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It's taken me 8 weeks to get to this point, but I think I've finally fully embraced the fact that this is tween-centric show, with pretty much zero historical merit, and I should really just take it for exactly what it is.  I actually enjoyed this last episode, and now it's on break until January.

They sure did pack a whole lot into one episode, so I'll try to recap it all.

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First of all, Olivia, Francis's mistress, went missing in the tunnels during their attempted escape, and hasn't resurfaced.  Nobody seems to notice or care.

Also, I finally found a picture of the ghost girl in the hidden tunnels in Mary's room, but apparently she is no ghost at all! 

More on that later.  (she is hiding under a bed here, BTW)

So in the last episode, everyone in the castle was taken hostage by the Italian guy, and this was all set up by Diane, the king's mistress.  She wanted for the Italian guy to kill Francis, while she gets her bastard son Sebastian legitimized so he can take the throne in his place.

Looks legit if you ask me.  :)

Anyway, the plan goes awry and Francis and Mary are safe.  A cardinal comes to the castle, and intercepts Kenna (what an age-appropriate name, hmmmph) thinking that she is Diane, and tells her to abandon her plans to legitimize Sebastian.  So Kenna takes this info to the Queen to get Diane out of the picture so that Kenna can be the top dog.

Meanwhile, Queen Mary is dying in England, and there is a toss up of who will get the throne, Elizabeth or Mary of Scots.  This is sort of treated like a backdrop to the story, rather than a pretty BFD that changes the course of history.  But I digress.

Cut to Mary and Francis getting it on, finally.

I know this show is for tweens, but man, I was really dying for some action here.  Anyway, like a good Catholic, she's all torn about whether their souls will burn for doing the deed before marriage.  But Francis tells her that's all pish-posh and not to worry, and they jump back in the sack.

The king wants to move forward with Francis and Mary's marriage because he really wants to take England for France.  The condition of their marriage moving forward is that Mary will make a claim to the throne, the Scottish and French invade England, and Mary gets a husband in the mix.  But, Francis really does love her, and he proposes to her anyway, terrible costumes and all.

So the wedding is on for, like, tomorrow night.

Oh, throughout the series, Nostradamus is making a big stink about how Francis will die if he and Mary get married, but whatevs.  He's also said something about one of the ladies not getting to go home, someone else dying, blah blah blah. 

The Queen tells Diane the mistress that she knows about the legitimization plot, and to high tail it out of the castle.  But before she goes, could she do her a little favor and poison Kenna?  Two birds, one stone, you know how it works.  Queenie thinks that Diane agrees, but secretly Diane smashes the poison bottle and decides to just go.  She finds her son and tells him to sneak away too, before they're both beheaded for treason, and they part ways.

Cut to Kenna and the ladies all idling about, chit chatting about life, remarking about how fragrant her tea is today.  They pass the glass around.....who will drink the tea?......scenes cut.......to the worst death scene ever in which one of the other ladies (not Kenna) dies.  We think it's because of Diane, but psych, it's really Clarissa the bag girl that did it.

(that's my psych gif, btw)

Mary is thoroughly freaked out, because she believes Nostradamus now, and decides to skip out on her engagement and go back to Scotland by herself.  She tries to sneak out to the stables unseen, and runs into Sebastian (who she smooched on in a previous episode) who is also escaping.  They leave the stables together, and Francis sees them, so it looks like they're riding off into the sunset together.  Francis is heartbroken and kind of collapses, which is part of the vision that Nostradamus was seeing the whole time.

So now we have to wait for 6 weeks to see what Mary and Sebastian get up to, and how Francis gets her back.  Unless the CW is really going to take some serious(er) liberties with history here.

Along with my Reign-watching, I've started reading a novel, The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots, which partially talks about her marriage to the stunted invalid who is Francis the dauphin.  Thank you, CW, for giving Mary a better match than she had in real life.