Plucked from Obscurity - The Serpent Queen
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Recap

Rahima, who they call "it," is called to the castle by the cook.

She's been called to serve the queen while her maid is elsewhere. Everyone else has already been denied access. On her way, Rahima encounters pissy fellows asking her to show them her tits and a man at the door who won't enter the room.

Inside isn't the monster Rahima expects. She's asked her name and offered an orange. Catherine seems to be playing with Rahima.

In a week, Charles will be crowned the king of France. She's got all kinds of details to attend to, but she doesn't like attending to them. She wants Rahima to distract her with conversation. Rahima reminds her of herself when she first came to the country.

Catherine asks Rahima what she's willing to do to become more than It, alone, shivering with cold as she falls to sleep. Catherine asks that she listen to her story and tell her what she would have done differently.

Catherine's mother and father were driven to madness by syphillis before she was taken in by her grandmother, who died shortly thereafter. She was raised in an orphanage, believing that if she were good, God would protect her.

She was wrong.

The nun whose orange she stole slaps the shit out of her and then takes the switch to her, calling her Medici Bitch. As she's being beaten, she believes she made the nun's dog die before her eyes. She can do things, she thinks.

Soldiers arrive, wanting to know where the Medici bitch is hiding. Catherine tried to hide, but it's not going well until a woman chops her braid off. Catherine is parades as a nun, who amongst you would interfere with the bride of christ. That soldier, that's who. That was the first time Catherine knew she mattered to anyone.

She had never left the convent before, and how she was being dragged through the streets bound by rope. She asks for help but gets none.

The Pope arrives the next morning to find Catherine bound and laying on the ground. he's come to collect her. Catherine always thought she was alone in the world, but it's a pretty good ally to have, threatening everyone they'll burn in hell if they don't turn her over.

She's the Pope's niece. He wonders what she had done to her hair.

The next day, Catherine visits him in his chambers where he's actively having an absess on his ass squeezed. He's arranged her marriage to the second son of the King of France.

The Pope has sent a more flattering image of herself ahead of the marriage, and now they need to figure out how to make her a better version of herself since she's not much of a looker.

Once they establish the whys of marriage, they need to discover if she's intact. Someone bends her over a chair and sticks their fingers up there, pronouncing she's all there.

An atelier says he'd need to be a magician to make her a beautiful bride. He finds her one attractive feature, her ankles, and decides to showcase them.

She needs to learn to eat, dance, and serve as a visage for the marriage. What arrives before Clement looks like a clown in a gown. Still, she says it's not enough. She's not beautiful or refined, and if she's to distract them, it must be with finery. She demands the budget be raised lest they end up hanging by their feet as he said before.

Next, many lost their hair so that Catherine could be adorned with wigs. Then she had to choose her retinue. She likes the perfumer's daughter, Angelica, who arrives in his wake. She's ensured her father was left behind with stomach ailments from her concoctions.

The dwarf that helped her earlier arrives juggling. She cannot juggle, but she says if she passed gas, they'd find it funny because she's a dwarf. The Pope laughs and agrees.

The fortune teller who left her in the square is up next, and she chooses him for his poor behavior and true fortune.

Clement says she's too willful, and a wife must be a blank canvas. She must do what her husband says even if it means jamming a brush up his ass for his pleasure.

Catherine travels to the meeting in France in a giant egg. She's scared shitless by the time they arrive.

Catherine isn't well received. The dowry is incomplete, as Clement claims that he'll send the rest upon his return. Catherine stands forth and offers up another duchy, a cardinalship for a son, and forgiveness for leaving the church.

Henri, Duke of Orlean and Catherine de Medici will be married.

They happen upon Henri giving favor to Diane de Poitier, Catherine's distant cousin. Catherine falls in love immediately, and it's solidified when he says she looks better than her portrait.

Henri seems decent, but Diane de Poitier lurks in the background.

Catherine uses her relationship with Diane to win Henri's favor, and Henri captures a little frog, asking her to sing to it.

At her wedding dinner, Diane cozies up to Catherine, who falls for her kindness. Catherine has ensured there is silverware at their dinner. People are flummoxed.

Diane gives her all of the gossip, which will likely be quite useful at some point.

The dwarf recognizes something in Diane even as Diane pulls Catherine to the dance floor. Diane's advice for Catherine's wedding night is to let her husband fail. She says Henri wants her to be bold.

When the fireworks start, the marriage is essentially over. Diane pulls Henri up front, and they watch together as Catherine gets gussied up for bed. She enters the bedroom to see an entire room full of people who have settled in for the big show.

They both lay there, neither of them making the first move. It's so unbelievably awkward, but taking Diane's advice, Catherine goes bold and straddles him. She looks into his eyes and tells him to look at her to pretend they're alone. Meanwhile others are talking about the highlight reel.

It's over before it started, the audience applauses the good joust wishes them well and exits.

Henri tells Catherine to get out. GET OUT.

Catherine returns to the hallway and his room to find Diane in bed with him, Henri sucking her breasts.

That day, Catherine tells Rahima, she learned never to trust a single soul. She tosses the tray on the floor, and Rahima is dragged away. Rahima laughs. She stole an orange. Catherine notices and chuckles.

Show:
The Serpent Queen
Season:
Episode Number:
1
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The Serpent Queen Season 1 Episode 1 Quotes

Drew the short straw, did you?

Catherine

Don't look in the mirror. She'll suck the soul right out ya.

Scullery Maid