Reign - Recap: Mary Godmother

I suppose in addressing how this episode hit the fast-forward button, we'd need to address just what was lost in rushing through so many potentially long-form arcs. I can't really say it was a bad idea for the show to finally bring the conflict between Mary (Adelaide Kane) and Lola (Anna Popplewell) to a head, since their blow-up was a long time in coming. But I do think we might have lost some of the poignancy in racing through Mary's pregnancy. Not long into the episode, we get the happy news that Mary is with child, and both she and Francis (Toby Regbo) are on cloud nine. But the overall tone of the episode suggests that this happiness won't last. And, surely enough, that turns out to be the case, as Mary miscarries before the end of the episode. It leads to two scenes that are like flip sides of the same coin: on the heartbreaking side, Mary mourns the loss of the child with Francis, breaking down into tears when recalling how she daydream about the child's appearance, and the family they would create together; on the more uplifting side, Francis assures her that his happiness with Mary is less about the heirs she could potentially give him, and more about the future they could have together as husband and wife, as king and queen. The loss of a child and the reassurance of a strong marriage are two themes worth exploring, which is why it seemed so strange that "The Lamb and the Slaughter" removes the pregnancy arc in the same episode in which they introduce it. Even giving Mary one more episode to be pregnant before miscarrying could have made the loss of the baby so much more resonant, since the audience would have had more time to become as invested in the potential future the child represented as Mary and Francis were.

Credit: The CW

And yet, for all my blubbering, I ultimately didn't mind that the show moved on from Mary's pregnancy. For one, this likely isn't the end of the ongoing pregnancy arc, since the question of heirs is one that encircles Mary and Francis at all times -- even more now that Lola's child, baby John Phillip, is at court. Mary is the child's godmother, which places her in a semi-maternal role, despite not having a flesh-and-blood child of her own, at this point. By having Mary miscarry this early, the show can now begin to further explore the effect John Valois has on Mary. Sure, by the end of the episode, she finally forgives Lola for having slept with Francis all those months ago, but the presence of baby John is going to be a constant reminder not only of her husband's moment of weakness, but also of her own seeming inability to produce an heir. And that could lead to a much darker Mary than we've seen, one who's tormented by matters beyond her control. In turn, this could make her a far more volatile and interesting character. Of course, this isn't to say that Mary isn't plenty interesting now, but I feel Adelaide Kane needs to be given more to do than throw her authority around. We get it, you're the queen. Now what?

Thankfully, the episode actually does give Mary things to do with that authority. After her epic confrontation with Lola, in which she condemns her former friend for making the conscious choice to sleep with Francis even knowing how she stilled loved him at the time, Mary softens up and decides to help her friend rescue someone they've both come to know: Estelle (Camille Stopps), the village girl who not only helped deliver baby John, but who also lost her family to the Plague. Estelle is wed to Narcisse (Craig Parker), although she's managed to avoid consummating the marriage by coming up with a variety of excuses. She's heard the stories of Narcisse's brutality -- such as his first wife bleeding to death after he forced himself on her following a miscarriage -- and doesn't want to be his latest victim. So Lola, with Mary's help, is able to get Estelle in a carriage and away from Narcisse. Yet Estelle is only able to escape because Mary confidently uses her authority as Queen to send away Narcisse's search party, protecting the village girl's cover. And it's this act that brings Mary and Lola back together in a sweet little scene in which they drink wine together on the floor, and dream about their kids growing up together and becoming as close as they are. It's a poignant moment that ties into the other big reason I didn't mind the breakneck pacing of Mary's pregnancy: the overarching theme of the episode.

Credit: The CW

"The Lamb and the Slaughter" is an episode with a theme that splits right down the middle: on the one hand, the episode centers on nostalgia for the past amid the specter of the future. Whether it's Mary and Francis recalling their time playing together as kids, or Greer (Celina Sinden) growing wistful about her brief time with Leith (Jonathan Keltz), everyone is looking back on better days. But the other aspect of the episode's theme is how the weight of the past bears down on that future. Greer nearly gets dumped by Lord Castleroy (Michael Therriault) because she's so caught up in the past with Leith that she almost doesn't realize she's throwing away her future with Castleroy. It takes visiting Castleroy and convincing him she's 100% dedicated to him, for reasons beyond the lifestyle he provides, for her to undo the damage. Similarly, Estelle is downright haunted by her past: even after escaping Narcisse, we eventually learn that Estelle commits suicide off-screen by jumping from a cliff, as a servant relays to Lola that Estelle saw her parents on the rocks down below, beckoning her to come join them. It ties into the ongoing mystery with Bash (Torrance Coombs) and Conde (Sean Teale), who investigate the presence of three mysterious riders in the village who are allegedly robbing men of their souls and leaving a dark mark on their bodies to "let the Devil in."

Credit: The CW

It's a creepy storyline, to be sure, but less because of how these men supposedly force an otherwise honest shepherd to slaughter his entire family, and more because of the continued notion of a "reckoning" in which the restless specter of the past is brought to bear on the future. Because, really, how do you fight the past? Even Catherine (Megan Follows) is encountering ghost children now, as the spirits of the dead continue to walk among the living. The past is literally and metaphorically making its presence felt. Hell, even when ghosts aren't involved, the episode still illustrates how hard it is for some of these characters to overcome the long arm of the past. Narcisse, for instance, is plagued by the rumors of his late wives' deaths. In a humanizing moment for the villain, Narcisse explains to Greer that he was forcefully married at fifteen, and that the rumor of him raping his wife so after a miscarriage to the point that she bled to death is a perversion of the truth. His father had apparently forced him into a marriage at age 15, and constantly pressured him to produce an heir. Knowing nothing of women's bodies at the time, he and his bride kept trying even after she miscarried. Her bleeding to death was an accident, as was the similar death of his second wife, who was, as we learn, a hemophiliac. Lola seems genuinely sympathetic to Narcisse and to the trouble these rumors have started for him, although my interest in this scene was undercut by the creeping dread that the show now intends to pair Lola with Narcisse. I'm hoping I'm wrong, since I'd like to think Lola is a smarter character than to be tricked into feeling something for Narcisse after a three-minute conversation.

Ultimately, "The Lamb and the Slaughter" is an episode that brings Reign's past to bear on its future in interesting ways, which is why the pace doesn't rankle as much as it probably should. If Reign is quickly moving through these arcs at such a surprising pace, then hopefully it's because there are bigger stories ahead worth exploring. After all, Reign is a series with kingdoms hanging in the balance.