Most Intriguing Aspect of Talamasca: The Secret Order

Although Talamasca: The Secret Order is part of AMC’s Immortal Universe, its lack of direct source material means that it’s free to carve out its own place in the onscreen world of Anne Rice. The series puts the titular group of covert spies and scholars who have long existed on the fringes of stories like Interview with the Vampire and The Mayfair Witches center stage to tell a story of paranoia, secrets, bureaucracy, and power that adds intriguing depth to Rice’s larger supernatural world and introduces a handful of fascinating new characters in the process.

The story follows Guy Antole (Nicholas Denton), a recent law school graduate with the ability to read people’s minds, who unexpectedly finds himself drawn into the supernatural world of the Talamasca when a mysterious woman (Elizabeth McGovern) offers him the chance to get answers about his past. This search ultimately leads him to Jasper (William Fichtner), a….let’s just call him a very unique vampire with an agenda of his own who has essentially taken over the Talamasca’s London office in service of his own ends. 

Denton and Fichtner are at their absolute best opposite one another throughout Talamasca’s first season, and their interactions are some of the few that reach the dramatic heights of some of the other series in this universe. The season’s fourth episode, “Wet Work,” is far and away its best, largely because it turns Denton’s Guy and Fichtner’s Jasper into uneasy allies, forced to work together toward a shared goal while neither can seemingly fully trust the other. The pair walks a fine line between adversaries and kindred spirits, drawn to one another in a way that seemingly crosses boundaries between such things as species and sides. 

“They are fascinated by each other,” Denton tells Paste. “Because they are a kind of frenemies. They can relate to one another so strongly. They come from similar [backgrounds]. They both face adversity, they both face difficulty, and they’re both looking for someone to trust or something to trust.”

Though Fichtner’s Jasper provides a welcome shot of camp and levity to the larger world of Talamasca, his character is something of an oddity within AMC’s Anne Rice universe. A fully unique creation with a gritty personal backstory, an obsession with controlling information, and a deep-seated desire for revenge, he’s also incredibly charming, personable—and as much as any character on the canvas, human. (He also has banging taste in music, but that’s a post for another day.) 

“I think Jasper’s so cool because he puts a lot of faith in people,” Denton adds. “He puts a lot of faith in this young guy who just showed up at his door. And I think Guy’s doing the same—he’s actually putting faith in something for the first time since…for a long time.”

Part of Jasper’s unexpected appeal is his unvarnished honesty. He tells the truth—not just about what his goals are (as ridiculous as they may initially seem), but about his past, and the pain that drives his actions. It makes the character incredibly easy to sympathize with—both for the audience and for Guy himself. 

“He picks an interesting choice of person [to put his trust in].” he says. “But the thing about Jasper is—he does not lie. He’s very clear, just down to brass tacks immediately. And it’s quite beautiful, because Guy’s been lied to for so many years. Everything’s been a lie to him. And finally, he’s met someone with truth in them.”

But simply because Jasper’s honest doesn’t necessarily mean he’s trustworthy, and Talamasca gleefully plays on this unease, leaving viewers to wonder whether either he or Guy actually means any of what they say to one another. 

“As the audience, we don’t know if he’s about to jump straight in and work with Jasper, or if he’s actually still working for the Talamasca, or somewhere in between. So there is this tension,” Denton says. “And that scene where he goes and shows up at Jasper’s, I think it took a while to get that scene going. I didn’t necessarily know how to play it because I didn’t want to lie to him. I wanted it to feel very truthful. And it actually is very truthful. Everything Guy says is actually fact. We just don’t know if he’s using the truth to manipulate or corroborate. And it ends up being quite a nice journey of whether you trust him or not. It’s good to maybe leave that a bit ambiguous in a way.”

The pair’s relationship sits in an oddly liminal space, but it’s part of what makes their every interaction so fascinating to watch. 

“All the characters in the series have that, though, that almost in-between nature,” Denton says. “Helen’s got that. Doris has that. Jasper’s got that. Their own intentions are definitely at the forefront. But..I think this series does pose the question about rogue agents. Rogue agents that go in and not just investigate but actually involve themselves, rather than just watch. The personal intent behind it can sometimes outweigh the professional intent.”

While the pair search for a MacGuffin-style object known as the 752, their uneasy partnership allows the show to ask necessary questions about what an organization like the Talamasca is meant to be and do. (Or even if it ought to exist at all.) But along the way, the pair find themselves with more in common than either expected. 

“Bill and I have a very weird kind of brotherly bond,” Denton laughs. “I get along with Bill really well, and we kind of pick our scenes apart together. There’s a great scene, one of the scenes, when he is in the bathroom in episode four, and they’re about to go to the Westcroft, and they have this sparring moment in the bathroom. He says something like, ‘Oh, you think you’re special,’ or something like that. And it’s a really powerful moment that Bill and I came together and talked about it, and it really shows this vulnerability, which wasn’t there necessarily in the scene originally.”

It is this openness that’s such a surprising and unexpected twist for a character who initially seems like little more than an overt antagonist.

“After that, Guy can access him a bit better, because he can see, oh, there’s some mortal qualities to this character, there’s some truth and heartbreak in Jasper that I can understand,” Denton says. “And I love that Bill does that in particular because Jasper’s such a formidable character. But then you see those chinks in the armor.” 

That vulnerability is but one of the surprising aspects of Jasper’s character, which is lonelier and more complicated than most of us (including Guy) initially believe. Where this relationship goes from here remains to be seen, but the unexpected connection between these two characters has quickly become the center of the series. (And maybe of Guy’s entire journey to his own truth) 

“It does make you think about the loneliness that immortality can bring,” Denton says. “And that’s when you start to feel for these vampires, because they carry that around for years and years and years, trying to make sense of it, and they end up becoming loners with their grief and guilt and sadness, and they don’t really interact with anybody else. So when Jasper reveals that—everything that’s happened to him—it’s like he’s asking for help. And I think Guy does give him that. He takes that olive branch and he goes, “I’m with you, man. I’m going to come on this ride with you.”

Talamasca: The Secret Order continues Sundays on AMC and AMC+.

Lacy Baugher Milas writes about TV and Books at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB

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