History YMMV / Reign

* JustHereForGodzilla: Prior to the show's debut, Kenna's scene in which she has ADateWithRosiePalms received ''a lot'' of media attention - particularly after it was revealed that The CW had edited it down. Even censored, a lot of people tuned into the first episode just to see what the fuss was about.

* {{Narm}}: It's ''extremely'' obvious that the show runners were expecting a fifth season and got the cancellation news at the last minute, with the series finale setting up three major new plot threads only to abruptly drop them all and skip ahead 21 years to Mary's death.

* IdiotPlot: In season 2, Francis insists on keeping Mary LockedOutOfTheLoop regarding how he killed his father and is now being blackmailed into passing decrees against Protestants, even though he knows that Mary herself had tried to do the same, meaning there's literally ''no'' advantage at all to keeping the secret.
** Then again, regicide is a very bad crime to be saddled with, so protecting Mary wasn't actually the wrong move, since her implication would cost not only her own throne of Scotland, but also her life. Scotland, without a legitimate ruler, would be plunged into chaos amongst warring factions who had rights to the throne, similar to what happened in the Wars of Scottish Independence (which was made famous in the film Braveheart). Francis wasn't just protecting Mary, he was protecting her country.

* FanPreferredCouple: While the OfficialCouple is still popular, there are a lot of fans who prefer Mary with Bash over Francis, history be damned. 'Mash' shippers cite the fact that Francis seems mainly interested in Mary due to the [[MarriageOfConvenience political alliance she brings]] and has a tendency to hurt and betray her, including cheating on her at least twice with two different women, one of whom was one of her best friends. Mash shippers argue that in comparison, Bash's love and loyalty to Mary has never once wavered [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy even after she rejects him]] and he makes a compelling argument that with him she is free to be herself rather than having to wear the '[[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask queenly mask]]'. Although marrying her could bring him a great deal of political power and social standing, he states he wants to marry her mostly because he [[MarryForLove truly loves her]] and wants to make her happy; marrying Mary could actually potentially backfire and ruin them, but he's willing to risk it out of devotion to her.

* ShockingSwerve: [[spoiler: Henry forcing Bash and Kenna to get married in the middle of the night. Justified, because Henry's mental illness leads him to make dramatic, irrational decisions at the drop of a hat.]]

* WTHCostumingDepartment: A lot of viewers have pointed out that the majority of the costumes worn on the show, though especially Mary and her ladies' outfits, don't look ''remotely'' like actual clothing from 16th century Europe. Many of the dresses are actually quite pretty, but most of them resemble 21st century prom dresses more so than Renaissance fashion.
** Similarly, women are constantly walking around with their heads uncovered and their hair hanging loose, something no woman in that time period would have done,
** The costume designers later admitted they had a very small budget for the costumes by period piece production standards, and very little time to make them. In order to be productive, they often had to buy prom dresses from various clothing stores and modify them for the show.

* MagnificentBastard: Catherine in season 1, Lord Narcisse in season 2.

* FanPreferredCouple: While the OfficialCouple is still popular, there are a lot of fans who prefer Mary with Bash over Francis, history be damned. 'Mash' shippers cite the fact that Francis seems mainly interested in Mary due to the [[MarriageOfConvenience political alliance she brings]] and has a tendency to hurt and betray her, including [[YourCheatingHeart cheating on her]] at least twice with two different women, one of whom was one of her best friends. Mash shippers argue that in comparison, Bash's love and loyalty to Mary has never once wavered [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy even after she rejects him]] and he makes a compelling argument that with him she is free to be herself rather than having to wear the '[[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask queenly mask]]'. Although marrying her could bring him a great deal of political power and social standing, he states he wants to marry her mostly because he [[MarryForLove truly loves her]] and wants to make her happy; marrying Mary could actually potentially backfire and ruin them, but he's willing to risk it out of devotion to her.

* {{Tearjerker}}:
** [[spoiler: Aylee and Clarissa's deaths]]
** [[spoiler: Watching Francis and Bash's relationship go sour because of the love triangle and succession issues.]]
** [[spoiler: Leith being sent away from the palace while Greer watches from afar.]]
** [[spoiler: Greer crying when she and Leith mutually reject each other.]]
** [[spoiler: Henry's death, in which he shows great empathy and compassion to his family in his final moments as he never had when he was living and confesses to murdering his older brother. Worse yet, Francis is the one who killed him (in disguise) and the guilts starts to eat at him.]] Francis storms out of the sickroom nearly in tears and across from him is Bash, who came to [[spoiler: see their father one last time only to hear that he's already dead. Bash kneels before his brother, but Francis lifts him up and hugs him tightly.]]
** The whole story arc surrounding [[spoiler: Mary being raped: the scene itself, her HeroicBSOD, Catherine using her own experience to help her through it, her having to pretend that nothing happened to save face, Francis's guilt for the role he played in it, her anger at him for the very same, everyone being really worried about her, and the subsequent psychological issues she develops because of it. To add salt to that wound, just as she was ready to reconcile with Francis, she found him asleep with Lola and their son.]]
** [[spoiler: Francis's death.]] The entire scene of his actual [[spoiler: death]], with Mary's abruptly more serious face and tone when he drops to the ground; his speech to Mary about how she has brought him so much, Mary begging him not to leave her as she clings to him.
*** And then, when Catherine and Bash arrive, they find Mary sitting next to him, just holding his hand, and the usually callous Catherine gently urges Mary to get up, telling her that [[spoiler: Francis is gone]].
*** As if tis wasn't bad enough, a distraught Mary storms into the English ambassador's room, ranting desperately about how Elizabeth must have planned this, ignoring the reasonable argument of the ambassador that it would be downright stupid of Elizabeth to [[spoiler: kill another monarch]], and besides, Elizabeth has gotten what she wanted from Mary. Mary decides to rip up the document with her signature on it and burn it.
--> '''Mary:''' England has taken enough from me this day.
** When the ambassador attempts to protest, Mary snarls, "It is your word against mine!" The really sad thing about this scene is that Mary is still in tears throughout it, she seems truly desperate for someone to blame, and worst of all, you can still see [[spoiler: Francis's blood on her apron.]]
--> '''Mary:''' I have been left with nothing!
** This scene is pretty bad, but even worse; she runs out into the darkened throne room, tear-stained, half-sobbing, wearing a bloodied dress with her hair unkempt, and she tears down the banners with England's coat of arms before screaming from the middle of the room. It's heartbreaking.
** The death of [[spoiler: Lola]], on multiple levels. First, the actual [[spoiler: execution scene, as she's on the block, telling Narcisse to care for her son and crying even as she faces her fate. Then, her husband, realizing at last how much she means to him, charging at her, stabbing some guards before being tackled and forced to watch Lola be beheaded. Then, Mary's reaction upon hearing the news, sobbing at the loss of her friend and shaken by what it means.]]
*** The worst part of it all is that [[spoiler: Lola had no idea that the orders to kill Elizabeth never came from Mary but Knox faking the code to set her up, all as part of his wider scheme to set Elizabeth and Mary against each other in his hopes of turning Scotland into a democracy. Thus, Lola was convinced she'd been fighting for her queen and going to her death having done her duty, unaware she'd been nothing but a pawn in a man's scheme.]]
** The death of [[spoiler: Gideon's daughter, just as the girl had enjoyed a wonderful day as "princess" in court. Elizabeth can't hold back tears as she embraced Gideon in a chapel.]]
** The final scene. After all her fights, all her struggles, everything, Mary [[spoiler: is framed for treason and beheaded in 1587. Her eyes open to find herself in bed with Francis who tells her "this is real." The two then run through the forests as a montage of the series best moments are shown, at long last reunited for eternity.]]

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Lord Castleroy causes some conflict early in Season 2 when Greer discovers that he's a secret Protestant, but for some reason is nowhere to be seen as Francis' decrees against the Protestants escalate into a full scale rebellion. Luckily, he does turn up toward the end - and then promptly gets PutOnABus by [[spoiler: being imprisoned (probably for life), this causing Greer to inadvertently become the leader of a prostitution ring... and fall right back into Leith's arms.]] The whole thing reeks of an AssPull.

*** When the ambassador attempts to protest, Mary snarls, "It is your word against mine!" The really sad thing about this scene is that Mary is still in tears throughout it, she seems truly desperate for someone to blame, and worst of all, you can still see [[spoiler: Francis's blood on her apron.]]

*** This scene is pretty bad, but even worse; she runs out into the darkened throne room, tear-stained, half-sobbing, wearing a bloodied dress with her hair unkempt, and she tears down the banners with England's coat of arms before screaming from the middle of the room. It's heartbreaking.

*** And ///then///, a distraught Mary storms into the English ambassador's room, ranting desperately about how Elizabeth must have planned this, ignoring the reasonable argument of the ambassador that it would be downright stupid of Elizabeth to [[spoiler: kill another monarch]], and besides, Elizabeth has gotten what she wanted from Mary. Mary decides to rip up the document with her signature on it and burn it.

*** This scene is pretty bad, but even worse; she runs out into the darkened throne room, tear-stained, half-sobbing, wearing a bloodied dress with her hair unkempt, and she tears down the banners with England's coat of arms before //screaming// from the middle of the room. It's heartbreaking.

*** And //then//, a distraught Mary storms into the English ambassador's room, ranting desperately about how Elizabeth must have planned this, ignoring the reasonable argument of the ambassador that it would be downright stupid of Elizabeth to [[spoiler: kill another monarch]], and besides, Elizabeth has gotten what she wanted from Mary. Mary decides to rip up the document with her signature on it and burn it.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The show occasionally likes to use instrumental covers of popular modern songs, usually for dancing scenes. The ballroom music playing in the background of 2x13 is an instrumental version of "Chandelier" by [[Music/{{Sia}} Sia]], Lola's Wedding Dance is to an instrumental of [[Music/{{Lorde}} Lorde's]] "Royals", and at one point Greer and Leith dance to an instrumental of [[Music/{{The Lumineers}} The Lumineers's]] "Stubborn Love".
* {{Tearjerker}}: [[spoiler: Aylee and Clarissa's deaths]]

* PeripheryHatedom: This show is absolutely hated by fans of Dumas's books about Valois and fans of this historical period because the series follows a very strong YoungerAndHipper, adding an excessive focus to Mary's maid as AudienceSurrogate for teenage girls, and depicts real historical events as Series/TheTudors or the TeenDrama version of Series/GameOfThrones. The fact that Dumas's books are by themselves very far from historical reality and in turn, also in favor of time, changed the personality of many historical figures, usually does not help much

* BrokenBase:
** The scene in which [[spoiler: a Protestant radical whose son died because of religious violence rapes Mary as revenge]] stirred a lot of controversy. Some fans absolutely despised it, others thought the writers handled it well, and still others believed the aftermath, [[spoiler: Catherine helping Mary snap out of her HeroicBSOD]], was the only good part. Many people insist that there should have been [[spoiler: a trigger warning for it]], but many others disagree. And ''really'' not helping was the show's creator stating that they did it to advance character development for ''Francis'' rather than Mary herself.
** This show is absolutely hated by fans of Dumas's books about Valois and fans of this historical period because the series follows a very strong YoungerAndHipper, adding an excessive focus to Mary's maid as AudienceSurrogate for teenage girls, and depicts real historical events as Series/TheTudors or the TeenDrama version of Series/GameOfThrones. The fact that Dumas's books are by themselves very far from historical reality and in turn, also in favor of time, changed the personality of many historical figures, usually does not help much.

* BrokenBase: The scene in which [[spoiler: a Protestant radical whose son died because of religious violence rapes Mary as revenge]] stirred a lot of controversy. Some fans absolutely despised it, others thought the writers handled it well, and still others believed the aftermath, [[spoiler: Catherine helping Mary snap out of her HeroicBSOD]], was the only good part. Many people insist that there should have been [[spoiler: a trigger warning for it]], but many others disagree. And ''really'' not helping was the show's creator stating that they did it to advance character development for ''Francis'' rather than Mary herself.

* OnlyHereForGodzilla: Prior to the show's debut, Kenna's scene in which she has ADateWithRosiePalms received ''a lot'' of media attention - particularly after it was revealed that The CW had edited it down. Even censored, a lot of people tuned into the first episode just to see what the fuss was about.