Secrets begin to take over the French Court and the truth about Claude’s past is finally revealed. Plus, the religious war has officially begun, putting Francis and Mary and their marriage is in the crosshairs. Find out what happened on tonight’s Reign below!

Reign returns with brand new episodes on Wednesday, December 3 at 8E/5P exclusively on M3.

Now that Francis has allowed Narcisse to blackmail him into signing the Edict, religious tensions are at an all time high. The Vatican Inquisitors have arrived and people who are believed to be lying about their Catholicism are having their houses marked and their lips cut off.

Mary is still upset with Francis about signing the Edict and he again tries to send her back to Scotland. Francis confides in Bash, who points out the obvious – keep telling your wife to leave and she’ll never come back.

Catherine is trying to marry off her hung-over, sexually active teenaged daughter Claude as quickly as possible, but as we could have guessed, Claude has no interest in getting married. Catherine has found a suitor in the son of a Bovarian Count, but when the Count and his son arrive, concerns are raised over Claude’s ‘virtue’.

Bash tries talking to his former lover, current half-sister Claude to find out why she doesn’t just leave French Court. Claude reminds him that without a husband or a chaperone, she doesn’t have many options.

Realizing that Claude also wants to stay in French Court to hopefully gain her mother’s love, Bash tries speaking with Catherine and convincing her to be nicer to Claude. Have these two ever spoken? Is their first scene together? I like Basherine. Catherine tells Bash she loves all her children dearly, even the ones that have died. Bash is confused when he sees Catherine walk to her bed and begin patting the covers, but we can see that she’s tucking in her dead twin girls, the same ones that threatened Claude’s life.

Intent on keeping Claude safe, Catherine arranges for the Vatican to do a chastity check on Claude to secure the marriage to the Bavarian. It looks like four old men giving a pap smear, but Claude does get some relief in a hand hold from her mother.

Claude passes this medically sound (not) test and is set to meet the Count and his son, but she decides instead that Lord Narcisse’s lap looks like more fun. Guuuurl I would not mess with Catherine.

In a series of flashbacks we finally learn why the twins are haunting their sister. Claude was jealous of the attention the girls were getting from Catherine and shoved fabric flowers into their throats, suffocating and killing them both. We just reached a whole new level of disturbing on Reign.

Catherine protected Claude then as she is trying to now. What I don’t understand is why Claude doesn’t realize this is the reason her mother is likely distant from her, unless she doesn’t know that Catherine is aware the deaths were Claude’s doing. Also, little girls as ghosts are TERRIYING. See you girls in my nightmares tonight!

Lola is out picking flowers or something in the forest (what the heck is she doing?) when her horse is scared off, likely by Narcisse. Or because the horse also doesn’t know why they’re hanging out in the woods alone. Narcisse rides up very conveniently a moment later and offers her a lift back to French Court. On their way back, Narcisse asks Lola to consider meeting him in private. This guy is kinky.

Lola finds Mary depressed over the state of her marriage and knowing why, Lola finally confronts Francis and admits that Narcisse told her everything. She urges Francis to be honest with Mary. Instead, Francis is honest with Lola and tells her that Narcisse threatened Mary and Lola’s son. That’s all Lola needed to hear to finally pick sides and she tells Francis that she did in fact hide the cypher in Narcisse’s house. Bash and his men search Narcisse’s home, but the Lord discovered the cypher the day after Lola planted it and had it removed.

After declaring himself a Protestant in hopes of convincing Francis to not sign the Edict (he still did), Conde is now a target of the Catholics and an ally to the Protestants. Supporters of Protestants kidnap Conde (a friendly ‘follow us’ would have worked) and take him to a field where hundreds of Protestants are praying. Jacob, the leader, asks Conde to use his connection to Francis to help their cause.

Conde agrees and brings a Minister in front of Francis and Mary. The Minister is supposed to ask Francis for permission to rebuild his church after it was burned by Catholics. Instead, the Minister tells Francis there are bombs planted in French Court and in local villages that will be set off if he doesn’t order the Vatican Inquisitors to leave. So much for ‘no good deed goes unpunished’, eh Conde?

The Minister goes straight to the dungeon for questioning and eventually gives up a nearby Monastery as the location where the barrels of gun powder are being held. Also, five minutes in the dungeon makes you super dirty looking. But when Conde and his men arrive, all they find are barrels of wheat and a sign that says ‘blood will flow’.

Francis begins the torture tactic of stretching the Minister to get the names of the men he’s working with. Mary and Conde realize the Minister is trying to get himself killed to become a martyr and incite riots from the Protestants. They rush to stop Francis, but the damage is done. Side note: Conde is amping up his flirting game with Mary, included a very lingering hand hold. Mary noticed. We noticed. Did anyone at French Court notice?

Bash and his riders rush the Minister to a local doctor, but on the way they’re attacked and the other riders are killed with Bash luckily only getting shot by an arrow in the shoulder. While playing dead, he sees the Minister killed by Protestant extremists and learns there were never any bombs.

Conde, Mary and Francis find Bash and Kenna hiding out in one of Conde’s homes after the attack. Bash tells them what he saw, but before they can formulate a plan, the housekeeper alerts Conde to trouble in the village.

The Minister’s dead body has been hung in the fashion of a heretic, likely by the extremists who want to make Protestants think the murder was done by the crown.

A riot ensues and Mary and Francis barely escape. Mary still has enough energy to tell Francis everything is his fault. These two are definitely going to need some counselling.