Reign
Have you been wondering what I’ve been up to? The answer is REIGN. As I tweeted back in May, “This show is crack, people. Expect chocolate AND peanut butter.”
It’s about Mary Queen of Scots as a teenager, but that barely scratches the surface. This is a historical fantasy, a romp with dark edges -- a brilliant fever dream of what it might be like to live at Renaissance French court. The dress, for example, is a hybrid of period costume with things like the Elizabethan-inspired gowns of Alexander McQueen, fantastic and dream-like. The “four Marys” who accompanied Mary to court have been given non-Mary names. And of course, the main characters are pretty darned good-looking, as in… ninety-nine percent of all visual entertainment. Beyond certain crazy bounds, though, we’re trying to be fairly historical -- by which I mean, for example, that in episode three, when the son of the king of Portugal shows up at French court, we have to face the question: was there really a son of this age, and did he ever go to France? If not, we must say he's the bastard son, and that's why the history books have never heard of him.
That's rather the conceit of the show: untold history, written between the lines of the official story. "You think our characters should be wearing those neck ruffs? My goodness, didn't you know they only wore those for portraits?" "Yes, Francis the Dauphin was said to be weak and sickly. Heavens, didn't you know that his enemies put that rumor around?" There’s a lot of playground here since, of course, painting is not photography. (After being primed by Holbein’s famous portrait of Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII claimed to be disappointed in the actual woman.)
And who wouldn’t want to be on a show with Catherine de Medici as a character? I have long had a soft spot for a fine villainess -- my two other favorites being Livia of I, Claudius and Phoenix of Dream of the Red Chamber. In Catherine, though, we get the exquisite antagonist of artifice: the woman who introduced France to a legion of painters and sculptors; high heels; the rudiments of what led to ballet; even the fork. And who, legend says, had a secret “flying squad” of beautiful spies and a secret cabinet of poisons. How can you not love this woman? Embrace her as I do!
So there you are. I can’t even define what genre this show fits into. But mix in strange and bloody happenings in the primordial forest around the castle, a mysterious haunting, politics and pagans, and really, I have to say “chocolate” is not enough. Dark chocolate with caramel would be closer.
It’s about Mary Queen of Scots as a teenager, but that barely scratches the surface. This is a historical fantasy, a romp with dark edges -- a brilliant fever dream of what it might be like to live at Renaissance French court. The dress, for example, is a hybrid of period costume with things like the Elizabethan-inspired gowns of Alexander McQueen, fantastic and dream-like. The “four Marys” who accompanied Mary to court have been given non-Mary names. And of course, the main characters are pretty darned good-looking, as in… ninety-nine percent of all visual entertainment. Beyond certain crazy bounds, though, we’re trying to be fairly historical -- by which I mean, for example, that in episode three, when the son of the king of Portugal shows up at French court, we have to face the question: was there really a son of this age, and did he ever go to France? If not, we must say he's the bastard son, and that's why the history books have never heard of him.
That's rather the conceit of the show: untold history, written between the lines of the official story. "You think our characters should be wearing those neck ruffs? My goodness, didn't you know they only wore those for portraits?" "Yes, Francis the Dauphin was said to be weak and sickly. Heavens, didn't you know that his enemies put that rumor around?" There’s a lot of playground here since, of course, painting is not photography. (After being primed by Holbein’s famous portrait of Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII claimed to be disappointed in the actual woman.)
And who wouldn’t want to be on a show with Catherine de Medici as a character? I have long had a soft spot for a fine villainess -- my two other favorites being Livia of I, Claudius and Phoenix of Dream of the Red Chamber. In Catherine, though, we get the exquisite antagonist of artifice: the woman who introduced France to a legion of painters and sculptors; high heels; the rudiments of what led to ballet; even the fork. And who, legend says, had a secret “flying squad” of beautiful spies and a secret cabinet of poisons. How can you not love this woman? Embrace her as I do!
So there you are. I can’t even define what genre this show fits into. But mix in strange and bloody happenings in the primordial forest around the castle, a mysterious haunting, politics and pagans, and really, I have to say “chocolate” is not enough. Dark chocolate with caramel would be closer.