Reign Report: “Coronation”

Guess who had their big day last night!

An iffy tactician and her husband!

Don’t get me wrong, her strategic scrambling has come together this season as an actual through-line and not just a series of awkward decisions enacted at random. The entire second season so far has been great; I wrote up why over at the AV Club, including asking why Francis is not wearing French blue, because the one thing this show remembers historically is that red is an English color and Mary literally wore it one time to be political. Show, please. Please.

However, I’m the first to admit that, Francis’ color scheme aside, this was a week of great dresses on our main ladies.

Kenna as hipster floaty queen, Greer as preemptive widow, and Lola as glittery Earth Mom carried through the whole episode.

In this one, Celina Sinden is about to attack Mary with all the power of the xenomorphs over whom she is the queen if Mary can’t get her shit together like instantly.

She did, though!

What an amazing dress. Well done. (Let’s note those two dudes of color in the back, who hopefully are the beginning of a trend, because aside from the actual historical record, any “historical” show that puts everybody in Free People has literally zero excuse for being lily-white.)

And I realize now that I have become complacent about the extras in their god-knows clothes and the leads in their don’tgiveafucks; the dance extras in their ridiculous Anne of Green Gables leftovers barely register any more. That said, I am always taken aback anew when the show decides to dress speaking characters in historical clothes. It’s like a clown horn sounding all at once in a room full of gentle hipster strumming.

She’s looking pretty judgey for a lady who borrowed her Italian great-great-grandmother’s finest to go bribe the King’s Deputy.

In fairness, she needed to bribe him, because there was some ironclad evidence against her husband:

“Died o cut throat.” Later Kenna burns the page to prevent Bash from prosecuting, because anyone in 16 th century France knows the importance of chain of custody of things like the “Who Died of Plague vs. Murder” ledger. I love it so much. I love this show so much.

But not as much as I love Catherine! Megan Follows has been talking in interviews about missing Nostradamus, who apparently really did just skip town. On the one hand, hey, she’s getting so much press! Good for her! On the other hand, CATHY AND THE PROPH ARE ON INDEFINITE HIATUS, SHOW WHAT HAVE YOU DONE.

In the meantime, however, Megan Follows is not letting the grass grow under her feet. Besides looking better in the heavy brocade shawl collar coats this show is putting her in to highlight her dowager status than she ever imaginably should be:

She’s decided to play her “old friendship” with Narcisse as wily aggression (gotta spar with somebody and she’s made it clear Mary doesn’t cut it), served with a heaping helping of I Will Ruin You Sexually.

That dude knows.

They spend about four scenes this episode with Catherine apart from the youthful festivities, beginning at the pre-coronation ball and ending at this picnic she had set up mere moments after the coronation as far from the palace as she could possibly get while still keeping it in the frame. (I fucking love it, they’re all in there feasting and she literally can’t stand it one more second, she is taking her folding chair with the candlesticks on top and she is out of here.)