Reign: 2x21 “The Siege”

Mary: “What could he have to gain from striking out against you?”

Francis: “The throne!”

Wake up Mary! Your lover is in cahoots with your enemy and he's after your husband’s head, quite literally. 

Thinking of this confrontation I realized that Francis is in it for France, Elizabeth is in it for England, Conde is in for Mary, well, the power and French throne, but mostly for Mary. But why Mary is in it? She seemed so lost in those couple of episodes, still not fully realizing what her actions have caused, what it is at stake, and completely disregarding her duty to France, not to mention to Scotland. I kept wanting for someone to yank her out of it. Finally she did it herself when the severity of the situation finally got to her.

It was obvious that the castle will not withstand another attack; they are seriously outnumbered and underarmed. They were arming children and women and that says it all. Despite his snarky comebacks, Francis still loves Mary very much, and he was willing to risk lives of everyone in the castle, because he didn’t believe Conde can protect Mary from Elizabeth, if he surrendered.  

The only way to save everyone at the castle was to remove Mary from this equation. And she did exactly that, she run off to Conde betting on his love to save her; her and her baby. I’m afraid however that Francis was right. Conde’s position is still shaky at best and in the present circumstances, when the castle is under attack, I doubt he will be able to save Mary, baby or no baby. He will probably die trying though. 

I see very gruesome future for our prince. There is technically not much they could do with him, he can’t become the King of France, Bourbon’s time has not come yet; he can't stay at court after committing treason. Unless Mary is really pregnant and Conde will be playing the role of Lord Darnley and they run to Scotland together for the chapter two of Mary Queen of Scots’ life. Okay, back to reality!

This time we spent some moments with Bash and his new lady friend. Their hunt for herbs while discussing witchcraft and possible employment at the castle was somewhat refreshing comparing to Kenna’s conversation with Renaude where in the space of few minutes she managed to mention twice his carrier at court and all that follows. Kenna is moving back to being my least favorite person.

Back to the witch. I didn’t think the idea of Delphine as a new Nostradamus was a bad one, until she met Kenna. The way Delphine described Kenna’s radiant energy was creepy; her predicting the future with Bash gave out a stalker vibe, and that blood binding sex spell was outright scary. We shouldn’t be surprised, though, she brings people back from the brink of death and obviously is too comfortable with dark magic. Poor Bash, his luck with women, is, well, lacking.

Narcisse and Catherine – watching them together is like pulling teeth. I don’t like it, not one bit and I finally realized why. Not the obvious lack of chemistry, but because despite of seemingly having an upper hand Catherine is coming across as weak and needy. She loves him?! Come on!! She is not that desperate! And she certainly doesn’t need Narcisse. Anyway, remember some episodes ago I said she’d eat him up alive. She did. Well, his horse, but that was even worse.

Historical bits

Mary Queen of Scots had a son, James. 

Some observations  

It was sad watching Mary as Francis said goodbye to Lola and his son. It was as she is no longer a part of that family, like she finally realized that it is all completely and irreparably over.

Loved Lola and Narcisse saying goodbye to each other.

Of course Renaude crossed swords with Bash; I didn’t envy Kenna in that moment.

I was right in the previous review – Conde does want to wed Mary.  

I knew Catherine was serving Narcisse his horse before he even sat down! Did you?

Wardrobe department

The “Best Dress of the week” Award goes to Mary.

The “Worst Dress of the week” Award goes to Kenna, seriously that looked like bath robe at best. 
Note from later: going through previous reviews I discovered that this dress has already been nominated in the same category in Episode 6 of season 2 "Three Queens". Yes, 15 episodes later, it is still the worst.

Memorable Quotes:

Claude to Mary: “This is all your fault. We're all thinking it.”

Yep! Me too.

The penultimate episode of season two left us, well, me anyway, with three nagging questions: Is Mary really pregnant? Who the hell did Claude saw in the tunnels? And did Catherine really slaughtered that horse?

Sol’s rating: 3 out of 5.