Funny / Reign

• The entirety of the Catherine/Henry plot in "Dirty Laundry". It's morbid but absolutely hysterical. Highlights include:
  • Catherine mourning her favorite coverlet.
  • Henry insisting that a suicide note describe him as "ruggedly handsome, with the sexual prowess of a lion".
  • Catherine lying about walking in on a tawdry scene:
    Catherine: As my husband will attest, I'm not a judgmental person. [beat] Henry?
    Henry: [quickly] She's really not.
• Earlier in the episode, Catherine calls Mary into her room to give her several "medical aides" for the creation of children. What really sells the scene is the look on Mary's face.
• In "Higher Ground", Catherine's matter-of-fact confession to her priest. It's Megan Follows' delivery that makes it a gut-buster:
  Catherine: Forgive me, Father. Since my last confession I have taken the Lord's name in vain many times and ordered the assassination of a dozen Scottish visitors. I struck my servant — a slap, which I regret, as it was a loss of self-control and she's been sulky ever since. Also, my cousin Hortensa is here. Expect worse of me, I loathe her. I'm prepared for my penance.
• Basically, everything that Catherine does that is not either heartwarming or awesome.
• When Catherine is misdiagnosed with syphilis, her reaction is an unspeakably funny rage about Henry (from whom she would have gotten it) AND HIS WHORES!!! The scene is twice as funny if you keep an eye on Adelaide Kane and Toby Regbo. In at least one shot they're looking very hard at the ceiling in a way that pretty much screams "trying not to burst out laughing". Considering that the shot was left in, you have to wonder how many takes were ruined with inappropriate laughter.
  • Then, as everyone is leaving Catherine to rest, she pulls back Francis and insists that he never let it be known she died of syphilis. She gives instructions to spread the story that she instead contracted tuberculosis from working with sick children. She is so committed to the lie it actually looks like she convinces herself as she says it.
• "Three Queens" is pretty much non-stop comedy in any scene that involves Catherine and Mary. They spend the episode posing as lady's maids, a mother and daughter who have to work in an inn for food and a bed. Catherine delivers some fantastic lines, but Mary's matter-of-fact acceptance of Catherine's insanity plays the two together perfectly.
  • An explanation to Mary, by Catherine, of the importance of peasants.
    Catherine: The nobles are just one leg on the three-legged stool that holds up France. If ever that stool goes down, you and I will end up flat on our royal fundements.
  • This exchange as Mary helps a limping Catherine through the woods:
    Mary: It was a foxhole!
    Catherine: Badger!
    Mary: Fox, and how would you know? You didn't even see it!
    Catherine: I saw it after my foot got caught in it! My feet are too dainty to get caught in a foxhole!
  • The imposter Mary answers a crowd's questions about life at court, leading to this:
    Peasant Man: Your Majesty, is it true Queen Catherine once threw an entire family of hatmakers into the dungeon?
    Peasant Woman: Yes, I heard they cheated her, and she nailed their eyes open so they'd always have to see their deceitful bills!
    Catherine: Where do these stories come from?! It was one man, and I only stretched him a little. Nails, indeed! [sees Mary's face] First, you should know he was a terrible, terrible hatmaker.
  • Even when things get rocky, there's still some comedy to be found in Catherine and Mary arming themselves for a possible fight:
    Mary: If I learned one thing at French Court, it's always keep a dagger on you.
    Mary pulls a dagger out of somewhere. Catherine rummages around and pulls out a sharp, two-pronged hairpin.
    Mary: Poisoned?
    Catherine: Oh, you say that so hopefully now. Sadly it's not. I don't carry poison everywhere! I might accidentally kill myself.
• To cover her sneaking off to England, Catherine has a body double pose as her in an exiled prison. The double seduces a priest into a tryst that sets off the belltower's old machine and unleashes a grind that cuts the priest's manhood off.
  • Mary's "Oh, Lord!" when she realizes the news is terrific.
  • Told that "Catherine" hanged herself out of guilt over the incident, Mary openly laughs. "Catherine? Wracked with guilt?" She and Francis realize this was an imposter as the real Catherine would never feel that way.
• When Catherine is captured for treason in season three, Mary makes sure to throw her into a cage right next to a large tiger.
  Mary: I'm not sure which of you needs stronger bars.
• Trying to win votes to become regent, Catherine meets with a lord, using Claude as bait but the man flatly reminds her how, years earlier, Catherine brushed past a meeting with him and his own daughter, her carriage running over the girl's foot, and chiding her for her clumsiness as the girl was left crippled and deemed unsuitable for marriage.
  Catherine: I am very sorry for your daughter's misfortunes and I will do everything I can to find her a husband. Where is she now?
  Lord: She's dead.
  Catherine: Of course she is.
  Lord: She hung herself a year later after yet another suitor dismissed her.
  Catherine: Shall we, Claude?
  • Immediately before, Claude and Catherine prove they are definitely mother and daughter, by both straightening their boobs at the same time.
• Catherine defending wearing mink boots on a hunt as "I'm going to run, I want to look stylish."
• When they meet, Gideon says his aide, Jeffrey, is transcribing every word he and Mary say for Elizabeth's reports. When he compliments Mary on being as beautiful as Elizabeth, Mary smirks, asking if "that will be going into Elizabeth's report?" An annoyed Gideon plucks the quill right out of Jeffrey's hands. "It will not."
• Gideon picks up an injured Mary in the forest, obviously panting under her weight but claims "You're light as a feather, I swear..."
• Although it ends badly, the sequence where Don Carlos is tied up and blindfolded in the chair with Catherine whipping him while Mary does her best "dirty talk" is utterly hysterical, especially the expressions on Megan Follows and Adelaide Kane's faces through it all.
• After they mortally wound Don Carlos and try to clean up evidence, Catherine starts tossing out her various poisons into the fire.
  Catherine: Don't inhale the smoke. I can't afford another dead monarch on my hands.
  • Even funnier? Don Carlos is not a monarch and Francis killed his father... so Catherine has evidently poisoned another monarch before. Now, was her father-in-law's "syphilis" actually syphilis or did she just poison her own father-in-law?
• The entire sequence of Mary getting Catherine out of the castle is packed with funny moments.
  • Mary has Catherine dress in male clothing.
    Catherine: How many fleas live in that pile? That sock just moved.
  • Mary leads Catherine in disguise past guards, calling, "Pick up the pace, boy!" Catherine gives her a look that could kill.
  • Mary gives Catherine a bag of money.
    Mary: Enough gold for three months.
    Catherine: That feels more like one.
• Mary and Gideon hatch a plan to make it look like Gideon is seducing Mary. They do a dinner outside to be seen by Gideon's servant only for it to start pouring rain. They race inside to a window seat which happens to be filled with stolen gold. May then gives Gideon a kiss that surprises them both with the intensity before ushering him out to hide the gold.
  Mary: Let's get this done before the roof caves in under the weight of my misfortune.
• Claude tells Catherine former lover Martel is looking for the killer of his father...then sees Catherine's look.
  Claude: Please tell me it wasn't you.
  Catherine: It's complicated.
  Claude: Honestly, mother, how many people have you killed?!
• The especially hilarious covering up for the Remember the New Guy? introduction of Catherine's daughter Leeza: she's so boring that no one ever talks about her if she's not there.
• Catherine and Claude talk in a hallway with Catherine urging Claude to scream. Right on cue, the corpse of Martel drops down, hanging from a rope. Claude naturally screams as Catherine pulls her away.
  Catherine: Good, now act shocked.
  Claude: I am shocked!
  Catherine: Even better.
  • Catherine tells Claude "the tears are a bit much" and seems honestly surprised Claude really is crying over this.
• Catherine chastises her servant for not stirring a potion in a cardinal's drink as it's made him blind.
  Claude: You poisoned a blind man?
  Catherine: He wasn't blind until I poisoned him. Don't make it sound so cruel.
  • Catherine discovers Leeza in her quarters, forcing a servant to down bottles of liquid to test poisons. When the man complains about the taste, Catherine states he's been drinking her perfume.
  • Crying while praying, Claude finds the cardinal and helps him, a tear ending up washing the poison from his eyes so he can see again. He tells a baffled Catherine, Leeza, and Narcisse about it.
    Cardinal: Your sister is God's messenger!
    Leeza: My sister? Who's bedding the help?
  • When the Cardinal declares Claude has "the makings of a saint" even Claude gives him a You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! look.
• Mary is amazed when Catherine gives her a hand-woven embroidery drawing.
  Mary: You made this? Yourself?
  Catherine: You think political manipulation and poisoning are my only skills?
• Claude is upset about Catherine's latest game and keeping it quiet.
  Claude: I'm not going to lie for you. That's not who I am.
  Catherine: Since when?!
• Trying to prove to Nicole that Narcisse doesn't care about her, Henry sets up a situation where they overhear him mock her. But they also have to then watch and listen while Narcisse and Catherine go at it.
  Henry: How can I erase the sounds that are seared into my brain?
  Nicole: Did you know about them?
  Henry: Lord, no! I knew he didn't care about you at all but not about Catherine!
  Nicole gives him a "seriously?" face
• Catherine's line, "Is it possible there was a crime committed in this castle that I had nothing to do with?"
• One out of universe - Adelaide Kane was there when Toby Regbo revealed that his fans were called the Regboners and just about died laughing.

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