At this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego, we were able to sit down at a roundtable with Reign Executive Producer Laurie McCarthy to hear what’s coming up for Season 2. You can find some video of that below:
Among the topics discussed was the marriage between Mary and Francis. “One of the things that I think we portray realistically is the fact that it was the 16th century in a Catholic nation, where marriage is forever, unless you can get an annulment, you better have a really good reason for it,” McCarthy explained. “So, you take that and you factor in two people who really love each other, and you’re going to see them striving to hold their relationship together, but we are going to test it every way we possibly can, both personally, I think, [as] Lola has had Francis’ child. It wasn’t the result of a long-term affair; it was the result of a one-night stand. But, there’s a bond that you have as a family, so he actually has kind of a separate family, no matter how you cut it. Given the history of Mary having a hard time getting pregnant, and how important that is to her, even if Francis and Lola are nothing but above board, it’s going to tear their union a little bit.”
Mary and Francis also have some other challenges to overcome “They also have basically the same job now, but they’re going to do it in conflicting ways. Their personalities are not radically different, but they’re going to approach problems in different ways at different times, and the stakes are huge. They’re life and death, and they’re King and Queen, so that’s going to cause problems between them as well,” McCarthy explained.
Secrets may also lurk. “They’ve been, to date, incredibly honest with each other, except for the secret of Lola’s pregnancy, but there’s something that Francis can’t tell Mary, and that’s that he killed his father, and he can’t tell her that, because not that it’s a dark secret that he holds close, because that’s the kind of thing that gets someone beheaded, and it could get her beheaded, too. So I think that’s going to kind of tear away at their relationship; the fact that he’s haunted by something, and it’s something pretty dark and awful,” McCarthy teased.
You can see The CW’s official Reign video from Comic-Con below:
