Reign Season 2 Finale Review: Marry, Eff, Or Kill?
So Reign is two for two when it comes to astonishingly riveting finales. Like, "Burn" was so good I'm almost angry? It was very hard for me to watch so many storylines take these intriguing turns and then go straight into summer withdrawal, but that is what a finale is for: to get you excited for the next season. Reign answered the biggest question of this series: Did Mary still love Francis and therefore would she would marry, eff, or kill Conde? But the finale also presented us with about a dozen other questions that urgently needed answering. Where is Conde now? What will Elizabeth do next? Kenna is pregnant? Francis is dying?!
Let's start at the top: Mary had apparently defected to Conde, who swallowed her pregnancy story hook, line, and sinker, but she double crossed him with a series of brilliant maneuvers: she plied his men with comely sex workers, started rumors about a false plague, and delayed the morning's attack several hours by feeding Conde false intel about a pair of notional cannons. Mary went full James Bond on Conde, and just when his soldiers were at their most vulnerable, she actually stabbed him. Figuratively in the back, literally in the kidney.
Ever the gentleman, Conde was like, "Well... credit where credit is due. Savvy move, politically," pulled out the knife, and crumpled to the ground. And Francis, sensing Conde's weakness attacked, ran in and SAW.
It was so important to me that Francis saw this tableau. It was an affirmation of Francis' faith in Mary, and I needed to see him fully appreciate this moment because Mary had to make an almost sociopathic break mentally to pull this off. Mary told him in no uncertain terms that she stabbed Conde because Francis was her king and her husband and she loved him more. Also, she called the physician to come help with the stabbing... so maybe there's still a little ambivalence there towards Conde. We all know Catherine would have let him bleed out. Catherine would have put her heel in the wound and ground his organs like summer wine!
Francis, however, decided to use Conde's betrayal to finish the Bourbon line: He would leverage Conde's life for his and Antoine's royal birthright. Catherine was like, "Nope, he attacked your castle, you kill him. That is just science. Kill him right now. Do you want me to do it? I want me to do it." And in her defense, she's right. Francis made a lot of great points about the political benefits of diplomacy, but Catherine's approach was far safer in terms of national security. You make it very, very clear that anyone who rises against you goes down.
Meanwhile, Renaud was giving Kenna tons of great advice on his way to the scaffold: She should protect herself, watch out for Elizabeth, remove rust from pans with a lemon, etc. Poor Kenna.
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Bash was also bumping against some side-piece problems: Delphine had been accused of morphing into the Beast and performing blood sex magic. Sure, Kenna had her share of dalliances, but at least all the blood stayed in all the veins. When Kenna propositioned Bash later, he was like, "Um, yes. We are still married. Let's take to our marriage bed immediately."
Conde, meanwhile, despite having been betrayed, maimed, and chained up because of his love for Mary, was still hopelessly smitten.
Francis, however, received news that Lola had been kidnapped and his infant son killed. A bloody baby blanket was put into his hands, which, not very sensitive, messenger. Francis raced into Conde's cell but even in this extreme situation he forbore from actually killing the dude. I mean, that's restraint. Conde swore up and down that he had nothing to do with Lola and the baby being kidnapped, and Francis was clearly frantic about his son, and a hero rose up. Not the hero Fronce deserved, but the hero Fronce needed right now.
Narcisse truly hit his stride firing on all cylinders, using his shrewd mind, ripped torso, and relentless cunning to defend the woman he clearly loves. I cannot describe the chills that went through me when he broke into a cottage and beat everybody's butts to free Lola, and her face when she saw him was like, so, so, so relieved.
Suffice to say if you are not fully on board with Nola I don't even know what your idea of love is. A shoe? A sea shell? A pink pearl? You're wrong. Love is an entirely selfish man racing off into unknown peril and bending a dude's legs backward with a smile on his face because he came here for his Lola and he was going to get her, damn it.
Meanwhile, Bash let Delphine know he and Kenna were staying married, and she was like, "Oh, with Kenna being pregnant and all, with another man's child? That makes sense." And I was like Delphine, you VIPER, how dare you throw about such wild lies to keep a man! Then Bash confronted Kenna and she immediately was like, "Shit, how did you find out? Yeah, I'm totally pregnant and was trying to pass it off as yours. Be cool about it though?" And I was like, "Oh."
Kenna is shrewd, and I believe her feelings for Bash were genuine, but this was just sort of not a nice thing to do to anyone. Bash was officially done, no matter what that meant for her and the baby, which, you know, harsh. Harsh but fair. However, just when Delphine was in line to really cash in on single-man Bash, she went into some kind of pagan fugue state and feasted on the blood of her accuser in the middle of a pentagram.
Bit of a faux pas there if you're in an extremely Catholic 16th century court. What do you do with such a person? You don't marry them. You probably don't want to eff them. The only option is... well, that comes later.
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Meanwhile, Narcisse reported back to Mary: Lola and the baby were safe. Catherine had kidnapped her and framed Conde so Francis would kill him. Francis had not killed him, but still, this was out-and-out manipulation, not to mention full-scale emotional trauma for Francis and a terrifying risk to take with an infant's life. Mary went to confront Catherine, and they had one of their most emotional scenes of maybe this entire series.
I actually felt a great deal of sympathy for Catherine in this scene, and not just because Megan Follows is a Shakespearean-level actress who knows how to land feels the way astronauts know how to land space craft. This is not Catherine's first rodeo. She has had her hand on the wheel of governance for decades, she knew how the game was played, she knew what needed to be done. As Mary said, "For us, drawing blood is a gruesome last resort. For you it's as easy as breathing." Well, the argument could be made that that's because she's a professional royal person. She learned these career lessons decades ago. She dropped the baby fat of idealism and ethics and is now a ruthless political machine! In any other system, Catherine's years fielding politics would give her more credibility than Mary. But Mary is queen, Catherine is not. The intern is the boss. The adult with the full career has to take a backseat to the rookie. If I were Catherine that would drive me INSANE.
Mary had Catherine at a disadvantage at long last, because while she may have hurt Francis emotionally, she's always had the truth on her side. There's nothing Catherine could tell Francis about Mary that Mary hadn't told him already herself. Catherine's cloak-and-dagger machinations in faking her grandson's kidnapping have exposed her as deceptive. She put Francis through the worst grief of his life to win a point, and Francis was not about to forgive that.
Francis stripped Catherine of her title and place in the court and had security guards drag her out of the castle (not before she fired a loogie at Narcisse for betraying her). This was a harsh decision, and poor Catherine didn't even succeed in her devious plan, because Conde's executioners were English impostors and freed him before his execution could take place. Conde was on the loose! A dangerous quantity, a man with every reason to feel VERY ambivalent toward Mary.
Meanwhile, all four waiting ladies were briefly reunited while wearing the most beautiful gowns yours and mine eyes have ever seen.
A resonance of the early days of Season 1, when these girls thought their lives would be strong marriages and fancy balls. Cue bitter, bitter laughter. Now Kenna is going to leave court and hide in another palace so she can give birth to Renaud's secret baby and give it away. In the game of eff, marry, or kill, all three options have only gotten Kenna even worse off than she was before. For a woman looking for nothing but security, Kenna is perhaps in the most vulnerable position of her life.
But things are looking up.
GET IT GIRL. You snatch up that innocent boy-king on your Renaissance Princess Cruise.
Delphine, meanwhile, had a nasty surprise for Bash: She had joined their bodies via blood magic. What she felt, he felt! Also SHE WAS BEING BURNED ALIVE!
I am extremely into this storyline. Especially how, because of his Pagan background, none of this crazy shit phases Bash. Francis' brain would have melted by now, Mary would be calling in the Pope, Bash is like, "Phantom blood sex and magical murder committed in the middle of a pentagram by my girlfriend? Must be Wednesday."
Perhaps the most momentous thing that happened in the episode was Mary and Francis repairing their relationship. Nothing says, "I choose you," like stabbing your romantic rival in the kidney! I don't think this choice nullifies Monde, mind you. Mary is a complex person, and I do think it's possible to feel deeply for two people at once, however it's basically a mathematical certainty you will feel deeper for one than the other. Mary, having seen that her feelings for Francis were ultimately the deepest, recommitted to her marriage and asked Francis to do the same. I was a little worried because even after sexy times, Francis was meeting this request with the side eye.
However this air of certainty, it turns out, is not based so much in emotional reticence as the fact he knows he's dying, according to a conversation with Nostradamus. I feel for you Frary fans, it's out of the frying pan and into the fire!
Speaking of fire, we finally met Elizabeth!
And Catherine wanted to team up with her to take down Mary. Talk about a reversal, from two queens bound together at the top of Season 2, to two foes who know each other better than anyone about to square off in Season 3. I mean it's heartbreaking, but it's also just a match between two political geniuses that I kind of need to see. I cannot wait to see the next episode, guys, but unfortunately it's about half a year away (and will be on a Friday)! Thankfully, when my Reign craving kicks in there is always Netflix to relive those halcyon episodes of Season 1, when it all began. And considering the distance we've charted from the end of Season 1 to the end of Season 2, we can only dream what Season 3 has in store for us.
QUESTIONS:
... Is Conde a fool for loving Mary despite her betrayal? Does he have low self-esteem? Or is he just powerless against her ability to accessorize?
... Kenna and Bash: Are you heartbroken, or had this relaish simply run its course?
... Would you kick your mom out of your house for pranking you into thinking your son had been horribly murdered?
... Are you kind of heartbroken Catherine is no longer at court or are you extremely psyched about her joining with Elizabeth and becoming the Gargamel to Mary's Smurfette?
... Did Mary make all the right choices? Some wrong ones?
... WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT SEASON? Will Catherine and Mary make up?! How long does Francis have left?! Will Bash feel EVERYTHING Delphine feels including period cramps?! DISCUSS!!!
