'Reign' Series Premiere Recap: Mary Queen Of Scots Meets Her Fiancé Prince Francis

Reign, The CW’s new historical drama, premiered Thursday night with a pilot full of royal mystery as a 15-year-old Mary Queen of Scots arrives in France to marry Prince Francis and form a powerful alliance.

The pilot begins with Mary (Adelaide Kane) arriving in France to meet Prince Francis (Tony Regbo), her betrothed since childhood. Scared, Mary is relieved to see that she might actually like her future husband. Francis, on the other hand, is firm in his belief that an alliance with Scotland would hurt France, and plans on dragging out their engagement for as long as possible. Francis is also deterred by his many girlfriends, including a particularly sexually aggressive Natalia (Lola Tash).

Francis’ mother, Queen Catherine de Medici (Megan Follows) strongly objects to the potential marriage. She does not approve of Mary, and her disapproval soon turns into disgust and anger when Nostradamus (Rossif Sutherland) has a vision that Francis’ marriage to Mary will end in his death.

At the French Court, Mary is reunited with her four friends/ladies-in waiting and also finds an ally in Bash, or Sebastian (Torrance Coombs). Bash is the King’s bastard son with his very public mistress, Diane (Anna Walton), and he forms a bond with Mary after he rescues her lost dog and the two outcasts relate to each other.

Before a wedding, a spirit of the French Court in the walls warns Mary to dance, but not drink at the celebration. Mary follows the mysterious voice’s orders and does not drink the wine. Good thing, too, because the wine was drugged and a man (one of her friends’ boyfriend) comes to her room late at night to rape her, thinking that she is knocked out from the wine and hoping to make her unfit to marry Prince Francis. Mary wakes up and is able to scream for help. The evil plot, which Mary believes was an assassination attempt, was orchestrated by Catherine, and she has the man executed so he will not be able to tell anyone how she tried to destroy her son’s impending marriage.

Reign airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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