Episode 4 - With the developmental stuff out of the way, the series is beginning to show promise

Review: The White Queen ‘The Bad Queen’

This week on The White Queen, things take quite a turn.  Warwick and his faction may be stuck in France, but he’s also working hard to gather an army so he can return to England and finish what he started.  Unfortunately, the only way to do that is to convince the wife of former King Henry, Margaret of Anjou, to help him.  So instead of George becoming king, it looks like they’ll be returning the very man they overthrew back to the throne.

As Warwick makes his return, ready to do battle, Elizabeth and her mother have a plan to try to get George back on Edward’s side.  They send a secret message to France inviting him back into the fold as long as he will betray Warwick on the battlefield.  Unfortunately for them, even though George seems willing to go along with the plan, he never gets the chance.  Warwick ambushes Edward’s armies and scatters them before they can do anything.  Thus are Edward and his allies defeated and the old King Henry put back in power.

Throughout all this, the other Margaret is still trying to get her little Henry heir into power somehow.  Declared a traitor, she and her husband are stripped of their holdings and little Henry is taken from them.  As it turns out, little Henry also marches off to war and when Warwick is victorious only his connection to the old king saves his head. Once the war is over, Margaret finds herself at court with her son.  Yes, even really poorly laid plans for seizing power sometimes work out in the end.  And in the meanwhile, Elizabeth has her baby and it turns out to be a boy.  So the game’s not over for her just yet.

This week saw The White Queen evolving to do a better job of sticking to the details of the story.  Though it still jumps ahead in time at certain points, there is more focus on individual character development as well as creating a greater impact from particular events instead of having most everything run through the background.  I have to say that my mind I being swayed on this series and, providing it does an equally good job next week, I may just make it all the way through.

For a look at the next episode of The White Queen, head over to this site and check out some footage.

Photo Credits -           

Margaret and Little Henry Tudor courtesy of mothersandcritics.com