Reign - Recap: Mary Had a Little Scam

While she's been a consort to France for over a decade, there's a clear struggle at play, as she refuses to allow her alliance with France to claim her identity as the Scottish monarch. Mary (Adelaide Kane) clearly and truly loves Francis (Toby Regbo), and might even have an abiding fondness for France and her people, but this is the episode that makes the issue black-and-white: if put to the sword, Mary will choose Scotland over France (and even Francis himself) every time. This declaration makes this one of the more fascinating episodes of the season. Mary has always been headstrong, but the conflict of this episode represents her first real test as ruler, as well as a sort of assessment of progress as a character. She's come a long way, and seeing that development from meek, uncertain girl, to fierce, pragmatic ruler makes for terrific TV. It's why "Liege Lord" shot right up to the top of my favorites pile for Reign.

Credit: The CW

Right out the gate, the stakes are raised considerably. In exchange for helping one of Catherine's ladies-in-waiting escape from the reach of the now clinically-mad King Henry (Alan Van Sprang), Mary learns that her mother essentially sold Scotland to France via an insane clause in Mary's marriage contract: if she dies without producing an heir, control of Scotland reverts to France. In short, if she doesn't make a baby soon, she'll be more valuable to France dead than alive, as Henry could have her killed and then use Scotland as a strategic stronghold in a potential military offensive against England. Faced with this terrifying prospect, Mary comes up with a pretty ingenious solution. She proposes breaking the news to a group of visiting Scotsmen who are in France to make a lucrative business deal. By bringing the clause out into the open, Mary will be forcing both sides to destroy the evidence. Catherine (Megan Follows) and Henry will have to burn the contract, as will Mary's mother, in order to avoid an all-out war. In fact, Mary is counting on both sides willingly destroying the written clause, since sending Kenna (Caitlin Stasey) into Henry's quarters to find the document only turns up a copy lacking the original signature.

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However, while the main story of "Liege Lord" suggests that Mary has grown into her role as Queen of Scots, she's still a bit naive as to what compromises such a role demands. At no point does it appear that Mary considers compromising her morals for the cause. In essence, she wants to foil Henry and Catherine's plot, but she wants to do it by-the-book. To this end, she meets with the Scotsmen, and not only reveals how her mother sold France to fill her own pockets, but also stirs them to action with a rousing speech about how she refuses to allow someone else harm her country. She asks the men to spread the news far and wide, in order to send the message that Scotland cannot be bought, and that she has a queen willing to defend it. The leader of the group, a man who'd once fought alongside Mary's father, pledges his undying allegiance to her, and I'd be lying if I said this wasn't one of Adelaide Kane's best scenes in the entire series for how nimbly she moves between tentativeness and authority. But the problem here for Mary is that she thinks she's solved her problem. Or, rather, she believes these men will solve her problem for her once they get to spreading the news back in Scotland. However, one of the Scots compromises the entire operation by sleeping with Catherine, under the mistaken notion she's a lady-in-waiting to the real Queen. After realizing who she is, he accidentally lets slip that they're going to be returning to Scotland on the orders of their leader, who spoke with Mary and is suddenly in a rage about something to do with France. Catherine quickly deduces the meaning of his comments, searches her documents, and finds the copy of the clause gone. Realizing that Mary now knows about the clause, Catherine does what she feels is necessary: she has all of the men, even the sweet man she'd taken as a lover, completely slaughtered by her soldiers.

What's interesting about this decision is how it weighs on Catherine. She essentially condemns her head soldier for the entire incident, but it's merely transference. She's really just angry and disgusted with herself, but the demands of rulership won't allow her to get upset with herself -- the move, in her eyes, was desperately necessary, since she can't have a mad king leading an army in a potential war with Scotland. As Catherine admits, she had the men killed in order to spare her the trouble of having to deal with any more of Henry's antics than she needs to. However, Mary doesn't take this well at all, naturally. She confronts Catherine and angrily slaps her across the face for what she's done, telling the French Queen that she'll never forgive her for this injustice. Catherine basically shrugs Mary off by noting just how little she understands about rulership, saying that being Queen means sending men to their deaths. As a beautiful Queen, Catherine notes, Mary will be sending a lot of men willingly to their deaths, so she'd better get used to it now. It's a chilling scene that further illustrates what an asset Megan Follows is to this show, and it also further develops the central conflicted relationship of the series, as Mary and Catherine are back to hating each other again after several episodes of muted respect.

Credit: The CW

However, that scene is easily overtaken by the climax, as Mary decides to play dirty herself. She uses what she learned from Catherine's lady-in-waiting to blackmail Catherine. With Francis in the room, Mary declares that she sent three riders out to three separate locations with three separate letters revealing Henry's madness and general unfitness to rule. If they don't receive her word to stand down, the three men will deliver the letters, the news about Henry's illness will get out, and France will plunge into absolute chaos. Catherine and Francis both believe Mary is bluffing, but her eyes tell a different story. "Look me in the eyes and tell me I'm bluffing," she angrily declares, and it's an absolutely killer moment of monarchical badassery, as Catherine has no choice but to do what Mary says and burn the original clause document. Alone in their bedchambers, Francis congratulates Mary on her bluff, only to learn that she really wasn't bluffing at all. Mary admits that while she loves Francis dearly, she'll always pick Scotland over France. As a Queen, she doesn't have the luxury of doing otherwise. This is an important moment in Mary's development, since I truly believe that for the audience to really invest in her as a character, she needs to have a clear-cut sense of priority. Had she placed Francis above the needs of her own country, she'd be much harder to root for, in the grand scheme of things. But having her recognize the difficulty of her decision, as well as its necessity, and having her follow through on it anyway, makes her a much stronger and more admirable character. And Adelaide Kane charts that progression very well in her performance. In short, I'm all about how this episode brings Mary along in her development into a proper Queen.

The rest of the episode is similarly compelling, but for different reasons. Kenna still isn't happy about her marriage to Bash (Torrance Coombs), and resents that he thinks of her as someone shallow, not realizing that she has a deep, abiding love for Scotland. She proves this love by attempting to retrieve the clause document from Henry's bedchambers, only to be caught by Henry and forced into a romantic situation. She tells Bash of her disgust with Henry, and how terrified she was the entire time she was with him, before tearfully tearing into Bash for how he'll never really be a true husband to her. However, Bash does go out of his way to do right by Kenna, rescuing her from an awkward situation with Henry, whose headaches are becoming more and more severe (he hallucinates a vision of a young man with what looks to be a tennis/squash racket of some sort. Could it be his late older brother, Francis III, whose death suddenly made him the Dauphin of France? Possibilities, possibilities). It seems as if Kenna is warming up to Bash by the end of the episode, and they're frankly kind of adorable together, if I'm being honest.

Credit: The CW

The storyline also has plenty of dramatic tension, while developing Henry's deteriorating mental and moral faculties, as he claims to have put a royal bastard in Kenna as a wedding gift to Bash. (Dude, so gross) They've only been together for a little more than an episode, yet I do find myself rooting for Kenna and Bash to work out, since I think they could be a better match than even the show itself realizes. Ditto Lola (Anna Popplewell) and Lord Julien (Giacomo Gianniotti). Although Lola is terrified to learn that Julien doesn't want children, due to having lost his previous two wives in childbirth, she accepts his marriage proposal anyway. Expecting the worst, she reveals to him that she's pregnant...only to find that Julien thinks she's the most beautiful woman in France, and will happily marry her anyway. Lola is just days away from beginning to show, and she's only just met Julien, so I'm not sure how they're going to sell the notion that the child is Julien's, but this is a sweet storyline all the same, as Gianotti is such a winning personality that I'm hoping the show uses him more.

"Liege Lord" is as good as Reign gets, in my opinion, coming across as an episode with a lot more going on than your standard soap opera romantics. With each passing week, Mary is depicted as a woman of heightened passions, whether for her husband or for her country. If nothing else, this makes her a formidable screen presence, and a worthy opponent for Catherine. Basically, the better Mary gets at this game of thrones, the better the battle between she and Catherine will become. And the better the battle, the better the TV for us viewers. I say bring it.