Awesome / Reign

• Most of Catherine's ways to deal with "problems". Daughter married to the wrong man? Poison him. Child killed her siblings? Poison her. Nobles rebelling? Poison them. Noticing a theme here?
• In "Left Behind" the ladies save everyone through both intelligence and plain old ass kicking.
  • Individually in the episode:
    • Catherine poisons an entire room full of men who are after her and her children, without even putting the poison in the food. She also manages to stall as long as possible to keep anyone of her own from getting killed before the poison kicks in, and for the rest of the castle's residents to escape.
    • Mary stabs and kills a man with a fork straight in the neck, saving her own life and quite likely Catherine's.
    • Greer and Leith continuing to serve the guests while everyone else in the kitchen evacuates. After an enemy man finds them alone in the kitchen, a fight ensues, ending with Greer taking out their assailant by whacking him over the head with a frying pan. Earlier in the fight, she jumped on his back to keep him from hurting Leith any further. This is a girl who has been raised only to marry well and look pretty, and has never so much as fried an egg for herself at this point.
• Mary showing how much of a queen she is when she plans a revolution against her mother and Francis' parents. She does this in reaction to the discovery that she had been tricked by both parties into signing a contract that gave Scotland to France in the event of her death without an heir.
  • Mary's Scottish countrymen laying down their swords before her and kneeling to her authority upon hearing her fury about the contract, and how far she was willing to go to save Scotland.
    • Kenna — vain, self-centered Kenna — puts her life on the line to get a copy of the contract out of Henry's rooms. She barely manages to find it and smuggle it out, all the while knowing that even if Henry didn't catch her stealing the contract, his recent madness could easily have led to her own death by kinky sex once she was found by him in his rooms, as had already happened to another young woman.
• In "Higher Ground", Francis and a small handful of men pretty much single-handedly facilitating France's reclaiming of Calais. Francis gets several individual moments, such as going directly into the line of fire with the men, despite his rank, which should have kept him safely on the sidelines, being smart enough to notice in the chaos of battle that the enemy was far more shorthanded than they had appeared, and then keeps that composure and intelligence with him to figure out how to save everyone from a cannon attack. His men are awesome as well, running straight at the enemy to distract them, while Francis makes a perfect shot with one flaming arrow that hits the gunpowder around the cannon and takes out all the soldiers with it, clearing the path to Calais. If only his father could have seen how incredibly well his unfavored son did under pressure. It seems he has Catherine's brains and Henry's boldness.
• A very welcome character has a smaller but still awesome role as well during the episode. Greer's beloved boyfriend/kitchen servant Leith reappears just in time to save Francis from a sword attack, and helps keep the rest of the men in their group steady, which helps Francis immensely. He even gets some awesomeness for getting up despite a severe injury and letting Francis help him. He would have let himself die if Francis hadn't gotten him to think of Greer. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
• Mary and Francis tag-teaming an evil but badly needed noble to get him to do everything they want while still retaining evidence of his crimes, which he has no idea about.
• Catherine's Rousing Speech about how Mary needs to keep on being a queen after being raped.
• Claude's new husband takes exception to her attitude on their wedding night and hits her. Claude then gets right up and, using lessons from Leith, beats the crap out of the man, still in her wedding dress.
  Claude: (between punches) Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be married to me? This is not how you treat the royal blood of France! (Tears off her wedding ring and throws it down on the gasping man before storming out) I'm a princess!
• Catherine, in all her batshit insane glory, telling Henry's ghost to fuck off.
  Return to your Hell, and leave me to mine!
• The formely disgraced Dudley returns to England to warn Elizabeth of a Vatican plot to have her killed, let Mary fall and install Joseph Tudor as King. Elizabeth rips her council apart for making her choose a sucessor to set this up and how she's ordered Tudor drawn and quartered to serve as an example. She forces them to honor Dudley for his aid and coldly informs them she'll accept no heir but her own child and "as long as I rule, I am England."
• Framed for the murders of some generals, Catherine is about to face off against a horde of angry soldiers when Mary rides up, sword in hand at the head of a pack of her own troops to force them to back down.
• After figuring out how Catherine was covering for the castle killer who killed Delphine and also murdered his own mother, Bash nearly strangles Catherine before storming out angrily.
  • As a topper, Bash leaves a "parting gift" of a letter to Charles and Claude, revealing how Catherine paid Claude's husband to beat her all so she could become regent. Claude screams at her mother to "go to Hell" as Charles warns Catherine will pay for this.
• Mary's grand return to her rightful throne room, interrupting a vote to dissolve the monarchy while drenched in the blood of the man whose order killed Francis.
• When Knox runs down James as weak for not killing a rival clan, James finally has enough and slam the Smug Snake against a wall.
  James: Do not threaten me! I am half-brother to the Queen. My family has royal blood in our veins. The people believe God chose us to rule and you merely spout his teachings. That is true power. Power that a commoner like you will never have.
• Richards demands that Darnley be returned to England. He naturally refuses and is nearly killed by an assassin. Mary, full of righteous fury, storms into a gathering to tell Richards that if Elizabeth wants an Englishman returned, "she can have this one." A pair of guards unroll a carpet to allow the body of the assassin to flop at Richards' feet.
  Darnley: Tell Elizabeth I intend to stay in Scotland and wed Queen Mary. Long may we reign.
  Richards: I have orders.
  Mary: I don't give a damn about your orders! Now, you take your assassin and get out of our country or we will drive you out!
  • One look at the assembled Scotsmen ready and willing to attack and Richards wisely marches out.
• After being betrayed, a pregnant Mary dons leather armor and a sword to lead forces to retake her castle. Lord Ruthven learns too late that the rest of the council have abandoned him already as he's swiftly captured and put on a hanging block. When Lord Ruthven declares he's a "patriot fighting a false queen," Mary coldly says the rest of his conspirators will be joining him. She then personally kicks the stool out from under Ruthven so he hangs.
• Catherine discovers that Diane killed her two twin daughters - so beats her over the head with a coal shoveller and then strangles her to death with her own necklace.
• Catherine's daughter, Elisabeth, known as Leesa, returns to fuck up lots of shit. Catherine proves that, while she may have taken several levels in Heartwarming and Jerk with a Heart of Gold, she is the chief fuckeruperer and you do not mess with her. She achieves this by forcing her daughter to leave France forever or she'll be executed by her brother who sees her as a traitor.
• Elizabeth's speech in "All It Cost Her".
  Elizabeth: I am England! And I need no one to save me. Not from Spain, not from the Catholic Church, not from anyone. I am Elizabeth Tudor, and I will bow to no man. I will face every threat to my reign with sword-in-hand and any who stand in my way shall fall.