Last night, REIGN (I don't know why I keep typing it in all caps, it's just one of those shows) premiered on the CW. I looked at and wondered if it could really be as shamelessly, deliciously bad as it looked.
And oh, the show delivered. Here are ten things you should know.
1. The French court of this world mandated that young women walk in circles waving flags, as punishment for grave sins.
2. I say "this world" because this show is essentially an AU that begins with Mary living in a convent, only to be sent back to the French court because the nun who's her taster dies of poisoning. (Yikes! That would be incredibly intense if Mary had ever lived in a convent!) And it leans in to its bizarro chronology, awkward setup, and mostly-terrible actors: In the pilot alone, we meet everyone at court, get introduced to all political and family dynamics, and watch as Mary and Francis meet, Francis sleeps with someone else, Mary catches him at it, Mary's handmaid Lola (actual thing)'s beau shows up and gets pressed into nefarious service by Queen Catherine, Francis's bastard brother Sebastian falls for Mary, and Mary meets a mysterious figure who warns her not to take wine at Francis's sister's wedding, which leads to her waking up mid-assault and foiling Lola's beau, who gets executed! By the end, everyone's unhappy: Catherine, who ordered the whole plot, Mary, who's adrift, Lola, who's beauless, Francis, who's one hunting fedora away from being on OKCupid, Sebastian, who's broody, and the soundtrack, which strums the living hell out of the last three minutes.
(Mary doesn't know if she's supposed to be having a feeling about that or what. Her ears are still ringing from her dress.)
3. It also pretends it's a fantasy. There's a Seeing Tree located deep in OhHellNo Woods, underneath which Nostradamus has his visions; there's a girl with a burlap sack over her head that the show suggests is somehow otherworldly, though she's clearly not, but it's probably confusing because burlap's a period-accurate fabric and no one on this show knows what that is.
And of course, there's the catalytic vision that will direct the show: Mary will cause Francis's death! (Can Scottish people cause ear infections? Who knows, I'm not a doctor.)
4. This show still plunks strange historically-accurate grace notes in this sea of nonsense. Mary's retinue are lectured about their responsibilities in smoothing diplomatic relations with foreign dignitaries and making sure Mary is apprised of all social power balances (yup); Francis's sister consummates the marriage in front of witnesses (you bet); engagements hold alliances between countries until ultimate advantage can be decided (check). And the retinue talk openly of finding marriages for themselves and playing the game to make sure Mary is positioned well; Anna Popplewell and Celina Sinden even try their hand at acting. Most of the time, however, they're sort of magnificently awful; among a higher-than-likely quota of cooing and squealing, historically they were all named Mary, and they are now named Kenna, Greer, Lola, and Aylee, because Reign has nary a fuck left to give. Also, they all dress like this:
(I had to go back to the first ten seconds of this scene because I was laughing too hard to catch it the first time. I thought I was prepared, BUT I WASN'T, WHOOPS.)
Later Anna Popplewell, in a strapless prom dress, exclaims, "I look of age now." If that age is 2006, then certainly!
5. In case you think this costuming might be salvaged, ladies of the French court dress like this:
This is straight-up sacque-back 18th century, with one straggler from 1845 in the back, plus some bonus Absolutely Nope underthings on the Princess.
Meanwhile, Catherine's ladies dress like this:
The two on the left are Regency. I don't even know how to parse the ones on the right. We'll call them Victorian and just back away.
6. She has a super cute dog!
That dog wants out. It spends the pilot trying to run away into the woods, and here it has given up and is imploring you, directly, to bring it to a nice historically-accurate house full of squeaky toys. Better luck next time and/or whenever you become too expensive to rent, buddy.
7. The assault plotline bugs the crap out of me in a way that goes beyond the rest of this sublimely hilarious nonsense. The show positions him as a victim of political pressure, which is true, but it uses the idea of him under pressure as an excuse for trying to rape a woman he was told would be unconscious. Mary asks for clemency, afraid she "sent the wrong message" to him. She believes he's innocent, you see; he said he was forced! (Oh, that's TERRIBLE, imagining forcing someone!) After they find out he's dead, Lola insists he "wasn't a rapist," and gets mad at Mary, who feels guilty for turning him in. That's great, show. Thanks.
8. But the good news is, despite spending an uncomfortable amount of screen time defending someone who Mary found taking his pants off and preparing to rape her, we sure aren't in danger of any consensual sex action! Much has been made of the fact that one of the ladies in waiting, inflamed with desire after the royal bedding, decides to take care of herself; the network made the show cut the clip down to make sure the teenage girls watching know that masturbation is shameful and never okay, which certainly serves all those licentious young ladies right, I'm sure, but it's been edited down so completely that the remaining clip looks as though she trips on the stairs and a spider crawls briefly up her nose before the king arrives and paws at her as the soundtrack hums insistently.
9. About 70% of this soundtrack is someone humming insistently.
10. If there is one reason to watch the show wholeheartedly, it is Megan Follows as Catherine de'Medici; the other reason is Rossif Sutherland as Nostradamus, because they have decided that everyone else can be in whatever show they want to be in, and they are going to have their own show, called Cathy and The Proph, about the bitchface amoral queen and the dude with a lab set up in her basement to provide her with plot devices and earnest eye contact. They also have the ability to hold down both the dramatic scenes and the camp ones, which is more than most people on this show are able to handle.
They just have a really comfortable chemistry; these caps are taken right after he gives her shit about Mary being younger and prettier, and she exclaims, "Oh, I've just had a vision! of you, beheaded at my command," and then halfpologizes and downs her mug of swamp water as they both wait a beat, clearly hoping for a freeze-frame with some chunky '80s credits to play them out. This mini-show is pretty great. It's also the non-costume reason I'll be tuning in next week.
It's always difficult to recommend a show that's so clearly awful, but if it can keep up the sheer breakneck plotting that spirals out into nowhere and results in a lot of near misses in which nothing historically quantifiable happens to Mary, it might be worth tuning in to enjoy Cathy and the Proph, drinking-game your way through the other pulpy melodrama, and laugh until you cry at some costumes like you can't even imagine all in the same place.
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