Reign’s third season premieres tonight on The CW — preview images from the premiere can be found here — but the big Reign news of the day came at EW, where creator Laurie McCarthy revealed that Francis (Toby Regbo) will die this season. While historically accurate, fans so far do not seem to be responding positively.
However, McCarthy felt it was important for the fans to know.
“I wanted people to get used to it — there was no way around it in the storytelling,” McCarthy said in the interview at EW. “We’ve done shocking deaths and that’s not the tone of this story.”
“I wanted it to be an emotional journey that we all went on and that we could all feel the highs and lows of, and I wanted it to be a love story,” she added. “I didn’t want it to be something that shocked the fans or really anybody. I needed to process it, too.”
You can read the full interview complete with more quotes at EW.com.
