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Henry returns from Lorraine and in the aftermath of Francis's near kidnapping decides that Francis and Mary will marry immediately—especially since England's Queen Mary is dying. Henry wants Mary, Queen of Scots, to press her claim to the English throne as Henry VIII's great-niece, but Francis just wants to bang Mary into Tuesday.
Despite the fact that Francis and Mary basically got caught having premarital sex BY AN EMISSARY OF THE VATICAN, wedding plans proceed apace. Since Sexy Nostradamus has foreseen that the marriage will cause Francis's death, Evil Anne of Green Gables cranks up her prevent-the-wedding plan to eleven. She's tried deflowering, she's tried attempted murder, and she's tried throwing slutty French girls at Francis, so now she tries telling Mary the truth—well, the truth as Nostradamus tells it. Mary doesn't quite believe and wants some proof that any of his prophecies have ever come true, other than the time he foretold that Bash would kill Tomas in the forest.
Kenna finds out by accident about Diane's plan to legitimize Bash and then tells Evil Anne about it, so Evil Anne uses the knowledge to blackmail Diane into poisoning Kenna. Nostradamus has also conveniently foreseen that one of Mary's ladies-in-waiting will die within twenty-four hours, so this would seem to fulfill it—except it's not Diane who poisons Kenna's cup, but burlap-bag-headed ghost Clarissa, and Kenna doesn't drink the tea, Aylee does.
So Aylee keels over dead, everyone cries, Henry stomps his foot when Mary breaks the engagement, and then Mary, convinced that marrying Francis will kill him, flees the castle. With Bash. So that won't get anyone gossiping.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on Reign: Sexy Nostradamus prophesied that Mary's wedding to Francis would cause Francis's death; Diane schemed to put Bash on the throne; Italian count Vincent tried to kidnap Francis; and after Mary and Evil Anne of Green Gables foiled him, Mary and Francis hit it… hard.
The morning after. Mary and Francis wakes up all shirtless and sandy-mouthed and he's all, "Don't run off to try to salvage your tattered reputation!" Mary giggles and asks if he thinks they're being reckless. Girl, this is the kind of thing that gets ladies beheaded and shit. At least you're a Queen. Francis hopes he got Mary up the stick, as that will make Henry hurry with the wedding, and then murmurs some shit about their great-grandchildren, just as he gives Mary her 47th hickey.
A page knocks on the door, with a message from THE POPE. Such a boner killer. There's a cardinal from Rome visiting, so Francis needs to stop deflowering virgins and put on some knickers and go make a good impression. The page doesn't say anything about the naked queen trying to hide in Francis's bed, because he values his head.
The King coddles Kenna, who has a scabby lip, but isn't feeling so poorly that she can't bitch at him about how he hasn't left Diane like he promised. Henry agrees with us all that Kenna is basically the Mona Lisa Saperstein of this castle and exasperatedly replies that the reason the servants have seen Diane in his room is because she's his friend and his counselor and OH, ALSO, SHE'S BEEN HIS LOVER SINCE HE WAS FIFTEEN. Kenna bitches about how Vincent's soldiers almost raped her to death because she was the King's woman, and they wouldn't have known that if you didn't blather it all over the place, would they? Henry reluctantly mutters that he's not "capable…of exclusivity," which is a conclusion more medieval monarchs should have come to, ahem, Mary's great-uncle Henry. While Kenna cries, he tells her he's keeping Diane. Obviously, because Diane is a boss.
Bash finds his mother in a castle corridor and asks her if the cardinal visiting from the Vatican has anything to do with her attempts to legitimize him. He grits his teeth that he doesn't want Francis's job, and Diane incisively asks if he's sure, because the job comes with Francis's woman.
Francis and Mary, significantly more clothed now, stride into the hallway. Since this is the late Middle Ages, I'm sure they just reek. Like, Mary, was it too much to ask that you rinse your mouth after doing that? Diane reminds Bash that Mary will marry the king of France. He says that's no way to get a woman, and she sniffs that it worked for Francis.
Henry greets the masses assembled in the throne room and tells them Mary Tudor is dying in England. She has not named a successor, the Pope's buddy Cardinal Tesson says, but many recognize Mary Stuart as the rightful heir to the throne (rather than the bastard Elizabeth.) Henry strides to Mary and tells her she'll make her claim on the throne as soon as Mary dies, and to strengthen the claim, she'll marry Francis immediately. Aylee, Lola, and Greer exchange worried looks; Evil Anne growls; and Sexy Nostradamus goes into a fugue state, visualizing Francis's death and Mary wailing to his body. Henry intones that it's God's will.
Mary asks Francis if she understands correctly, that a condition of her marriage to Francis is that she delivers England. Francis is all, "Uh-huh, that's what Pop wants". Mary reminds Francis that Elizabeth has plenty of supporters. Like, uh, all the Protestants in Europe. He knows. He also knows that Mary laying claim to England could get her killed (along with many, many, many other people.)
In private, Henry mansplains for all of us (in case we dozed off in history class or missed the Cate Blanchett movie) that Elizabeth is illegitimate and basically doesn't exist in the eyes of God because she's a filthy Protestant. Mary refrains from saying, "Yeah, that's my dirty Protestant COUSIN you're impugning, dude". (Not that they've ever met, but I bet they'd get along.) Evil Anne is unimpressed as well, and she also doesn't think it's an awesome idea to put a Scot on the English throne, as that would cause a war between England and Scotland, Catholics and Protestants. (Why not just wait a couple hundred more years till there's a German on the English throne and then there will really be a reason to throw a hissy fit?)
Henry says it doesn't matter if Mary makes a play for the crown, Elizabeth will consider her a threat. (True!) He thinks this is an awesome time for France to launch an all-out war on England, since they'll never be weaker than when the country is squabbling over which monarch to put in charge.
Henry tells Francis and Mary that they'll rule half of Europe together: England, Scotland, and France. He pulls Evil Anne aside for a word and tells her that if she interferes with Francis delivering to him the English crown, he'll kill her. I guess no one told him how she poisoned half a dozen bloodthirsty Italians like six hours ago?
Diane and Bash commiserate about how he'll never be legitimate, since the Church is crushing Elizabeth's claim to legitimacy in England. She cautions him to hide his lust for Mary so Francis doesn't have him chucked off a parapet. Good advice!
Kenna terrifies a maid in outside Diane's rooms and tells her to give Diane a message: that the King's mistress would like to meet with her. Overhearing, a priest interrupts her, mistaking her for Diane, and says he's the priest who's been answering her letters to the Vatican about Bash. He spills the beans about the campaign for legitimacy and tells her to give up writing. Kenna turns all these things over in her tiny, atavistic mind.
Francis and Mary walk together. He asks her if she really does want to marry him, and she says she wants him, but she doesn't want to start a war. He hopes they have time before Mary Tudor's death, time for them to be together just as a married couple before they have to go full-napalm politics. Not likely, kids. Francis meebly says a bunch of shit about how he loves her, then gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him. Mary agrees and they make out, then frolic off in the direction of the castle because, let's not forget, they are children.
Evil Anne's room. Even her pet parakeets are ignoring her, because they are metaphors. Evil Anne, by the way, is wearing what looks like a long-sleeved Affliction T-shirt with a huge, bloody red heart over her sternum. It is so subtle.
Kenna bashes into Evil Anne's chambers, over the objections of a servant, and demands a word. Evil Anne smirks, "You look terrible, but if this about Henry, you can't imagine how little he interests me at the moment." (And Kenna does look terrible; she's basically in a church pageant costume of Mary the Mother of Christ the morning after the crucifixion.) Kenna says it's also about saving Francis from pain.
Kenna brings up Diane and Evil Anne scoffs at her, tired of the subject. Kenna demands to know why Evil Anne endures her (uh, because she's not the king and ultimately, she's not the one in charge?) and offers to share knowledge they can use against Diane. She tells Evil Anne about Diane's plan to have Bash legitimized. This gets Evil Anne into a high dudgeon. She shrugs that Henry loves Bash and Diane, but he won't stand for them undermining Francis's succession. "This might get Bash and Diane executed", Anne says coolly. When Kenna leaves and she turns back to her birdcage, the parakeet is dead. BECAUSE IT IS A METAPHOR.
Greer lounges on Mary's bed and tells her how happy she is about the wedding. Lola, the dourest maid in all the land, wonders if Mary is thinking about her duty to Scotland. Jesus, give the girl a break. She spent all of last night lying back and thinking of Scotland. In the secret passage Clarissa, with her burlap bag of a head, listens to the girls talk about how Mary and Francis plan to marry the evenings. Greer and Aylee play with her hair immediately! That is the most important thing!
Evil Anne freaks out on Sexy Nostradamus, fretting that nothing she's tried can prevent Francis from marrying Mary and sealing his own fate. So Evil Anne wants Mary dead. Sexy Nostradamus cautions her that Francis will never forgive him, but Evil Anne resolutely says he can hate her for the rest of his long, healthy life. Oh, you poor, deluded woman. Sexy Nostradamus floats the stupid idea of just talking to Mary and trying to convince her not to marry him, but Evil Anne reminds him that they'll both burn as heretics for the dark magic. He counters that they'll burn in hell if she kills Mary. Evil Anne is cool with that, because she totally stocked up on a value pack of papal indulgences while her uncle was in charge.
Mary lets herself into Evil Anne's room. Evil Anne has been wearing her crown this whole time as well, as if to reinforce her authority. But with that dumb-ass MMA tribute of a gown she's wearing, it just makes her head look pointy. Evil Anne asks if Mary believes Sexy Nostradamus's predictions. Mary does not so much.
Evil Anne fills her in on the prophecy, but you can forgive Mary for not believing the woman who's tried to have her raped and killed and married off to a Portuguese like fourteen separate times. Evil Anne shows all her cards, telling Mary if she tells the king what Evil Anne and Nostradamus have done, he'll have them killed immediately. She begs Mary to walk away from the marriage and the alliance, for Francis's sake. "He will die if you marry him," she quavers. Well, only if you believe marriage causes ear infections.
Mary asks if Evil Anne has told Francis about the prophecy, and she says she hasn't. But she knows Francis would talk her out of believing, that he would put his life on the line for Mary, and she begs Mary not to let him do that.
In the dungeon, Mary interrogates Sexy Nostradamus. She thinks one of his past predictions might have true (the one about the lion fighting the dragon on a field of poppies), so now she wants to know if the one about Francis's death can be circumvented any other way than Mary leaving him. He says it can't, and that she'll blame herself. He knows Francis will die not much older than he is now. Kenna runs into Nostradamus's rooms just as he prophecies one of Mary's ladies dying in a day's time. Kenna flees, because everything is all about Kenna.
Greer brushes off the prophecy, saying Nostradamus foretold she'd fall in love with a man with a white mark on his face. Lola's all, "About that -- where do you go all the time?" Aylee recalls that Nostradamus foretold she'd never see Scotland again. Greer changes the subject back to Mary and Francis and the girls all sulk prettily.
Mary asks Bash about Tomas's death as he grooms his horse. He confirms there were poppies in the woods when they had their armed conflict with Tomas, and that Tomas had the dragon on his standard, but tells her not to worry, because he's known Nostradamus a long time and his prophecies are wrong as often as they're right. But then he confirms that the pommel of his sword is a lion's head.
In Diane's rooms, she and the king go at it like the teenager he was when she first started nailing him. He puts his robe on and sails through the banquet hall that way. Evil Anne takes that opportunity to barge into Diane's room, where the mistress herself is still lounging naked in her bed. Evil Anne needles Diane about Kenna and sweetly says she puts up with the public humiliation because at least she doesn't also have to endure the private discomfort of Henry's amorous attentions. Man, Nostradamus needs to get his Da Vinci on and invent Evil Anne a vibrator.
She chucks Diane's clothes at her and tells her she knows about Diane's attempts to legitimize Bash (and, gloriously, she both sells Kenna out and derides Diane's legendary beauty as she does it, because Catherine de'Medici is a bad ass), which will come to naught. Diane protests quietly that Evil Anne would do the same for her son. Evil Anne snarls that she's taking this petty revenge for herself, and tells Diane to amscray or she'll tell Henry what she did, how she very nearly ruined Henry's heart's desire, to gain England through Francis's marriage to Mary.
Evil Anne extends a hand and tells Diane she must do one thing for her in order to leave with her life -- she wants Diane to poison Kenna. "There are two things I cannot abide, betrayal and stupidity, and Kenna's guilty of both," Evil Anne says. "One can be tempered, the other can never be remedied." Evil Anne cautions Diane that Kenna's ambition could get Diane killed, so it serves both of them to eliminate the silly twat. Evil Anne sniffs the poison -- "Oh! It's sage, it's very nice" -- and leaves it on the bedside table.
Kenna lies about in Mary's rooms like the useless slug she is. The other three girls come in, preceded by a maid who sets Kenna's tray to her. Aylee hands Kenna her cup and they all sniff it, talking about how floral and herb-y it is. No one says "sage," but Kenna offers it to Aylee. She doesn't drink, but pulls out ropes of pearls to show the others, trinkets her family sent her for Mary's wedding. Lola laughs that she sometimes forgets how fucking loaded Aylee's family is.
Greer wonders if the wedding will still happen, and Lola reminds us all about Mary believing Nostradamus made at least one correct prophecy.
In Francis's room, he gets dressed while Mary lounges in his bed. She's wearing, like, a 1940s satin dressing gown, because that's appropriate. She tells Francis she loves him, regardless of what happens, and he scoffs that nothing's going to happen. She worries they're testing fate, believing they can have everything they wanted, like they're aspiring to be gods rather than mere royalty.
As Mary speaks we see a girl, clutching the cup with Kenna's drink, and stumbling through the hallway, coughing.
Francis crawls on top of Mary and murmurs some pretty shit about how they're taking a huge risk, doing what they think is right for their people. Mary is super charmed by his use of "we" and "our," because she's a sappy little romantic.
Clarissa watches as the girl coughs and chokes, and then pushes her down a flight of stairs.
Francis promises he would die for Mary, but before they can seal it with some not-quite-consecrated teenage sex, they hear a scream and leap out of bed to run toward it.
Lola, Greer, and Kenna, with several maids, are gathered around Aylee, who's sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. She stammers that Nostradamus foretold she'd never go home again, and says, "Too much blood…shed for you." Mary clutches her head as Aylee stammers, chokes, and dies. Badly. She dies really, really badly. Like, I'm pretty sure a 6th grader playing Juliet could die more convincingly than this poor kid.
Kenna flashes back to Aylee drinking from her cup. Mary stumbles back, crying, and sees Sexy Nostradamus, who recalls mixing the poison. She remembers his prophecy and cries that Nostradamus was sent from hell.
Diane fills Bash in on how Evil Anne knows about their plan. She tells him Evil Anne has sworn to keep the secret -- flashing back to Evil Anne giving her the poison -- and proposes that they leave the castle together and intercede with Henry where Evil Anne can't influence him. She thinks once the wedding happens everything will be awesome. Bash is all, "I don't really want to hit the road to watch you bang my father?"
Nostradamus, in his rooms, regards Aylee's dead body and asks…someone…if he should suspect the Queen. This is different from the poison Evil Anne used on the Italians, he says -- it's one he made. He turns and we can see he's talking to Clarissa, who's just standing there in broad daylight, a girl with a bag on her head. He asks why Clarissa killed the girl, and she says, in a guttural voice, that Mary had to believe the prophecy.
Nostradamus scoffs that Clarissa sees herself as like Mary, as a victim of fate, but he says that Mary is a beautiful queen, "and you…you are a monster." He grabs her, rips the bag off her head, and forces her to look at Aylee's body. As she screams, he hauls her off behind a tapestry. To shove her back in the tunnels? Are we supposed to believe she's a real, corporeal person?
Mary is packing her jewelry as Greer frets about her breaking alliance…but is Greer more worried about leaving Leith? Or the font of rich dudes? Worst ladies-in-waiting ever. Mary says she believes Nostradamus, and she can't risk that Nostradamus would also be right that the marriage would kill Francis. She asks the girls to come with her, but Lola says they can't, because Mary can more easily escape, without Francis knowing, on her own. Mary promises to send for the girls.
Mary tells Francis, Evil Anne, and Henry that she's decided not to make a play for the English throne. Henry can't believe she's walking away from England, and immeasurable power, and Mary replies that she's walking away from France. Francis runs after her and basically flings himself at her feet. She stoically tells him she's doing the right thing for Scotland, because his loyalty is to France. When he says he loves her, she replies, "Love is irrelevant to people like us. A privilege we do not share. You told me that."
Francis can't make a facial expression to save his life as Mary says she won't let people die for her (uh, any more people.) He swears he won't let her go, begging her to wait for him while he talks to his father. She just smiles and agrees that yes, she'll wait.
In the stables, Mary's trying to get herself a horse. The groom won't let her leave unattended, but Bash interrupts and says he'll happily accompany the Queen. The groom leaves and Bash asks where Mary is going. She blurts that she's doing it for love of Francis, and Bash pledges to help her.
Francis runs down the lane after her, hollering, as Bash and Mary ride off. He falls to his knees like the pasty drama queen he is, still screaming, "Mary!" Mary just spurs her horse to a gallop.
In January: Mary and Bash go all Butch and Sundance. See y'all then!