Exclusive

Reign's Wedding Bombshell: Torrance Coombs on Mary's "Heartbreaking" Choice, Upcoming Time Jump and More Scoop

Exclusive! The CW star previews Bash becoming "the bastard again" after Mary chose Francis and teases a time jump before next week's episode

By Tierney Bricker Mar 07, 2014 3:00 AMTags
Reign, Torrance Coombs, Adelaide KaneSven Frenzel/The CW

Congratulations are in order. And funeral preparations. Spoiler Alert, major Reign spoilers ahead!

That's right, in a move we did not see coming, Reign actually had Mary (Adelaide Kane) and Francis (Toby Regbo) say "I do" in tonight's episode of the CW drama. For real.

But wait, what about Nostradamus' (Rossif Sutherland) prophecy that their union would mean the end of Francis' life? Oh, he thought Clarissa, Catherine's (Megan Follows) true first-born filled that, but guess who didn't really die in last week's episode? Francis' death is back in play! Gulp.

As for Mary's other love and Francis' half-brother Bash (Torrance Coombs), he was left heartbroken when Mary, with the weight of the prophecy lifted off her shoulders, chose Francis, and in a particularly cruel (and kinky) twist, our favorite bastard was forced to watch the consummation of their marriage before being banished from French Court.

So where the hell does Reign go from here?! We chatted with Torrance Coombs about the upcoming time-jump, Bash becoming "the bastard again" and more. Plus, he reveals that tonight's episode was actually intended to be the finale.

E! Online: And that episode just killed us.
Coombs: You know what? When that episode was written it was supposed to be the season finale, because we hadn't yet heard about whether we were getting a back nine order, so they really pushed the pace and they just said "Screw it. Let's go for it." Then when we found out we got the back nine, Laurie said, "We're just keeping it the way it is," and then we just carried on from there.

How did you react when you read the script and found out Mary and Francis were getting married so soon in the series?
I was actually excited about it. I was like, "Good." Especially in a sea of network dramas where maybe you have to kind of stall the plot a little bit and find creative ways to do that if you're trying to follow history, but good on us for just taking the leap and getting it out of the way. In an interesting way, the back and forth of "my country, but I can't marry you yet, but I want to, but I can't," that can only go on so long, so now we have, once this goes down, that problem is out of the way, and then you know, the marriage the end of the day is a political alliance so it doesn't really change anything.

Christos Kalohoridis/The CW

Did you think there was at all a chance she would marry Bash, even if it never made the  history books?
I saw that coming, but you know what the fun thing is about this is that it just frees up Bash to the be the bastard again. I don't think being a ruler ever sat particularly well with him. He was going along with it, but it's not really his thing.

Mary finally admitted she loves Bash, but also said she loves Francis more. Do you think it's worse hearing that she loves someone else more or just not knowing if she loves him?
Good question. For Bash it's heartbreaking, but at the same time, there's a relief in that. A decision has been made because there's this sense that she hasn't been fully onboard this whole time. Like she is, and her actions say that she is onboard, but her heart is always pulling back just a little bit, and there's a kind of finality to this, and it's devastating but Bash is the kind of guy to accept that decision and carry on.

We could not believe we were watching a CW show when Henry forced Bash to watch the consummation. We thought we had accidentally switched to HBO or something.
When I read that, I was like, "Really? We're doing this are we?" Talk about insult to injury, just in one fell swoop, poor Bash loses everyone he cares about. Just gone. He loses his home, he loses the girl, he loses his brother, he loses his father, like all of these things are just…he has to harden his heart to it now and try to rebuild. That was a nice little twist. I like the darkness of that. I always appreciate it when we go there.

Francis and Bash came to blows in tonight's episode over Mary. Were you and Toby really looking forward to filming that confrontation?
For me it was just fun, For us hanging out on set, whether we've got the bromance going on or whether we hate each other, it's all the same to us for having fun on set together, so it's just good to have scenes with him again because we've been separated for quite a while. Obviously that relationship's strained, and Bash has to take some time away from the castle for a while, but as is the way with television, something's going to bring him back.

The CW

Can you preview his first interactions with Mary and Francis when he does return to Court?
Well, he's supposed to be long gone. Episode 14's going to pick up a couple months later. Francis and Mary are back from their honeymoon and Bash is back to being Bash. He's hunting in the woods and he's doing his thing out there and he actually seems strangely liberated by the whole thing. But whatever's going on in the woods out there is still going on and it's posing a threat to people that deep down he still cares about, and he has to do something about it. So he needs to enlist the help of people at the castle.

Someone ordered a hit on Bash's life, but we're not sure who. Where's that heading?
It's Francis' guards, so realistically, it's either going be Francis or Catherine, but the guard dies before spilling the beans, so we don't know. The first thing that brings Bash back to the castle is if Francis ordered this hit on Bash, Mary should probably know about that. He heads on back to let her know that maybe she should figure out who she's actually married to.

What are you really excited for fans to see now that the wedding has happened?
Going forward, what we get is we see now that OK, so once people get married, that's not exactly happily ever after. So I'm excited to see what people make of Mary and Francis' relationship going forward. There is another big twist coming for Bash and some other people that I think will have people talking, so I'm excited for that.

Reign airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on the CW.