Reign - Recap: Baby Boom

Recap and review of Reign - Episode 14 - Dirty Laundry:

I love a serious exploration into palace politics and intrigue, but really, Reign is often at its best when it's embracing how salacious and, frankly, how silly it often is. "Dirty Laundry" is the soapiest of primetime soap episodes, packed with sex, murder, lies, adultery, pregnancy, and a dash of mystery, for good measure. In short, it's probably the most outlandish episode the show has done yet, and by that measure, it really shouldn't work anywhere near as well as it does. And yet, here I am, raving about it. And this is because the show knows when to take itself seriously, and when to plant its tongue firmly in cheek, sometimes within the same episode. And "Dirty Laundry" is just such an episode, as there is genuine pathos woven into the fabric of all this palace absurdity. It's great stuff, and portends a great final half of the season, as intrigue, betrayal, and manipulation are at an all-time high.

Credit: The CW

The arrival of Archduke Ferdinand and his sultry sister causes a stir in the palace, as Henry (Alan Van Sprang) and Catherine (Megan Follows) are trying to prevent a war with the visitors' nation of Bohemia. Of course, even with a potential alliance hanging in the balance, Henry is painfully indelicate about the whole situation, conducting an affair with Ferdinand's sister. And in classic Henry fashion, things go sideways, as the King stupidly makes love to her against an open window, presumably because the rush of danger turns him on. But nothing shrinks a boner like tragedy, which is exactly what happens when Ferdinand's sister goes tumbling out the window and splatting on the concrete balcony below. Thus, Catherine has to help Henry cover up the crime before war breaks out. It's a richly absurd storyline, but it works because the cast is totally game for it, particularly Megan Follows, who plays Catherine as someone who's wearied by Henry's increasingly shortsighted nonsense. You could practically feel her eyes rolling as she rolls the dead woman's body into a rug, and helps clean the blood off of the balcony, praying that people will simply think it's spilled wine. And you can feel the contempt dripping in her voice as she derides Henry for his idiocy, and orders him to write a hasty suicide note to make it seem as though the woman killed herself.

Yet this plan ignores one crucial detail: Ferdinand's sister was illiterate. When Ferdinand confronts the court with this news, Catherine comes up with a lie on the spot, claiming that she walked in on the woman in bed with a lover, and that the lover forged the note after Ferdinand's sister killed herself in shame, all too keep the family from suffering the indignity of a scandal. Few actors but Follows could have carried this scene off, weaving a lie on the spot and making it sound semi-plausible, if not downright believable. But even while the made-up story is ridiculous, Follows's sincerity sells it. And, within the world of the show, so does Catherine's sincerity sell it to Ferdinand. And even better, Catherine and Henry have someone they could easily blame for the affair: a visiting clergyman who just so happened to wind up dead. So Ferdinand has no proof that what Catherine is saying isn't the truth. And so the kingdom is saved from the foolishness of its King by the quick-witted nature of its Queen. And by luck, of course. Because, really, the whole plan would have fallen to pieces if the clergyman hadn't been killed.

Credit: The CW

So yeah, about the murder of that clergyman: while wending his way through the woods after nearly being killed by the men Francis hired to escort him to a ship headed Somewhere-Other-Than-France, Bash (Torrance Coombs) comes across a pair of hunters in the woods. The hunters, Rowan (Hannah Anderson) and Carrick (Kristian Hodko), aren't entirely trusting of Bash, but they take him in anyway, mostly because Rowan is taken with him. But the uneasy partnership hits a hurdle with the sudden reappearance of Francis's former flame, Olivia (Yael Grobglas). She looks haggard, with frazzled hair and skin so pale she might as well be a ghost. Worried for her well-being, Bash brings her to the palace to see Nostradamus (Rossif Sutherland), risking his own neck in the process. Nostradamus quickly intuits that this is the work of Clarissa, who presumably kept Olivia imprisoned and may have tortured her both physically and psychologically. This becomes evident when the aforementioned clergyman walks into Nostradamus's infirmary and finds Olivia in the throes of a violent nightmare. In trying to calm her down, Olivia has a knee-jerk reaction, grabbing the clergyman's own crucifix and stabbing him with it. Sure, the murder of the clergyman helps solve Catherine and Henry's problem, but we've still got the issue of Clarissa out and about, making trouble for everybody. I could still do without Clarissa continuing to be a factor in the stories, but I'm glad we've tied up the loose end of Olivia, as her abduction/disappearance was something I worried the show would never resolve. And by having her attack on the clergyman loop back into the main story, it helped the plot feel far more relevant than it might have otherwise.

Credit: The CW

But Bash has other concerns than Olivia. He's convinced Francis (Toby Regbo) tried to have him killed, and warns Mary (Adelaide Kane) about the possible treachery of her husband. It's enough to get Mary to actually question Francis, who's positively offended by the accusation. As he reminds Mary, he took her side when she came to him accusing his mother of plotting against her, and he did so on Mary's word alone. In essence, he feels she isn't affording him the same courtesy of trust, and this prompts Mary to feel...well, kinda lousy about it. But that doesn't exactly last long, as Mary discovers that Lola (Anna Popplewell) is trying to have an abortion, a procedure that could possibly have her killed. And she's doing this all on the recommendation of a maid in the palace. With Bash's help, Mary tracks Lola down and stops her before it's too late. But this is where things get melodramatic, in basically the best way possible.

(Yes, I've put it off the biggest storyline for the end of the review, but only out of an earnest desire to save the best for last. Because MAN, is this heavy)

So the inevitable becomes reality: Lola is pregnant by Francis. In terror, Lola tries to have the child aborted, and this leads to some genuinely disturbing imagery, such as the female abortionist dragging out a rusty hook while Lola looks on in terror, worried as to whether or not she'll actually survive this thing, but understanding the necessity of the risk. Mary gets to the cabin just in time to stop the abortion, but once she deduces the paternity of Lola's baby, she pretty much falls to pieces in anger. Kane is tremendous here, selling the depths of Mary's feelings of betrayal with a single line ("Is that my husband's child?"). And Popplewell is great too, as Lola doesn't only seem remorseful, she also comes across as deeply, deeply ashamed. She tries to rationalize that both she and Francis thought he'd never see Mary again. But Mary notes that Lola knew she would see her again, and had hoped their friendship would have meant more, especially since Mary was very obviously still in love with Francis. All Lola can do is apologize, but it mostly falls on deaf ears. In fact, the only thing that Mary seems to hear is Lola's pleas to keep it a secret from Francis, since she'll essentially become "his" the minute he finds out she's carrying his child. Faced with losing her husband, Mary has no choice but to comply. But she's already been deeply wounded by Lola's actions, which are made all the more painful by Mary's apparent difficulty in conceiving (she gets help from, of all people, Queen Catherine, who offers her oils and ointments for conception in a terrifically awkward scene).

So Mary now has a secret she needs to keep from Francis, as this marriage isn't exactly off to the best start, between the mistrust and the secret pregnancy. The decision to take its central pairing and go all the way with it in the first season is making for a more fascinating romance story than it might have been if they'd continued with the "will they get together or won't they?" story. I just find it infinitely more compelling now than before, since there isn't a whole lot of drama to be found in two people staring lovingly at each other without conflict for episodes on end, even if it can be satisfying, assuming that's a pairing you're actively shipping. Me, I prefer to stay out of shipping wars, mostly because 1) I have no dog in this fight, and 2) it never ends well. No matter which pair you're shipping, it's not looking good. Not only is Mary having marital problems with Francis, but Bash has already moved on, returning to the woods and hooking up with Rowan, apparently because none of Henry's sons can keep it in their pants. Hell, Henry goes right back to Kenna after her proposed marriage to Ferdinand falls through following the scandal surrounding his sister's "suicide". And he makes love to Kenna against the same window that caused all the trouble, showing that Henry and his sons are apparently light on common sense too.

Credit: The CW

"Dirty Laundry" is a scandalous hour, and one of the best episodes of Reign this season, simply for how the show blends self-serious melodrama, and plots that hardly seem to take themselves seriously at all. It's that mixture of genuine drama and tongue-in-cheek amusement that makes Reign such a unique viewing experience. This was an episode as fun as it was heavy, and as compelling as it was amusing.