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Home / Recaps & Reviews / Reign 2.13 “Sins of the Past” Recap

Shilo Adams in Recaps & Reviews, Reign Feb 5, 2015 0

It\'s the first bloom at court and while plans are underway for the Winter Ease, a party that celebrates the new opportunities that spring provides, Conde\'s brother Antoine arrives looking to extend the peace treaty between Navarre and France. His entry into the castle comes after Francis lays out his plan to build a chateau for himself and Mary in the so-called "Eden of France" and comes with the news that he\'s not only there for the peace treaty; he wants funding for Navarre due to the number of French Protestant refugees that have entered his country recently. He blames France for sending so many people his way and Francis begrudgingly tells him that they\'ll consider the proposal, seemingly biting his tongue the entire time.

Unsurprisingly, the castle is aflutter at the impending Winter Ease, with Lola and Conde set to go together and Kenna pitching in to help decorate. While decorating, she meets Antoine, who flirts with her over a paper flower only to scamper away when he sees Bash in the distance; Conde advises him that, if he\'s serious about this diplomatic mission, he should avoid hitting on the king\'s sister-in-law, but Antoine is more concerned with the feeling that he\'s met Bash before. He soon realizes that he knows where he\'s seen Bash before - Bash is the one who stabbed his brother in the Italian Wars. Antoine remembers riding to meet Marcus at an abandoned villa, only to pass a French soldier whose face he couldn\'t make out. Once he made it to the villa, he found Marcus with a knife in his best, the result of the Bourbon lineage being pushed to the front of the battlefield in order to decimate their family line. As such, Antoine wants to probe Kenna for information about her husband\'s past.

Catherine meets with Francis and Mary and strongly implores them to stand strong against Antoine. Though Conde has shown no interest in the crown, Antoine is a reckless spender and extremely ambitious, so there\'s more to this arrangement that what they\'re seeing. It might not seem like the wisest move, but Francis decides to keep him around the castle so that he can get a better sense of what\'s going on in Navarre. Later, Catherine has a vision of blood coming from Francis\' eyes after he mentions that Clarissa is still alive. When she realizes that the Francis she was trying to console wasn\'t real, she know that the prophecy Nostradamus warned her about is coming to fruition. Catherine is then examined and the doctor pieces together that she\'s infected with syphilis, given her hallucinations and the sores on her mouth, tongue, and hands. While she\'s irritated at Henry giving her a last present before his demise, she\'s more annoyed about the painful cures that she\'ll have to endure in order to get better.

Bash receives word that there\'s been a disturbance in the village in the form of an "undead" man rising from the grave and terrorizing villagers. To ensure that he continues giving back enough to cover the destruction he\'s caused, Bash opts to leave, disappointing Kenna in the process. She doesn\'t like that he\'s leaving her for ghosts, but his sense of duty trumps the newly minted discord in their marriage. Francis meets with Narcisse and tasks him with investigating Antoine in order to determine whether the financial issues he claims to have are legitimate. Narcisse then tries to needle Francis about Conde\'s obvious feelings for Mary, asking whether he\'s trying to get rid of the prince through his brother, but Francis reminds him that he\'s the one in charge now and that Narcisse exists to serve him. Elsewhere, Antoine runs into Kenna in the hall and inquires about a guided tour of the castle. Although she doesn\'t trust him given his reputation, she decides to go through with it.

While Narcisse finds Lola and tries to get her to go with him to a nearby hot spring, Catherine is exposed to the first cure for her syphilis - birds. Her feet are encased in a bird cage filled with several birds, all of whom will peck holes in her feet. The black bile that\'s making her sick will go into their system and absolve her of her illness, but she\'s not exactly thrilled at

this idea, especially given that she\'ll have to deal with the pain from the pecks for at least one hour. Claude, though, is elated that her mother is getting a taste of the pain that she herself has been doling out for years. That night, Mary thanks Francis for being so considerate of her following the rape, how he\'s stayed near her in the bedroom without getting too close. This night she believes is right for the next step - sleeping in the bed together for the first time since the incident. However, Mary flashes back to the night of the rape while laying beside Francis and bolts, too scared to spend another second beside him.

Claude finds Narcisse and lays out that she wants them to become lovers. It\'s a matter of time before she\'s married off anyway, so she has to learn to play the same chess game as everyone else in the castle; Narcisse, of course, is thrilled to take on that mentor/parental role for Claude. Out in the village, Bash talks to a woman who saw the man that had risen from his own grave - she didn\'t know him personally, but she knew that he died in the cold and that he had been given a pauper\'s grace. There were rumors that other villagers were dealing with the same thing, seeing their loved ones that they thought were deceased, but Bash chalks that up to grief controlling the psyche of those who live in close quarters. Back at the castle, the Winter Ease kicks off and Mary\'s spirit is noticeably lighter - light enough for her to hit the dance floor. Kenna, though, finds herself alone with a flirty, persistent Antoine again and when she brings up the Italian Wars in order to defend Bash, Antoine prods her to tell him about Bash\'s time as a soldier.

Bash locates the undead man in the woods and it turns out he\'s a Greek national who was in the village trying to earn his way back to Crete. After falling asleep in a churchyard, he woke up buried, only for a woman in white to reach her hand down and help him back into the world of the living. He believes that he was actually dead, with his unclean state helping to drive away the people he tried to engage with. Back at the castle, Antoine cockily tells Conde that Kenna is easy to get information from, comparing her responsiveness to that of a horse; when Conde tries to warn his brother against pressing too hard, lest he lock himself out of a chance of gaining even more knowledge, Antoine questions whether he\'s been spending too much time at court before reminding him what happened to their brother. Meanwhile, Narcisse pulls Mary and Francis away to tell them the Navarre\'s financial demise hasn\'t been exaggerated. However, England has offered to help the country in exchange for them harboring troops near France\'s border, allowing them to invade whenever they want.

While Lola sees Narcisse and Claude hooking up at the party, which irritates her given her reluctant feelings for/attraction toward him, Mary tries to get Conde to spy on Antoine for her and see whether Navarre is working with England. This time, though, Conde declines her request, saying that she shouldn\'t take advantage of his feelings for her and that this is a line he would not cross for her. Claude worries about Narcisse getting her pregnant, but instead of pulling away from him, she offers to do everything else but penetration. When she tries to use her power over him to make him do what she wants, he respectfully declines her advances and warns her that some people merely believe they have power while others actually do have power. After pulling Antoine away from the party, Francis brings him back to meet with Mary and the threesome begin digging into the issue of Navarre\'s relationship with England and whether France should be concerned about this new development. Antoine admits to having the conversations with England, but he didn\'t initiate the contact, nor did he accept the offer as of yet.

He then tells them that the source of this tension is Elizabeth being unnerved about how Francis and Mary have handled the religious strife in their country. A Protestant queen in a Protestant country, Elizabeth thinks that the moves against the French Protestants are the royals\' way of planning a future attack on England, wherein Mary will assume the throne. As part of her treatment, Catherine gets put in a mercury oven, the heat supposed to do wonders for her sores. When Narcisse comes into the room, he gives her some water, dabs the sweat from her head, and inquires whether she actually has syphilis in the first place. Could Catherine have been poisoned instead? Although her taste testing system rules out the possibility of food poisoning, it turns out that Catherine\'s condition was a result of Henry\'s Bible, the same infected book that caused his own madness to spread and eventually consume him. Elsewhere, Bash and the Greek run upon an angry, torch-wielding mob and instead of being calm, the Greek tries to make a run for it, only to be struck down by an arrow.

Bash returns to the castle, tends to a drunk Antoine, and visits his wife hours after he thought he would be home. He missed the Ease, but the experience in the woods taught him a lesson - he doesn\'t want to be the type to let himself kill something out of ignorance, so he accepts Kenna\'s apology. From now on, he wants the whole of her heart, for them to not have any secrets, and the two conclude their first major marital fight with a kiss. Meanwhile, Francis and Mary discuss what they can do to convince Elizabeth that they\'re not coming for her throne. However, there\'s nothing they can reasonably do, given that everything leads back to Francis killing Henry; therefore, there will be no chateau, given that it can\'t be defended, and Mary no longer has the illusion of safety in her own home. Every time she looks at him, she remembers what happened to her, so she sets Francis free, telling him to find someone else to love. Even if she is doomed to a life of misery, at least one of them can find happiness.

-"Oh, that is so like him. A last gift so I never forget him or his whores."

-Before the final conversation with Kenna, I actually liked this Bash storyline. It was a little spooky without being overly supernatural, it allowed us an interesting look at life away from the castle (e.g. other people dealing with the same malady as Catherine), and any storyline that prominently features Bash is bound to be solid. The Greek\'s death was a little anticlimactic (sad but anticlimactic), but it was a sign that things in the village are worsening and that the royals might have a real problem on their hands if a solution to these hallucinations cannot be acquired. All good, right?

-Well, the idea that his death was a plot device to bring Bash and Kenna together was a little...I don\'t want to say offensive, but it just doesn\'t feel right. Of course, tragedy does tend to bond people and shake up perspectives, and

is a show that\'s very heavily influenced by romance, but it\'s worrisome when the entire point of characters and storylines like this is a central coupling and not the grander scheme. It makes the world outside the main characters feel shallower than it should be; not everything should be in service of furthering romance. nor will the show be able to evolve if it doesn\'t allow itself to explore other themes and issues.

-Also, the fact that no couple can stay apart for very long is annoying. But being that this is Bash and Kenna\'s first real tiff, I don\'t mind that it was wrapped up this quickly.

-I can\'t go through another conversation about Mary and Francis leading separate lives. Either let these people explore life away from their marriage or find a way to shove them back together - these circular, repetitive scenes just feel like episode filler and I\'m not getting the emotional intent because I\'m just bored by it all. Which is a shame because I liked that this episode touched on an important milestone for Mary (letting Francis back in her bed) and I didn\'t mind that the show pushed them apart, as it made sense given Mary\'s vulnerability following the rape and how she couldn\'t have the one thing she needed - security.

-So, it seems like Antoine is the new antagonist, which I like, mostly because of him opening up the England storyline that could pay off big down the road. (If nothing else, it adds a delicious layer of paranoia that will inform quite a few scenes/storylines for the rest of the season.) I do wonder, though, what\'s driving him to go so hard at Bash. It feels like there\'s something else fueling this aside from Antoine\'s quest for vengeance for his brother - he didn\'t even see the assailant\'s face when he passed them by, so why has he zeroed in on Bash? That brief look in the throne room?

-I kind of love the explanation for Catherine\'s visions. It\'s a nice way to tie the seasons together (the connection between her madness and Henry\'s) and I think it could be a fun mystery to solve in the back nine episodes of this season.

-I also love that we got mentions of Clarissa and Nostradamus. My guess is that the show is seeding a reveal that Clarissa was behind the poisoned Bible as revenge for the way she was treated by the royals. We know she can get in and out of the castle at will, she has the motivation to hurt Catherine, and it\'s no coincidence that she\'s brought up for the first time in a long time in the episode devoted to Catherine\'s hallucinations.

-Catherine\'s droll "delightful" while in the mercury oven was my favorite thing from the entire episode. Megan Follows has some of the most impressive line readings on television, you guys.

-I buy that Kenna\'s street smarts took a backseat once she started interacting with Antoine. My hunch is that she tried to mask her attraction to him/the joy she got from a man paying attention to her in a way Bash hasn\'t recently by aggressively defending her husband. But in doing so, she played right into what Antoine wanted, which I think was because she hasn\'t been in the center of the political machinations of court for quite a while.

-I love that Catherine\'s first thought when faced with the possibility of not surviving the syphilis treatment was to concoct a more dignified exit story to tell the masses. That type of savvy you just can\'t turn off.

: Mary and Francis investigate Henry\'s poisoning, while Greer finds herself in an unexpected position.

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Shilo Adams is a contributor to KSiteTV who has written for the likes of TVOvermind, ScreenFad, and TVHackr. You can e-mail him at sda2107@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @shilo_adams.

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