Reign 2x20 Fugitive

 

After weeks of having to watch Mary flip-flop between „I love you and we should elope together” and „I love you but we can’t be be together” and then Conde basically saying screw all that, I’m just gonna marry your mortal enemy instead, this week’s episode of Reign was delightfully light on the Mary-Conde-Francis love triangle/relationship drama, so much so that I could probably sum up that part of the episode in only a couple of sentences. In fact, that is exactly what I’m planning to do, and then devote the rest of this review to Mary’s ladies and their respective love lives, because let’s face it, every single one of those is a million times more interesting than what Mary’s storyline has been reduced to in the second half of the season.

Of course we still have to talk about the main plot, so here it goes real quick: After Conde’s marriage to Elizabeth was sabotaged last week and he was subsequently branded a traitor to the French crown, he is now in hiding while Francis’ soldiers are out looking for him all over the place. Conde is pretty desperate at this point so he sends a letter to Mary, asking her to meet him, and Mary ends up arranging for him to escape the country. Of course, the punishment for treason is death, as Francis has so kindly reminded Mary early in the episode, and I’m not sure that what she’s doing does not constitute treason as well... of course Mary has a pretty powerful Plot Armour a this point so there’s no real suspense in this, but it just doesn’t sit well with me that she would risk everything to help Conde, even after he lied to her and married Elizabeth... and sure enough, Conde gets caught trying to escape the country disguised as a tanner, and then Francis sees Mary crying about it when he goes to tell her the news. Of course, this being only episode 20, Conde can’t get executed just yet, and soon he gets rescued by the English envoy, who tries to convince him to stay in France and seize the throne, because Elizabeth will only marry a king, and right now this seems like his best chance at staying alive. It’s not long until Francis finds out Mary’s role in all this as Renaude tells him that Conde had outside help and official papers when he was trying to leave the country, and Francis being an intelligent fellow, quickly figures out that it had to be Mary. This doesn’t stop her from telling him that they need to make peace with each other eventually, to which Francis replies that he can’t forgive her until Conde is a threat. Cue Conde walking into an underground room full of people who are hailing him as King Louis. It looks like this proposed crown-seizing attempt really is happening, after all.

Now that that’s over end done with , let’s see the ladies, in reverse order of their current storylines’ importance to me. Greer didn’t have much to do this week, it was mainly Leith who was progressing things for them. He has aked for an annullment for Greer, without asking her if she even wanted it, now he has to do „assignments” for the priest in exchange for all that many, which sounds kinda dirty but it is in fact only small stuff like, you know, stealing a scabbard that originally belonged to Charlemagne from the castle. Claude catches Leith as he’s attempting to take it and blackmails him into excorting her to her lover in exchange for her silence. Apparently she’s been sleeping with this guy that she likes so much that she even asked him to come back to court with her, which he refused. This makes Claude upset and she lashes out to Leith about the futility of love and gets angry at him for wanting to be with Greer. I still don’t like Claude very muhc but I’ve been warming up to her lately, and I’m really interested to see where her relationship with Leith will go. Because, as it turns out, Leith’s future might not lie with Greer after all. He showed her the money he got for her annullment and then instantly proposed, but she is reluctant to let go of the little business that she’s built up all on her own, and wants to keep the brothel for safety of income. Of course, Leith doesn’t understand this (sigh, when has he ever understood anything that Greer wanted to do and what was actually perfectly logical?) and asks her to choose between him and her business. Thankfully she chooses the business, and I can only hope that this means the end of this relationship. I really have no more tolerance for Leith’s selfishness when it comes to Greer.

Kenna has been having sex dreams about General Renaude, in which he asks her to tell him what she wants, and that pretty much sums up her storyline in this episode. She spent most of the episode debating with herself about whether she should approach him or not, and shen she finally does, he tells him that he’s about to meet a potential bride. However, he will only wed a woman who also desires him, which is remarkably modern thinking for his day and age. Eventually Kenna goes to his room, tells her that she knows what she wants (remember, the dream), and that she thinks they would be good together, which he heartily agrees with, and then they have sex. I gotta admit, I’m really surprised about the way this relationship is going, or more like the pace it is advancing at. I kinda expected it to be very much a slow burn, because Kenna would still be conflicted about her feelings for Bash... it would be more logical too, and now I really wonder why the writers chose to do it this way, and where exactly are they planning to go with these two.

Finally, my favourites, Lola and Narcisse, who, after weeks of either just a couple exchanged words or no interaction at all, finally got a proper storyline this week. It didn’t start out very well, what with Narcisse lying in bed with Catherine and all, which still makes me squeamish but yeah, at this point I’ll take whatever will get Craig Parker half-naked in bed on my screen, I guess. Catherine is clearly jealous at Lola after she found that Narcisse has been seen with her last week, and she also knows about that one time when he turned down Lola’s advances because she was under the influence of drugs. Obviously Catherine knows that this is very much unlike his usual behaviour, so she asks him why why didn’t take advantage of her. When he’s unable to give an answer that would make her believe that he really doesn’t care about Lola, Catherine tells him to proving by doing something unforgivable. Later, Lola notices that everyone is staring at her for some reason, and after confronting one of these men, she finds out that Narcisse has circulated a drwaing of her in the bath. Naturally she goes to him demanding to know why the hell would he do that, and after denying it for a little while, he eventually has this to say in defense of himself:

"Very well, yes. I made the sketch, for my private edification. But then I made a large wager with Lord Travers. He bet that his paramour's the most beautiful woman in court. I felt otherwise, so I offered your picture for various nobles to vote on the question. Sadly, though your beauty is sublime, I lost the bet."

Which is for one thing really fucked up, but also he basically admitted that he thinks Lola is the most beautiful woman in court, and damn if that didn’t make me love this pairing even more. Of course, Lola is not stupid so she knows he must be doing this for a different reason, but he does his best to convince her otherwise. In the end Catherine tells Narcisse that she wanted him to do this because she wants to keep her secrets safe, so she had to make sure he wouldn’t tell them to another woman, but Narcisse knows it's really because she doesn't want him to be with anyone else and thinks this is the only way she can make sure of that. I can’t wait to see where this goes!

Episode MVP: Craig Parker as Lord Narcisse

Quotes of the episode:

"I'm always happy to know I've pleased a lady. " – General Renaude

"Very well, yes. I made the sketch, for my private edification. But then I made a  large wager with Lord Travers. He bet that his paramour's the most beautiful woman in court. I felt otherwise, so i offered your picture for various nobles to vote on the question. Sadly, though your beauty is sublime, I lost the bet." – Lord Narcisse.

Random tidbits:

 - Mary visited Greer and asked her to listen to rumours, probably about Conde. This seemed important at the time but then never came up again, so I wonder if it will have any consequences later.

 - Mary and Bash had a little talk during which he reminded her that he used to be in love with her too, which is something that the writers probably shouldn’t be reminding us at all, because as far as badly executed romances go in this series, that one probably takes the cake.