Oh Wow, Just Wow....

Thanks to all-too-detailed episode descriptions in my digital cable TV guide, I also saw this coming for weeks and I also hoped for a last-minute reprieve. I could have tolerated seeing Narcisse (with his name so close to the word narcissicist so fitting for so much of the character's run) go down in her place and now to find out that he's in prison for trying to save Lola...who will care for Jean? And what a horrible last scene for, and final image of Anna in the series! That is one of the worst and goriest beheading aftermath scenes ever, no matter how fake it was! It was an awful way to say goodbye to her character!

The only positive thing you could say about it is that it proved how loyal the character of Lola was to Mary in the end, though that message clearly bothered her. She knew the code was Mary's, though she knew the command was unlike her and she couldn't carry it out knowing to do so would be fatal, and why would Mary put her, a young mother, in that position? It also didn't help that she'd grown so close to Elizabeth. She died feeling like a failure, feeling she failed Mary and her country, Stephan and her son, and ultimately herself.

Obviously, the intent the past couple of seasons has been to get rid of Mary's original ladies, but is she to be alone from now on now that Bash is leaving her too. She can't even trust her half-brother. Is she now to be alone with no one trustworthy to confide in until David Riccio enters her court?

I hate season finalés, even when they aren't cliffhangers. There's always unanswered questions and too long to wait for answers.

Leith's end isn't surprising to me because in life, Claude was married in 1559 at age 11 to a noble who happened to be Mary's maternal first cousin, the Duke of Lorraine, and nephew of the then Duke of Guise. At this point in history, she would only be 13. So when will they marry her off in the series? Her first child was born in 1563, which would be within two years. What will happen to Narcisse and Jean? Historically, Jean never existed. It's a terrible thought, but it seems that the people who are leaving the series lately are ones who never actually existed historically.

With the exception of some interesting side plots and angles to suggest imaginative motives for things that did happen, things seem to more or less be falling in line with history now. Mary certainly did struggle to regain the throne when she returned to Scotland due to religious and political conflict. Every move she made after that added fuel to the fire, whether she was well-intentioned, an incompetent ruler, or just a headstrong woman doing as she pleased regardless of the consequences. Whatever it was, most of her descendants seem to have suffered from it too, which brought the House of Stuart to an end in Britain, all of which is well-documented.

In 1579, Catherine's youngest son (François, the Duke of Anjou and Alençon), propositioned a much older Elizabeth, though it came to nothing. Will the series last long enough to cover that? Mary was still alive (though imprisoned) at the time and Catherine outlived her by a few months. There is no recorded history as to what either woman thought of this brief flirtation/courtship (whatever it was) and whether Catherine put him up to it.

Both Mary and Elizabeth's stories ended up being tragic in their own ways. Though likely never truly happy or in love again, Mary ended up being with two more men (according to history, after Francis, there was only Darnley and Bothwell...she wasn't the trollop her enemies made her out to be) who manipulated and used her (pretty much as she intended with them), yet she birthed a King who united two nations (with a genetically equal claim to both thrones). Nonetheless, she was forced to abdicate, never knew her son (who was raised a Protestant), and was executed for plotting against Elizabeth (something debated by historians). Elizabeth ended up living a long and celebrated life and reign, yet was lonely because she never married or bore a child.

They both fought for what they wanted and Elizabeth won, but I don't think she was truly happy in the end, either. She did what she had to for her country and to survive, not for what she wanted as a woman.

More than 400 years later, we are still picking apart the private lives of the Tudors and Stuarts and we can't get enough. They wanted to be remembered, but did they want this notoriety? And how much of it was truth and how much merely propaganda invented by their successors and enemies?

Once gone, no one can control their reputation.

I was reading the actual history between Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I this morning. The gist of it is, the writers took Mary's history and eventual death, condensed it from 19 years Mary spent in prison and her reasons for being executed by beheading, to the time Lola spent at English Court as Elizabeth's "guest", and sent Lola to Mary's actual fate with the assasination attempt plot.

I agree, I hope Narcisse and Mary get revenge, although if the writers stay with the major historical points of the actual players, John Knox being responsible in the show for the attempt that sealed Lola's fate, their attempts at revenge will be for naught. I think Narcisse perhaps ends up back at French court.