The Great “Walnut Season”

Something worth noting about this episode, as it largely revolves around the idea that Peter thinks he can’t keep a secret, and that secret is basically know by, oh, everybody but Catherine from the sounds of things.

That would be what happened to Catherine’s awful mother Lady Joanna.  As far as Catherine is concerned, Lady Joanna went home.  She did not die after falling out of an upper story window while having sex with Peter.  Peter blames himself for the death, but Aunt Elizabeth is quick to point out it’s the window’s fault.  Sure, the reason Lady Joanna was on the window in the first place is Peter’s fault, but it still happened.  In the meantime, Catherine gives birth to Paul, and there’s another tradition that Peter finds awful in that he seems to be the only person not in the birthing room placing bets or eating popcorn.

Co-parenting is probably hard even for people who don’t keep their husbands prisoner in a room of the palace he can leave more or less whenever he feels like it.  Catherine may be running out of allies anyway.  Orlo, pressured into stealing money for his uncle, is caught and arrested.  Georgina, unexpectedly back from France claiming to have seen the light, has done no such thing, but her husband Grigor, well, he and Marial get along a lot better.  Marial has her own problems in that her father died and her eight-year old cousin is set to inherit all of her stuff because she’s a woman unless she can find a husband fast, and Grigor can’t divorce Georgina.

Marial ends up setting up a marriage to her young cousin since, well, he is the ideal mate for her in that he doesn’t really want anything to do with her that she would even remotely want to do.

Oh, and Georgina is actually still plotting against Catherine because she’s The Worst.

Yeah, but that Peter-can’t-keep-a-secret thing turns out to be true when, while explaining he can’t keep secrets to Aunt Elizabeth, mentions he has been hiding the fact he watched his mother drown Elizabeth’s baby son years earlier when he was too young to do anything about it.  Elizabeth didn’t know that.  She then scoops up Paul and leaves.

She has murdered a child before…

OK, here’s the thing:  Catherine and Peter need to find Paul, and Elizabeth took the child off to one of her palaces.  That means getting a decoy baby and Peter’s double to distract everyone while the two mismatched spouses ride off to Elizabeth’s place.  Peter proves his worth in knowing how to bribe a couple bandits, the games he plays with himself are almost fun, and Catherine may be falling for the big idiot.  Parenting makes the pair more agreeable since they both really care about Paul.

Fortunately, Paul is fine.  Elizabeth doesn’t blame Peter because of his age, and Catherine’s harsh words to her earlier are understandable given there is a war on.  So, yeah, it does seem as if…wait, Catherine and Peter got together for some wild sex afterwards?

OK, this complicates things for Peter a wee bit more…