Reign 2x18 Reversal of Fortune

I can’t think of another show in recent years that has been such a rollercoaster ride in regards to my attitude towards it than Reign. When it started, I was mildy interested in it. As an English major and self-proclaimed general history nerd, a show about the life of Mary, Queen of Scots was right up my alley. Unfortunately, I quickly found myself bored with the whole love triangle angle of the show which was pretty hard to care about when you already knew who Mary was going to end up with anyway... Remember, this was back when I still thought this series was only going to be a little bit historically inaccurate, just enough to make for better drama, but devoid of any major changes to historical facts. Well, we all know how that turned out, but the point is, I enjoyed season one and was happy when the show got renewed, but I never particularly looked forward to any of the episodes, and it wasn’t unusual for me to let them stack up when I had better things to do, and only catch up three or four weeks later. That all changed, however, with the introduction of the brilliant character of Lord Narcisse, who I only paid attention to in the beginning because he is played by Craig Parker and you simply can’t NOT pay attention to Craig Parker, but I never thought I would ever care much about the character itself, and I expected him to be in only a couple of episodes anyway... but then. BUT THEN. That scene in the crypt with Lady Lola changed everything, I completely fell in love with not only the character but the pairing too, and from then on I religiously waited for each new episode just to see those two interact for ten seconds. What a wonderful few months that was.

Unfortunately, after the midseason finale things went downhill very quickly, and the show completely regressed into what was always my least favourite thing about it: relationship drama after relationship drama, love triangles all over the place, and what bothered me the most was that they seemed to have completely forgotten about the wonderful blossoming relationship between Lola and Narcisse. If I’m counting things right, in the last eight episode they only had one important scene together, which actually could have been HUGE for them, except that it was never brought up ever again, as if it never happened. Now, you might think that it’s not fair of me to critize the show for not focusing on my ship, after all, there must be other, more imporant things to deal with, right? Well, if that was the case I wouldn’t be angry at all. I’m all for slow-burn relationships and God knows it wouldn’t make any sense for this particular pairing to just go from acquintances to lovers overnight... but the thing is, what we have instead ranges from boring to infuriating to completely nonsensical, and anyway, I’m more upset about the wasting of a perfectly good storyline than about my ship heading nowhere. Because believe me, I know the difference between „this couple has no chance of ever happening and it’s just the fans who read too much into it” and „this couple is written in a way that suggests that they’ll eventually get together”, and Lola/Narcisse was definitely, 100% percent in the second category... except that somewhere along the line the writers either changed their mind or just simply forgot about it. In any case, the last few months I found myself being back in my season 1 attitude: I watch the show every week but I don’t expect wonders. Which is sad, really... so much wasted potential, so many characters that deserve better.

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is that you’ll understand how it could happen that I apparently fell asleep while watching the previous episode, because honest to God when I was watching the „previously on” segment this week, I didn’t remember any of that happening, and they were pretty important stuff too. Mary sleeping with Condé, Bash getting stabbed, Francis collapsing... important stuff. The only thing that I seemed to remember was Narcisse and Catherine kissing and probably sleeping together, which I sometimes randomly remembered all through the week but it seemed so improbable that I actually had to check the episode to see if it really happened or if I just dreamt it. But no, it did happen, and now you probably see what I meant when I said that everything BUT Lola/Narcisse seems to be happening on this show. Anyway, enough about my frustration, let’s see what this week’s episode had to offer.

So Francis apparently collapsed right after finding out about Mary’s plan to elope with Condé, and he was now dying of an ear infection, just as Nostradamus has prophesized. Catherine was obviously not happy about this and she confronted Mary in a pretty brutal way, which I actually think was perfectly justified because Mary’s been treating Francis like shit ever since the night she was raped... Oh boy, this is going to be complicated to talk about, but basically I have issues with the fact that Francis has apologized a million times over for something that was only indirectly his fault, and although initially I symphatized with Mary when she was unable to let anyone close to her due to her horrible experience, the whole thing kinda got ruined when she told Francis that she couldn’t bear to even just be near a man, let alone be intimate with one, but then she went around holding arms with Condé completely carefree. That was the point when I first called bullshit, and I haven’t stopped ever since. Even in this episode, she told Condé that "You helped me find myself again", and I rolled my eyes so hard I could practically see the back of my skull. This relationship had so much potential and I was actually excited to see how it will play out, but then it basically went from „I care about you” to „You’re the one I love and I want to be with you forever” overnight, and now it’s completely ruined for me. Anyway, Mary was with Condé even when Lola delivered her the news of Francis’ condition, and from that point it was pretty obvious that the big romance is going to be over very soon, because that’s what always happens when a cheating person’s actual partner arrives at death’s door just in time for them to realize how much they truly love them, blablabla.

Thankfully, Mary’s storyline didn’t revolve entirely around her relationship issues this week, which was a welcome change after last week, and the one before that, and the one before... So basically, the Protestant forces in Scotland started to move against Mary’s supporters, and she needed to act quickly if she didn’t want to lose half of her crown. The only way to beat back the rebels was to send a part of the French army to Scotland, which would leave some of France’s borders unprotected, and the country more vulnerable. Here began an interesting bit of chess match between various characters, which I very much enjoyed – because the men Mary needed were under the command of a certain General Renaude, and who else was Renaude answering to than Lord Narcisse? Yep, Mary needed to go through Narcisse to get what she wanted, and she even used some nice threatening tactics to do so. "Remember your son? Do not test my power, and do not tempt my fury.", she said, which is a very powerful line, and definitely effective, except that it’s still ridiculous that they ever tried to pass that guy off as Narcisse’s son when he literally looked twice his age but whatever, me not taking that storyline seriously doesn’t mean that Narcisse is not still in pain about what happened to Narcisse Junior.

It also doesn’t mean that he’s going to take Mary’s threats seriously, however, as the first thing he did after finding out her plan was to run and tell all about it to Catherine. Naturally, Catherine was having none of it, so they came up with this plan where Narcisse would tell Renaude to stall for a couple days before arriving at the castle, in the hopes that by that time either Francis will wake up and get back the control of the armies from Mary, or he’ll die, in which case Mary wouldn’t be queen anymore and would lose control of the armies all the same. The plan worked for a while, then Mary found out the truth about it from Kenna (how and why Kenna knew about it, I’ll get to it later), and furiously ordered for Narcisse to be dragged to the dungeons for disobeying her. "I will tear him in half for this.", said Mary, and I couldn’t help but squee a little because maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally get our little „Lola visits Narcisse in the dungeons” scene that we were cheated out of in January after all.

Now let’s take a look at what all the other characters were up to, before I get back to the matter of Mary’s plan for Scotland. Lola had no real storyline in this episode, with only two short scenes featuring her at all. Shame. Next one of the three ladies in terms of screentime would be Greer, who is now a big-time, successful Madame, about to open her own brothel. I really, really love this storyline and I don’t appreciate it when Leith tries to take it away from me, which was all he was doing in this episode. He somehow got the idea of marrying Greer into his head, even though she’s told him time and time again that she IS married... I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t like the Greer/Leith pairing anymore, ever since Leith pissed me off royally at the end of season one with his whole „you threw away true love” speech, which was one of the most unfair things to ever happen on this show because Greer literally had no choice but to marry Lord Castleroy, if she didn’t want to see her little sisters getting prostituted out to old dudes. Anyway, that’s a thing of the past now and Greer is apparently a much more forgiving person than I am, because she still loves Leith and is happily sleeping with him while her husband is imprisoned somewhere for something he didn’t really commit. Sigh. But at least we got to see Princess Claude in a scene that made her genuinely likable since the first time she’s been on the show, because what do you know, Leith is now her personal bodyguard who has to escort her everywhere. So while Leith was out getting money from some dude (so that he can convince Greer ro run away with him perhaps?), Claude escaped and stumbled upon the opening party of Greer’s new townhouse/brothel, where she promptly got drunk and proceeded to dance on a table. It was genuinely fun to watch and gave me the impression that I could actually grow to like Claude... just keep her away from Narcisse and Catherine because both of those relationships bring out the worst from her. Maybe keep showing her in Leith’s company all the time? They’re actually a fun pair to watch, and it would be interesting to see where they could develop together.

Elsewhere, Bash was being healed by the nun-witch lady from that stab wound I didn’t remember he had received. On his way back to the castle he stumbled on the execution of the guy who had stabbed him, and stayed just long enough to see the face of the next person about to be hanged: Clarissa. I would guess this didn’t really come as a surprise to anyone, they’ve been namedropping her for several episodes now, and we always knew she would come back eventually after her almost-death at the hands of Mary back in season 1. Unfortunately for her, Bash is extremely superstitious when it comes to little things like prophecies about the death of your beloved brother, so when he learned about Francis’ illness and Clarissa being alive in quick succession, he took matters into his own hands and poisoned her so that the whole „firstborn child” clause of the prophecy would come true. It’s all a bit complicated, and also he basically saved her from being hanged, gave her hope that she could become a part of their family, and then killed her himself... that seems a bit pointless to me. I guess the important thing is that Francis really did wake up shortly after Clarissa died, and we can now wonder whether the true thing connected. I hope not – if there’s one thing this show can’t do well, it’s getting involved with the supernatural. In any case, Francis generously decided to help Mary, and ordered the troops to Scotland, but then he made it pretty clear that this changes nothing between them, now that he knows all about her plans to leave him for Condé. "You got what you wanted. Your freedom, salvation for your country... just don't expect a fond farewell from me, or my trust, ever again." Good for you Francis, you did well today. And then of course we were treated to the obligatory scene where Mary told Condé that she can’t leave with him after all because she needs to stay with her husband. Surprise, surprise. But at least this particular storyline is over, right? Mary went back to Francis’ bedside, Condé shattered a few windows, and I’m guessing he will now reconsider his standpoint as to whether he should accept Queen Elizabeth I’s proposal after all. At this point this show is so far from the actual historical events that I wouldn’t even be surprised if they gave Elizabeth a husband, and the strange thing is, I wouldn’t mind either. It’s fun to play with a little bit of „what could have been”, you know?

Last but not least, my favourite storyline from this episode, and I’m probably gonna regret this very soon but I don’t care... my new favourite ship, too. There really wasn’t much about it in terms of story. Mary sent Kenna to find Bash so that he can be with his brother in what could have possibly been his final moments. Kenna’s carriage got sidetracked on the way so she had to walk through the forest alone, and who did she run into completely accidentally? Why, General Renaude and his army of course. Remember when I mentioned that Kenna somehow knew about the fact that Renaude was lying to Mary about his army’s postion? Well, this is why. At first they both got the wrong impression of the other, him thinking that she’s a thief and her thinking that he’s handing out whores to his men, but the truth about both of them quickly came out and they must have really hit it off because by the time we next saw them, he was looking really, really sad and disappointed at the mention of her being married. He even said, and this was the best: "Enjoy your reunion with your husband. I'm sure he will." Awwwwww. Kenna, of course, failed to tell him that she’s actually estranged from her husband and will probably separate from him soon, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to see this relationship develop! They have loads of chemistry, and not to be rude but Renaude seems like a much more interesting person to be with than Bash. Nothing against Bash but you know... he can be a bit of bore sometimes. Let’s just hope this won’t turn out to be yet another one of those incredibly frustrating, „all the potential in the world but will never actually happen” kind of ships that I always fall in love with on this show.

Episode MVP: Toby Regbo as King Francis II

Quote(s) of the episode:

"Do not test my power, and do not tempt my fury."  - Mary, Queen of Scots

"I know what you thought. I also know that you're not a thief. Not with that lofty gaze of judgement." – General Renaude

"Please save your rage for after I leave." – Lady Kenna

Random tidbits:

 - I really liked that bit when Mary was lying to the nobles about Francis' illness, but Narcisse immediately caught the lie and called her out on it. I was so proud :’)

 - What I really did NOT like was that other scene where he was begging Catherine to let him help her, because apparently he cares about her. At one point I honestly expected him to say „because I love you”, and it’s a good thing he didn’t, because I couldn’t really type this with a smashed in laptop screen, now could I? Anyway, dear writers, please don't ever want to make me believe that Narcisse is actually in love with Catherine, because even I have a limit for the amount of bullshit I will tolerate.

 - Why did Catherine want Claude out of the castle while Francis was ill? That wasn’t really explained, or at least not in a way that made sense.