Distributor: Warner Home Video
Episodes: 22
Duration: 40 min. (per episode)
Reign: Season 2 (DVD) – Series Review
While the first season of Reign provided us with an entertaining experience, we were never truly blown away by the series’ plot, mainly due to the fact that the fiction portion of the series was lacking in originality and overall likeability, the the second season looked a lot more promising. Once again we visit the beautiful sets and costumes, and now that King Henry II is disposed of, the series takes a liking for the occult and the supernatural. It seems Mary and Francis will not have such a happy time as husband and wife just yet.
This second season handles many separate plots, but the main theme is pretty much the conflicts between France’s Catholic inhabitants and the Protestant ones, with the latter simply wanting to practice their faith without being prosecuted or mistreated. Nonetheless, before these troubles arise, the second season picks up where the first season ended, namely with an outbreak of the plague, which has the entire castle on lockdown. Nonetheless, Francis (Toby Regbo) rides out to find Lola (Anna Popplewell) who has given birth to his illegitimate son. Even though this might be a sore spot for Mary (Adelaide Kane), she truly wants Francis to be happy and play a part in his son’s life. She even allows him to claim the son as his own, making sure it will not be shunned by others and by doing so, ensuring its future as a proper lord.
After the plague has passed, new problems arise with one of the most influential lords of France, Narcisse (Craig Parker), as he is causing uproars because he isn’t delivering grain to the people. This of course has to do with the fact that Mary killed his son by throwing him into a dungeon with infected people, after he demanded the king and queen to kill someone who also possessed a great deal of power. When the royal couple refused, he killed the man himself, and his family by using poison. This infuriated Mary and by this, Narcisse’s son forfeited his life by invoking the queen’s wrath. After this, Narcisse’s countermeasures, of withholding food for the general populace, are the cause of many bloodshed. Sadly, Mary and Francis can’t simply dispose of this lord because of the power he has and the secret he learns of the king.
All this occurs while Catherine (Megan Follows) starts to see ghosts, princess Claude (Rose Williams) returns to court and lord Condé (Sean Teale), who is from a noble family that also has the right to claim France’s throne, grows closer to Mary. The latter is also one of the main storylines that occurs in this season.
Acting performances are on par with the first season, which means that everyone puts down a rather convincing experience. It has to be said that the three main newcomers put down exquisite performances, with Craig Parker in the lead, closely followed by Sean Teale and Rose Williams. These actors brings their characters to life and add a sorely needed extra to Reign.
Last time we discussed the ‘modern’ vibe that came off this series, which was not always that well suited for the timeframe Reign situates itself around. Nonetheless, during this season it bothered us a lot less, perhaps because we knew what to expect, or simply because it works quite well for the topic(s) of this second season. Only one thing remains that hampers the entire experience, namely that everybody is pretty much fucking everyone, making this quite unrealistic, especially considering if a woman did this during this time period it would mean certain death. Sometimes this series feels like it can only end if the leading actresses have screwed entire France.
The extras on this DVD version of the second season of Reign are actually quite disappointing. Outside of the deleted scenes there is only one featurette that revolves around following Adelaide and some of the other actors around for one day on the set, all crammed into seven minutes of content. While this is certainly a very fun addition to the series, the entire special features section is just way too limited to properly prolong your Reign experience or to add some meat to persuade fans to buy this physical release.
Conclusion
While in many ways Reign is still a series that is probably directed at a female audience, it has stepped up its game in this second season which makes everything a lot more interesting for a wider audience. There’s a lot more going on and several new interesting characters are added to the series, which add a lot of extra to the story value. If the creators can keep this up, we are quite eager to see what season three has in store for us.
No Comments