Reign 1.07 “Left Behind” Recap

Mary and Catherine watch from the balcony as Henry leads a small army to squash a peasant uprising in Lorraine. While Catherine laments the fact that men seemingly always have to find something to kill, she taunts Mary with knowledge of Olivia taking Francis to bed and compares the Queen of Scotland’s situation to her own with King Henry and Diane. However, things aren’t as tight with Francis and Olivia as Catherine might have let on, as Olivia informs the queen that when she was being intimate with Francis, he called out not her name but Mary’s, meaning that he still loves her.

Even though Henry will be absent from the castle during the battle, a Neopolitan Count will be coming for a visit, a dauphin necessary to greet him when he arrives. As Bash isn’t legitimate and Henry is gone, Francis stays behind with the intention of playing host to the Italian. What he gets instead, though, is Mary confronting him over his relationship with Olivia and how she feels like a nunnery of one watching him parade her all over court. He rationalizes that each of them could be married off tomorrow for business/alliance needs and that he needed to forget Mary for a while after what happened with Francis. Meanwhile, Greer is spending time with Leith in the kitchen and informs him of a letter she received from her father; he’s already inquiring on whether she’s met any (rich) agreeable men during her time in France. It continues the lifelong training she’s had in the art of flirtation and catching a man, but she’s tired of not being able to handle herself, so Leith begins showing her how to cook. After the quick lesson, he suggests the two of them going up to a nearby hot springs and getting away from the madness of the castle for a while.

Count Vincent of Naples arrives less than a year after Henry defeated Italy in a war. As his men have their weapons confiscated, which is something of a routine procedure at the castle for all visitors, Diane poses the question of fate to Bash – namely, what will happen to him when Henry dies. Once that happens, Catherine will surely have Diane tossed out of the castle and it’s only Francis’ mercy that will save Bash from a road he doesn’t want to go down. Her plan? Have Henry and Catherine’s marriage annulled and Bash declared legitimate, thereby altering the line of succession to the French throne. She’s been busy bribing various cardinals to order a fate accompli, even though Bash claims to be happy with where he is and who he is. Vincent recounts the events of France’s war with Italy to Mary, Francis, and Catherine, including the fact that he had to negotiate the release of his son Roberto and how hostages are an old tradition in the art of war. After eight months of maneuvering, he managed to secure Roberto’s release for 1500 ducats, which he says taught him the value of life. However, the castle soon falls under siege, with Greer and Leith’s escape to the hills halted and a stream of Italian soldiers pouring into every room of the castle in hopes of accounting for everyone.

Vincent’s demands? Restitution for Roberto, who died on the way back to Italy due to a nasty case of dysentery. With his wife dead and no other children under his name, the Count spent the last three weeks hiding in the woods with his men, waiting for Henry to leave and give them the opportunity to attack. The soldiers lock everyone they can find, including Bash, away in the dungeon and set their sights on Mary’s ladies, who they want to have their way with. Luckily, Mary arrives in time to stop Kenna from being sexually assaulted by a particularly belligerent soldier; she negotiates with Vincent to allow her and her ladies to go upstairs to her room in exchange for their presence at a planned feast that night. The ladies soon find that Greer is working in the kitchen in order to remain invisible and Mary heads into the dungeon with a candle in hopes of getting Clarissa to mark a path out of the castle. Elsewhere, Vincent claims to want ten times what he had to pay for Roberto from France, but instead, Catherine tries to give him Mary, telling the Count that she could bare him children and that she would be forced to accept marriage once he ruined her. However, Francis offers himself up as a hostage for the Count as a way of exacting revenge on Henry for taking Roberto, an offer that Vincent ultimately accepts.

While Bash tries to fight his way out of the dungeon to no avail, knocking out one guard before running into two others, Mary and Catherine plot on how to go about defeating the Italians. Mary mentions the secret passageways under the castle and the hidden door in the hall that will take them there, which Catherine skeptically accepts as a reasonable escape attempt. She adds the element of distraction to the plan, though, by suggesting that they attend the feast and try to buy Francis as much time as they can. They’ll keep Vincent and his men busy, giving Francis and the servants time to escape; Catherine says that she’ll stay behind with Vincent to allow Mary and her ladies the chance to leave the castle, as well, claiming that she would go into hell for her son and that they can only trust one another right now. Knowing that Francis would not come back alive if he were to leave with Vincent, Mary agrees to the plan; Francis, though, remains skeptical, telling Mary that he doesn’t want to leave without her and apologizing for everything that happened with Olivia. Mary responds by saying that she believes that Francis can help lead those in the castle to safety and the two kiss before a guard comes into the room.

Mary and Catherine recruit Olivia to stand in the dungeon and open the door, which can’t be accessed for the hall, due to the fact that the Count wouldn’t miss her at dinner. While she stands in the darkness with her lone candle and Clarissa lingering, Bash finds himself alone and chained by the neck in a dungeon cell. To his surprise, though, one of Vincent’s men has been paid off by Diane and offers him something to drink. Back in Mary’s room, Kenna is freaking out about the plan and the possibility of Vincent not believing them; when Catherine tries to calm her down and reassure her that she’ll be there to back them up, Lola begins tearing into the queen, citing the lies and backstabbing they’ve dealt with since coming to French court. In the mind of her and the rest of the ladies, at least the Italians are truthful about their motives, to which Catherine responds by telling them a story from her childhood. At 8 years old, both of her parents were killed and both her name and the fortune she inherited put a major target on her back. She was taken hostage for many a year at a convent, long enough where they had to debate what to do with her and the soldiers guarding her nearly agreed to sexually share her. Finally, she prayed for a rescue with the nuns and soon enough, she stepped out into the sunlight and over the bodies of those who held her captive for so long. She made it in tact and they can survive this dinner.

At the dinner, Catherine gives more gold to the Italians and overturns an hourglass on the table as they tear into their food. Meanwhile, Francis moves take a large candle off its holder and uses it to stab a guard who comes into his room; he then grabs a crossbow, shoots a second guard, and steals that guard’s sword, taking his brothers along with him. Francis kills a third guard and gathers up all the servants in the castle except Leith, making it to the dungeon after knocking on the hall panel Olivia was standing behind. She pleads for him to take her along, even though she’s to wait and open the door for Mary and her ladies, and Francis rejects her offer. Back in the dinner, Mary feigns breathing problems due to her corset and gets permission from Vincent to retire to her chamber with her ladies in tow. However, when they arrive at the hall panel, they find that Olivia isn’t there; she bolted after Francis went deeper into the tunnel when she heard loud voices outside the door.

In the kitchen, Leith is discovered as the only servant still remaining by a guard and the two get into a scuffle. Leith gets thrown around the kitchen until Greer comes in to save him, eventually ending the fight by taking a frying pan and hitting the guard in the head with all her might. Not wanting Greer to think that she was responsible for killing the guard, Leith takes his blade and slits the man’s throat, telling her that one of them did kill him but that they couldn’t tell who. While Olivia gets lost in the tunnels and finds her candle being extinguished by Clarissa, Catherine grows noticeably tenser and threatens Vincent with the fact that Henry will go to war for his heirs. Vincent doesn’t care, though, and she then offers Mary and her ladies to him and his men, claiming that they can take their virtues. The men swarm Mary, Kenna, Lola, and Aylee and just as the sands on the hourglass run out, Catherine tells him that the reason his son died was because his father was too cheap and had to spend months haggling for his release. Blood begins pouring from the nose and ears of each of Vincent’s men and Catherine reveals that the gold she offered them at dinner was poisonous to the touch. Before he can attack the queen, though, Mary kills him with a knife and Francis comes in to cut off one of his hands.

The reason that Catherine saved Mary? She had risked her life for Francis and was due the respect of having her own life honored. Catherine then reminds Mary that she learned early to never wait for a man’s rescue and that history is written by the survivors, of which she is one. Outside the castle, Diane admits to being in cahoots with Vincent when Bash confronts her about the decidedly light treatment he received while in captivity. But she didn’t mean for Bash to even be in custody, as she thought that he would be off fighting with Henry. She then reminds him that he’s merely blood-related to the family and not brothers with Francis, merely a complication borne from lust rather than an important cog in the royal machine.

Francis confesses to Mary that he loves her and that the two need to be together in order to stay sane. The two begin kissing and end up in bed, where they make love for the first time.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-Megan Follows absolutely owned every minute of screen time she got this episode. For much of Reign‘s run thus far, she’s not had that much to do besides whisper to Nostradamus and glower at Mary, but the character got to show quite a bit of range (compare the opening scene with Mary to her telling the childhood story and how she reacted when Mary and company walked back in the dining hall) and added more dimension here than in every other episode combined. We already saw the vulnerability peeking through when she gave Mary her perspective on being married to a man who could do anything he wants without repercussion, so it’s not as if this is the first time Catherine’s soul is visible, but she’s only used her troubled past as ammunition against Mary. Here, though, you got to see a clearer view of how her present has been impacted by her past and the fact that she’s not worked through the type of pain that she experienced from a very young age.
-I did not see the poisoned gold twist coming. The hourglass was a curious inclusion and something that I knew would come into play, but I expected her to have poisoned the food/wine before the gold. Aside from showing range and creating depth for Catherine this episode, Reign allowed us to see how she’s made it this long, despite an unfulfilling relationship and little real power to her name. Catherine is a smart woman and someone who learned the art of self-preservation before most people had to, so while she can still wither the freshest flowers with a single glance, it’s nice to see how ingenious she can be when her back’s against the wall and how there’s more to her than the gravitas she brings to a room.
-They gave her some beautiful lines, as well. The whole “I’ll go into hell” speech about Francis; the “history is written by the survivors” line; her saying that she emerged in tact from her experience as a hostage – all very well-written.
-Who knew Leith had that in him? Greer and Leith were a pretty cute subplot through the first six episodes of Reign and while having her kill the guard with the frying pan could have been cartoon-y, even with what that said about her confidence and conviction, Leith slitting his throat to rid her of the guilt of his death was oddly romantic and solidified them as something more than a fun distraction. Experiences like that bond people far more than trips to the hot springs and even though she might not want to admit it, their relationship has now evolved into something tangible and real as a result.
-I also liked how messy the fight itself was. It was well-choreographed in its awkwardness as Leith and Greer aren’t exactly prime candidates to be great fighters.
-Favorite dress: Gun to my head, I think the red dress that Mary wore to dinner with Vincent was my favorite, but the fashion in the episode was elevated from the show’s already high standards. The black dress that Mary started the episode in and the butterfly-inspired dress Kenna had on when dealing with the soldier were also phenomenally gorgeous.
-Sexy Nostradamus Watch: Presumably, he went off to fight with Henry, because he didn’t pop up around the castle. Perhaps he knew that trouble was descending upon the castle and decided to use the battle as an excuse to keep himself safe? So, he’s brave, loyal, and resourceful, that Nostradamus.
-I love Diane, you guys. Throwing money at one of the world’s leading religious institutions, plotting the downfall of a French dynasty – she obviously didn’t get to where she is by being stupid, but watching her maneuver in the way she did without any of the advantages that come with being connected to the king was rather fun and the type of writing that shows like this are made for.
-Awesome musical score this episode. I don’t mind the inclusion of folk/pop songs, but the show was improved by keeping songs like that to a minimum and opting to use moody instrumentals instead.
-For what was essentially a bottle episode, quite a lot happened this episode, no? Plus, I think this might be the goriest episode yet.
-I’m curious if they’re going to follow up on Mary having to kill a man for her own personal safety. I mean, she had to do it or else he would have raped her and killed Catherine, but seeing something like that has to be traumatizing, especially once Francis cut the man’s hand off. Are they going to show Mary losing herself in a world that clashes with her core values and who she was before she came to France, to the point where she’s desensitized to something like that?
-Happy to have Clarissa back on the show and to see that she’s as loyal to Mary as ever. On a related note, having one of the servants discover Olivia’s body in the passageway could be an amazing cold open for next week’s winter finale. I was fairly certain that they were going to keep her around for a while this season, considering the dynamic she brings to the show and the challenge she presents to Mary’s relationship with Francis, but with Francis going back to Mary and the way that she was attacked by Clarissa, killing her now would be an effective choice, something that both raises the stakes for the rest of the characters and allows the show to write her off in an easy, clean way.
–Next week on Reign: It’s the winter finale and while Nostradamus shares a prophecy with Mary, Clarissa works toward achieving her goals and Kenna tells Catherine of Diane’s intentions regarding Bash.