'Reign' recap: 'A Grain of Deception'  

Brothers and sisters. Mothers and sons. Female monarchs and women-hating religious leaders. Ah yes, the relationships that build the fabric of our lives. The trust — or, mostly, lack of — in all of these relationships is explored in “A Grain of Deception.” When literal lives and countries are at stake, trust and loyalty are everything. What’s a queen to do when everyone around her is lying?

Well, if you’re Mary, Queen of Scots, you throw a party… with ulterior motives. Hold on to your corsets, Royals: Mary is getting her scheme on.

You’d think a gal would get a little vacation, a three-day weekend, even, from having to deal with some national crisis. You’d be wrong. Mary learns of an English attack on Scottish guards while delivering a grain-and-ammunitions supply to a small town dangerously close to the English border. If you’re a fan of

Reign, you know this show loves nothing more than dramatics having to do with grain. It feels like old times, doesn’t it?

Anyway, this isn’t the first time the grain shipment to Canonbie has been thwarted by the Brits. In fact, it’s happened so many times that Mary suspects there is a leak in her court. In a completely unsurprising twist, James disagrees with his sister: There are only a four generals who know the details about the shipments, and they are all trustworthy men. Mary reminds him that those men have wives, and that James is forever underestimating women.

It feels like Reign is really going for broke with the feminism in its last season, and it is wonderful. Since Mary still can’t rely on her brother to be an ally, she goes to the sisterhood to concoct a plan to rectify the Canonbie crisis. Of course, most of that sisterhood is dead or raising an illegitimate child on the other side of the world, so really, Mary just goes to Greer. But Greer is more than enough. The two BFFs make fun of men for being such dummies when it comes to women and then nail down the details of their plan. Mary’s been missing the high fashion of French court, so she’s throwing a party for some VIP ladies to show off the latest French couture, sling back some booze, and set a little trap. She’s going to drop some false information about poisoned grain going to Canonbie, have the generals’s wives trailed, and out the snitch.

The plan works! Mary drops the bad intel, and after she and Greer do some deductive reasoning, they land on one of the four women as their rat. It turns out, the lady’s sidepiece is a blacksmith traitor. While they roll around in the hay (LITERALLY), she’s been passing along the Canonbie information. She and her blacksmith lover are arrested for treason. Mystery solved, grain safely delivered.

Mary discovers that her party was fruitful in more ways than one. One of her guests turns out to be Emily Knox. She’s a very young, naive girl who thinks a belt is a choker, and everyone makes fun of her for it. We’ve all been there, Ems. Oh, and also she’s John Knox’s wife. That’s right, folks: Knox is a cradle robber. Mary sees an opportunity in front of her: Emily Knox is a pretty girl in an unhappy marriage. Her brother James is a hottie with a body. She wants James to “befriend” Emily, who could have valuable intel against Mary’s greatest threat. James knows what “befriend” really means and refuses. “I am not your whore!” he yells. Oh, and also, John Knox would probably kill him or something if he ever found him getting close to Emily. To Mary, this is just another example of his lack of trust in, or loyalty to, her as his queen and his sister. It’s a very complicated relationship at the moment.

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