At the Duke’s funeral, Catherine makes snide remarks while Marie attempts to eulogize her brother. While Marie knows that Catherine is glad to see the Duke dead, she simply thanks the queen mother for keeping his treachery secret. Francis informs Lola that he’s set up a meeting with the Duke and Duchess Von Amsburg, nobles who want their infant daughter to be engaged to John. This sets up their son’s future and gives France some powerful allies, assuming that the meeting the following day at Antoine’s gala, thrown to celebrate the death of the rivalry between his family and the French royals, goes well. Meanwhile, Kenna returns an extravagant gift from Antoine – a ruby that he placed in a strawberry from one of the strawberry snow cakes he left her. She loves Bash far too much to accept the gift, but Antoine does get her attention when he suggests she help him decorate for the upcoming party, giving her a huge budget to make the event happen.
Marie grills Mary on the state of a possible heir to the Scottish throne. In her mind, Mary is in France to do the job of producing an heir and the continued lack of a child from her loins only weakens her position as queen. With James struggling to keep his head above water in Scotland, thanks to the Scottish protestants who want the country to become a protectorate for England, Mary needs to have a child in order to make herself look like the better candidate to rule Scotland and England as compared to single, childless Elizabeth. Marie then suggests Mary to take an herbal remedy that will put her at ease for a sexual encounter with Francis. Later, Mary meets with Francis and tells him that she’s not opposed to the idea of conceiving a child, stating that she doesn’t have anyone in her corner and that they should honor their duty to their nations. Having a child would help her help herself, but Francis is understandably apprehensive about this after everything Mary has been through. Elsewhere, Bash doesn’t like the idea of going to Antoine’s party, considering that he killed the man’s brother and all, and comes down on Kenna for taking the offer to decorate the party seriously. She’s not stupid, though, and knows how to handle a man like this; what she wants is to have something to do with herself other than wait for him to return from his latest great adventure. And just like that, he’s pulled away to look into the woman in white that supposedly resurrected the Greek who was buried alive.
Francis goes to Catherine about Mary’s latest change of heart and though Catherine questions why the queen picked now to make this move, she cautions Francis to follow his wife’s lead and not force the issue. Plus, there’s the whole matter of making sure that his visit to her chamber is seen by several servants, something that would cull any questions of royal paternity. While Bash questions a townsperson about her experience with the woman in white, who healed her son’s sickness before taking the eyesight of the boy’s brother, Greer gifts Charlene with a new wig to make up for her recently shorn locks. She also comes bearing news of Antoine’s party, a place full of rich, drunk men for Charlene to try her wig out on, as a way of making up for the recent bumpiness in their relationship. Back at the castle, Lola walks in on Marie spiking a glass of wine and endures a blistering tongue lashing relating to how John’s existence makes Mary a weaker queen. Because people know what happened between Lola and Francis, Mary is viewed as a disposable queen and disposable queens are very often disposed of, so she’s in danger of losing her position because of Lola. If Mary gets knocked off the throne because of this, Marie vows to not forget Lola’s part in her daughter’s demise.
As Lola takes a sip of the spiked wine not knowing that Marie put something in it, Bash finds the so-called woman in white – a nun who goes by Sister Delphine. Delphine claims to have only heard the Greek man’s cries as he was buried alive and admits that she only treats those who are dying, as any fallout that they face from her interference would be less harsh than death. She also confides in Bash that she knows people’s pain when she touches them and can sometimes tell the pain they’re about to endure; she then touches him and warns him that he’ll be losing someone close in the near future. Meanwhile, Antoine’s party starts and Kenna is a wreck, as the place cards aren’t where they should go, Bash isn’t back yet, and she doesn’t have anything to wear. Antoine allows her to wear the dresses and jewels from his wife, though he lies to her about sending the message telling Bash to come to the party; he merely gets his rider to act as if they’re leaving for show.
Conde runs into Lola at the party and it’s very obvious that she’s on something. Her mood is much lighter and freer than normal, while her personal filter is almost non-existent and she’s not shy about scarfing down some marzipan being carried around the party. Kenna makes her entrance into the party and immediately gets swept away by Antoine, who takes her to meet some of the important people who made an appearance. While Bash waits at home for word from her and doesn’t get it, causing him to drink more, Lola doesn’t make the best impression with the Von Amsburgs; she very harshly talks about their daughter’s looks before being pulled away by Francis, fresh from another conversation with Mary. The two had attempted to be intimate for the first time since her rape, but once they made their way to the bed, she froze up and grew terribly anxious at feeling his breath on her. He then pulled away and tried to get her to see that she should be doing this only when ready and not because she feels like it’s her duty. Worried that Francis will turn on her, Mary again pulled the separate lives card and he accuses her of wanting to be with Conde, of using him to forget about her feelings for his cousin. She told him that that was part of the appeal of a night like this, as she could never be his wife again, and Francis forbade her from seeing Conde again.
Mary meets with Marie to inform her that there will be no heir and that she had been raped. Marie’s first question isn’t about how her daughter was doing; it was about whether she was pregnant by the assailant. Though she tries to defend that stance by saying men should never damage a woman’s aspirations, Marie gets a verbal lashing of her own by Mary, who is tired of being a pawn for her mother and tired of being looked at as nothing more than a walking uterus. She feels utterly alone for the first time in her life, but that’s actually okay – it’d be much worse if she was entangled with Marie, who she can barely look at. While Francis escorts Lola out to her carriage, a wait peppered by her complimenting his kissing and the man he was while in Paris, Mary meets with Conde and informs him that she does, in fact, care about him. That fact frightens her, considering that she can’t pursue anything with him, and at the mention of her mother, he brings up Lola’s altered state at the party. He believes it was some type of opiate that she was on, pointing toward an addiction for Marie.
Bash makes it to the party and confronts Antoine for attempting to steal his wife. Kenna isn’t spared from his rage, either, as he calls her out on taking the clothes and jewelry from him. Even as he learns that she did send the message and that it was Antoine who didn’t ensure it was delivered, Bash storms out, angry that Kenna put herself in a position to be misled. However, there’s more to this conflict that just that, as Kenna wants more out of her life that what she is currently getting. Upon 
returning to the castle, Lola finds Narcisse in the hall and attempts to seduce him by roughly biting his lip. He doesn’t take advantage of her, though, citing the fact that he wants their first time to be with the real her; instead, he sends one of the maids with her to her chambers and orders that a physician check in on her sometime during the night. Mary confronts her mother over the opiate usage and it turns out that the drug is for Marie’s declining health state. She has cancer in her lymph nodes and her condition is past the point of treatment by physicians, which explains why she’s so desperate to get her daughter into a secure position. Marie wanted the world for Mary and still couldn’t protect her in the way she wanted, but Mary pledges to be strong, to fight for her country, and to not let go of the crown no matter what the cost.
Antoine meets up with Kenna and informs her that he’s never wanted anyone more than her. Rather than have her on as a mistress or treat her as a pawn in his revenge scheme, he wants to marry her after his wife passes away. Her marriage to Bash could be overturned, given that it happened under the rule of a mad king, and Kenna would then have a clear path toward becoming queen. Francis laments to Catherine that the chances of producing an heir with Mary have diminished completely, but his mother’s concern is only for his state of mind and not for Mary. She wants the best for Mary, particularly after everything Mary went through, but Catherine knows what it’s like to languish for much of your adult life while your partner takes a head first dive into the dating pool. She doesn’t want Francis to have that type of life, to know the type of loneliness of which she’s too familiar, so she simply tells him that he should not turn away a chance at joy if he finds it. She would support him if he found someone at court to be with and while Francis claims to not be considering stepping out on his marriage, it’s clear that Lola is still on his mind.
At the inn, Greer has dinner with Charlene after the latter produced quite the gold haul from her time at the party. It was so bountiful that the other prostitutes in her circle want Greer to hook them up with parties and rich older men, too; while Greer didn’t exactly think she would become a madam, it’s a way to keep food in her belly and a roof over her head, a way to give herself the chance to become what she really wants to be, so she accepts. Mary meets with Conde and informs him that she’s going to Scotland to show her subjects who their queen really is. She wants him to go with her, to make a new life with her, but before he can decide on what he should do, he receives another life changing offer. This one comes from Antoine, who heard that Elizabeth wants to come to France and gain a stronghold by courting Conde and making him her king.
Additional thoughts and observations:
-“You know what he wants from you. It’s not hospitality advice.”
-“One night. Don’t flaunt your bountiful womb to me.”
-“My son might get engaged before he can walk. Isn’t that wonderful?”
-“Have you ever noticed how many shimmering, soft things there are in the world?”
-“She smells of ointment.”
-“He didn’t even offer me a bath and he always offers a bath.”
-“Be unassailable.”
-Favorite dress of the episode: Marie’s funeral garb was gorgeous. That cape! I also loved the bodice of Kenna’s party dress.
-The fact that this episode was so good with such minimal Catherine (effective placement for her character, with the funeral humor and the supportive scene with Francis, but still minimal overall) was impressive. Typically, you can chart the successive of a Reign episode by how much screen time Catherine is given, so for the rest of the storylines to make up for her absence makes me hopeful for the rest of the season now that things seem more locked in than they did in the fall.
-Cool shots of the episode: The close-up of Mary’s veil was artsy-fartsy in a good way, while Bash popping up at the party was a visually inventive way to do what could have been a fairly straightforward conflict.
-This episode was thematically strong, as every storyline was about characters seizing their future and not letting the societal bounds that they have to deal with dictate the people they become. It’s a nice reminder that this show is centered on an age group that has enough problems figuring out who they are without the pressures of royalty to deal with. For all the political maneuvering and romantic angst that the show throws at us, this is still a show about teenagers and that’s not something to shy away from in the storytelling. I’d argue that this fact could add richness to some of these storylines.
-Amy Brenneman is astoundingly good on this show. Although I’m sad that we’ll be seeing goodbye to Marie soon-ish, we got an incredible verbal beatdown in her conversation with Lola and I think there’s bound to be one more showcase episode for the character, especially if Mary does opt to spend some time in Scotland. I’m sure a Marie de Guise death scene, for example, would be one for the ages, both in terms of Brenneman’s performance and the impact that Marie’s demise would have on Mary. She’s already attempting to remake her life and Marie is only sick, so there’ll likely be another drastic change for Mary when she officially loses her mother.
-Also really great this week: Anna Popplewell. It was nice to see the show give her another way to play Lola, even if it was for only one episode, and Popplewell had some of her best line deliveries of the series while Lola felt the effects of the opiate she ingested. She brought a looseness to the character that was much needed after the hell Lola’s been put through recently, with the energy she injected really highlighting the character’s innocence and inner light.
-Narcisse not taking Lola to bed after she came on to him – encouraging, considering the reputation he has, or suspicious, considering the reputation he has? Does his reticence at spending the night with her mean that there’s genuine feelings on his end?
-So, the romantic angst kind of worked for me here. Normally, it’s the weakest thing about this show, but I’m very much in favor of Reign exploring the dynamic change of Mary and Francis seeing other people while having to keep their marriage strong for the public. That has the chance to produce some interesting material, with Mary opting to take hold of her life after living within the margins for such a long time and Francis trying to see whether anything’s there with Lola or if their parental bond is all that exists; them being in this weird stasis of being married but not being married was narrative quicksand, so anything to move things along is more than okay with me.
-This feels like a make or break time for Kenna as a character. If she allows her materialism to trump her marriage, I don’t know if that’s something she can come back from, at least in my eyes. Not only does it make the character look extremely stupid (you really entertain the idea of marrying the man whose brother your husband killed? and you don’t have an inkling that there’s a revenge angle there?), it regresses her after she made some notable progress over the last season and a half, which would be disappointing. The dilemma itself is fine; it ties into the episode’s themes well and I like an unexpected character being confronted with the possibility of power. And I think there’s a germ of a wonderful story in there about Kenna trying to find her purpose and recognizing that life as a Baroness isn’t what she thought it would be. It’s just that the effectiveness of Kenna going after the crown would be diminished, at least somewhat, by the strained way the storyline came about.
-Bash getting told he’s going to lose someone coupled with this Kenna storyline feels like a red herring. My guess is that he loses someone else in his life, but it’s not Kenna.
-Greer of Kinross, Accidental Pimp is still pretty excellent. Not much progress in the storyline itself tonight – just thought I’d reiterate that I love everything about what they’re doing with Greer. Also, Charlene’s wig was quality.
-I kind of love how the show has stripped everything away from Mary in order to give her the chance to rebuild her life in the way she wants it. (It’s weirdly empowering seeing someone recognize that everything in their life sucks and actually do something to change it by themselves.) Her inability to give a damn anymore, not after she’s been at emotional rock bottom and felt what it was like to be utterly alone (and dehumanized by the person who’s supposed to protect her the most), has brought out some interesting shades in the character and given her more urgency and agency than she previously had.
-I’m all about a move to Scotland, also. It’d be fun to see how this Mary navigates her way through a world she only knew as a child. The visuals would be a nice change of pace from what we’re used to. And frankly, I’m curious about the castle dynamic without Mary and what kind of impact her absence will have on Lola, Francis, and Kenna.
-In case you missed the recap for the previous episode, you can check it out here.
-Unfortunately, Reign is off until March 12th. What happens when we all jump back to 16th century France next month? I honestly don’t know, since The CW still hasn’t released an episode description.
