‘Talamasca’: What’s Going on Between Jasper & Guy? William Fichtner Explains

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Talamasca: The Secret Order Season 1 Episode 5, “The Puzzle Palace.”]

The vampire Jasper (William Fichtner) and Talamasca rookie Guy Anatole (Nicholas Denton) have one thing in common: They hate being lied to. But the secret order has convoluted their lives so much, trust became impossible for them both in Episode 5, resulting in Jasper flexing his vampire power over the human and trying to turn him into one of his revenant pets. TV Insider connected with Fichtner and Denton to explain that juicy “Say It” scene (watch it below). The first thing we wanted to know: Did Jasper expect Guy to say, “I don’t want to die,” when he had him pinned to that garage floor, or was he expecting something else?

“I’m not so sure that he didn’t want to hear that,” Fichtner says, but he likes the idea that the scene can be read differently. “That’s part of the really interesting thing [about] John Lee [Hancock] and Mark Lafferty and the way they write these things. They’re so good. They put it together, and there definitely could be interpretations of that, which is really cool.”

Jasper wanted to hear Guy beg for his life because he felt betrayed. The Prison Break alum says that Jasper is terrified of people lying to him, so he flexes his power when he senses it.

“What I really loved about this whole beginning of [Episode] 5 basically gets back to this thing with Jasper. ‘Be truthful with me, because I am with you.’ And Guy’s not being truthful,” Fichtner tells TV Insider. “I always felt part of it was an absolute fear of, ‘If you think you can just lie to me, I will go after you because you can’t, I won’t allow it. I don’t do it, and you can’t do it with me.’”

Jasper’s on the hunt for the 752, a fabled book containing centuries’ worth of Talamasca research. He plans to destroy the order by weaponizing the powerful information it holds. His vendetta is rooted in a traumatic backstory. Jasper was raised in South America in a coven where vampires and humans coexisted. A Talamasca agent got his entire family killed, and Jasper didn’t become a vampire until later in life, long after he walked from Bolivia to Texas after his family’s murder. He was an adult when he accepted the dark gift and began his revenge plot against the secret order. Guy has made him feel closer to his goal than ever, but the rookie teaming up with an unknown like Doris (Celine Buckens) has convinced him that Guy — a mindreader — is lying.

“I’ve felt you trying to read my mind since we left the hotel. You think you’re smooth? Think you got moves? You have no moves. I have all the moves,” Jasper growled as he slammed Guy into a cold garage floor. He dared Guy to “say it,” say what was running through his mind as a vampire threatened his life. That’s when Guy said, “I don’t want to die.” Jasper said he would give him “purpose” instead, in the form of turning him into one of his revenant pets.

The “say it” scene is the latest of several Jasper and Guy interactions that have some fans on social media convinced there’s an attraction simmering between them. We asked Fichtner if that’s how he was playing it. He takes it back to Episode 3, when Jasper first met Guy and was immediately intrigued by his distrust of the Talamasca.

“Jasper’s absolutely looking at him and going, ‘I don’t know who you are or why you’re telling me all of this.’ And then he keeps going and going. Jasper figures out right then and there in real time, ‘This is interesting because what I’m doing here and what I care about and why I have an upset with the Talamasca, this young man right here, you might be the one that could help me with some things that I don’t know.’ I feel like, from the beginning, he oddly takes him under his wing. For me personally, did I ever look at it that it was some sort of a sexual thing? Never crossed my mind. But again, talk about layers or what people might think.”

“Vampires live a long time,” Fichtner says. “They have a lonely existence in so many ways because, for the obvious reasons of everyone that they’ll ever know will be gone someday, except for them.”

“To have a friendship come up with this young man and then turn sour, as we see in [Episode] 5,” is deeply upsetting for Jasper, he adds. “But no, it never really hit me like that. Do I think that Jasper is a sexual person? I think all vampires have a strong sense of self and who they are, but [the potential Jasper and Guy attraction] that’s news to me.”

Denton says the trust between Jasper and Guy was real. Jasper “does not lie,” he says. “One of the values of Guy is, ‘I need truth, clarity, and I just don’t want anyone to lie to me. Not anymore. Not after what’s happened.’ And Bill’s so good at this because he’s got such conviction in the way that he delivers his lines and the way that he plays Jasper … He’s got this internal world that’s so strong that Bill brings, so you really trust him. With Helen [Elizabeth McGovern], he’s been lied to.”

If Jasper saw so much potential in Guy, did he consider turning him into a vampire before going down the revenant route? Fichtner teases, “I’m not sure what’s down the road, and right now there is nothing official about a second season. But I do believe that that is something to be explored in the future.”

Does Guy want to be a vampire? Denton isn’t sure. But he says Guy does like the creatures, and he especially connects to Jasper when he opens up about his troubled past.

“He likes them because they are so open about their grief,” Denton explains. “When Jasper talks to him, he talks with a real soul to him. He really says, ‘This is what I’ve been through, this is where I come [from].’ And it’s fascinating. It’s also an incredible deep dive, and Guy connects with that so deeply.”

It’s going to be hard to come back from what Doris does to save Guy. She arrives at Jasper’s revenant warehouse as Guy is digging his shallow grave. Once she gets close enough to Jasper, she torches him. Even with flames engulfing him, Jasper lunges for her. He spends the rest of the episode healing from his brutal wounds, which doesn’t take very long thanks to his vampirism.

AMC

Jasper gives his healing blood to his right-hand man, Greg Owen (Jonathan Aris), to treat a festering wound on his chest throughout the season. He also wipes a little blood over a cut on Guy’s head in Episode 4. Fichtner agrees that Jasper’s willingness to share blood with humans is rooted in his vampiric upbringing. It also raises questions about the possible connection to Anne Rice‘s book lore, where humans get addicted to vampire blood (Talamasca is the one show in AMC‘s Immortal Universe that’s not based on its own dedicated book series, like Interview With the Vampire and Mayfair Witches, but rather the agency pops up in both of those franchises). Were humans drinking vampire blood in Jasper’s coven? Was Jasper drinking vampire blood while he was human?

“I don’t think so. I think he was a boy. He says he was out running around, playing around, came back, and everybody was dead, and he ran,” Fichtner says. “I read it that it was a very unusual circumstance, but one that sometimes happened where certain people coexisted, probably for the success of their community. It’s just the truth, which we also find out in Episode 4, the power of vampire blood and the power of ancient vampire blood, it’s like the fountain of youth. It’s priceless.”

Jasper’s not above bartering with blood when it’s a consensual offer. He’s happy for vampires and humans to coexist. He just wants more vampires. That dream might come true, as the “great conversion” has been teased in this universe since Interview With the Vampire Season 1. Now that Daniel Molloy’s (Eric Bogosian) memoir of his time with Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Armand (Assad Zaman) has outed vampires (to those who believe it’s nonfiction), plus the increasing fame of Lestat’s (Sam Reid) band, Jasper may find there are more people interested in his cause. Lestat’s song, “Long Face,” plays in a bar in this Talamasca episode. Does Jasper know about the Vampire Lestat band? Does he like that Molloy has publicized vampiric existence?

“Is Jasper aware of the making or how many vampires there are in the world, and who they are? For sure,” Fichtner says. “But it’s not part of this just yet in the journey of Talamasca. Now, personally, I think that Jasper knows an awful lot about a lot of things.”

One thing that viewers didn’t know until this episode’s ending: Olive (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) is a mole who’s been working with Jasper. Her disinterest in the 752 was a front this whole time. The episode ended with her leading Jasper’s revenant vampires to the houseboat full of witches. They slaughtered them all as Olive watched in approval. The rest of this season’s mysteries will unfold in next week’s finale.

Talamasca, Season 1 Finale, Sunday, November 23, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+