Reign is back and the love triangle is becoming more apparent.. Watch your back Francis, because Bash is coming for your lady with his rugged good looks and charm, amongst other things.

 

If former installments of the show were about Mary suffering from conflict from without, this week the conflict is from within her own ranks. Her ladies-in-waiting are kicking up a fuss and her husband-to-be is looking less charming and romantic by the day.

 

 

Francis, who we knew was no saint before Mary showed up in town, gets a more developed backstory thanks to his former dalliance with Olivia. It was easy to forget we’d see Francis fooling around with some of the girls at court in the pilot, but in Olivia we have a reminder that Francis was certainly no angel. The previous episodes highlighted his conflicted yet new-found devotion to his fiancee, but this week he once again seems all too wishy-washy about committing to his marriage.

 

Queen Catherine might be diabolical, but it can never be said that she doesn’t understand her easily distracted son. What the show has done nicely is make Catherine both a mustache-twirling villain (the scene with Aylee and the bird was hilariously melodramatic) and a surprisingly emphatic figure.

 

Sometimes you really do believe that Catherine used to like Mary and perhaps she still does, but her son’s safety will always come first. Just like Mary in episodes past when she considered marrying Tomas for her country, Catherine is an iron-willed woman willing to circumvent her feelings if it means doing what she thinks is right. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings at all, and her conversation about King Henri re-gifting her necklace to Kenna was a nice moment of guarded humanity.

 

Both Adelaide Kane and Megan Follows are really the forces to watch on this show, and whenever their characters cross paths and trade barbs it’s a scene worth paying attention to. I understand why the show holds back on their confrontations, but I still wish we had more scenes of the two going toe-to-toe. Perhaps now that Mary is onto Catherine’s sneaky ways, I’ll get my wish.

 

This week looked to give her some character development, but then potentially undid what little we knew with the twist at the end. So Aylee is apparently a ye olde Winona Ryder, stealing things for no apparent reason whatsoever. This gives Queen Catherine leverage on Aylee to threaten her into sharing Mary’s letters home to her mother in Scotland.

 

Except the final moments of the show reveal Aylee telling Mary, “I’m in.” Which seems to imply the whole thing was a plot cooked up by Mary to keep tabs on Queen Catherine’s various and sundry evil plots. I suppose Queen Catherine doesn’t leave the burn book her and Nostradamus use just lying around.

 

So basically Hipster Braids still only has one defining character trait and it might not even be real.

 

The episode opens with Olivia nearly being killed by pagans who like to do pagan things like sacrifice people in the woods and throw themselves off buildings.

 

 

Olivia used to spend quality time with Francis, which apparently made her former marriage offer null and void. Francis feels bad about this and so does Mary, because as a ye olde feminist she recognizes it’s unfair that only women’s reputations matter.

 

At first, Francis is way too busy mooning over Mary to think about Olivia. Soon, however, a combination of Olivia’s availability and Mary’s jealousy cause him to snap at her and start considering Olivia’s mistress offer.

 

After drinking all the alcohol in the room and having a fight with Francis, Mary runs off into the fields.

 

While Mary is complaining about Francis, Bash is mentally writing her love letters and staring longingly into her eyes. He tells her Francis is crazy to look elsewhere when he has a stone cold fox like Mary waiting to marry him. Wasted and literally slurring her words, Mary goes in for the kiss.

 

Perfect timing because this is the exact moment Francis shows up to apologize. Don’t miss Reign next week!