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Dead person update: Colin is not dead! Castle ghost Clarissa arranges for the guards to execute a thief rather than Colin and helps him escape. But Colin runs directly into the woods, where Queen Evil Anne of Green Gables' guards immediately catch him, cut his throat and string him up by his feet to make it look like the local heretics killed him. Your resurrection was brief but meaningful, Colin.
At the castle, the king and queen inform their wee son Charles that they've found him a bride, a rich French girl named Madeleine, who will be arriving by ship. (By herself! Because her parents are in Morocco on vacation or something. She is, like, seven.) Francis and Mary escort Charlie to meet his bride, and while at the sea they notice that the ship arriving is English rather than French. But they come in peace, they say. They'll just be sticking around a little while, hmm?
There are also English guests at the castle. Lord Simon Westbrook immediately begins leering sinisterly in Mary's direction and promptly tries to kill her with a poisoned dress, because all of the people who are supposed to keep Mary alive are off stuffing the geese with grain or fucking the help or something.
Francis mans up and believes Mary when she figures out that Evil Anne of Green Gables is behind the plots to rape her and kill her and dismember her and sign her up for the Columbia House CD club. He lays down the law with his mother (as much as he can in his pulpy, larva-like way) and then pledges his friendship and help to Mary.
And while all this intrigue swirls in his castle, the king of France just wants to bang some strange. He procures a noble husband for Mary's lady-in-waiting Kenna so Kenna can go to her marriage a virgin, and then Henry can have what he wants. I'm betting Henry will get his first. Robert of Lorraine seems an amiable fellow that way.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Ooh, we open with a Game of Thrones–style catch-up montage: A narrator explains that the English have coveted Mary's country and her crown since she was born. So she's come to France to marry the heir, which will protect both her and Scotland. But forces conspire against her. Forces be conspiring.
And now, previously on Reign: Mary, Queen of Scots came to France thinking she'd fall in love with and marry her prince, Francis II. But Francis has a mistress as well as some doubts about cementing the alliance between France and Scotland. And Francis's mom, Evil Anne of Green Gables de Medici, has been told by her pet fortune teller, Sexy Nostradamus, that Mary and Francis's marriage will cause poor wee Frankie's death. So Evil Anne is doing everything in her considerable power to prevent the wedding. And the CW edited out Mary's lady-in-waiting Kenna's moment of self-love, because girls having fun is filthy.
Dungeon. A jailer tortures a man on the rack. He stops the stretching and skulks off, and a woman comes to unlock the poor tortured soul. She tells him to go, but he's unconscious, so she pulls a poker from the fire and prods him with it to get his ass in gear. She flees and he yells after her, asking why she's freed him.
Morning in Mary's bedroom. Lola is asleep in Mary's bed, while the girl queen is already awake. A maid, Sarah, introduces Kenna, Aylee and Greer, who are puzzled to see Lola in Mary's bed. (They're under the impression Mary slept on the couch or something -- but after the failed defilement plot, wouldn't it be safer for one of the girls to sleep in Mary's bed every night?) Lola's still upset about her boyfriend being beheaded, Mary tells the others. As would we all, I think?
The girls go to breakfast and Mary updates the ladies on the differing reasons she's been given for Colin's attack: the king and queen of France say it was an English plot, but Colin told Lola someone at the castle put him up to it. Mary thinks it's someone who doesn't want Scotland and France to be allies. So that could be almost anyone. While Mary prattles on, Kenna has this glazed look in her eyes like she's remembering how the king had her up against a wall last night.
The king and queen's task today: matching up tiny children for future politically advantageous marriages. Evil Anne tells her son Charles, who looks about eight, that his future missus, Madeleine, is not only rich, but she has a giraffe! He looks psyched about the giraffe. Not so much about getting girl cooties on him. King Henry tells Francis to escort his brother to the landing to meet Madeleine's ship.
Charlie (who will eventually succeed Francis on the throne), wants Bash to come too, and his mother scolds him, reminding him baldly that Bash isn't his brother, merely his father's son. Mary offers to go with them, since she knows what Madeleine will be experiencing, coming to a strange place to meet her future husband. Henry thinks this is a splendid idea, but Evil Anne objects, feigning concern for Mary's safety. Henry overrules her and tells the servants to have a carriage prepared.
The royal wagon train rolls out. Mary dozes while Charlie leans against her shoulder. Charlie comments that she smells nice, and Francis sighs that he knows. They arrive at their destination and leave Charlie in the carriage with his toys. Mary appears to be wearing all the lace Spain brought for Philip and Elizabeth's wedding last week.
When they get out and look to the sea, Francis is alarmed: there are too many boats, and the ship anchored in the harbor is flying the flag of St. George's cross -- it's English. When Mary asks, Francis confirms that it's a war ship. As the English begin coming ashore, Francis hollers for the guards and tells them to get Mary and Charlie to safety. Just as the archers are aiming, Bash rides up and tells them to hold; he explains that the French ship was sinking and the English rescued everyone aboard. They sent an envoy to the castle to avert, you know, all-out war.
Tiny Madeleine, wearing a headdress the size of her torso, comes forward and curtsies. Mary greets her and tells her she's safe and welcome. She takes the little girl's hand and brings her forward toward Charlie. Madeleine curtsies again, and then Charlie picks a flower off the ground and gives it to her. It's obnoxiously adorable.
Back at the castle, Charlie and Madeleine scamper around while the bigger folks dance. Mary and all her ladies smirk at each other as Henry expositions that he's having the English soldiers at the coast accommodated, and Simon, the English emissary, along with the captain and some of his officers, will be staying with them. Evil Anne is amused by the coincidence of such fine English fighters happening to rescue the French ship.
Sexy Nostradamus sidles up to Evil Anne and muses aloud that he'd think the English would be favored guests, since they also want Mary dead. Evil Anne cackles that she'd love 'em if they could just limit their aggression to Scotland rather than France as well. (And Spain. And Portugal? Probably Portugal too.) Which is why Evil Anne tried to sabotage the alliance with Scotland, Sexy Nostradamus speculates. Evil Anne's all, yep. Trying to avert that whole thing you foretold where my son dies. (Evil Anne's already lost a couple kids to general sixteenth-century baby hazards, so you can see why she'd be paranoid and overprotective.) She cautions Sexy Nostradamus to keep his sexy mouth shut. And if you're wondering where Sexy Nostradamus gets that raspy voice from, it's because he's one of Donald Sutherland's sons. Raar.
Mary politely inquires of Simon, Lord Westbrook, why he lives in France. He invites her to call him by his first name and asks how her engagement's going. She gives him a great big fake toothy smile and says it's awesome, they're deliriously happy. He rejoins with asking why there isn't a date set -- there's one set for Charles and Madeleine, after all, on her fourteenth birthday. Jesus. Simon speculates that France has no intention of committing to Scotland, then says smarmily, "I know this from one look at you: you're of age. You should be married."
Francis is watching all this from the buffet, suspicion beginning to creep across his chubby larva features. Simon warns Mary to get her girls and get the hell back to Scotland. She steelily asks how long it will be till the English attack if she does that. And then Simon reveals that he knew she'd been at the convent for her own safety -- and he asks about the porridge: "We thought it needed a little seasoning -- a little something to make the flavor of our intentions clear." Mary flashes back to Sister Helen's terrible bloody death, and Francis interrupts just in time, fetching his affianced off to play a drinking game. Because they are, after all, teenagers.
Francis backs Mary up against a pillar and tells her she's shaking and she can't show fear. She recounts Simon's threats, and Francis admits that yeah, Simon's probably heard the rumors of Francis's reluctance to marry her. She's still terrified, but he promises the English will think the France-Scotland alliance is strong before they leave. Nothing says commitment like a church wedding and some consummation witnessed by a bunch of priests, Frank! Instead, he merely offers her his hand and asks if she can do it. "Absolutely," she replies. "Can you?"
A man at arms whispers to Sexy Nostradamus, and he gives Evil Anne a meaningful look. Down in the dungeon, he tells her the door of a cell holding a condemned man -- that would be Colin -- was marked with an X, as is customary. Evil Anne gasps at the foul stench as Nostradamus continues: a boy thief was in the cell door. But his cell door was mistakenly marked. It turns out the thief was executed and Colin was tortured… and he has now escaped. Evil Anne begins to panic, since Colin knows about the plot against Mary. Colin must die, she says.
The king and queen have told Mary and her ladies about Colin's surprising restoration to good health and his subsequent escape. Evil Anne blames it on English spies and assures Mary she's under their protection. Mary thinks this is a great opportunity for her to talk to Colin and find out about the "English" "plot." Evil Anne regretfully says the informants who told her of Colin's guilt have fled. Mary asks them to bring Colin back alive, and Evil Anne sputters that they can't guarantee this dangerous fugitive won't attack the guards and be killed attempting to evade arrest. The king promises they'll try.
When Henry and Evil Anne leave Mary's room, he muses about how funny it is that she was the first one to find out about Colin's escape. And also how funny it is that she's spending so much time in the dungeon with Sexy Nostradamus. Also how funny that no one told Henry about all these events. Evil Anne snarks that she didn't want to disturb Henry in his mistress's bed, and he snaps back that Diane's at the country house. From now on he wants to be kept up to speed on the Colin Affair.
That afternoon, at the picnic celebrating Charles and Madeleine's engagement, all our favorite folks circulate: the king and queen, Mary and her girls, Francis and Bash and Simon and his pals, who at least appear to have the good manners to be appreciating the far superior French food. (Historical fun time! Catherine de Medici is credited with bringing fine cuisine to France; when she married Henry, she brought her Italian cooks with her, along with a bunch of ingredients new to the French, like artichokes and parsley.) Charles, Madeleine and some other girls play blind man's bluff; apparently he's supposed to be able to recognize his true love's voice. Eeesh. Poor kid.
Kenna jealously asks Greer who the king is talking to. She gives him sex eyes as Greer flippantly says he'll talk to anyone he likes since Diane is out of town. (And since he and Catherine don't sleep together anymore. The year to all this, Catherine was pregnant with twin daughters, her ninth and tenth kids. One twin was stillborn and the other died at the age of two months, and after the ordeal -- which almost killed Catherine -- her doctors were like, no more with the babies, mm'kay? So Henry gets his rocks off elsewhere and maybe Catherine engages in consensual frottage with Sexy Nostradamus? I'm hoping, anyway.) Kenna makes sex eyes at the king across the courtyard.
Mary, who is wearing a very Chiara de Blasio–style flowered headband, and Francis watch the kids play; Madeleine is getting frustrated that Charles hasn't identified her. Mary sympathizes with Madeleine, saying Charles isn't paying attention, while Francis says Madeleine is impatient, much like Mary used to be. And still is. She says she wishes she could be patient, but everything in her life is kind of important (and might cause her death as well as the deaths of thousands of innocent peasants!). She tells Francis her suspicions about Colin, and says the king seemed suspicious of Colin's "execution." Francis asks if Mary is implying something about his mother, and she hurriedly says she's not, she's just trying to keep one of her subjects safe. Francis grits that the king and queen of France have given her their word, but Mary reminds him that they also said she'd be married to Francis, so she's not so sure how meaningful those words are.
Madeleine, at the end of her wee French rope, rips Charles's blindfold off, ruining the game. The future king stomps away in a tiny royal snit. (Foreshadowing! He deals with his future wife with as much patience and consideration as he will the Huguenot minority!)
Mary has taken her worries to Bash. She says Colin's the only one who knows who at the French court wanted her raped and banished. Bash sensibly points out that even if she can find him to talk to him, Colin's is the word of an accused traitor, up against the word of the queen. Mary's resolved, and Bash agrees to go look for Colin. He'll have an advantage, since the guards fear the woods.
Mary finds Charles, who was whispering into an open stone archway, and tells him Madeleine feels neglected. She asks who he was talking to and he at first denies everything, but then confesses he was talking to his friend Clarissa, who gets jealous. Charles is talking about one of the castle's ghosts, it becomes clear, and Mary says she thinks Charles's friend visited her. The score at this part sounds really similar to the opening credits of The Walking Dead, so I hope Colin comes back all decayed and brain-hungry.
Mary goes inside the archway to look for Clarissa. On the ground she finds a marble. Back in her room, she finds a strange lady wearing her dress. The woman pleads for forgiveness and says the tailor gave it to her to bring back. The woman starts hyperventilating and clutching at the fabric, and gasps that the fabric is poisoned. Mary runs from her room, screaming for help. Her ladies-in-waiting are truly terrible at keeping her safe.
Francis and several men sweep into Mary's bedroom. The woman is gone and Francis sends his men to find the assassin escaping -- shouldn't be too hard, as he's carrying a dying woman, Francis says. Mary runs to the passageway the ghost pointed her toward last week. Francis sticks his head in and immediately says they couldn't have escaped this way, because he'd hear an echo of anyone fleeing. He explains that most of the passageways, which connect the older parts of the castle to the new ones, have been sealed up. Francis asks where her guards are and she says she was alone. Francis trots off to question Simon.
The king, untroubled by poison frocks, waylays Kenna and says he enjoyed their last interlude. She stammers and blushes and he whispers that he can't stop thinking about her. He wishes they hadn't stopped, but he gets why. Thereby proving himself the only monarch of the medieval Europe to understand "no means no." Kenna sardonically replies that a maiden's virtue is everything -- so she's obviously this show's Serena van der Woodsen -- and King Chuck Bass smoothly replies that he wants a woman, not a maiden. She eye-fucks him as he leaves.
Francis frets to his father that the English can't come into their home and just kill the servants. He's all but stamping his royal foot about how he wants Simon tortured until he confesses. Henry replies that Simon is having a drink with one of Henry's advisers, and they'll see what to do if and when they find the servant's dead body. Francis mutters about how Henry is keeping Mary in the castle, her life at risk, over an alliance they might not honor. Henry replies that Mary's life has always been at risk, and her mother (also named Mary, augh, and related to Robert, whom we'll meet in a minute) doesn't want her to come home without a king for a husband. (And a great big fuckin' army.) So she stays. Francis reminds Henry that Mary is under his care, and Henry smirks that Francis seems awfully invested in a girl he claims not to want to marry.
Bash investigates the forest. He finds Sexy Nostradamus's bleeding dogwood tree -- no, it's a dead body, hanging upside down from a branch twenty feet off the ground.
Castle. Francis tells Mary they questioned Simon, and he has an alibi. (NERD: The word "alibi" didn't come into use until two centuries later. But what the hell, they should be speaking Middle French anyway.) Mary's all, I just bet. Francis earnestly says that he believes her and wants to help her -- as he guesses Bash is. But he thinks Bash should be back by now (and I keep wondering which castle they're supposed to be in -- is it Versailles? Surely there's a town nearby where Colin could've fled. Ah, no. Versailles wasn't built yet. Probably Fontainebleau.) Mary takes Francis's hand and thanks him gravely.
After Francis leaves, the girls all rush over and say none of the servants or guards saw someone leave Mary's room with a dying girl. Mary ponders, and then goes to check out the secret passageway again. She hollers for Clarissa and ventures in with a candle. She sets all the marbles the ghost gave her on the floor and tells Clarissa to come find her. She turns to go, and the rocks roll after her. Mary sets up some ghostly communication: she'll make a guess and if she's right, the ghost rolls the marble back to her.
Mary asks if Clarissa knows who's trying to hurt her. The marble rolls back. Is it the English? Is it Catherine? The marble rolls back. Well, that wasn't helpful. She asks again: Was it the English? Clarissa smashes the marbles and goes away. Mary begs Clarissa to stay, then looks at the broken marble on the ground. Beside it is a small gold key.
In the forest, Bash hides when Francis rides up. When he realizes who it is, he comes out of the bushes and they regard Colin's dead body on the ground. Francis asks how Colin died, and Bash supposes the guards found him. As he pulls the body away by the arms, Francis steps on the rope still tied to Colin's feet and points out that the French generally hang people by the neck. He bends to look at the body: Colin's throat was slit and he bled to death before he was hanged. Bash is all, yeah, that's great… now can we shake a leg? It's creepy out here. They hear a noise and Bash tells Francis to shut the fuck up, because it's not the guards he commands. The rustling out in the darkness gets louder and closer.
Francis draws his sword, but Bash cuts his hand with his dagger and then says a few lines in a foreign language and drips the blood on the white dogwood petals on the ground. Whatever was out there leaves. Now it's Francis's turn to be all, WTF. Bash hushes him and they fling Colin's body over the horse's hindquarters.
In the castle, Mary fits the key into a door, but before she can open it, a servant interrupts and asks if she's here to see the queen. Mary lies that she's just leaving a note. He leaves and she tries to unlock the door, with no success. She tries her key on the door. It works, letting her into Simon's room. Where he's just banged the supposedly poisoned servant.
Simon tosses the servant her clothes and she scampers away. Mary asks why he'd stage the poisoning just to terrorize her, since she's already quite aware of what England can do to her, what with Sister Helen's death and the English ships in the harbor. He lazily ties up the front of his shirt and says she needs to fear the English here at the court as well. She growls that he's only showed how the English fear her, since she's heard the rumors that the queen (also named Mary, aaaaaghhhh) is ill, and Elizabeth is in line for the throne, but the Catholics consider her illegitimate. So the rightful heir to the English throne, Simon finishes, is Mary, Queen of Scots. (Like everything else, the genealogy is complicated, so I'll just leave it at: cousins.)
Mary replies that she doesn't want the throne of England; she just wants Scotland to be safe. Simon says she should show England she's not a threat, that she's not going to marry the king of France and therefore gain access to an army capable of taking on England. She yells that she needs that army, and he replies that England must crush Scotland to be certain of its own security. Man, if ever an earthquake splitting that island from the River Tweed to Solway Firth would have prevented a century of bloodshed, it's now. (Or, like, four hundred years earlier. Or two hundred years later. Good thing they've gone with a referendum this time.)
Simon tells Mary to leave France in a show of good faith to England. I'm impressed she doesn't scream, "YOU JUST TRIED TO MURDER ME LIKE SEVEN TIMES, FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST AND HIS SAINTED MOTHER." He points out what powerful enemies she has here at court, and asks just where her guards have gotten off to. Yeah, where are they? Her guards are shit.
Mary reflects on what Clarissa said and murmurs, "She said yes to both." She realizes Simon has Evil Anne's side in this, too. Simon denies it, but says it sure would make his life -- and killing Mary -- way easier.
Elsewhere, people are happy. The king watches as Kenna plays chess with some fancy court boy. She excuses herself and discreetly tells the king she's thought about his offer. She asks if he sees the fancy court boy who's been making sex eyes at her all night. Henry identifies him as Robert, Viscount of Lorraine, and Kenna says she needs to be spending her time with available noblemen, and those noblemen will want to know she's a virgin or they won't marry her. She apologizes to the king and he says he understands her position completely. I'm sure it's her position he's thinking about.
Francis asks Bash again about his heresy in the woods, and Bash brushes it off, all, "Oh, I picked up a little Druid at the Sorbonne." He says he'll go ask Nostradamus if Bash doesn't explain it to him. "Deep the woods, dark the night, red the blood I will pay," Bash snaps. He says it's nonsense that scares off vagrants. Francis doesn't believe him, but Bash replies that he found Colin hanging and believes the vagrants used him as a blood sacrifice. So why did Bash go into the woods if they're not safe, Francis asks. Bash lies that he did it out of duty to Mary, as his brother's fiancée. Francis icily tells Bash to make that the last lie he tells him.
Francis tells Mary Colin's dead (again). Which means Mary has no way of getting to the bottom of the plot against her now and near tears, she says she came to France to marry Francis and thereby protect both herself and Scotland. She says their betrothal scares the English. "They'll fear it when I'm king, I promise you," he replies. Mary thinks Evil Anne is behind the plot, but she has nothing to prove it, just the word of a ghost and an enemy. Francis protests, but Mary is sure. She wants to leave, for her own safety. "I can't bring home any armies and I can't wed any kings if I'm dead," she says.
Kenna opens her bedroom door to find the king, with Robert. Henry asks Robert if he'll marry Kenna, no questions asked, because his king asked him. Robert sits up and pants like a good little lapdog. Henry dismisses Robert, then steps into Kenna's room. He assures her that his favor will expand her influence, then drags her up against him and kisses her. Kenna likes this idea. He tells her to think about that, and leaves.
Francis is sulking in the room where they kept the Goblet of Fire at Hogwarts, it looks like, and as his mother enters the room, says he hopes to be a good king someday. (Oh honey. You won't.) He asks why his mother doubts his commitment to France. She protests that she doesn't, and he replies that she had two boys killed in her quest to upend his engagement. "Mistakes were made," Evil Anne says coldly. She says they tried to help Colin, even though he was a traitor.
Francis asks what that makes his mother, and asks whom she's loyal to. "My family. France. You, as they're one and the same," she replies, and Francis delivers some helpful exposition how she can't trust Henry, and since Henry can't divorce her (France: still Catholic!), she's heaping all her hopes on the king: Francis.
Francis proclaims that his marriage -- to anyone -- won't change his loyalty to his mother, and she asks if he's so determined to marry Mary. He says he is, but Mary's good faith in coming to France is also what matters to him. Evil Anne shows her hand when she asks if Mary is leaving. Francis tells her to stop terrorizing and plotting against Mary or she'll lose him.
In her chamber, Evil Anne dismisses her ladies. She unhooks her necklace and asks a guard where they found Colin. The guard says he'd gone into the woods, which made him easy to catch and hang -- the way the heretics do. He bows and leaves as Evil Anne continues to undress. She pulls back her coverlet and finds a red X on her bedsheets; not the cross of St. George, as I first thought, but the X from the condemned prisoner's door.
In the dungeon, Nostradamus scrubs down the cell door and talks to Clarissa about how clever she's gotten, tricking the guards into executing one boy while she releases another. He asks if she's trying to help Mary, "like some avenging angel. You're no angel," he gruffs. "If people knew what you really were."
Mary stares out at the water again, and Francis says he believes her about his mother. He's sorry for her suffering and thinks she's now safe from the queen. She asks how he knows, and he says she'll have to trust him. As he'll have to trust the queen's love for him. Mary isn't satisfied that Evil Anne's her only enemy, and he asks if she didn't come to France for an ally. He'll be that ally. Him, not France, at her side, not Scotland's. He wants to be her friend. I want her earrings. They grin at each other and say it's a good place to start. He asks her to stay and offers her his hand.
time: The English get all shirty. Mary wears her hair up and gets a proposal from the heir to the Portuguese throne. To my dismay, it does not appear Tomas of Portugal is played by Cristiano Ronaldo.
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