Catherine: “Welcome to your rule, my queen. And
welcome to the real France.”
Mary on the throne of France, alone, gazing at an empty
throne next to hers…. What a haunting image of things to come, because it will
almost always be like that, well of course if history is any indication here.
Reign started its sophomore year on quite a
strong note. The theme followed the main idea behind the season one finale:
power shifting to two young kids, who just starting to get a grasp of what being a
ruling monarch is.
“The person you are... is Queen. And a favor for a favor keeps you on the
throne.”
Catherine’s way of ruling was and is to
manipulate, trade, blackmail and kill if and when seemed fit and profitable.
Mary is desperately trying to find her own way, although the circumstances
aren’t in her favor, with Francis being absent, Catherine rooting for murder,
her noble blackmailing her for food, not to mention the plague outbreak. Not a
perfect situation, but then again it is in situations like that the true
character is built and revealed. She did try to be fair, she did try to solve
the dispute by negotiating, maybe she was set to fail in this one, because Lord
Eduard was so desperate to kill his enemy that he didn’t mind if an entire
household perish with him. When a person is that desperate and that sure that
he is untouchable then I doubt there was anything she could have done. When her
attempts failed, Mary made sure he met the faith he was demanding for his enemy.
Harm set, harm get. And although it was very satisfying seeing him thrown to
the catacombs with other infectees, I do worry about what it’s doing to Mary.
Nobody said it would be easy, but the worst part is that she has to do it
alone.
Well almost alone, Nostradamus helped a lot,
offering to go search for Francis and ‘eliminating’ Catherine. Who would have
thought back at the beginning of the series that Nostradamus will ever go
against Catherine wishes? I think Catherine made a terrible mistake threatening
Olivia, because Nostradamus up until that moment was a loyal servant, now he is
not willing to follow her blindly. That was a nice trick they played with
Catherine, a dangerous one at that because I’m sure she’ll figure it out.
And then there was Bash, though he didn't have a single scene alone with Mary, he
did help her by trying to maintain some sort of order. Come to think of it Bash was more of a king,
than king himself. Francis run out to find his son (now, that I spelled it out
it makes sense that he would, anyone would), but as a King of France shouldn’t
he worry more or also about his people? Bash on the other hand took matters in
his hand, organizing guards, sending patrols, making sure people knew that
whatever the circumstances are now they will take full responsibility for their
actions later. For a person who has never been considered as a future king or groomed to become one, he sure as
hell looked more equipped for the job than Francis.
Speaking of ….
“Would it really have been so awful to
tell me the truth?”
In fact he is quite right, he was always noble
and quite reasonable and Lola could always count on him being fair. I think if
it wasn’t for Mary, she would have told him. Even though Francis claimed not
having a moment to think about this predicament, he clearly played few
scenarios in his head, while riding across death stricken land…. Take the baby.
That was his intention in case Lola was dead. Now when both Lola and the child
survived, there is a choice to make that could not only change a lot for
Francis and Mary, but would also change the life of his son. If Francis doesn’t
change his mind again, Lola will be living at court with his child. I don’t
believe there is one chance in hell to keep this all a secret. Is that what
they were planning all along? Making it that much harder for Mary? Will our royal
couple survive this, especially if Mary won’t be able to conceive?
While we are on the same sort of subject, will Leith
and Greer survive as a couple? Our love quadrangle so neatly crafted in the first season finale has
fallen back to three pieces, it happened that fast that if you blinked you
might never knew it existed.
I speculated in my review of the finale that
plague is a thing that could be used to kill off the characters you don’t need.
Of course they wouldn’t kill anyone important, but they could at least try.
Well, to be honest they did try with Catherine, but we never believe she would die, right? Secretly I was hoping Greer will be the one to go, because in addition to being
utterly uninteresting she is also becoming increasingly annoying. She won’t
have Leith, so no one can? Although in this
case her wanting to have the pie all to herself probably saved Leith’s life.
We did loose Yvette though, only we hardly knew her, so it left me indifferent. Pascal's death on the other hand was highly affecting. My favorite moment of this episode was the heartbreaking scene when Kenna was trying to comfort poor dying boy through the
locked door.
The other scene with locked door however was
much less powerful, when Bash tried to break the doors between him and Kenna.
What if he was in fact infected? Did he just believe his hallucination?
We had a reminder of last season events of a
certain reckoning to come. Silly us (or me in this particular case) thinking it
was all about the plague. So what was it about? People who were murdered, are now
stuck here and they are not done. What exactly does this mean? Since this isn’t
“Ghost Whisperer” I’m inclined to think the girl meant something else.
We were introduced to three knew characters,
one of which was a victim of ‘lazy writing’, as they [the writers] follow the path of
introducing a character out of nowhere only to have him killed at the end of an
episode. At this rate there won’t be any Lords left at court.
The other two, Lord Stephan Narcisse and
Francis’ cousin Louis of Conde, thankfully survived the episode. Both charming,
charismatic and equally dangerous. Narcisse was automatically put in the enemy
column just by the description we heard from Conde, who in his turn was not
honest with his king about a possible escape from the plague. I’m not exactly
sure why Narcisse caught Estelle, was it to show us that there is a risk of
him finding out that Francis has a child? Like I said this secret will not be
secret long enough for him to use it to his advantage. I’m sure there is an
ulterior motive that we don’t see yet. As there is one I’m sure for Conde. His
advice to Francis was very good, adult and reasonable and Francis immediately
followed it. But did Conde genuinely care about Francis and Mary love life, or
did he want to have a royal child on his boat for leverage should (or when) he
needed one?
Historical bits
The word
‘waiter’ rubbed me the wrong way when Lord Eduard used it, as did the word
‘driver’ Lola used, but in fact the first known use of those date 15th
and 14th century respectively. We learn something new every day.
Some observations
No opening
credits, no voice over, just the ‘previously on’ segment.
Memorable Quotes
Catherine:
“Whoever is sick was already here, which means there will be more to follow. But
the airs near us will be burned clean. … It worked for the Pope.”
LOL
Lord Conde:
“Some nobles build fortunes with hard work or by serving the crown. Others find
shortcuts.”
Catherine:
“I didn't want to be me either. Well, I blame Henry. Being a queen unloved by
your king is excruciating. And dangerous.”
Catherine:
“You are nothing but a guest in this court without the support of your king.”
Lord Conde:
“She's married. I'm not. But we share in the sin and so much more.”
No rating for the first episode of a season, but I’m glad
‘Reign’ is back, are you?
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