I have to admit that every episode of Reign I watched during this season made me happier that that the show was coming to an end. While I feel a sense of allegiance to the show that comes from watching it from the very beginning, watching each new episode felt like a chore that I had to convince myself to do. The closer we got to the end, the more I felt that way.
Of course, when we see the first semblance of hope for Darnley being halfway decent, it quickly disappears. Now, though, when something is clearly wrong with him, I don't feel angry with him as I did in the past. I just feel exhausted. At this point, it's like everything with Darnley keeps going in circles, with the same thing happening again and again.
Bothwell is supposed to be a character that people like, I think, but I find him annoying. There's something in his overall demeanor and relationship with Mary that irks me. I think it's the fact that he's convinced they're soulmates despite there not being anything in the show that's convinced me that they're even compatible. If the show wants me to believe what Bothwell does, I feel like we should have seen something that shows they actually know each other. As it stands, most of the scenes with them together are centered around some huge potential scandal that they're trying to control. How much did we get of them getting to know each other? They're always focused on something else. It makes Bothwell come off as naive to me (and a little conceited).
Narcisse in this episode... Wow. I don't have much else to say about that part. Thing is, I loathed Narcisse when he first came onto the show, but more recently, I my feelings towards him were far more muted, with me not caring one way or the other. This was around the point where I started to feel much more negatively about him again, which I guess could be seen as a good or a bad thing since it echoes the Narcisse from earlier in the show.
This episode was also the point where it started to feel like all of the sympathetic characters were going to get the worst endings of the show. Leith disappeared early on in really upsetting circumstances, and Gideon dies in this episode. If nothing else, that would make me question why I'm still watching this show. The only answer I have for why I didn't is that it was almost over anyway.
Oh, I almost forgot to talk about Henry even though that was what I most wanted to mention immediately after watching the episode.
Reign's decision to have Henry be a crossdresser is an interesting one. As far as I can tell, there is no talk about the historical Henry possibly having crossdressed. There were rumors that he was gay in his own lifetime, but I've never read anything about crossdressing. Because of the rumors about his sexuality, I wondered if this was going to be Reign introducing Henry as gay in the show (despite the two things not being the same thing), but after seeing how that scene played out, I really had no idea what they were going to do. (And after seeing the entire season, I'm confused as to why this was dropped into the show so abruptly at all.)
When Henry went to see Nicole in that scene I do believe that he meant to call of their relationship, and whether he did or not, it seems obvious that he didn't feel anything real for her before that moment.
After seeing that scene, I couldn't tell if he felt anything for her or not. He did seem genuinely grateful when she accepted him, but I couldn't tell if that was out of relief (because he never thought he'd find someone who would be with him and keep the secret, which means he wants to keep her around as he might never find someone else) or because he was so touched that it created actual feelings in him for her.
Honestly, this was the only story line on the show that had me actively curious at the end of this episode, and it didn't really pan out much in the following episodes.
No comments:
Post a Comment