jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2016-09-02 08:27 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote2016-09-02 08:27 pm
Catching up on shows (mostly Reign)
So I’ve been making full use of Netflix to catch up on CW shows (I’m not sure if there will be time by the time Arrow/Flash/LoT get there to rewatch them before the seasons start, but I’ve still got 2/3 of the Arrow/Flash season before it to revisit so I’m not anxious yet).
I watched s2 of Jane the Virgin (I might have had some thoughts, but not many; it was fine) and s1 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which I quite liked and did have thoughts on but never quite figured out how to put in to words). And I rewatched season 1-2 of Reign then went back to my own archives to finally watch s3.
And Reign I have thoughts about...about a lot of things.
I think season 3 was arguably the best season the show has had. It still had problems (let’s be real, this is not a super high quality show), but it seemed to have more direction than the first couple seasons; some better defined conflicts and some more interesting ones. The world is getting bigger and the relationships (of all kinds) are rather less CW in their nature.
I did have less issue with Mary’s character in s2 than I remember having at the time; not sure how much of that is from seeing it all through and how much is from watching it quickly vs. week to week; though I suspect the latter. It didn’t seem to swing as wildly between episodes as I thought at the time, although there’s still some definite gear grinding at points. And once Conde is gone, her character is pretty consistent about how she views things (which may lend extra credence to Francis’ attitude that Conde took advantage of Mary’s situation and caused her more problems than he helped with; and while I don’t think Louis was being malicious about it, I definitely think Francis has a point). It’s unfortunate that Mary’s story of being a rape survivor got caught up in a love triangle that never really worked as one, largely because the love triangle was tangled in with the rape story.
I actually a little surprised we got so little follow-up with Louis in s3, they went to a lot of trouble not to kill him off after s2’s plot ended after all. But I think now that had more to do with not making Mary responsible for his death than any intent to continue that story (and I think he is an actual historical person who probably didn’t die in a situation like that so they fudged it). Also leaving him out shouldn’t surprise me as the show only remembers to acknowledge Mary and Bash’s past about once a season. Still, I do imagine Conde back in Navarre getting the news of Francis’ death and not really knowing how to feel about it. And considering it took until late this season to recall the poisoned bible and the cover-up I’m not real sure where I see things going.
Given that Mary/Francis was always my OTP on this show I’m in sort of a weird place with s3. I cried a fair bit over the first several episodes of the season, all throughout it was a rough season and it’s not like it’s going to get easier to hold to it going forward (well, we’ll get to that), but I thought it was better handled than I expected of this show. While in text and on the meta level Mary was forced to move on very quickly, it allowed her a lot of opportunities to grieve she just couldn’t linger in grief; and because it was treated in text that she *had* to move forward it was easier to handle the more meta elements of it. And that it continued to resonate all season was effective, although I’m a little surprised they resolved things with the assassins so quickly, both at the time (they caught the other guy really quickly) and once back in Scotland (I had kind of expected that would carry into next season).
I kind of wonder if there are still Mary/Bash shippers out there, because the latter half of this season has to have been weird for that. On one hand they are finally close again; on the other, Mary is making it abundantly clear that it’s no kind of option. He’s not a prospect for her to marry obviously, and Francis is still the one in her heart, and anything besides that...she gets from him from their relationship as it is. He’s her friend, her brother in many ways, and her last connection to Francis, none of which predispose her towards a romantically inclined relationship with Bash. It was actually really weird for Bash to go there (though really only for a couple of scenes in one episode) and bring up that there might still be a romantic edge to his feelings for her; it cast an unfortunate shadow over their interactions in the episodes following that one and that shadow didn’t need to be there (it taints their final scene which would read just fine as family; when Bash tells her he sometimes sees ghosts and she asks about Francis).
As I said, this season mellowed a lot of the CW-ness of the relationships. Mary is only in love triangles if you consider the other party to be her dead husband; it’s made clear that while she was prepared to marry again she wasn’t really ready to love again. And things with Gideon are...odd; I wouldn’t say – and I don’t think she would either – that she loves him, even if he could be a prospect for her long term which he can’t, they’re just finding their way for now and it works for them (also Gideon is far from a traditional CW love interest). I can’t for the life of me work out how I feel about Lola and Narcisse, I seem to remember liking them okay the first time I watched s2 but it didn’t hold together this time; but again there is no romantic rival (I guess Catherine...and maybe Elizabeth when I’m inclined to ship Lola/Elizabeth) just the problems of their own relationship. Leith and Claude probably have the most expected sort of relationship on the show and theirs was remarkably...healthy; since they’re rather minor characters I suppose they’re allowed to just go as they will...until the end when apparently no one was allowed to be happy. And Greer and Castleroy ended up together finally, I always liked that ship.
Certainly the most developed relationship of the season was Mary and Catherine (which could make next season difficult). It’s always been one of the central relationships whether they were enemies or reluctant friends or...whatever they are now...awkward family, but it was really the core of this season. I don’t know whether it was by design (Mary needing to take some of Catherine’s toughness into the next chapter of her story) or how much is just consequence of Mary’s support system being basically gone after the first half of the season so the remaining writing choice was to throw her and Catherine together (which makes me wonder why we didn’t get more between Mary and Claude since they insist on continuing to act like Claude is an actual character).
Adding Elizabeth to the mix at this point was...probably necessary, but not exactly appreciated. I didn’t like the actress, although she improved as the season progressed. Now that I think it Elizabeth and Dudley probably have the most CW-esque relationship on the show, I just tuned out so much of that plot it slipped my mind. The plot in England wasn’t bad, but it also didn’t really do much until near the end for how much screen time it got all season. We got a lot of new characters this season and only some of them were introduced through the existing cast, with the English plot being especially that; that may be part of the problem, and why it improved with Lola joining that plot. I’m not sure, maybe it just felt too small.
As for some speculation, season three seemed to end with a lot of wiping the pieces off the board, making me feel like next season is going to probably skip forward some time and start fresh. And I actually feel like that would be the right move. I often complain about shows not taking the time to show direct fallout from things, but at the same time, watching Mary consolidate power or Catherine scheme without any direct power doesn’t seem like the most interesting choices, so skipping forward a year or two to when there’s fresh movement in these plots seems right to me. Bash coming back to Mary within the first couple episodes now as her seer; Catherine actually grabbing at power again; Narcisse back in play after whatever punishment he takes after s3, probably in a custody battle with Mary for John (Jean? I’m not sure); Mary and Elizabeth actually in positions to do something about each other again.
And Darnley. I’m pretty much expecting s4 to play with the Darnley story since he got name dropped in the s3 finale after all. I’m fully expecting it, and absolutely dreading it, because that is not a good story; absolutely fraught with drama, and CW-exploitable drama at that, but it’s not going to end well. I don’t know how far they’d go with it in one season or how many seasons they expect to stick around to pace the rest of Mary’s story over; but the longer they go, the more they’ll have to deal with the reality that Mary’s story doesn’t end well. She’s the hero of the show, but there is no heroic end to this story. Regardless of how the end of s3 set things up, Mary won’t win this war between her and Elizabeth; now that the fight is actually between the two of them, that fact hangs over the story. Just like the show always had to admit Mary and Francis had a historical expiration date (they could play with how and when and all that, but not that that it had to happen) now they have to start admitting to some other historical realities.
I do suspect Bash will be used to get some reappearances for various dead characters. I fully expect a mini-arc with the ghost of Francis to wring some more angst out of that. I’m not sure if Kenna or Greer will ever reappear in the show; I’m sort of expecting it but I think that’s mostly because Mary’s going to need people to bounce things off of for script reasons and I don’t see them introducing new characters for that, but I’m also not sure that reasoning is real solid. I’m not even sure we’ll get as much focus on French Court moving forward; as much Catherine is a major driving force of the show I’m not sure complete dividing action between three countries is maintainable long term. I think we will have to see Catherine regain power, and there’s certainly plenty of story fodder in France, but I’m not sure how to keep it relevant to Mary’s story, especially when the show has already basically committed to Mary not going back to France (also I’m pretty sure that’s historically accurate). I can see them fudging history and having Mary and Elizabeth meet up somewhere along the line, but things are still going to be pretty separate from here on and condensing things seems a logical choice.
I guess I’m not really sure what all I’m predicting, maybe I’m more highlighting areas where I think there’s going to be...not problems exactly but difficulties.
I watched s2 of Jane the Virgin (I might have had some thoughts, but not many; it was fine) and s1 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (which I quite liked and did have thoughts on but never quite figured out how to put in to words). And I rewatched season 1-2 of Reign then went back to my own archives to finally watch s3.
And Reign I have thoughts about...about a lot of things.
I think season 3 was arguably the best season the show has had. It still had problems (let’s be real, this is not a super high quality show), but it seemed to have more direction than the first couple seasons; some better defined conflicts and some more interesting ones. The world is getting bigger and the relationships (of all kinds) are rather less CW in their nature.
I did have less issue with Mary’s character in s2 than I remember having at the time; not sure how much of that is from seeing it all through and how much is from watching it quickly vs. week to week; though I suspect the latter. It didn’t seem to swing as wildly between episodes as I thought at the time, although there’s still some definite gear grinding at points. And once Conde is gone, her character is pretty consistent about how she views things (which may lend extra credence to Francis’ attitude that Conde took advantage of Mary’s situation and caused her more problems than he helped with; and while I don’t think Louis was being malicious about it, I definitely think Francis has a point). It’s unfortunate that Mary’s story of being a rape survivor got caught up in a love triangle that never really worked as one, largely because the love triangle was tangled in with the rape story.
I actually a little surprised we got so little follow-up with Louis in s3, they went to a lot of trouble not to kill him off after s2’s plot ended after all. But I think now that had more to do with not making Mary responsible for his death than any intent to continue that story (and I think he is an actual historical person who probably didn’t die in a situation like that so they fudged it). Also leaving him out shouldn’t surprise me as the show only remembers to acknowledge Mary and Bash’s past about once a season. Still, I do imagine Conde back in Navarre getting the news of Francis’ death and not really knowing how to feel about it. And considering it took until late this season to recall the poisoned bible and the cover-up I’m not real sure where I see things going.
Given that Mary/Francis was always my OTP on this show I’m in sort of a weird place with s3. I cried a fair bit over the first several episodes of the season, all throughout it was a rough season and it’s not like it’s going to get easier to hold to it going forward (well, we’ll get to that), but I thought it was better handled than I expected of this show. While in text and on the meta level Mary was forced to move on very quickly, it allowed her a lot of opportunities to grieve she just couldn’t linger in grief; and because it was treated in text that she *had* to move forward it was easier to handle the more meta elements of it. And that it continued to resonate all season was effective, although I’m a little surprised they resolved things with the assassins so quickly, both at the time (they caught the other guy really quickly) and once back in Scotland (I had kind of expected that would carry into next season).
I kind of wonder if there are still Mary/Bash shippers out there, because the latter half of this season has to have been weird for that. On one hand they are finally close again; on the other, Mary is making it abundantly clear that it’s no kind of option. He’s not a prospect for her to marry obviously, and Francis is still the one in her heart, and anything besides that...she gets from him from their relationship as it is. He’s her friend, her brother in many ways, and her last connection to Francis, none of which predispose her towards a romantically inclined relationship with Bash. It was actually really weird for Bash to go there (though really only for a couple of scenes in one episode) and bring up that there might still be a romantic edge to his feelings for her; it cast an unfortunate shadow over their interactions in the episodes following that one and that shadow didn’t need to be there (it taints their final scene which would read just fine as family; when Bash tells her he sometimes sees ghosts and she asks about Francis).
As I said, this season mellowed a lot of the CW-ness of the relationships. Mary is only in love triangles if you consider the other party to be her dead husband; it’s made clear that while she was prepared to marry again she wasn’t really ready to love again. And things with Gideon are...odd; I wouldn’t say – and I don’t think she would either – that she loves him, even if he could be a prospect for her long term which he can’t, they’re just finding their way for now and it works for them (also Gideon is far from a traditional CW love interest). I can’t for the life of me work out how I feel about Lola and Narcisse, I seem to remember liking them okay the first time I watched s2 but it didn’t hold together this time; but again there is no romantic rival (I guess Catherine...and maybe Elizabeth when I’m inclined to ship Lola/Elizabeth) just the problems of their own relationship. Leith and Claude probably have the most expected sort of relationship on the show and theirs was remarkably...healthy; since they’re rather minor characters I suppose they’re allowed to just go as they will...until the end when apparently no one was allowed to be happy. And Greer and Castleroy ended up together finally, I always liked that ship.
Certainly the most developed relationship of the season was Mary and Catherine (which could make next season difficult). It’s always been one of the central relationships whether they were enemies or reluctant friends or...whatever they are now...awkward family, but it was really the core of this season. I don’t know whether it was by design (Mary needing to take some of Catherine’s toughness into the next chapter of her story) or how much is just consequence of Mary’s support system being basically gone after the first half of the season so the remaining writing choice was to throw her and Catherine together (which makes me wonder why we didn’t get more between Mary and Claude since they insist on continuing to act like Claude is an actual character).
Adding Elizabeth to the mix at this point was...probably necessary, but not exactly appreciated. I didn’t like the actress, although she improved as the season progressed. Now that I think it Elizabeth and Dudley probably have the most CW-esque relationship on the show, I just tuned out so much of that plot it slipped my mind. The plot in England wasn’t bad, but it also didn’t really do much until near the end for how much screen time it got all season. We got a lot of new characters this season and only some of them were introduced through the existing cast, with the English plot being especially that; that may be part of the problem, and why it improved with Lola joining that plot. I’m not sure, maybe it just felt too small.
As for some speculation, season three seemed to end with a lot of wiping the pieces off the board, making me feel like next season is going to probably skip forward some time and start fresh. And I actually feel like that would be the right move. I often complain about shows not taking the time to show direct fallout from things, but at the same time, watching Mary consolidate power or Catherine scheme without any direct power doesn’t seem like the most interesting choices, so skipping forward a year or two to when there’s fresh movement in these plots seems right to me. Bash coming back to Mary within the first couple episodes now as her seer; Catherine actually grabbing at power again; Narcisse back in play after whatever punishment he takes after s3, probably in a custody battle with Mary for John (Jean? I’m not sure); Mary and Elizabeth actually in positions to do something about each other again.
And Darnley. I’m pretty much expecting s4 to play with the Darnley story since he got name dropped in the s3 finale after all. I’m fully expecting it, and absolutely dreading it, because that is not a good story; absolutely fraught with drama, and CW-exploitable drama at that, but it’s not going to end well. I don’t know how far they’d go with it in one season or how many seasons they expect to stick around to pace the rest of Mary’s story over; but the longer they go, the more they’ll have to deal with the reality that Mary’s story doesn’t end well. She’s the hero of the show, but there is no heroic end to this story. Regardless of how the end of s3 set things up, Mary won’t win this war between her and Elizabeth; now that the fight is actually between the two of them, that fact hangs over the story. Just like the show always had to admit Mary and Francis had a historical expiration date (they could play with how and when and all that, but not that that it had to happen) now they have to start admitting to some other historical realities.
I do suspect Bash will be used to get some reappearances for various dead characters. I fully expect a mini-arc with the ghost of Francis to wring some more angst out of that. I’m not sure if Kenna or Greer will ever reappear in the show; I’m sort of expecting it but I think that’s mostly because Mary’s going to need people to bounce things off of for script reasons and I don’t see them introducing new characters for that, but I’m also not sure that reasoning is real solid. I’m not even sure we’ll get as much focus on French Court moving forward; as much Catherine is a major driving force of the show I’m not sure complete dividing action between three countries is maintainable long term. I think we will have to see Catherine regain power, and there’s certainly plenty of story fodder in France, but I’m not sure how to keep it relevant to Mary’s story, especially when the show has already basically committed to Mary not going back to France (also I’m pretty sure that’s historically accurate). I can see them fudging history and having Mary and Elizabeth meet up somewhere along the line, but things are still going to be pretty separate from here on and condensing things seems a logical choice.
I guess I’m not really sure what all I’m predicting, maybe I’m more highlighting areas where I think there’s going to be...not problems exactly but difficulties.