In the dungeon, Colin is shown to be alive, albeit in the process of being tortured. His torturer leaves and a strange white-clad figure frees both his hand and foot bounds before encouraging him to leave. It takes a hot iron and burns him awake, fleeing the scene when he gains some semblance of his surroundings. Elsewhere, Kenna, Greer, and Aylee are brought to Mary’s room, where they find that Lola had spent the night crying over Colin. Mary is still worried about who could be behind the plot to take her out; the royals are still insisting that it’s an English plot, but Colin saying that it’s someone high-ranking at French court has stuck with her and made her think that it’s someone there who remains opposed to Scotland’s alliance with France. She needs this alliance in order to protect her country from the domineering English and needs time to make Francis fall for her and want to get married after all.
While Mary is still waiting to become a bride, another of Henry’s children is getting betrothed, as Francis’ younger brother Charles has been promised to French subject Madeleine. Her parents are inordinately wealthy, which worries Henry that they’ll do anything for power, and she’s sailing in from Morocco by her lonesome. Catherine “volunteers” Francis to watch over Charles during the journey and Mary manages to get in on the trip, as well, much to the Queen’s chagrin. Once they arrive where Madeleine was supposed to sail into, they see several more boats than they expected, in addition to an English warship that they think has been sent to capture Mary. However, Bash soon comes riding in on horseback and explains that the French boat took on water and that the English rescued them, bringing them the rest of the way. There’s an emissary waiting at the castle who he got the information from, so the archers put down their bows and Mary brings Madeleine over to Charles, introducing them. Madeleine waves and curtsies, while Charles picks a flower and gives it to her.
At the celebration for Madeleine’s arrival, Catherine is noticeably anxious about having the English parked at the coast and staying within the castle, though Henry assures her that everyone will be gone in a few days. Nostradamus questions Catherine for not being open to the English, since they both have the same goal of bringing Mary down, and she says that England is also an enemy of France, as they want everything in their possession. On the other side of the party, Mary meets Lord Simon Westbrook, the English emissary who brought word of Madeleine’s condition. The two discuss his home in France and he asks about her engagement to Francis, which he think is hollow due to no date being set as of yet. Madeleine and Charles just got engaged and they’re planning on getting wed on her 14th birthday; he goes on to demand that she goes back to Scotland and mentions the porridge at the convent, all but threatening her life should she continue to defy him. A drunk Francis comes over and gets her out of the situation, pulling her aside where he reveals that he only acted drunk as a way to save her and advises her to not show the English that she’s scared. People may be aware of his wavering feelings for her, but he pledges to show off the strength of their union as a way of keeping her safe until the English leave.
Back in the dungeon, Nostradamus explains to Catherine that Colin’s execution was botched. Anyone that gets executed has a red X painted on the outside of the door, indicating that it’s their time to die; for some reason, the X was painted not on Colin’s door but on the door of a young thief who was also in the dungeon. Colin was tortured and managed to escape, making a fearful Catherine declare that they must find him and kill in to avoid Mary’s wrath. Later, Henry and Catherine inform Mary and her ladies that Colin is alive and continue the narrative of this being an English plot. Mary thinks that she now has a chance to speak with Colin and get a better picture of who her enemies are, but she’s told that the informants have fled the country and that there’s no guarantee that Colin is found alive. Once they leave, Henry turns to Catherine, who didn’t immediately tell him of Colin escaping, and demands that she keep him informed at all times rather than hiding behind the excuse of his mistress, who is out at the country house.
There’s a picnic held in honor of Charles and Madeleine, full of food, dancing, and games, including an activity where a blindfolded Charles is put in the center of a group of girls calling his name. He has to decide which is the voice of his true love, difficult since she’s quite soft-spoken. Watching on, Mary and Francis reminisce about their own experience with games like this and she wishes she could be patient; Mary then informs him that someone French might be involved in the plot against her and backtracks when he questions whether she’s accusing Catherine or not. All she wants right now is Colin alive and Francis promises to make every effort to ensure this for his fiancée. Instead of waiting around, Mary goes to Bash and informs him that Colin is the only one who knows who is her biggest threat at court, convincing him to help her locate the lost boy. He deduces that Colin ended up in the woods and that the guards, who exited from the south keep, wouldn’t venture into them since they’re afraid.
Afterwards, Mary finds Charles talking to a friend lurking in a passageway. He says that her name is Clarissa and she decides when you see her, she knows secrets and sees everything, and he bribes her to stay around, despite the fact that she likes people. Included in that are guessing games where he learns things. Mary enters into the doorway and calls out to Clarissa, picking up a marble and heading back to the castle, where she finds a random woman in her room. The servant had tried on her gown and begins writhing in pain due to being poisoned. However, when the guards come into the room, the woman is gone and there’s no sign of anyone having been in the room. Mary thinks that she could have escaped through the stone passageway and Francis says that they would hear her since there’s an echo. He does promise, though, that he will take care of the guards who weren’t there for Mary when she went into her room. Elsewhere, the King approaches Kenna in public in an attempt to keep her reputation at court pristine. He can’t stop thinking about her, although he understands why they had to stop the other night – to protect her virtue. However, he says that he wants a woman and not the maiden that she still fancies herself as.
Henry then talks to a suspicious Francis, who thinks that England is behind the plot since they have the motive to torture Mary. He chastises his father for treating Mary less like a human being and more like a pawn, asking him to release her from the engagement and let her go home due to not being safe. Henry says that Mary’s job is to wait until he says it’s time t get married and hits back at his son by questioning why he seems to be so invested in someone he claims to not want to marry. Meanwhile, Bash is in the middle of the woods with his horse and sees drops of blood on the flowers on the ground. He looks up and finds Colin, strung up by his feet and already bled out.
Francis informs Mary that Simon has been questioned and his alibi has checked out; he then tells her that he needs to go check on Bash, as it’s getting late and he’s still not back from the woods. He easily finds Bash in the woods and his brother insists on bringing Colin back to the castle, as Mary would like her subject to have a proper burial. It’s not the guards that got to him like Francis thought, though, since they hang traitors up by the necks and not their feet. Bash concludes that it’s the vagrants who are living in the woods that cut Colin’s throat and cuts his own hand to ward off the shadows that suddenly enveloped him and his brother. Following a quick saying in another language and the blood being spread around, the boys are safe and load Colin’s body onto a horse before riding back. Meanwhile, Mary goes into the passageway on the hunt for Clarissa. She announces that she needs help and that if the girl can hear her, to come out and find her. One of the marbles she dropped rolls, meaning that Clarissa is there. The two are to play a guessing game – if Mary guesses right, Clarissa rolls the marbles back to her; if she guesses wrong, Clarissa can keep them. As a result of the game, Clarissa reveals that she knows who is trying to hurt Mary and indicates that both the English and Queen Catherine are playing a part in the scheme. She soon flees, though, but not before breaking a marble and leaving a key.
The key ends up belonging to the door of Lord Westbrook, who is fooling around with the girl Mary thought was poisoned. The reason they faked the poisoning? To make Mary afraid of the English, since her presence at court angers them deeply. It turns out that England’s Queen has fallen ill and Mary’s illegitimate cousin Elizabeth is next in line for the throne. After that? Mary’s the heir to the throne of England, but she doesn’t want that type of power. She wants peace between England and Scotland; unfortunately, that’s not to be, as England wants to crush Scotland to prevent any uprising from developing. They offer to leave her alone if she returns home to Scotland and renounces her alliance with France, but that alliance with France has been made in order to protect Scotland from England. No one budges and Mary surmises that Catherine had lent her support and that she’ll never be left alone as long as she’s in France.
The King pays Kenna a visit while she plays chess with Robert, Viscount of Lorraine and interested suitor. She’s decided to end her affair with Henry on the grounds of needing to preserve her virtue for the man she wants to marry. Meanwhile, Francis confronts Bash about going out into the woods on Mary’s command and the latter mentions that he feels as if its his duty to protect her, though Francis doesn’t believe that was the reason for a second. Mary is continuing to fret now that Colin is dead, with her major concern being a lack of proof against her enemy and England still being petrified of her while she’s in France. She thinks she could survive her time at court if she didn’t have to deal with Catherine; however, she has no faith that she can do that and still maintains the opinion that the Queen is behind the entire plot to hurt her. As long as England feels like they have a clean shot at her, and they do as long as Catherine remains compliant, Mary can’t stay there, as she can’t marry any kings if she’s dead.
Henry knocks on Kenna’s door with Robert by his side. He engages the two and tells her, once Robert leaves, that her prospects only expand if she associates herself with the king. Elsewhere, Francis confronts Catherine in the throne room and questions where exactly her loyalties lie. She says that they’re with her family and France, but he thinks that she’s worried that because she can’t trust (or divorce) Henry, her survival depends on the fate of the next King; if that turns out to be Francis, she doesn’t want his loyalties to be split thanks to Mary, something he denies would ever happen. He leaves her with a threat – if anything happens to Mary, he’s lost to his entire family. Catherine goes to ready herself for bed and finds a giant red X in the middle of the bed. Meanwhile, Nostradamus is cleaning up the red X on the thief’s door and talking to Clarissa, as he thinks she tricked the guards in order to show Mary who her true enemies are.
Outside the castle, Mary learns that Francis does believe her and he promises to be at her side to help battle any and all enemies – as a friend. It’s a good place to start, at least.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-For those curious, the song that played at the very beginning of the episode was “Scotland” by The Lumineers. You can subscribe to a Youtube channel dedicated to posting music from the show here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkAYEg7Zikk
-At first glance, bringing Colin back to kill him before he could talk to Mary was a little cheap and took some of the power from the pilot. However, it deepened Mary’s paranoia/suspicion of Catherine, brought her together with Francis for the first time, and allowed her to meet with Clarissa, so it served a good purpose. Plus, it gave us the scene that the pilot started off with (the blood dripping from a tree with white flowers, something that wasn’t in the original pilot).
-Still not much from Greer and Aylee. But then again, it’s the second episode and there’s plenty of time to fold them into the action.
-Sexy Nostradamus Watch: Still sexy. Also, not afraid of a little elbow grease or deformed ghouls that live in the walls of the castle. All good qualities in a man.
-The new opener: good or not good? I actually liked it quite a bit – striking imagery, fun and informative narration, easy way for people to jump into the show without being fully caught up.
-Francis’ shirt in the final scene with Mary looked like something I would buy from Old Navy for $5. I liked it, and would probably wear it in my everyday life, but it didn’t exactly read royalty or 15th century.
-Favorite dress of the episode: Mary’s black and gold sparkly number at the first party for Madeleine and Charles.
-Do you think that there are supernatural forces in the woods (or at work in general)? Or was Bash’s ritual for naught/show?
-Another great scene: Mary figuring out that she’s screwed. England will never get off her back while she’s hiding behind France, but if she ever comes back to Scotland without France’s support, she’s setting her country up to be taken over. Interesting moral dilemma that helps solidify the premise of the show, since this could have easily turned into a haunted house horror movie with the “why don’t you just leave?” angle.
-At the moment, I don’t think either guy is that great for Mary. Francis was only nice to her this episode because he knew of Bash’s interest; Bash only initiated contact due to the instructions of his mother, so while he seems to genuinely like Mary, there’s no guarantee that his actions are without ulterior motivation. #TeamMaryQueenofSingleLadies
-On that note, I’m a little embarrassed about how invested I already am in Kenna/Henry. Hottest King in television historical fiction? Discuss amongst yourselves.
-Great visual to have the red X in Catherine’s bed and a nice parallel for her to have with Mary, as both are going to be swimming in paranoia in the coming episodes. Was the X from Clarissa? Or is there somebody else in the castle who has it out for Catherine?
-Next week on Reign: A Portuguese prince makes Mary an intriguing offer, while Francis puts Bash in a risky situation.
