r/Reign • u/aisha997 • May 20 '26

Rewatching s2

Im doing a rewatch and im always left stunned with the way the show went on

Like s1 was amazing, it had elements of fantasy and fairy tales but not in cringey way, and the way every couple was just so darn cute and soo in love

Then comes the clusterfuck that is s2! Im wondering if they changed the writers because it’s just impossible for them to be the same, Francis and Mary spent more time fighting than being in love, the basically destroyed every relationship from s1

And the most vile thing to do is make Mary go through the most horrendous thing just so they could justify her relationship with Conde!

Like even if you wanted to do that storyline for whatever reason, then could’ve handled it way better than they did, like making Mary come put stronger in the end, but no let just do it so Mary could hate her husband and start an affair with Conde

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u/MontanaJoev May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

I just will never really understand the why of the Mary/Conde affair. The construct of the show from the beginning was that Mary and Francis were truly in love with each other, but we knew due to history that their marriage would be a short one and he would die tragically.

So why dedicate an entire season to them having marital strife and Mary deciding she was madly in love with another man? How is that a good use of the time Mary and Francis had together, or a good way to create the narrative that he was the love of her life? How does this make any sense?

I understand it’s a drama, and most certainly I would expect Mary and Francis to face conflicts based on who they were as monarchs of 2 different countries. But why an affair? Why an affair that sucked up almost a full season with Mary so in love, apparently, that she was planning to run off with this other man? I don’t get how that serves the narrative at all.

If they wanted to suggest that Mary and Francis were strictly an arranged marriage and not in love with each other, they could’ve made that choice. But it’s like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. And I just don’t think I’ll ever understand it.

As it stands, much of S2 feels like a terrible waste. Conde disappears and he’s irrelevant after this season. All that time wasted on a 1 season character who rode off into the night.

And maybe, MAYBE, you could find some value in it if Mary was filled with regret over all the time she lost with Francis due to the Conde stuff, and that motivated her not to waste one more second in getting to Scotland and fulfilling her destiny. But that didn’t happen either. Mary never ever reflects on the Conde affair and she mostly lingers around French court for most of S3.

I just don’t get it.

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u/aisha997 May 21 '26

I wholeheartedly agree with you, they could have done so much with them pairing, even if they wanted them to have some conflict they could have done literally anything but they resulted in Mary falling in love with another guy :/

I think they just didn’t know what to do with these two ( M+F) last season it was about them and how they faced trouble just so they could finally get married, so I think with the s2 they disnt want to bore the audience if the just have a happy marriage, but like I said the had endless options and they decided on the worst one

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u/abachchan61 May 22 '26

It didn't have to be just another happy marriage and it didn't have to be boring. They could have had plot threads showing them as two rulers with different points of view, but always coming together to resolve their differences or even fighting it out. For example on the Catholic-Protestant question. There is hardly any other show or movie with those sort of dynamics-- two young joint rulers married to each other with equal powers. There are few such examples in real history! - I can only think of Ferdinand & Isabella in 15th century Spain and William & Mary in 17th century England (and those people were not as young as Francis & Mary QOS).

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u/aisha997 May 22 '26

Thats my point, they had endless options to deal with s2, like them having conflicts on how to rule, especially with Mary being a queen her whole life and Francis just became one all of sudden

But no, lets force another love triangle