The Serpent Queen Season-Premiere Recap: Something’s Afoot at the Palace

If you can remember everything from season one, I am so impressed. The three-minute-long “previously on” means absolutely nothing if you have never seen the show and left those of us who watched it a year ago going, “Wait, who was that person again?” Last season, Catherine rose to power despite everyone at court being against her, particularly her husband Henri’s mistress, Diane de Poitiers. When Henri died, Catherine banished Diane. In order to gain power, she uses magic, but magic has a price, which we are to understand means those she loves die. There was also a lot about Catholicism versus Protestantism, and the Catholic Guises tried to put their niece Mary of Scots on the throne, but they failed. All you need to know for this episode is that the Bourbons and Guises hate each other, and Catherine is now trying to push religious tolerance in very Catholic France.

The genuinely confusing thing is that, along with having so many characters, the show has recast at least two of them. This in and of itself is fine, I guess. We have a time jump, and they seem to have wanted an older Rahima. Who knows why Original Montmorency is gone? But they present these characters without telling you who they are, so along with trying to grasp what’s happening in the (many!) plotlines, you’re expected to just kind of deduce that Montmorency changed his face.

I also completely forgot who the Guises and Bourbons are, and they don’t say any of their names for so long. In brief, the Guises are Catholic and the Bourbons are Protestant. François is the martial one, and Charles is the cardinal. Antoine de Bourbon is Pinky, and his brother Louis is the Brain. Last season, they fought over whether Mary and Catherine’s son, François, would make France Catholic through Mary’s machinations, but then Mary was outmaneuvered by Catherine, and now she’s Elizabeth I’s prisoner. Elizabeth is played by Minnie Driver this season, and while we haven’t seen her yet, I am very excited about this.

We begin our second season with Catherine telling us that “they” say you get the life you deserve, but she says, fuck that. Life is about what you’re willing to do to survive. And Catherine de’ Medici is willing to do anything. I’d say Catherine would excel at The Traitors, but the key to Traitors is being as friendly and seemingly committed to the Faithfuls as possible, and there’s just no way Catherine could pull that off. Maybe she’d be a good Real Housewife.

It’s 1572, which means, oh shit, we’re in the year of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. If you consider historical events a spoiler for this Starz show, I guess don’t look that up, but just in case the word massacre didn’t tip you off, it’s not anything good. However, Montmorency died in 1567, and here he is, alive and well, albeit with a different face, so maybe we’re just doing what we want with the timeline.

The events of this episode can be summed up as follows: Catherine holds on to power even though the regency is over, and the Guises try to force a religious war. I admit to being annoyed with this season opener. It’s trying to walk a line between period drama and comedy, and it’s not successful. Louis de Bourbon keeps saying irreverent things that are supposed to make us laugh but come off as trying too hard, and Antoine says, “Easy-peasy lemon squeezy,” which is a bridge too far, sir. A bridge too far! The internet places that phrase no earlier than 1940, and the screen has clearly indicated it is 1572. Combine this jarring tone with replaced characters and so many minor plot threads we’re expected to remember from last season, and it all feels like when a person who is deeply obsessed with a subject starts talking to you like you have the same level of obsession and they reference a bunch of things you’ve never heard of. We’ve gotta be eased back in, people!

All that said, I am reserving judgment on the rest of the season because sometimes it’s just hard to kick something off, and once the first part is over, it hits its stride. We haven’t even seen Elizabeth I yet, and I really hope Minnie Driver plays an unhinged version, because that would be fun. Other things I’m hoping for more of are all of Catherine’s children. Charles, Alexandre, Hercule, Elisabeth, and Margot together are squabbling and terrible, and if there’s one thing I love on TV, it’s spoiled and immature adult children à la the Gemstones. But it can’t be just a couple of them. I need all of them in a room together, poking each other in the side and yelling at the other to stop it.

I’d be fine if the Guises and Bourbons all fell off a cliff like harried lemmings. They’re like on The Bachelor when two girls fight so much they’re forced to go on a two-on-one, but then the Bachelor sends them both home. Send all four of them home. And by “home,” I mean off that cliff I mentioned. I guess I would be okay keeping François because he and Margot had a cute moment where he gave her a book, but then he did burn down a church full of people, so hmm. Speaking of, I also enjoyed it when Margot asks her siblings if they realize they are different from the peasants only by accident of birth, and Elisabeth says, “Shut up, Margot.”

Presumably, after seeing and loving Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the writers decided everyone loves to hear about trade negotiations, so we get to hear about the Bourbon plot to open trade negotiations with England. They ask Antoine’s wife, Jeanne d’Albret, for an in with the English court, but her price is Charles IX attending a local Protestant church service. They say, Okay, sure, we’ll get right on that, and they convince Charles to go. However!! This is, coincidentally, the same church the Guises’ mother has convinced/blackmailed them to burn down in order to start a religious war in France.

So we see François and his men barring the doors of a church with Aabis inside (she was the woman in a relationship with the poisoner last season), along with Montmorency’s kind of adopted daughter (I think?), and then everyone screams and it’s all very upsetting. But was Charles inside?! We don’t know! That magic man who lives in the forest intimated that Catherine would lose all her children as the price for her magic. Also — I forgot that that man isn’t Nostradamus, and while taking my notes, I couldn’t remember the name “Nostradamus,” so I kept referring to him as “Constantinople,” because no one says anyone’s damn name on this show. He is, in fact, Cosimo Ruggieri, so I wasn’t as far off as I thought.

I miss Old Rahima, but New Rahima seems great. She has a coterie of sexy spy ladies! New Montmorency is so incredibly boring, and he and Catherine have negative amounts of chemistry, so I hope they never show them in bed together again. Oh. Also, François is gay? Or possibly bi? Which his mother uses to blackmail him to burn the aforementioned church down. Can you imagine being like, Well, my mom said I’d lose the respect of my fellow soldiers if these letters got out, so I guess I’ll murder all these civilians? She doesn’t even threaten him with death due to being a “sodomite.” Just the losing respect thing! This is on you, François.

Hope Charles is alive, although with Catherine’s trail of dead bodies, he won’t be for long! Also where is Mathilde?