Reign: 1x22 “Slaughter of Innocence”

Henry: “Betraying someone you love blackens your soul. It's a weight you carry all of your days.”

It seems as almost every single television series this year decided to pass on the big cliffhanger in their respective season finales. All the shows that I watch tied up the plots nicely, opened doors for new possibilities and strangely didn’t leave me hanging. I kept thinking about times when every season of Alias ended with me saying “Wow!” followed by “How am I ever going to wait until fall?” This year I haven’t said it once. 

Reign’s first season finale wasn't an exception, as it left things in quite an organized manner. No ‘on the edge of the seat’, no ‘I can’t wait to see what happens next’. Well, I do want to see what happens next, but I CAN wait.

It doesn’t mean I didn’t like the episode. I liked it quite a lot. It felt a bit slow, but at the same time appropriate, since the episode took its time and paid attention to every character and each story and sub-plot somehow was nicely brought to an end. The episode resolved the main issue, set up several new developments for the next season; it surprised me few times, and it even had a total OMG moment that I didn’t see coming. Let's look at an episode more closely.

Henry didn’t waste any time. He planned to poison Francis, asked Catherine for an annulment, started harassing Mary in front of everyone and had 300 men ready to invade England. The celebration of the victory turned into a mass murder of those who fought for it. Hundred men survived in Calais only to be slaughtered by their mad king. The king who accidentally killed them by using gunpowder for fireworks, who didn’t even seem to realize that he’d done something wrong. Was that the last straw for Francis? I bet it was. It was certainly the last straw for me. Henry had to be stopped, and I for one, am grateful they did it.

Considering Henry’s desire to be the king of England, how ironic it was that Mary showing up at the jousting tournament wearing the English coat of arms and having too much attention was exactly the thing that drove Henry to his demise. The second I heard the name of Lord Montgomery I knew Henry will die at this tournament. I was also glad that it will be ‘an accident’ and he will die at the hands of someone other than his family members. I loved it. It was quick and clean and historically accurate. Well, almost, because it wasn't Lord Montgomery. God! That was a shock! I certainly did not see the twist coming. I guessed it was Francis only seconds before he took his helmet off.

Lots of innocent people died in this one, but it was Francis’ innocence that was slaughtered. Was it really necessary to put that kind of burden on him? I guess Mary can’t be the one always making hard decisions?

As opposed to Mary's, Francis' road to doom and gloom took longer and got much deeper at the end than hers. We saw him almost hating his brother, we saw him torture a man and now we saw him kill his own father. I always perceived Francis as a moral one in this pond called French Court. Every decision he made was well justified, he was always fair, honest and smart. Gorgeous, gallant and noble Dauphin of France. At the same time he never had to make really hard decisions, he never had to kill someone in cold blood to save someone else. Now, he has. It was fascinating watching him grow and change so much, yet somehow keep at his core what made him him.

When I looked at Mary and Francis having that hard conversation, her admitting loosing herself and him almost confessing to killing his own father, I kept flashing back to the beginning of the series, back when both of them were so young, innocent and somewhat naïve. How far they’ve come.

If only they had more time to discuss and share this burden, they might have made it. But after receiving Lola’s letter, Mary made a decision to tell the truth. Of course Lola thought she wouldn’t survive, maybe Mary thought the same. It was a right call to tell Francis. It was good that it was Mary who told him. Except now he is off to help Lola, and Mary stayed in the castle. Only some months ago she would have followed him, not now. Now she is almost a Queen of France. So she lowered the gate after him without a moment of hesitation. This lowered gate, separating them was an obvious symbolism of how far away they are from each other. It wasn’t a cliffhanger, but it felt like the end.

We spent quite a lot of time with Leith and Greer. Leith whose absence from the previous episode was duly explained [I totally forgot he was injured] was back on his feet and back at court with papers confirming he is a proud owner of lands, houses and access to the river. He offered all that along with his heart to the woman he loved, only it wasn’t enough for Greer. In her defense I must say that I believe if it wasn’t for her sisters she would have said 'yes' to him. With a father like hers how could she ever leave her sisters behind? I think maybe even if Lord Castleroy was not in the picture, she would still have said 'no'. It is hard to blame her, as she is very obviously not a selfish person, but it is also hard to be sympathetic. She is the only character that hasn’t changed a bit over the course of a season. While every other character has grown, she is stuck and had not been developed. She is also the only character I don’t really care about. So far all she’s got going for her is the love of this man.

Speaking of our kitchen boy, Leith has changed a lot hasn’t he? I guess war does that to a person. He seemed more mature, he doesn’t want to settle anymore as a number two. And now he is somewhat courting no one other than Lord Castleroy’s daughter. Now, did we already know he had a daughter? Does Greer? And what an interesting love quadrangle we got ourselves. Lord Castleroy and Greer, his daughter and Leith. Yes, things will get interesting.

While Leith isn’t enough for Greer, Bash is more than enough for Kenna. I believe this was the best thing she could ever have said to him. It also shows how much her character has grown. She doesn’t want titles anymore, she just wants him. There was also a mutual ‘I love you’ that felt genuine, at least I think they believed it.

Let's talk a bit about Mr. Darkness, just for the story sake if nothing else. I’m not sure how I feel about what happened here, I felt so disengaged from this subplot, that I barely paid attention. Thankfully this story came to a quick resolution. Mr. Darkness turned out to be just a man [as we all suspected], that can be killed [which Bash did], who organized a sacrificial conveyor to feed the Gods [nice justification for his murder spree] and hold off the plague. Of course the delusional murderer wasn’t successful since the sings of a plague started showing up like dozens of years ago and he was not able to stop anything. I’m not gonna go into theological/harbingers of doom discussions, so let’s just say our characters got the last sign and now the plague is here. I’m curious to see how they are going to play with it; plague is good excuse to get rid of some characters. I guess we will have to wait. 

My favorite moment of this finale was Bash almost kneeling in front of a new King and Francis rushing towards him, not letting him get on his knees and just hug him. Owww...

Historical bits

There was no plague in France 1558, only in Russia.

Some observations  

Henry once again proved that he doesn't know his wife very well, what with him asking her to protect Diane, calling his former mistress an equal of Catherine's. What an epic mistake! Maybe he thought that she would honor his will because he was dying. She will honor it alright. What did she say? "I will reach out to her." We all now what happened to Diane de Poitier after Henry’s death, I bet it is exactly what’s gonna happen to her in here. Plus Diane run off so many months ago, it seems like years have passed, and now that Henry is dead there is no reason for her to come back, like ever. 

At least we got an answer of who that boy was that Henry kept seeing. It was his brother, who he killed. What a shock! Obvious parallel here with Francis killing his father.

When Bash and Nostradamus were in that house reading the sings on the wall and there were falling stars, I for an instant teleported to “Under the Dome." Anyone else?

Adelaide Kane totally sold the sheer panic and fear she felt when Henry was so openly 'hitting on' her. Yet the Performance award goes once again to Toby Regbo, who was absolutely stunning in conveying every single emotion from disbelief, to resolution, to realization of what he must do and his guilt when it was done. Stunning work!

Memorable Quotes:

Leith: “When you are alone and miserable, remember this is the moment that you threw your happiness away. And I'll remember you as the woman who told me I wasn't enough. I will become everything you are so convinced that you need. I will rise and rise and rise, until I am rich and powerful. But I will never be yours again.”

I believed every word he said.

Catherine: “Who knew all it took was a statement dress to get France in the palm of her hands. “

Duke de Guise: “She is the future. They see that.”

Catherine: “Such glory you promise. And so cunning you've become. How you've changed since you came back to us from convent. I miss the girl you were.”

Mary: “Many will. She was easier to kill.”

Mary: “Although some people would question a God who grants us such power, based on nothing but the fortune of our birth.  It isn't fair, the privileges we are given. And the price we must pay for them. I can feel myself changing. And not for the better. Every choice I have made to protect France and Scotland, even you, for all of them there is a reckoning. And it's always the woman who must bow to the queen. I feel like I'm killing part of myself. But I'm ignoring my heart until it becomes blind and deaf. I can feel myself growing harder and I worry that I...that I'm becoming someone you will not love.”

Mary: “You are going to a village which has likely been exposed to plague. If you bring back people who may have been infected with it...”

Francis: “"People"? Your friend. My child, perhaps my only child.”

Ouch!

Mary: “You are the king of France! You no longer have the privilege of obeying your heart!”

Francis: “That's not the kind of king that I want to be.”

Sol’s rating: it is difficult to rate this one, on the one hand it wasn’t spectacular, except for few things, on the other hand it served the purpose and executed the task of a final episode of a season. I loved it, so let's just leave it at that.

Reign comes back this fall. Stay tuned.