Reign: 4x08 “Uncharted Waters”

Lord Bothwell: “Darnley will be your undoing.”

Pirates and boat rides. Prophecies and desires of hearts. Treasures and all sorts of other sparks…. This was a useless, but very enjoyable hour. Read on.

Let’s see if I got this right: Bash’s spirit guided a poor merchant through the woods to give a message to Mary. And what a message it was! Prophecy more like it; taken straight from the history books. “Mary can have love or an heir but not both, and her son will be the king of England and Scotland”. No kidding. Now, had the message said something different, wouldn’t that been much much cooler? And what does this mean for Bash? Is he dead? Or has he simply mastered the druid skill and can travel now in spirit form? It’s a rhetorical question; I doubt we ever find out.

Both queens were beautifully courted this week…sort of.….

John Hawkins, well-meaning privateer and a pirate, seduced Elizabeth with talks of great power and future of England ‘that could be’. His speech about Europe not being the whole world, and how she can expand her territory together with turkey and tomatoes discussions did the work. The insult from Spanish ambassador helped as well, since it was like a slap in the face. Young brave pirate has now full support of the Queen of England to travel, explore and invade the New World and also to plant the English flag. Well done, Elizabeth!

Across the Channel, Lord Bothwell stole Mary away for a boat ride, swimming and a walk in the forest. His motives were purely… political… shall we say? The attraction is obvious, but for now he is just doing what he promised her mother – looking after Mary, making sure she doesn’t marry Darnley. Adam and Adelaide were electric; I was scared to even touch my screen. Like he said later – they make excellent partners. Yum!

Darnley, Darnley, he was making one mistake after another. Talking smack was just reckless and irresponsible. All of it could’ve been easily written off to ‘boys being boys’, but he did it in front of Mary and an important delegation from Florence; not to mention he showed no respect for Mary talking like that about Francis. He hasn’t given anything yet, but he has taken quite a lot: lands, James’ horse, Mary’s trust and now another land. Bothwell was right - Mary will spend her life cleaning his mess. It does seem though that Darnley decided to break it off with Keira, and poor girl only stayed in town because she was sick. That was very unfortunate.

I blame James. If he wasn’t so jealous, Keira would still be alive. I’m curious about James. My opinion of him changes every week and Dan Jeannotte is consistently doing a marvelous job of switching back and forth from likeable to not so much. For the last couple of episodes I liked James a lot; watching this one, I suddenly realized that he is simply just that: jealous. He was a ruler of Scotland, and now, with Mary’s return, he lost all that power, his trade roads, his horse. Jeez! I am seriously hung up on the ‘horse thing’! I don’t know why. Anyway, Darnley has taken his place and now Bothwell is back at court. Poor James….

Meanwhile in France, Charles’ religious quest continues. He chose Protestantism for the ability to make his own choice and not having to report to Rome. As Luc noticed, it’s not as simple as it sounds, there will always be those who will dictate him what and how. To be honest I don’t think it’s only that, or the simplicity of Protestantism, it is in fact more complicated. Then again, who knows what goes on in that deranged and weird mind of Charles? It only took one conversation with a Catholic priest to throw him into dark chaos. No doubt his mental state is poor at best, but religion does seem to play a deeper role. He was scary and I was kind of worried for Luc; I thought Charles would slaughter him right there and then for turning him away from Protestantism. What a mess.

Historical bits

Elizabeth did indeed invest in Hawkins exploratory voyages.

Some observations  

It turns out, the dispute of tomato ‘being a fruit or a vegetable’ goes back to 1500… It is definitely a fruit, scientifically speaking, if you were wondering….

We haven’t seen Knox for a while. What’s up with that?

Nicole cleans up pretty nicely, doesn’t she?

Elizabeth drunk – that is something I didn’t think we’d ever see.

So Bothwell is a ‘Loyal Watchman’, not James. Love it when I get surprised.

Wardrobe department

The “Best Dress of the week” Award goes to Nicole.
This dress was amazing.
 

The “Worst Dress of the week” Award goes to Mary.
What on earth was that?
 

Memorable Quotes:

Bothwell: “I was trying to protect you, Mary.”
Mary: “I am not yours to protect!”
Bothwell: “Yes, you are.”
Beautiful!

Elizabeth: “Captain Hawkins, you are here by my grace only. I will not have you question the rules. You will abide by them.”
Hawkins: “That's bloody boring.”
Elizabeth: “Do you have something to add?”
Hawkins: “Yes. That sounds bloody boring.”

Sol’s rating: 4 out of 5 – why not? I loved it.

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