Reign: Burn Recap

Synopsis: Mary betrays Louis and stabs him to save her country and France. Catherine orchestrates the kidnapping of Lola and her son to motivate Francis to kill Conde. After the plot is discovered, Francis banishes Catherine, who runs to Elizabeth for help destroying Mary.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Last week’s episode concluded with Mary running to Louis’ camp to beg for his mercy on her behalf and on behalf of their child. That’s right – Mary said she’s pregnant with Louis’ child.

This week, Mary’s still in Conde’s tent. She reveals that Francis has stockpiled cannons to use against his armies. She feels guilty for betraying France, but she feels she has no other choice. All of a sudden, shrieking breaks out in the camp – the whores Louis’ men have been sleeping with are running about with blackened appendages. It looks like the plague is back.

Well, at first it does. Louis grabs one of the girls and discovers the girls have blackened their hands with ash to cause a panic and scatter his troops.

Then Mary stabs Louis.

She was never pregnant with his child.

Meanwhile, at the castle, Catherine tells Francis that Mary has fled to Louis and betrayed them all. Just as the chaos breaks out among Louis’ men, Bash tells Francis that Mary sent messages to Greer’s girls before she left, so there might be more to her disappearance than meets the eye.

Regardless, Francis sends his men out into the fray and crushes the rebellion. He discovers Mary with a dagger in her hand standing over Louis’ body. She knows it will take a lot to regain his trust, but this is a start.

Conde just won’t die, so he spends part of the episode recovering in the castle dungeon while Francis decides what to do with him.

In a weird subplot this week, Delphine (Bash’s latest woodsy squeeze) looks like she’s a legitimate witch who may or may not reach batshit levels of crazy. People in the castle keep on seeing a creature who attacks maids and servants, and they’re not entirely convinced that it isn’t Delphine.

Things aren’t looking great for her once the servant she screwed and spelled last week tattles to Bash and Claude, but they quickly go from bad to worse when a maid walks in on Delphine writhing around in pleasure (?) and squishing a servant’s bloody innards on the floor. Yeah. There’s also a goddamn pentagram drawn around him. You know, because she wanted to practice her geometry. #Casual

She tries to explain it away, and Bash, being the gullible sonuvabitch that he is looks like he believes her, but the rest of the castle is smart enough to figure out that if it looks crazy, smells crazy, and is discovered bathing in someone else’s lifeblood, it should probably be burned at the stake.

While Delphine is being burned, she comes to Bash in a vision. She tells him that she linked him and her together. Okay, lady. What does this mean? If Delphine was to get, oh, say, horribly and brutally burned at the stake, Bash would feel that pain as well. Luckily, just after the burning starts, Delphine frees herself and frolicks back to the forest like the strange little witchy gazelle she is.

Oh, she also ruins Kenna’s relationship with Bash by revealing that Kenna is pregnant by Renaud. Who was just hanged for treason. When Kenna tries to reconcile with her husband to save herself, Bash rejects her for her deceit, forcing Kenna to travel away from the castle to have her baby and give it up for adoption. Ever the opportunist, while Kenna is on her travels, she runs into a young king and starts planning her latest and greatest conquest.

Back in Frary news, Francis has decided to save Louis as a bargaining chip to assure an alliance with Navarre. Catherine disagrees, and she orchestrates an elaborate plan to kidnap Lola and lead Francis to believe Conde’s men killed his son. This way, Francis will show no mercy and kill Conde immediately.

Narcisse quickly discovers her plot and finds Lola and her son, who he promptly returns to the castle unharmed. Narcisse betrays Catherine, because, in his words, nothing is worse than being hated by a Medici than being loved by one.

Once Francis realizes what his mother has done, he banishes Catherine. Then, Mary and Francis reconcile (FINALLY!). At the end of the episode, Francis meets with Nostradamus – turns out Francis is still dying from that ear infection.

As the episode closes, we see Catherine in some posh receiving chambers. The door opens and in walks none other than Queen Elizabeth of England. Catherine has come to her for help in destroying Mary.