It’s a more exciting episode this week, but that will happen when your cliffhanger is a church full of people being burned down and the fate of the king of France hangs in the balance. That’s what we call stakes. Or it’s what we would call it if Charles were a more effective king. As it is, it seems like things would be exactly the same if he died in the fire, and no one wants to hear that about themselves (sorry, Charles).
Not only did Charles not get himself to the church in time to be burned alive, but it also seemed like everyone was okay. I have questions, but let’s put a pin in that — a Miraculous Escape pin — and turn to Catherine and her reaction to the Bourbons and Guises being responsible for this whole horrifying business in the first place.
Catherine’s reaction is to hit Louis and Antoine with a riding crop, which seems appropriate, as they are the ones who tried to take Charles to the church. The Bourbons are furious with the Guises and correctly accuse François of burning down the church. François is protected by the large French Catholic population, which loves him for some reason. (Perhaps war reasons?) While Catherine knows the Guises are responsible, she’s still trying to keep France unified. This is 1572, so we’re only 55 years out from Martin Luther nailing his theses to a door, which is like if someone did something world-changing in 1969. Wait! A lot of things did happen in 1969. Hmmm.
The point is that the fallout from the Protestant Reformation is ongoing, and it must be extremely difficult to manage things as head of a country. That girl Montmorency may have adopted was the church leader, so Montmorency wants revenge on the Guises. Catherine tells him to calm his shit and breaks the fourth wall to say how refreshing it is to see someone entitled feel motivated purely by emotion. This is like when people talk about how if they were in charge, they would just fix everything. Oh, would you, Kevin? That’s amazing; I wonder why no one has tried that yet.
We get some more royal siblings scenes, to which I can only say yesssssssss. I want more childish pettiness! More squabbling! Just give me a 16th-century The Righteous Gemstones. Alex and Charles talk about Charles almost dying, and Elisabeth is trying on a new dress, and Margot tells her that she herself won’t have a new dress made because the people need food. In what Elisabeth no doubt thinks is a stunning retort, she tells Margot that the people aren’t going to eat Margot’s dress. Great point, Elisabeth. Elisabeth is dumb, but quit it, Margot; you’re acting like Mary from Pride and Prejudice, and no one wants to be Mary.
Margot digs herself further down in my estimation when Charles proclaims he wishes there was something he could have done for the people in the church, and she asks, wasn’t there? No, Margot! There was not! He was, at that moment, blundering secretly through the woods with two Bourbons. What did you want him to do? Magically get there in time? Use his lack of reinforcements and influence to ask the clearly free-of-morals soldiers to please stop burning down a church full of people? Get your shit together, Margot.
Elisabeth tells Margot the people need someone to follow, and they follow the ones in the pretty dresses. I want to rebut this, but then there’s the Met Gala. Alex swoops in and tells Elisabeth the dress is ugly on her anyway. Elisabeth replies, “Let’s see if it looks any better on you,” and when Alex puts it on, she says, “Oh God, it does look better on him.” LOL. Very good. You’re making up for lost ground from last week, Serpent Queen. Charles tells Alex he looks like a freak, which, boooooo. Then, of course, Jeanne, queen of Navarre, comes in with her son Henry, and she’s horrified while Henry is clearly interested. I support Alex + Henry.
Meanwhile, Catherine’s out here, trying to put out fires (metaphorical ones, not the church one), and telling the Bourbons that since there were no survivors from the church, there are no witnesses, and the crown can frame some innocent people and then there will be no religious war. Easy-peasy. She offers Louis and Antoine the trade deal with England that they’re so hyped about. Then she goes to see the Guises, specifically Antoinette. Since Catherine knows the Guises definitely burned down the church, she threatens to arrest François and chop off his head if they don’t fund the construction of a grand palace in Paris. No, she is not referring to the Louvre but the Palais des Tuileries. So that’s the big thing this season, I guess. Building the new palace.
Speaking of Antoinette, per her deal with François, she gives him back his gay letters. He, in turn, dumps them in a low-burning fire and walks away before they’ve burned. François! What are you DOING? You burned a church full of people for those! She could just snatch them back up and make you do more soul-crushingly terrible things. I don’t know about François. Which I guess should be real obvious what with the church burning, but then he also meets up with his soldier boyfriend who sold the letters, and François strangles him to death! Do you know how long that takes? Why didn’t he just stab him? François, what are your choices? Also, not only have they separated our gay lady couple from last season (Aabis and Angelica), but now they call Alex a freak and François murders his boyfriend. I just do not know how we’re going to do at the GLAAD Awards this year, guys.
Catherine asks Diane de Poitiers (HI, DIANE) to help fund her new palace project and watch her idiot children while Catherine is in Italy soliciting more funding. Diane only asks that her daughters be allowed to inherit her estate, which is currently against French law. This is the Salic law! And it’s why no queens of France ruled in their own right. Again: booooooo. Anyway, Catherine agrees.
Okay, back to the Miraculous Escape pin. When Montmorency visits the ruins of the church, he realizes there are no bodies. No bones, no jewelry, nothing. The local peasants regard it as a miracle, as would I! How did they get out? Also, this means that Aabis is alive, which makes me happy. Rahima (we need more Rahima!) tells Catherine there’s a rumor there might be survivors from the fire, and Catherine says they’re all fucked if that’s true.
We find out where the survivors are when François secretly rides to a clearing at night and sees the supposedly dead pastor lady talking about God leading them through the fire! She also says a lot of stuff about how if kings and queens don’t protect them, they must rise up in God’s name. Well, uh-oh, indeed. Bafflingly, we end on the song “The Little Drummer Boy.”