Reign S04E04 Recap

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SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.

Darnley’s new found ambition to be king was so blatant when he first met Mary in the field that I was wary of him from then. I didn’t trust him at all because his demeanour and attitude seemed quite different from what we’d seem of him before; he wasn’t that ambitious. All he wanted was to be able to marry Lady Keira. I guess now that his heart is broken and he’s lost her he’s figured why not get the most out of his marriage with Mary.

I knew he’d set the second fire when no one could find him and he just happened to be in the house right as it went up in flames and a child needed saving. Further, the way he looked at Mary when she was being praised by the townspeople was full of pure jealousy. And James didn’t seem to trust him either because he was watching him very closely. Just when I’d decided to turn down my skepticism toward him – he was charming and seemed to be sincere when he was handing out the bread to the people – he proved himself to be a snake.

I do not trust how easily he accepted Mary’s terms on their marriage concerning the Crown Matrimonial. He’s so strange; on the one hand he makes his ambitions painfully obvious and on the other seems 100% sincere in his proclamations of being dutiful to Mary as her husband and protecting her…and also he set a fire to make himself look like a hero. Which he could have done by helping put out the first fire instead of just standing around.

I’m pretty sure that Mary’s “Loyal Watchman” is actually James. The only problem with that is that it doesn’t make sense that he would inform her of his suspicions in such a manner; he would come to her and tell her himself. I see no reason why he could not. She trusts him now.

Leeza with her nosy self and holier than thou attitude, combined with her quest to make Claude’s life miserable (because she has Catherine’s love when she herself never did), sought to punish Claude for sleeping with a married man. So it was either the nunnery or an arranged marriage. So Claude, like Mary, found herself a husband in this episode. She and Luc got married a lot sooner than I thought they would. I didn’t expect their wedding to be an immediate affair.

Luc has been sweet, kind and considerate toward Claude since the moment they met and I loved how he stepped in and shut down Leeza at their reception. Every time he did something dreamy, I swooned and loved him even more. It doesn’t help either that he’s not a bad specimen to look at. But…he is Narcisse’s son. And as much as both Narcisse and Luc established that they never got along because they were so different, the fact that he is his child makes me cautious about him.

Catherine as well and I’m glad she gave Claude that little pre-wedding talk about not trusting him too completely or hastily. She definitely needs to get Claude out of the marriage now that Leith has returned. Just as I was coming to accept that the Leith and Claude ship had sailed and was getting ready to embrace Luc and Claude. I so wanted him to run to Claude’s room and interrupt her first night with her new husband. Catherine needs to get the two of them back together.

First though, she has to speed up her plans of getting rid of Leeza so that she can stop trying to ruin Claude’s life. Which, because that’s what Leeza’s after, makes me hope that Claude and Luc work out and are happy together. Just so that Leeza can’t have that win.

What the hell is going on with Charles? Taking Bianca to look at dead bodies? The blood in his mouth? Pushing Catherine? We need to find out what’s going on with him very soon. I suspect he’s dying and going mad just because that’s what happened to him historically if Wikipedia is to be believed. But the show needs to give us their own answer for his behaviour.

One of Elizabeth’s plans this season has actually worked and she successfully won Lord Maxford to her side. I despised him from the first, though, because he totally ignored her in their first being just because she was a woman. It was that attitude precisely that made me think that her plan didn’t work; she made the kill that he had failed to do, and in a far flashier manner, when they went hunting. I assumed he would resent her because she, a woman, did something that he could not. Instead, it won her his respect.

I understand that Elizabeth is a royal and people of her station don’t raise their children themselves, but she didn’t need to insult Gideon for being a hands on parent. Now, the demands she made of his time have caused him to feel guilty for failing to notice the severity of Agatha’s ailment. I don’t want his daughter to die at all, not after all of the trouble he’d gone through to get her back and not right after he lost his once chance with Mary. It’s a shame that his queen, indeed, doesn’t have any power to change that.

Random thoughts: