There are so many things to welcome back with this week’s episode, which uses everyone’s past against them in a largely fun fashion. I say “largely” because while “Sins Of The Past” relishes the juicy interpersonal court drama that’s been missing for a while now (Mary’s perpetual tiresome love triangles don’t count), it also gets stuck in the swamp of politics. Like most period shows, Reign has always had trouble delving into historical semantics without dumping exposition bombs left and right, and that certainly holds true tonight.
See, Conde’s older brother Antoine (Ben Aldridge) comes to court asking for money to help the French Protestant refugees that have flooded Navarre in the wake of Francis’ religious crackdowns. No one trusts him—he’s far too dashing to be trusted—and that turns out to be the right call, since he’s also been cooperating with Queen Elizabeth of England to set Navarre up as a staging ground for a potential conflict with France. We find all this out because Francis put Narcisse on “what’s up with Navarre?” duty, but not because we actually get to see Narcisse do any real spying. In Claude’s words, he mostly just lurks about the castle being slimy until he gets his cue to sweep in and inform Francis that he’s heard confirmations of Antoine’s treachery somewhere offstage. Antoine, meanwhile, is convinced that Bash is the French soldier that stabbed his brother to death in the Italian wars, and goes about trying to charm Kenna into betraying some kernel of information on this aspect of Bash’s life that none of us had ever heard about before this episode. It’s a valiant effort to actually use series regular Narcisse and to bring Aldridge’s charming Antoine more firmly into the mix, but it’s hard to get invested when so much of the meat happens in long expository monologues or long ago offscreen.
Once you discount all those pesky attempts at historical accuracy, though, “Sins Of The Past” is a stronger episode. Mary and Francis try to keep up with their rule while continuing their rollercoaster of trust and trauma. This week’s edition is far more believable and touching than previous episodes. They go from trying to sleep in the same bed, to Mary crying in Francis’ arms, to spinning around on the dance floor with wide grins, to crying in front of the fireplace as Mary insists Francis try to move on because “one of [them] should be happy.” Every beat but that final one lands. The episode does such a lovely job portraying their hurt and determination that the moment when Mary seems to resign herself to an unhappy life is particularly brutal. Let’s hope the next episode doesn’t find Conde seizing his opportunity to sweep her off her vulnerable feet, because that would—to use a technical term—be disgusting.