Reign 2.07 “The Prince of the Blood” Recap

As Princess Claude arrives at the castle from her time in Prague, leaving a weak of slack-jawed guards in her wake, Kenna, Mary, and Lola have their breakfast gathering interrupted by Francis and his men, who sit at the other end of the table. Mary doesn’t want to interact with her husband considering the tension between them and gets a much welcomed respite from her marital discord when Narcisse comes into the room with an edict for Francis to ratify. However, this is no ordinary edict; its intention is to force every French citizen to publicly declare their faiths, a trap meant to rid the country of Protestants. If they’re honest about their faith, they subject themselves to torture and inquisitions; if they lie about their faith, they can be tried for perjury and send away for quite a long time. But Narcisse makes sure to remind Francis that if the edict is not ratified, the country will know just who was responsible for Henry’s death.

Not yet privy to her son’s latest political dealings, Catherine is more concerned about Claude’s sudden reappearance. Her youngest child is busy flitting around the castle trying to reacquaint herself with both her surroundings and those she left behind, as she reminisces with Mary before promising to go for a walk and inspects the beadwork on Kenna’s dress. Elsewhere, Mary finds Greer back from her wedding tour much sooner than she had anticipated. However, there’s nothing wrong with her relationship with Castleroy; quite the contrary, as her appearance at the castle has to do with an injury she sustained in an attack at Orleans. When Castleroy didn’t take mass, the two ended up leaving town and being caught by the church officials who stripped their carriage of everything. When Mary learns that Castleroy was attacked for being protestant, she tells Greer about the edict that came across Francis’ desk this morning and assures her friend that she’ll do anything and everything in her power to keep it from passing.

Francis gets an information update from Bash regarding the Narcisse stakeout he’s been on recently. The only visitor to Narcisse’s place has been Lola, so Bash confronts his brother about the reason he’s even been assigned to watch over Narcisse in the first place; Bash thinks it has to do with Lord Montgomery, but when he presses Francis on who could have hired Montgomery to kill Henry, Francis confesses to being the one being the death of their father. Bash, of course, understands about the hell that Henry was able to bring to their lives and vows to find Caroline so that she can lead them to Lord Montgomery. But when Francis talks to Mary beside the castle waters, he’s much less sure of himself, telling her that he wants to go at this alone and that she simply has to believe in him right now. Mary wanted her husband to take a stand and to focus on doing the right thing, in addition to dividing up the nobles so that the edict doesn’t have a chance to pass, yet when he won’t give in to her, she finds Conde and lays out the case behind her thinking. Her plan? To find a Protestant noble and have them speak out against the edict, which she believes will cause the other Protestant nobles to join the cause. Conde isn’t comfortable with the idea of naming names and forcing people to risk everything, but he agrees to help Mary, nonetheless.

While Kenna complains to Bash about Claude’s unfriendliness before seeing him off on yet another journey, Catherine digs around Armsman Gifford’s belongings and finds an English cypher, which he used to feed Elizabeth information through secret coding. Anyone who gets caught with this would be instantly discredited, their lives and freedom put in danger as a result, so naturally, she made copies and Francis takes the original. After he leaves, Catherine again hallucinates the two ghostly girls she first saw earlier this season, with one of them coughing up a rose and pinning it on her sister; however, Catherine gets called away by one of her ladies and walks in on Claude having sex with Father Benoit, the priest who helped bring her to the castle in the first place. Catherine is understandably upset that her daughter gave up a life of culture and excitement to come back home, but she can’t send her back just yet, not when she’s not done anything egregious enough to warrant a banishment back to Prague. Meanwhile, Francis propositions Lola to help him put the screws to Conde by hiding an envelope in his residence, asking her to trust who she believes to be the better man.

Once Lola gets to Narcisse’s, she agrees to a bath in order to have the alone time necessary to hide the envelope behind a painting.  Yet when she gets in the tub, he comes into the room and seems to point toward the fact that he knows there’s something up with her, that she wouldn’t just show up at his home with a flimsy excuse like she did. After telling her what he likes about baths (the simultaneous comfort and vulnerability) and promising her that they’ll soon get to a place where he’ll lower his defenses, he asks her whether she wants to 1) finish her bath and go home, never to mention this night again or 2) head to the drawing room to begin the proceedings that will make a deeper, more meaningful relationship between them possible. Lola decides to go to the drawing room and learns that Francis was the one who killed Henry; she defends him, saying that Henry was mad anyway, but Narcisse frames this confession as something that will show Lola which of him and Francis is the most honest about who they are. Elsewhere, the royals throw a boat party for Claude and Conde points out a nearby Protestant nobleman, all the while Francis spreads rumors to the other nobles of an English spy being in their midst. Though Mary learns from Catherine that Conde was next in line to the throne when Francis was ill in childhood, she still goes through with her alliance with him, encouraging the Protestant noble to stand up against the edict. However, he has a family to think about and he doesn’t want to commit too quickly to such a dangerous idea.

That same night, Lola returns to the castle and tells Francis that she couldn’t hide the envelope due to Narcisse being too suspicious. But she ends up letting it slip that she might not be telling the truth when she blurts out that of Francis and Narcisse, only one of them used her and it wasn’t Narcisse. The following day, Narcisse brings the edict and just as it looks as if no one would stand up, Conde falsely confesses to being a Protestant, a move that stirs the actual Protestant nobles to step forth and object to the nature of the edict. Francis uses this power to delay a decision on the edict, afterwards thanking Mary for her manipulation of the situation, but things aren’t completely well for the French king, not when he hears from Bash that Caroline had been dead for weeks. He then decides to call Narcisse’s bluff and get Mary out of the country just in case things go too south, so he finds Mary outside and informs her that he won’t be signing the edict after all before giving her what he thinks could be their last kiss for a while.

Kenna once again complains to Bash about how Claude seems to want nothing to do with her and he argues that it’s because his half-sister is jealous of her beauty and that Claude’s insecurity prevents her from being friendly with women she views as competition. It turns out, though, that Claude’s coldness toward Kenna comes from an attraction to Bash that she manipulated him into acting upon when they were younger. When Narcisse confronts Francis about the status of the edict, Francis pushes back for the first time, telling him that he doesn’t care if the country knows about what happened to Henry. But Narcisse has another card to play that Francis hadn’t considered – the first attempt on Henry’s life, which was orchestrated by Catherine and Mary. Francis might not care about what happens to himself, but Catherine and Mary would be put to death for conspiring to kill the king, as well; without Francis around, Bash would certainly be a goner, as would his child with Lola, meaning that the entire royal bloodline would die off if Francis chooses to not ratify the edict. Elsewhere, Catherine sees the two ghostly girls again, who she realizes as the spirits of the two daughters she lost when they were infants. The two threaten to kill Claude before disappearing, causing Catherine to order her daughter away from the castle as soon as possible.

While Lola and Narcisse have their first kiss after he tells her that the reason he “picked” her was because he never had someone who could play the game as well as he could, Mary learns that Francis signed the edict after all. Frustrated with her husband, she says that he’s not the man she fell in love with, nor is he the king that she wants to lead the country with. Unwilling to let Mary in on the new terms Narcisse brought to him, Francis suggests that maybe she should return to Scotland.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-“I remember you, too. Now close your mouth.”
-“On behalf of France, I’d like to apologize for the plague, famine, and religious violence.”
-I think I’ve figured out the reason I’ve not warmed up to this season of Reign, minus last week’s superlative episode. The central plot of the moment, where Narcisse has Francis under his thumb, actually does work for me, in that I buy an older, experienced political player taking Henry’s death as an opportunity to exert influence on his son. Narcisse is a pretty solid villain that Craig Parker is playing the heck out of and I like that this season is primarily focusing on the impact that the crown has on who Francis and Mary are as individuals as well as a couple; however, everything with him lying to Mary is the most flimsy plotting the show has put forth to date. It reminds me of sitcom episodes where the entire storyline is based on one person not having a two minute conversation with another person – that kind of dancing around one another feels so much like writer-based plot manipulation vs. organic, natural drama that there’s no way to invest in it, which leaves moments like the end of this episode feeling more hollow than they should.
-The part of me that absolutely loves the campy side of Reign was beyond disappointed when the show took Claude from being a walking id, a bundle of snark and sensuality wrapped up in fabulous dresses, to being a sexual predator. It was a weird turn for the show to take in general, but in pushing Claude off the show without exploring this major part of who Bash is and how it’s impacted his relationships with women feels like such a lost opportunity. If Reign wanted to explore sexual abuse through a male lens, it would be extremely bold and something that I think the show has the capability of pulling off; however, it’s sending a not great message by bumping Claude from the show and not delving into an event like this in Bash’s life, especially after this season has been too light on Bash anyway.
-If Claude does manage to hang on for a couple of episodes, be it through her mother’s desire to protect her from the ghost girls or what have you, I hope that what they do with Bash and her is respectful and doesn’t play up the situation for laughs. Male sex victims have it rough on television and Reign has a chance to do something great if they so choose; at this point, though, and with the way this season has been developing, I’m just not sure they’re willing to do the work necessary to make a difficult storyline like this shine.
-Shout out to Reign, though, for having Francis confess his role in the murder to Bash this early in the season. I genuinely thought it would take until at least early 2015 before we’d have any movement in that area, so to have him lay everything out there in the interest of self-preservation was refreshingly direct. And for it to come during one of the best Francis/Bash scenes of the season made it that much more satisfying.
-At the end of the episode when Mary learns from Greer that Francis signed the edict, was I the only one who thought she would tell Mary that Castleroy died in the attack? Her whole demeanor was so broken and so sad that it felt like something major was about to come down, especially since she arrived to the castle without Castleroy and failed to mention anything about where he was or what injuries he sustained.
-So, Lord Conde has a thing for married ladies, as we saw with his latest fling this episode. We’re all in agreement that he’s going to make a move on Mary, right? He likes married women; he does anything she asks him to; he’s still looming around the line of succession; he’s acted as her confidante pretty much the entire season; she’s as distant from Francis as she’s arguably ever been. If there’s not a kiss before the December 11th fall finale, I would be surprised.
-So, Lord Narcisse has a thing for baths. 1) I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have gotten in the tub if I were Lola and Narcisse was basically purring at me; 2) When are we going to see Narcisse actually in the tub?; 3) Anna Popplewell’s delivery of “A bath. Again.” is the funniest non-Catherine line of the series.
-I might be on Lola’s side as far as her decision to side with Narcisse. I mean, from the viewer vantage point, we see that Narcisse was willing to kill her baby (or at least use that as a bargaining chip), so he’s kind of a monster, but she still doesn’t trust Francis after everything she dealt with regarding the baby and him not being honest with her about what was in the envelope confirmed (to her) that he doesn’t value her as much as Narcisse seems to. She believes that Narcisse is who he says he is, and that he’s different from the reputation that he’s garnered for his brutality, so until he gives her a reason not to trust him or does something detrimental against specifically her, she’s going to hang on to him. I just hope that she’s not fully investing in him and that she’d be willing to get out of dodge if/when it turns out that he’s manipulating her.
-I…don’t know how I feel about the twist with the ghost girls. On one hand, I like that we have something of an explanation for their presence and that it’s connected to Catherine’s psyche and overwhelming-albeit-compartmentalized sense of guilt that she felt over the loss of her infant daughters. It points to the humanity that Catherine has had to give up to get to the throne and it’s a sign that she might not be as put together as she wants others to think, with the latter hopefully leading to some great stuff for Megan Follows. On the other hand, I’m still not sure what this show is doing. Are these two girls just a manifestation of Catherine’s psychological damage, something that only she can see/sense and something that makes her confront the thoughts, feelings, and emotion that she’s fought so hard to suppress? Or are they going to be able to cause damage around the castle (e.g. just how much danger is Claude actually in?) and be more ghost-like than hallucination-like? Either way, it’s a little dumb, but the former I can maybe work with, especially if they can find a way to tie it to something medical so that Catherine didn’t just wake up and start seeing dead infants roaming the halls of the castle.
-Kenna making Claude a peace offering was the cutest, though. If you’re not going to give Kenna much to do, at least make it lovely stuff like that.
-Next week on Reign: The rift between Mary and Francis deepens after an incident between Protestants and Vatican inquisitors, while Conde gets captured after making a bold declaration, Catherine attempts to find a suitor for Claude, and Narcisse gives Lola a ride home.