Reign - Recap: Yeah, That Was Unnecessary
Recap and review of Reign - Season 2 Episode 9 - Acts of War:
Well, that was sickening. Granted, that's kind of the point. But I can't help but think there had to have been some other way of imperiling Mary (Adelaide Kane) without having her actually get raped. This is the most controversial Reign has ever been, and "Acts of War" marks what could be a point of no return for the series.
Credit: The CW
More than most shows on The CW, Reign attempts to address mature concerns, albeit not always so delicately. (After all, what other show on this network is going to get into the political implications of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants?) But to have this all result in the rape of a queen, a woman whose agency and power is already minimized through her interactions with her husband, is not only horrific, it's kind of a stupid thing to do from a narrative standpoint. Basically, a minister is killed and hanged in the town square, and the man's father decides to get revenge by breaking into the castle. Mary's guards are killed and, in lieu of finding Francis to kill him personally, he instead comes across Mary, whom he decides to rape as revenge. It's disgusting, and once my shock wore off, I was downright livid. And I'm not sure I'm livid in the way the show wants me to be, since I'm angrier at the creative forces behind the decision to have Mary get raped, as opposed to being angry at the character who did it. It feels like the strong, forthright Mary of Season 1 is nowhere in evidence, and instead of taking Mary further away from that strong-willed ruler type, they really ought to be getting her back to a point where she can meet Francis (Toby Regbo) as an equal. Whether they were historically equals or not, this show has aimed to present them that way, and while a certain amount of conflict is understandable, this rape victimizes Mary in such a way that she's essentially reduced to a damsel-in-distress. Francis quakes with rage, revenge is plotted, and through it all, Mary seems less and less important to the narrative than she should be.
Credit: The CW
With all that said, there are some decent scenes to come out of this morass: Catherine (Megan Follows) being there for Mary is downright beautiful, as she pleads with Mary not to allow these men to break her spirit. However, the scene is also kind of problematic, for reasons that TV Junkies critic Eleni Armenakis explains far more eloquently than I can, writing that the scene comes across "more as another case of a powerful woman being forced back into her place through the oldest weapon of all," and adding that it "fed into a culture of shame that encourages survivors to keep silent." Granted, Mary does end up telling Francis about what happened, and it results in the King expressing his love and respect for her in a way he hasn't the past several weeks, but using this as a catalyst to jumpstart the process of getting Mary and Francis back to where they were seems like a misstep, since it doesn't seem likely their relationship can ever be the same after this. By angering the Protestants as a result of kowtowing to Narcisse (Craig Parker), Francis indirectly creates the unrest that allows this rape to happen. Worse, the reason he isn't in the castle to be by her side when this happens is because he's off with Bash (Torrance Coombs) killing the man whom Narcisse is forcing to testify against Francis for the murder of King Henry. This is a man who basically was forced into all of this by Narcisse's torturous means, and so while what Francis does is necessary from his end, he's still essentially killing an innocent man. In short, nobody comes out of this mess smiling like roses, and I just can't see what possible use there could be in going down this road in the first place.
Credit: The CW
Of course, the episode isn't all bad. The show gets some genuine intrigue out of Mary proposing a political marriage between Claude (Rose Williams) and Conde (Sean Teale) that will hopefully unite Catholics and Protestants. And Narcisse gets a pretty great scene in which he pours his heart out to Lola (Anna Popplewell), once again suggesting a depth and complexity to the character that goes beyond his tendency towards supervillainy. But these developments are all undercut by the show painting Castleroy (Michael Therriault) as an unwitting pawn in the rape by revealing that money he donated to help fund the building of a school instead went towards paying for the assassins who perpetrated Mary's rape. Granted, Castleroy didn't know this would happen, but Greer (Celina Sinden) is horrified nonetheless, and it's hard to imagine that this relationship will ever recover either. Basically, this rape is a bomb dropped into the center of Reign's narrative, and its effects will linger far longer than perhaps even Laurie McCarthy and co. intended. I know the show has dabbled in gender politics and the ways in which women build their power through patience, resourcefulness and shrewdness, but it felt as though the show was compromising a powerful character for the sake of a shock. I know, rape strips power from everyone, both high and low, and I could maybe understand this if it had been better handled. But this isn't the first time the show has used rape: Mary was nearly raped in Season 1, for crying out loud. Hell, Catherine was the one who organized the attempt! It just felt like a narrative shortcut to galvanize Mary and Francis's reunion, and I really didn't feel like it worked. Sure, even the most powerful monarchs can be reduced to a quivering victim by acts as horrific as rape, in much the same way the world's greatest fighter could easily be killed by the world's weakest man if that man just so happens to have a gun. Perhaps the show is suggesting that power is illusory, and can be taken away just as easily as it's granted. If nothing else, it lines up with the whole Narcisse narrative, as this noble basically has Francis by the balls, despite Francis being the unquestioned king of France. But I'm not even sure if that's a story worth exploring if this is the method through which we explore it. I wish I could find a better way of explaining why this all infuriated me so deeply, but it just did.
"Acts of War" isn't a terrible episode, per se, but I can't imagine ever wanting to revisit it. Nor can I conceive of an endgame for this story that will be worth having gone down such a dark path in the first place.