Reign "Tempting Fate" Review: What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

Reign S02E17: "Tempting Fate"

Are you okay? It's okay if you're not okay. You might need a few days to recover. I mean, "Tempting Fate" dangled the lives of two of our favorite dudes over a cliff, and one of them might seriously be dunzo. The mainest one! The King of Fronce! Yep, it's looking like Francis might be dying, guys.

Now, I know some of you would prefer to round up the tumbrils and wage a revolution if that should happen, but to be fair, Francis has been a marked man since Reign's pilot. His dramatic collapse, which was presumably brought on by the strain of shielding his wife's honor, might be the show's way of giving his death more heroism and narrative poignancy than "basically they didn't have penicillin back then." Because if Francis does die, it will assuredly be of a broken heart. (And if he survives, this episode is a masterclass on how to write a cliffhanger.) But let's start at the start!

Mary was in maybe the most amazing dress we've seen this season for a hot date in a church with Conde. Get it, girl.

Unbeknownst to Mary, her personal correspondence was being hijacked at that very moment by a random dude who picked a fight with the guy carrying her letters. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if every important business email you sent had to be physically carried by a person, a person who was prone to staying up late, gambling with toughs, and getting a little mouthy to dudes who approached them on the street? Her guy was intercepted, her sealed letters were snatched, and it was basically the equivalent of her email getting hacked.

Meanwhile a huffy Bash was packing up all his stuff to move to a room across the castle from Kenna, so she wouldn't feel too married to him while he was off across the country on a business trip. Clearly Bash thinks the best way to reach out to an alienated spouse after months of being distant is to act EVEN MORE distant.

And yet even while being a doofus on this level, he told Kenna he wanted her to stay married him and under his protection until she could find the powerful asshole of her dreams, so she'd still be under his protection. "I am not the man for you. You need an American Psycho CEO type or like a hot rich '80s bully like James Spader from Pretty in Pink," he explained. Kenna, who had not seen those films, did not know how to respond.

Meanwhile, Mary received a folded-up note in the middle of a king and queen business meeting, the equivalent of a text basically, and Mary claimed it was about a "hospitality matter"; Catherine argued to Francis that it was more likely a sext.

While almost audibly gnashing his teeth with frustration, Francis told his mother in no uncertain terms that Mary was loyal to him and he would not hear her questioned.

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Meanwhile, in a stunning little 16th century townhouse, Queen Elizabeth's envoy was making her sound maybe a little more thirsty than Queen Elizabeth might want to sound.

Easy, envoy dude! Generally there's this thing called "sounding desperate" that single people like to avoid? Basically this envoy was the OKCupid equivalent of five messages in 15 minutes after no response whatsoever. Like, chiiiill, take a breath, play a little hard to get, geez.

Meanwhile Greer and Leith were making out on her bed in between its sessions as a workstation for her sex-worker buddies. What with the 16th century hygiene, high traffic of random street johns, and lack of Febreze, Greer's sheets must be simply JUICY at the end of the day! Greasy as a pizza box. Still, dubious linens aside, Greer and Leith are arguably the happiest couple of them all right now.

And then there was this torso.

I'm not sure what the beautiful torso said in this scene, I was frankly too dazzled. Claude seemed miffed with the beautiful torso, though I really can't understand why. What I can say, for certain, is that the human body—given the right combination of DNA and physical activity—is nothing less than an exquisite miracle.

Meanwhile a wan-looking Francis learned that Bash was leaving.

Francis strained to look normal while his brother unwittingly twisted a knife in his heart and then took off for an indefinite business trip. You could hardly blame him for blowing off some steam by telling Mary he was going sort of crazy lying to everyone and thinking about her with Conde and was she happy now? Man, if he'd known about the fact she was also about to ditch him for Scotland the poor guy probably would've exploded like a hot dog in a microwave.

About that: Conde decided he might as well come clean about how in 48 hours, Queen Elizabeth wanted to snatch him up to become her Royal King Consort.

Though Mary was livid and called him a liar, Conde deserves a few points for telling her first. And while Mary basically told Conde to go have a nice life with Her Royal Fire Crotchness, Lola immediately sat Mary down on a bale of snow and gave her some show-stoppingly good advice, just exactly the kind of solid best-friend sit-down that I hope we all get from someone during our roughest days, reminding Mary to trust her gut, stay strong, and maybe not be so hard on Conde.

Meanwhile Bash was breaking up a domestic violence situation.

After telling a domestic abuse victim to go off and start a new life, he gave her bad-dude husband a LOT of marital advice that sort of sounded like Bash working out his own marital woes? Oh, Bash. The only way you can feel good is by pounding a stranger's face like it's a watermelon, and you've got fists made of spiky sledgehammers. Unfortunately Bash's passionate nature may have lead to him being straight-up stabbed by that guy later in the day.

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The Bash situation was the first red flag that Reign was taking off the gloves and entering full Game of Thrones-mode in terms of overwhelming our most beloved and seemingly untouchable characters. Luckily someone in a dark hood (a fellow pagan?) dragged him to the Woman in White, the magic nun with the healing touch he'd met a few episodes earlier, and she was clearly used to chit-chatting with people on the threshold of eternity.

Speaking of a laying on of hands, Conde and Mary had hatched and perfectly executed and extremely daring plan (Mary played "bad cop" by arresting Queen Elizabeth's envoy and threatening his life, and then Conde played "good cop" by helping the envoy escape back to the British Isles and in the process essentially obtained a map of the Pro-Mary harbor towns in Scotland that he and Mary could safely land in whenever they decided to flee Fronce).

After accomplishing this delicate diplomatic subterfuge, Conde decided to take a leap of faith and go with his heart: to Scotland, at Mary's side. In celebration of this fateful and possibly fatal pact, the two had SUPER DELUXE SEX including a bearskin rug and roaring fire.

But UH-OH: Remember the guy who'd stolen Mary's letters way at the beginning of the episode? He was one of Narcisse's henchmen. Narcisse is now in possession of Mary's most dangerous secret, that she's planning to return to Scotland without her husband. And he turned that information over to Catherine, who we'd been assuming would buck-wild on Mary since the first act, expecting her to take her down. But instead, Catherine was like, "What?! Destroy Mary?! Nuh-uh. She's making a foolish, brave mistake and we'll talk her through that shit, but I love her. Don't talk shit like that again." It was a gorgeous moment in which Catherine and and Mary's special connection came to the fore, and as always their connection is kind of the best.

However, when Catherine imparted this news to Francis and informed him that his wife was leaving him for Scotland, he straight-up collapsed, sending Catherine into a breakdown and the crown into jeopardy. The fact that this catastrophe was intercut with Mary making sensual love to Conde really heightened the emotional sting, as though Francis had preternaturally sensed this final betrayal and his poor heart just let go. If Francis dies, this timeline will no doubt haunt Mary; when Francis lay dying, she was in another man's arms! An elegant, dramatic convergence of climaxes that may serve to make a famously tragic historical figure even more tragic and Queen Mary's past just that much darker.

Or who knows, maybe Francis will hang in there?

Mmmm, IDK, I don't like the look of that brain blood coming out of his ear, folks. But Reign frequently defies expectation, so maybe he has a shot? Ooooh I can't wait for the next episode to find out, I cannot handle it!!! What, Reign is taking another hiatus?! CAN IT BE APRIL 16 TOMORROW PLEASE?!?

QUESTIONS:

... Is this the end of Francis or a cheeky feint?

... What price do you think Bash will have to pay for being healed by a fake nun?

... Is Claude going to come between Greer and Leith? But like Leith loves Greer so much that there's no way that could ever happen right? RIGHT?!?!

... If Mary does end up going to Scotland next season, is there a way to take Catherine, Kenna, and Greer with her? Okay fine, also Lola.

... How serious is bleeding out your ear?