Reign 1.22 “Slaughter of Innocence” Season Finale Recap

Henry summons everyone into the courtyard in the middle of the night and informs them that he knows one of them, one of his friends and/or family members, wanted to have him killed. Therefore, he’s hired new men loyal only to him and swears that when the sunrises, his sword will cast a shadow on the guilty party. He then turns to the secretary to Lord Bellamy and asks if the man went to confession; though he did, he never took the Lord’s name in vain or fornicated, so Henry kills him due to how prepared he is to die. The slaughter sends a message to Francis that his father is not redeemable and after the display, he meets with Mary and Catherine to discuss their options. Since it’s too late for an assassination, the idea of a coup gets brought up, though that could be deadly if it doesn’t work (e.g. Henry has them executed) and dangerous if it does (e.g. the military has too much power).

The trio ultimately decide to contact the generals that Henry dismissed, keying in on the ones who have the men to help overthrow Henry. Their plan should get Henry imprisoned for the rest of his life and neutralize the danger he poses to France. While Pascal awakes from a nightmare he  had about Bash, where the man who killed his father was outside the window, Bash hunts for the Darkness and Leith approaches Francis about the land deed he was given as reward for what happened on the battlefield. Francis regrets not being able to give him a title and wishes his new friend luck with the girl he wants to impress, just as a member of the king’s guard harasses a young woman in the hallway. Leith steps in and gets him to back off, but he has to reject her offer to get a drink due to his loyalty to Greer and eagerness to show her what he has to his name.

Henry plots to poison Francis at the victory meal that evening, telling his man that he’s already reconciled the act with God, before finding Mary in the hallway and inviting her to the naval spectacle that afternoon. While Francis She gets forced into attending while Francis evades the display. Meanwhile, Leith shows up in Greer’s room, flaunting the land he received from Francis as a way to get her back in his life. However, whatever her feelings for Leith may be, Greer tells him that he’s the comfortable choice – someone who can’t cover even 1/10 of her father’s debts, someone who wouldn’t be able to keep her sisters from being sold to the highest bidder. Before leaving for the naval spectacle, he tells her to take a risk and to trust love, for once in her life. While Lola goes into labor on the way back to the castle and ends up in a stranger’s cottage in the village, Henry, Mary, and Catherine get the seats of honor at the spectacle, which should feature two ships full of the surviving Caillas soldiers igniting fireworks and putting on a display for the crowd. However, the cannons end up being fired at Henry’s behest and one ship gets destroyed, killing the 100 men inside.

Afterward, Catherine tells Mary that Henry wants an annulment and that she saw the way he was acting toward her at the spectacle; she then says that Henry wants to give his daughter-in-law an heir himself, implying that he would be willing to kill Francis to get the job done. As of now, they’re relying on the Dauphin to return with generals in arm, as without them, he has no protection from his father and will be vulnerable to attack. As Francis comes upon the damage inflicted by Henry’s botched stunt, which will be repeated tomorrow, and learns about the 3000 men readying a trip to England, Mary tries to convince her uncle to join the coup and help oust Henry while they still have a chance. But the Duke surprises her when he suggests that she, not Francis, emerge as the French leader following the coup, since Francis leading the country would remind the masses too much of Henry and could cause his reign to be short-lived. Elsewhere, Bash and Nostradamus reach Visigoth, an abandoned, flooded city on top of a hill. They find Pascal’s home, fresh with sacrifices and with various symbols on the wall, all corresponding to recent natural disasters. The lone missing piece – a drawing of stars falling – puzzles them as to its significance, though once Bash sees the rhyme written on the wall, he knows he has to get back to Pascal and Kenna.

The Darkness bursts into the home Kenna and Pascal are holed up in and the two hole themselves up in the pantry, as the Darkness calls for Pascal to give Kenna’s blood to the Gods. While Greer finds that Leith survived the naval spectacle stunt, the joust begins, with Lord Montgomery dominating as per usual. The big story, though, is Mary making an entrance wearing the English coat of arms, a clear sign that she’s ready to lay claim to the English throne and challenge Elizabeth for the crown. The crowd goes wild seeing the future ruler embrace her power, but the English envoys in the crowd scurry away, off to tell Elizabeth about the challenge to her title. Henry ends up out on a horse challenging Lord Montgomery, likely as a way to impress Mary, and though he wins the first round, he gets a lance in the eye in round two and gets knocked off his horse. Elsewhere, Greer and Leith cannot keep their hands off of one another in her chambers, though she pulls back, telling him that she cannot marry him. He takes the words harshly, tearing into her about how he’ll rise to become the man she thinks she needs and how he’s to never be hers again, before storming off and leaving her emotional.

Bash makes it back to Kenna just in time to face down and duel the Darkness, pushing him back into the blade of Nostradamus. A dying Darkness tells Bash that Pascal must succeed him in order to keep a blood plague from spreading throughout France, but rather than letting a child falling into the clutches of the Pagan world, he kills the Darkness without allowing Pascal to formally accept his position. It turns out that Francis is the one who delivered the knockout blow to his father, having disguised himself as Lord Montgomery to the knowledge of only Catherine, though Henry managed to survive the fall and the shard in the eye. However, part of the lance is stuck in his brain, giving him very little time left, so Catherine and Francis go in to say goodbye. Henry tells Catherine to make peace with Diane, who he calls extended family, while he confesses to Francis that he killed his older brother, who he considered weak. Hence his attempts to turn Francis against Bash. But Henry realizes that turning against someone you love blackens the soul, so he urges Francis not to follow his path before succumbing to his injuries, making Francis the King of France.

As Francis leaves his father’s chambers, he spots Bash and when his brother begins to bow, as to show respect for his king, Francis pulls him up and the two hug. Leith meets the woman from earlier, whose name turns out to be Ivette, and attempts to buy her a drink, though she rejects the offer, saying she has to go meet a man. That man? Lord Castleroy – her father. Lola, still in labor, tells the woman she’s staying with that she fears for her life, so she dictates a letter to Mary absolving her of the secret they share, urging her to bring help, and giving her permission to raise the baby as her own if she doesn’t make it. While Kenna assures Bash that he doesn’t need to keep fighting for his place in the world, as he has one with her, the two see the shooting stars that were on Pascal’s wall – a sign of the blood plague. Elsewhere in the castle, Francis and Mary exchange their concerns about their current situation – he never wanted to become king in this manner, she feels a part of herself dying and the tender heart she once held dearly hardening by the day. As the two agree to be more honest with one another going forward, trekking the same path rather than going it alone, Mary receives Lola’s letter and tells Francis that the baby is his, sending him forth at once.

When she goes to gather help, though, Catherine and Nostradamus inform her of the plague’s existence in the city and how the castle is going on lockdown until it ran its course. Mary manages to make it to Francis before he leaves, but he still wants to help Lola and rides out regardless of what his wife says. Mary can’t help but watch helplessly as the distance grows between herself and her husband.

It turns out that Francis was the one who delivered the knock out blow to his father

Additional thoughts and observations:
-“I miss the girl you were.” “Many will. She was easy to kill.”
-Props to the show for being willing to get rid of Henry. Though the character was always an interesting wild card and Alan Van Sprang was game for whatever wringer the show put him through, there was no way Henry could have been redeemed after what he’d done the back half of this season, so it was nice to see the show have some consequences and to be unafraid of losing such a powerful presence. The way they sent him off, while a touch silly (“I’ve got to go now”), was pretty excellent stuff, bringing up the show’s supernatural side (the boy he keeps hallucinating is the brother he killed) to emotionally satisfying effect and allowing a character that had lost nearly all of his humanity one final moment of dignity. Bravo.
-Interesting parallel: in the winter finale, Mary rides away from the castle, while in the season finale, Francis goes it alone.
-The thing I was most curious about during this episode – no title sequence? The show has been weird in that it’s only begun to experiment with its first act during the latter half of its season. I figured stuff like this would happen in late fall and early winter, but to have the tinkering still going on in May is different. Could we see the show with an entirely different approach to how it integrates its credits next season?
-Were you surprised that Ivette was Lord Castleroy’s daughter? Do you think the entire thing with the royal guardsman was set up so that she would lure him away from Greer? Would Lord Castleroy really want Greer’s ex-boyfriend dating his daughter or does he have more nefarious plans for Leith, so as to keep the boy away from Greer permanently?
-I like how the show didn’t write Greer as a bad person for staying with Castleroy. Personally, I think she made the right decision and that Leith’s reaction to being rejected felt a little out of character, as he’s made it clear he understands what type of pressure Greer’s facing and how she would never be able to make a decision for herself as long as her sisters remain unmarried. I get the emotional response coming from the actuality of the conversation not matching the way he built it up in his head during his days in battle, but it wasn’t as wholly authentic as it could have been.
-Henry reaching under Mary’s blanket and trying to touch her might be the creepiest thing this show has done yet. And we’ve had blood sacrifices, innumerable gruesome deaths, and a feral child living in the walls.
-Visigoth was a good set piece, to the point I wanted them to stay there for even one more scene. Also, the plague that resulted from Bash (literally) slaying the Darkness inside him should make for a fun (can a plague be fun?), claustrophobic jumping off point for season two.
-What did Kenna and Bash do with Pascal after the Darkness was killed? Another hanging thread: Clarissa’s whereabouts. The last time we saw her, she was alive, but it’s been a handful of episodes since her presence was felt. I figured she’s come back into the show’s orbit at least by the end of the season.
-Favorite dress: Mary’s solid black thing with the golden neckline was gorgeous beyond belief. Even if this show wasn’t clicking as well as it has been, I would probably still watch for the clothes porn.
–I see Entertainment Weekly has been reading my recaps. Hey, EW! I hope you enjoyed this season of Reign.
-I love that the show looks at the price of power and how much of a negative impact living their lives to become rulers has had on Mary and Francis. It’s an approach I wasn’t sure this show would take, breaking down their main characters and central couple and showing just how frayed their sense of individual identity actually is, but it’s something I’m glad to see, since it makes Reign richer and more thematically engrossing.
-Once again, thank you guys for reading my Reign recaps this season. I had my doubts about the show being able to sustain 22 episodes of content, but bar a slight quality dip earlier in the year, Reign has been operating with both guns blazing and an impressive sense of narrative momentum. The show managed to keep its Reign-ness while successfully destroying its love triangle and focusing heavily on the political machinations and social structure of 16th century France, all the while keeping a pretty decent audience. Reign will be keeping the post-Vampire Diaries slot next season, so here’s hoping I see all of you come October and we can dissect pretty dresses, Sexy Nostradamus’ chest hair, and everything that makes this show the weird, wonderful ride it’s been thus far.